In a recent poll, 72 percent of Americans felt that “too much power is concentrated in the hands of a few large companies.”⁴² Are they correct? The answer requires perspective and judgment. In this chapter we break down the idea of corporate power into patterns, categories, and theories to allow critical thinking. We explain how corporate power is a strong force for change and how, at a deep level, economic growth shapes society in sweeping, unplanned ways.

We also set forth two opposing perspectives. The dominance theory holds that inadequately restrained economic power is concentrated in large corporations and in the hands of a wealthy elite. The pluralist theory holds that many restraints in an open society control corporate power. These theories are locked in perpetual conflict. Both are molds into which varieties of evidence must be fitted. Both contain insights, but neither has a lock on accuracy. And both attract adherents based on inner judgments about whether market capitalism moves society in the right direction.

If corporate power remains generally accountable to democratic controls, society will accord it legitimacy. If rule by law and a just economy exist, corporate power will broadly and ultimately be directed toward the public welfare, this despite the habitual breakouts of deviltry that inflame critics.

⁴² Karlyn Bowman and Todd Weiner, Attitudes Toward Business (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute), August 2002, table B-21.