The Shaping of the American Polity
excerpted from the book
Who Rules America Now?
by G. William Domhoff
Touchstone Books, 1983
p82
The effort to influence public opinion is considered necessary
because average citizens do not automatically agree with the corporate
community on every policy initiative. Their life situations as
wage and salary earners with little or no wealth beyond a house
and life insurance often lead them to see things in a light different
from the corporate rich. Thus, trade unions, minority organizations,
and women's groups, among others, can find independent bases of
power within the general populace, and they often suggest policy
alternatives opposed to those supported by leaders within the
corporate community. To the degree that these groups might be
able to hinder the adoption of corporate-favored policy suggestions,
to that degree is it necessary for the opinion-shaping network
to counter their influence.
However, for all the hundreds of millions of dollars spent
each year in the effort to mold public opinion, the importance
of public opinion in the functioning of the social system should
not be exaggerated. The opinions of the majority on a wide range
of issues have differed from those of the corporate elite for
many generations without major consequences for public policy.
To assume that differences in opinion will lead to political activity
does not give due considerations to t he fact that people's beliefs
do not lead them into opposition or disruption if they have stable
roles to fulfill in the society. Routine involvement in a daily
round of activities, the most important of which are a job and
a family, probably is. a more important factor in social stability
and acquiescence in corporate-supported policies than any attempts
to shape public opinion. Contrary to what many Marxian analysts
have claimed, what happens in the economy and in government has
more impact on how people will act than what is said in the opinion-shaping
process and the mass media.
p84
THE POLICY-PLANNING NETWORK
The policy-planning process begins in corporate board rooms,
where problems are informally identified as "issues"
to be solved by new policies. It ends in government, where policies
are enacted and implemented. In between, however, there is a complex
network of people and institutions that plays an important role
in sharpening the issues and weighing the alternatives. This network
has four main components-policy groups, foundations, think tanks,
and university research institutes.
The policy-discussion organizations are nonpartisan groups,
bringing together corporate executives, lawyers, academic experts,
university administrators, and media specialists to discuss such
general problems as foreign aid, tariffs, taxes, and welfare policies.
In discussion groups of varying sizes, the policy-oriented organizations
provide informal and off-the-record meeting grounds in which differences
of opinion on various issues can be aired and the opinions of
specialists can be heard. In addition to their numerous small-group
discussions, these organizations encourage general dialogue within
the power elite by means of luncheon and dinner speeches, written
reports, and position statements in journals and books. Taken
as a whole, the several policy-discussion groups are akin to an
open forum in which there is a constant debate concerning the
major problems of the day and the best solutions to those problems.
Foundations are tax-free institutions that are created to
give grants to both individuals and nonprofit organizations for
activities that range from education, research, and the arts to
support for the poor and the upkeep of exotic gardens and old
mansions. They are an upper-class adaptation to inheritance and
income taxes. They provide a means by which wealthy people and
corporations can in effect decide how their tax payments will
be spent, for they are based on money that otherwise could go
to the government in taxes. From a small beginning at the turn
of the century, they have become a very important factor in shaping
developments in higher education and the arts and they play a
significant role in policy formation as well. The best-known and
most influential are the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie foundations.
Think tanks and university research institutes are nonprofit
organizations that have been developed to provide settings for
experts m various academic disciplines to devote their time to
the study of policy alternatives free from the teaching and departmental
duties that are part of the daily routine for most members of
the academic community. Supported by foundation grants and government
contracts, they are a major source of the new ideas that are discussed
in the policy-formation groups.
No one type of organization within the network is more important
than the others. Nor is any one organization or group the "inner
sanctum where final decisions are made. It is the network as a
whole that shapes policy alternatives, with different organizations
playing different roles on different issues.
