Taming the Octopus: The Long Battle for the Soul of the Corporation

The untold story of how efforts to hold big business accountable changed American capitalism.

Recent controversies around environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing and “woke capital” evoke an old idea: the Progressive Era vision of a socially responsible corporation. By midcentury, the notion that big business should benefit society was a consensus view. But as Kyle Edward Williams’s brilliant history, Taming the Octopus, shows, the tools forged by New Deal liberals to hold busin...