The Triumph of Neo-Liberalism Began With the Powell Memo

In August 1971, U.S. capitalism was under withering criticism for its promotion of decadence, its role in fueiling racist imperialism and apartheid colonialism, its money-grubbing ethic and "plastic" values.  This criticism had reached somewhat of a consensus, with the media, campus-based protest, new consumer and environmental laws, all joining in a kind of cultural crescendo against the evils of corporate capitalism.

Into this counter-cultural maelstrom came Lewis F. Powell, Jr., an attorney from Richmond Va. who would later be nominated to the Supreme Court. Powell composed a memo for the US Chamber of Commerce that sought to return the market logic of capitalism back to the driver's seat it once occupied and to reverse what seemed to be a growing public embrace of collectivist ideals and anti-capitalist rhetoric. Powell's memo detailed a series of "avenues of action" that the chamber and the broader business community should take in response to this criticism.


To meet the challenge, Powell urged business leaders to marshal their considerable resources and social capital to more effectively influence institutions of public opinion and as lobbying tools to wield political power more effectively.  Corporations had to reshape the political debate by organizing speakers' bureaus and, most importantly, by creating new think tanks to formulate intellectual and philosophical ideas to shape the debate that ultimately results in policy.


In other words, Powell urged free-market conservatives to engage in what some now deride as the paralysis of analysis.  Powell's memo was enormously influential and is considered by many theorists to be a turning point in American civil discourse.  From 1970 to 2000, there was an increase from fewer than 70 to more than 300 think tanks, with two thirds of the new ones being conservative in orientation, according to Andrew Rich, author of the Think Tanks, Public Policy and the Politics of Expertise." And the others were mostly centrist or vaguely progressive. We see the effect of this in the triumph of neo-liberal, market fundamentalism and in the absence of any compelling alternative.


I contend that much of the progressive movement is paralyzed precisely because of the lack of analysis. There is no compelling ideological alternative to the notion that profit is supreme, to the logic of the marketplace.  Thus, the momentum to privatize America's public institutions grows ever stronger. There might now be vibrant alternative strategies to the private-market, neo-liberalism embraced both by Democrats and Republicans had progressives also followed Powell's advice to be more analytical and tie down some ideological fine points.


Even progressive goals like universal health care, reducing our carbon "footprint" and educational equity are addressed through market solutions like the Affordable Health Care Act, "Cap-n-Trade" carbon policies and the dismal "race to the top" educational model that effectively undercuts the possibility of educational equity.  Even if President Obama had progressive intentions (and it's possible he once may have), our political discourse lacks the vocabulary to plausibly translate those intentions into policy.


So, the next time you hear someone complaining about the "paralysis of analysis," compliment them on their rhyme scheme, or perhaps on their knowledge of Dr. Martin L. King's history (King is reputed to have used this rhyming phrase to goad his staff into action).  But just remind them that we've long been paralyzed by somebody else's analysis.