Business Council, extract from The Powers That Be

Grant McConnell had only one hesitation in suggesting that the politics of business were conducted in narrow interest groups. That was the existence of the Business Council. Calling it "one of the more remarkable groups ever associated with the government," McConnell based his account on the small amount of information on its advisory functions that investigators had been able to obtain from the tight-lipped Department of Commerce up until the mid 1960's.^[1]

McConnell noted that in the 1940's and 1950's the Council included a cross-section of the major business leaders in the nation. It held six meetings a year, some in Washington, some in resort settings like Sea Island, Georgia and Hot Springs, Virginia. Major government officials were in attendance at the meetings, which were strictly confidential. The council also pre-pared reports on a wide variety of general issues to give to government leaders. The expenses for meetings and reports were paid by private contributions.

History

The Business Council, which was created in 1933 as an adjunct to the Department of Commerce, made a unilateral withdrawal from its quasi-governmental status in 1962 because of a small flap with the Kennedy administration. North Carolina businessman Luther H. Hodges, serving as Kennedy's Secretary of Commerce, asked the council to include more small-business representatives and to allow reporters to cover its meetings. He was responding in part to congressional and journalistic criticisms of the council's exclusive relationship with government, and in part to the fact that its chairperson at the time, Ralph Cordiner of General Electric, was in the limelight because of a gigantic price-fixing scandal in the electrical equipment industry. Rather than totally accept Hodges' suggestions, the Business Advisory Council, as it was then called, quietly told the government that it was changing its name to the Business Council and becoming an independent organization which would offer its advice to all agencies of the government.

Despite the fact that the Business Council was no longer an official advisory group to the Department of Commerce, it con-tinued the prominent role it had developed during the Eisenhower administration, supplying businesspeople for government positions and meeting regularly in Hot Springs with government officials. It was especially close to the Johnson administration.^[2]

McConnell considers the possibility that the Business Council might be "a directorate of big business effectually controlling the economic policy of the nation," but dismisses the idea on the following grounds:

Certainly, if a search were to be made for a top executive committee of corporate business, no more likely body could be found than the Business Council. Nevertheless, such an interpretation would probably be mistaken. The Council included a number of disparate elements. Not only were some representatives of small business actually members, but some of the representatives of big business had interests in con-flict with each other. Moreover, the recommendations of the Council have not always been put into effect.^[3]

In the end, McConnell sees the Business Council as a more ideological group, and also as a social group which confers prestige on its members. It is thus less important to its big-business members than industry advisory committees: ". .. mem-bership on the National Petroleum Council has probably been more important than membership on the Business Advisory Council to Mr. Eugene Holman, Chairman of the Board of Standard Oil of New Jersey [Exxon]; much the same thing could probably be said of other figures of high stature in business."^[4]

McConnell's perceptions of the Business Council are sympto-matic, for they show the failure to distinguish between narrow interest-group advisory committees and general policy groups. It is in this inclusion of both types of organizations in a single analytical category that the policy process is lost from view. In singling out the Business Council for further discussion, McConnell rightfully put his finger on an organization that has a significant place in the policy-planning process, but did not ex-plore adequately its unique role.

The council does not conduct as many study groups or hold as many meetings as do most policy-discussion organizations. Indeed, it was because the Business Council had only limited research capabilities that the Committee for Economic Develop-ment was formed. Nonetheless, the Business Council is centrally situated in the policy-planning network. It is a collecting and consensus-seeking point for much of the work of the other organizations. Moreover, it is one of the few organizations that has regular and formal meetings with government officials. It is, then, a major connection between big business and government. In a way, its centrality among the policy groups makes it the unofficial board of directors within the power elite.

