Includes bibliographical references and index.

Pt.1. History -- Ch. 1. A parable to begin with -- The grocer and the chief: a parable / Daniel Lerner -- Ch. 2. Opportunity and dislocation -- Pleasant origins / Oscar Handlin -- East side street vendors / The New York Times -- Sweat shop / Morris Rosenfeld -- Puerto Rican Obituary / Pedro Pietri -- Assembly-line Americanization / Stephen Meyer III -- Ch. 3. Business: culture and technology -- The themes of the protestant ethic / Anthony Giddens -- Economic development in Modjokuto / Clifforf Geertz -- The role of business in the United States: a historical survey / Alfred d. Chander, Jr. -- Ch. 4. Capital accumulation -- On European economic development / John Maynard Keynes -- On Soviet economic development / Stephen F. Cohen -- Ch. 5. Community -- Does Community have a value? / Wendell Berry -- Ch. 6. Bringing it back home Socrates in Dallas: managing the facilities / Barry Castro -- Pt. 2. Sociology -- Ch. 7. A poem to begin with -- Two tramps in mudtime / Robert Frost -- Ch. 8. Workers and managers -- Factory time / Simone Weil -- The social structure of managerial work / Robert Jackall -- Shooting an elephant / George Orwell -- Ch. 9. The marginalized -- The black masses / William Langer -- The black family in slavery and freedom / Herbert George Gutman -- Race matters / Cornel West -- Harlem teenagers checkmate a stereotype / John Tierney -- If you go ... / R.B. -- Ch. 10. Power and culture -- Notes toward the definition of culture / T.S. Eliot -- The German ideology / Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels -- Ch. 11. Power, culture, and media -- The wrong kind of readers: the fall and rise of the New Yorker / Ben H. Bagdikian -- Sex, lies, and advertising / Gloria Steinem -- Ch. 12. Bringing it back home -- Learning about education at the workplace / Barry Castro -- Pt. 3. Ethics -- Ch. 13. A dilemma to begin with -- The prisoner's dilemma and the evolution of cooperation / Douglas Hofstadter -- Ch. 14. Conscience -- The corporation as community / Robert Solomon -- How do they live with themselves? / Roger Roseblantt -- Ch. 15. Law -- On commerce / Montesquieu -- Ch. 16. Environment -- The tragedy of the commons / Garrett Hardin -- The idea of wilderness / Max Oelschlaeger -- The historical roots of our ecologic crisis / Lynn White Jr. -- The women in the cowshed: A review of An Inquiry into well-being and destitution by Partha Dasgupta / Alan Ryan -- Ch. 17. An overview -- Rival interpretations of market society: civilizing, destructive, or feeble? / Albert O. Hirschman -- Ch. 18. Bringing it back home -- Business ethics: Knowing ourselves / Barry Castro.

Combines sections on the historical evolution of the business enterprise, the evolution of the labour force and other connected areas of society.