Big business in America preaches free enterprise but practices big government--so says former Ford Motor Company executive Paul H. Weaver in The Suicidal Corporation. In the following three chapters excerpted from that work, Weaver makes an unprecedented critique of the rise and reign of corporate America from the point of view of one who was both a corporate insider and an enthusiastic advocate of the free market. Drawing on his personal experience as a Ford executive, a Fortune editor, and a Harvard professor, Weaver shows how corporations unwittingly undermine the economy and themselves by lobbying for loopholes, subsidies, and protection from foreign imports.
In today's environment of an increasingly competitive global economy--and due to the fickle nature of media-influenced American government--corporations will soon be obliged to adapt themselves to the less pleasant but more invigorating atmosphere of unregulated competition. The author believes the change to a more competitive corporate economy is inevitable, but also urges the agents of big business to abandon the traditional pursuit of momentary, one-company advantages in favor of promarket reforms which benefit the entire business community.
Following the excerpt are commentaries by three experts who have closely followed the recent history of government-business relations. First, free-market advocate Fred Smith gives an overview of the book and a critical response to it (p. 381). Smith identifies the institutional forces that lead business, especially big business, to see the world in the terms of market-share distribution so familiar to politicians. Next, a historian interested in the modern state, Samuel T. Francis considers Weaver's book through the lense of
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