Book Review: Public Policies toward Business

• DOI: 10.1177/0003603X7201700315
• Published date: 01 September 1972
• Author: Charles F. Phillips
• Date: 01 September 1972
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

BOOK REVIEWS 973

Clair Wilcox, Public Policies Toward Business, 4th ed., Home-

wood, lllinois: Richard D. Irwin, Inc. (1971), xxi +858

pp., $12.50.

This volume represents the fourth edition of the late Clair

Wilcox's widely-used college text. The author's

vast

experi-

ence as an educator

and

as an adviser or administrator with

several federal government agencies is evident throughout.

His goals

are

succinctly enumerated in the

Preface:

In

its

approach, the book seeks to give equal emphasis

to the economic

and

political aspects of the policies

that

it examines.

In

balance, it seeks to give equal attention

to the major types of public policy toward business activ-

ity:

controlling monopoly by maintaining competition,

by regulation, and through public

enterprise;

controlling

competition to protect consumers, investors, and

future

generations, and to serve the interests of organized pro-

ducer groups.

Its

general theme is an appraisal of the

comparative merits and demerits of these policies in the

light of

past

experience, from the standpoint of their con-

sequences

for

the general welfare (p. ix).

From

an organizational point of view, Professor Wilcox

has retained the outline of the previous edition: two intro-

ductory chapters, one covering the meaning of and need

for

control, and the other discussing the methods and limits of

control; nine chapters on controlling monopoly by maintain-

ing competition; nine chapters on controlling monopoly by

regulation; four chapters on controlling monopoly by public

enterprise;

three chapters on protecting consumers and in-

vestors against fraud,

and

on conserving

natural

resources;

six chapters on moderating competition;

and

two concluding

chapters on monopolistic controls and anticompetitive policies.

Several new sections have been included to cover recent

developments and all of the material has been updated to

late

1970. There is one new chapter on the regulation of communi-

cations.

In

this chapter,

major

emphasis is placed on

current