American Business Foreign Policy

With increasing world economic interdependence and a new position as a creditor nation, the American business community became more actively and vocally concerned with foreign policy after World War I than ever before. This book details the response of American businessmen to such foreign policy issues as the tariff, disarmament, allied debts, loans, and the Manchurian crisis. Far from presenting a monolithic front, the business community fragmented into nationalist and internationalist camps, according to this study. Division over each issue varied with the size, type, and geographic region of the various business interests, and despite their formidable economic power, business internationalists are shown to have played a more limited role on certain issues than has been formerly assumed. Unfortunately for the future development of United States diplomacy and world stability, no institutional means for tempering business influence on the formulation of foreign policy, or for coordinating economic and political foreign policies, were developed in the twenties.

American Business and Public Policy is a study of the politics of foreign trade. It challenges fi fty years of writing on pressure politics. It includes nine hundred interviews with heads of corporations, including 166 of the 200 largest corporations; another 500 interviews with congressmen, lobbyists, journalists, and opinion leaders; and eight community studies making this book the most intensive survey in print of the politics of business. It is a realistic behavioral examination of a major type of economic decision. The authors introduce their study with a history of the tariff as a political issue in American politics and a history of American tariff legislation in the years from Europe's trade recovery under the Marshall Plan to the challenge of the Common Market. They examine in succession the changing attitudes of the general public and the political actions of the business community, the lobbies, and Congress. American Business and Public Policy is a contribution to social theory in several of its branches. It is a contribution to understanding the business community, to the social psychology of communication and attitude change, to the study of political behavior in foreign policy. American Business and Public Policy is at once a study of a classic issue in American politics-the tariff; decision-making, particularly the relation of economic to social-psychological theories of behavior; business communication- what businessmen read about world affairs, what effect foreign travel has on them, where they turn for political advice, and how they seek political help; pressure politics, lobbying, and the Congressional process

With increasing world economic interdependence and a new position as a creditor nation, the American business community became more actively and vocally concerned with foreign policy after World War I than ever before. This book details the response of American businessmen to such foreign policy issues as the tariff, disarmament, allied debts, loans, and the Manchurian crisis. Far from presenting a monolithic front, the business community fragmented into nationalist and internationalist camps, according to this study. Division over each issue varied with the size, type, and geographic region of the various business interests, and despite their formidable economic power, business internationalists are shown to have played a more limited role on certain issues than has been formerly assumed. Unfortunately for the future development of United States diplomacy and world stability, no institutional means for tempering business influence on the formulation of foreign policy, or for coordinating economic and political foreign policies, were developed in the twenties.

American Business and Public Policy is a study of the politics of foreign trade. It challenges fifty years of writ-ing on pressure politics. It includes nine hundred interviews with heads of corporations, including 166 of the 200 largest corporations; another 500 interviews with congressmen, lob-byists, journalists, and opinion leaders; and eight community studies making this book the most intensive survey in print of the politics of business. It is a realistic behavioral examination of a major type of economic decision. The authors introduce their study with a history of the tariff as a political issue in American politics and a history of American tariff legislation in the years from Europe's trade recovery under the Marshall Plan to the challenge of the Common Market. They examine in succession the changing attitudes of the general public and the political actions of the business community, the lobbies, and Congress. American Business and Public Policy is a contribution to social theory in several of its branches. It is a contribution to understanding the business community, to the social psychol-ogy of communication and attitude change, to the study of political behavior in foreign policy. American Business and Public Policy is at once a study of a classic issue in American politics--the tariff; decision-making, particularly the relation of economic to social-psycho-logical theories of behavior; business communication--what businessmen read about world affairs, what effect foreign travel has on them, where they turn for political advice, and how they seek political help; pressure politics, lobbying, and the Congressional process.

From the former Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade comes a provocative vision of the stakes for America as new political and economic powers emerge around the world. Garten introduces us to the ten most dynamic emerging powers and makes a compelling case for increased American engagement and trade with them. Garten sees our entire way of life bound up in meeting this challenge. Index. Appendix. Charts and graphs.