This is my review of two very important books: Nancy MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America” and Gordon Lafer’s “The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time.”
Both books are important for understanding the undermining and capture of our democracy.
Both books explain the theory and practice of destroying the public sector for ideology and/or profit.
Read the review for a better understanding of the roles played by the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, and ALEC.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I read it over the weekend in the print edition of the Review. Nicely done, and I’ll eventually read both books.
LikeLike
I read and reviewed Democracy in Chains. Now I’ll get the other.
LikeLike
Excellent…and depressing.
LikeLike
Good reviews (I have only read one of the two books so far).
At the top you use the phrase “Union membership peaked in the mid-1950s and has declined ever since” which makes this sound like a normal evolution of events. It is not. Our neighbor Canada has seen no such decline in union jobs (roughly 31% of jobs in Canada for the last 50 years have been union jobs as it was here in the 1960’s). We have seen such a decline because of the same reasons all of the other institutions of democracy are under attack–a concerted attack by billionaire-funded think tanks and bought and paid for politicians, including Barack Obama. When Mr. Obama was elected, a piece of legislation in the works that would have reverted the unionization movement to its former system, that is you could get 51% of the workers at a job site to sign cards stating they wanted union representation, the union could act. The oligarchs had changed the law requiring public elections that they could rig (and did). The new legislation just restored the system that had been in place for decades past. Since the unions had worked to get Mr. Obama elected, there was an expectation that that legislation would get passed (remember the majorities in both houses the Dems had?). It got no support from the Obama administration and their Wall Street donors and hence died. No significant legislation was passed in support of the union movement in those eight years.
LikeLike
When Scott Walker was crushing unions in Wisconsin, Obama never showed up.
In fact, he went to Miami to meet with Jeb Bush to celebrate a high school that fired its staff
LikeLiked by 1 person
Two VERY TELLING sentences.
LikeLike
Yes, indeed.
In fact, didn’t Obama say something along the lines of he would put on his comfortable shoes and walk the picket lines with the union?
But of course, he was nowhere to be seen when push came to shove.
LikeLike
“Obama’s comfy shoes”
He donned his comfy shoes
And met with Jebediah
To share reformer views
With school reform Messiah
He drank Messiah’s whine
And ate Messiah’s bread
The teacher firing line
Was where the shoes had led
LikeLike
We have had a war on unions for decades. The oligarchs and giant corporations spend millions propagandizing against unions in the media 24/7. Union busting is rampant and happens all over the country. Now with Trump stacking the courts with far right wing anti union judges and justices, the existence of unions is really imperiled. Trump and the GOP (and too many Democrats) want to turn the US into a right to work (for less) country. There’s no war on unions in Finland, Sweden or Norway with unionization rates ranging from 51% to 75%. Germany has a unionization rate of about 18% but also has works councils which are above, beyond and separate from the unions.
LikeLike
Corporations have wanted to extinguish unions as long as there were unions.
LikeLike
“Hope and Chains”
Regimes change
But core remains
To rearrange
The Hope and Chains
LikeLike
“The State of the Union”
The state of the union is “bought”
With billionaire the owner
Despite what you might have thought
Democracy is a goner
LikeLike
Your review puts many of the right wing notions in perspective. The Koch brothers continue to work against democracy, and voting is about the only option left for the rest of us. Of course, the Koch brothers have also been actively suppressing the vote by getting voter ID laws passed and disenfranchising those convicted of a felony. Other dirty tricks have included limiting polling hours in poor neighborhoods and generally making it difficult for the poor to exercise their constitutional right.
Our country should look at Chile as a cautionary tale, not a model to emulate. Their libertarian policies have left the elderly impoverished and their education system in chaos with students protesting and rioting for better public education.http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/09/heres-cautionary-tale-pension-privatization-chile/
LikeLike
The Koch Brothers are backing the purchase of Time, Inc by the Meredith Corporation. The Kochs expect to ‘extract significant value from this purchase.’ Time, Inc. may become an agent of the Kochs’ brainwashing machine.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/26/business/dealbook/time-inc-meredith-corporation-koch-brothers.html
LikeLike
This is why all along I have thought Pence is the real POTUS (but being in cahoots with big business). Trump is too stupid, greedy and egotistical to carry out these plans, but he is the perfect distraction with his constant need for attention. When will American citizens wake up and realize that they are being bilked out of a decent life? When will the existing unions rise up and demand rights for their members? I guess we can’t expect much when the public is focused on putting food on the table and keeping up the mortgage payments working 40+ hrs a week or several jobs. We live in very depressing times….I’m sorry for the next generation who will have to navigate and sort this mess that our elected officials have bestowed upon us……all because of a few who want all the money and all the power. I wonder when they will turn on themselves in the name of the all mighty dollar?…. Animals will eat their young if hungry enough.
LikeLike
Oh Diane, you wrote a powerful review. Of course, when it comes to my bias, you are speaking to the choir. I want to splurge and buy both (all three, including Jane Mayer’s) books and pass them around to my kids after I read them myself. If this isn’t an invitation to political activism, I don’t know what is. Just tell me how to get through them without descending into deep,dark depression.
