Corporate Power and Responsible Capitalism?

Bryn Jones, Senior Fellow, Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath, UK

'Major scandals, disasters and crises have turned shareholder capitalism, so recently trumpeted as among contemporary society's most successful achievements, into one of its most worrying problem children. In this highly readable account Bryn Jones rehearses in detail the negative consequences of the growing economic and political power of the modern corporation. He then reviews a wide range of alternative ways of organizing a market economy, examples of which are found in a variety of modern economies.'

• Contents: PART I CONTEXT AND HISTORY 1. A Climacteric of Corporate Crisis and Over-reach? 2. The ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Business Corporation: Anatomy and Evolution 3. Social Challenges for Corporate Accountability: the Rise and Fall of State Collectivism. PART II SOCIAL EMBEDDING AND DISEMBEDDING OF BUSINESS SYSTEMS 4. The Neo-Liberalisation of Big Business: Disembedding or Re-regulating? 5. Financialised Market Accountability and the Empowerment of Shareholder Value 6. Contextualising the neo-Liberal Model: Social Embeddedness of Economic Relations 7. Alternative, Socially-embedded Business Systems: Germany, East Asia, and Industrial Districts PART III THE PURSUIT OF RESPONSIBLE CAPITALISM: CAMPAIGNS AND POLITICAL RECIPES 8. Communitarian Solutions: Business as Moral Integration 9. Environmentalism and Social Movement Influences on Corporate Responsibility 10. Corporate Voluntarism: Responsibility or Accountability? 11. Embedded Accountability: Alternative Possibilities and Political Perspectives Conclusion: Re-embedding through Democratic Ownership and Governance Index