A half-century ago, a deliberate corporate counter-revolution declared war on workers and American democracy. We are living in the aftermath.
In From Reagan to Rollerball, political strategist James J. Devine traces the alarming arc from the democratic promise of the mid-twentieth century to its systematic betrayal. Drawing on Thomas Piketty's foundational framework of the "trifunctional order"-the recurring historical alliance between martial rulers and intellectual elites-Devine reveals how modern hyper-capitalism dismantled the Golden Age of working-class politics.
Using the infamous 1971 Lewis Powell Memorandum and Norman Jewison's dystopian 1975 film Rollerball as sharp analytical lenses, this book exposes how corporate power captured regulatory agencies, flooded politics with dark money, and built a massive entertainment apparatus to keep a demobilized public distracted while the economy was hollowed out.
Devine demonstrates that the seemingly chaotic theater of modern politics is actually a stable, collaborative orchestration between the Mercantile Right and the Brahmin Left. While trading rhetorical blows over cultural battlegrounds, both elite factions quietly close ranks to protect the underlying corporate machinery, leaving the working class completely unrepresented.
Divided into five meticulous sections, From Reagan to Rollerball provides a comprehensive autopsy of American democratic erosion:
- Part One: The Architecture of Power explores the ancient historical origins of inequality regimes, the unique democratic interlude of the New Deal's "Golden Age," and the drafting of the corporate declaration of war in 1971.
- Part Two: The Execution of the Plan traces the real-world deployment of this strategy through the rise of Reaganomics and the subsequent structural assault on organized labor.
- Part Three: The Fracture and Its Consequences charts the statistical and political shifts of the 1990s and 2000s, showing how the mainstream left abandoned its working-class base in favor of the professional classes, passing destructive free-trade agreements and sweeping financial deregulation.
- Part Four: The Dystopian Machinery exposes the modern apparatus of social control-revealing how a hyper-consolidated corporate entertainment state functions as an intentional distraction to consume public consciousness.
- Part Five: The Reckoning confronts our present precipice, mapping out how the current system accelerates toward complete corporate governance, and outlining the rigorous institutional organization required to force a genuine democratic revival.
This is not a traditional left-vs-right narrative. It is a clear-eyed exposé of a rigged system where citizens have been reduced to passive spectators of a theater managed by competing elites. Incisive, urgent, and unflinching, From
Reagan to Rollerball is a vital blueprint for understanding our current political precipice-a rally cry for what a genuine democratic revival requires.
An Urgent Call for Collective AwakeningThis book does not end in despair. With a masterful foreword provided by acclaimed human rights advocate Steven Donziger,
From Reagan to Rollerball emphasizes that while our democratic institutions are severely compromised and hollowed out, they are not yet fully destroyed. The corporate trajectory is accelerating, and the clock is running out-but the ultimate path forward remains an open choice.
Written in a style that is analytically rigorous yet deeply accessible, Devine offers an essential guide for workers, organizers, and everyday citizens. It provides the clarity needed to see past the noise of contemporary media spectacles, decode the real class war, and reclaim the stolen promise of democratic self-governance.
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