The Business Roundtable and the politics of U.S. manufacturing decline in the global 1970s
研究了1970年代美国制造业巨头如何通过商业圆桌会议进行政治动员，但因其过时的政策偏好和混乱的修辞，未能有效应对制造业衰退，揭示了商业行动主义中的讽刺性矛盾。
As the ‘golden age of American capitalism’ drew to a close in the 1970s, major U.S. manufacturing companies mobilised politically to defend their long-standing hegemony. Despite notable policy victories concerning labour, regulation, and fiscal policy, the self-appointed ‘mouthpieces’ of U.S. industry failed to cohere around a clear agenda to confront the decline of U.S. manufacturing. By considering the trade positions promoted by the Business Roundtable, this article suggests that corporate elites misdiagnosed their own weaknesses and thus mobilised around policy preferences that quickly became outdated. The political and intellectual legacy of earlier battles ultimately prevented the Business Roundtable from developing or defending a pro-active industrial policy. By evaluating this confused rhetoric and stubborn adherence to antiquated analysis, the article highlights a crucial irony at the heart of modern business activism: the very political vision that had proved so important to their initial mobilisation ultimately hamstrung firms’ efforts to mitigate deindustrialisation.