THE POLICY-DISCUSSION GROUPS
National-level discussion groups were first created at the
turn of the century coterminous with the development of the corporate
community. The group that was to be the prototype for all the
rest, the National Civic Federation, had outlived its usefulness
by World War I but the several groups that gradually replaced
it-the Conference Board (1916), the Council on Foreign Relations
(1921), and the Committee for Economic Development (1942) became
even more important in their own right and have been functioning
in tandem since the
The Council on Foreign Relations
The largest and best-known of the policy organizations is
the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Founded by bankers, lawyers,
and academicians who were fully cognizant of the larger role the
United States would play in world affairs as a result of World
War I, the council's importance in the conduct of foreign affairs
was well established by the 1930s. The council has about 1,800
members, half from the New York area, half from the rest of the
country. Before 1970 the members were primarily financiers, executives,
and lawyers, with a strong minority of journalists, academic experts,
and government officials. Since that time there has been an effort
to include a larger number of government officials, including
foreign-service officers, politicians, and staff members of congressional
committees concerned with foreign policy.
... the council receives its general funding from wealthy
individuals, corporations, and subscriptions to its influential
periodical, Foreign Affairs. For special projects, however, it
often relies upon major foundations for support.
... The council conducts an active program of luncheon and
dinner speeches at its New York clubhouse, featuring government
officials and national leaders from all over the world. It also
encourages dialogue and disseminates information through books,
pamphlets, and articles in Foreign Affairs. However, the most
important aspects of the CFR program are its discussion groups
and study groups. These small gatherings of about 15 to 25 people
bring together business executives, government officials, scholars,
and military officers for detailed consideration of specific topics
in the area of foreign affairs. Discussion groups, which meet
about once a month, are charged with exploring problems in a general
way, trying to define issues and identify alternatives.
... Council leaders reacted to the large-scale international
changes of the late 1960s and early 1970s by creating a new discussion
organization called the Trilateral Commission, which included
60 members from Japan and 60 from Western Europe as well as American
members. Its goal was to develop closer economic and political
cooperation among the industrialized democracies in dealing with
economic competition among themselves and with challenges from
the underdeveloped countries. The council also launched a large
number of its own research projects and discussion groups under
the auspices of the 1980s Project to parallel the work of the
Trilateral Commission.
The council is far too large for its members to issue policy
proclamations as a group. Moreover, its usefulness as a neutral
discussion ground would be diminished if it tried to do so. However,
its leaders did help to mediate the dispute that broke out in
the foreign policy establishment in the 1970s over the nature
of Soviet intentions and the extent of its threat to United States
interests. After holding several discussion groups and study groups
on the topic, it created a special Commission on U.S.-Soviet Relations
in the fall of 1980 that included representatives of both the
Soviets-are-expansionists-and-dangerous view and the Soviets-can-be-worked-with
view, at least to the degree that the latter view exists within
respectable opinion. The discussants had worked in all recent
administrations, Republican and Democrat, and they were chaired
by the editor-in-chief of Time magazine. The report that emerged
from these discussions was drafted by a specialist in international
relations from a major Washington think tank. He had served as
an aide to the National Security Council in the early 1970s. The
31-page report was distributed free of charge with the aid of
a grant from the Ford Foundation and publicized in newspapers
and magazines read by members of the power elite.
Time described the commission's recommendations as "tough-minded."
The participants agreed that the Soviets were a "vastly more
formidable foe" than had been thought a decade earlier and
that their intentions were relentlessly hostile to Western interests.
The report called for an even bigger defense buildup than either
presidential candidate had advocated in the 1980 elections, and
it branded the volunteer army a failure. Commentators during the
early 1980s increasingly noted that foreign policy experts were
once again basically in agreement in their overall view of the
world situation. It is likely that the ongoing debate at the council
and the report of its commission played a major role in maintaining
dialogue between the opposing camps.
p88
The Committee for Economic Development
The Committee for Economic Development (CED) was founded in
the early 1940s to help plan for the postwar world. The corporate
leaders who were instrumental in creating this new study group
had two major concerns at the time: (1) There might be another
depression after the war; and (2) if businessmen did not present
economic plans for the postwar era, other sectors of society might
present plans that would not be acceptable to the corporate community.
The expressed purpose of the committee was to avoid any identification
with special-interest pleading for business and to concern itself
with the nation as a whole: "The Committee would avoid promoting
the special interests of business itself as such and would likewise
refrain from speaking for any other special interests.... The
CED was to be a businessman's organization that would speak in
the national interest."
The CED consisted of 200 corporate leaders in its early years.
