Since 1950, American enterprises have invested in virtually every part of the world. Their annual exports in 1976 were more than $117 billion, and th… - Neil H. Jacoby

In assessing business performance, we must keep in mind that ours is a pluralistic society. Indeed, the maintenance of pluralism by the diffusion of power among diverse institutions is itself a national goal. In such a society, each institution tends to specialize in the performance of those tasks in which it has a comparative advantage. The society is a highly complex system of interacting subsystems and institutions, in which the performance of each is affected by that of others. Hence, the business corporation should be assessed primarily with reference to the performance of its unique function of production, taking into account the effects of other institutions, such as governments and labor unions, upon its performance; no institution in a pluralistic society should be evaluated in isolation.

During the recent nineteen-year period from 1950 to 1969, corporate profits, both before and after taxes, formed a shrinking proportion of the national income.

The primary difficulty is the problem of determining what the interest of business is.At any given time, business corporations are split on many national issues; there does not appear to be a monolithic ‘business interest.’ Thus, petroleum companies have opposed liberal oil import quotas, while petrochemical companies have favored them in order to obtain less expensive feedstocks; steel companies have sought restraints upon imports of foreign steel, whereas automobile companies and other large users of steel have fought them; and even with respect to such matters as labor union legislation or antipollution regulation, businessmen are far from presenting a united front because firms in some industries are much more deeply affected than those in other industries.