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The Influence Machine
An illuminating history and groundbreaking investigation tracing how a single trade organization turned itself into the most dangerous political weapon in America
When Americans hear the words “Chamber of Commerce,” many still think of the local business associations that spruce up Main Streets and sponsor Little League teams around the country. But the United States Chamber of Commerce is a different animal altogether. The Chamber was originally founded to give big business a voice during the long—and now almost inconceivable—period in American history that saw the rise of workers’ rights, consumer protections, and environmental awareness as national priorities. But over time, driven by an antigovernment ideology and its desire for financial and political power, the Chamber metastasized into a fighting force designed to protect the worst excesses of American industry.
The Chamber, through its veiled corporate sponsors, can take credit for some of the most disturbing trends in American the reversal of environmental protections, the destruction of unions and worker protections, the rise of virulent antigovernment ideology, the enlarged role of money in campaigns, and the creation of “astroturf” movements as cover for a corporate agenda. Through its propaganda, lobbying, and campaign cash, the Chamber has created a right-wing monster that even it struggles to control, a conservative movement that is destabilizing American democracy as never before.
The Influence Machine tells this history as a series of gripping narratives that take us into the backrooms of Washington, where the battles over how our country is run and regulated are fought, and then out into the world, where we see how the Chamber’s campaigns play out in real lives. In the end, Alyssa Katz reveals the hidden weaknesses of this seeming juggernaut and shows how its antidemocratic agenda can be reversed.
Praise for Alyssa Katz’s Our How Real Estate Came to Own Us
“[A] trenchant chronicle of how ‘all that had been sacred about home lending’ was upended, through a series of government policies that were enacted with seemingly noble intentions—broadening home ownership and priming the economic pump—but ended up turning homes into profit centers rather than places to live.”—Tom Vanderbilt, The New York Times Book Review
“Her reporting was prescient. . . . Katz [is] a talented, insightful [reporter], and [her book] advances our understanding of the mortgage meltdown.”—Kristin Downey, The Washington Post
“[A] richly detailed analysis of the recent (and ignominious) history of the American real estate market . . . Katz writes with authority and empathy. The many people the author interviews, from the single mother in Cleveland who lost her house just two years after buying it to the family living near Sacramento whose new home is already falling apart, become the heroes, victims and sometimes culprits in this gripping account of collective irresponsibility.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
When Americans hear the words “Chamber of Commerce,” many still think of the local business associations that spruce up Main Streets and sponsor Little League teams around the country. But the United States Chamber of Commerce is a different animal altogether. The Chamber was originally founded to give big business a voice during the long—and now almost inconceivable—period in American history that saw the rise of workers’ rights, consumer protections, and environmental awareness as national priorities. But over time, driven by an antigovernment ideology and its desire for financial and political power, the Chamber metastasized into a fighting force designed to protect the worst excesses of American industry.
The Chamber, through its veiled corporate sponsors, can take credit for some of the most disturbing trends in American the reversal of environmental protections, the destruction of unions and worker protections, the rise of virulent antigovernment ideology, the enlarged role of money in campaigns, and the creation of “astroturf” movements as cover for a corporate agenda. Through its propaganda, lobbying, and campaign cash, the Chamber has created a right-wing monster that even it struggles to control, a conservative movement that is destabilizing American democracy as never before.
The Influence Machine tells this history as a series of gripping narratives that take us into the backrooms of Washington, where the battles over how our country is run and regulated are fought, and then out into the world, where we see how the Chamber’s campaigns play out in real lives. In the end, Alyssa Katz reveals the hidden weaknesses of this seeming juggernaut and shows how its antidemocratic agenda can be reversed.
