The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman, Rod A. Beckstrom, Rod Beckstrom (2008, Paperback, Reprint)

We Americans are suckers for catchy names and labels. Political marketers and opportunists - for example, Al Gore and "Global Warming" - are masters of this art. In this vein, the title of "The Stafish and the Spider," with the title analogy, are wonderful examples. The book is interesting and informative as long as the authors stick to analyses of corporate structures, but then the analogy is pushed to the extreme, undoubtedly as a ploy to sell this book to environmentalist groups, or to those enamored of the e-Bay phenomenon. How time flies! Some of the eBay strategies praised by the authors never were exactly as the authors described them, and in any case have since been discarded by eBay. However, the analogy of the starfish and the spider, when applied to development of U.S. corporations in the last half of the 20th century, IS interesting and insightful. By the time the book was published, of course, swindlers and opportunists in quasi-governmental agencies and in investment pyramids had already learned and were applying schemes to suck all the juice from arms of the starfish; and corrupt Members of Congress were past masters of enriching themselves and their friends by parisitizing every starfish that came near.