In the year 2004, the corporation is perhaps more contested, yet no less dominant as the preeminent organization in the economy, and arguably the world. Few individuals and places remain untouched by corporations through the goods and services they produce, the messages they advertise, or the industries they locate. Arguably, such corporate influence reflects activity that is contained within the market (for its products, jobs, and capital investment). By contrast, the question that this senior seminar takes up is: Does the corporation exert power over politics, culture, citizenship, the environment, and other spheres of society outside of the market?
To answer this question, we will examine various theories and case studies of corporate power across several disciplines, such as sociology, political science, economics, and geography. Substantive topics that we address include corporate activity in policy-making, philanthropy, and business organizations; the state's relationship to business; finance capital's role in coordinating corporate activity, global development, and citizens' oversight of business; and corporate influence in mass media and public culture.
The goals for this course are threefold. First, we will encounter the prevailing theories of corporate power, which focus in diverse ways the long-standing sociological concern for the relationship between economy and society. Not all of these theories are compatible; our task is to understand the issues and methods that produce such divergent accounts and the ways they contradict or supplement one another. Furthermore, we will scrutinize each theory against the null hypothesis that the apparent power of corporations in fact reflects only an appropriate exercise of economic action.
Second, we will examine the historical and structural development of the corporation and capitalism. Our readings begin at the 19th century era of competitive capitalism and then turn to cutting-edge 21st-century modes of capitalist organization. Just as important as these evolving macro-structures are the changing contexts for corporate activity: war, financial markets, global development, and so on. We will use this history to understand how corporate power has changed in both the forms it takes and the interests it advances.
Finally, we will develop research skills for studying corporate power, in form of class presentations and a written term paper. These assignments entail archival research, document analysis, data-gathering, and the synthesis of multiple (and sometimes divergent) accounts -- skills that you can hopefully continue to use to understand the stakes and continuing evolution of corporate power long after you have left Vassar.