Powell Memorandum at 50

[beechnut79]

A half century ago today, August 23, 1971, Lewis Powell, who would later become a Supreme Court Justice, issued a memorandum advocating ever increasing corporate domination over many aspects of American life. It took a full decade, but in the same month of 1981 Reagan fired all the members of the Air Traffic Controllers union, which in many ways proved to be perhaps the final nail in the coffin of the middle class as we had to come to know it in the years following WWII.

Have created this thread for thoughtful discussion on the continuing impact of excessive corporate dominance in our lives. Do we have the will to begin reversing the trend of the havoc such power has garnered. Even if so, we have much to do. While sentiment that things are not right finally seems to have emerged, there is still work involved. Do we have the will to get grounded in the effort and build something of value?

[pbrower2a]

It's a matter of time. If some right-wing demagogue wins enough votes in a time of economic distress with a promise of a secret plan to restore prosperity, people will be intend more on getting prosperity back than how they get it. They will often fail to ask the question of who gets the prosperity and who gets to pay.

It is secretive not so much because the intention is to prevent illicit gain by people dealing on insider information but instead because the methods are horrible. Thus nobody is told that wages will be slashed, unions will be outlawed, people will be obliged to work unpaid overtime, that elites will be exempted from taxes, privatization will be done on behalf of rapacious profiteers on the cheap, that environmental laws and safety regulations will be gutted, that people will be obliged to make "contributions" to for-profit entities, and that protests against any of the above will be met with private violence without consequences to those who pay them.

I have heard plenty of right-wing pols say that they can make the tough decisions to make things work. Sure they can make the tough decisions -- because those pols do not care whom those decisions hurt so long as it is not themselves. That is the perfect argument of a sociopath.

[David Horn]

(08-23-2021, 09:33 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: A half century ago today, August 23, 1971, Lewis Powell, who would later become a Supreme Court Justice, issued a memorandum advocating ever increasing corporate domination over many aspects of American life. It took a full decade, but in the same month of 1981 Reagan fired all the members of the Air Traffic Controllers union, which in many ways proved to be perhaps the final nail in the coffin of the middle class as we had to come to know it in the years following WWII.

Have created this thread for thoughtful discussion on the continuing impact of excessive corporate dominance in our lives. Do we have the will to begin reversing the trend of the havoc such power has garnered. Even if so, we have much to do. While sentiment that things are not right finally seems to have emerged, there is still work involved. Do we have the will to get grounded in the effort and build something of value?

I'm not sure how we get on a better path, because a return to the old is a non-starter.  The economy and society in general have moved on to the point that the pre-Reagan era now looks and feels archaic.  Yet we need to do something, and that something has to involve a permanent reduction in the power available to the monied class.  Needless to say, we're in Congressional Amendment territory here, and the numbers for getting that done are dismal.

Powell understood the power dynamic.  If the rich and already powerful are given a free hand, it will be exceptionally difficult to pry that power back into the hands of 'we the people'.  I suspect this will be the next saeculum's mission.

[Eric the Green]

(08-24-2021, 10:57 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-23-2021, 09:33 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: A half century ago today, August 23, 1971, Lewis Powell, who would later become a Supreme Court Justice, issued a memorandum advocating ever increasing corporate domination over many aspects of American life. It took a full decade, but in the same month of 1981 Reagan fired all the members of the Air Traffic Controllers union, which in many ways proved to be perhaps the final nail in the coffin of the middle class as we had to come to know it in the years following WWII.

Have created this thread for thoughtful discussion on the continuing impact of excessive corporate dominance in our lives. Do we have the will to begin reversing the trend of the havoc such power has garnered. Even if so, we have much to do. While sentiment that things are not right finally seems to have emerged, there is still work involved. Do we have the will to get grounded in the effort and build something of value?

I'm not sure how we get on a better path, because a return to the old is a non-starter.  The economy and society in general have moved on to the point that the pre-Reagan era now looks and feels archaic.  Yet we need to do something, and that something has to involve a permanent reduction in the power available to the monied class.  Needless to say, we're in Congressional Amendment territory here, and the numbers for getting that done are dismal.

Powell understood the power dynamic.  If the rich and already powerful are given a free hand, it will be exceptionally difficult to pry that power back into the hands of 'we the people'.  I suspect this will be the next saeculum's mission.

It's a good question. I don't know. Congress decides, and so far it has not even gone half-way there. If the reconciliation bill passes, that would be a good start. If it's only the bill that even McConnell supported, then it's too tepid a start. Congress needs to hear from us on this. Please write or email or call!

