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Author Hoopes, James, 1944-

Title Corporate dreams : big business in American democracy from the Great Depression to the great recession / James Hoopes.

Imprint New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, c2011.

Copies

Location Call No. OPAC Message Status
 Axe 3rd Floor Stacks  338 H766c 2011    ---  Available
Description ix, 234 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents Part I: Corporate American dream at its height and in its origins -- 1: Corporate American dream -- 2: Corporate and national character -- 3: From public purpose to private profit -- 4: Corporations as enemies of the free market -- Part II: Corporate failure and government fix -- 5: Corporate crashes -- 6: Managers versus markets -- 7: Corporations blow their chance to end the depression -- 8: Roosevelt's confused anti-corporatism -- Part III: Corporation strikes back -- 9: Right to manage -- 10: Corporations recover their moral authority -- 11: Killing the unions softly -- 12: Creating Reagan and his voters -- Part IV: What manner of man(ager)? -- 13: Masking the arrogance of power -- 14: Responsibility versus profit at General Motors -- 15: Critics of managerial character -- 16: JFK's pyrrhic victory over U.S. steel -- Part V: Corporation in the wilderness again -- 17: McNamara and the staffers -- 18: False confidence of the anti-corporatists -- 19: Corporate America loses world supremacy -- 20: Laying the groundwork for the corporation's cultural comeback -- Part VI: Leadership: -- 21: Managing by values -- 22: Creating the concept of corporate culture -- 23: Inventing the leadership development industry -- 24: Reagan aids corporations by bashing government -- Part VII: Entrepreneurship -- 25: Supply-siders versus the big corporation -- 26: Reengineering the corporation -- 27: George W. Bush, Enron, and the great recession -- 28: Can the corporate American dream be saved?
Summary Overview: Public trust in corporations plummeted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, when "Lehman Brothers" and "General Motors" became dirty words for many Americans. In Corporate Dreams, James Hoopes argues that Americans still place too much faith in corporations and, especially, in the idea of "values-based leadership" favored by most CEOs. The danger of corporations, he suggests, lies not just in their economic power, but also in how their confused and undemocratic values are infecting Americans' visions of good governance. Corporate Dreams proposes that Americans need to radically rethink their relationships with big business and the government. Rather than buying into the corporate notion of "values-based leadership," we should view corporate leaders with the same healthy suspicion that our democratic political tradition teaches us to view our political leaders. Unfortunately, the trend is moving the other way. Corporate notions of leadership are invading our democratic political culture when it should be the reverse. To diagnose the cause and find a cure for our toxic attachment to corporate models of leadership, Hoopes goes back to the root of the problem, offering a comprehensive history of corporate culture in America, from the Great Depression to today's Great Recession. Combining a historian's careful eye with an insider's perspective on the business world, this provocative volume tracks changes in government economic policy, changes in public attitudes toward big business, and changes in how corporate executives view themselves. Whether examining the rise of Leadership Development programs or recounting JFK's Pyrrhic victory over U.S. Steel, Hoopes tells a compelling story of how America lost its way, ceding authority to the policies and values of corporate culture. But he also shows us how it's not too late to return to our democratic ideals-and that it's not too late to restore the American dream.
Subject Corporate culture -- United States -- History.
Business and politics -- United States -- Case studies.
Political ethics -- United States.
United States -- Politics and government -- 2001-2009.
Leadership -- United States -- History.
United States -- Moral conditions.
ISBN 9780813551302 (hardcover : alk. paper)
0813551307 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Standard No. AU@ 000046374384

 
    
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