Praise for Alyssa Katz’s Our How Real Estate Came to Own Us
“[A] trenchant chronicle of how ‘all that had been sacred about home lending’ was upended, through a series of government policies that were enacted with seemingly noble intentions—broadening home ownership and priming the economic pump—but ended up turning homes into profit centers rather than places to live.”—Tom Vanderbilt, The New York Times Book Review
“Her reporting was prescient. . . . Katz [is] a talented, insightful [reporter], and [her book] advances our understanding of the mortgage meltdown.”—Kristin Downey, The Washington Post
“[A] richly detailed analysis of the recent (and ignominious) history of the American real estate market . . . Katz writes with authority and empathy. The many people the author interviews, from the single mother in Cleveland who lost her house just two years after buying it to the family living near Sacramento whose new home is already falling apart, become the heroes, victims and sometimes culprits in this gripping account of collective irresponsibility.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 2, 2015
10 people are currently reading
206 people want to read
About the author
Alyssa Katz
8 books15 followersAlyssa Katz is a member of the editorial board of the New York Daily News. She is the author of Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us (Bloomsbury, 2009), about the making of the mortgage crisis.
Alyssa was previously editor of The New York World, an investigative newsroom embedded at Columbia Journalism School, and of City Limits, an award-winning magazine investigating the institutions and policies at work in New York City’s neighborhoods.
Before covering urban policy, politics and housing, Alyssa was a cultural critic for The Village Voice, The Nation, and Spin. She received her BA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and was a Revson Fellow at Columbia University.
She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and daughter.
Alyssa was previously editor of The New York World, an investigative newsroom embedded at Columbia Journalism School, and of City Limits, an award-winning magazine investigating the institutions and policies at work in New York City’s neighborhoods.
Before covering urban policy, politics and housing, Alyssa was a cultural critic for The Village Voice, The Nation, and Spin. She received her BA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and was a Revson Fellow at Columbia University.
She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and daughter.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 6, 2015
This is an important look at an organization with considerable political and economic power in the United States: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It’s a relatively recent force, we learn, organized in 1914 at the urging of President William Howard Taft, and only in the 1990s would it take its current shape as a national advocate for the largest corporate interests. It not always operates in the best interests of most businesses – this book shows that most local chambers of commerce are not US Chamber members, and increasingly it advocates for a narrow range of business interests, notably those in international sectors such as retail, tobacco, fossil fuels or finance. Those businesses interested in renewable energy, concerned about global warming or employees’ health premiums often aren’t as well-served. Indeed, as late as 1993 the Chamber had, in the debate on the Clinton health plan, originally focused concern on how much businesses were paying in health-insurance premiums.
However, and this seems to have been a turning point, conservative political interests then engineered a change in U.S. Chamber leadership, and the Chamber would oppose the Clinton proposal. We see some insights into the Hillarycare failure and, in this incident, the rise of John Boehner. And it was from this point on, we see, that the U.S. Chamber would become key to Republican interests.
We see that the Chamber’s activities not limited to Congressional campaign fundraising; the author shows how diverse its activities: lobbying, and drafting legislation, in Congress, as well as backing (and recruiting) pro-Chamber state legislators. It cherry-picks state judges and attorneys-general. It pioneered “Astroturf” campaigns in lobbying, and continues to. It litigates in Federal court – which has been, under their persuasion, more and more favorable to their interests. It has been key to blocking regulation in finance before and after the 2008 mortgage crash, and in matters of highway and product safety. It used Federal grant regulation to intimidate or stifle scientific research in areas like climate, product safety, or the environment. Even without the Chamber’s cooperation, Ms. Katz’ research seems thorough and damning.
And its influence isn’t limited to the U.S. proper: we learn about “AmChams”, the American Chambers of Commerce in China and elsewhere, which wield considerable influence on other countries’ labor practices and laws, even in China – notably in a recent shift toward temp workforces. These, of course, represent more profit for the Chamber’s corporate clients overseas, less opportunity for the workers there and exported jobs from U.S. workers.
In all, this book provides timely, new and important insights into a major force in U.S. politics and the economy, and how it got that way, relatively recently in our history. Highly recommend.
