Further, Powell suggested that the business community promote speakers on campuses and lecture tours "who appeared in support of the American system of government and business." While explaining that student groups and faculty would not likely be willing to give the podium over to the Chamber of Commerce or business leaders to espouse their ideology, the Chamber must "aggressively insist" on being heard, demanding "equal time," as this would be an effective strategy because "university administrators and the great majority of student groups and committees would not welcome being put in the position publicly of refusing a forum to diverse views." The two main ingredients for this program, Powell explained, was first, "to have attractive, articulate and well-informed speakers," and second, "to exert whatever degree of pressure -- publicly and privately -- may be necessary to assure opportunities to speak." The objective, Powell wrote, "always must be to inform and enlighten, and not merely to propagandize."[18]
The biggest problem on campuses, however, was the need to "balance" faculties, meaning simply that the business world must work to implant spokespeople and apologists for the economic and financial elite into the faculties. The need to "correct" this imbalance, wrote Powell, "is indeed a long-range and difficult project," which "should be undertaken as a part of an overall program," including the application of pressure "for faculty balance upon university administrators and boards of trustees." Powell acknowledged that such an effort is a delicate and potentially dangerous process, requiring "careful thought," as "improper pressure would be counterproductive." Focusing on the rhetoric of balance, fairness, and "truth' would create a method "difficult to resist, if properly presented to the board of trustees." Of course, the whole counter-attack of the business world should not simply be addressed to university education, but, as Powell suggested, also "tailored to the high schools."[19]
As Powell had addressed the "attack" from -- and proposed the "counterattack" on -- the educational system by the corporate and financial elite, he then suggested that while this was a more long-term strategy, in the short term it would be necessary to address the public in the short-term. To do so:
The first essential is to establish the staffs of eminent scholars, writers and speakers, who will do the thinking, the analysis, the writing and the speaking. It will also be essential to have staff personnel who are thoroughly familiar with the media, and how most effectively to communicate with the public.[20]
The means of communicating with the public include using television. Powell recommended monitoring television in the same way that they monitor textbooks, with an aim to keep the media under "constant surveillance" for criticism of the enterprise system, which, Powell assumed, was derived from one of two sources: "hostility or economic ignorance." It is simply assumed that the critiques of business and the "system' are unjustified, derived from a misplaced hatred of society or from ignorance. This point of view is consistently regurgitated throughout the entire memo. To more properly "correct" the media, Powell suggested that surveillance would then prompt complaints to both the media and the Federal Communications Commission, and just as in university speaking tours, "equal time [for business spokespeople] should be demanded," especially on "forum-type programs" like Meet the Press or the Today Show. Of course, the radio and print press were also to be monitored and "corrected."[21]
The "faculty of scholars" established by the Chamber of Commerce or other business groups must publish, especially scholarly articles, as such tactics have been effective in the "attack" on the enterprise system. Thus, these "independent scholars" must publish in popular magazines (such as Life, Reader's Digest, etc.), intellectual magazines (such as the Atlantic, Harper's, etc.) and the professional journals. Furthermore, they must publish books, paperbacks and pamphlets promoting "our side" to "educate the public." Paid advertising must also increasingly be used to "support the system."[22]
Powell then turned his attention to the political arena, beginning with the base assumption that the idea of big business controlling Western governments is mere "Marxist doctrine" and "leftist propaganda," which, Powell sadly reports, "has a wide public following among Americans." He immediately thereafter asserted that, "every business executive knows" few elements of American society today have as little influence in government as the American businessman, the corporation, or even the millions of corporate stockholders." Powell amazingly claimed that in terms of government influence, the poor unfortunate American businessman and corporate executive is "the forgotten man."[23]
Forget the poor, black, and disenfranchised segments of society; forget the disabled, the labeled, and the imprisoned; forget those on welfare, food stamps, dependent upon social services or local charity; forget the entire population of the United States, who can only incite government recognition and support after years of struggle, constant protests, police repression, assault, curtailment of basic human rights and dignity; those struggles which seek only the attainment of a genuine status of human being, to be treated equal and fair" no, forget those people! The true "forgotten" and "oppressed" are the executives at Union Carbide, Exxon, General Electric, GM, Ford, DuPont, Dow, Chase Manhattan, Bank of America, and Monsanto. They, truly, are the disenfranchised" At least, according to Lewis Powell.
