The attacks of Sept. 11 were aimed at the symbolic heart of capitalism, but that does not mean the titans of industry feel obligated to join the fight on terrorism.
On numerous occasions since the attack, businesses have found themselves facing a choice between patriotic action or their bottom line.
Politicians have suggested that investment houses would be caving to terrorism if they did not rebuild in New York, for example, and asked domestic wheat growers for understanding as they purchased Asian wheat for rapid food shipments to Afghanistan.
American politicians have encouraged American apparel manufacturers to continue to buy goods from Pakistan even in the face of rising insurance costs and local unrest.
Corporations are designed to make money -- not to meet patriotic or moral obligations. In times of peace, their focus on profit maximization usually dovetails with the goal of national prosperity. But in times of crisis, corporate and national interests can suddenly, uncomfortably diverge.
In 1940 and 1941, for example, when it was becoming clear that America would soon be drawn into the war raging in Europe, many American corporations tried to duck government contracts for military goods.
One main reason: they feared they would end up paying for wartime production facilities that were useless in peacetime -- just as they had in World War I.
In money we trust
The auto industry was particularly reluctant, because the civilian market was so lucrative. Until 1941, it fought restrictions on total auto output that would have freed resources for the defense effort.
In the end, the government essentially bought corporate cooperation, said Hugh Rockoff, an economic historian at Rutgers University specializing in World War II.
"Government assumed most of the financial risk," he said, by allowing "firms to keep final title to the facilities they were building after writing the cost of construction off, against taxes, over five years," the historian said
Later in the war, he said, the government simply built plants for companies and gave them to them.
Such a risk-free guarantee for doing war work is not necessarily ill-advised, according to many economists.
"The basis of business is the belief in the invisible hand" -- Adam Smith's shorthand for the way competitive forces themselves tend to regulate markets -- according to David Colander, the Kelley professor of distinguished teaching at Princeton.
"Besides if firms were doing something strictly for a patriotic interest, they could be sued by shareholders," he said
Even privately held companies have to be careful of doing things that are not strictly in their business interests.
Malden Mills, the makers of Polartec fleece, kept its employees on the payroll while it rebuilt after a devastating fire six years ago -- and ended up filing for bankruptcy protection last week.
There are historical instances of corporate sacrifice for civic good, but they are rare.
The industrialist Andrew Carnegie was as cynical an operator as anyone. "One of the purest fallacies is that trade follows the flag," he once lectured. "Trade follows the lowest price current. If a dealer in any colony wished to buy the British Jack, he would order them from Britain's worst enemy if he could save a sixpence."
But it was Carnegie who rounded up fellow industrialists to spend their own money to buttress a stock market in free-fall in 1929.Other financiers and financial institutions have also found themselves in the role of rescuers of capitalism.
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