Is moral outrage the appropriate response to the collapses of Enron or HIH or are we all implicated in a crazy system? Haigh argues that the attempt to create great entrepreneurs of the new caste of CEOs by giving them shares is doomed to failure and inherently absurd. In a tough-minded, vigorous demolition job on the culture that produced the cult of the CEO, Haigh writes a mini-history of business and shows how the classic traditions of capitalism are mocked by the managerialism of the present.

'The world where the CEO is deemed to be a 'genius' at least equal to a great actor or a great sportsman is a world in which . . . Gideon Haigh refuses to believe.' -Peter Craven, Introduction

'The making of the modern CEO has been a story of more- more power, more discretion, more ownership, more money, more demands, more expectations and, above all, more illusions. More, as so often, has brought less . . . ' -Gideon Haigh, Bad Company