The Course of Utopianism
When Congress passed the Employment Act of 1946, it was due in part to the fear that the United States would slip back into a depression with the war's end. However, the mechanisms for fiscal control proved to be unneeded. Instead of a depression, this country entered into a period of unheralded prosperity as factories went to work satisfying years of pent-up demand and helping to rebuild the economies of Europe and Japan. This prosperity continued through the fifties. President Dwight (Ike) Eisenhower was a fiscal conservative who felt government should interfere as little as possible with business, so he was not inclined to apply fiscal policy in any attempt to control the economy.
Yet despite the prosperity and the conservative leaning of the president during much of this period, the government was tinkering with the tax codes and usually ran a budget deficit. There was no economic reason for doing so, no attempt to implement Keynesian policy. Instead it no longer seemed to matter. There was no reason to make an effort not to do this; a budget deficit and changing tax codes had been accepted as tools of economic control.
President John Kennedy, following Ike, also tended toward a belief in fiscal conservatism, even though his administration increased government spending and deficits. However Kennedy, as Roosevelt had, chose many of his economic and social advisors from the ranks of academia, and a number of these men embraced collectivism and the idea that government should attempt to increase its responsibility in society and the economy.
His economic advisors, who accepted the theories of Keynes and New Economics, felt there was too much emphasis on controlling inflation and not enough on bringing full employment. They believed government would be able to achieve and maintain full employment if it was willing to tolerate inflation. The government could do so by keeping demand high, which would keep employment high and also lead to inflation. This inflation would not be harmful to the economy, because everything would be inflating uniformly. Prices would rise, but wages would rise as well, keeping purchasing power constant. Eventually they believed the economy would be locked into a permanent upswing by the inflation, which would allow our country to maintain full employment. Kennedy, however, had the wisdom to reject most of their advice; he recognized that inflation was a danger to the economy and so was careful to avoid any action he felt might lead to inflationary pressures.
In the late fifties, the Civil Rights movement had begun gaining momentum, and received some support from the Eisenhower administration. Kennedy, however, committed his administration to supporting the movement, actively using the different powers of government to help break down the legal barriers which kept blacks from participating in society. President Lyndon Johnson continued in this direction after Kennedy's death. He signed into law important civil rights legislation and promoted the enforcement of these new laws. The government was literally extending freedom to blacks, breaking down legal barriers in society which limited their ability to choose.
Then in 1964 and 1965 there was a series of riots by inner-city blacks protesting perceived police brutality and high rents. The riots shocked our country. After they died down, the country was left wondering at their causes, questioning why citizens of the United States felt it necessary to resort to violence. From both academia and within Johnson's administration came an explanation which suggested the riots were not the immediate results of tension between white policemen and landlords, and blacks, but rather as a protest against years of economic and social injustice by a class of people trapped in a cycle of poverty. Instead of a black problem, it was a poverty problem.
Believing that it was within the power of government to end riots of this kind forever, members of Johnson's administration proposed a vast increase in the government's responsibilities. These academicians were partly right. The government should have used its power to correct the situation.
Freedom is not something that exists automatically; instead it is something that has to be created. At the time these riots occurred, there was unequal freedom in America; blacks were actively denied the ability of self- determination. In a situation such as this, the government has a responsibility to use its power to extend the freedom of individuals. It must work to achieve equality of opportunity and to promote the values of individualism, allowing people to take responsibility for their own lives. This should have been the response to the situation in the sixties; extending freedom by helping poor people, black and white, to take control of their lives and break out of poverty.
Freedom as a goal, however, is based on the idea that people can be free, that they possess the ability to think and to control their lives and choose their beliefs. The social scientists and members of Johnson's administration who proposed the Great Society programs did not believe that people possessed this ability. Instead they believed that people lacked the ability of self-determination, that their beliefs and values were simply a reflection of their environment and not the result of a conscious choice. To hold out the promise of freedom to those who, they thought, could never be free was inhuman, a false promise encouraging people to attempt something they could never achieve. Those who tried to take control of their lives were destined to fail, bringing despair and dissatisfaction. Asking people to be responsible was cruel.
These advisors believed that government alone had the power to break the cycle of poverty trapping the lower class. The government should take responsibility for lifting these people into the middle class, redistributing wealth to create an economically egalitarian society. Doing so would not only allow the poor the chance to participate in society, but would also benefit the country as a whole. As the economic tension which was undermining our country was removed, crime and disharmony would disappear, resulting in a stronger, healthier America. Essentially they were proposing that government finally create the economically level society described in Looking Backward over seventy years earlier, with the same promises of utopia.
This role for government was based on the social scientists' belief that people were simply a reflection of their environment. If government took responsibility for improving people's environment, for raising their socio- economic level, then eventually they would come to reflect that level. If government raised the poor into the middle class, then eventually they would become middle class, able to operate at that level without the assistance from government.
President Johnson had been a protege of Roosevelt in the thirties and a wholehearted supporter of FDR's New Deal. He saw in the proposals generated by his administration the chance to finish the work begun by Roosevelt, and at the same time insure his own place in history. Obviously, these proposals represent a vast increase in the government's level of responsibility, something opposed by many of the people in our country. Johnson, however, was a consummate politician; he had an amazing awareness of the uses of power and manipulation. Perhaps more than any other president in this century, Johnson could bend congress to his will. He was helped by a rather unique political situation.
The Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater as their presidential candidate in 1964. Goldwater was perceived as too conservative for most of the country, and that damaged the whole party. So the Democrats, as well as winning the presidency, picked up a substantial number of seats in Congress; people voted not just for Johnson, but the full Democrat slate. Johnson was able to use his considerable persuasive powers to get this Democrat controlled congress to agree to anything he wanted them to do. As a result, he was able to pass an amazing number of programs generated by his administration and academia.
The proposals became the basis of his Great Society program, his attempts to use government to restructure society. The government would take responsibility for feeding, housing and supporting the country, building an economic floor under people to help lift them out of poverty and break their cycle of despair. The possibilities for which Roosevelt had opened the door in the thirties now became reality. Government, by vastly extending its responsibility for people, would finally be using all of its power to move them toward utopia.
Instead of attempting to extend responsibility and self control as a means of extending freedom, the government was attempting to take responsibility for people. The amount of responsibility government took was increased by the manner in which the Great Society programs were implemented. Johnson created a large number of new programs, but soon his attention shifted to this country's increasing involvement in Vietnam. Consequently, the programs were implemented by government bureaucrats, with little oversight from the executive branch. All bureaucracies have a tendency to accumulate responsibilities, and a government bureaucracy is certainly no different. By leaving the implementation of the Great Society programs in the hands of bureaucrats, Johnson insured that government would take an even larger degree of responsibility for the people whom the programs were designed to help.
Next: Johnson and the Economy