The challenge for the 21st century will be to balance entrepreneurial zeal with time-tested concepts of financial and managerial discipline. With the rise of Big Business came the rise of big labor, but only after decades of struggle. Industries like steel and automobiles were virulently anti-union. Workers won sometimes-bloody strikes, and unions grew fat on the dues of swelling membership in the following 25 years. There are many reasons for the ebb in union power over the past two decades.
Manufacturing is less important to the economy today.
And globalization lets companies locate their manufacturing anywhere in the world, diminishing the power of the domestic union movement. Just because union power has waned, however, doesn't mean the trend must be permanent. The white-collarization of our economy has boosted the pay and power of knowledge workers. Recent street protests aimed at such bodies as the World Trade Organization may presage issues that could serve as labor rallying points. Since the days of the railroads, government has subsidized private businesses more than most executives today realize.