Fifteen-Year Survey of Corporate Developments, 1944-1959

The foregoing survey, it is believed, amply demonstrates the kaleidoscopic variety of the corporate developments of the past fifteen years, even though for obvious reasons much of the detail has had to be omitted. General conclusions are difficult to draw. It seems likely that the success of capitalist enterprise in this, period and the self-imposed improvement in standards of corporate. Fanchon & Marco, Inc. v. Paramount Pictures, 202 F.2d 731 (2d Cir. management have retarded the underlying trend toward expansion of the role of government in the regulation of economic affairs.

There has been no occasion for new dramatic statutory enactments of the type that were born out of the great depression; academic pleas for mild but tighter controls over managerial power have evoked little response from state legislatures. A few judicial decisions have suggested new directions in the path of managerial accountability, but it cannot be said that substantial progress has really been made toward a "socially responsible" capitalism. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to suppose that corporation law and practice have become stable or static subjects. The evidence of their dynamic quality, whether for good or evil, is clear from the record.