This "sociological" analysis probably went over really well at a touchy-feely corporate navel-gazing camp because it's more the way some grey-flannel men *wish* they were, than the way they actually are.

Take a look at the history of the Love Canal in Buffalo, NY or the tobacco industry and think about these as models of corporate behavior when you hire the exterminator to come onto your property to take care of some pesky ants and horribly nasty, dangerous spiders using "safe, environmentally sound" insecticides. The burden of proof is backwards all too often in evaluating the manner in which corporations treat their customers and their community. It sure looks like the corporate world has more than its fair share of major criminals to me: some of them firmly and respectably in place in Congress. They just don't hack little girls to pieces and bury them in the woods; they kill tens of thousands, slowly, and hide behind the finest suits and the sharpest lawyers. The quest for economic gain coupled with the blatant disregard for the health and safety of those around you is what is meant by hyperindividualism. It's simply greed coupled with sociopathy. Describing this as an offshoot of 20th century liberalism is way beyond me.

or even "criminals" like Rockefeller ...

This is well off-thread but I saw a movie clip of John D. from the mid 40's where he was at a podium being fingerprinted as a publicity bit to promote the FBI's policy of trying to fingerprint all Americans. Nothing new under the sun eh? Mike