Taming the Octopus: The Long Battle for the Soul of the Corporation

Taming the Octopus: The Long Battle for the Soul of the Corporation PDF Author: Kyle Edward Williams
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393867242
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
The untold story of how efforts to hold big business accountable changed American capitalism. Recent controversies around environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing and “woke capital” evoke an old idea: the Progressive Era vision of a socially responsible corporation. By midcentury, the notion that big business should benefit society was a consensus view. But as Kyle Edward Williams’s brilliant history, Taming the Octopus, shows, the tools forged by New Deal liberals to hold business leaders accountable, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, narrowly focused on the financial interests of shareholders. This inadvertently laid the groundwork for a set of fringe views to become dominant: that market forces should rule every facet of society. Along the way, American capitalism itself was reshaped, stripping businesses to their profit-making core. In this vivid and surprising history, we meet activists, investors, executives, and workers who fought over a simple question: Is the role of the corporation to deliver profits to shareholders, or something more? On one side were “business statesmen” who believed corporate largess could solve social problems. On the other were libertarian intellectuals such as Milton Friedman and his oft-forgotten contemporary, Henry Manne, whose theories justified the ruthless tactics of a growing class of corporate raiders. But Williams reveals that before the “activist investor” emerged as a capitalist archetype, Civil Rights groups used a similar playbook for different ends, buying shares to change a company from within. As a rising tide of activists pushed corporations to account for societal harms from napalm to environmental pollution to inequitable hiring, a new idea emerged: that managers could maximize value for society while still turning a maximal profit. This elusive ideal, “stakeholder capitalism,” still dominates our headlines today. Williams’s necessary history equips us to reconsider democracy’s tangled relationship with capitalism.

Taming the Octopus: The Long Battle for the Soul of the Corporation

Taming the Octopus: The Long Battle for the Soul of the Corporation PDF Author: Kyle Edward Williams
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393867242
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 190

Get Book

Book Description
The untold story of how efforts to hold big business accountable changed American capitalism. Recent controversies around environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing and “woke capital” evoke an old idea: the Progressive Era vision of a socially responsible corporation. By midcentury, the notion that big business should benefit society was a consensus view. But as Kyle Edward Williams’s brilliant history, Taming the Octopus, shows, the tools forged by New Deal liberals to hold business leaders accountable, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, narrowly focused on the financial interests of shareholders. This inadvertently laid the groundwork for a set of fringe views to become dominant: that market forces should rule every facet of society. Along the way, American capitalism itself was reshaped, stripping businesses to their profit-making core. In this vivid and surprising history, we meet activists, investors, executives, and workers who fought over a simple question: Is the role of the corporation to deliver profits to shareholders, or something more? On one side were “business statesmen” who believed corporate largess could solve social problems. On the other were libertarian intellectuals such as Milton Friedman and his oft-forgotten contemporary, Henry Manne, whose theories justified the ruthless tactics of a growing class of corporate raiders. But Williams reveals that before the “activist investor” emerged as a capitalist archetype, Civil Rights groups used a similar playbook for different ends, buying shares to change a company from within. As a rising tide of activists pushed corporations to account for societal harms from napalm to environmental pollution to inequitable hiring, a new idea emerged: that managers could maximize value for society while still turning a maximal profit. This elusive ideal, “stakeholder capitalism,” still dominates our headlines today. Williams’s necessary history equips us to reconsider democracy’s tangled relationship with capitalism.

Octopus's Garden

Octopus's Garden PDF Author: Benjamin T. Jenkins
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700634711
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
As Southern California recovered from the collapse of the cattle industry in the 1860s, the arrival of railroads—attacked by newspapers as the greedy “octopus”—and the expansion of citrus agriculture transformed the struggling region into a vast, idealized, and prosperous garden. New groves of the latest citrus varieties and new towns like Riverside quickly grew directly along the tracks of transcontinental railroads. The influx of capital, industrial technology, and workers, especially people of color, energized Southern California and tied it more closely to the economy and culture of the United States than ever before. Benjamin Jenkins’s Octopus’s Garden argues that citrus agriculture and railroads together shaped the economy, landscape, labor systems, and popular image of Southern California. Orange and lemon growing boomed in the 1870s and 1880s while railroads linked the region to markets across North America and ended centuries of geographic isolation for the West Coast. Railroads competed over the shipment of citrus fruits from multiple counties engulfed by the orange empire, resulting in an extensive rail network that generated lucrative returns for grove owners and railroad businessmen in Southern California from the 1890s to the 1950s. While investment from white Americans, particularly wealthy New Englanders, formed the financial backbone of the Octopus’s Garden, citrus and railroads would not have thrived in Southern California without the labor of people of color. Many workers of color took advantage of the commercial developments offered by railroads and citrus to economically advance their families and communities; however, these people also suffered greatly under the constant realities of bodily harm, low wages, and political and social exclusion. Promoters of the railroads and citrus cooperatives touted California as paradise for white Americans and minimized the roles of non-white laborers by stereotyping them in advertisements and publications. These practices fostered conceptions of California’s racial hierarchy by praising privileged whites and maligning the workers who made them prosper. The Octopus’s Garden continues to shape Southern Californians’ understanding of their past. In bringing together multiple storylines, Jenkins provides a complex and fresh perspective on the impact of citrus agriculturalists and railroad companies in Southern Californian history.

Brilliant Time Management

Brilliant Time Management PDF Author: Mike Clayton
Publisher: Pearson UK
ISBN: 0273744119
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Whether it’s getting on top of your workload, finding the time to start something new or simply making more time to relax, Brilliant Time Management will help you to get there. Based on over 20 years of managing time effectively, Mike Clayton shares with you winning principles that helped him launch two successful businesses, lead and manage teams of people, juggle a busy family life with a demanding career, and much more. Discover how to take control of your time and achieve more than you ever thought possible – with time to spare!

