Lillian: Punk not dead writing empirical research reports As Mizruchi knows, most liberals worry business is becoming too powerful in politics; his contrarian argument is that America suffers from the opposite problem—the absence of a pragmatic, united business elite at the top of national politics has left us ill-equipped to handle our pressing public concerns. It’s an iconoclastic thesis that both excites and scares him. “It is ironic that I would be writing about the postwar American corporate elite as a model for responsible leadership,” he admits. “I spent the early part of my career characterizing these people as the ‘bad guys,’ and there certainly was plenty about which to complain.”