From Right-Wing Extremism and Economic Ideology to the Next Great Depression
To a large extent, the government had to partially accommodate the popular anger at the status quo -- so much so that Richard Nixon, no radical by any stretch of the imagination, left a legislative legacy far more radical than anything that was accomplished during the longer tenure of the supposedly liberal Bill Clinton. One influential book concluded, "In retrospect, some would call the Nixon presidency the 'last liberal administration'" (Yergin and Stanislaw 1997, p. 64). Regarding the administration's regulatory record, Herbert Stein, Nixon's chief economic adviser and father of the television personality, Ben Stein, regretfully recalled:
"Richard Nixon regarded himself as an opponent of government regulation of the economy. His economic advisers and most of his economic officials were even more strongly of that view. The outcome was disappointing. Probably more new regulation was imposed on the economy during the Nixon administration than in any other presidency since the New Deal, even if one excludes the temporary Nixon foray into price and wage controls." [Stein 1984, p. 190]
Nixon's legacy includes the Food Stamp program, creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Earned Income Tax Credits, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, along with passage of the Freedom of Information Act and the Clean Water Act.
Nixon was not inclined to be a progressive. He went out of his way to fill positions with business-friendly people. As the Watergate scandal later revealed, he would stop at nothing to protect its power, and thereby the power of the powerful economic forces that his administration represented. Even more cynically than the Watergate affair, the first Nixon campaign secretly derailed peace talks with Vietnam to deny the Democratic candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, any credit for extricating the government from a tragic military quagmire.
With all the turmoil on the streets and so many people challenging the system, this period merely represented an opportunity to move toward a more balanced society capable of curbing previous excesses. Nonetheless, the political climate during the Nixon administration terrified many conservatives, who worried about the prospect of a radical takeover of the state and the end of capitalism, as they knew it.
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com