I don't see constitutional amendment as a viable option. I'm not sure what "Congressional Amendment" means, but certainly for best results congress will need to pass voting rights, and will need to bypass or end the filibuster to do it, and that seems unlikely right now. The people will have to outvote Republican voter suppression and increase Democratic control after 2022 sufficient enough to reduce or eliminate the filibuster and admit senators from PR and DC. I have predicted for many years that the 2022 election will see progressive trends open up and move ahead. It seems unlikely now, but I will hold to my prediction and we'll see what happens. But I do think government policy is the key to decreasing corporate domination. Moderately-liberal Democratic Senator Klobuchar seems on the ball on this; today's monopoly power needs to be curbed, and alternatives to corporations that dominate markets made more possible. The people can also build more local community power.

[David Horn]

(08-24-2021, 07:19 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't see constitutional amendment as a viable option. I'm not sure what "Congressional Amendment" means, but certainly for best results congress will need to pass voting rights, and will need to bypass or end the filibuster to do it, and that seems unlikely right now. The people will have to outvote Republican voter suppression and increase Democratic control after 2022 sufficient enough to reduce or eliminate the filibuster and admit senators from PR and DC. I have predicted for many years that the 2022 election will see progressive trends open up and move ahead. It seems unlikely now, but I will hold to my prediction and we'll see what happens. But I do think government policy is the key to decreasing corporate domination. Moderately-liberal Democratic Senator Klobuchar seems on the ball on this; today's monopoly power needs to be curbed, and alternatives to corporations that dominate markets made more possible. The people can also build more local community power.

I meant Constitutional Amendment, but typed Congressional Amendment instead. No excuses here. Just O. Blivious in action.

I hope you're right that the 2022 election actually makes real change possible. The political narrative has been so bad for so long, it will be hard to move the people by persuasion. Disgust, on the other hand, might get us there. There is no shortage of good ideas if they can get an honest hearing, and the current crop of talking points on the right is so clearly wacknut crazy that they may do themselves in.

[beechnut79]

I wonder if any of you see any significant correlation between the Powell Memo and the type of society which took hold a decade or so later. That's when, with the advent of the Yuppie culture, we became a decidedly workaholic culture which, I have pointed out many times, is the opposite of what many pundits expected with the advent of the technology most of us now kneel at the feet of. Are we trying to get a lot of work done before the solemnity of the 4T set in? This although the saecular drama was not exposed until the 90s. High tech version of "Make hay while the sun shines"? Was it a case of the society feeling some sense of urgency in which work became like a God in many folks' minds? Enthusiasm, passion, and possibly even overdoing it, were highlighted. Many apparently didn't seem to remember to come up for air even to this day as there are still so many with that mindset. That the to-do list never seems to end. And, while we're at it, does anyone think we will ever really see that society of increased leisure that was once all but promised?

[sbarrera]

Here is a link the memo, clearly a right-wing reaction to the "new left" of the Awakening.

https://law2.wlu.edu/deptimages/Powell%2...script.pdf

[beechnut79]

(09-07-2021, 08:08 PM)sbarrera Wrote: Here is a link the memo, clearly a right-wing reaction to the "new left" of the Awakening.

https://law2.wlu.edu/deptimages/Powell%2...script.pdf

Golly isn’t it very obvious that the right wing won and for the most part continues to do so despite obvious flaws which the lid has come off of.

[David Horn]

(09-07-2021, 10:42 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: I wonder if any of you see any significant correlation between the Powell Memo and the type of society which took hold a decade or so later. That's when, with the advent of the Yuppie culture, we became a decidedly workaholic culture which, I have pointed out many times, is the opposite of what many pundits expected with the advent of the technology most of us now kneel at the feet of. Are we trying to get a lot of work done before the solemnity of the 4T set in? This although the saecular drama was not exposed until the 90s. High tech version of "Make hay while the sun shines"?  Was it a case of the society feeling some sense of urgency in which work became like a God in many folks' minds?  Enthusiasm, passion, and possibly even overdoing it, were highlighted. Many apparently didn't seem to remember to come up for air even to this day as there are still so many with that mindset. That the to-do list never seems to end. And, while we're at it, does anyone think we will ever really see that society of increased leisure that was once all but promised?

Yes, we decided to put the Protetant work ethic on steriods, and punish those least willing to comply.  Rewards?  Yes, for some hard workers, but certainly not for all.  Was it fair?  Hell no, but it's a religous fervor thing and hard to kill for that reason alone.  We may have finally recognized the idiocy of the practice -- at least in most spheres of the economy.  Apparently, High Tech is still slave territory, as are the most competitive parts of the law, medicine and consultancy.  Watching less produce more may alter even those, so hope springs from odd sources.  Perhaps just this once, the lowly working class will instruct "their betters" on being both productive and happy.

