What Are You Reading? A project sponsored by the Friends of the Macomb Public Library District to encourage reading and book discussion in our community. Would you like to share your favorite books with other readers? Please send your name, occupation or grade level, book author and title, and a brief statement about the book and why you liked it to Kate Joswick, [email protected] Reviewer’s Name: Susan T. Meiers Reviewer’s Occupation: Retired Book Title: For Profit: A History of Corporations Book’s Author: William Magnuson An informative and readable book, Magnuson reviews the function and composition of corporations for 8 chapters and finishes with a chapter on how corporations can return to the original “vision of the corporation as engine for the common good.” Eight chapters cover a particular aspect of a corporation and uses a well-known example to illustrate details. Chapter 1, “Corpus Economicus” describes what a corporation is currently defined as and then relates how nineteen publicans (distinguished men) formed three companies to supply Publius Cornelius Scipio’s army with provisions (clothes, food, and equipment) in the war against Hannibal in 215 BCE. Later corporations were formed to perform civil projects: building aqueducts, sewers, harbors, etc., collecting taxes, and providing supplies to the army. The author describes the benefits and pitfalls of having private entities so intertwined with the state and cites plenty of commentary from various authorities and authors of the time. Other chapters deal with banks (the Medici bank), stock (East India Company), monopoly, (Union Pacific Railroad), the assembly line (Ford Motor Co.), the multinational (Exxon, in its various incarnations), the corporate raider (KKR: Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts, & Co.), and the start-up (Facebook), and the men who formed and ran them. The last chapter summarizes the history of the corporation, how it’s changed over time, and how it can (and should) go back to its original purpose: to benefit the common good. A good and NOT boring read!
