"The book’s central thesis is that we anthropomorphise business and are thus inevitably disappointed by what in reality are abstract legal entities devoted to commercial profit. There is something in this, but a simpler explanation might be that capitalism’s business cycle is cruel. In bubbles, unethical behaviour is extreme. After they burst, recession creates insecurity. People feel revulsion at the role of the profit motive — greed, in a word — in driving economic growth. While the manifesto is undoubtedly thoughtful, its injunction to love companies more will fall on many deaf ears in the post-crisis world."

"If you are hoping for a billet-doux to set your heart aflutter, remember that the author is a practitioner of the dismal science; the romance in his love letter is less Harry Met Sally than Demand Meets Supply. Still, there is no shortage of passion from Cowen. [...] He dismisses the familiar complaints made by critics of corporate America: that it is too corrupt and fraudulent to be trusted; that greedy executives are paid too much; that it hurts consumers by wielding too much monopoly power; that cronyism gives it too much influence in Washington; and so on. Some of his defense of business is more nuanced and less certain than his positive headline message suggests. [...] For Cowen, the real reason business is so unpopular, despite all it does for us, is that we humans tend to anthropomorphize companies [...] Cowen’s explanation is not particularly convincing. Nor is his two-part advice for clearing the current atmosphere of distrust. First, the public should accept that business will always fall short of our unreasonably high expectations, and get over it. Second, rather unexpectedly from a member of the famously libertarian and pro-capitalist economics faculty at George Mason University, he wants business to try harder at being socially responsible. [...] This would have been a far better book had Cowen focused more on how to overcome the negative consequences of the spread of the Friedman Doctrine, which I believe has clearly helped socially irresponsible, greedy, unheroic business leaders flourish at the expense of the heroic kind. [...] If only Cowen had shown less unconditional love for corporate America as a whole and instead concentrated on its best bits, and on what needs to be done to ensure that being ethical and heroic becomes business as usual. That 'love letter' would have left most readers hopeful that there might yet be a Happily Ever After."