Sunbelt Capitalism: Phoenix and the Transformation of American Politics by Elizabeth Tandy Shermer (review)

Over the last twenty years US historians have dissected the rise of conservative politics in the later twentieth century. While some of their studies have focused on events at the national level, others have approached the problem from the perspective of cities in the south and west. For example, Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors, 2001, and Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt, 2011, examine changes emanating from southern California, while Matthew Lassiter, The Silent Majority, 2006, and Kevin Kruse, White Flight, 2005, consider developments in southern cities. With Sunbelt Capitalism, Elizabeth Tandy Shermer gives Arizona’s leading city its day in the sun. She emphasizes how Phoenix businessmen, boosters, and politicians created a favorable “business climate” that lured hundreds of manufacturing and R&D firms, corporate headquarters, and service industries to their city. A town that had just over sixty-five thousand residents in 1940 became America’s sixth largest city by 2010, with a population of nearly 1.5 million. Moreover, Phoenix’s “homegrown, developmental neoliberalism” (13) became an important component of the country’s rising conservatism. Shermer points to the careers of two US Senators and Republican Presidential nominees—Barry Goldwater and John McCain—and two US Supreme Court justices—William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor—as examples of Arizona’s influence upon the nation.

Phoenix’s gains came at the expense of other cities and states, especially those in what became known as the Rust Belt. Prior to World War II, Shermer explains, the majority of southern and western towns were peripheral to America’s industrial economy. Thereafter those towns devised strategies to overcome their underdevelopment. Phoenix’s leaders ranked among the earliest and the most thorough in crafting policies appealing to businesses looking to maximize locational advantages. During the late 1940s they undermined organized labor by spearheading the campaign to make Arizona a “right-to-work” state. During the 1950s they captured the municipal government of Phoenix, crafted policies to retain political control, and took measures to insulate businesses from voter discontent. Working through both local and state governments and through chamber-of-commerce organizations, they found ways to lower corporate taxes, build new infrastructure, and generally meet the needs of businesses looking to relocate. The governing coalition consisted almost exclusively of Republicans, and their efforts helped to convert Arizona, once controlled by Democrats, into a Republican stronghold. In fact, some Arizona Democrats adapted by accepting some Republican positions. Eventually, Shermer argues, industrial states in the northeast and midwest responded similarly. Many came to feel that the only way to compete against the Sunbelt for jobs was to make their “business climates” as favorable as Phoenix’s. Sunbelt politics became American politics.

Three aspects of Sunbelt Capitalism deserve close attention. First, while some American conservatives argued to minimize government, Shermer persuasively argues that Phoenix’s elite succeeded not by rejecting government but by using it to create conditions that suited corporate interests. For example, businesses wanted to pay as little tax as possible, but they also required such things as a reliable water supply and a state-supported college of engineering. Phoenix politicians accommodated corporate preferences by taxing business less to raise revenues for such public investments and taxing individuals more, e.g., through property, sales, and personal income taxes. Second, a prominent theme within the discourse of the progrowth coalition was that government itself needed to be as “business-like” as possible. Not surprisingly, a rhetoric of nonpartisan efficiency and of leadership serving the interests of all came to mask a quite partisan, class-based, and ideological approach to governance. Third, Phoenix’s probusiness politics were never solely a tool for ensuring growth. Local conservatism actually originated as opposition to New Deal liberalism. Long before he first ran for office, Goldwater became known for attacks on President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He and other...