Capitalist Collective Action

Download or read book Capitalist Collective Action written by John R. Bowman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-11 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique volume presents a theory of capitalist collective action and a case study of the pre-World War II American coal industry to which the theory is applied. The author examines the irony of capitalist firms that do not want to compete with each other, but often cannot avoid doing so. He then explains under what conditions businesses would be able to organize their competition and identifies the economic and political factors that facilitate or inhibit this organization. The case study not only illustrates the theory, but demonstrates how the competitive relations of capitalist firms are critically important determinants of their political behavior.