One Percent Solution

Gordon Lafer

Description

In the aftermath of the 2010 Citizens United decision, it's become commonplace to note the growing political dominance of a small segment of the economic elite. But what exactly are those members of the elite doing with their newfound influence? The One Percent Solution provides an answer to this question for the first time. Gordon Lafer's book is a comprehensive account of legislation promoted by the nation's biggest corporate lobbies across all fifty state legislatures and encompassing a wide range of labor and economic policies.In an era of growing economic insecurity, it turns out that one of the main reasons life is becoming harder for American workers is a relentless-and concerted-offensive by the country's best-funded and most powerful political forces: corporate lobbies empowered by the Supreme Court to influence legislative outcomes with an endless supply of cash. These actors have successfully championed hundreds of new laws that lower wages, eliminate paid sick leave, undo the right to sue over job discrimination, and cut essential public services.Lafer shows how corporate strategies have been shaped by twenty-first-century conditions-including globalization, economic decline, and the populism reflected in both the Trump and Sanders campaigns of 2016. Perhaps most important, Lafer shows that the corporate legislative agenda has come to endanger the scope of democracy itself. For anyone who wants to know what to expect from corporate-backed Republican leadership in Washington, D.C., there is no better guide than this record of what the same set of actors has been doing in the state legislatures under its control.

Sujets

• Region
• Administrative division
• Regional

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 04 avril 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501708183
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

THEONEPERCENT SOLUTION

THEONE PERCENT SOLUTION HowCorporationsAreRemaking America One State at a Time

ILRPRESS ANIMPRINTOF CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACAANDLONDON

GordonLafer

Copyright © 2017 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2017 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Names: Lafer, Gordon, author. Title: The one percent solution : how corporations are remaking America one state  at a time / Gordon Lafer. Description: Ithaca : ILR Press, an imprint of Cornell University Press, 2017. |  Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016046219 (print) | LCCN 2016046747 (ebook) |  ISBN 9781501703065 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501708176 (ret) |  ISBN 9781501708183 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Corporate power—United States. | Corporations—Political  aspects—United States. | Business and politics—United States. | Business and  education—United States. | Labor policy—United States. | Labor unions—United  States. Classification: LCC JK467 .L34 2017 (print) | LCC JK467 (ebook) | DDC 330.973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046219

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Cover design by David Drummond.

For Merav

AndinmemoryofTaliaRanitGoldenbergל’ז

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction:ACorporatePolitical Agenda for the TwentyFirst Century 1. Wisconsin and Beyond: Dismantling the Government 2. Deunionizing the Private Sector 3. Remaking the Nonunion Economy 4. The Destruction of Public Schooling 5. Silencing Labor’s Voice: The Campaign to Remove Unions from Politics Conclusion:PopulistPushbackandthe Shrinking of Democracy

Notes Index

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Acknowledgments

Thisbookistheproductoffiveyearsofresearchandwriting,preparingleg islative testimony, briefing lawmakers, and trying to make sense of the flood of corporatebacked legislation that hit the country starting in early 2011. As longdormant policies like “righttowork” were suddenly revived and radical new policies gained currency, economists in a wide range of think tanks and universities scrambled to assess the claims put forth by corporate lobbyists. Every chapter of this book relies, in part, on the expertise that others have brought to bear on these issues. I am particularly indebted to the work of Sylvia Allegretto, Dean Baker, Dale Belman, Donald Cohen, Lee Cokorinos, Laura Dresser, Peter Fisher, Matt Gardner, Amy Hanauer, Ken Jacobs, Jeff Keefe, Mark Levinson, David Madland, Peter Philips, Steven Pitts, and Joel Rogers. Someofthemostimportantworkavailabletoscholarsofthisperiodhasbeen done by investigative journalists. Like everyone in this field, I owe a debt to Jane Mayer, Lee Fang, and the Center for Media and Democracy for their pathbreak ing work in bringing to light the operations of ALEC and the Koch network. IhittheacademicjackpotwhenAdolphReedagreedtobemyPhDadviser many years ago, and he has remained a guiding light throughout this project. I have also been fortunate to benefit from the work and wisdom of academic col leagues in Oregon and beyond, including Eve Weinbaum, Janice Fine, Frances Fox Piven, Corey Robin, Michael Yates, John Logan, Stephanie Luce, Ruth Milk man, Gerry Berk, Margaret Hallock, Dan Tichenor, Joe Lowndes, Priscilla Yamin, Marty Wolfson, Glen Perusek, Rosemary Batt, and Tamara Kay. AlexMolnar,BobPeterson,andBarbaraMinerwereparticularlygenerous with their time and helpful in enabling me to understand the extensive scholar ship and long history of education reform. AboveallIamindebtedtotheEconomicPolicyInstitute,whosesupport made the research for this book possible. I have relied on EPI’s work for decades, but during the research and writing of this book, I benefited much more directly from conversation, criticism, and collaboration with the institute’s staff. Through EPI, I published a series of reports on topics included in this book, and the book would not have been written without the institute’s support for those projects. I’m particularly grateful to Larry Mishel, Ross Eisenbrey, Heidi Shierholz, Elise Gould, Josh Bivens, Doug Hall, Alyssa Davis, Liz Rose, Mary Gable, and Lora Engdahl for their contributions to that work.

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