The Corporate Power Trilemma

Authors critical of corporate power focus almost exclusively on one solution: bringing it under democratic control. However important this is, there are at least two other options, which are rarely discussed: reducing powerful firms’ size and influence, or accepting corporate power as a necessary ev...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Journal of politics Vol. 84; no. 4; pp. 2094 - 2106
Main Authors Bennett, Michael, Claassen, Rutger
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chicago The University of Chicago Press 01.10.2022
University of Chicago Press
Subjects
Democracy
Economies of scale
Organizational power
Power
Power structure
Responsibility
Workplaces
corporate governance
corporate power
political corporate social responsibility
workplace democracy
business and politics
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Summary:Authors critical of corporate power focus almost exclusively on one solution: bringing it under democratic control. However important this is, there are at least two other options, which are rarely discussed: reducing powerful firms’ size and influence, or accepting corporate power as a necessary evil. This article provides a comparative perspective for evaluating all three options. It argues that the trade-offs we face in responding to corporate power have a trilemmatic structure. The pure strategies of accepting powerful firms, breaking them up, or rendering them more accountable are each incompatible with one of three important values: power balance, economies of scale, and minimizing agency costs, respectively. While the latter two concepts are purely economic and efficiency-based, the value of power balance can be grounded in a variety of reasons. Different normative interpretations of power balance are discussed, along with their implications for policy choices within the trilemma.
ISSN:0022-3816
1468-2508
DOI:10.1086/717851