The Vanishing American Corporation

CHAPTER 4THE POSTWAR ERA OF CORPORATE DOMINANCE

CORPORATIONS CONTINUED TO grow larger and more concentrated for most of the 20th century. The mobilization for World War II created massive growth in employment in manufacturing. It also spread standardized personnel practices across industry and encouraged companies to adopt policies to attract and retain workers, including health benefits and retirement pensions. After the war, big unionized firms in autos and steel created a set of social welfare benefits such as health care for workers and their families, wage stability in the event of layoffs, and retirement pensions that ended up becoming a model for other employers. The benefits that governments provided to citizens in Europe and Canada became ...