For Powell, education and public propaganda campaigns are necessary, but the poor disenfranchised American corporate executive must realize that "political power is necessary," and that such power must be "used aggressively and with determination -- without embarrassment and without the reluctance which has been so characteristic of American business." Further, it is not merely in the legislative and executive branches of government where business leaders must seize power "aggressively," but also in the judicial branch -- the courts -- which "may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change." Charging that both "liberals" and the "far left" have been "exploiters of the judicial system" -- such as the American Civil Liberties Union, labor unions and civil rights organizations -- business groups such as the Chamber of Commerce would need to establish "a highly competent staff of lawyers" to exploit the judiciary for their own benefit.[24] Powell went on to play a very important role in this process as he was appointed to the Supreme Court almost immediately after having authored this memo, where he made many important decisions regarding "corporate rights."
In advocating aggression in pushing their own interests, Powell encouraged the business community "to attack the [Ralph] Naders, the [Herbert] Marcuses and other who openly seek destruction of the system," as well as "to penalize politically those who oppose it." The "threat to the enterprise system" must not be merely presented as an economic issue, but should be portrayed as "a threat to individual freedom," which Powell described as a "great truth" which "must be re-affirmed if this program is to be meaningful." Thus, the "only alternatives to free enterprise" are to be presented as "varying degrees of bureaucratic regulation of individual freedom -- ranging from that under moderate socialism to the iron heel of the leftist or rightist dictatorship." The aim was to tie the average American's own individual conception of their personal freedom and rights to that of corporations and business leaders. Thus, contended Powell, "the contraction and denial of economic freedom is followed inevitably by governmental restrictions on other cherished rights." This is the precise message, Powell explained, "above all others, that must be carried home to the American people."[25] So, by this logic, if today Monsanto and Dow are regulated, tomorrow, your Mom and Dad will be in a dictatorship.
The New Right: Neoliberalism and Education
The Powell Memo is largely credited with being a type of "Constitution' or "founding document' for the emergence of the right-wing think tanks in the 1970s and 1980s, as per its recommendations for establishing "a staff of highly qualified scholars in the social sciences who do believe in the system." In 1973, a mere two years after the memo was written, the Heritage Foundation was founded as an "aggressive and openly ideological expert organization," which became highly influential in the Reagan administration.[26]
The Heritage Foundation's website explains that the think tank's mission "is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense." Upon its founding in 1973, the Heritage Foundation began to "deliver compelling and persuasive research to Congress providing facts, data, and sound arguments on behalf of conservative principles." In 1977, Ed Feulner became President of the foundation and established "a new senior management staff" and a "resource bank' in order "to take on the liberal establishment and forge a national network of conservative policy groups and experts," ultimately totaling more than 2,200 "policy experts" and 475 "policy groups" in the U.S. and elsewhere. In 1980, Heritage published a "public policy blueprint" entitled, "Mandate for Leadership," which became "the policy bible of the newly elected Reagan administration on everything from taxes and regulation to crime and national defense." In 1987, Heritage published another policy plan, "Out of the Poverty Trap: A Conservative Strategy for Welfare Reform," which, as their website boastfully claimed, "changed the entitlement mentality in America, moving thousands off the dole [welfare] and toward personal responsibility," or, in other words, deeper poverty.[27]
The model of the Heritage Foundation led to the rapid proliferation of conservative think tanks, from 70 to over 300 in over 30 years, which "often work together to create multi-issue networks on the local, state, and federal level and use mainstream and alternative media to promote conservative agendas." The ultimate objective, like with all think tanks and foundations, is "spreading ideology."[28]
The Cato Institute is another conservative -- or "libertarian" -- think tank, as it describes itself. Founded in 1974 as the Charles Koch Foundation by Charles Koch (one of America's richest billionaires and major financier of the Tea Party movement), as well as Ed Crane and Murray Rothbard. By 1977, it had changed its name to the Cato Institute, after "Cato's Letters," a series of essays by two British writers in the 18th century under the pseudonym of Cato, who was a Roman Senator strongly opposed to democracy, and had fought against the slave uprising led by Spartacus. He was idolized in the Enlightenment period as a progenitor and protector of liberty (for the few), which was reflected in the ideology of the Founding Fathers of the United States, particularly Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, for which the Cato Institute credits as the reasoning for the re-naming. While Enlightenment thought and thinkers are idolized -- most especially in the formation of the U.S. Constitution -- as advocates of liberty, freedom and individual rights, it was the "right' of "private property' and those who owned property (which, at the time, included slave owners) as the ultimate sacrosanct form of "liberty." Again, a distinctly elitist conception of democracy referred to as "Republicanism.'
These right-wing think tanks helped bring in the era of neo-liberalism, bringing together "scholars" who support the so-called "free market" system (itself, a mythical fallacy), and who deride and oppose all forms of social welfare and social support. The think tanks produced the research and work which supported the dominance of the banks and corporations over society, and the members of the think tanks had their voices heard through the media, in government, and in the universities. They facilitated the ideological shift in power and policy circles toward neoliberalism.
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