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245 Epilogue The Response to Affluence at the End of the Century On July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter delivered his “malaise” speech. Opposing him for the presidency the following year was Ronald Reagan. On the eve of his election in 1980, Reagan countered Carter’s vision. At the time inflation was running at an annual rate of 13.5 percent, interest rates had reached 18 percent, and unemployment stood at over 7 percent. The Iranians were still holding fifty-two Americans hostage for what would turn out to be 444 days. Asking whether the nation had a future in which it could realize its ideals, Reagan, in a nationally televised address, remarked, “There are some who answer ‘no’; that our energy is spent, our days of greatness at an end, that a great national malaise is upon us.” He refuted those who said, “We must cut our expectations, conserve and withdraw, that we must tell our children . . . not to dream as we once dreamed.” Instead, he offered a vision of an America triumphant—its economy strengthened by limiting government and by unleashing free enterprise, its international standing restored by a resurgence of military power that would defeat the Soviet Union.1 Underscoring the connection between the national mood, affluence at home, and strength abroad, Reagan declared that he found “no national malaise” in the land. But he warned that “any nation that sees softness in our prosperity” would be making a mistake, for if America’s peace and security were threatened, “we will put aside in a moment the fruits of our prosperity.” Rejecting the notion that Americans had to accept a lower standard of living, Reagan remarked that Carter “mistook the malaise among his own advisers, and in the Washington liberal establishment in general, for a malady affecting the nation as a whole.” More than twenty years later, on the occasion of 246 Epilogue Reagan’s ninetieth birthday, a conservative commentator once again invoked the same theme. In 2001, Malcolm T. Owens recalled that “in 1980 the United States was in trouble. Malaise was in the air.” He then went on to praise Reagan for unleashing the economy and undermining the USSR.2 In his inaugural address, Reagan was able to announce the release of the hostages in Iran. The contrasts between Carter’s inauguration in 1977 and Reagan’s four years later could not have been greater. After his inauguration Carter had walked down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House. Reagan was driven in a limousine. A Time reporter called Reagan’s “the biggest, most lavish, most expensive presidential welcome ever,” with a price tag almost two and a half times what his predecessor’s had cost. Nancy Reagan, who had declared a preference for “simpler clothes,” was dressed in a $25,000 outfit for her husband’s inaugural ball. In 1981, she spent $200,000 on new china for the White House. In the introduction to a book titled Reagan’s Ruling Class, Ralph Nader quoted a reporter who characterized the inaugural celebrations as a “bacchanalia of the haves.” “It made me sick— the rack of dresses and the fur coats,” remarked Democratic columnist Maryon Allen, “the lineup of private jets and jeweled boots, the absolutely appalling overconsumerism, the insane jubilation.” Even Republicans objected . Barry Goldwater, the party’s standard bearer in 1964, called the festivities “ostentatious.” A Republican civic leader from Houston told a reporter, “The thing that offended me most was the great extravagance at a time when we’re supposed to be cutting the budget and showing restraint on all unnecessary frills.”3 The Reagan years ushered in an economic boom that lasted for the remainder of the century. To be sure, there were significant threats that made the ride less than smooth. A serious recession came early in Reagan’s presidency, and another during that of George H. W. Bush in 1990–91 helped elect William Jefferson Clinton to office in 1992. In the spring of 2000, the air started to go out of the stock market bubble. Moreover, the economic development of the final twenty years of the century, including the globalization that had transformed the international economy, created both winners and losers. Salaries of executives in large corporations soared, as did the income of celebrities in entertainment and sports, to say nothing of the dot-com millionaires who participated in the feast as long as it lasted. In contrast...

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