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The Political Ideas of American Business: Recent Interpretations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Thomas V. DiBacco
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Extract

The extent to which American businessmen have shed the rhetoric of the 192O's — in particular, the suspicion of or opposition to government and labor — has been a subject of no little significance to recent business historians. Although few analysts take exception to James W. Prothro's contention that business thinking in the twenties reflected a too narrow or selfinterested view of the roles of government and labor and granted that researchers recognize the problems of assessing business thought in any era, an examination of the interpretations of the rationale of contemporary businessmen has revealed imprecision in definition and resultant lack of synthesis. The summary results of this historiographical examination are set forth below.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , January 1968 , pp. 51 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1968

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References

1 Prothro's arguments are found, in The Dollar Decade: Business Ideas in the 1920's Baton Rouge, 1954.Google Scholar; See part three (“Government: Necessity and Evil”) and in particular the references to the business view of labor (for example, the N. A. M. president's description of the role of the Department of Labor and other business spokesmen's discussion of the right to strike).Ibid., pp. 140–141, 152–156. Examine also Prothro's article, “Business Ideas and the American Tradition,” Journal of Politics, XV, 02, 1953), 67–87.Google ScholarFor revisionist views consult two articles by Morrell Heald: “Management's Responsibility to Society: The Growth of an Idea,” Business History Review, XXXI, (Winter, 1957), 375–384Google Scholar, and “Business Thought in the Twenties: Social Responsibility,” American Quarterly, XIII, (Summer, 1961), 126–139.Google Scholar Certainly the views of neoconservative historians who deny that businessmen adhered to a common ideology would fall in the revisionist category, also. Finally, it must be noted that this study recognizes, as Robert A. Lively has so clearly illustrated, that laissez-faire was not in practice a characteristic of the history of government-business relations. See Lively's, “The American System: A Review Article,” Business History Review, XXIX, (03, 1955), 81–96.Google Scholar

2 Cochran, Thomas C., “A Plan for the Study of Business Thinking” Political Science Quarterly, LXII, (03, 1947), 82–90;CrossRefGoogle ScholarZeigler, Harmon, The Politics of Small Business (Washington, 1961), 38.Google ScholarOther works which outline problems in researching the American business firm (its government, economic aspects) include Bowen, Howard R., The Business Enterprise as a Subject for Research (New York 1955)Google Scholar; and Dahl, Robert A., Haire, Mason, and Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Social Science Research on Business: Product and Potential (New York, 1959).Google Scholar

3 Galbraith, John Kenneth, The Affluent Society (New York, 1963), p. 148.Google Scholar

4 Kassalow, Everett M., “U. S. Ideology vs. European Pragmatism” Challenge, XI, (07, 1963), 22–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Mason, Edward S., “Interests, Ideologies, and the Problem of Stability and Growth” American Economic Review, LIII, (03, 1963), 1–18:Google Scholarincluded in Stanley Coben, and Hill, Forest C., eds., American Economic History: Essays in Interpretation (New York, 1966), pp. 595–598.Google Scholar

6 Blough, Roger M. (United States Steel Corp.), Free Man and the Corporation (New York, 1959), pp. 93–100passim;Google ScholarCordiner, Ralph J. (General Electric Co.), New Frontiers for Professional Managers (New York, 1956), pp. 89–90.Google Scholar

7 NAM, Economic Principles Commission, The American Individual Enterprise System: Its Nature, Evolution, and Future (New York, 1946), I, 222 ff, 485 ff; II, 697 ff.Google Scholar

8 Randall, Clarence B., A Creed for Free Enterprise (New York, 1952), p. 93.Google Scholar

9 See Robertson, Charles L., “The Emergency Oil Lift to Europe in the Suez Crisis” included in Bock, Edwin A., ed., Government Regulation of Business, A Casebook (Englewood Cliffs, 1965), pp. 285–335.Google ScholarFor an analysis of a similar episode see Herling, John, The Great Price Conspiracy; the Story of the Antitrust Violations in the Electrical Industry (Washington, 1962).Google Scholar

10 Wentworth, Robert B., “Business Attitudes Toward the Economic System and Government Regulation” Journal of Marketing, XIX, (01, 1955), 271.Google Scholar

11 Bernstein, Marver H., “Political Ideas of Selected American Business Journals” Public Opinion Quarterly, XVII, (Summer, 1953), 259–261.Google Scholar

12 (Cambridge, 1956.).Google Scholar

13 Ibid., p. 184.

14 Ibid., pp. 189–190.

15 Ibid., pp. 191–192.

16 Review, Political Science Quarterly, LXXI, (03, 1956), 131.Google Scholar

17 Bunzel, John H., “The General Ideology of American Small Business” Political Science Quarterly, LXX, (03, 1955), 95–98.Google ScholarBunzel refers specifically to the ideas of the Conference of American Small Business Organizations (CASBO) and to the National Federation of Independent Business. Zeigler, Politics of Small Business, p. 59. The latter, in examining a variety of small business organs, contends that the NFIB expresses more opposition to business monopolies than to government intervention, a view in line with C. Wright Mills' thesis that big business has been the major recipient of the New Deal—Fair Deal—World War largesseGoogle ScholarMills, , The Power Elite (New York, 1956), p. 7.Google Scholar

18 Bunzel, , The American Small Businessman (New York, 1962), pp. 201–202, quoting from an editorial of the Chicago Journal of Commerce which CASBO distributed to membersGoogle Scholar

19 Lecturers included Roger M. Blough (United States Steel Corp.), Ralph Cordiner (General Electric), Theodore V. Houser (Sears, Roebuck), Crawford H. Greenewalt (E. I. duPont de Nemours), Frederick R. Kappel (AT & T), and Thomas J. Watson, Jr. (IBM).

