Some of us remember the turbulent economy of the 1970s, which made the last few years look like a walk in the park. We didn’t just have inflation, we had something called “stagflation.” It was a combination of high inflation, high unemployment and high interest rates, along with lines at the gas pump because of the energy crisis. (Remember the 55 m.p.h. speed limit to save gas?) President Jimmy Carter inherited this economic disaster, brewing since the Johnson administration.
In October 1980 a heated presidential campaign was wrapping up between Carter and Republican challenger Ronald Reagan, and the mood was one of exhaustion and frustration, not unlike the present. Before voters sent Carter back to Georgia, UNM’s History Department held a series of election-issue debates, which I covered. The scholars hoped that a historical perspective would help their dispirited listeners “discover how to regain our sense of optimism and confidence,” as one speaker put it.
Their words 44 years later offer perspective, hope and a few warnings for today.
The professors reminded us that the American economic and political system had survived hard times, weak leadership, wars, and trouble abroad. Many times. Although Americans like to think of themselves as a nation of Lincoln, FDR and Truman, the White House has mostly been occupied by such forgettable presidents as Zachary Taylor and John Tyler and truly terrible presidents like Herbert Hoover.
How could the country withstand four years under Herbert Hoover? The same way it withstood four years under Lyndon Johnson, they said. History professor Steven Kramer argued that even though the 1970s were more perilous than previous times, the structure of our government into separate branches of power conspired against the emergence of a tyrant.
Russia was then, as it is now, a force to be reckoned with. Historians Noel Pugach and Richard Robbins reviewed the Soviet Union’s turbulent past and its ham-fisted foreign policy.
The Soviets had been trounced badly in more than one war and still survived, said Robbins. They were aware of their own limitations — their economic problems, their technological backwardness. “Add to that their historical insecurities about their borders – the near encirclement by the U.S. or its allies and millions of hostile Chinese at their backs — and you find fearful, aging, blustering Soviet leaders focused close to home,” Robbins said. Russian military parades were held as much to reassure themselves as to threaten others.
The U.S. had admitted that it couldn’t control everything that goes on in the world, but neither, said Pugach, could the Soviet Union, so there was an uneasy balance. And the Soviets’ investment in military strength mandated U.S. spending on military muscle.
Who would have predicted then that the Soviet Union would cease to exist or that China would be a Russian ally? What’s unchanged is that Russia is still insecure about its borders, and it’s determined to rebuild its old empire with a brutal invasion of Ukraine.
Nobody then, especially incoming President Ronald Reagan, had any doubt that Russians were the enemy.
Historian Charles McClelland offered a bit of comfort on the subject of inflation. Germany in the early 1930s staggered under spiraling inflation and unemployment. The government tried to fix it by printing money and failed spectacularly. The sinking economy destroyed personal savings, and people grew desperate. That wouldn’t happen here, McClelland said, because the United States has a resilient system, greater accumulated wealth and internal resources.
Economist Lee Zink could have been speaking now when he said at least part of the problem was the consumer. He described an inflation psychology that leads people to expect higher prices coupled with ignorance about the economy. Politicians took advantage of that. Had he been a candidate, he said, “I don’t have to know what I’m saying if you don’t know what I’m saying.”