[David Horn]

(09-07-2021, 10:32 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(09-07-2021, 08:08 PM)sbarrera Wrote: Here is a link the memo, clearly a right-wing reaction to the "new left" of the Awakening.

https://law2.wlu.edu/deptimages/Powell%2...script.pdf

Golly isn’t it very obvious that the right wing won and for the most part continues to do so despite obvious flaws which the lid has come off of.

The left won the culture and the right won the economy -- at least that's the narrative that seems to dominate most discussions like this.  We may be on the brink of real change, but greed is hard to defeat when it has the kind of power it does today.

[beechnut79]

(09-08-2021, 09:30 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-07-2021, 10:32 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(09-07-2021, 08:08 PM)sbarrera Wrote: Here is a link the memo, clearly a right-wing reaction to the "new left" of the Awakening.

https://law2.wlu.edu/deptimages/Powell%2...script.pdf

Golly isn’t it very obvious that the right wing won and for the most part continues to do so despite obvious flaws which the lid has come off of.

The left won the culture and the right won the economy -- at least that's the narrative that seems to dominate most discussions like this.  We may be on the brink of real change, but greed is hard to defeat when it has the kind of power it does today.

I am not sure that the left really won the culture. If they did wouldn't we still be in the "free love" mindset?

[David Horn]

(09-08-2021, 12:18 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(09-08-2021, 09:30 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-07-2021, 10:32 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(09-07-2021, 08:08 PM)sbarrera Wrote: Here is a link the memo, clearly a right-wing reaction to the "new left" of the Awakening.

https://law2.wlu.edu/deptimages/Powell%2...script.pdf

Golly isn’t it very obvious that the right wing won and for the most part continues to do so despite obvious flaws which the lid has come off of.

The left won the culture and the right won the economy -- at least that's the narrative that seems to dominate most discussions like this.  We may be on the brink of real change, but greed is hard to defeat when it has the kind of power it does today.

I am not sure that the left really won the culture. If they did wouldn't we still be in the "free love" mindset?

I don't think it matters.  We're still open about sex, and comfortable with consenting sex of all types, assumiing the consenting are old enough to consent.  That sex is now a mundane enough issue that it has gotten boring (or at least not exciting) makes the point.  Nothing is nearly as tempting as the illicit.

[pbrower2a]

(09-08-2021, 09:27 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-07-2021, 10:42 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: I wonder if any of you see any significant correlation between the Powell Memo and the type of society which took hold a decade or so later. That's when, with the advent of the Yuppie culture, we became a decidedly workaholic culture which, I have pointed out many times, is the opposite of what many pundits expected with the advent of the technology most of us now kneel at the feet of. Are we trying to get a lot of work done before the solemnity of the 4T set in? This although the saecular drama was not exposed until the 90s. High tech version of "Make hay while the sun shines"?  Was it a case of the society feeling some sense of urgency in which work became like a God in many folks' minds?  Enthusiasm, passion, and possibly even overdoing it, were highlighted. Many apparently didn't seem to remember to come up for air even to this day as there are still so many with that mindset. That the to-do list never seems to end. And, while we're at it, does anyone think we will ever really see that society of increased leisure that was once all but promised?

Yes, we decided to put the Protestant work ethic on steroids, and punish those least willing to comply.  Rewards?  Yes, for some hard workers, but certainly not for all.  Was it fair?  Hell no, but it's a religious fervor thing and hard to kill for that reason alone.  We may have finally recognized the idiocy of the practice -- at least in most spheres of the economy.  Apparently, High Tech is still slave territory, as are the most competitive parts of the law, medicine and consultancy.  Watching less produce more may alter even those, so hope springs from odd sources.  Perhaps just this once, the lowly working class will instruct "their betters" on being both productive and happy.

The reward for hard work for the working class was bare survival. Say what you want about high technology, but the biggest sector of employment in California remains agriculture, a sector infamous for abysmal wages and limited opportunity. The dirty secret of the American economy is that agriculture remains the foundation because without it we would have sky-high food prices and would not meet the costs of importing so much of the "candy" at Best Buy and similar places. High Tech could pay well for a time in America, but American Big Business quickly farmed out the manufacturing overseas. 

The ethos of the neoliberal era is best described as cynically as I can describe my experience in the 1980's: 

"Suffer for my holy greed, you peon, and always show that big smile that shows how happy you are!"

