It's Never Our Fault and Other Shameless Excuses

Greedy corporate interests have been lying to us for centuries. Here's an illustrated, entertaining road map for navigating through their hypocrisy and deception

From praising the health benefits of cigarettes to moralizing on the character-building qualities of child labor, rich corporate overlords have gone to astonishing, often morally indefensible lengths to defend their profits. Since the dawn of capitalism, they've told the same lies over and over to explain why their bottom line is always more important than the greater good: You say you want to raise the federal minimum wage? Why, you'll only make things worse for the very people you want to help! Should we hold polluters accountable for the toxins they're dumping in our air and water? No, the free market will save us! Can we raise taxes on the rich to pay for universal healthcare? Of course not-that will kill jobs! Affordable childcare? Socialism! It's always the same tired threats and finger-pointing, in a concentrated campaign to keep wealth and power in the hands of the wealthy and powerful.

Corporate Bullsht will help you identify this pernicious propaganda for the wealthiest 1 percent, and teach you how to fight back. Structured around some of the most egregious statements ever made by the rich and powerful, the book identifies six categories of falsehoods that repeatedly thwart progress on issues including civil rights, wealth inequality, climate change, voting rights, gun responsibility, and more. With amazing illustrations and a sharp sense of humor, Corporate Bullsht teaches readers how to never get conned, bamboozled, or ripped off ever again.

 Praise for Corporate Bullsht:

"Corporate Bullsht by Nick Hanauer, Joan Walsh, and Donald Cohen performs a useful public service by amassing a wealth of quotations from across 150 years of American social policy to show how a certain set of talking points recurs over and over in the effort to stymie progressive social change."
—Current Affairs

"A welcome user’s guide to maneuvering the thicket of lies that constitutes so much discourse today."
—Kirkus Reviews

"If you ever feel like you’re fighting the same bogus corporate arguments over and over, read this useful book. It will help you respond to every standard BS claim and teach everyone the truth."
—Robert B. Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and author of Saving Capitalism

"As an elected official, I hear these lies from corporate special interests all the time: Raising taxes on the rich will kill jobs, raising the minimum wage will hurt the very people it’s intended to help, and regulation will destroy business. None of them are true, but they’re carefully crafted to trick working people into prioritizing corporate interests over their own. Corporate Bullsht pulls back the curtain on their game plan and makes a compelling argument for reforms to grow America from the bottom up and the middle out."
—Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal

"Whether it’s 1923 or 2023, the same trickle-down nonsense used in every boardroom in America hasn’t changed. This book pulls back the curtain on the whole racket in a way that leaves you unsure whether to laugh or cry, but sure of one thing: It’s not true. It’s never been true."
—Ben Cohen, co-founder, Ben & Jerry’s

"Corporate Bullsht fights the way the power elite has co-opted the so-called ‘American way,’ when so many of its priorities—unchecked corporate power, the suppression of equal rights for women and people of color, and the defunding of American institutions from labor protections to education equality—are really un-American. Read it, and fight."
—Svante Myrick, president of People for the American Way

"It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad: Corporate Bullsht traces how the wealthy and powerful have used the same tired excuses for centuries, to defend outrages from slavery to coal-mining deaths to unequal pay for women, through the current deadly threat of fossil-fueled climate disaster. The examples will make you laugh, and make you angry—and then make you act!"
—Lizz Winstead, co-creator of The Daily Show

"This book is not only a crucial tool to combat more than a century of corporate disinformation—it’s a rollicking good read that will have you laughing out loud as you learn how to rout it and win. Get a copy into the hands of everyone you know, so we don’t get fooled again. Even your cranky uncle could change his mind."
—Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America

"Most decent people intuitively know when they’re being lied to by corporate America. We get that their narratives are propaganda deployed to line their own pockets. But we don’t always understand how. Corporate Bullsht exposes the nuggets of lies at the core of their stories. It pulls back the asterisk to reveal the word we knew was there all along."
—Elie Mystal, author of Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution

"Stories are powerful; they shape our thinking, limit or inspire our imagination, and speed up or slow down our response to challenges. In Corporate Bullsht Hanauer, Walsh, and Cohen expose six of the most powerful—and bogus—stories corporations have relied on to keep us from challenging their abuses. The first step in real progress is exposing and dismantling these stories and Corporate Bullsht does exactly that."
—Ann Leonard, creator of The Story of Stuff and former director of Greenpeace USA

"Corporate Bullsh*t opens a window to a secret history, an imagined gathering of lackeys and plutocrats who scheme to stifle progressive change through the constant slinging of garbage. After reading it, you’ll find yourself repeating to conservatives their bogus arguments before they even get a chance."
—David Dayen, The American Prospect

Nick Hanauer is an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist, the founder of the public policy incubator Civic Ventures, and the host of the podcast Pitchfork Economics. The co-author (with Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen) of Corporate Bullsht (The New Press), he lives in Seattle.

Joan Walsh is national affairs correspondent for The Nation, the co-producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show, and the author of What's the Matter with White People? The co-author (with Nick Hanauer and Donald Cohen) of Corporate Bullsht (The New Press), she lives in New York.

Donald Cohen is the founder and executive director of the research and policy center In the Public Interest and the co-author (with Allen Mikaelian) of The Privatization of Everything and (with Nick Hanauer and Joan Walsh) of Corporate Bullsh*t (both from The New Press). He lives in Los Angeles.

How can regular Americans name, blame, and shame our corporate overlords? With this illustrated and entertaining guide to decoding decades of free market hypocrisy and deception Since the invention of capitalism, people have gone to astonishing, often morally indefensible lengths to defend their profits, and they always use the same rhetoric: pro-social arguments to defend anti-social outcomes. The same lies again and again, over decades, keep wealth and power in the hands of the wealthy and powerful. A threadbare social safety net exposed by the pandemic? Not a problem. Dramatic healthcare inequities? The free market can fix it. The widespread availability of guns leading to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths per year? It's not our fault--it's your fault. Increasing taxes on the uber-wealthy? It'll kill jobs. Raise the federal minimum wage? You'll only make things worse. Universal pre-kindergarten? Socialism! Recognize the pattern? Nick Hanauer, Donald Cohen, and Joan Walsh explain it in It's Never Our Fault (And Other Shameless Excuses) so that ordinary Americans can identify this wrong-headed thinking and push back. Structured around some of the most egregious statements made by the rich and powerful over the centuries, the book identifies six bundles of lies that repeatedly thwart change on issues that ordinary people care about including climate change, social inequality, voting rights, civil rights, and more. With amazing illustrations and stylish interior design, It's Never Our Fault (And Other Shameless Excuses) gives readers the knowledge to never get conned, bamboozled, or harmed again.

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