The Not-So-Great Society
IN 1964, PRESIDENT Lyndon Johnson announced plans for what he called “the Great Society,” a sweeping set of programs that would represent the most ambitious and far-reaching expansion of the federal government since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. Johnson declared war on poverty, jacked up federal spending on education, and pushed massive new entitlement programs that promised to deliver taxpayer-funded health care to the elderly and the poor. When Republican Richard Nixon succeeded Johnson, a Democrat, as president after the 1968 election, he expanded many of Johnson’s programs.
Did the Great Society achieve its goals of eradicating poverty, sheltering the homeless, and helping all citizens participate more fully in the American Dream? In Great Society: A New History (Harper), Amity Shlaes argues that Johnson’s bold makeover of the government was a failure despite the good intentions of its architects and implementers.
Shlaes is the author of The Forgotten Man, a best-selling history of the Great Depression, and the chair of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation. She says remembering the Great Society’s failure is especially relevant in an election year when presidential candidates are promising to spend huge amounts of money on new government programs. “Once again, many Americans rate socialism as the generous philosophy,” she writes. “But the results of our socialism were not generous. May this book serve as a cautionary tale of lovable people who, despite themselves, hurt those they loved. Nothing is new. It is just forgotten.”
In January, Reason’s Nick Gillespie spoke with Shlaes about the origins of the Great Society, why it didn’t work, and what lessons we can draw for the 21st century.
Reason: What was the Great Society?
Shlaes: When Johnson became president, he wanted to do something that would make him look great—greater than President [John F.] Kennedy, who preceded him and died tragically—so he put together a program called the Great Society. The impulses came from sources beyond Johnson. Young Americans, as today, wanted to change the society, clean up any errors, and make us go from good to great.
LBJ gave a speech in which he said, “We will build