Later it included a small number of university presidents among
its members. In addition, leading economists and public administration
experts have served as advisers to the CED and conducted research
for it; many of them have gone on to serve in advisory roles in
both Republican and Democratic administrations, particularly on
the Council of Economic Advisors. Although there is an overlap
in membership with the larger Council on Foreign Relations, the
committee has a different mix of members. Unlike the council,,
it has few bankers and no corporate lawyers, journalists and academic
experts.
Like the council, the CED works through study groups that
are aided by academic experts. The study groups have considered
every conceivable issue from farm policy to government reorganization
to campaign finance laws, but the greatest emphasis is on economic
issues of both a domestic and international nature. The most ambitious
of its projects have been financed by large foundations, but its
general revenues come directly from its corporation members.
Unlike the CFR, the results of committee study groups are
released as official policy statements of the organization. The
statements are published in pamphlet form and disseminated widely
in business, government, and media circles. Several of the statements
bear a striking similarity to government policies that were enacted
at a later time.
p89
The Conference Board
The Conference Board, founded in 1916 as the National Industrial
Conference Board, is the oldest of the existing policy-discussion
groups. It was originally a more narrowly focused organization,
with a primary interest in doing research for the corporate community
itself. During the 1930s and 1940s it drifted to an extreme right-wing
stance under the influence of its executive director, who often
denounced other policy groups for their alleged desertion of the
free enterprise system. Only with the retirement of this director
in 1948 and an infusion of new members into the board of directors
did the organization move back into the corporate mainstream and
begin to assume a role as a major voice of the corporate community.
Further changes in the 1960s were symbolized by the shortening
of its name to Conference Board and the election of a CED trustee
as its president.
In addition to discussion groups and the publication of a
variety of statistical and survey studies, the Conference Board
has been innovative in developing international policy linkages.
In 1961, in conjunction with the Stanford Research Institute,
a West Coast think tank, the board sponsored a week-long International
Industrial Conference in San Francisco, bringing together 500
leaders in industry and finance from 60 countries to hear research
reports and discuss common problems. The International Industrial
Conference has met every four years since that time. Along with
the Trilateral Commission and the "sister" committees
that the CED has encouraged in numerous nations, the International
Industrial Conference is one of the major institutions in an international
policy discussion network that has emerged since the 1950s.
p90
Ultraconservative Policy Groups
The policy network is not totally homogeneous. Reflecting
differences of opinion within the corporate community, there is
an ultraconservative clique within the policy-planning network
that has consistent and long-standing disagreements with the more
moderate conservatives of the CED, CFR, and Conference Board.
Historically, the most important of these organizations have been
the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce
of the United States, but they were joined in the 1970s by the
American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution, the Institute
for Contemporary Studies, and one or two other small groups.
It is the ultraconservative organizations that are most often
identified with "big business" in the eyes of social
scientists and the general public. The fact that they are generally
nay-sayers who often lose on highly visible issues is one of the
major reasons for the belief that the corporate community is not
the dominant influence in shaping government policy. What is not
understood is that those setbacks are usually at the hands of
their more moderate and soft-spoken colleagues within the policy
network and the corporate community.
The moderate conservatives and ultraconservatives have differed
throughout the century on foreign policy, economic policy, and
welfare legislation. Historically, the moderates have favored
foreign aid, low tariffs, and increased economic expansion overseas,
whereas the ultraconservatives tended to see foreign aid as a
giveaway and called for high tariffs. Moderates came to accept
the idea that government taxation and spending policies could
be used to stimulate and stabilize the economy, but ultraconservatives
have continued to insist that taxes should be cut to the very
minimum and that budget deficits are the work of the devil. Moderates
created some welfare-state measures, or they supported such measures
in the face of serious social disruption; ultraconservatives have
constantly opposed any welfare spending, claiming that it destroys
moral fiber and saps individual initiative as well as costing
them tax money and making it harder to keep wages down.
