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The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time
In the aftermath of the 2010 Citizens United decision, it's become commonplace to note the growing political dominance of a small segment of the economic elite. But what exactly are those members of the elite doing with their newfound influence? For the first time, The One Percent Solution provides an answer to this question. Gordon Lafer's book is a comprehensive account of legislation promoted by the nation’s biggest corporate lobbies across all fifty state legislatures and encompassing a wide range of labor and economic policies.
In an era of growing economic insecurity, it turns out that one of the main reasons life is becoming harder for American workers is a relentless—and concerted—offensive by the country’s best-funded and most powerful political forces: corporate lobbies empowered by the Supreme Court to influence legislative outcomes with an endless supply of cash. These actors have successfully championed hundreds of new laws that lower wages, eliminate paid sick leave, undo the right to sue over job discrimination, and cut essential public services.
Lafer shows how corporate strategies have been shaped by twenty-first-century conditions—including globalization, economic decline, and the populism reflected in both the Trump and Sanders campaigns. Perhaps most important, he shows that the corporate legislative agenda has come to endanger the scope of democracy itself.
For anyone who wants to know what to expect from corporate-backed Republican leadership in Washington, D.C., there is no better guide than the record of what the same set of actors has been doing in the state legislatures under its control.
In an era of growing economic insecurity, it turns out that one of the main reasons life is becoming harder for American workers is a relentless—and concerted—offensive by the country’s best-funded and most powerful political forces: corporate lobbies empowered by the Supreme Court to influence legislative outcomes with an endless supply of cash. These actors have successfully championed hundreds of new laws that lower wages, eliminate paid sick leave, undo the right to sue over job discrimination, and cut essential public services.
Lafer shows how corporate strategies have been shaped by twenty-first-century conditions—including globalization, economic decline, and the populism reflected in both the Trump and Sanders campaigns. Perhaps most important, he shows that the corporate legislative agenda has come to endanger the scope of democracy itself.
For anyone who wants to know what to expect from corporate-backed Republican leadership in Washington, D.C., there is no better guide than the record of what the same set of actors has been doing in the state legislatures under its control.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published April 4, 2017
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April 16, 2017
This scholarly work is densely written and some pages contain long strings of groups identified by initials, so keep track. If you are not American, you may have been wondering how the nation you considered, while growing up, to be a land where someone willing to work could prosper and have an equal opportunity, became a corporate-run apparent disaster waiting to happen. (They've just repealed a law which said that dangerously insane people could not buy guns. Why? Who would benefit from that?) If you are American, you may be bemused as to how your reasonable expectation of being better off than your parents had to be downgraded, and you now doubt you can own your home, educate your children at third level and retire in any kind of health and comfort; all the while knowing that the one percent of the population that has cornered the wealth has became obscenely wealthy and powerful.
I've read a few books lately setting out the deliberate erosion of American labour unions and increasing investment of funds in big politics by corporations. Living in Europe I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum, in an EU state that dictates much of what occurs in member nations and would love to dictate national tax policies, but has worked in favour of unions, health and safety, farming and environmental standards, and social support. In both USA and EU, though, we're seeing the transfer of jobs to Asia, from clothes making to appliances to call centres, because people there work more cheaply and the company buying their efforts doesn't have to concern itself with their health, safety or pensions.
Trying to gain an overview can be daunting, so Gordon Lafer has scrutinised legislation and lobby groups all over the USA, seeing cause and effect, investment and return. Over here we call much of what he describes, corruption. He tells us that the corporations changed in the last three decades from production management to financial management, meaning that leveraged buyouts, shareholder returns and asset stripping became more important than manufacturing or services. At the same time productivity had soared. (Due to shipping containers and computers according to Naomi Klein.) Corporations sought to effect legislation to the following ends:
Eliminating labour unions, restricting the people's right to sue for corporate malfeasance and the public authority's ability to control firms. Privatising public services and removing them from public policy making. Restricting the right of the public or councils to vote on issues like minimum wage and fracking. A cultural shift towards lowered expectations of the public from their employer or government.
Lafer analyses documents from previous administrations and deduces that a real fear was growing. If middle class voters decided to demand a more democratic state, they could provide good healthcare just by taxing the rich. They would start to want to provide housing, education and transport the same way, so corporate interests, and personal wealth of the rich, would suffer.
To me it seems that the desired outcome of the lobbying is to have a one percent who are untouchable and elite, living in their own well-fed private world, while the majority below them are barefoot, pregnant and uneducated, dying at sixty-five rather than enjoying retirement. Ireland has only recently thrown off a similar abusive, exploitative system run by the Catholic Church. We're still untangling its tendrils from the state offices and dealing with its appalling aftermath.
