A. A. Berle and the Corporate Soul

THE 20TH CENTURY CAPITALIST REVOLUTION, by Adolph A. Berle, Jr. Harcourt, Brace and Co., N. Y. 192 pages. $3.00.

The place of monopoly in the modern world was highlighted some twenty years ago when Adolph Berle and Gardiner Means published their explosive study, The Modern Corporation and Private Property. Originating in the get-rich-quick boom of the Twenties, it demonstrated that the growing complexities of corporate structures made stockholder control a myth. No longer did property carry with it the right to dispose of its usufruct, since widespread stock dispersion made it possible for self-perpetuating oligarchies to decide on price and production without regard to the concerns of legal ownership. Berle and Means showed also that the 200 largest non-financial corporations held about half the nation’s corporate assets. After the appearance of this book it was difficult to argue that competition, at least in its Smithian or R...