The Corporate Elite, the New Conservative Policy Network, and Reaganomics
- 1 May 1989
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Critical Sociology
- Vol. 16 (2-3) , 121-144
- https://doi.org/10.1177/089692058901600207
Abstract
Recent analysts have traced the rise of Reaganomics to the rise of cowboy capitalists and to a "right turn" of the corporate elite. We provide a policy history of the formulation of the Reaganomics program and its insertion into the national political agenda, showing that it stemmed from policy-planning efforts of a new conservative network of policy organizations. During the 1970s, this conservative network synthesized fiscal conservatism, monetarism, and supply-side economics into a new economic program of austerity and supply-side tax incentives. We then provide an elite analysis of the structure of this policy network, showing that the inner circle and upper tier of the capitalist class supported the austerity camp as well as the traditional Keynesian moderates, while sunbelt cowboys tended to support the more conservative supply-siders. The corporate elite remains the hegemonic group within the capitalist class, working in coalition with a newly mobilized cowboy stratum.Keywords
This publication has 10 references indexed in Scilit:
- Social Protest, Hegemonic Competition, and Social Reform: A Political Struggle Interpretation of the Origins of the American Welfare StateAmerican Sociological Review, 1989
- Corporate Political Groupings: Does Ideology Unify Business Political Behavior?American Sociological Review, 1988
- The Political Partisanship of American Business: A Study of Corporate Political Action CommitteesAmerican Sociological Review, 1987
- Determinants of Economic Attitudes in the American Business EliteAmerican Journal of Sociology, 1985
- The Supply-Side RevolutionPublished by Harvard University Press ,1984
- Political Innovation in AmericaPublished by JSTOR ,1984
- The Business Response to Keynes, 1929–1964Published by Columbia University Press ,1981
- Latent classes and group membershipSocial Networks, 1981
- The Social Organization of the American Business Elite and Participation of Corporation Directors in the Governance of American InstitutionsAmerican Sociological Review, 1979
- Bank Control of Large Corporations in the United StatesPublished by University of California Press ,1978