20 Heilbroner, Robert L., “The View from the Top: Reflections on a Changing Business Ideology”: included in Cheit, Earl F., ed., The Business Establishment (New York, 1964), p. 32.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., pp. 17–21, 30–36. The Committee for Economic Development could be considered the business unit with the most liberal orientation. See Schriftgiesser, Karl, Business Comes of Age: The Story of the Committee for Economic Development and Its Impact upon the Economic Policies of the United States 1942–1960 (New York, 1960).Google ScholarSee also the liberal views of such businessmen as Houser, Theodore V. (chairman of the board, Sears, Roebuck), Big Business and Human Values (New York, 1957).Google Scholar Houser suggests: “I would like to see business for things, rather than everlastingly against.” Ibid., pp. 60–61. Two other liberal spokesmen are Worthy, James C. (vicepresident, Sears, Roebuck), Big Business and Free Men (New York, 1959), pp. 162–179.Google Scholar, and Watson, Thomas J. Jr, (chairman of the board, IBM), A Business and Its Beliefs: The Ideas that Helped Build IBM (New York, 1963), pp. 77–79.Google Scholar

22 Cochran, Thomas C.The American Business System: A Historical Perspective 1900–1955 (New York, 1957), p. 154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Ibid., pp. 159–163. Certainly the views of Harmon Zeigler (see footnote seventeen) confirm this interpretation of small business organs which, as illustrated by the NFIB, found competition with big business more an irritation than the confrontation with big government

24 Key, V. O. Jr., Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups 4th Edition (New York, 1958), pp. 87–88Google Scholar. See also Key's excellent analysis of the NAM and Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Ibid., pp. 96–100.

25 New York, 1966.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., pp. 278–279. Similar views are voiced by Grant McConnell, Private Power and American Democracy (New York, 1966), pp. 293–295Google ScholarNo attempt is made in this essay to examine to what extent businessmen's recognition of the changed environment has resulted in “socially responsible” actions. See, however, in this connection Samuelson, Paul A., “Personal Freedoms and Economic Freedoms in the Mixed Economy”: included in Cheit, The Business Establishment, pp. 203–204Google Scholar; Cheit, “The New Place of Business: Why Managers Cultivate Social Responsibility”: included in Ibid., p. 186.; Berle, A. A. Jr, The 20th Century Capitalist Revolution (New York, 1954), pp. 114–115;Google Scholar and Berle, , “Unwritten Constitution for Our Economy” New YorkTimes Magazine (04 29, 1962), 7 ff.Google Scholar

27 DiBacco, Thomas V., “Return to Dollar Diplomacy? American Business Reaction to the Eisenhower ForeignAidProgram1953–1961” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation: The American University, 1965) and the author's article, ‘American Business and Foreign Aid: The Eisenhower Years’ Business History Review XLI (Spring, 1967), 21–35. Substantiation of this view can be seen in other contexts: the liberal management creeds on customer and employee relations, as contained in Stewart Thompson, Management Creeds and Philosophies: Top Management Guides in Our Changing Economy (New York, 1958); and the polls by recent analysts which reveal that business attitudes are more tolerant of the civil rights of minority groups (socialists, atheists) than the reactions of the rank-and-file public. See, in particular, Samuel A. Stouffer, Communism, Conformity and Civil Liberties: A Cross-Section of the Nation Speaks Its Mind (Garden City, 1955), p. 26. 28.Google Scholar

28 In fact, businessmen have recognized distinct economic benefits and security from government regulation. What businessmen should fear, according to lawyer Thomas W. Christopher, “is not that government agencies will destroy our democratic way of life or our system of private enterprise. The danger is that the device of regulating by administrative tribunals will prove defective and fail.” ChristopherGoogle Scholar, “Use and Misuse of Authority by Federal Agencies” Harvard Business Review, XXX (11–12, 1952), 58M.Google Scholar

29 Johnson, Arthur M., “Continuity and Change in Government-Business Relations”: included in Braeman, John, Bremner, Robert H., and Walters, Everett, eds., Change and Continuity in Twentieth-Century America (New York, 1966), pp. 195–199Google Scholar; Lane, Robert E., The Regulation of Businessmen: Social Conditions of Government Economic Control (Hamden, Conn., 1966), pp. 34–35.Google Scholar

30 Lane, Robert E., “Law and Opinion in the Business Community” Public Opinion Quarterly XVII (Summer, 1953), 256–257.Google Scholar

31 Lane, Robert E., The Regulation of Businessmen, pp. 54–55.Google ScholarSee also Paul Hope, “Business Changing Its Thinking” The (Washington) Evening Star (02 6, 1967), A–10.Google Scholar