Managerial displacement of owners was once seen as progressive insulation from profit pressures

Evidence

For the better part of a century, researchers have concerned themselves with the problem of who controls the modern corporation.Berle and Means’(1932) famous thesis was that with the wide diffusion of stockownership, managers displaced owners at the helm of the economy. Such a development was considered progressive because managers were insulated from the most vicious social consequences of profit maximization—hence economic development assumed a more benign, if technocratic (e.g. Galbraith, 1967), character. While early interventions in this debate were directed at discerning the continued presence of a unified capitalist class in control of the core functions of the modern economy (Domhoff, 1967; Useem, 1984; Zeitlin, 1974), the implications of different forms of control for various aspects of corporate behaviour quickly became a central focus of research. — Greta R. Krippner, The Financialization of the American…, 130

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader debates on managerial capitalism and the separation of ownership and control, foundational to modern financialization scholarship. — connects to: Corporate management shifted from ignoring to obsessing over stock prices — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1170; The corporation displaced individualism while the market persisted unchanged — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 483
• DEFINE: Contextualizes the evolution of the corporate-control debate that financialization theory builds upon.

Related

• The corporation displaced individualism while the market persisted unchanged (similarity 0.81)
• Financialization shifted corporate power from manufacturing and marketing executives toward financial executives. (similarity 0.79)
• Corporate management shifted from ignoring to obsessing over stock prices (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The corporation displaced individualism while the market persisted unchanged #expands (0.72) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 483