THE WEEK

One practical difference between an authoritarian and a totalitarian regime is that you’ll never hear liberals making excuses for the former.

Clearly what is wrong with liberal thought today is that it has no Theory of 1983. Any Theory of 1983 would have to explain why, in the year Reaganomics was implemented, unemployment dropped by one-quarter, industrial production rose by 14 per cent (leaving Japan and Europe far behind), inflation fell to the lowest rate in a generation, and the Dow Jones averages racked up a solid 25 per cent gain. The best the liberals can come up with, in explaining the success of Reaganomics, is that it was “unintentionally Keynesian.” Now if they could only get intentional Keynesianism to work.

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One practical difference between an authoritarian and a totalitarian regime is that you’ll never hear liberals making excuses for the former.

Clearly what is wrong with liberal thought today is that it has no Theory of 1983. Any Theory of 1983 would have to explain why, in the year Reaganomics was implemented, unemployment dropped by one-quarter, industrial production rose by 14 per cent (leaving Japan and Europe far behind), inflation fell to the lowest rate in a generation, and the Dow Jones averages racked up a solid 25 per cent gain. The best the liberals can come up with, in explaining the success of Reaganomics, is that it was “unintentionally Keynesian.” Now if they could only get intentional Keynesianism to work.