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"A book of enormous import ... a wealth of evidence to demonstrate the extent to which the American business community sought to discredit New Deal liberalism and undermine the power and legitimacy of organized labor." -- Business History Review
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51 of 52 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A wonderful and well researched study of the origins of corporate power in America. It began with the Big Business reaction towards the gains made by the American labor movement in the 30s with the FLSA. That reaction was embodied in the most anti-labor law passed in the history of America, the 1947 Taft/Hartley Law. This is a must read for all labor activists out there. The book goes into the strategies and propaganda used then to sway the American people against organized labor. Many of the strategies of the past are still used today by American Business and this book will help you recognize them, answer them and effectively rebut them.
45 of 46 people found the following review helpful
By Ken McCarthy
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book was recently strongly endorsed by Noam Chomsky and for good reason. There is an extreme scarcity of books that address the mechanics of propaganda in the US. For people interested in the details of how the US became the most propagandized society on earth, this book is an invaluable resource.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By R. L. Huff
Format:Paperback
I agree with reviewer Wood that the writing is rather dense, but this is an indispensible take on mid 20th-century capitalist culture clawing its way back to post-war prominence. That Ronald Reagan played his role as spokesman for the Restoration, and became its symbol of victory, underscores the continuity of this long, bitter class struggle.
We see here the true reasons for McCarthyism: just as Stalin's blood purges used fascism as excuse, so did the US business world misuse Communism in their muted civil war to reclaim Washington and city hall, the universities and mass media. Ms. Fones-Wolf raises an important point that "business humanism" - as well as name-calling and repression - was instrumental in rivaling unions for worker loyalty, and neutralizing community attitudes. Yet I see another equally vital reason for the decline of unionism at this time: the rise of the suburb, sundering the urban working class community that made mass strike action viable. The suburban worker, rising to fight his way through rush hour traffic, surrounded by neighbors with totally different occupations and life histories, became an atomized cipher in the postwar world and thus powerless to meaningfully affect it. (Hence the rise of "postal rage" as ersatz outlet.) The anomie of the modern citizen of the "Western democracies" seems to have been consciously created by elites, to beat back their all-too-brief scare between the Depression and WW II.
This led to the alienation between liberalism and labor. Fones-Wolf touches on the origins of this split: its working class base eroding, liberalism turned to the civil rights movement; "culture issues" became the linchpin of intellectual progressivism.... Read more ›
We see here the true reasons for McCarthyism: just as Stalin's blood purges used fascism as excuse, so did the US business world misuse Communism in their muted civil war to reclaim Washington and city hall, the universities and mass media. Ms. Fones-Wolf raises an important point that "business humanism" - as well as name-calling and repression - was instrumental in rivaling unions for worker loyalty, and neutralizing community attitudes. Yet I see another equally vital reason for the decline of unionism at this time: the rise of the suburb, sundering the urban working class community that made mass strike action viable. The suburban worker, rising to fight his way through rush hour traffic, surrounded by neighbors with totally different occupations and life histories, became an atomized cipher in the postwar world and thus powerless to meaningfully affect it. (Hence the rise of "postal rage" as ersatz outlet.) The anomie of the modern citizen of the "Western democracies" seems to have been consciously created by elites, to beat back their all-too-brief scare between the Depression and WW II.
This led to the alienation between liberalism and labor. Fones-Wolf touches on the origins of this split: its working class base eroding, liberalism turned to the civil rights movement; "culture issues" became the linchpin of intellectual progressivism.... Read more ›
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Rich Barber
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a great book. The Business Class in America will stop at nothing when it comes to the war on America's workers. Turn on the radio today and you can hear the same BS right wing propaganda from 50 years ago. Americans need to wake up.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By S Wood
Format:Paperback
Elizabeth Fones-Wolf 1996 publication "Selling Free Enterprise" is a comprehensive look at the efforts of the business community, between 1945 and 1960, to marginalise organised labour and retard any further development of the progressive politics that gained ground during the period from the 1930's Depression through to the end of the war.
The result is a dense well sourced book that details the conflict, primarily between organised labour and the business associations, over the United States political-economic development. Other protaganists include religious organisations and the media who were to varying degrees subverted by the business community as part of their efforts to turn their "free enterprise" credo into the common wisdom that constrains debate and decisions about political-economic life in the United States. Organised Labour and others efforts to defend and extend the gains of the New Deal era are examined closely, and the author doesn't shy away from identifying those defeats that were far from inevitable, despite the cards stacked against them.
On the downside some may find Fones-Wolf's prose more than a little dry, certainly it is not a racy read, but she is nothing if not thorough end-notes to each chapter testify. On the context within which the events examined occurred, such as the first third of the Cold War and the period of political repression known as McCarthyism, Fones-Wolf is perhaps not as thorough as she might have been. Certainly the phenomena of McCarthyism during her period, and its role in creating a congenial environment for the advancing of businesses agenda, deserves a chapter in itself.... Read more ›
The result is a dense well sourced book that details the conflict, primarily between organised labour and the business associations, over the United States political-economic development. Other protaganists include religious organisations and the media who were to varying degrees subverted by the business community as part of their efforts to turn their "free enterprise" credo into the common wisdom that constrains debate and decisions about political-economic life in the United States. Organised Labour and others efforts to defend and extend the gains of the New Deal era are examined closely, and the author doesn't shy away from identifying those defeats that were far from inevitable, despite the cards stacked against them.
On the downside some may find Fones-Wolf's prose more than a little dry, certainly it is not a racy read, but she is nothing if not thorough end-notes to each chapter testify. On the context within which the events examined occurred, such as the first third of the Cold War and the period of political repression known as McCarthyism, Fones-Wolf is perhaps not as thorough as she might have been. Certainly the phenomena of McCarthyism during her period, and its role in creating a congenial environment for the advancing of businesses agenda, deserves a chapter in itself.... Read more ›
5 of 126 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This book attempts to prove what everyone already knows. Fones Wolf proves she has no depth and no real understanding of Twentieth century cultural and intellectual history. Her book is pitched toward the lamest of knee jerk liberals.
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 75
books:
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51
books
cite this book:
See all 51 books citing this book
- American Labor on 5 pages
- Workers in Industrial America: Essays on the Twentieth Century Struggle by David Brody on 5 pages
- American Workers, American Unions: The Twentieth Century (The American Moment) by Robert H. Zieger on 4 pages
- The Social Responsibilities of Business: Company and Community, 1900-1960 by Morrell Heald on page 183, page 184, and page 212
- Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945-1948 by Robert J. Donovan on page 57, page 59, and page 62
See all 75 books this book cites
- Framed!: Labor and the Corporate Media (ILR Press books) by Christopher R. Martin on 5 pages
- Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America by Ellen Schrecker in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs by Noam Chomsky in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 51 books citing this book
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