Corporate Dreams : : Big Business in American Democracy from the Great Depression to the Great Recession / / James Hoopes.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Rutgers University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Hoopes, James,
• Place / Publishing House: New Brunswick, NJ : : Rutgers University Press, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (248 p.) :; 4 graphs

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 inAmerica, 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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part I. The Corporate American Dream at Its Height and in Its Origins -- Part II. Corporate Failure and Government Fix -- Part III. The Corporation Strikes Back -- Part IV. What Manner of Man(ager)? -- Part V. The Corporation in the Wilderness Again -- Part VI .Leadership -- Part VII. Entrepreneurship -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author