Some of the text contrasts Democrat, Republican and Tea Party voting patterns and policies. I find it a real shame that America does not have Proportional Representation, which would mean there was a point in voting for a smaller party or a Green candidate. Lafer looks deeper than just federal government, checking out each state one by one. This broader sweep of papers to examine and bills enacted, allows him to build a picture of what lobbying occurs and what it achieves. Lafer tells us that he sees a growing political inequality arising from a social inequality, a national influence by corporate wealth enacted state by state, and the undermining of the workers' ability to affect their nation.
The first state checked is Wisconsin, which after the 2008 crash, enacted a law to prohibit collective bargaining by public employees on any issue but wages, and requires all public service unions to take a vote each year on remaining in existence, among other hindrances to union operation; also causing all public worker industrial action to result in firing. The governor did not stand on an anti-union ticket; a newspaper published a list of sixty campaign promises by him, none having to do with this outcome. This move was repeated in fifteen states over the next four years, each time to the surprise of the public. Each time it occurred because of powerful behind the scenes lobbying, meaning funding. In Wisconsin, says Lafer, the move hit the African-American middle class particularly hard, due to a policy of equal employment by the state. University of California economist Steven Pitts explains that even without a racist agenda, cuts to public sector can have a racist application by pushing black people out of the middle class. (In the notes at the end we see that women are also more affected for the same reason, according to an Economics Policy Institute briefing paper.) Wages were frozen, pensions and healthcare cut. Lafer says the money saved made up for tax cuts for the wealthy. "Returned to taxpayers" is how the representatives phrased it, though not to the taxpayers who made up the majority, especially as school aid was cut too.
The book is well supplied with charts and graphs to illustrate points. On page 83 in my ARC there's a chart of how much states cut school funding by, or increased it by, from 2008 to 2015. Oklahoma is the lowest with a cut of 23.6 % per student; North Dakota is the highest with a rise of 31.6% per student. I was surprised to see California among the cuts, though only 3.2%, and Maine at 13.3%. By and large though, the division is between southern states cutting and northern states increasing. If you are currently considering buying a home or taking a job in America, this book may prove invaluable. Another chart shows how the middle class share of income has declined from 53% in 1967 to below 13% by 2013.
I won't detail all the states and areas examined, because it's just too depressing. Starving public schools, child labour and closed or sold libraries figure. If you are studying economics you may well be seriously depressed by now. But this book will provide you with a wealth of material. Other interested people will be those studying political science, international business law, social science, journalism, Occupy or anti-capitalist movements, corporate finance, American law, social history, the union movement, financial corruption and its effects, modern Fascism.
Notes and references in my ARC run from P 201-261. I counted 152 names which I could be sure were female. Sources are varied and include government publications, reports, scholarly studies, several media and blogs.
Like the other countries bailed out by the IMF and EU after the 2008 financial crash caused by banks, Ireland was ordered to privatise its water supply. An attempt to introduce water charges with ever more draconian methods of extracting the money, succeeded largely just in getting civil servants to pay. Fitting water meters was strongly opposed by local residents. And one quarter of the populace went on marches regularly, some towns marching every week. Candidates were elected to government on opposing charges tickets. All major parties got low support. Due to wide media coverage and grassroots campaigns, the Irish Water body which had been established, had to apologise for wasting millions of euros, the meter installation was stopped, charges billing stopped and the matter referred to a body whose report now says water should be available to the citizens for free. Anyone polluting water will still be fined, so that fits the EU polluter pays principle. While the matter is still ongoing, the public are demanding to enshrine public ownership of the water of the island in the Constitution. The Irish people never intend their water to be sold to the highest foreign bidder. Politicians, who love their seats and pay, are running scared.
If little Ireland can do it, the American people can take heart. Educate yourselves and demand change to favour the people, not the one percent.
I downloaded this ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.
You may also like:
This Changes Everything, No Logo, Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, with upcoming No is Not Enough.
Disaster Capitalism
Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
The Elements of Power: Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future in the Rare Metal Age
The Closing of the Net
This Machine Kills Secrets
People's Republic of Chemicals
Green Capital
Salt Sugar Fat
The Disaster Profiteers
The Price Of Thirst
Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere
Toms River
What Has Nature Ever Done For Us?