I am reminded of old Cold War propaganda from school textbooks of the 1960's in which the Soviet economy was contrasted to ours by showing happy Americans and frowning Russians. Typical photographic images from the USSR and China were from winter, when winter coats that lacked individuality (they were similarly drab in a Michigan winter) that summer attire might have. OK, so Americans owned cars and houses if they had well-paying blue-collar jobs, as in the automobile and appliance industries. 

The objective of neoliberalism was to take as much of the rewards of work in for-profit industry from workers and transfer that to owners and executives. In part to that end, work was itself dumbed-down to require minimal skill, especially in retailing and food service activities that burgeoned. Work in such businesses, and one had better have well-off family members still in the middle class with whom to live. Those overbuilt "Little boxes, little boxes... and they're all made of ticky-tacky and they all look the same" that Malvina Reynolds reviled in the Boom Awakening turned out handy, did they not? 

Neoliberalism succeeded at ending stagflation. Get people to work without really paying those who do the bulk of the work but crack the whip in the workplace, and stagnant wages can ensure that any increases in productivity go to owners and executives. The Right pushed superstition such as young-earth creationism and such pseudohistory as the "providential" basis of American life -- that the Founding Fathers were in essence Fundamentalist Christians instead of the Deists that most were. Never mind that Fundamentalism was coined only as recently as 1926, a full 150 years after the American Declaration of Independence and was relatively new in the 1980's as a doctrine. 

The difference between early capitalists offering religion as an anodyne for exploitation (Pie in the Sky When You Die So Long as You Die) in "classical" Marxist thought and a mind-numbing mass low culture is the absence of any judgment on the hollowness of the offering. So the effect of glorious technology is that we have a highly-sophisticated "idiot screen" in front of which people who learn nothing from what they are watching except to participate in the consumer economy as designed (vegetate in front of the screen, eat horrid foodstuffs and drink sugary sodas or mass-market beer) and end up dying of heart attacks around age 50 that relate to obesity.   

Those "little boxes, little boxes" are often approaching the end of their expected "service lives", and so is the infrastructure built to support them. The American population except in rural areas with declining populations is growing faster than the housing stock, so housing costs can continue to skyrocket while the quality declines.  

So we have some big problems.

[beechnut79]

(09-08-2021, 01:02 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-08-2021, 12:18 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(09-08-2021, 09:30 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-07-2021, 10:32 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(09-07-2021, 08:08 PM)sbarrera Wrote: Here is a link the memo, clearly a right-wing reaction to the "new left" of the Awakening.

https://law2.wlu.edu/deptimages/Powell%2...script.pdf

Golly isn’t it very obvious that the right wing won and for the most part continues to do so despite obvious flaws which the lid has come off of.

The left won the culture and the right won the economy -- at least that's the narrative that seems to dominate most discussions like this.  We may be on the brink of real change, but greed is hard to defeat when it has the kind of power it does today.

I am not sure that the left really won the culture. If they did wouldn't we still be in the "free love" mindset?

I don't think it matters.  We're still open about sex, and comfortable with consenting sex of all types, assumiing the consenting are old enough to consent.  That sex is now a mundane enough issue that it has gotten boring (or at least not exciting) makes the point.  Nothing is nearly as tempting as the illicit.

Sorry but this does not apply when it comes to paid sex work. In fact authorities have been cracking down on this even more than the drug trade and violent urban street gangs. Government seems to have created an arranged marriage between sex work (the more politically correct term for a certain P word) and the despised element of human trafficking of the mostly underaged.  It has been brought up that there are many who do this type of work of their own free will but so far no local government outside of the lone state in the US where it is legal  in some parts has bitten the bullet. One of the sorry results has been an increase in the incidents of so called escort scammers who won't accept cash for any of their supposed services. This is the lowest hanging fruit trying to attract those who can't afford higher end escorts that tend to charge significant sums of money.

My main question is this: First, now that gambling is nearly everywhere and marijuana heading in the same direction, why hasn't the sex work domino fallen yet, and when might it happen? Doesn't the PTB realize that prohibition of this activity hasn't been any more successful than it was with liquor a century ago?

[pbrower2a]

That's supposed to read "pie in the sky when you die, but only if you comply".

[David Horn]

(09-11-2021, 01:14 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: My main question is this: First, now that gambling is nearly everywhere and marijuana heading in the same direction, why hasn't the sex work domino fallen yet, and when might it happen? Doesn't the PTB realize that prohibition of this activity hasn't been any more successful than it was with liquor a century ago?

