Just finished reading, "Invisble Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement From FDR to Reagan."

[Ardent15]

By Kim Phillips-Fein.

Fascinating read. One thing that really struck me was how the business conservatives who have funded the conservative movement are still stuck in the 1920s; they have an idealistic view of how capitalism and authority and morality work. The New Deal, the Fair Deal, the Great Society, and any type of government regulation is simply evil to them. They have been brainwashed by their own propaganda (and have brainwashed others) into this social authoritarian/economic libertarian view of the world.

[Nikki Stone1]

1. Excerpts?

Thanks.

[Ardent15]

4. Sure

About a speech George H. W. Bush gave in Boston in 1978:

"Bush's speech to the business meeting emphasized the disturbing expansion of federal government in the 1970s."Less than 50 years ago, Calvin Coolidge could say that the business of America is business," he noted. "Today, the business of America seems to be the regulation of business."

To address the problem, Bush insisted, businessmen needed to do more to help elect politicians "whose natural inclination is to reduce government." He hoped that in the fall midterm elections, corporations would strive to "change control of the Congress, one or the other of the houses." Nor should they stop there. They needed to move heaven and earth to "change control of the White House in the next election."

[Shallah Kali]

7. Excerpts on books.google.com - linkity link

http://books.google.com/books?id=CcU7z9jLqXcC

[subcomhd]

2. Author?

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Kim Phillips-Fein

Google is your friend

:-)

[subcomhd]

5. i know, but if you recomend a book don't make me do research - right away

nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. I am not the OP

but when I am really interested I do the google. Hell, it is not available on Kindle so I asked that it put in Kindle

[pnorman]

8. From Publishers Weekly (from Amazon.com)

Starred Review. Looking beyond the usual roster of right-wing Christians, anticommunist neo-cons and disgruntled working-class whites, this incisive study examines the unsung role of a political movement of businessmen in leading America's post-1960s rightward turn. Historian Phillips-Fein traces the hidden history of the Reagan revolution to a coterie of business executives, including General Electric official and Reagan mentor Lemuel Boulware, who saw labor unions, government regulation, high taxes and welfare spending as dire threats to their profits and power. From the 1930s onward, the author argues, they provided the money, organization and fervor for a decades-long war against New Deal liberalism—funding campaigns, think tanks, magazines and lobbying groups, and indoctrinating employees in the virtues of unfettered capitalism. Theirs was also a battle of ideas, she contends; the business vanguard nurtured conservative thinkers like economist Friedrich von Hayek and his secretive Mont Pellerin Society associates, who developed a populist free-market ideology that persuaded workers to side with their bosses against the liberal state. Combining piquant profiles of corporate firebrands with a trenchant historical analysis that puts economic conflict at the heart of political change, Phillips-Fein makes an important contribution to our understanding of American conservatism. Photos. (Jan.)

http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Making-Conservative-Movement/dp/0393059308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253523059&sr=1-1

I see that it's also available at Audible.com, so it's now in that Shopping Cart. Thanks for the lead!

pnorman
On edit: Here's a HuffPost article by that author: "Fighting the New Deal All Over Again"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-phillipsfein/fighting-the-new-deal-all_b_166812.html