The Corporation in the 21st Century

Why (Almost) Everything We Are Told About Business Is Wrong

By: John Kay

Narrated by: Peter Wicks

In the world of Adam Smith and Karl Marx, capitalists built and controlled mills and factories. That relationship between capital and labor continued in the automobile assembly lines and petrochemical plants of the twentieth century.

But no longer: products and production have dematerialized. The goods and services provided by the leading companies of the twenty-first century appear on your screen, fit in your pocket, or occupy your head. Ownership of the means of production is a redundant concept. Workers are the means of production; increasingly, they take the plant home. Capital is a service bought from a specialist supplier with little influence over customer businesses. The professional managers who run modern corporations do not exert authority because they are wealthy; they are wealthy because they exert authority.

John Kay's incisive overhaul of our ideas about business redefines our understanding of successful commercial activity and the corporation—and describes how we have come to "love the product" as we "hate the producer." This is a brilliant and original work from one of the greatest economists.

©2024 John Kay (P)2024 Profile Books, Limited

more a history of corporations than forward looking

author provided a comprehensive history of the Western corporation. it was mostly focused on USA and British structures and legal practices. The final chapter started to talk about future trends and what corporations will need to look like in the 21st century and beyond. based on the title I thought that was the focus of the book. it appears there's going to be a future book that covers that topic in detail. unfortunately for me, this book didn't cover very much new ground so I found the title a bit misleading and thus the book disappointing.

Disjointed and disappointing.

The intriguing title and the general interest it evoked in my mind, I found both structure as well as content extremely disjointed, and therefore very hard to follow. I am disappointed in the content, especially as it has been produced by an expert in the field. Maybe poor editing, but certainly extremely hard to follow with way too much fear And strange digressions. Cannot recommend it.

Main message not understood

An extensive review of the history of business, but few things are new for someone familiar with the topic, and that doesn’t seem to be the author’s goal. The author is trying to put together different historical facts to argue that businesses have changed and that capitalism is no longer about capital but labor. There’s no need to spend more than 20 hours with this audiobook to see that. Besides, the narrator managed to make the book even more boring.