Many Washington observers have made this claim about the centrality of the Business Council from impressionistic information, but the point also can be made more systematically. In one study, membership overlaps among thirty-one social clubs and policy groups were analyzed mathematically to determine the centrality score for each organization. The Business Council emerged as the most central organization, rivaled only by the Committee for Economic Development.^[5]

In a second study based on the overlapping members in thirty-six clubs and policy groups, another mathematical tech-nique was used to determine the pattern of relationships among the groups. This study uncovered two cliques that were primarily rooted in organizations on the East and West Coasts, respec-tively, and a third clique whose members were linked to both the. East and West Coast cliques. The Business Council was a member of this integrating clique, along with the Committee for Economic Development, the Conference Board and several social clubs ^[6]

Because it cultivates what a congressional committee called an aura of secrecy," there is very little systematic evidence on the functioning of the Council. However, one of my former re-search assistants undertook a careful observational study for me of its May 1972 meeting. The four-day gathering was held in the lavish Homestead Hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia, a town of less than 2,500 people, 50 miles from Washington. Council members heard speeches by government officials, conducted panels on problems of general concern, received reports from hired staff and talke4 informally with each other and the government offi-cials in attendance. The meetings were held in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere that reinforced the feeling of camaraderie between the business and government participants. Discussion sessions were alternated with social events, including golf tournaments, tennis matches and banquet-style dinners for members, guests and wives. The guest list included the chairman of the Federal Reserve System, the Secretary of the Army, the Director of the CIA, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Commerce, the Chairman of the Coun-cil of Economic Advisers and a Special Assistant to the President.^[7]

Very little is known about the role the council has played in urging the government to adopt any specffic policies, mainly because it will not make its files available for research. However, a careful historical study of the council's history is highly persua-sive in arguing that it had little impact on government policy during its early years, when it was little more than an adjunct to the Departmenf of Commerce.^[8] Its only real domestic success throughout the New Deal was its supportive involvement in the Social Security Act.^[9] It was not until the Eisenhower administration that it began to assume its present role. Since that time it has been a major contact point between the corporate community and the executive branch, providing government officials with direct presentations Qf the policy perspectives developed in the rest of the network, and serving as a stepping stone to govern-ment service for its members.^[10]

References

• ^. Grant McConnell, Private Power and American Democracy (Knopf,1966), p. 276.
• ^. Hobart Rowan, The Free Enterprisers (0. P. Putnam's Sons, 1964), p. 77.
• ^. McConnell, op. cit., p. 279.
• ^. Ibid.
• ^. G. William Domhoff, "Social Clubs, Policy-Planning Groups and Cor-porations: A Network Study of Ruling-Class Cohesiveness," The Insurgent Sociologist, Spring, 1975.
• ^. Philip Bonacich and C. William Domlioff, "Overlapping Memberships Among Clubs and Policy Groups of the American Ruling Class," paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Chicago, 1977. Using an entirely different approach based on interviews with businesspeople and the leaders of business groups, sociologist Floyd Hunter arrived at the same result in 1959 - the Conference Board, the Committee for Economic Development and the Business Council are at the heart of the national power structure. See Floyd Hunter, Top Leadership U.S.A. (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1959), p. 33.
• ^. See Craig Kubey, "Notes on a Meeting of the Business Council," The Insurgent Sociologist, Spring, 1973, for a summary account of this study.
• ^. Kim McQuaid, "The Business Advisory Council of the Department of Commerce, 1933-1961: A Study of Corporate/Government Relations," Paul U. Selding, ed., Research in Economic History, Volume 1 (JAT Press, 1976).
• ^. Domhoff, The Higher Circles, op. cit., pp. 210â€â€?215. The council also played a very central role in creating and managing the National Labor Board and labor advisory boards in specific industries in the years 1933-35. However, these efforts in "self-regulation" did not work out and were superseded by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, an act that was opposed by most members of the council. I am grateful to Professor Kim McQuaid for providing me with access to his original research on this topic through personal communications.
• ^. Frank V. Fowlkes, "Business Council Shuns Lobbying but Influences Federal Policy," National Journal, November 20, 1971, presents interview evidence of council influence.