The Powell memo was written by future SCOTUS justice Lewis Powell to the national Chamber of Commerce outlining how to systematically smother the national progressive discussion with neoconservative ideology.  Powell had some specific action items that proved to be extremely effective at pushing the culture to the right. What we need now is a Powell memo for the left.

The memo was written in August 1971 during a time of expansion of human rights and restrictions against the establishment. In the 1960s, protesters proliferated. SCOTUS decided several cases that limited police power. In 1970-71, Bank of America branches were being destroyed. The first was in a college town.  The EPA was created at the end of 1970, which corporate America considered a frontal attack. Ralph Nader, who took the side of consumers and the environment against big business, was another threat, and his biggest products liability cases were yet to come.

The trend was clear. The “counterculture” (people who were not old white men) was fighting and winning, not just in government, but in the court of public opinion. People spoke of empowerment for everyone, not just old white men.

Conservatives Were the Underdogs

Like many progressives today, in 1971, many on the right were afraid they had already lost. Powell and other right activists weren’t experts in mass social movements. As Powell laid out the situation, he didn’t fully understand who their major opponents were (The Communists? Really?), but he understood the institutions on which culture is built.

Powell also, not surprisingly, had a pro-business point of view. Instead of lamenting harm done to people, he lamented businesses who gave any ground to reduce harm if it meant reducing profits. He lamented universities that didn’t promote the glory of capitalism and intended to use funding as a lever to make them do so.

The whole memo takes a resentful tone against anyone who would dare question the virtue of Business. Who would object to tax cuts for the wealthy, and who would support consumers or the environment over business? Certainly not a Real American.

Powell also lamented that businesses responded poorly to public criticism, by (this may sound familiar) appeasement or ignoring the problem and hoping it went away. Much of the action part of the memo is exhorting business to become proactive, to set the agenda, and to frame the discussion.

In 1971, civil rights seemed to be moving in a natural straight line forward. No, not everyone was going along willingly, but they were going, and the idea of going back seemed remote.

The Plan

The right studied the left to determine which strategies had been the most effective, and then adapted them to their agenda. They recognized that they would not have the advantage of numbers, but they could leverage money. Powell’s idea was to use business and especially money as a weapon toward several goals.

1. To pay dues to the Chamber of Commerce to build a war chest.
2. To get universities to promote the virtues of capitalism.
3. To flood the media with business ideology and thus draw public support.
4. To be proactive for the interests of business in all levels of government and in the courts.
5. To attack anyone anywhere who openly questioned business interests.
6. To tie all of this to personal freedom.

In working against this plan, we have the advantage of numbers.  Rather than depend heavily on a war chest, we would raise an army of experts. We would send them out to flood the media and speak at universities. We would have consistent messaging across all disciplines: a better world is possible, we know how to build it, we can build it together.

Our goal should not be simply to undo the Powell memo. We have to reinvent a healthy people-centered culture.

Most importantly, we have to reorder our priorities to fight climate change, which was going on for decades before the Powell memo.

In addition to climate change, we need to prioritize people. We are in a period where even healthy people cannot all rely on paying jobs for sustenance. That model is broken. Also, too many important needs languish because they don’t generate profit. First on this list is anything that has to do with taking care of the basic physical and mental needs of people. We need to push back loudly and confidently against anyone who discounts the value of people, especially in relation to money or business.

We need to plug the holes that allowed a culture of greed and cruelty to burn down our norms and standards and allowed misinformation to pour fuel on the fire. We need to appreciate that laws can’t just be legislated; they need to be enforced.

We need to figure out how to get to the world we want, and then create the systems to make that happen, from physical infrastructure to the internet. Republicans have an entire industry doing this. When Republicans became proactive, they were pleasantly surprised to find that when they pushed, there wasn’t always resistance. They became used to pushing things through, which they still do today. We need to resist fascism in all its forms and at all levels.

I will be breaking some of these ideas down in future posts.