The Political Ideas of American Business: Recent Interpretations

Abstract

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.