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• A modestly favorable public opinion survey. an Edleman survey citing 57% of those surveyed who say they trust business to "do what is right."
• Big company CEOs talking about environmental issues. Colvin also supports his business as resurgent thesis by noting that companies -- such as FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX), General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX), and E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. (NYSE: DD) -- are speaking out on green issues; and
• A few profitable IT companies. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), has gone up since its IPO -- in his view -- a signal that dot-com companies are no longer a joke.

One thing Colvin said with which I agree is that the public admires entrepreneurial success. And this is the decade of big business, private equity, and hedge funds. It's a clubby world which has largely left venture capital and startups behind. If you're inside the club, things are great. But if you're a worker -- at big companies cutting staff or thwarting unions -- such as Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), or Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) -- you are hurting.

The big question which Colvin does not ask or answer is this: "Which segments of the public should care about big business and why?" There are three segments whose objectives vary: consumers want companies to give them quality products at a good price, small investors want companies that generate high returns with reasonable risk, and workers want employers that reward good performance with a challenging and supportive work environment and good pay.

Colvin's basis for assessing big business's resurgence misses this mark. The public opinion survey he cites suggests that 43% of the public doesn't trust business to do what's right. Big companies talking about environmental issues is good for CEOs' self perception and it might create new revenue streams. And the fact that Google is a respectable company might have something to do with the fact that it makes a profit and a product that people find useful -- not Colvin's notion that it's restoring respectability to the dot-coms.

My view is that when the entrepreneurial sector of the economy begins booming again, so will the positive reputation of business. What do you think?

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He owns General Electric stock and has no financial interest in the other securities mentioned in this post.