>CB: Wouldn't controlling interest in the corp be an obvious first
>approximation of this ? Seems a rather elementary question.
Almost no one has a controlling interest in a large corporation of any consequence. Most Fortune 500-scale firms are owned by millions of shareholders, few with single shareholders even approaching even 5% of the total. There are some exceptions - the Ford family still has big power over Ford, the Sulzbergers over the NY Times - but not many. So is the U.S. capitalist class made up mainly of individual and family owners of small businesses? Is someone who owns a plastics plant in Tennessee more of a capitalist than the CEO of IBM?
Doug