"Fortune" magazine's articulation of productivity during the period 1969 to 1972 was a skillfully crafted work of propaganda that mixed public perception about (a) the younger generation, (b) issues about the growing rate of inflation, (c) shifting employment sectors, (d) increasing nominal wages, and (e) declining rate of profit. Fortune presented a story that the American way of life--endangered by inflation--required rescuing, and the instrument of salvation was a change in the social compact. That change was contained in "Fortune"'s recommendation to remove the established legal antitrust protections pertaining to labor unions. A realignment of social power--one where management was not impeded by the power of labor--would be the desirable outcome of "Fortune"'s propaganda campaign. "Fortune"'s discourse revealed the business leader as a political actor and, as such, a powerful advocate of a certain ideology: one that was more than just monetary--one directed at preserving a particular economic system and, just as significantly, the businessperson's place within that particular economic hierarchy. This work draws on several literature bases that were significant in establishing the abductive context within which meaning emerged. The areas of literature most utilized were (a) economics; (b) history, particularly the history of U.S. foreign relations and U.S. labor and working-class history; (c) critical management studies; (d) critical adult education; (e) human resource development; and (f) media studies, particularly the area of media effects. This research examines four years of "Fortune" magazine. From these four years, 154 articles were scanned and converted via optical character recognition software to rich text format (rtf) and then imported to TAMS (text analysis markup system). Drawing on critical management research methodology in this qualitative study, a number of themes and contextual frames emerged. Most significant among them were (a) American productivity was on the decline, (b) there existed a labor-induced cost-price spiral, (c) wage increases exceeded productivity increases, (d) an emotional depiction of inflation, (e) a squeeze on corporate profits, and (f) the existence of the monopoly power of labor. This dissertation concludes with implications for further research. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]