What is Business, 1948

“Gives students a view of business in the world around them. Business sets the scene and provides the props. It produces Mother’s pen, the bread on the breakfast table, and the pop up toaster into which the bread goes. With familiar objects such as these, students are introduced to the production, distribution, and service phases of business which, motivated by profit, satisfy demand.”

“”The world we live in is a world of business.” This postwar paean for the glories of free enterprise showers much praise on the Trinity of production, distribution and communication, which “have made the world of business TRULY one world.” There’s no narrative story line in this film, just a general overview, and much impressive talk about how business is “essential to our modern mode of living” and “helps fulfill our desires for a better way of life.” As the camera pans down the storefronts of Main Street, the narrator cries, “Just think what it would mean if all this were taken away!” The battle lines of the Cold War couldn’t have been drawn more succinctly.”