A New History of Leviathan. Essays on the Rise of the American Corporate State

[Title Page and Copyright Information]: Title page, publication details, and individual copyright notices for the essays included in the volume. [Preface]: Editors Radosh and Rothbard define the 'Leviathan Corporate State' as a system where giant corporations use government levers to stifle competition. They argue that 20th-century liberalism is actually an ideology of dominant business groups seeking state-sponsored cartelization, and explain how a right-wing libertarian and a New Left socialist can find common ground in critiquing the myths of the New Deal and the Hoover presidency. [Table of Contents]: A list of the essays, their authors, and page numbers included in the collection. [Introduction: A Profile of the Corporate Elite]: William Appleman Williams argues that the American elite consciously manages the political economy for the benefit of a tiny minority, moving away from representative democracy toward a 'gentle totalitarianism.' He analyzes the four types of men—business directors, politicians, intellectuals, and reformers—who have merged into a single elite class that prioritizes organization, rationalization, and management over morality and democratic equity. [Woodrow Wilson and the Political Economy of Modern United States Liberalism]: Martin J. Sklar reinterprets Woodrow Wilson's liberalism not as an anti-business movement, but as a sophisticated effort to adjust law to the reality of corporate consolidation. Sklar argues that Wilson's 'New Freedom' was a conservative-historicist project that affirmed large-scale corporations as 'natural' while using government mechanisms like the FTC and Federal Reserve to stabilize the economy and facilitate foreign expansion via the Open Door policy. He concludes that Wilsonianism is the root of modern corporate liberalism, seeking to preserve the capitalist order by integrating labor and small business into a managed system. [War Collectivism in World War I]: Murray Rothbard argues that World War I 'war collectivism' served as the blueprint for modern state corporate capitalism. He details how the War Industries Board, led by Bernard Baruch, allowed big business to cartelize the economy, fix prices, and eliminate competition under the guise of patriotic necessity. Rothbard traces the continuity of these wartime planning mechanisms—including the Food Administration and Railroad Administration—into the 'associational' policies of the 1920s and eventually the New Deal's NRA and AAA. [Herbert Hoover and the Myth of Laissez-Faire]: Rothbard challenges the conventional view of Herbert Hoover as a laissez-faire advocate, presenting him instead as a 'corporate liberal' and the true architect of the New Deal. He documents Hoover's promotion of government-business 'teamplay,' his use of the Department of Commerce to foster trade associations, and his unprecedented interventionist response to the 1929 crash, including propping up wage rates and creating the RFC. Rothbard argues that Hoover only broke with the trend toward outright fascism (the Swope Plan) in his final year, leading to his false reputation as a conservative. [The Myth of the New Deal]: Ronald Radosh argues that the New Deal was a conservative movement that protected corporate capitalism by absorbing threatening radical impulses. He demonstrates that key reforms like the Social Security Act and the Wagner Act were supported by moderate 'sophisticated' corporate leaders (like Gerard Swope) to stabilize the system and integrate labor as a junior partner. Radosh contends that industrial unionism served to discipline the workforce and that the NRA was an attempt to create an American corporate state modeled on fascist economic theory but adapted for a democratic context. [Policy-Planning for the Establishment]: David Eakins examines seven influential research organizations (including Brookings, NBER, and CED) that shaped American policy through the lens of corporate liberalism. He argues that these groups provided the 'objective' facts needed to rationalize the capitalist system and prevent radical social change. Eakins highlights how these organizations created a consensus where political problems are treated as mere 'technical' or 'administrative' issues, effectively drawing the teeth of potential systemic critics. [James Burnham: Exemplary Radical of the 1930s]: James Gilbert traces the intellectual trajectory of James Burnham from Trotskyist radical to conservative theorist. He argues that Burnham's 'Managerial Revolution' thesis was a product of his radical experience, leading him to view the New Deal, Fascism, and Stalinism as similar expressions of a new bureaucratic ruling class. Gilbert shows how Burnham's eventual rejection of all forms of collectivism led him to a pessimistic individualism and a role as a leading critic of the 'suicide' of Western liberalism. [American Foreign Policy and National-Security Management]: Leonard P. Liggio analyzes the rise of the 'national-security bureaucracy' from the Wilson era through the Cold War. He argues that American foreign policy shifted toward the management of violence and public opinion to prevent social revolutions that threatened global corporate interests. Liggio contrasts the interventionist 'management' approach of figures like Dean Acheson and McGeorge Bundy with the isolationist/laissez-faire critiques of William Borah and Robert Taft, concluding that the Vietnam War was the logical result of a policy that views the world as a series of technical police actions. [Suggested Readings and Notes on Contributors]: A list of suggested readings in revisionist American history and biographical sketches of the essayists, including Radosh, Rothbard, Williams, Sklar, Eakins, Gilbert, and Liggio.