This article analyzes the goals and strategies of a medium-size machine-building enterprise located in Chemnitz, the “Saxon Manchester,” during the Nazi period. The Wanderer-Werke AG produced a broad range of goods, from machine tools to business machines, during the years before World War II. It pursued an essentially conservative strategy, adhering to its established product line and not embarking on armament production until required to do so. This policy, however, did not prevent the firm from acting on strategic opportunities offered by Nazi occupation policy, as in 1940 when it sought to establish “cooperation” with the French punch-card producer Compagnie des Machines Bull. The article considers the extent to which enterprises like Wanderer—medium-sized companies with products of some value to the war effort—could pursue autonomous strategies within the framework of the National Socialist regime.

Conflicting interpretations of the evolution of German business between the two world wars and of Germany's corporate governance during the Third Reich are examined in this article. Alfred Chandler's view that major corporate changes emanated from managerial initiatives is contrasted with Harold James's interpretation that public and government pressures forced innovations on business. In support of James's analysis, I argue that state and political pressures, not management, initiated significant changes in German corporate governance and in the organization of German industry during the interwar period, especially in the 1930s. Using Schering AG, one of Germany's largest companies before World War II, the article traces the influences of National Socialist pressure and changes in corporate law on companies’ organizational adaptation to government social priorities during the Third Reich.

America's progression from a frontier society to a settled society took more than three hundred years. During that time, Americans had to give up their view of the resources of the public domain as “free goods” and accept the idea of public compensation for appropriation of those resources for private gain. This attitudinal change took place first on the public lands of Maine and laid the groundwork for the wood-products industry in the United States.

Numerous historians of deindustrialization argue that industries went into decline because established manufacturers moved production to cheaper locales to escape unions and high wages. A different pattern of decline occurred in the New England cotton textile industry, where downsizing began in the 1920s. Rather than fleeing their home area to build facilities elsewhere, most New England manufacturers were driven out of business by lower-cost competitors in the American South. Southerners founded, managed, and financed a heavy majority of the textile companies in their region. Although some New England firms did set up Southern plants, this was a defensive reaction to changing market realities. New competitors have brought about deindustrialization in other core U.S. industries. Recognizing this trend is important for a full understanding of the political economy of modern capitalism.