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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
The distinguishing aspect of business in modern times, particularly in the United States, is that it has permeated the entire fabric of civilization. Historical interpretations of this circumstance have been in sharp conflict and have tended toward extremes. The wave of national self-criticism of the early twentieth century focused attention on the shortcomings of business, ignoring its constructive aspects. On the other hand, the modern revisionist school of historians, depicting the businessman not as a “robber baron” but as an “architect of material greatness,” has been prone to stress ends ahead of means and to overlook the deeper implications of the businessman's role in society as a whole. True perspective is not afforded by either of these opposing academic positions, nor is it likely to be gained by further blind amassing of facts-in-isolation on the part of business historians. A general theory of business evolution is needed — one that neither praises nor blames the businessman but seeks to locate him in the larger context of human experience.
1 I will not detain the reader by discussing the changing concept of the businessman. The whole article might well be given up to this topic. I shall simply say that while we normally identify the businessman with the concept of private gain and capital accumulation, a study of European literature reveals many different social and historic categories of businessmen whose economic behavior has not always been the same. To apply the characteristics of present-day business life to earlier civilizations is, of course, to provide ourselves with a most unsatisfactory explanation of the past.
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