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Too Much Corporate Power?
Amid the good times, citizens feel uneasy about Big Business. The growing political issue is one that companies ignore at their peril
Too Much Corporate Power?

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The U.S. has rarely been as buoyant as it is today. The golden economy has delivered years of plentiful jobs and soaring incomes--after decades of going sideways. From janitors to dot-com billionaires, almost everyone is feelingthe flush times. Paychecks are rising, and wealth is piling up on a scale unimaginable just a few years ago, when the U.S. struggled through the recession of the early 1990s. Even many of America's worst ghettos are seeing an influx of investment and jobs.

Most Americans recognize that Corporate America gets much credit for the good fortunes. A solid two-thirds of the U.S. public givescompanies kudos for today's prosperity, according to a BUSINESS WEEK/Harris Poll released on Aug. 31. About the same number say large corporations make good products and compete well in the global economy.

Yet amid the good times, Americans feel uneasy. BUSINESS WEEK's poll shows that nearly three-quarters of Americans think business has gained too much power over too many aspects of their lives. In aresponse that surprised the pundits, the public seemed to rally around the sentiment expressed at the Democratic convention, when Al Gore declared that Americans must ''stand up and say no'' to ''Big Tobacco, Big Oil, the big polluters, the pharmaceutical companies, the HMOs.'' Gore sensed the frustration of many voters and their desire to blunt some of the power of business, crafting a newcampaign strategy that so far is working (page 150). Indeed, 74% of those polled by BUSINESS WEEK agreed with the Veep's remarks.

Gore's neo-Populist rhetoric has tapped a vein of discontent. Consumers are seething about insensitive corporate behavior. And that is only adding to a souring of attitudes toward large companies. While Americans give companies their due for producing more wealth andhigher incomes, only 47% think that what's good for business is good for most Americans, according to BUSINESS WEEK's poll. And 66% think large profits are more important to big companies than developing safe, reliable, quality products for consumers. Adding to the disenchantment is the perception that companies often buy their way into government: Witness the success of Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.)in pushing for campaign-finance reform during his Presidential run. ''There's a widespread sense of unfairness and distrust today, where people think companies are not quite playing by the rules,'' says Ruy Teixeira, a polling expert at the Century Foundation, a Washington think tank.

So how is it that Corporate America is both hero and villain? Oddly enough, part of the anticorporate mood maybe a consequence of the rip-roaring economy itself. Now that Americans' material needs are so well satisfied, they have the luxury of focusing on their quality of life. Just as U.S. companies claim to be the architects of the boom, so too are they held responsible for its excesses and failings. ''The slippage in service--it's almost epidemic, across every aspect of our lives,'' fumes Anne Zenzer,an executive recruiter in Oak Brook, Ill., who flies 100,000 miles a year, mostly on United Airlines Inc.--notorious these days for delays.

The revved-up New Economy has also left many families feeling overworked and stressed out. The sticking point in last month's strike at Verizon Communications (VZ) was workers' complaints about burnout and mandatory overtime, which management finally...