How to manage your time PDF eBook

How to manage your time PDF eBook PDF Author: Nic Peeling
Publisher: Pearson UK
ISBN: 1292084006
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description


Outside the Magic Square

Outside the Magic Square PDF Author: Lolo Houbein
Publisher: Wakefield Press
ISBN: 1743050119
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
Outside the Magic Square considers issues of food security and offers solutions at the street, neighbourhood and global levels. Mixing gardening advice and food plot design with discussion of issues like global warming, dwindling oil supplies, the future for farmers and GM foods, Lolo Houbein challenges us to mobilise for food security.

Branding Hoover's FBI

Branding Hoover's FBI PDF Author: Matthew Cecil
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700623051
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Hunting down America's public enemies was just one of the FBI's jobs. Another—perhaps more vital and certainly more covert—was the job of promoting the importance and power of the FBI, a process that Matthew Cecil unfolds clearly for the first time in this eye-opening book. The story of the PR men who fashioned the Hoover era, Branding Hoover's FBI reveals precisely how the Bureau became a monolithic organization of thousands of agents who lived and breathed a well-crafted public relations message, image, and worldview. Accordingly, the book shows how the public was persuaded—some would say conned—into buying and even bolstering that image. Just fifteen years after a theater impresario coined the term “public relations,” the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover began practicing a sophisticated version of the activity. Cecil introduces those agency PR men in Washington who put their singular talents to work by enforcing and amplifying Hoover's message. Louis B. Nichols, overseer of the Crime Records Section for more than twenty years, was a master of bend-your-ear networking. Milton A. Jones brought meticulous analysis to bear on the mission; Fern Stukenbroeker, a gift for eloquence; and Cartha “Deke” DeLoach, a singular charm and ambition. Branding Hoover's FBI examines key moments when this dedicated cadre, all working under the protective wing of Associate Director Clyde Tolson, manipulated public perceptions of the Bureau (was the Dillinger triumph really what it seemed?). In these critical moments, the book allows us to understand as never before how America came to see the FBI's law enforcement successes and overlook the dubious accomplishments, such as domestic surveillance, that truly defined the Hoover era.

Octopus!

Octopus! PDF Author: Katherine Harmon Courage
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1617230146
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
“A pleasant, chatty book on a fascinating subject.” — Kirkus Reviews Octopuses have been captivating humans for as long as we have been catching them. Yet for all of our ancient fascination and modern research, we still have not been able to get a firm grasp on these enigmatic creatures. Katherine Harmon Courage dives into the mystifying underwater world of the octopus and reports on her research around the world. She reveals, for instance, that the oldest known octopus lived before the first dinosaurs; that two thirds of an octopus’s brain capacity is spread throughout its arms, meaning each literally has a mind of its own; and that it can change colors within milliseconds to camouflage itself, yet appears to be colorblind.

Historic Landscapes of Britain from the Air

Historic Landscapes of Britain from the Air PDF Author: Robin Edgar Glasscock
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN: 9780521325332
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description


The Octopus

The Octopus PDF Author: Başak Şenova
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111365549
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Vielfalt in der künstlerischen Forschung Dieses Buch versammelt die Ergebnisse des Octopus Programme - ein innovatives Fellowship im Bereich der künstlerischen Forschung. Es entstand ein internationales Netzwerk aus elf Institutionen, mit ausgewählten Teilnehmer: innen aus Europa, dem Mittelmeerraum und Afrika, mit zahlreichen Veranstaltungen, Workshops und Ausstellungen. Durch die Förderung internationaler Kollaborationen wurden neue kritische Perspektiven entwickelt, zur Untersuchung der Vielfalt künstlerischer Forschung und Praxis in unterschiedlichen Kontexten - im akademischen und nicht akademischen Bereich, innerhalb und außerhalb von Institutionen oder in Bezug auf Ressourcen. Damit rücken nicht nur unterschiedliche kuratorische Modelle, sondern auch unterschiedliche Modelle der Wissensproduktion in den Fokus. Künstlerische Forschung und Zusammenarbeit zwischen Akademien, Kunstinstitutionen, Studierenden, Expert: innen Kuratorische Präsentationsformen, Forschungs- und Dokumentationsprozesse, progressive Bildungsmethodik Beiträge von Ruth Anderwald / Leonhard Grond, Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Maria Lantz, Barbara Putz-Plecko, Johan Thom u. a.

Running the World

Running the World PDF Author: David Rothkopf
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 0786736003
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Never before in the history of mankind have so few people had so much power over so many. The people at the top of the American national security establishment, the President and his principal advisors, the core team at the helm of the National Security Council, are without question the most powerful committee in the history of the world. Yet, in many respects, they are among the least understood. A former senior official in the Clinton Administration himself, David Rothkopf served with and knows personally many of the NSC's key players of the past twenty-five years. In Running the World he pulls back the curtain on this shadowy world to explore its inner workings, its people, their relationships, their contributions and the occasions when they have gone wrong. He traces the group's evolution from the final days of the Second World War to the post-Cold War realities of global terror -- exploring its triumphs, its human dramas and most recently, what many consider to be its breakdown at a time when we needed it most. Drawing on an extraordinary series of insider interviews with policy makers including Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, senior officials of the Bush Administration, and over 130 others, the book offers unprecedented insights into what must change if America is to maintain its unprecedented worldwide leadership in the decades ahead.