No one factor is readily apparent as the sole basis for the
division into moderate conservatives and ultraconservatives within
the corporate community and power elite. There is a tendency for
the moderate organizations to be directed by executives from the
very largest and most internationally oriented of corporations,
but there are numerous exceptions to that generalization. Moreover,
there are corporations that support policy organizations within
both ideological currents. Then, too, there are instances where
some top officers from a corporation will be in the moderate camp
and others will be in the ultraconservative camp. However, for
all their differences, leaders within the two clusters of policy
organizations have a tendency to search for compromise policies
due to their common membership in the corporate community and
the numerous interlocks among all policy groups. When compromise
is not possible, the final resolution of policy conflicts often
takes place in legislative struggles in Congress...
p92
FOUNDATIONS
Among the many thousands of foundations that exist in the
United States, only a few hundred have the money and interest
to involve themselves in funding programs that have a bearing
on public policy. They are of three basic types:
1. There are 26 general-purpose foundations with an endowment
of $100 million or more that were created by wealthy families.
Most of them are controlled by a cross-section of leaders from
the upper class and corporate community, but there remain several
ultraconservative foundations in the general-purpose category
that are tightly controlled by the original donors.
2. There are dozens of corporate foundations that are funded
by a major corporation and directed by the officers of that corporation.
Their number and importance has increased greatly since the 1960s,
especially in donations to education, medical research, and the
arts.
3. Many cities have community foundations that are designed
to aid charities, voluntary associations, and special projects
in their home cities. They receive funds from a variety of sources,
including other foundations, wealthy families, and corporations,
and they are directed by boards that include both corporate executives
and community leaders.
Upper-class and corporate representation on the boards of
the large general-purpose foundations most involved in policy-oriented
grants has been documented in several studies. In a study of the
12 largest foundations in the mid-1960s, for example, it was found
that half the trustees were members of the upper class. A study
of corporate connections into the policy network for 1970 showed
that 10 of these 12 foundations had at least one connection to
the 201 largest corporations; most had many more than one connection.
There is also evidence of numerous interlocking memberships between
foundations and policy associations. In 1971,14 of 19 Rockefeller
Foundation trustees were members of the Council on Foreign Relations,
with 4 of those members also serving as directors of the council.
Ten of 17 trustees of the Carnegie Corporation, as the most important
of four Carnegie foundations is named, were members of the council
at that time, as were 7 of 16 trustees at the Ford Foundation."
By far the most extensive and revealing study of the relationship
among foundations, policy groups, and think tanks was undertaken
by sociologist Mary Anna Culleton Colwell, a former executive
officer of a small foundation who also conducted lengthy interviews
with foundation officials as part of her larger study. Starting
with a sample of 77 large foundations for 1974, which included
all 26 with over $100 million in assets, she found 20 foundations
that gave over 5 percent of their total grants, or over $200,000,
to public policy grants in either 1972 or 1975. These 20 foundations
in turn led to a group of 31 recipient organizations in the policy-planning
and opinion-shaping networks that received grants from three or
more of these foundations.
The extent of the policy-planning network revolving around
these core organizations was even greater than any previous studies
had led social scientists to expect. Of the 225 trustees who served
on the 20 foundations between 1971 and 1977,124 also served as
trustees of 120 other foundations as well. Ten of the 20 foundations
had trustee interlocks with 18 of the 31 policy-planning organizations
and think tanks. The Rockefeller Foundation had the largest number
of trustee interlocks with other foundations (34), followed by
the Sloan Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation,
Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Russell Sage Foundation. The
Rockefeller Foundation also had the largest number of trustee
connections to the policy groups it finances (14), followed by
the same five foundations named in the previous sentence. Moreover
all six of these foundations tended to be involved with the same
policy groups. These foundations, then, are part of the moderate-conservative
portion of the network that includes the Council on Foreign Relations
and the Committee for Economic Development as its most important
policy groups.
Colwell's analysis also showed that another set of foundations,
led by the Pew Memorial Trust, Lilly Endowment, and Smith Richardson
Foundation, gave money to policy groups and think tanks identified
with ultraconservative programs-the American Enterprise Institute,
the American Economic Foundation, the Hoover Institution, the
Foundation for Economic Education, and Freedoms Foundation. Unlike
the large foundations in the moderate part of the network, all
of the very conservative foundations are under the direct control
of the original donating family. On the basis of tax records and
interviews, Cowell concludes it is a "reasonable supposition"
that many, if not all, of the ultraconservative organizations
of nonprofit standing receive a very large percentage of their
annual budgets from philanthropic foundations and corporations.
