2. New Age, New Rules, New Capitalism

A darkening shadow hangs over the business landscape, cast by a daunting mass of customers, workers, investors, suppliers, and other stakeholders. Tolerance for executive mischief has run out, exhausted by the likes of Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, Adelphia Cable, and other multibillion-dollar corporate scandals.

“The business of America is business” was a statement made by President Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s. If this is true (and we are not sure it was ever really the case; we would rather say that the well-being of the nation and its people is the business of America—business being one very important tool for facilitating that), then recent trends about the public perception of business should be a matter of ...

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