Yes, a lot of people remember the asset stripping wave in the 1980s, but not the merger wave of the 1960s. At that time, it was fashionable to assume that the c

Yes, a lot of people remember the asset stripping wave in the 1980s, but not the merger wave of the 1960s. At that time, it was fashionable to assume that the core expertise of "management" could be transferred to pretty much any field, and so you had these bizarre conglomerations of businesses. It turned out that "management" wasn't so transferable, resulting in one big company having a few profitable ventures that were subsidizing unprofitable ventures, and the 1980s saw a lot of those conglomerates split apart (and they probably took it too far in the other direction). At some point, we need a history of post-war corporate capitalism, because it sure seems like it is driven by one fad piled atop another fad.