Corporations and the American Welfare State: Adversaries or Allies?

Abstract

One of the most widely held views about American political life is that business is hostile to the welfare state. In the 1970s, David Vogel asked why American businessmen “distrusted their state.” Kim Phillips-Fein has written of the “businessmen's crusade against the New Deal.” Jane Mayer and Nancy MacLean have recounted the efforts of the Koch Brothers and their wealthy allies to remake American politics in a more conservative direction. What could be more uncontroversial than the view that American business is broadly opposed to government social policies?