This chapter situates the transformation of the politics of business during the 1980s at the intersection of two interrelated trends: the realignment of global capitalism, particularly the rise of finance and the decline of industrial manufacturing in the United States, and the political and cultural changes that spawned a new power structure and the proliferation of professional lobbying firms. The collective influence of employers' associations began to wane during the Reagan administration, even as their ideological perspective became increasingly integral to political discourse. Neoliberal doctrine about the supremacy of the market and the debilitating effects of government “intervention” in the economy came to dominate policy deliberations not only among conservatives and Republicans but, increasingly, among liberals and Democrats.