Classwide Rationality in the Politics of Managers and Directors of Large Corporations in the United States and Great Britain

Abstract

The support of the National Science Foundation is gratefully acknowledged (SOC77-06658). The assistance of numerous individuals was invaluable to the completion of this study, especially that of Philip Antweiler, Gladys Delp, Russell Epker, Arthur Francis, Carmenza Gallo, John Hoops, Jerome Karabel, Carol Keller, Arlene McCormack, Francine Miller, S. M. Miller, Susan Sorensen, David Swartz, Linda Tren holm, and Dorothy Wedderburn. The institutional assistance of Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, and University of California, Santa Cruz, is greatly appreciated. Opposed theories of relations between business and government in advanced capitalist democracies are predicated on contrary assumptions concerning the capacity of the managers and directors of large corporations to act upon their political interests. An assumption of corporate rationality presumes that the corporate elite is largely incapable of identifying and promoting its common political objectives; an assumption of classwide rationality presu mes that such a capacity is present. This article examines these and related assumptions about the internal social organization of the corporate elite in the United States and Great Britain. Inclusive and diffusely structured networks of economic and social relations among the largest corporations are found in both countriesto provide a foundation fora special segment of the elite whose political interests transcend individual firms and whose internal cohesion facilitates expression of those interests in the political process. This politically dominant segment enters into contact with government in ways that favor promotion of classwide policies and disfavor more parochial outlooks. Challenge to the position of large business, whether from the labor movement in Great Britain orthe national government in the United States, is shown to have further consolidated the political capacities of this segment. Though corporate rationality still characterizes much of the internal organization of the corporate community, classwide rationality now characterizes its highest circles.