The Corporation and the Twentieth Century: The History of American Business Enterprise (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World Book 119)

"Over the course of most of the twentieth century, new technologies drove increasing diversification and specialization within the economy. Du Pont, for example, which invented nylon during the Depression, managed the complexity of widespread diversification by pioneering the decentralized multidivisional organizational structure, which was almost universally adopted in large American firms after World War II. Whereas in the nineteenth century there had been just a handful of employees at their Wilmington headquarters, by 1972 there were perhaps 10,000 managers inhabiting a vast complex at the same location. The conventional wisdom is that this huge trend withdrew large swaths of the American economy from the realm of the free market and entrusted them to a new class of professional managers who had at their disposal increasingly powerful scientific methods of accounting and forecasting. It was the superior ministrations of these managers, apparently, not relative prices, that equilibrated supply and demand and made sure that goods flowed smoothly from raw materials to the final consumer. Economic historian Richard Langlois argues that it wasn't so simple. The Corporation and the Twentieth Century is an accessible account of American business enterprise and administrative planning, looking at both the rise and demise of managerial coordination, and the history of antitrust policy in this context. Offering an authoritative counterpoint to Alfred Chandler's classic The Visible Hand, Langlois shows how historic events in the twentieth century came together to drastically change the organization of American businesses. Contrary to the beliefs of some business historians, he maintains that large managerial corporations arose not because of their superiority, but as a result of systematic technological changes and larger historic forces, and that post-war events such as the Vietnam War and the fall of Bretton Woods culminated in the resurgence of market coordination, in the institutional innovations of deregulation, and in the creation of decentralized new technology. Controversially, Langlois argues that those antitrust policies viewed as successes in the past are in fact failures, and holds that there was never a period during which antitrust kept size, concentration or monopoly at bay"-- Provided by publisher

A definitive reframing of the economic, institutional,and intellectual history of the managerial era Thetwentieth century was the managerial century in the United States.An organizational transformation, from entrepreneurial tomanagerial capitalism, brought forth what became a dominantnarrative: that administrative coordination by trained professionalmanagers is essential to the efficient running of organizationsboth public and private. And yet if managerialism was theapotheosis of administrative efficiency, why did both its practiceand the accompanying narrative lie in ruins by the end of thecentury? In The Corporation and the Twentieth Century,Richard Langlois offers an alternative version: a comprehensive andnuanced reframing and reassessment of the economic, institutional,and intellectual history of the managerial era. Langlois arguesthat managerialism rose to prominence not because of its inherentsuperiority but because of its contingent value in a young andrapidly developing American economy. The structures ofmanagerialism solidified their dominance only because the century'sgreat catastrophes of war, depression, and war again supersededmarkets, scrambled relative prices, and weakened market-supportinginstitutions. By the end of the twentieth century, Langlois writes,these market-supporting institutions had reemerged to shiftadvantage toward entrepreneurial and market-driven modes oforganization. This magisterial new account of the rise and fall ofmanagerialism holds significant implications for contemporarydebates about industrial and antitrust policies and the role of thecorporation in the twenty-first century.

A definitive reframing of the economic, institutional, and intellectual history of the managerial era The twentieth century was the managerial century in the United States. An organizational transformation, from entrepreneurial to managerial capitalism, brought forth what became a dominant narrative: that administrative coordination by trained professional managers is essential to the efficient running of organizations both public and private. And yet if managerialism was the apotheosis of administrative efficiency, why did both its practice and the accompanying narrative lie in ruins by the end of the century? In The Corporation and the Twentieth Century , Richard Langlois offers an alternative version: a comprehensive and nuanced reframing and reassessment of the economic, institutional, and intellectual history of the managerial era. Langlois argues that managerialism rose to prominence not because of its inherent superiority but because of its contingent value in a young and rapidly developing American economy. The structures of managerialism solidified their dominance only because the century’s great catastrophes of war, depression, and war again superseded markets, scrambled relative prices, and weakened market-supporting institutions. By the end of the twentieth century, Langlois writes, these market-supporting institutions had reemerged to shift advantage toward entrepreneurial and market-driven modes of organization. This magisterial new account of the rise and fall of managerialism holds significant implications for contemporary debates about industrial and antitrust policies and the role of the corporation in the twenty-first century. Cover Contents Preface 1. Invisible, Visible, and Vanishing Hands 2. Origins 3. The Progressive Era The Light of Reason and the Necessity of Modern Society Business Groups The All-Permeating Principle of the Universe Angle of Repose 4. The Seminal Catastrophe The Export Department Moral Equivalence Wartime Socialism An Industrial Engineer’s Utopia 5. Interlude A Cloud of Suspicion Structure and Strategy One Hand Must Control It Prologue to a Much Later Future 6. The Real Catastrophe Contraction Purchasing Power We Want Beer The Day of Enlightened Administration Research and Development 7. Arsenal Again Bottlenecks of Business Economic Consequences Priorities Piquette Avenue 8. The Corporate Era Reconversion In Spite of Possible Cost Industrial Policy Trente Glorieuses 9. The Undoing Out of the Woods Destruction An Elephants’ Graveyard Disintermediation Epilogue: Then and Now Notes References Epigraph Credits Index