Foundations often become much more than sources of money that
respond to requests for funding. Some foundations set up programs
that are thought to be necessary by their trustees or staff. Then
they search out appropriate organizations to undertake the project
or create special commissions within the foundation itself. A
few foundations have become so involved in a specific issue area
that they function as a policy-discussion organization on that
particular issue. This is especially the case with the Carnegie
Corporation and its affiliates in the area of higher education.
Their study groups, commissions, and fellowship programs have
been central to the history of college and university development
throughout the twentieth century. For example, the Carnegie Commission
on Higher Education of the late 1960s and early 1970s spent $6
million and produced 80 books with policy implications for all
aspects of higher education.
Similarly, the Ford Foundation became the equivalent of a
policy group on the issue of urban unrest in the 1950s and 1960s.
It created a wide range of programs to deal with the problems
generated by urban renewal programs and by the large black migration
from the South into the inner cities of the North. One of these
programs, called the Gray Areas Project, became the basis for
the War on Poverty declared by the Johnson Administration in 1964
in the face of serious urban unrest.
Foundations, then, are an integral part of the policy-planning
process both as sources of funds and program initiators. They
are not mere donors of money for charity and value-free academic
research. In contrast to the general image that is held of them,
they are in fact extensions of the corporate community in their
origins, leadership, and goals.
p95
THINK TANKS AND RESEARCH INSTITUTES
The deepest and most critical thinking within the policy-planning
network does not take place in the discussion groups, as many
academicians who have participated in them are quick to point
out. This claim may be somewhat self-serving on the part of professors,
who like to assume they are smarter than businesspeople and bankers.
However, the fact remains that many new initiatives are created
in various think tanks and university research institutes before
they are brought to the discussion groups for modification and
assimilation by the corporate leaders. Among the dozens of think
tanks, some highly specialized in one or two topics, the most
important are the RAND Corporation, the Urban Institute, the National
Bureau of Economic Research, Resources for the Future, and centers
for international studies at MIT, Harvard, and Georgetown. The
institutes and centers connected to universities receive much
of their funding from foundations, but the larger and less specialized
independent think tanks are more likely to undertake contract
research for businesses or government agencies.
Some organizations are hybrids that incorporate both think
tank and policy-discussion functions. They do not fit neatly into
one category or the other. Such is the case with the Brookings
Institution, one of the most important Washington-based organizations
in the policy network. Formed in 1927 with the help of foundation
monies, the Brookings Institution is directed by corporate executives,
but it is not a membership organization. Although it conducts
some study groups, particularly for government officials, it is
even more important as a kind of postgraduate school for specialists
in a wide range of policy areas. Employing a very large number
of social scientists, it functions as a source of new ideas and
consultants for policy groups and government leaders. Its economists
in particular have been prominent as advisers to both Republican
and Democratic administrations. In terms of common directors,
its greatest overlaps are with the Committee for Economic Development,
the Council on Foreign Relations, and the American Assembly. In
addition, 60 percent of its trustees were foundation trustees
in the early 1970s.
Several hybrid organizations function in specialized issue-areas.
The Population Council was established in 1952 to fund research
and develop policy on population control. Relying at the outset
on large personal donations from John D. Rockefeller III as well
as grants from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, it helped
to create population research institutes at several carefully
selected universities in different regions of the country that
would aid in giving respectability to this area of concern. It
also held conferences and publicized findings that showed that
population growth was a major problem. Working closely within
several other organizations, including the Population Reference
Bureau and International Planned Parenthood, it had enormous success
in popularizing its policy suggestions and having them implemented
at both the national and international levels, as a detailed case
study demonstrates. The step-by-step fashion in which the population
groups proceeded, including the establishment of research institutes
and spreading information through the mass media before approaching
government, is a classic example of the policy network in action.
Resources for the Future was founded about the same time as
the Population Council, with primary funding from the Ford Foundation.
