End of the Anti-Government Era

By Michael Waldman – 12/02/08

For years, I have enjoyed quoting a line from John Kenneth Galbraith: "The end had come, but it was not yet in sight." Lately I have remembered rather queasily that the line appeared in 1929: The Great Crash.

We're at a similar moment of cognitive dissonance, when onrushing events outstrip people's ability to perceive and understand them. This autumn the economic crisis hit with sickening suddenness. Many millions of Americans are hurting, and many more will suffer in months to come. What is just as breathtaking is the speed with which government's policy response has shifted. We've seen the most massive interventions in markets in decades, all during a Republican administration. We now mull whether the right size for a stimulus ... sorry, recovery bill ... is a half trillion dollars or a trillion dollars. The government has partially or effectively nationalized many financial institutions. The logic of events may drive it to nationalize more. As a recent article in the Financial Times put it, "Government is no longer a term of abuse."

We have now entered a time when our public sector is plainly relevant, and once again must do big things. But if the "era of big government" is back, that hardly begins to answer the questions. How will government work? Will it be effective? Will we find a way to avoid swerving from no-government deregulation to heavy-handed intervention? Will the government act openly or become one more tool for the already powerful? Will leaders find a way to take advantage of the crisis to break through the special interest gridlock and partisanship that has marred politics for so long? Will they be farsighted enough to take the time and build a wider democracy? My old colleague Rahm Emanuel is frequently quoted saying, "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste." We're going to work to make sure we don't waste this crisis, and use this time to enact some of the systemic reforms that can prevent crises like this from happening in the first place.

The anti-government wave that began in the 1960s and dominated politics for the next four decades is over. For that era, the end has come, and gradually, it is in sight.