The Powell Memo Might As Well Have Been The Powell Prophecy

President Richard Nixon once nominated a man named Lewis Powell, who was a successful corporate lawyer and member of the board of 11 companies, to the Supreme Court. But, two months before that, Lewis Powell would author something that would serve as a historical document explaining much of today. That document would go onto be called the Powell Memo, also known as the Powell Manifesto.

When Powell wrote the manifesto, it was directed to a friend, and chairman of the Education Committee with the U.S. Chamber of Commerse. So, did someone in the early 1970s recognize that there was an attack on the American Free Enterprise System? Or, like most radicals, was this manifesto another example of fear of change.

The Attack

According to the manifesto, the American economic system was already under broad attack. He believed the attack was varied in its reach, intensity, in techniques that were being used, and its visibility. Powell seemed to recognize that there were those who opposed the way the system worked in America, prefering socialism or some form of statism, be it communism or fascism. Powell recognized that some critics of the system meant well, preferring to improve the sysem rather than bringing it down.

The Attackers

So, Powell, as it appears, believed that their were multiple fronts attacking the American economic system, and the very way of life that helped to develop the United States.

The attackers were the Communists, New Leftists, and other so called revolutionaries bent on destroying the system, both the political and economic side. Extremists on the left were believed to, even then, be far more numerous, financed, and unexplainable welcomed by and encouraged by members of society. But, in the seventies, they were a small minority, and had not yet risen to the level of concern they cause in the 21st century.

Powell saw how the media was voluntarily pushing the visibility of such groups, labeled the "attackers," or allowed the media to be used for the purpose of the "attackers." How, through television at the time. From the powell memo, the truth would mean that in time, through social media and across the internet, they'd use all forms of media to push their attack on America's system of economics and governance.

Powell called it a paradox, as he forsaw the enterprise sysem tolerating, if not outright participating in, it's own inevitable destruction. Hum, looking back to the eighties, and forward to today, it's hard to argue against his belief.

Much of the criticism of the systems so hated by the "attackers" came from the United States. The critcisms ultimately were supported by tax funds from American business, contributions from capital funds, and boards of trustees at major universities were the leaders of the system preparing to take down what help build the country.

William Kunstler, a voice of the early leftists, was quoted as saying, and you'll notice alarming similarities to the type of rhetoric leftists in government use today:

You must learn to fight in the streets, to revolt, to shoot guns. We will learn to do all of the things that property owners fear.

William Kunstler

Considering one politicians recent call to the "democratic foot soldiers" and terms he like's to use like, "fight them in the streets," it seems that Kunstler's influence is alive more than fifty years after the Powell Manifesto was written.

Looking over the Powell Memo, even in 1971, Powell was able to see the problems that would come to be. He noted that many politicians were arguing against the tax breaks given to businesses only benefited the owners of such big companies, and it helped to build a rich against poor mindset, which he called one of the cheapest and most dangerous types of politics. He seemed to understand the socialist mindset, and recognize how dangerous socialism was to the way of life in this country.

There is far more of a breakdown available, but it appears that the powell memo, however well meaning and propetic it was going to be moving foward, didn't elicit the kind of response and support it needed to be able to keep the country from falling to the pit of socialism. So much of Powell is evident in people like Bernie Sanders, Barrack Obama, and Joe Biden, and most recently, Hakeem Jeffries.

However, as the very socialist supporters, usually college kids and fringe groups, demand change and aim their anger at the rich and the powerful, what is going on isn't what they are asking for. Most of the supporters in power are getting richer by the minute. They are using their power and connection the same as the oligarchs in Russia are guilty of doing, and it has created a system of the rich getting richer while being supported by their lower class subordinates.

Takeaways

Historically, the Powell memo warrants further study. It's interesting to see how the themes of the early seventies unfolded into the rest of the 20th, and into the 21st century. The extreme idiologies of Marxism and Socialism, two ideas that have proven not to work long term, have begn to overpower the freemarket, or capitalist system.

Unfortunately, while the freemarket and capitalist systems have proven to be the best systems, they are flawed. They require innovation, and investment. The latter is something not everybody is born into, nor will everybody be able to see in their time.

The intermixing of business and political ties hasn't helped the appearance of the system, leading many to feel divided, or left out of the opportunities that might be available. Since the Powell Memorandum was written, Powells vision of things has only continued to grow. What he warned of in the 70s has proven very prophetic.