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Business and Politics: A Critical Appraisal of Political Science*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
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For all the talk and all the public curiosity about the relations between business and politics, there is a remarkable dearth of studies on the subject. What is written is more likely to come from the pen of a sociologist, an historian, a lawyer, or an economist than from a political scientist. One would suppose that the role of business, particularly big business, in the political system would be a matter of central concern to political scientists. And so it may be. But those who write about it are men like Adolph Berle, a lawyer, C. Wright Mills, a sociologist, and Robert Brady, an economist; nor can political scientists legitimately lay claim to Peter Drucker, whose professional training and interests in business antedated his academic position as a teacher of political science.
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- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1959
Footnotes
This paper is one of three prepared at the request of the Ford Foundation Program in Economic Development and Administration. Companion papers are by Paul Lazarsfeld, “Reflections on Business: Consumer and Manager,” and Mason Haire, “Psychological Research Problems Relevant to Business and Industry”; these will appear in the American Journal of Sociology and the Psychological Bulletin, respectively. The aim of the three, covering political science, sociology, and psychology, is to indicate research areas in the social sciences related to problems of business and industry.
References
1 The three periods are his. Some additional articles may be concealed under other headings, such as “politics, parties, and pressure groups.” Waldo, Dwight, Political Science in the United States of America, A Trend Report (UNESCO, Paris, 1956), p. 39 Google Scholar.
2 On this point, as on many others, Charles Merriam had many insights and suggestions; e.g., see his Public and Private Government (New Haven, 1944)Google Scholar. A number of political scientists have examined the internal government of private organizations, though they have not usually paid much attention to the business firm as such. The studies are too numerous to cite here, but of seminal influence are Garceau, O., The Political Life of the A.M.A. (Cambridge, 1941)Google Scholar and Truman, D., The Governmental Process (New York, 1951)Google Scholar, pt. 2. For a recent essay, see McConnell, G., “The Spirit of Private Government,” this Review, Vol. 52 (Sept., 1958), pp. 754–770 Google Scholar.
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29 Baltimore, 1929. His Public Administration and the Public Interest, which reflects a similar approach, appeared seven years later (New York, 1936)Google ScholarPubMed. Concern with pressure groups and lobbying has remained at a fairly high level. For example, Zeller, B., Pressure Politics in New York (New York, 1937)Google Scholar; McKean, D. D., Pressures on the Legislature of New Jersey (New York, 1938)Google Scholar; Blaisdell, D. C., Economic Power and Political Pressures (T.N. E.C. Monograph No. 26, Washington, 1941)Google Scholar; Unofficial Government: Pressure Groups and Lobbies, Blaisdell, D. C. ed., The Annals, Vol. 319 (Sept., 1958)Google Scholar. That the concern with “interest groups” and “pressures” is no longer an American hobby is indicated by the recent publication of Interest Groups on Four Continents. Ehrmann, H. W., ed. (Pittsburgh, 1958)Google Scholar.
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33 Garceau, O. and Silverman, C., “A Pressure Group and the Pressured: a Case Report,” this Review, Vol. 48 (September, 1954) pp. 672–91Google Scholar.
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35 New Haven, 1954.
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37 The study by Bauer, Keller, and Pool, supra, n. 30, is an important exception.
36 Cf. “The Businessman and Civil Liberties,” Fortune, May, 1955, pp. 114–15Google ScholarPubMed. These data in Fortune were a part of a larger study, but were omitted from the book, Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties, (New York, 1955)Google Scholar.
39 Trow, Martin, Support for McCarthy and Political Tolerance in a New England Town (Mimeo, 1956)Google Scholar, ch. II, “Class and Occupation.”
40 Schattschneider, op. cit., pp. 159 ff.
41 See Dexter, L. A., “Congressmen and the People they Listen To” (Mimeo, 1955)Google Scholar.
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43 Op. cit., p. 163.
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45 Mills, C. W., The Power Elite (New York, 1956), pp. 23–71 Google Scholar and passim. The idea may have been suggested by Mannheim, Karl, who in his Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction (London, 1940)Google Scholar spoke of “key positions” in a rather similar sense (pp. 153–4, 194, 202, 231, 363). It is significant that under the influence of the benign political institutions of Great Britain, Mannheim pretty much left these earlier views behind in his Freedom, Power and Democratic Planning (New York, 1950)Google Scholar.
46 Brown, Rlaph, Loyalty and Security (New Haven, 1958)Google Scholar, chs, 5–7, 18.
47 A. A. Berle, Jr., Economic Power and the Free Society, op. cit.
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49 In the often quoted survey by Woodward and Roper, about a third of the “executives” interviewed were rated as “very active” politically. According to the scoring system used, an individual who voted regularly, discussed politics frequently, and belonged to a political party was rated as “very active.” Cf. Woodward, J. L. and Roper, E., “Political Activity of American Citizens,” this Review, Vol. 44 (Dec. 1950), pp. 872–85Google Scholar. In response to the question “Have you ever written or wired your Congressman or Senator in Washington?,” 67 per cent of the “professional and business' respondents of the American Institute of Public Opinion answered “No.” (AIPO, Sept. 24, 1949).
