How big business invented the theology of ‘Christian Libertarianism’ and the Gospel of free markets

[xfundy]

The beginnings of when business latched on to religion to screw the rest of us over.

During the Great Depression, big business needed rebranding. Blamed for the crash, belittled in the press, and beset by the New Deal’s regulatory state, corporate leaders decided they had to improve their image, and soon. “The public does not understand industry,” an executive complained, “because industry itself has made no effort to tell its story; to show the people of this country that our high living standards have risen almost altogether from the civilization which industrial activity has set up.”

Accordingly, corporate leaders launched a public relations campaign for capitalism itself. In 1934, the National Association of Manufacturers hired its first public relations director in its four decades of existence, expanding its annual budget in that field from just $36,000 to nearly $800,000 three years later, a sum that represented half of its total budget. NAM marketed the miracles of “free enterprise” with a wide array of advertisements, direct mail, films, radio programs, a speakers’ bureau, and a press service that provided prefabricated editorials and news stories for 7500 newspapers. Ultimately, though, the organization’s efforts at self-promotion were generally dismissed as precisely that.

While old business lobbies like NAM couldn’t sell capitalism effectively, neither could new ones created especially for the cause. The American Liberty League, founded in 1934, originally seemed business’s best bet. It received lavish financial support from corporate leaders, notably at Du Pont and General Motors, but ultimately their prominence in the group crippled its effectiveness. Jim Farley, then head of the Democratic Party, famously joked that it ought to be called the “American Cellophane League” because “first, it’s a Du Pont product and second, you can see right through it.”

More>>http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/how-big-business-invented-the-theology-of-christian-libertarianism-and-the-gospel-of-free-markets/

[TexasProgresive]

1. A part of that has to be

The Prosperity Gospel.

[xfundy]

2. It could have contributed to it, yes.

The fact is that someone sees someone else making money/gaining power off the gullible, the poor and sick, etc. and decides to take it in just another twist.

No wonder Putin is pushing religion in his country -- he's seen how effectively it's been used by repigs in the usa.

[PeteSelman]

3. I heard the author discussing this book on NPR today.

Some things never change.

[xfundy]

4. Wish I'd heard that.

Thanks for the heads up. It may be in their archives.