Summary :
This book is the product of that project. It tells the story of how the business community and its allies in the conservative funding community, conservative think tanks, and conservative public interest groups seized the mantle of “reform” in a bold and sustained attempt to roll back the regulatory programs and civil justice reforms of the 1960s and 1970s with the ultimate goal of returning to the laissez faire benchmark of the late nineteenth century. It highlights the impacts of the regulatory “reforms” on the benefi ciaries of federal regulatory programs in the areas of worker safety, environmental protection, drug and device safety, food safety and nutrition, transportation safety, consumer protection, and systemic fi nancial protection. And it examines the impacts of changes in the civil justice system on the victims of irresponsible corporate behavior. My overall thesis is that thirty years of regulatory and tort reform have disturbed the necessary balance among economic freedom, corporate responsibility, and corporate accountability to such an extent that companies have acquired more freedom to harm consumers, workers, and the environment than at any time since the New Deal and perhaps since the late nineteenth century. As I was preparing the prospectus for this book, there were unmistakable signs of change in the air. The 2006 elections had delivered both houses of Congress to the Democratic Party, and many of the prevailing candidates had run against the George W. Bush Administration’s deregulatory agenda. In addition, Congress passed two new laws—the Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006 and the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008—that for the fi rst time in two decades expanded the protections afforded by federal regula-tory agencies. As I was preparing the manuscript, the 2008 elections increased the Democratic majorities in both houses and produced an exciting young president who had run a campaign based on the theme of hope. In addition, an ongoing confl uence of crises had increased public awareness of the extent to which individuals were vulnerable to unconstrained market forces. The stars seemed to be aligned for another “transformative moment” when Congress enacts comprehensive laws designed to change the incentives of the companies that threaten public health and welfare.

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