The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

by Robert D. Putnam

The impact of this cultural shift went well beyond politics. For example, the dominant philosophy of business management during the “we” era (as epitomized by George Romney) had been that corporate decisions should take into account a wide range of constituencies beyond the owners—employees, customers, suppliers, and even the wider community within which they operated—what would later be called “stakeholders.” But the newer libertarian philosophy of the 1970s argued for sharply narrowing the focus of business management to a single group—the shareholders of the company’s stock—and closely linking the income of managers themselves to the stock price.