However, and this seems to have been a turning point, conservative political interests then engineered a change in U.S. Chamber leadership, and the Chamber would oppose the Clinton proposal. We see some insights into the Hillarycare failure and, in this incident, the rise of John Boehner. And it was from this point on, we see, that the U.S. Chamber would become key to Republican interests.
We see that the Chamber’s activities not limited to Congressional campaign fundraising; the author shows how diverse its activities: lobbying, and drafting legislation, in Congress, as well as backing (and recruiting) pro-Chamber state legislators. It cherry-picks state judges and attorneys-general. It pioneered “Astroturf” campaigns in lobbying, and continues to. It litigates in Federal court – which has been, under their persuasion, more and more favorable to their interests. It has been key to blocking regulation in finance before and after the 2008 mortgage crash, and in matters of highway and product safety. It used Federal grant regulation to intimidate or stifle scientific research in areas like climate, product safety, or the environment. Even without the Chamber’s cooperation, Ms. Katz’ research seems thorough and damning.
And its influence isn’t limited to the U.S. proper: we learn about “AmChams”, the American Chambers of Commerce in China and elsewhere, which wield considerable influence on other countries’ labor practices and laws, even in China – notably in a recent shift toward temp workforces. These, of course, represent more profit for the Chamber’s corporate clients overseas, less opportunity for the workers there and exported jobs from U.S. workers.
In all, this book provides timely, new and important insights into a major force in U.S. politics and the economy, and how it got that way, relatively recently in our history. Highly recommend.
June 21, 2015
The Influence Machine is an interesting book but its hard to really figure out the take home message of the book. The writer goes through many examples of how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been helpful in the past but then to how it has been detrimental in the present. Much of the book was spent dinging the President of the Chamber of Commerce, Tod Donohue and his allies for their many wrongs. In sum this probably was about one hundred pages worth of material. It all came in a negative light and almost made me think that perhaps the book should have just been a detailing of his time at this place or even his life. He really did all Americans wrong and still does today. The writer also started off with the premise that it was the right/Republicans that were often benefiting from the influence of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but that seemed to not be the case with the chosen examples. Often times the numerous Republican politicians were on the side of supporting moves to help the common worker through stricter controls on pollution, secondhand smoke concerns, acknowledging global warming and climate change, government provided insurance program, Clintoncare, trucking hours. However if the people in position were not on the same platform as the Chamber of Commerce (meeting their 75/100 points needed) then they would find themselves lacking support and potentially out of a position when they lose their senate etc race. There were even democrats as part of the Chamber of Commerce, so this position taken for framing the Influence Machine was an odd one to have based on the examples given. Even the ending paragraph implies that its the Democrats responsibility to put forth social advancement and prosperity. Arent Republicans after prosperity too, and in the case in this book, also after social advancement? Odd conclusion chosen.
Otherwise the book did succeed in making me rethink my position on how much influence I think businesses should have in our lives and how much regulation is needed for them. The more businesses are able to prosper then the more Americans will be able to prosper too. This is often due to the consumer safety concerns that seemed to be highlighted here with companies trying to remain undercover and use the Chamber of Commerce to get legislation passed to decrease punitive damages for lawsuits, alter the judges on panels who would favor companies, or to support motions in legislature that would cause common science to be questioned, or just in general continue to make wonky products. I like to think companies would self regulate themselves or strive to achieve making safe quality products but these examples, like car companies makes me question it a bit. Perhaps its the people in charge. In any case, I was glad to see that some companies have backed off of using the Chamber of Commerce as their choice of platform.
In any case, it was an informative book with great examples. I think expanding to the foreign chamber of commerce was the weak parts. Didnt really care much for the temporary worker thing for people in China, though the bribing other countries around the world with Mercedes-Benz SUV's was informative and enlightening. Even companies I thought that were out for benefiting human lives (Johnson & Johnson) even participated in bribes sad. Worst yet was all these companies behind this banner of not wanting to support the built in American movement (discounts for using steel and more that was made in America). Environmental policy, salt intake story, rundown of some of the ads used by the Chamber of Commerce and outcomes of the races they were used in, the Judges story, were the most intriguing reads of the book.
