The Life of a Courtier CEO Is Not an Easy One: Adrian Wooldridge

Every era of business history brings an appropriate big book. In the 2000s it was Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat (2005). In the 1980s it was Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy (1980). Today it is not a business book but a novel — Hilary Mantel’s great trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall.

Since Donald Trump’s re-election America’s CEOs have, to all intents and purposes, put a crown on Trump’s head and turned themselves into courtiers. He’s Henry VIII in a golf buggy, and they are so many slavish bag carriers.

Not content with all the fawning and mega-donations, CEOs have ...