Fluctuating Fortunes: The Political Power of Business in America.

• Author: Waldman, Michael

Fluctuating Fortunes: The Political Power of Business in America. David Vogel. Basic Books, $20.95. One hundred thousand people in our nation's capital work directly or indirectly for the business lobby. That's an astounding statistic, and it wasn't always so. Three decades ago, business was sleepy, relying on oldboy ties with a few powerful lawmakers to win the day. Now the capital teems with lobbyists of every pinstripe, doling out honoraria and contributions to lawmakers and importuning government for subsidies, exemptions, and favorable treatment.

Fluctuating Fortunes is a chronicle of business's political battles over the past three decades. It tells the story of the early victories of consumerists and environmentalists and the Fortune 500's ferocious and well-funded response during the 1970s and 1980s. David Vogel offers too much play-byplay and not enough color commentary; after reading this book, you'll feel as if you have just speed-read through a decade's worth of Congressional Quarterly. Still, it is a thoughtful and valuable account of how, following World War 11, Democrats who had once seen big business as "economic royalists" came to view it as not only benign but the engine of prosperity.

During the 1960s, public attitudes shifted, spurred by the revelation that General Motors had hired a detective to spy on Ralph Nader. When GM's president apologized to Nader at a congressional hearing, politicians sensed a new and powerful consumerist impulse. Congress soon produced a torrent of business regulation-creating the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, enacting new pollution and safety standards, and strengthening the Federal Trade Commission. By 1970, the Nixon administration and the Democratic Congress vied to be seen as more pro-environmentalist. Week after week, as they wound their way through Congress, the Clean Air Act amendments were strengthened.

But it didn't take long before business regrouped and launched a lavish, well-coordinated campaign to roll back regulation. Think-tanks and PACs proliferated, Mobil ads sprouted on op-ed pages, and a new generation of congressmen grew more dependent on their private backers than the support of their party. By 1981, President Reagan and House Democrats engaged in the notorious bidding war over tax cuts, taking turns poking loopholes in the tax code to woo businesses.

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