Otherwise the book did succeed in making me rethink my position on how much influence I think businesses should have in our lives and how much regulation is needed for them. The more businesses are able to prosper then the more Americans will be able to prosper too. This is often due to the consumer safety concerns that seemed to be highlighted here with companies trying to remain undercover and use the Chamber of Commerce to get legislation passed to decrease punitive damages for lawsuits, alter the judges on panels who would favor companies, or to support motions in legislature that would cause common science to be questioned, or just in general continue to make wonky products. I like to think companies would self regulate themselves or strive to achieve making safe quality products but these examples, like car companies makes me question it a bit. Perhaps its the people in charge. In any case, I was glad to see that some companies have backed off of using the Chamber of Commerce as their choice of platform.
In any case, it was an informative book with great examples. I think expanding to the foreign chamber of commerce was the weak parts. Didnt really care much for the temporary worker thing for people in China, though the bribing other countries around the world with Mercedes-Benz SUV's was informative and enlightening. Even companies I thought that were out for benefiting human lives (Johnson & Johnson) even participated in bribes sad. Worst yet was all these companies behind this banner of not wanting to support the built in American movement (discounts for using steel and more that was made in America). Environmental policy, salt intake story, rundown of some of the ads used by the Chamber of Commerce and outcomes of the races they were used in, the Judges story, were the most intriguing reads of the book.
October 26, 2016
The U.S. Chamber is all mobbed up, awash with rivers of unreported money from corporations seeking to pass harmful special interest legislation and defeat legislators and judges who stand in their way.
June 1, 2025
Super-readable account of how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce came to be one of the largest shareholders of the U.S. Congress.
December 27, 2021
What a depressing and illuminating read. I had to keep putting it down because it was so thoroughly demoralizing. However, I kept picking it back up because, as a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist, it's nice to be reminded that I am that way because there is a conspiracy against us. It just happens to be that it's just, like, the mindless AI of capital conspiring against us and probably not actual, non-metaphorical Reptilians.
This book throws a lot of names out that I couldn't keep track of, but I got the vibe. And the vibe is
Y o u A r e S e e i n g B e h i n d T h e V e i l
This book throws a lot of names out that I couldn't keep track of, but I got the vibe. And the vibe is
Y o u A r e S e e i n g B e h i n d T h e V e i l
May 23, 2015
I've received an advance copy in exchange of a honest review.
In my first foray in NetGalley land, I saw this book and had an immediate interest in reading it. As an International Studies graduate, the making of politics is always a subject that draw me. I'm sad to say, it wasn't the book for me. In the beginning, I wasn't sure if I was reading an essay or a fiction. The writing of Alyssa Katz is really dramatic, she goes directly for the human drama factor and I must say it goes against everything I like in a serious essay.
Despite that flair for drama, this book was supported by what seems like an incredible amount of research. It is sustained by facts and numbers, a must for an essay, and is potentially a good read for someone used to this kind of writing. At least, go in wih your eyes wide opened.
In my first foray in NetGalley land, I saw this book and had an immediate interest in reading it. As an International Studies graduate, the making of politics is always a subject that draw me. I'm sad to say, it wasn't the book for me. In the beginning, I wasn't sure if I was reading an essay or a fiction. The writing of Alyssa Katz is really dramatic, she goes directly for the human drama factor and I must say it goes against everything I like in a serious essay.
Despite that flair for drama, this book was supported by what seems like an incredible amount of research. It is sustained by facts and numbers, a must for an essay, and is potentially a good read for someone used to this kind of writing. At least, go in wih your eyes wide opened.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews