The corporate behemoths that once dominated American business are easy to mock as bastions of conformity and hypocrisy, but in their day they were world-beaters. One reason was vertical integration; a paper-products company, for instance, might own forests, factories and delivery trucks.
Another reason was management. Unlike earlier firms, run by the entrepreneurs who created them or by the tycoons who gobbled them up, outfits like General Motors and IBM were run by salaried professionals, many highly specialized, on behalf of widely dispersed shareholders. Say what you will about “managerial capitalism,” but for the better part of a century it made America rich.
