Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book demonstrates exactly how the corporate rich (the owners and managers of large incorporated properties) developed the policies and created the governmental structures that allowed them to dominate the United States in the twentieth century. Domination by the corporate rich was the institutionalized outcome of their great economic and political power. The book focuses on three policy issues that made overall domination possible: successfully resisting unions, initiating and then limiting government social programs, and creating a postwar international trading and investment system. The corporate rich maintained their domination through a leadership group called “the power elite.” The book explains the various new findings on the minor role of public opinion on the basis of the strong influence of the corporate rich and the Southern rich in Congress through voting coalitions.