. >> reporter: but sociologist jerry davis says the g.m.'s of yesteryear, though models of productivity and even economic equality, are history. >> what happened to general motors didn't just happen to general motors. there are about half as many public corporations today, as they were 20 years ago. >> reporter: so instead of general motors, u.s. steel, eastman kodak and i could go ono and on, what have we got? >> the big corporations today don't really have that manys employees. they're not providing careere ladders, they're not creating middle-class jobs. blockbuster had 80,000 employees and 9,000 stores across the country, netflix does the same thing with fewer than 4,000 people. if anybody tells you they workto at facebook, probably they mean they are a contractor because only about 12,000 people00 actually work at facebook. they are worth $300 billion but very few people actually work there.30 >> reporter: in a new book davis calls it "the vanishing american corporation" and poses a pivotao question: what will rise from the wreckage? me