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51 New York, 1957.
52 Kelley, Stanley Jr., Professional Public Relations and Political Power (Baltimore, 1956), pp. 9–12 Google Scholar.
53 Senate Document 92, Part 71 A, 70th Cong., 1st sess., p. 17, quoted in Kelley, pp. 12–13.
54 “The Public Relations Policies of the Bell System” (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard, 1937)Google Scholar and “Public Relations of the Bell System,” op. cit.
55 Fesler, J. W., The Independence of State Regulatory Agencies (1942)Google Scholar.
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57 These studies include San Francisco (by G. Belknap), Atlanta (by P. Cleaveland), Boston (by N. Long), Chicago (by E. Banfield), and New Haven (by R. Dahl).
58 C. W. Mills, The Power Elite, op. cit., ch. 2, “Local Society.”
59 Some industrialists do appeal to their brethren to be more active in politics. At the annual meeting of the American Petroleum Institute in Chicago, Ill., in Nov., 1958, L. R. Boulware, vice-president of General Electric (and a former War Production Board official) asked each industrialist to visit and convert fifty families to “a sound way of thinking and to an immunity to demagogues.” At the same meeting, however, G. Romney, president of the American Motors Corporation “counselled big companies to stay out of politics. Instead of duplicating labor's political activities, business should ‘deplore’ them.” The New York Times, Nov. 12, 1958.
60 Cf. Lundborg, L. B., Public Relations in the Local Community (New York, 1950), pp. 68, 76, 78, 94, 206, 210 Google Scholar; and Henderer, F. R., A Comparative Study of the Public Relations Practises in Six Industrial Corporations, (Pittsburgh, 1956), p. 109 Google Scholar. However, see Walker, S. H. and Sklar, P., Business Finds its Voice: Management's Effort to Sell the Business Idea to the Public (New York, 1938)Google Scholar.
61 Under the general title United States Business Performance Abroad, the monographs include Sears, Roebuck De Mexico, S.A. (1953), Casa Grace in Peru (1954), The Philippine American Life Insurance Company (1955), The Creole Petroleum Corporation in Venezuela (1955), The Firestone Operations in Liberia (1956).
62 Houser, T. V., Big Business and Human Values, (New York, 1957) pp. 69–78 Google Scholar.
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64 Brady, O. R., Business as a System of Power (New York, 1943)Google Scholar; Burnham, J., The Managerial Revolution (New York, 1941)Google Scholar. And see citations in footnote 56, supra.
65 It is an interesting and perhaps significant fact that the neo-pluralists are mostly political scientists, while the first group is made up mostly of sociologists.
66 Kelley, op. cit., p. 43.
67 “The Great Free Enterprise Campaign,” in Is Anybody Listening? (New York, 1952), p. 7 Google Scholar.
68 Mills, op. cit., p. 315. Cf. also Packard, V., The Hidden Persuaders (New York, 1957)Google Scholar.
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70 Ibid., pp. 19–20, 72, 121–7.
71 The Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Big Business from the Viewpoint of the Public (Ann Arbor, 1951)Google Scholar.
72 Ibid., pp. 18, 20, 26, 44, 56.
73 It is only fair to point out that the SRC study (a) calls attention to some of these gaps (p. 134) and (b) reports that census-type variables “do not seem to differentiate those seeing or desiring different order positions [i.e., in ranking Big Business with the other four institutions] to any significant degree.” (p. 103).
74 Economic Power and the Free Society, op. cit.
75 Political scientists who teach courses and/or write textbooks on “government regulation of business,” “public control of business enterprise,” etc., might feel, with considerable justification, that they have been given short shrift in this section and indeed in the whole essay. Since I have been largely concerned with gaps in our knowledge, I have not stressed the one area where a good deal of work has been done, namely the operation of legal and administrative regulatory mechanisms. Standard works include Anshen, M. and Wormuth, F. D., Private Enterprise and Public Policy (New York, 1954)Google Scholar; Dimock, M. E. Business and Government (New York, 3d ed., 1957)Google Scholar; Koontz, H. and Gable, R. W., Public Control of Economic Enterprise (New York, 1956)Google Scholar; Smith, H. R., Government and Business (New York, 1958)Google ScholarPubMed; Fainsod, M. and Gordon, L., Government and the American Economy (rev. ed., New York, 1948 Google Scholar; a new edition is under preparation by J. Palamountain); Redford, E. S., Administration of National Economic Control (New York, 9152)Google Scholar, and his Public Administration and Policy Formation (Austin, 1956)Google ScholarPubMed. Cf. also Fainsod, M., “The Study of Government and Economic Life in the United States,” in Contemporary Political Science (Paris, UNESCO, 1950)Google Scholar.
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