On one hand, the orchestrated corporate response to the domestic and global political and economic crises of the 1970s was simply corporations taking care of business as usual. Different were the concurrent changes in the economy, technology, and politics, which gave corporations powerful new tools to bring to their counter-offensive. New discoveries in information and communications such as computers, mobile phones, and later the Internet, made it easier to plan and coordinate national and global campaigns and to move capital and production around the world. Air transport and containerized shipping created the conditions for global consumer markets. Professions such as public relations, advertising, and lobbying developed sophisticated new techniques that enabled corporations to mobilize support for their economic and political goals.
At the same time, many of the countervailing powers that had in earlier times challenged corporate advances were in decline. Changes in family structure and job opportunities allowed corporations to take over what had been family responsibilities: McDonald’s replaced Mom’s cooking, TV became the new baby sitter, and Hollywood and Madison Avenue taught children about food, shopping, sex, and relationships.