POWER IN THE AMERICAN ECONOMY: A REVIEW AND COMMENTARY

Abstract

Summary The two books I have been reviewing have made a number of points about the nature of power in the American economy. Our economic society is dominated by large institutional actors. Supporting this reality are layers of traditional reasons, some of which are myth-like. These institutions are not necessarily as efficient or as innovative as these traditional beliefs inform us, and they coalesce to form an interconnected whole that operates to serve institutional interests first. In the process, large business corporations come to see natural persons as roles. This perception at once increases the individual's mobility and her irrelevance. Many of us are leading meaningless lives as we serve the objectives of others in our work. Overall, the large American business corporation has brought a new form of social organization that substantially truncates us as natural, whole persons. In the process, these organizations are challenging the family as a dominant form of organization in our society. Rights in our society accrue to the actor with productive capacity. Through the use of political power, market research, and advertising, we can discern a type of power that subtly conditions us to believe that this reorganization of our environment is proper and right. As we pursue our own “free will,” therefore, we actually submit to the objectives of the large business corporation. Generally speaking, Adams, Brock, and Coleman agree on this fundamental point: the dignity of individual purpose and meaning that we share and that define us as human beings is thwarted by a set of institutional arrangements that have fundamentally reoriented our society to serve the institutions' own objectives of profit and growth. Why is this important? It seems that in social systems, like mechanical systems, something is lost when mass is increased. As our important institutions become larger, what is lost is a kind of knowledge about our own environment and how it works. In the place of this first-hand knowledge, we come to rely on second-hand knowledge provided by social-science experts. Without this first-hand knowledge, we lose the confidence that we have the ability to see for ourselves what has meaning and to bring about desired changes in our lives. With the loss of confidence, we lose power, a form of power that each of us is told from childhood that we, by nature, should have. Our individual wills and perceptions atrophy without use. We come to believe that our place in the social order is inevitable and natural. In short, the individual, the source of both knowledge and political rights, has become secondary to the will and strength of large private and public institutions. How can natural, individual actors regain–or perhaps realize for the first time –power in their own lives? In reaching for an answer to this question, I believe Adams, Brock, and Coleman have overlooked some essential features of our modern political economy.