American politics has undergone a transformation over the course of the last century, and both parties are short-circuiting. The Left seems unable to keep from alienating working-class voters, formerly the backbone of its coalition. Meanwhile the Right has lost its connections with mainstream civil society and the corporate sector, two once-sturdy redoubts of conservatism. Why have leaders on all sides struggled so mightily to accept and adapt to these changes?

Two recent books—Taming the Octopus: The Long Battle for the Soul of the Corporation, by Kyle Edward Williams of The Hedgehog Review, and The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire, by left-wing journalist Tim Schwab—give us better purchase on our present circumstances. Taken together, they reveal how America’s political system was dramatically restructured when for-profit corporations and non-profit organizations fused together to form a new infrastructure of control. As corporations broke loose from their conservative moorings, they merged with freshly minted non-profits to create sprawling “charities” with deep political ties and deeper pockets. Learning to recognize their influence is essential to understanding how present-day America is run.

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“Industrial corporations,” as Williams terms them, grew