Journalism Qua Scholarship
SHAPIRO, HARVEY D.
Journalism Qua Scholarship THE CORPORATION IN AMERICAN POLITICS By Edwin M. Epstein Prentice-Hall. 324 pp. $8.50. Reviewed by HARVEY D. SHAPIRO Vast portions of the American economy are now...
...there is a chapter devoted to reasons for corporate involvement and a chapter with reasons against it...
...Thus, the various regulatory agencies have been eased into cozy symbiotic relationships with the very businesses they were designed to regulate...
...But in politics, as in economics, this invisible hand will operate only when the competitors are more or less equally endowed with the relevant resources, and when all groups have access to the competition...
...What tactics do they use in such cases...
...Firms in the same industry do compete and, on the question of tariffs and other such restrictions, we often find the business sector divided on the basis of whose ox is gored...
...Surely, he seems to reason, if the corporation is only one of many groups competing for power, we need not worry...
...What action can the rest of society take against a unified business front...
...Epstein further argues that the power of corporations is held in check not just by other interests but by rival businesses, because "corporations do not constitute a monolithic political bloc, but are diverse in terms of their interests, philosophies, and political goals...
...This century has seen a growing involvement by industry in politics, largely a response to the expanded governmental intervention in the economy...
...How strong are corporations in influencing a decision on investment tax credits or other legislation affecting all firms...
...Unfortunately, the author does not come to grips with those situations where business can mono-lithically unite against other interests, or against the rest of society...
...These and the remaining sections are written in the manner of a Sunday feature story: Everything is balanced, each side is given its due, and all the arguments pro and con are mustered in (1), (2), (3) fashion...
...In addition, a partnership between business and government has lately been formed, a partnership heralded as a "new federalism" by some and a broadening of the Military-Industrial Complex by others...
...Reviewed by HARVEY D. SHAPIRO Vast portions of the American economy are now being conglomerated in a series of mergers unparalleled since the 1890s...
...Journalism qua scholarship also requires breaking up the text with numerous citations, but these are to be drawn mostly from previous academic commentators and only occasionally from any people engaged in corporate political activity...
...One chapter offers an "overview of the issues," two contain brief histories of the corporations' role in government...
...He is confident that "power as a political resource is sufficiently diffused in America to permit other social groups to take necessary prophylactic measures to prevent corporate political control...
...Apparently Epstein believes the business sector will not inflict its will upon the rest of society, because he succumbs to the same notion that has implicitly influenced many other pluralists...
...Too much time is spent reviewing well-worn controversies (e.g., the "power elite" school vs...
...A journeyman journalist would cover the topic by interviewing some corporation presidents, some bureaucrats and some politicians, then lace his piece with their quotes to show he had done his homework...
...But he may be confusing segmentation of power with diffusion...
...Both relevant and irrelevant topics are served up in standard three-page doses, complete with quotation, and then it's on to something else...
...A graduate of Yale Law School, and an associate professor of Business Administration as well as Director of Urban Programs at the University of California's Berkeley campus, he has produced a perfect example of the literary genre currently being generated by some social scientists: journalism qua scholarship...
...Since corporations are legally restricted and therefore relatively ineffective in electoral politics, they have had to' become active chiefly through efforts to influence legislative or administrative decisions...
...Yet, as the jacket-blurb of The Corporation in American Politics clumsily notes: "Of all the many areas of American society dramatically affected by the activities and policies of American corporations, perhaps the least understood and the least objectively examined is the realm of American politics...
...Epstein seems to think that if you let U.S...
...In Epstein's conglomerated essays all the great names are invoked (Weber, Berle, Means, etc...
...Epstein's approach is most assuredly journalistic: He manages to touch on all aspects of corporate political involvement but fails to explore anything deeply...
...that competition-as though guided by' some invisible hand-will yield policies which would generally be in the public interest...
...and all the great lines are quoted ("I've always believed what's good for General Motors . . . ."), but nothing really seems to lead anywhere...
...Steel play in the same game as the Izaak Walton League and the Audubon Society, you would still have every right to expect a close game...
...Epstein views this development calmly, concluding that it is not only unavoidable but legitimate and essential to a pluralistic political system...
...This is frequently true...
...Rather than serving as a check against one another, the organized interests in this country have carved up the Federal government, giving each interest significant power in its own little niche...
...Edwin M. Epstein has not really remedied that situation with this effort...
...the pluralists) and too little is devoted to new areas...
Vol. 52 • November 1969 • No. 22