LikeLike
The NY Review of Books is not speaking to the choir. It has a huge audience. They are mostly not educators.
LikeLike
“Something the Right and Left agree on”
The 1 percent agree
To privatize the lot
The party’s moot, you see
Bipartisan is plot
LikeLike
Diane I already read your excellent review, and I wrote a note to the participants of the googlegroup associated with the National Literacy Advocacy (NLA) linking that article.
FYI I have rung the bell, so to speak, to these folks again and again, but seem to keep running into the old optimism: that those in government really want to do the right thing and help adults increase their education. I had a suspicion, however, way back when adult education became a part of “workforce investment,” and those on the list, though they refer to themselves as advocates, did not like notes with political content. It got even worse when Bush was in office and the site was overseen by his office of religious affairs. THAT was a truly chilling experience.
The moderator is David Rosen. I have referred them to your blog before. But this time I was responding to their own inquiry about the movement of CHARTER SCHOOLS (“public”) INTO ADULT EDUCATION.
Below FYI is a bit of NLA history written by David. I’m hoping they begin to understand the threat that adult education is under this country. They have a good deal of influence.
“The NLA is a labor of love because so many people, over nearly three decades, have contributed so much to this group.
“Some of you may be interested in its origin. In the late 1980’s the U.S. Urban LIteracy Coalition, an adult literacy philanthropic project that supported many new urban adult literacy initiatives, had nearly exhausted its funding and its leaders decided to use the remaining funds to sponsor a national meeting at the famed Highlander Center in Tennessee. For two and a half days, adult basic skills practitioners, adult learners, and other advocates came together to discuss what should be next. A new national organization was formed, called the National Literacy Alliance (NLA). However, without funds to bring people together its leaders did not see a way to go forward in accomplishing its two stated goals: 1) Increased advocacy for adult basic skills programs, including scrappy community-based organizations and other sponsors of adult basic skills programs whose leaders believed that a community organizing approach was needed; and 2) Support for adult learner leaders, including adult basic skills program graduates, who wanted a voice in adult basic skills advocacy and planning.
“Paul Jurmo, a long-time participatory adult educator, who had attended the meeting, contacted me when it was clear that the new organization was stuck; he asked if one way to bring people together to work on the first goal might be “one of these new listserv things” that I had been talking about. I agreed to give it a try and created the NLA Listserv, still hoping that the National Literacy Alliance might become a reality through through organizing made possible by the NLA electronic list. Although the NLA organization did not succeed, the NLA list (later re-named “National Literacy Advocacy”) did. For the first decade I was its moderator. Then, for more than a decade David Collings carried on as moderator. When David Collings needed to move on, I decided to return. And here we are.
“Incidentally, the adult learner leaders who were present at the Highlander Center meeting did not drop the ball. (Many) adult learner leaders organized a second Highlander Center meeting, of primarily adult learner leaders, and there VALUE (now VALUE USA )was created; it’s still a prominent (and the only) national adult learner leadership organization . . .”
David J. Rosen
LikeLike
It is so obvious that the 1% rules. Unfortunately, so many are in denial and focus on welfare as the culprit.
LikeLike
It is also crucial to know that the Kochs are buying elections/legislators in order to have a Constitutional Convention, which will change the U.S. Constitution to suit them & the rest of the 1%, thus creating an unimaginable, truly dystopian America (along with the environmental disaster that Koch Industries has shoved its fist into). I’m probably wrong about the # of states needed to get approval for a Con-Con (I think I’d read that 34 are needed), & that they’ve already got 28 bagged.
We absolutely have to fight election fraud & voter suppression in order to elect non-ALEC, non-DINO true progressives (& run for office ourselves) so that we can stop
this nightmare from becoming a daymere.
If you’re voting in the near future, wait for election day so you can vote a paper ballot.
And make sure to re-check your registration before elections. Don’t let ANYONE at the polls tell you you aren’t on the rolls & can’t vote/give you a provisional ballot (those are not counted save in very rare…VERY RARE…instances; what many won’t tell you is the time frame by which you can go down to your central, permanent Board of Elections office, produce 2 pieces of I.D. & get a real ballot.
Also, please make sure to tell friends, relatives, neighbors, colleagues about ALEC. The widespread ignorance of its existence never ceases to amaze & disturb me. That’s why, in part, America is where it is. On this “Cyber Monday” (!!!–I know, gifts/consumerism are SOOO important), I think the biggest gift we can give our loved ones & future generations is to be informed and to stop the madness.
Reply to spedukator at 9:50 AM: I’d read Meyers’ book & MacLean’s. Right…VERY depressing, but necessary for everyone to slog through it. Also, must read “The Boys from Wichita,” about the Koch family history & present.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This post! Must read books, outstandingly informative and balanced review, importantly big stage for presentation. Thank you, Diane. Just having read the review (I have quite a reading list into which I must delve this winter break), I am more knowledgeable than I was this morning. The public needs to know the roots of our predicament. It’s the only way to overcome it. Thank you!
LikeLike