The media buzz surrounding the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s May 1964 speech announcing his Great Society has focused on the question, did it “work?” In other words, did the 200-odd pieces of legislation passed over the following two years succeed in their goals of reducing poverty, improving education, providing health care for the elderly, etc. Judgments as to how the programs worked are supposed to answer the bigger question, should government intervene in the economy to make life better for its people?
It is a safe bet that the components of the Great Society—especially those dealing with the War on Poverty—are the most studied in the history of social science. For half a century, a vast army of economists, sociologists, political scientists, lawyers, and policy analysts have poured over the data. There is little doubt that almost all of the programs had benefits. The debate between conservatives and liberals is whether the benefits were worth the “costs.” But if by this time the research has not reached convincing definitive conclusions, it is unlikely that it ever will.Economic Policy Institute
Part of the problem is that such efforts to quantify cost and benefits, while useful, are inherently flawed by their reliance on market prices to establish the human value of, for example, living longer, educating a poor child, or breathing cleaner air.
They also miss the point. The Great Society was much more than the sum of its parts. Like the New Deal before it, the Great Society changed the way Americans thought about the relationship of the government to the economy.
Despite the claims of conservatives, government intervention in the economy did not start with the New Deal. It started with the founding of the republic. But by and large, it was intervention at the service of the rich and powerful—from business subsidies to legal protections for corporate theft and the use of police and the army to oppress unions.
The New Deal brought balance. Social insurance, worker protections, and aid to small farmers, small businesses, and electricity cooperatives, helped spread the benefits of economic growth beyond the financial elite. The Great Society in part dealt with the unfinished business of the New Deal—giving aid to minorities, the poor, the elderly, and the sick.
But it also broke new ground in the use of government as an instrument for making the economy more efficient, fairer, and more accountable....
How the Great Society Democratized Our Economy
Jeff Faux| | Distinguished Fellow, founder, past president of the Economic Policy Institute
(h/t Mark Thoma at Economist's View)
Time to resurrect the Great Society?
