This paper invokes the theory of innovative enterprise to analyze the relation between value creation and value extraction in the evolution of the U.S. economy. Beginning with a managerial, as distinct from a financial, explanation for the separation of ownership and control in the U.S. corporation a century ago, I focus on why and how a ''retain-and-reinvest'' corporate resource location regime has been a necessary condition for innovative enterprise in the U.S. economy. On that basis, I demonstrate that the ideology that the economy will achieve superior performance if business enterprises ''maximize shareholder value'' (MSV) is a theory of value extraction that promotes a ''downsize-and-distribute'' allocation regime that results in employment instability and income inequity. Like the neoclassical theory of the market economy in which it is rooted, MSV lacks a theory of innovative enterprise, and hence cannot explain how, through the investment strategies and organizational structures of its major business enterprises, a national economy might achieve stable and equitable economic growth.