Business
When wrongdoing is widespread across an industry, the best-known name can be punished as its symbol. A firm's record can be appalling and still no worse than that of many peers. Its head may be tried more for what the company's name stood for than for his actual role in running it.
When a firm's biggest buyer is the government, the two grow into a near-symbiotic relationship in which each depends on the other for survival and success. The firm's fortunes then rise and fall with the nation's, through wars, inflations, and changes of regime. This tie can make a company dominant in its field and also bind it to whatever that state chooses to do.
A business can feel uneasy about serving a power-hungry state and still be pulled deeper into its aggressive aims, step by step. The bargain works like a pact with the devil: growth and security in exchange for complicity. Private doubts do not prevent the entanglement.
A maker of both weapons and ordinary goods gains from the overlap, since skills, plants, and technology move back and forth between the two. This synergy can carry a firm through economic ups and downs. Arms may be only a part of output in peacetime and become central once war comes.
Leadership in heavy industry comes less from inventing than from adopting a new technique at the moment it gives the greatest edge. A tireless work ethic and choosing fields that suit the owner's strengths help turn small, unpromising beginnings into a giant. Even a firm that started almost hopelessly can become one of the largest in the world.
A family firm can finance early growth through informal credit networks rather than banks, and then remain hostile to banks long afterward. This keeps control within the family and shapes a culture that cares more about independence and tradition than about profit. It is one mark of a style of capitalism different from a purely shareholder-driven one.
A company can reject a narrow focus on profit, paying workers well and adapting constantly to their needs, and so build a famous, distinctive corporate culture. The same paternal care comes with close control over workers' lives, including watching for 'troublemakers.' Loyalty and supervision are two sides of one arrangement.
A firm disgraced alongside its country can rebuild and come to stand for that country's new self-image. After defeat it can turn open, economically successful, and socially responsible. Because firm and nation are so closely bound, the company's turnaround mirrors the nation's.
A dynastic family business can move to ownership by a nonprofit foundation, keeping the enterprise whole while ending control by heirs. This shift lets a traditional firm outlast its founding family and its crises. It is a way for an old enterprise to carry its tradition into a new century.