Many Americans today consider the corporation to be the number one public enemy. Downsizing, corporate greed, an exclusive focus on the needs of shareholders at the expense of workers-the list of complaints from the left and right is long and growing. In this penetrating and insightful book, Michael Novak, regarded by some as America's foremost social thinker, and author of such internationally acclaimed bestsellers as The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism and Business as a Calling, argues that these critics ask the corporation to be something it is not, and they overlook the functions that it performs best-the cultivation of civil society, the fortification of democracy, and the elevation of the poor. Borrowing a phrase from Abraham Lincoln, Novak shows how the corporation weds the fire of invention to the fuel of interest to generate a creative, dynamic, and civic-minded citizenry.

Author Biography

Michael Novak is the author of more than twenty-five books, a co-founder and former publisher of Crisis, and a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, National Review, and Forbes. Novak is the winner of the 1994 Templeton Prize. He lives in Washington DC.