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Main Idea (Short Text)
Through the 1800s, the form of the corporation took shape in an elaborate dance of wills. Entrepreneurs, torn between building legacies and extracting cash, led the dance; state legislators, torn between attracting corporations and limiting their power, followed. Abuses of corporate will led to new prohibitions, which sent businessmen scurrying for new ways to get around them. New types of technological webs bound the country: railroads, steamships, electric power, telegraph and telephone lines. The newly invented rotary press enabled printers to put out 100,000 copies of a magazine; this, in turn, allowed national advertising to sprout, which made it profitable for consumer product giants to build brands.
What is the underlying theme of the passage?
The passage is a description of the evolution of the corporate culture over the past two centuries.