Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking Of America: A Modern History, Andersen - Inc.

      This book "chronicles the quite deliberate reengineering of our economy and society since the 1960's by a highly rational confederacy of the rich, the right, and big business." The fair and democratic America that came about in WWII "slowed, stopped, and reversed" in the 1980's. Reaganism promised a nostalgic return to Bedford Falls and delivered Pottersville. 

     For hundreds of years, everything about our society focused on "making America perpetually new." By 1970, the perpetually growing economy fed by productivity enhancements had struck a reasonable balance between capital and labor. However cultural nostalgia in the 1970's began a pushback against the rapid fire changes of the 1960's, which were highlighted by civil rights, female emancipation, increasing crime, birth control, Medicare, immigration reform and voting rights legislation. America began to not just celebrate the past, but to "restore and reproduce" it. Hollywood led the way and intellectually, Milton Friedman provided business with a rationale. Profits above all else and end to governmental interference, which he labeled statism, became the mantra.  Former ABA president Lewis Powell articulated the necessity of counter-attacking, particularly in the courts, those criticizing and tearing down the capitalist system. The Powell memo was enthusiastically read and embraced by many, including Charles Koch and Richard Scaife Mellon. They began funding the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover and  the Heritage Foundations. They further weaponized capitalism with right-wing legal foundations, PACs, the Business Roundtable and extensive lobbying for business and against government and taxation. Between Watergate, defeat in Vietnam, inflation and skyrocketing oil prices, the government was extremely out of favor and taxes became a bugaboo. The man able to sell this new era to the country was Ronald Reagan, who among other things was a very nice guy, and carried just enough focus on individualism to appeal to baby boomers along with older conservatives. 

     I decided to bail on this book about a third of the way through. I completely agree with the premise that something has gone completely off the rails with the massive degree of today's income inequality. But the author is not thorough enough for my standards. One should not discuss the 1980's without mentioning that the national debt tripled under Reagan. A discussion of tax cuts that mentions only the percentage decline in marginal rates without discussing the overall total taxes collected is inaccurate. And a significant impact on the overall topic has been globalization (see Japan's automotive assault on Detroit). I'm not sure he addresses the impact of technology either, but I did bail early.