[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

[Gail Brock]

The conservatives effectively began ranting about government bureaucracies as 
LBJ's Great Society programs really kicked in.  You couldn't enter into 
"voluntary" real estate covenants that excluded minorities any more, and in a 
lot of jurisdictions you couldn't open burn leaves anymore.  They were trying to 
make you less free in your own car with haranguing about gas mileage and seat 
belts.  The extension of Social Security to domestic and farm labor made upper 
middle-class whites have to start paying and collecting FICA taxes on their 
help, which contributed to their feeling that government had started just 
working for minorities.  If you dug a well, you had to have the water tested; 
most of the time the water was fine, which just proved that government threw up 
a lot of silly, expensive regulations.  Meanwhile, inflation kicked up, and 
businesses energetically blames price increases on government regulation and 
bureaucracy.

It was in fact true that people had more interaction with government in the 
normal run of things.  The slowly improving cleanness of air and water isn't as 
memorable as the sudden banning of leaf burning when you personally have to 
change your habits.  Social justice is a pain in the neck when it costs you time 
and money.  In other words, the Great Society programs attacked externalities, 
but people experienced the bureaucracy directly.