Did Reagan Matter?

As Dutch's Reagan's body goes cold, two interesting musings on his legacy.

First up is one from Dave Warsh of Economic Principals high fives Reagan:

Ronald Reagan…ended the Cold War in victory…He took the recession that broke inflation. He cut government red tape. And, by slashing tax rates, he "[cut] the Congress' allowance" and so slowed the growth of government….[He] also restored faith in market forces, permitting the restructuring of the American economy, breaking up the telephone system and freeing IBM to compete with Microsoft in a single day….Reagan probably deserves all this credit and more. These things all happened on his watch, even if the trends themselves had been in train for years….Taken together, don't Reagan's achievements add up to a long-term redirection of American politics as distinctive as Roosevelt's New Deal?

Whole thing here.

On a decidely different note, James G. Hershberg backhands Reagan, characterizing him as nothing more than the lucky millionth visitor who showed up just as the Berlin Wall was about to fall anyway (and mostly, says Hershberg, due to the allure of rock 'n' roll and the machinations of future Pizza Hut pitchman Mikhail Gorbachev). A snippet:

The historical wild card was Mikhail Gorbachev…[who] grasped long before Reagan's election that the stultifying Soviet system required renovation. Gorbachev also committed the heresy of abandoning the aim of world revolution and the class struggle in international affairs in favor of amorphous, but much nicer, "universal human values." Above all, he refused to use the massive armed forces at his disposal to retain his party's grip on captive nations in Eastern Europe, restive nationalist republics or Russia itself.

Whole thing here.

Comments

[Dan H.]

They left one big achievement off the list, one which Reagan deserves full credit for: Firing the air traffic controllers.

The late 1970's were a boom time for trade unions. Reagan set the tone for labor negotiations right out of the gate by firing the controllers, and severely weakened excessive union power in its wake. We'll never know how different things would have been had Reagan caved, but one only has to look at Britain in the 1970's to see how out of control it could get.

As for Gorbachev, certainly he deserves credit. But Reagan deserves even more credit because he put immense pressure on the Soviet Union which led to the politburo to put a reformer in power in the first place. Remember, Gorbachev was THEIR man. He was a staunch communist. The Politburo thought they could put a 'modern man' in a business suit in power, offer some minor reforms, and save the empire.

But Reagan didn't settle for that, when many other presidents would have. Reagan could have backed off on Gorbachev and started offering concessions, trade, financial aid, and otherwise helped to prop up the Soviet State. And many people on the left were advocating just that. But when Gorbachev came to power, Reagan leaned on him. Reagan spotted weakness, and went on the offensive, stepping up support for anti-soviet rebels around the world, calling for Gorbachev to tear down the wall, etc.

A Rejkavik, Gorbachev opened discussions by offering amazing concessions - concessions that someone like Carter would have accepted in a heartbeat. But again, Reagan sensed desperation, and closed the summit without a deal. Eventually, he pushed the Soviets into concessions far beyond what they were originally willing to offer, and he did it without giving up SDI, which was always their main demand.

To revise history and say that Reagan was just another caretaker of the cold war who 'got lucky' is ridiculous. Before Reagan was even elected, he was saying that he planned to end the cold war by winning it. National Security Directive 75 codified that goal. For 30 years before that, Presidents sought out 'detente' and 'co-existence', and for 30 years they co-existed. Reagan came along, called them evil, and said he was going to bring them down. So he stepped up the pressure militarily, politically, morally, and economically. He fought Europe to prevent a pipeline from the Soviet Union from opening, then authorized sabotage of that pipeline which destroyed it and removed 8 billion dollars a year of potential revenue from the Soviet coffers. He pushed them into a new technological arms race they couldn't afford. He fomented dissent in satellite states by calling for freedom and naming evil where he saw it.

Many people deserve credit for winning the cold war. Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, etc. But Reagan stands at the head of that line. By a large margin.

[PapayaSF]

But Reagan deserves even more credit because he put immense pressure on the Soviet Union which led to the politburo to put a reformer in power in the first place.

Thanks, Dan, that summarizes what would have been my two points. For details on the pressure Reagan exerted, see Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Peter Schweizer.

[thoreau]

I'm going to start a commune, watch as it fails to sustain itself, and then give credit for the collapse to George W. Bush.

[Gorbachevfan]

Mikhail Gorbachev was just a shitty and inept totalitarian dictator...and for that reason alone, he is a hero. Sure he failed to crush the democratic revoution, but he made a damn good effort at it. He just was very bad at it. But effort counts.

[Andy]

Did Mr. Hershberg mention that Gorbachev was a fervent believer in Communism?

(didn't RTFA, refuses to register for WaPo)

[EcoDude]

"The historical wild card was Mikhail Gorbachev...[who] grasped long before Reagan's election that the stultifying Soviet system required renovation."

Required renovation? Sheesh....

[rst]

Above all, he refused to use the massive armed forces at his disposal to retain his party's grip...

Yeah don't mistake a lack of will for a lack of resources.

I wonder whether with respect to Clinton and the 90's economy, the positions of these two writers would be reversed, such that this Hershberg fellow would call Clinton an economic genius for "balancing the budget" (a notion the praise for which I have always found amusing - yay, they made it add up to zero! Next up: polynomial long division), while Warsh would say Clinton just showed up at the right time and could have been a pack of girl scouts, just so long as he (they) kept Greenspan.

[Warren]

As Dutch's Reagan's body goes cold?

The first possessive is a typo, yes?

Taken together, don't Reagan's achievements add up to a long-term redirection of American politics as distinctive as Roosevelt's New Deal?

No they don't, not even close. In the first place even Reagan was frequently unfaithful to his rhetoric (budget deficit e.g.). More significantly, there was nothing ?long-term? about it. All of the libertarian gains Reagan made have now been swept ?into the dust bin of history?. Bush the Elder already began giving up ground. The Gingrich revolution looked as if it would cement Reagan?s legacy into American politics, but after the first one hundred days, we began reversing course again. The GW Bush administration (and the Republican cronies in congress) has not only given back all the gains; they have created whole new atrocities of government abuse. Far from a ?long term redirection?, the New Deal paradigm is more entrenched than ever.

[zorel]

what 'rst' says!

I would also add, doing the right thing (as Reagan did), as well as not doing the wrong thing are both laudable in our pols.

Just imagine if the president had been someone who actively meddled with the economy and screwed things up. Clinton deserves credit for the state of the economy while he was the president.

[rst]

the New Deal paradigm is more entrenched than ever

I have to agree, but I don't think it started with Reagan, or in the spirit of the subboard that Reagan really "mattered" in that respect. "Libertarian" gains are fruits of the moment...passing what they would call "gains" I suspect happens when the houses have compromised so much that neither half is going to get worked up into too much of a lather over its particulars any longer. But because each of the two parties that dominate Washington are motivated primarily by the persistence of their own power in the face of - and in spite of - the other, the Elephants will try to draw to the right anything that is not of the right; the Jackasses likewise with the left. When Congress is faced with lies and the lying liars who tell them, such as Jack Valenti and co., there's the opportunity to strengthen the party's hold. If it sacrifices gains by the libertarian party, who's going to care except the libertarians? After all they've power to persist and children to protect. I don't think Reagan had anything to do with this vicious circle.