In part concerned with population because population growth puts
pressure on resources, it has become one of the power elite's
major sources of expertise on environmental issues. Its leaders
share an informal coordinating role in this issue-area with the
Conservation Foundation. Both work with the National Audubon Society,
the National Wildlife Federation, and Nature Conservancy in attempting
to infuse an environmental consciousness into the corporate community.
At the same time they try to moderate the more militant demands
of the middle-class environmental movement.
Two organizations, the American Law Institute and the American
Judicature Society, join with committees of the American Bar Association
in dealing with problems within the issue-area of the law. The
focus of the American Law Institute is on such general areas of
law as tax law or the penal code. Its goal is to write model acts
for state legislatures to consider, or to propose revisions in
areas of the law through its written documents of restatement
and clarification. The Judicature Society, on the other hand,
is more specifically focused on the functioning of the court system,
proposing methods to improve or streamline the administrative
procedures of the judicial process. As one aspect of this interest,
it is concerned with the processes by which state and federal
judges are selected, and it attempts to influence standards of
judicial conduct
The leadership of the American Law Institute and the American
Judicature Society comes primarily from the corporate lawyers
who also play the dominant role within the American Bar Association.
However, this is not exclusively the case with the Judicature
Society. Its chair in 1981, for example, was an economist who
heads the Henry Luce Foundation and serves as a director of the
Council on Foreign Relations, New York Telephone, Bristol-Myers,
American Express American Can, and Chemical Bank.
There are hybrid organizations in other specialized areas
as well, including farm policy, municipal government, and the
arts. In each case, many of their expert members and directors
are part of the larger policy organizations as well. There is
hardly a think tank of note that does not include directors from
the Committee for Economic Development or Conference Board, or
the Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations. In the case of
the larger Council on Foreign Relations, the overlaps are of course
even more numerous.
p98
THE OPINION-SHAPING PROCESS
The opinion-shaping process involves a wide range of organizations
and methods through which members of the power elite attempt to
influence the beliefs, attitudes, and opinions of the general
public. In order to prevent the development of attitudes and opinions
that might interfere with the acceptance of policies created in
the policy formation process, leaders within the opinion-molding
process attempt to build upon and reinforce the underlying principles
of the American belief system. Academically speaking, these underlying
principles are called laissez-faire liberalism, and they have
their roots in such great systematizers of the past as Locke,
Hume, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, and the American founding fathers.
These principles emphasize individualism, free enterprise, competition,
equality of opportunity, and a minimum of reliance upon government
in carrying out the affairs of society. Slowly articulated during
the centuries-long rise of the capitalist system in Europe, they
arrived in America in nearly finished form and had no serious
rivals in a nation that did not have a feudal past or an established
church.
Popularly speaking, these values are known to most citizens
as plain "Americanism." They are seen as part of human
nature or the product of good common sense, not as just another
belief system that may or may not have any more validity than
the dozens of others that have been developed by nations and peoples
around the world. Americanism, including the all-important component
of patriotism that is a fanatical constant in all tribes and nations,
is the world view or ideology, of the United States. If Americans
can be convinced that some policy or action can be justified in
terms of this emotion-laden and unquestioned body of beliefs,
they are likely to accept it. Thus the organizations that make
up the opinion-shaping network strive to become the arbitrators
of which policies and opinions are in keeping with good Americanism,
and which are "un-American," meaning foreign and treasonous
at the very least. These organizations struggle to define for
everyone what policies are in the "national interest"
and to identify those policies with Americanism.
One of the most important goals of the opinion-shaping network
is to influence public schools, churches, and voluntary associations.
To that end, organizations within the network have developed numerous
links to these institutions, offering them movies, television
programs, books, pamphlets, speakers, advice, and financial support.
However, the schools, churches, and voluntary associations are
not part of the network. Rather, they are relatively autonomous
settings within which the power elite must constantly contend
with spokespersons of other social strata and with critics of
the economic system. To assume otherwise would be to overlook
the social and occupational affiliations of the members as well
as the diversity of opinion that often exists in these institutions
of the middle and lower levels of the social hierarchy.
