A Conservative 'playbook'?

From 'We the people' to 'lower their expectations'.

In a very real sense, this is the 'culture war' we are in right now. The role of Government IN a 'free enterprise' economic system.

Does Government 'manage' the people while limiting the regulation or 'management' of business?

Or does Government 'regualte' business so that the playing field, the access to the same opportunity extend to all while broadening the tax base so that the 'people' also have a level playing field, equal opportunity?

Is the standard, quality of 'we the peoples' lifes of equal, greater or lesser 'value' then business?

Gordon Lafer : http://www.epi.org/people/gordon-lafer/

'Why was 2011 the year that brought such a ferocious assault on labour standards? At the most macro-level, the legislative battles of the past year must be viewed in the context of the long-term economic decline experienced by working- and middle-class Americans'.
'If the country continues in the broad policy directions of neoliberal trade, privatization, de-unionization and deregulation, there is no possibility but that living standards for most Americans will continue to decline, as the country is slowly but inexorably competed down to the level of less wealthy trading partners. This broad reality provides the fundamental background framing contemporary politics. For the economic elite, the primary political challenge is how to manage the politics of decline – that is, how to advance an ever-more-radical neoliberal agenda without provoking a popular backlash'.
'In part, conservative business elites have encouraged a revolution of falling expectations. When people come to feel lucky just to have a job with health insurance (and then just a job even without health insurance, so long as they can pay the rent); when 25 or 35 kids in a class comes to seem fortunate because others are in classes of 50; when retaining fully funded Social Security and Medicare even without a pension from one’s job seems lucky – all these shifts serve to lower people’s expectations of the economy and their demands of employers'.
'The great unknown in this drama is how the vast majority of anxious, insecure, non-union American workers will make sense of these issues. To this end, it is critical to understand clearly the past year’s legislative battles for what they were: the leading edge of an ambitious agenda that extends far beyond anti-unionism and that, if successful, will transform the nation to the detriment of almost everyone'.
From : http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/commentary/class-warfare-in-the-usa