The Corporation in the Twenty-First Century: Why (almost) everything we are told about business is wrong

A brilliant analysis of how business really works. Informative, funny, and full of deep insights’
Mervyn King

‘A very entertaining read’
Evan Davis

For generations, we have defined a corporation as a business run by a capitalist elite, that uses its accumulated wealth to own the means of production and exercise economic power.

That is no longer the reality. In the twenty-first century, our most desired goods and services aren’t stacked in warehouses or on container ships: they appear on your screen, fit in your pocket or occupy your head.
But even as we consume more than ever before, big business faces a crisis of legitimacy. The pharmaceutical industry creates life-saving vaccines but has lost the trust of the public. The widening pay gap between executives and employees is destabilising our societies. Facebook and Google have more customers than any companies in history but are widely reviled.

John Kay, one of the greatest economists of our time, describes how the pursuit of shareholder value has destroyed some of the leading companies of the twentieth century. Incisive and provocative, this book redefines successful commercial activity and leadership, the knowledge economy and what the future of the modern corporation might be.

Review

A brilliant analysis of how business really works and why we should stop thinking about “capitalism” and talk instead about a pluralistic economy. Informative, funny, and full of deep insights. Truly a magnum opus — Mervyn King, former Governor of the Bank of England

A very entertaining read for specialists and non-specialists alike, it’s a book that manages to be incredibly expansive, and yet also with a depth of argument you won’t often find in a business text. Few writers come close to matching Kay’s analysis of what makes good businesses succeed and bad businesses fail — Evan Davis

Praise for John Kay ― –

Kay is both a first-class economist and an excellent writer ― Financial Times

An admirable debunker of myths and false beliefs – Kay can see substantial things others don’t — Nassim N Taleb, author ― The Black Swan

Kay is a brilliant writer ― Wall Street Journal

An unparalleled communicator of economics to a non-specialist audience ― New Statesman

Book Description

A radical reappraisal of the nature and activities of business – what it is for and how it works

About the Author

Sir John Kay is one of Britain’s leading economists. A Fellow of the British Academy and Royal Society of Edinburgh, he was the founding dean of the Oxford Business School and has held chairs at London Business School and LSE. He is a winner of the Senior Wincott Award for Financial Journalism for his Financial Times columns. Other People’s Money won the Saltire Prize and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing. His other books include Obliquity, The Long and Short of It, Greed is Dead and Radical Uncertainty.