I've read a few books lately setting out the deliberate erosion of American labour unions and increasing investment of funds in big politics by corporations. Living in Europe I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum, in an EU state that dictates much of what occurs in member nations and would love to dictate national tax policies, but has worked in favour of unions, health and safety, farming and environmental standards, and social support. In both USA and EU, though, we're seeing the transfer of jobs to Asia, from clothes making to appliances to call centres, because people there work more cheaply and the company buying their efforts doesn't have to concern itself with their health, safety or pensions.
Trying to gain an overview can be daunting, so Gordon Lafer has scrutinised legislation and lobby groups all over the USA, seeing cause and effect, investment and return. Over here we call much of what he describes, corruption. He tells us that the corporations changed in the last three decades from production management to financial management, meaning that leveraged buyouts, shareholder returns and asset stripping became more important than manufacturing or services. At the same time productivity had soared. (Due to shipping containers and computers according to Naomi Klein.) Corporations sought to effect legislation to the following ends:
Eliminating labour unions, restricting the people's right to sue for corporate malfeasance and the public authority's ability to control firms. Privatising public services and removing them from public policy making. Restricting the right of the public or councils to vote on issues like minimum wage and fracking. A cultural shift towards lowered expectations of the public from their employer or government.
Lafer analyses documents from previous administrations and deduces that a real fear was growing. If middle class voters decided to demand a more democratic state, they could provide good healthcare just by taxing the rich. They would start to want to provide housing, education and transport the same way, so corporate interests, and personal wealth of the rich, would suffer.
To me it seems that the desired outcome of the lobbying is to have a one percent who are untouchable and elite, living in their own well-fed private world, while the majority below them are barefoot, pregnant and uneducated, dying at sixty-five rather than enjoying retirement. Ireland has only recently thrown off a similar abusive, exploitative system run by the Catholic Church. We're still untangling its tendrils from the state offices and dealing with its appalling aftermath.
Some of the text contrasts Democrat, Republican and Tea Party voting patterns and policies. I find it a real shame that America does not have Proportional Representation, which would mean there was a point in voting for a smaller party or a Green candidate. Lafer looks deeper than just federal government, checking out each state one by one. This broader sweep of papers to examine and bills enacted, allows him to build a picture of what lobbying occurs and what it achieves. Lafer tells us that he sees a growing political inequality arising from a social inequality, a national influence by corporate wealth enacted state by state, and the undermining of the workers' ability to affect their nation.
The first state checked is Wisconsin, which after the 2008 crash, enacted a law to prohibit collective bargaining by public employees on any issue but wages, and requires all public service unions to take a vote each year on remaining in existence, among other hindrances to union operation; also causing all public worker industrial action to result in firing. The governor did not stand on an anti-union ticket; a newspaper published a list of sixty campaign promises by him, none having to do with this outcome. This move was repeated in fifteen states over the next four years, each time to the surprise of the public. Each time it occurred because of powerful behind the scenes lobbying, meaning funding. In Wisconsin, says Lafer, the move hit the African-American middle class particularly hard, due to a policy of equal employment by the state. University of California economist Steven Pitts explains that even without a racist agenda, cuts to public sector can have a racist application by pushing black people out of the middle class. (In the notes at the end we see that women are also more affected for the same reason, according to an Economics Policy Institute briefing paper.) Wages were frozen, pensions and healthcare cut. Lafer says the money saved made up for tax cuts for the wealthy. "Returned to taxpayers" is how the representatives phrased it, though not to the taxpayers who made up the majority, especially as school aid was cut too.
The book is well supplied with charts and graphs to illustrate points. On page 83 in my ARC there's a chart of how much states cut school funding by, or increased it by, from 2008 to 2015. Oklahoma is the lowest with a cut of 23.6 % per student; North Dakota is the highest with a rise of 31.6% per student. I was surprised to see California among the cuts, though only 3.2%, and Maine at 13.3%. By and large though, the division is between southern states cutting and northern states increasing. If you are currently considering buying a home or taking a job in America, this book may prove invaluable. Another chart shows how the middle class share of income has declined from 53% in 1967 to below 13% by 2013.
I won't detail all the states and areas examined, because it's just too depressing. Starving public schools, child labour and closed or sold libraries figure. If you are studying economics you may well be seriously depressed by now. But this book will provide you with a wealth of material. Other interested people will be those studying political science, international business law, social science, journalism, Occupy or anti-capitalist movements, corporate finance, American law, social history, the union movement, financial corruption and its effects, modern Fascism.
Notes and references in my ARC run from P 201-261. I counted 152 names which I could be sure were female. Sources are varied and include government publications, reports, scholarly studies, several media and blogs.
