Against the backdrop of Enron and other high-profile cases of corporate malfeasance, it is easy to paint today's executives as villains--to blame big business, and corporations generally, for a wide array of social ills. Is the criticism warranted? Not quite, says Evan Osborne.

In this provocative book, Osborne pulls back the curtain to illuminate how corporations have evolved as an essential element of society, and how opposition to them is out of proportion—a fire fanned by anti-business activists, the media, and other groups. He sets the record straight, explaining how corporations work and how they have evolved in the context of other institutions. He outlines the net benefits that corporations provide and where increasingly strident antibusiness arguments fail to stand up to scrutiny. The text investigates corporate influence over politics and the government; corporate influence in the media; corporate influence through marketing; some of the pros and cons of globalization; the extent to which business has responded to public demands for social responsibility; and the extent to which free commerce improves society. The result is a fascinating commentary on our love-hate relationship with business.