Appaently, most of us need at least one bugaboo, and paid sex work seems to be the choice. Will that stand forever? No, but then again, it may not end soon either. Look how long it took to get cannabis off the list of Schedule 1 drugs -- even in the face of definitive knowledge that it's not suited to that category by any definition of the term. We need to kick the dog. The dog de jure is sex work.

[beechnut79]

Activity needs to be decriminalized and also destigmatized, yet controlled in a meaningful way. If police departments get defunded as so many are talking about, they won’t have the time or manpower to worry much about SWs. Will
concentrate on going after the super bad guys so create the majority of the mayhem.

[beechnut79]

Can we contain excessive corporate power? I would like to think that we can, but it seems as if we lack the political will to do so. Most Americans seem to have accepted what has now been the status quo for the better part of the past half century. A brief blip occurred a decade ago with the Occupy movement. And while it did promote greater awareness of the plight of those below the top few percent, little if anything in the way of political change resulted from it.

And corporate power seems to become more “in your face” as time has marched on as nearly every industry has experienced mass consolidation. The book indicated that political change in favor of greater equality occurs during a 4T but so far doesn’t seem to be happening.

[David Horn]

(10-03-2021, 09:01 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Can we contain excessive corporate power? I would like to think that we can, but it seems as if we lack the political will to do so. Most Americans seem to have accepted what has now been the status quo for the better part of the past half century. A brief blip occurred a decade ago with the Occupy movement. And while it did promote greater awareness of the plight of those below the top few percent, little if anything in the way of political change resulted from it.

And corporate power seems to become more “in your face” as time has marched on as nearly every industry has experienced mass consolidation. The book indicated that political change in favor of greater equality occurs during a 4T but so far doesn’t seem to be happening.

We're too fragmented to do much these days.  We'll be lucky just to get corporate taxation near a reasonable point ... and that's only one of many critical issues out there, and not the most important either.  We're in uncharted waters, and past practice may not be much help.

[Eric the Green]

(09-08-2021, 01:02 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-08-2021, 12:18 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(09-08-2021, 09:30 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-07-2021, 10:32 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(09-07-2021, 08:08 PM)sbarrera Wrote: Here is a link the memo, clearly a right-wing reaction to the "new left" of the Awakening.

https://law2.wlu.edu/deptimages/Powell%2...script.pdf

Golly isn’t it very obvious that the right wing won and for the most part continues to do so despite obvious flaws which the lid has come off of.

The left won the culture and the right won the economy -- at least that's the narrative that seems to dominate most discussions like this.  We may be on the brink of real change, but greed is hard to defeat when it has the kind of power it does today.

I am not sure that the left really won the culture. If they did wouldn't we still be in the "free love" mindset?

I don't think it matters.  We're still open about sex, and comfortable with consenting sex of all types, assumiing the consenting are old enough to consent.  That sex is now a mundane enough issue that it has gotten boring (or at least not exciting) makes the point.  Nothing is nearly as tempting as the illicit.

Sex is indeed on the way to becoming taboo again. I myself don't care much about sex workers and prostitution; if people resort to that service, it's the sign of worse underlying personal problems. The me-too movement and the excessive fear of sexual predation is closing off people from the value of sexual relationships. This is also the fault of those predators themselves who took sexual permissiveness as justification to pursue predatory male impulses left over from ancient history and patriarchy. So the problem comes from both sides; misconduct itself and the fear that causes over-reaction and excessive punishment and inhibition.

So the walls that came down in the sixties are being erected again. How far will this go? It's certainly confirms the saeculum cycle, and the views of the authors regarding trends between 4T and 2T. 

The larger problem is loneliness and alienation in general, aggravated by the pandemic recently. This is a problem created by our industrial and tech society, so it goes beyond our current 4T. Community breakdown has happened, and extended families have collapsed. Too much individualism has happened in free-market societies. Loneliness leads to frustration and aggravation of the impulses of frustrated males who take advantage of their power over women in the workplace and on the streets. Obviously, moving away from neoliberalism and other features of out-of-control capitalism and a trend toward rebuilding community is needed. I think further progress, begun in the sixties and now forgotten, will be made as the Awakening period returns again. 

I doubt much will change in the 4T on the personal levels, but if progress can be returned to our politics and our institutions, at least hope will return to our collective mindset, which would reduce the feelings of alienation and bring back a society with greater trust, and from that grows more permissiveness and breakdown of walls, and if greater awareness of our inhibitions and frustrations goes along with this, then perhaps some growth in society towards better relationships will happen.

Right now, it is Senators Sinema and Manchin who stand in the way of everything that we need.