If big businesses in concentrated industries truly behaved as oligopolists, one would find higher prices, persistently higher profits, more extensive… - Neil H. Jacoby

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.

While it is true that not everyone in such a country will agree that this is the best way to run the government’s ‘civil service,’ by and large one has to conclude that a system of petty extortion and bribery has become entrenched over time simply because the country and its people have decided that they want it that way.

But beginning in the 1960’s, an adverse tide of public opinion began to rise against business… Frustration over the [[w:Vietnam War |Vietnam War added fuel to the fires of discontent. Suddenly, consumerism, stock-holderism, racial equalitarianism, antimilitarism, environmentalism, and feminism became forces to be reckoned with by corporate managements. For the most part, they replaced the classical ‘isms’— socialism, Communism, syndicalism, fascism—as the main driving forces seeking the reform of the American business system.