24.         Historical examples of both influential¹ public officials and influential business
leaders abound². However, the power of the modern-era business leader is quite different
from that of the government official. On balance, the CEO seems to be better positioned
to influence the course of community and of nations.
      Admittedly the opportunities for the legislator to regulate commerce or of the
jurist to dictate³ rules of equity⁴ are official and immediate⁵. No private individual can
hold that brand of influence. Yet official power is tempered by our check-and-balance
system of government and, in the case of legislators, by the voting power of the
electorate⁶. Our business leaders are not so constrained⁷, so, their opportunities far exceed
those of any public official. Moreover, powerful business leaders all too often seem to
hold de facto legislative⁸ and judicial⁹ power by way of their direct influence over public
officials, as the Clinton Administration's fund-raising scandal of 1997 illuminated¹⁰ all
too well.
      The industrial and technological¹¹ eras have bred such moguls of capitalism¹² as
Pullman, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Gates, who by the nature of their industries and
their business savvy¹³, not by force of law, have transformed our economy, the nature of
work, and our very day-to-day existence. Of course, many modern-day public servants
have made the most of their opportunities—for example, the crime-busting mayor
Rudolph Giuliani and the new-dealing President Franklin Roosevelt. Yet their impact
seems to pale next to those of our modern captains of industry.
      In sum, modem¹⁴ business leaders by virtue¹⁵ of the far-reaching impact of their
industries and of their freedom from external constraints¹⁶, have supplanted¹⁷ lawmakers as
the great opportunists of the world and prime movers of society.

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