Preface

The business corporation was an ingenious invention, and perhaps an older one than has usually been imagined.1 But it has not always been much beloved. Almost a century ago, American law professor Maurice Wormser invoked the grotesque image of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’s monster as a sinister metaphor for the American corporation. His 1931 book, Frankenstein Incorporated, contained strong words of condemnation for certain corporate practices, and stern censure of those corporate lawyers who played a role in allowing corporate excesses. His call for reform was bold. ‘The entire concept of the corporation,’ he concluded, ‘must be modified in the interest of public service.’ ‘The theory of social interest and public trust must supplant the doric simplicity of the old laissez faire. . . . Modern and enlightened ideas of social and economic responsibility must supplant the individualistic philosophy of the early common law and of the business man of the [18]80s and [18]90s.’2