24.         Historical examples of both influential public officials and influential business
leaders abound. 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 dictate rules of equity are official and immediate. 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
electorate. Our business leaders are not so constrained, so, their opportunities far exceed
those of any public official. Moreover, powerful business leaders all too often seem to
hold de facto legislative and judicial power by way of their direct influence over public
officials, as the Clinton Administration's fund-raising scandal of 1997 illuminated all
too well.
      The industrial and technological eras have bred such moguls of capitalism as
Pullman, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Gates, who by the nature of their industries and
their business savvy, 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, modem business leaders by virtue of the far-reaching impact of their
industries and of their freedom from external constraints, have supplanted lawmakers as
the great opportunists of the world and prime movers of society.