Interlocking Directorates in the Corporate Community

[Flabbergasted]

by G. William Domhoff
August 2005

Interlocking directorates -- defined as the linkages among corporations created by individuals who sit on two or more corporate boards -- have been a source of research attention since the Progressive Era at the turn of the 20th century, when they were used by famous muckraking journalists, and future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, to claim that a few large commercial and investment banks controlled most major

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/corporate_community.html


(There is a great diagram down the page)

[Robbien]

1. Thanks. Interesting It would also be interesting to compare

those graphs with the situation today (the study goes through 1995 I believe). There have been so many mergers and acquistions in the last ten years, I wonder how dramatically the interlocking directorates may have changed under the current climate.

[Flabbergasted]

2. Are you going to lead us in this effort?

[Robbien]

4. The amount of effort Domhoff must have put in the project is impressive

Didn't mean to give the impression the study wasn't informative because it only carried through to 1995. It is. Very.

Just wondered how much the status may have changed with the surge in globalization and privatization.

[Flabbergasted]

6. Very true I'm interested as well. Thanks for the reading.

P.S. I was joking around but if you are a sociologist It would make a good thesis!

[blondeatlast]

3. Valuable info, Bookmarked, kicked, and recommended! nt

[blondeatlast]

5. "Who Owns America?" would be a better title. nt

[Greyhound]

7. K & R

This (corporate consolidation and the accompanying stifling of competition and innovation) is the real issue, that all these distractions are hiding.

[OneBlueSky]

8. interlocking directorates have been a staple of corporate America . . .

for a l-o-o-o-o-ng time . . .

back in the 60s, a friend of mine wrote a book on the topic that included an amazing chart showing the overlapping governance of America's largest corporations . . . I don't think he ever got it published (possibly because he was a confirmed Marxist), but it was a fascinating read nonetheless . . .

so this is nothing new -- it's been going on for many, many years . . . to say that it's problemmatic is an understatement . . .

[rman]

9. kick