Most people believe that large corporations wield enormous political power when they lobby for policies as a cohesive bloc. With this controversial book, Mark A. Smith sets conventional wisdom on its head. In a systematic analysis of postwar lawmaking, Smith reveals that business loses in legislative battles unless it has public backing. This surprising conclusion holds because the types of issues that lead businesses to band together—such as tax rates, air pollution, and product liability—also receive the most media attention. The ensuing debates give citizens the information they need to hold their representatives accountable and make elections a choice between contrasting policy programs.Rather than succumbing to corporate America, Smith argues, representatives paradoxically become more responsive to their constituents when facing a united corporate front. Corporations gain the most influence over legislation when they work with organizations such as think tanks to shape Americans' beliefs about what government should and should not do. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Going all the way back to the time of George Washington, much of what we see and hear in the political world consists of lies and deceptions. Despite assurances to the contrary, politics is not about truth, justice, and principle...read more

Product Description: When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke in April 2004, many American commentators expressed shock. But, as The Progressive’s Anne-Marie Cusac observed, “Abu Ghraib shock[s] us because our soldiers abroad seem to have acted out behaviors that we condone, yet don’t face up to, at home...read more

Examines different points of view in the debate over wealth in America, covering such issues as the tax system, the power of corporations, income inequality, and Wall Street stock manipulation.

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Product Description: Taking a close look at the dense fabric that our government weaves between war, state power, and economics, this collection of essays reveals the growing authority—and corruption—of the American state. Covering topics from the Lyndon Johnson presidency to the provocatively titled article “Military-Economic Fascism” on the military-industrial-congressional complex, it argues that the U...read more

Product Description: An investigation of the extent to which women, Jews, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and openly homosexual men and women have attained significant positions in large corporations, the military and the government in recent years.

This book looks systematically at the extent to which Jews, women, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and gay men and lesbians have entered the higher circles of power that constituted what sociologist C. Wright Mills called 'the power elite.' Using a deft combination of academic research and telling anecdotes, the book examines the backgrounds and careers of such well-known members of the power elite as attorney general Alberto Gonzales, secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, former secretary of state Colin Powell, and former C.E.O. of Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina to explain why and how the power elite has diversified and the effect this diversification has had on the way power works in the United States.

Product Description: Throughout the world, politicians are dismantling state enterprises and heaping praise on private markets, while in the United States a new rhetoric of "citizen empowerment" links a widespread distrust of government to decentralization and privatization...read more

Host of the long-running PBS program, Tony Brown's Journal, the author of Black Lies, White Lies presents a bold, populist program designed to transfer wealth and power from America's ruling class to its citizens. 75,000 first printing. Tour. (view table of contents)

The host of the long-running PBS program, Tony Brown's Journal, and the author of Black Lies, White Lies presents a bold, populist program designed to transfer wealth and power from America's ruling class to its citizens. Reprint.

Product Description: Why does inequality have such a hold on American society and public policy? And what can we, as citizens, do about it? Inequality in America takes an in-depth look at individual-level and systemic inequality, focusing in particular on race, poverty, and gender, across a wide range of issues from housing and education to crime, employment and health...read more

Arguing for a more compassionate feminism, the author challenges the currently popular myth of the 'killer woman' who apes male aggressiveness to succeed. (view table of contents)

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