Invisible Hands: The Businessman's Crusade Against the

¶ … Invisible Hands: The Businessman's crusade against the new deal, then follow outline to write the essay as Kim Phillips-Fein. Invisible Hands: The Businessman's Crusade Against the New Deal. New York W.W. Norton, 2009. $16.95 (pap.) ISBN: 978-0-393-33766-2. The author of Invisible Hands, Phillips-Fein, is a professor at New York University's Gallatin School. This particular school enables students to select course loads from different departments and schools to effectively create their own majors.

In addition to the aforementioned manuscript, she has written a number of articles that are intrinsically related to history, economics, and social issues (New York University). A number of her works are either critiquing the conservative right, or providing profiles of the leftist liberals -- such as former New York City mayor and Democrat David Dinkins.

As such, it would not be inaccurate to state that she is something of a liberal herself (Strauss), and that this political viewpoint may have colored her perspective on the effort for conservatism to rise in the book reviewed in this paper. I am confident that she will present some of the negative ramifications regarding the rise to conservatism, more so than positive ones. This book is about the rise of conservatism that began in earnest when Roosevelt launched the New Deal.

It chronicles the lot of big businessman and conservative politicians in the 20th century to reduce the influence of government in the public space related to business and social programs in the United States. Special attention is given to Reagan's impact on this process and to the labor union movement in this country. Specifically, the author's thesis is that conservatives and wealthy business owners systematically reduced the influence of the government on economics in the U.S. -- which inherently affected various aspects of society.

The author states that conservatives and wealthy businessmen were unequivocally, "convinced that the free market had the ability to create economic abundance and moral order simultaneously -- that its invisible hand would punish the indolent and reward the entrepreneurs" (Phillips-Fein 262). The principle way that the author reinforces her thesis is evaluating the various stages of American history and their most eminent relation to the history of conservative economics. Doing so requires her to examine a number of sources, which she makes use of quite competently.

Phillips-Fein demonstrates that there was a dedicated effort on the part of businessmen to create a climate in which financial (and social) conservatism would reign. In many ways this effort began with the reactionary theories of economists such as Hayek, Mises (Phillips-Fein 34), and others, which called for less legislation and governmental regulation than the classic theories of Keynes which helped spur the New Deal. Necessarily, the author references and cites the key principles of these theories.

A key aspect of her argument is the fact that these elite, wealthy businessman who were responsible for propagating conservative economic theory did so by marketing these efforts to activists and the business community through the usage of print, radio media, and religious activism. One of the important ways that conservatism was disseminated to the country was through the history of the labor union movement in America. Conglomerates such as General Electric and others attempted to sway labor relations in the country to oppose liberalism (Phillips-Fein 108).

Similarly, the countercultural movements of the 50's and the 60's (the Beatniks and the hippies) targeted by the business class and the labor movement as a means of opposing liberalism from both a social and an economic perspective. This message was perpetuated by organizations created by wealthy businessmen including the Business Round Table and the Chamber of Commerce (Phillips-Fein 192). Although the author's accounting of the history of conservatism in this country certainly seems plausible and well supported, it is still somewhat incomplete.

The history of laissez-fair economics and of big business with minimal government intervention extends well beyond the 20th century -- especially in America. In the latter decades of the 19th century this type of economic climate typified that of the U.S. There were several monopolies or trusts that were existent and which truly came into fruition with the completion of the railroad. The author dedicates little space to this proclivity of conservatism that took effect well before the New Deal.

Doing so does not lessen her points, but acknowledging this fact and broadening the scope of this work beyond the 20th century could have certainly supported her argument with some excellent contextual information. Still, this work was highly enjoyable particularly because the author exposed some of the tactics used by big business to perpetuate the system of economics that they favored. Seeing how they were able to construct conservatism by engaging in their own well-funded grassroots efforts was particularly revealing.

The review of Phillips-Fein's work that will be analyzed within this document was written by Bettina Greaves. For the most part this review was accurate and in agreement with the notions of the author's work that I.