Dominion of Capital: The Politics of Big Business and the Crisis of the Canadian Bourgeoisie, 1914-1947

In the critical decades following the First World War, the Canadian political landscape was shifting in ways that significantly recast the relationship between big business and government. As public pressures changed the priorities of Canada's political parties, many of Canada's most powerful businessmen struggled to come to terms with a changing world that was less sympathetic to their ideas and interests than before. Dominion of Capital offers a new account of relations between government and business in Canada during a period of transition between the established expectations of the National Policy and the uncertain future of the twentieth century. Don Nerbas tells this fascinating story through close portraits of influential business and political figures of this period - including Howard P. Robinson, Charles Dunning, Sir Edward Beatty, R.S. McLaughlin, and C.D. Howe - that provide insight into how events in different sectors of the economy and regions of the country shaped the political outlook and strategies of the country's business elite. Drawing on business, political, social, and cultural history, Nerbas revises standard accounts of government-business relations in this period and sheds new light on the challenges facing big business in early twentieth-century Canada. --Publisher's description. Contents: Part 1: Big Business from Triumph to Crisis. Provincial Man of Mystery: Howard P. Robinson and the Politics of Capital in New Brunswick -- Charles A. Dunning: A Progressive in Business and Politics -- The Dilemma of Democracy: Sir Edward Beatty, the Railway Question, and National Government. Part 2: Continentalism and the Managerial Ethic. -- Stewardship and Dependency: Sam McLaughlin, General Motors, and the Labour Question -- Engineering Canada: C.D. Howe and Canadian Big Business -- Conclusion -- Après le déluge -- Endnotes.

Book available at Internet Archive to people with print disabilities: https://archive.org/details/dominionofcapita0000nerb OCLC: 842880148