“One Holistic System of Systems”: Multinational Conglomerates and Technocratic Bigness in Late Postwar Culture
2021; Oxford University Press; Volume: 108; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/jahist/jaab124
ISSN1945-2314
Autores Tópico(s)Twentieth Century Scientific Developments
ResumoIn July 1969 the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee met to reconvene its hearings on conglomerate corporations. The guests that day were the top executives at Gulf & Western Industries, a company that, just over a decade earlier, had been a middling auto parts manufacturer with $8 million in total sales. Eleven years, 127 mergers, and two name changes later, Gulf & Western had morphed into a sprawling empire with a cornucopia of products—from paint pigment and traffic lights to soul records and cigars—amounting to more than $1.3 billion in annual sales. Speaking on behalf of the firm, the Gulf & Western president David Judelson framed his opening statement with a series of rhetorical questions: “What is Gulf & Western? Who is Gulf & Western? How and why has Gulf & Western developed?” His response was that the firm represented something altogether new in American life: a corporation...
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