Like the other countries bailed out by the IMF and EU after the 2008 financial crash caused by banks, Ireland was ordered to privatise its water supply. An attempt to introduce water charges with ever more draconian methods of extracting the money, succeeded largely just in getting civil servants to pay. Fitting water meters was strongly opposed by local residents. And one quarter of the populace went on marches regularly, some towns marching every week. Candidates were elected to government on opposing charges tickets. All major parties got low support. Due to wide media coverage and grassroots campaigns, the Irish Water body which had been established, had to apologise for wasting millions of euros, the meter installation was stopped, charges billing stopped and the matter referred to a body whose report now says water should be available to the citizens for free. Anyone polluting water will still be fined, so that fits the EU polluter pays principle. While the matter is still ongoing, the public are demanding to enshrine public ownership of the water of the island in the Constitution. The Irish people never intend their water to be sold to the highest foreign bidder. Politicians, who love their seats and pay, are running scared.
If little Ireland can do it, the American people can take heart. Educate yourselves and demand change to favour the people, not the one percent.
I downloaded this ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.
You may also like:
This Changes Everything, No Logo, Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, with upcoming No is Not Enough.
Disaster Capitalism
Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
The Elements of Power: Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future in the Rare Metal Age
The Closing of the Net
This Machine Kills Secrets
People's Republic of Chemicals
Green Capital
Salt Sugar Fat
The Disaster Profiteers
The Price Of Thirst
Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere
Toms River
What Has Nature Ever Done For Us?
December 22, 2019
It's taken me forever to read this book because it makes me so friggin' angry I can only read it in short bursts. This should be a required read for every working-class voter; it lays out in clear prose the well-documented analysis of how corporations and the PAC's that support them have corrupted local and national governments in their efforts to attack and annihilate policies that support worker and the poor/middle class. While gains in worker productivity were traditionally in worker prosperity, since 1973, a 75% rise in productivity reflects only a 9% increase in wages; moreover, compared to 1970 the average worker works 280 hours more per year, while earning less when adjusted for inflation. Only for those in lower and middle-classes, of course. For the top then percent, wages rose 36%--and the richest 1% gained 5 million dollars per family.
More insidiously, Koch Brothers, ALEC, the Chamber of Commerce and their ilk launched an effective public disinformation campaign to convince the very people who NEED these policies, that destroying them is in their best interest. As a good middle-of-the-road liberal, I'd had an awareness this was going on, but had no idea of the (quite literally) shocking level of coordination at local, state and national levels, the scope of policies under attack and the level to which the one percent have embedded their interests in both sides of Congress.
Most importantly, the book devotes a chapter to the attack on public education, starting with the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina and the now infamous re-structuring of education in New Orleans, where every teacher was summarily fired, and every school became a charter, operated by private corporations. Needless to say, it's been a disaster (IMO) and at the very least there are no clear indicators that it's an improvement over the previous system, but the model is being promoted across the country.
I really can't recommend this book highly enough, but it will make you even angrier than you are now.
More insidiously, Koch Brothers, ALEC, the Chamber of Commerce and their ilk launched an effective public disinformation campaign to convince the very people who NEED these policies, that destroying them is in their best interest. As a good middle-of-the-road liberal, I'd had an awareness this was going on, but had no idea of the (quite literally) shocking level of coordination at local, state and national levels, the scope of policies under attack and the level to which the one percent have embedded their interests in both sides of Congress.
Most importantly, the book devotes a chapter to the attack on public education, starting with the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina and the now infamous re-structuring of education in New Orleans, where every teacher was summarily fired, and every school became a charter, operated by private corporations. Needless to say, it's been a disaster (IMO) and at the very least there are no clear indicators that it's an improvement over the previous system, but the model is being promoted across the country.
I really can't recommend this book highly enough, but it will make you even angrier than you are now.
September 11, 2017
Groups that dominate right-wing politics in the U.S. routinely clash in what can seem like zero-sum battles between a professional political class of “establishment” Republican pragmatists on one side and constituencies of hard core grassroots “antiestablishment” Tea Party and libertarian activists on the other.
No doubt there are genuine power struggles and policy distinctions to be made between factions of the right. But in “The One Percent Solution,” Gordon Lafer, synthesizes an astounding amount of data to show that focusing on such distinctions distracts from what unites the resurgent right: namely, its unswerving service to corporate interests.
Lafer uses an astounding quantity of data from state-level electoral and legislative battles to show how policies advanced by groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) aim to reshape state policy to the benefit of corporations (and the detriment of workers and consumers).
