
The Corporation in the 21st Century
Why (Almost) Everything We Are Told About Business Is Wrong
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Narrated by:
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Peter Wicks
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By:
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John Kay
About this listen
In the world of Adam Smith and Karl Marx, capitalists built and controlled mills and factories. That relationship between capital and labor continued in the automobile assembly lines and petrochemical plants of the twentieth century.
But no longer: products and production have dematerialized. The goods and services provided by the leading companies of the twenty-first century appear on your screen, fit in your pocket, or occupy your head. Ownership of the means of production is a redundant concept. Workers are the means of production; increasingly, they take the plant home. Capital is a service bought from a specialist supplier with little influence over customer businesses. The professional managers who run modern corporations do not exert authority because they are wealthy; they are wealthy because they exert authority.
John Kay's incisive overhaul of our ideas about business redefines our understanding of successful commercial activity and the corporation—and describes how we have come to "love the product" as we "hate the producer." This is a brilliant and original work from one of the greatest economists.
©2024 John Kay (P)2024 Profile Books, LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
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At 1:23:50: "we must expect ... a virus"
- By Philo on 03-18-20
By: John Kay, and others
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Ignorance and Bliss
- On Wanting Not to Know
- By: Mark Lilla
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In Ignorance and Bliss, the acclaimed essayist and historian of ideas Mark Lilla offers an absorbing psychological diagnosis of the human will not to know. With erudition and brio, Lilla ranges from the Book of Genesis and Plato's dialogues to Sufi parables and Sigmund Freud, revealing the paradoxes of hiding truth from ourselves.
By: Mark Lilla
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The Everything War
- Amazon's Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power
- By: Dana Mattioli
- Narrated by: Caroline Hewitt, Dana Mattioli
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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From veteran Amazon reporter for The Wall Street Journal, The Everything War is the first untold, devastating exposé of Amazon's endless strategic greed, from destroying Main Street to remaking corporate power, in pursuit of total domination, by any means necessary.
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Drops knowledge, reads like a thriller
- By Kitty B. on 05-29-24
By: Dana Mattioli
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The Secret History of the Five Eyes
- The Untold Story of the International Spy Network
- By: Richard Kerbaj
- Narrated by: Richard Kerbaj
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the definitive account of the Western world’s most powerful—but least known—intelligence alliance, which remains central to the defense of the free world in a dangerously uncertain time.
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The author should stick to writing
- By IBH on 03-16-25
By: Richard Kerbaj
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Lawless Republic
- By: Josiah Osgood
- Narrated by: David Holt
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In its final decades, the Roman Republic was engulfed by a crime wave. An epidemic of extortions, murders, and acts of insurrection tested the court system's capacity to maintain order. As case after case filled the docket, an ambitious young lawyer named Cicero seized every opportunity to litigate, forging a reputation as a master debater with a bright future in politics. In Lawless Republic, historian Josiah Osgood recounts the legendary orator's ascent and fall, and his pivotal role in the republic's lurch toward autocracy.
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Entertaining and educational
- By N. Mammen on 02-25-25
By: Josiah Osgood
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The Friction Project
- How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder
- By: Robert I. Sutton, Huggy Rao
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Every organization is plagued by destructive friction. Yet some forms of friction are incredibly useful, and leaders who attempt to improve workplace efficiency often make things even worse. Drawing from seven years of hands-on research, The Friction Project by bestselling authors Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao teaches readers how to become “friction fixers.”
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not clear purpose
- By Gg on 05-09-24
By: Robert I. Sutton, and others
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Obliquity
- Why our goals are best achieved indirectly
- By: John Kay
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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A leading economist charts the indirect road to happiness and wealth. Using dozens of practical examples from the worlds of business, politics, science, sports, literature, even parenting, esteemed economist John Kay proves a notion that feels at once paradoxical and deeply commonsensical: The best way to achieve any complex or broadly defined goal-from happiness to wealth to profit to preventing forest fires-is the indirect way.
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Little additional insight
- By Roger Wirth on 01-23-19
By: John Kay
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Underground Empire
- How America Weaponized the World Economy
- By: Henry Farrell, Abraham Newman
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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A deeply researched investigation that reveals how the United States is like a spider at the heart of an international web of surveillance and control, which it weaves in the form of globe-spanning networks such as fiber optic cables and obscure payment systems.
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Good summary
- By Medz on 01-28-25
By: Henry Farrell, and others
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The Storm of Steel
- By: Ernst Jünger, Basil Creighton
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The Storm of Steel is a first-hand account of World War I trench combat lifted from the diaries of Ernst Junger, a German infantryman who would become one of Europe's most renowned writers. The book was first translated into English in 1929 by Basil Creighton, the acclaimed translator of many other classic works of German literature, and was widely hailed as a masterpiece. To many, The Storm of Steel remains the definitive account of World War I, following Junger through several major battles as he develops from an eager young soldier into a battle-hardened officer.
By: Ernst Jünger, and others
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The Containment
- Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North
- By: Michelle Adams
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1974, the Supreme Court issued a momentous decision: In the case of Milliken v. Bradley, the justices brought a halt to school desegregation across the North, and to the civil rights movement’s struggle for a truly equal education for all. How did this come about, and why? In The Containment, the esteemed legal scholar Michelle Adams tells the epic story of the struggle to integrate Detroit schools—and what happened when it collided with Nixon-appointed justices committed to a judicial counterrevolution.
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Critical history of what should have been.
- By Lilly Immergluck on 04-09-25
By: Michelle Adams