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"At this crucial moment in American history, when voting rights could be expanded to include all citizens, or legislatively limited, this significantly updated edition of Who Rules America? shows precisely how the top .05% of the population, who own 43% of all financial wealth, and receive 20% of the nation's yearly income, dominate governmental decision-making. They have created a corporate community and a policy-planning network, made up of foundations think-tanks, and policy-discussion groups, to develop the polices that become law. Through a leadership group called the power elite, the corporate rich provide campaign donations and other gifts and favors to elected officials, serve on federal advisory committees, and receive appointments to key positions in government, all of which make it possible for the corporate rich and the power elite to rule the country, despite constant challenges from the inclusionary alliance and from the Democratic Party. The book explains the role of both benign and dark attempts to influence public opinion, the machinations of the climate-denial network, and how the Supreme Court came to have an ultraconservative majority, who serve as a backstop for the corporate community as well as a legitimator of restrictions on voting rights, union rights, and abortion rights, by ruling that individual states have the power to set such limits. Despite all this highly concentrated power, it will be the other 99.5%, not the top 0.5, who will decide the fate of the United States in the 2020s on all the important issues"--

Setting the stage, providing context -- Introduction situating who rules America? : within debates on power / G. William Domhoff -- Who rules America? : through seven editions and 50 years : still more accurate than alternative power theories / G. William Domhoff -- Larger perspectives and research agendas -- Domhoff, mills and slow power / Robert J.S. Ross -- The life and times of who rules America? : and the future of power structure research / Richard Lachmann and Michael Schwartz -- Institutions, policy-planning networks, and who rules America? / John L. Campbell -- The policy-planning network in action -- The policy-planning network, class dominance, and the challenge to political science / Joseph G. Peschek -- Who rules America? : and the policy-formation network : the case of venture philanthropy / Beth Mintz -- Corporate interests and US foreign policy / Ronald W. Cox -- The power elite and their opponents -- Who challenges the power elite? : labor factions in 20th century America / Daniel Schneider and Judith Stepan-Norris -- Who rules the roost? the poultry elite and their adversaries / Kathleen C. Schwartzman -- "Fairness" in presidential economic policy : disagreements among upper class elites and the liberal-labor coalition clarence / Y. H. Lo.

"This volume presents a network of social power, indicating that theories inspired by C.Wright Mills are far more accurate views about power in America than those of Mills's opponents.Dr. Domhoff shows how and why coalitions within the power elite have involved themselves in such policy issues as the Social Security Act (1935) and the Employment Act (1946), and how the National Labor Relations Act (1935) could pass against the opposition of every major corporation. The book descri bes how experts worked closely with the power elite in shaping the plansfor a post-World War II world economic order, in good part realized during the past 30 years. Arguments are advanced that the fat cats who support the Democrats cannot be understood in terms of narrow self-interest, and that moderate conservatives dominated policy-making under Reagan."--Provided by publisher.

ch. 1. Demonstrating corporate dominance -- ch. 2. The rise and sudden decline of the liberal-labor alliance, 1934-1938 -- ch. 3. Leadership for corporate moderates : 1939-1945 -- ch. 4. The postwar years and the Truman administration -- ch. 5. Corporate moderate frustrations : the Eisenhower years -- ch. 6. Corporate moderate successes in the Kennedy years -- ch. 7. Corporate moderation and more success : the Johnson years -- ch. 8. New sources of conflict between corporations and unions -- ch. 9. Corporate policy success and economic failure in the first Nixon administration -- ch. 10. The rise of the business roundtable and tension within CED, 1973-1976 -- ch. 11. Corporate triumphs during the Carter administration -- ch. 12. The Reagan culmination, 1981-1984 -- ch. 13. The road to the great recession.

The what-if Nader campaign of 2000 -- Why egalitarians should transform the Democratic party -- More equality through the market system -- Social movements and strategic nonviolence -- Redefining who's us and who's them -- Keeping leaders accountable -- A new foreign policy and a new stance on religion -- Stop blaming the media -- Making the future yours