Citizens often complain that their politicians are greedy, corrupt, double-talking, and unqualified—but the complaint that perhaps rouses the most anger is the most fundamental: the charge that politicians aren’t listening to their constituency. In Not a Conspiracy Theory, Gutstein posits that they may not be. In a deft treatise on the modern political machine, Gutstein describes the prolonged propaganda campaigns mounted by big business to change our minds on fundamental issues of social life. Arguing that politicians are more swayed by the corporate sector than we’d like to believe, Gutstein illuminates a troubling trend in modern politics, making this book a must-read for students of democracy, activists of any stripe, and citizens who want to wrest control of their government from the clutches of the business world.