Operating at the center of the opinion-shaping process are
many of the same foundations, policy-planning groups, and think
tanks that are part of the policy-formation process.
p100
Shaping Opinion on Foreign Policy
The opinion-shaping network achieves its clearest expression
and greatest success in the area of foreign policy, where most
people have little information or interest and are predisposed
to agree with top leaders out of patriotism and a fear of whatever
is strange or foreign. Because so few people take a serious interest
in foreign policy issues, the most important efforts in opinion
shaping are aimed toward a small stratum of highly interested
and concerned citizens of college-educated backgrounds.
The central organizations in the shaping of opinion on foreign
policy are the Council on Foreign Relations and the Foreign Policy
Association. However, the council does very little to influence
public opinion directly. It publishes Foreign Affairs, the most
prestigious journal in the field, and occasionally it prints pamphlets
on major issues that can be used by other discussion groups. However,
these efforts are primarily for consumption within the foreign-policy
establishment. For local elites, the council sponsors Committees
on Foreign Relations in over 35 cities across the country. These
committees meet about once a month or on the occasion of the visit
of a special dignitary to hear speakers that are usually provided
by the council or the government. The aim of this program is to
provide local leaders with the information and legitimacy in the
area of foreign affairs that makes it possible for them to function
as opinion leaders. A 1951 report by the council on these committees
explained their role as follows:
In speaking of public enlightenment, it is well to bear in
mind that the Council has chosen as its function the enlightenment
of the leaders of opinion. These in turn, each in his own sphere,
spread the knowledge gained here [Committees on Foreign Relations]
in ever-widening circles.
The most important organization involved in shaping upper-middle-class
public opinion on foreign affairs is the Foreign Policy Association,
based in New York. Forty-two percent of its 74-person governing
council were also members of the Council on Foreign Relations
in 1972. Although the association does some research and discussion
work, its primary focus is on molding opinion outside the power
elite a division of labor with the Council on Foreign Relations
that is well understood within foreign-policy circles. A council
director of the 1930s wrote that the FPA had "breadth of
influence," whereas the CFR had "depth"; he went
on to say that "anyone with the slightest experience in such
matters knows that you must have policy-making individuals and
groups working closely in a government" as well as "the
support of the electorate" made possible in part by organizations
that function "as channel-ways of expression." More
bluntly, a retired president of the council explained to historian
Laurence Shoup that the council and its Committees on Foreign
Relations attempt to reach top-level leaders, whereas the Foreign
Policy Association attracted the "League of Women Voters
type."
The association's major effort is an intensive program to
provide literature and create discussion groups in middle-class
organizations and on college campuses. It sponsors a yearly Great
Decisions program that prepares thematic discussions each year
for groups around the country. It publishes a Headline Series
of pamphlets for use in discussion groups, and it attempts to
place its material on radio programs and into extension courses.
It works closely with local World Affairs Councils to provide
speakers and written materials, and it compiles foreign-policy
briefings that are sent to all incumbents and candidates for Congress.
The council and the association, in turn, are linked to other
opinion-molding organizations influential in foreign affairs.
Perhaps the most important of them is the United Nations Association,
which attempts to build support for American involvement in that
organization.
... even on foreign policy there are limits to the shaping
of public opinion. Opposition to both the Korean and Vietnam wars
grew consistently as the number of American casualties continued
to mount. Vehement sentiment in the case of the Vietnam War helped
to limit presidential alternatives in the late 1960s, and the
constant complaints between 1975 and 1980 from foreign-policy
leaders about the "post Vietnam syndrome" attested to
the effects of a lingering antiwar sentiment on foreign-policy
options.
p105
Advertising and Public Opinion
Advertising is usually thought of in terms of the efforts
used by corporations to sell specific products, but it can be
used to sell the corporations and the economic system as well.
Many corporations 'attempt to sell the free-enterprise system
through what is called institutional advertising. Instead of talking
about their products, they tell what they have done to benefit
local communities, schools, or service organizations. Other corporations
promote a good image by providing funds for local charities, donating
services to community organizations, or sponsoring programs on
public television. The quiet sponsorship on public television
is especially useful in revealing the image-building efforts that
motivate such sponsorship. A sociological study of donors to the
public broadcasting system in the 1970s showed that the biggest
donors were those companies that were having the most problems
with the general public or regulatory -bodies, especially oil
companies and pharmaceutical companies.