Importantly, Lafer details instances in which right-wing groups’ public-facing advocacy messages on a variety of issues, including health care, education and union rights, obscure the policy benefits to corporations with arguments that emphasize ideology or mischaracterize policies’ real-world impacts.
The result is a thorough, fact-based investigation that serves the fight against unchecked corporate power by providing a kind of Rosetta Stone for deciphering the corporate agenda, even when its proponents take pains to distance their justifications for their policies from outcomes intended boost profits. For public interest advocates clashing with corporate interests in the age of Trump, “The One Percent Solution” is required reading.
This review originally appeared in Public Citizen's member newsletter.
No doubt there are genuine power struggles and policy distinctions to be made between factions of the right. But in “The One Percent Solution,” Gordon Lafer, synthesizes an astounding amount of data to show that focusing on such distinctions distracts from what unites the resurgent right: namely, its unswerving service to corporate interests.
Lafer uses an astounding quantity of data from state-level electoral and legislative battles to show how policies advanced by groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) aim to reshape state policy to the benefit of corporations (and the detriment of workers and consumers).
Importantly, Lafer details instances in which right-wing groups’ public-facing advocacy messages on a variety of issues, including health care, education and union rights, obscure the policy benefits to corporations with arguments that emphasize ideology or mischaracterize policies’ real-world impacts.
The result is a thorough, fact-based investigation that serves the fight against unchecked corporate power by providing a kind of Rosetta Stone for deciphering the corporate agenda, even when its proponents take pains to distance their justifications for their policies from outcomes intended boost profits. For public interest advocates clashing with corporate interests in the age of Trump, “The One Percent Solution” is required reading.
This review originally appeared in Public Citizen's member newsletter.
March 5, 2020
This is a book you read thoroughly when attempting to learn about our democratic society. It's being devoured from the inside out, and Lafer does an excellent job at highlighting where it's taking place. Major corporations and organizations funded by major corporations are eating at the social safety net's fabric industry by industry, state by state. This book is a sobering disgusting book to read when the reader realizes exactly how much is being siphoned from public goods and public works. Public unions, corporate unions, schools, wages; America's sustainability is under attack and it's all a concoction of different legislative, judicial and executive abuses mapped out by corporations who are only interested in their bottom lines. Knowledge is growth and reading this is crucial to understand the fronts that must be fought in keeping the United States from becoming a modern-day serfdom.
February 24, 2019
Copy provided by publishers for review
The subheading "How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time" is a really good summary of what this book is. It's a breakdown of the various laws at state level that have been manipulated and pushed through by big business, and to an extent, shows the actual impact that this has on the average person.
As a person not from the US, with limited knowledge on how lawmaking works in the States, I found this a very informative read, if a little dense and disheartening.
Ultimately worth it if you have any interest in this area, but was a very slow read for me.
The subheading "How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time" is a really good summary of what this book is. It's a breakdown of the various laws at state level that have been manipulated and pushed through by big business, and to an extent, shows the actual impact that this has on the average person.
As a person not from the US, with limited knowledge on how lawmaking works in the States, I found this a very informative read, if a little dense and disheartening.
Ultimately worth it if you have any interest in this area, but was a very slow read for me.
June 20, 2023
This book is absolutely frightening to read but it should be required reading for anyone interested in how we've gotten to where we are today. Lafer shows us how corporations and their organized political associations have seized control of politics, undermined the middle class, defunded public education, and systematically stripped workers of rights across America. If you are worried about what is happening to our economic and political worlds, this is a playbook you should read to gain a deeper insight into what's going on.
March 4, 2018
Fantastic and well-researched book. Should be required reading for college courses on state politics. Eye-opening.
April 21, 2018
This book would be really funny, if it weren't so routine. Maybe some writing skills would also have helped.
July 29, 2025
Yikes. Scary stuff.
May 1, 2020
Interesting and detailed analysis of the extent to which corporate influence undermines workers’ rights/entitlements. Dry at points as it is statistics heavy but definitely enlightening.
April 24, 2017
Stunningly infuriating account of strategies, motives & actions of the business lobby - ALEC, the National Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufactures, et al. - on ordinary, working class Americans at the state & local levels. Major targets include public sector unions, private sector unions, fair business practice regulations & regulators, and the public system of primary education. Reasons generally include increasing consumer's & worker's freedoms but these justifications are ignored when these freedoms are impinged by businesses and employers. Strong attempts are being made to limit voter's prerogatives to roll back moves favored by corporate interests. This is a well-researched & important work. It will tell you what you need to know but wish you didn't about America's culture wars.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews