A while ago, I posted some material regarding how well-placed academics rely on low-paid researchers to do their work for them, leading them to produce shoddy and sometimes plagiarized work.
An interesting counter example is the ghostwriter, John McDonald, who wrote Alfred P. Sloan's My Years with General Motors. In this case, the ghostwriter was superior to the purported author. The book was not published for years, until McDonald sued the company to allow the manuscript to be published. McDonald's wrote a very interesting book about his role and the reason for General Motors's fears about its publication: McDonald, John. 2002. A Ghost's Memoir: The Making of Alfred P. Sloan's "My Years with General Motors." (Cambridge and London: The MIT Press). 1: On March 4, 1959 Sloan called McDonald to say that General Motors did not want the book published because its lawyers feared it would "destroy the company." 75-6: "Hugh Cox, who was chief trial counsel for the Du Ponts during the many years of the government suit against Du Pont/General Motors .... was pleased with the book as American history, and could not see what Cravath had against it, except possibly one line in the Product Policy of 1921: "A monopoly is not planned." 48: Their specific objection was the detailing of the 1921 Product Policy drafted by Sloan. Even though the policy specified, "a monopoly is not planned," the lawyers feared the government would still interpret the document as monopolistic since Sloan wanted GM to "cover the market for all grades of automobiles." Later, I found that the story became more interesting. McDonald, a writer for Fortune, had already published a very popular book on game theory. I had seen the book around for years, but never opened it and never associated it with Sloan's book. *** What follows is too long for the list, but the best part comes later at http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/alfred-chandler-and-the-ghostwriters-unappreciated-contribution/ -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com
