Social Responses To Corporate Power: A Condition Without A Remedy?

Abstract

This paper seeks to identify, clarify, and evaluate actual and potential responses of society to excessive corporate power. It is not concerned with the many debates regarding what constitutes excessive corporate power or about whether corporate power is or is not desirable under different sets of circumstances. The focus of the paper, rather, is on the efficacy of various means which have been tried or proposed in the United States for dealing with corporate power considered excessive or undesirable. The responses to excessive corporate power may be classified into five fundamental categories: (1) reliance on competitive processes to prevent the accumulation and persistence of corporate power; (2) shoring up of competitive processes when these processes have not effectively dissipated corporate power; (3) governmental participation in basic corporate decisions; (4) governmental action to help other institutions cope with excessive corporate power; and (5) exhortations by public and private institutions to corporations to employ their power wisely in the