... the most pervasive and longstanding use of advertising
by the leaders within the corporate community and the opinion-shaping
network can be seen in the functioning of the Advertising Council.
The Advertising Council is in some ways unique because of
its prominence, massive resources, and wide range of concerns.
In its major activities, however, it is typical of a wide variety
of opinion shaping organizations that function in specific areas
from labor relations, where they battle union organizers, to something
as far removed as the arts, where they encourage the development
of the arts as a booster to the morale of those trapped in the
inner city. Those functions are basically three in number:
1. They provide think-tank forums where academics, journalists,
and other cultural experts can brainstorm with corporate leaders
about the problems of shaping public opinion.
2. They help to create a more sophisticated corporate consciousness
through forums, booklets, speeches, and awards.
3. They disseminate their version of the national interest
to the general public on issues of concern to the power elite.
p107
THE MASS MEDIA
The mass media-newspapers, magazines, television, and radio-are
one outlet for much of the material generated by the organizations
of the opinion-shaping network. Many social scientists believe
that the media, and in particular television, play a large role
in the shaping of public opinion. However, it seems more likely
to me that they have a much more secondary role, reinforcing existing
viewpoints and helping to set the outer limits of respectable
discourse.
The mass media have a complex relationship to the upper class
and corporate community. On the one hand, they are lucrative business
enterprises owned by members of the upper class and directed by
members of the corporate community who have extensive connections
to other large corporations. On the other hand, editors and journalists,
fortified by a professional code of objectivity and impartiality,
have some degree of independence in what they report and write,
and their opinions are sometimes at variance with those of corporate
executives and policy experts. The result is a relationship between
media and corporate community that is marked by tension, with
corporate leaders placing part of the blame on the mass media
for any negative opinions about business that are held by the
general public.
... The growing rift between the corporate community and the
liberal elements of the mass media led to a number of corporate
initiatives in the late 1970s. In 1977, for example, the Ford
Foundation sponsored an off-the-record, two-day conference between
business and media representatives that was designed to air mutual
grievances. Programs to teach "business reporting" were
created at several universities with the goal of improving the
skills and judgment of reporters. Finally, corporations led by
Mobil Oil began to run advertisements on opinion pages in major
newspapers, and in liberal weeklies and reviews. They presented
the corporations' viewpoints in their own words on a variety of
issues. By 1976 corporations were spending $140 million a year
on such advocacy advertising.
For all the corporate community's complaints about specific
stories, newspapers, or television stations within the mass media,
the overall effect of the media efforts nevertheless tends to
reinforce the stability of the present corporate system. First
of all, as highly profitable companies whose primary goal is to
sell advertising, their basic allegiance is to the corporate system.
This is evidenced in the fact that their owners and directors
play an active role in setting limits beyond which their reporters
cannot go without facing reassignment, demotion, or firing. Then,
too, editorial policies make a distinction between criticizing
the system and exposing the wrongdoing of specific corporations,
industries, or politicians. For example, the Wall Street Journal,
perhaps the favorite newspaper of the corporate community and
a fierce champion of the free enterprise system, has nonetheless
published numerous stories exposing unacceptable behavior by corporate
leaders and policy experts. Especially damning was a story in
1980 that showed that President-elect Ronald Reagan's top foreign-policy
adviser, Richard Allen, a former fellow of the Hoover Institution,
had worked as a paid consultant to Japanese corporations while
serving as a government adviser.
Finally, the media reinforce the legitimacy of the social
system through the routine ways in which they accept and package
events. Their style and tone always takes the statements of business
and government leaders seriously, treating their claims with great
respect. In the area of foreign policy, for example, the media
cover events in such a way that America's diplomatic aims are
always honorable, corporate involvement overseas is necessary
and legitimate, and revolutionary change in most countries is
undesirable and must be discouraged whatever the plight of the
majority of their citizens.
Whatever the exact role of the mass media, it should be clear
that they are not the be-all and end-all of the opinion-shaping
process that has been outlined in this section. In my view, the
mass media are merely one dissemination point among many. They
reach the most people, but the people they reach are those who
matter least from the point of view of the opinion molders, and
the message they provide is sometimes ambiguous besides.
Who
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