The Corporation and the Public Interest

Corporate managers must weigh the public con sequences of their decisions if they wish to keep the state from reasserting its proper authority vis-à-vis the corporation. The only defensible standard to guide them is the public interest defined in exclusively procedural terms. This definition should lead them to underwrite projects likely to keep the ultimate ends of life private, pluralistic, and uncongealed. Such a com mitment requires their support of practices which keep the political machinery in good repair but not their manipulation of the machinery so that it will produce some definite, substan tive result. If this is recognized as being too unnerving an assignment for corporate managers, legislation should free them to direct their energies once again to the single purpose of maximizing profits.