In other words, the opposition has a master plan and we don't. Those working for the common good have no equivalent of The Powell Memo. The biggest insight to glean from the memo is that: 'No thoughtful person can question' essentially demands that you put aside rational thinking and just blindly accept what follows. It's a standard setup for an argument that has little strong logical evidence but lots of weak emotional evidence and mountains of rationalizations and lies. As soon as you see phrases like 'no thoughtful person can question' you should reject what follows, because this is a classic form of deception. In twenty some years large for-profit corporations have taken over the American system.įurthermore, thoughtful people can question bold assertions like this. So much so that the Powell Memo master plan worked. Once the reader swallows this first fallacy, the rest of the memo works. In truth it was big business that was attacking The People and the common good. 'The American economic system' was not under attack. 1 If the reader swallows it they are hooked. The American economic system is under attack. Note the key assertion that framed the entire memo: The memo opened with the fallacious but highly effective appeal shown above. Unless they have read the memo, they still don't.īelow is the first page of the memo with its thesis circled:

The memo presented a bold strategy for how the corporate life form could take over the key portions of the system, without the other side knowing what was happening. The Powell Memo was the precipitating event for the swift rise and astounding success of big business and its control of the United States, starting in the early 1970s.

Powell memo