The Liberal Establishment

The Liberal Establishment: Who Runs America… and How by M. Stanton Evans presents a conservative critique of the political and intellectual establishment that the author argues dominated American government and public opinion in the mid-twentieth century. Evans defines this establishment not as a centrally directed conspiracy, but as a network of politicians, government officials, academics, journalists, labor leaders, and other influential figures united by a broadly liberal outlook favoring centralized federal power, economic planning, the welfare state, and accommodation toward Communism. He examines the Kennedy-Johnson administrations, Americans for Democratic Action, Social Security and Medicare, government regulation, internal security controversies, censorship, and the influence of the mass media, arguing that liberal policies progressively weakened constitutional restraints while expanding federal authority. Evans ultimately contends that the concentration of political power threatens property rights, free speech, due process, freedom of conscience, and the independent press, and contrasts this development with the Founders’ conception of decentralized, limited government as the essential safeguard of individual liberty.