The Bigness Complex: Industry, Labor, and Government in the American Economy, Second Edition / Edition 2

by Walter Adams, James W. Brock

Overview

The Bigness Complex confronts head-on the myth that organizational giantism leads to economic efficiency and well-being in the modern age. On the contrary, it demonstrates how bigness undermines our economic productivity and progress, endangers our democratic freedoms, and exacerbates our economic problems and challenges.

This new edition has a thoroughly updated variety of issues, examples, and new developments, including government bailouts of the airline industry; regulation of biotechnology; the fiasco of recent electricity deregulation; and mergers and consolidations in oil, radio, and grocery retailing. The analysis is framed in the timeless context of American distrust of concentrations of power. The authors show how both the left and the right fail to address the central problem of power in formulating their diagnoses and recommendations. The book concludes with an alternative public philosophy as a viable guidepost for public policy toward business in a free-enterprise democracy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804749695
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1986
Series:	Stanford Economics & Finance
Edition description:	2
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

The late Walter Adams was President and Distinguished Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. James W. Brock is the Moeckel Professor of Economics at Miami Universityin Oxford, Ohio. Adams and Brock have also co-authored The Tobacco Wars, The Structure of American Industry, Antitrust Economics on Trial, Adam Smith Goes to Moscow, and Dangerous Pursuits: Mergers and Acquisitions in the Age of Wall Street.

Table of Contents

	List of Tables and Charts	ix
	Preface	xi
Part I.	The Problem of Power	1
1.	Power and Public Policy	3
2.	Economists and Power	11
Part II.	The Apologetics of Power	23
3.	Operating Efficiency	29
4.	Innovation Efficiency	46
5.	Social Efficiency	63
Part III.	The Political Economy of Power: A Historical Perspective	77
6.	The Revolution of 1776: American Government	79
7.	The Revolution of 1776: British Economic Policy	88
Part IV.	Competition and the Control of Power	95
8.	The Role of Antitrust	97
9.	Cartels	105
10.	Monopoly	123
11.	The Merger Problem	144
12.	Horizontal Mergers and Joint Ventures	153
13.	Vertical Mergers	164
14.	Conglomerate Mergers	174
15.	The Limitations of Antitrust	184
Part V.	Government Intervention and Private Power	201
16.	The Regulation of Power	203
17.	Airlines: Regulation and Deregulation	209
18.	The Limits of Deregulation	222
19.	The Protection of Power	237
20.	The Bailout of Power	253
Part VI.	The Coalescence of Power	269
21.	The Labor-Industrial Complex	272
22.	The "Sports-Industrial" Complex	284
Part VII.	Public Policy Alternatives	299
23.	The Neo-Darwinist Vision	301
24.	The Neoliberal Vision	308
25.	A Public Philosophy	316
	Notes	327
	Index	379

Editorial Reviews

"Adams and Brock demolish the view that equates size and efficiency and expose how special interests distort public policy for the purpose of corporate welfare."—Douglas Irwin, Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College

"Economics can't properly be separated from politics, because economic power translates directly into political power. At a time in our nation's history when wealth is more concentrated than at any time since the Gilded Age, The Bigness Complex is enormously helpful for understanding what's wrong and what's needed to put it right. Anyone who cares about the future of American capitalism and democracy should read this book and take to heart its message."—Robert B. Reich, Former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy, Brandeis University

"This book brings the full, dramatic weight of mainstream economic research against the excesses and follies—and the dangers—of businesses that are simply too big. As Adams and Brock show, corporate obesity has cut efficiency, reduced innovation, and eroded the fairness of American society."—William G. Shepherd, Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Massachusetts

From the Publisher

"Economics can't properly be separated from politics, because economic power translates directly into political power. At a time in our nation's history when wealth is more concentrated than at any time since the Gilded Age, The Bigness Complex is enormously helpful for understanding what's wrong and what's needed to put it right. Anyone who cares about the future of American capitalism and democracy should read this book and take to heart its message."

Brandeis University - Robert B. Reich

"Adams and Brock demolish the view that equates size and efficiency and expose how special interests distort public policy for the purpose of corporate welfare."

Dartmouth College - Douglas Irwin

"This book brings the full, dramatic weight of mainstream economic research against the excesses and follies—and the dangers—of businesses that are simply too big. As Adams and Brock show, corporate obesity has cut efficiency, reduced innovation, and eroded the fairness of American society."

University of Massachusetts - William G. Shepherd