Ronald Reagan, thinker

Introduction

Visit any major bookstore in the United Kingdom, and try to locate a book, any book, on Ronald Reagan. You may find one. I once did. But you might have some difficulty. Needless to say, Britons as a general rule are not terribly interested in the life and times of America's fortieth President.

An entrenched attitude I've encountered is that Ronald Reagan was an actor, a failed one at that, who lacked any depth or substance. A man who laughed his way through eight years in the white house, quite literally, without a care in the world. With no intellectual pedigree or ability to think for himself, Reagan was an "amiable dunce" who took his lead from cue cards and rich businessmen.

It is worth mentioning that those are some of the less hostile attitudes! I find the above perception a view that needs revising, and without the baggage of liberal or conservative emotionalism. There is a non-partisan case to be made for the philosophical life of Ronald Reagan, lifeguard, actor, politician and thinker. Tracking Reagan’s political and intellectual development, a new picture emerges of a man with more philosophical clout than he is often given credit for.

1. The childhood years

It is related in Reagan's biography, and in Paul Kengor's volume on Reagan's religious faith, the impact one particular book had on the intellectual and spiritual development of the young Dutch Reagan. Kengor relates how 'That Printer of Udell's', a fictional story written by Harold Bell Wright, a Minister, led to the 12-year-old's independent decision to be baptised in the Christian faith. The narrative concerned the personal journey of Dick Walker, a young man who left home at an early age due to an abusive and alcoholic father. The story follows Dick's spiritual redemption, and raises important questions in
relation to welfare policy and how to tackle poverty. Kengor draws the clear link between the issues raised in the book and Reagan's later political positions on them.

What is significant is the characteristics of the young Ronald this early episode illustrates, such as his willingness to engage in a text described as "theologically advanced" and one that would "overwhelm most eleven-year-olds" (God and Ronald Reagan, p.21). Even as a youngster, Reagan showed the capacity and the willingness to engage with substantial ideas, rather than forming opinions from the prevailing notions of others. This independence of mind was demonstrated throughout his life, and evidenced during his years in Hollywood, when he made the dramatic conversion from liberal Democrat to conservative Republican.

2. From Democrat to Republican

For the first half of his life, Reagan was quite the opposite of the figure who in the eighties so forcefully advocated individual liberty, free markets and smaller government. A Democrat, Reagan was a strong admirer of FDR and a believer in the power of government to solve people's problems; in his own words, a "New Dealer to the core" (An American Life, p. 105).
Reagan was never to lose his affection for FDR, but the 1964 Goldwater campaign made it starkly clear that Reagan had abandoned any faith he might still have had in the New Deal and its big government experiments.

The conversion had resulted from Dutch's first-hand experience of a hungrier and hungrier Uncle Sam. He reflects on his time in Hollywood, "I was in the ninety-four percent tax bracket, which meant the government took home most of what I earned" (An
American Life, p.117). It was his own personal deduction that there was something not quite right with a system that penalised wealth accumulation to such a draconian extent, and that reduced people's incentives to work harder. It was this personal experience, along with his encounters with Communist trade unionists, that were to inform Dutch's new political beliefs.

This is not the place to enter a political digression over whether smaller or bigger government, lower or higher taxes, are more desirable. We all have our opinions on that front. It is merely to point out that Ronald Reagan formed his opinions independently, through personal experience, and that the values he articulated in the eighties were not formed from the script, nor imposed from any external source or private interest group, as often seems to be implied. It was in the 1960s that America first witnessed Reagan as a political figure, and the episodes of that decade show Reagan more as an independent-minded citizen, than a conservative stooge.

3. The 1964 Presidential campaign

It was in 1964 that Reagan rose to national political prominence, when he gave his passionate televised address in support of Republican Presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was an "archconservative" who advocated, among other things,
free markets and a stronger US policy in Vietnam. What has always struck me the most about Reagan's 1964 speech is not just that the words Reagan chose to employ were both powerful and eloquent, nor even the fact that Reagan, the actor, wrote the speech himself and performed it without notes. I felt the most significant aspect of the speech was its historical context, delivered at a time when there was a broad, if not universal, consensus that an expansive state, high taxes and growing socialisation were the inevitable way forward.

Again, the merits of Goldwater's conservative programme are not our primary concern here. It is the fact that Ronald Reagan had the personal willpower to challenge the prevailing status quo and support an unfashionable candidate. Needless to say, Goldwater lost the 1964 election at the expense of LBJ "great society" platform of social change. The point is re-enforced. Reagan's advocacy of conservative positions at a time when they were deeply unpopular demonstrates his lack of concern over the opinions of others, and the general independence and personal nature of the man's convictions. These characteristics were to continue into his Presidency, and were particularly evident during the early 1980s, years marked by a deep economic recession.

4. Economic Recovery Programme

The Economic Recovery Programme, as it was called, was a President-led initiative designed to stimulate the ailing American economy through a series of tax cuts in 1981. Supply-side economics, as it was officially known, was dubbed "Reaganomics", a word with pejorative implications that essentially confirmed the "voodoo economics" accusation of Reagan's Vice-President and former Republican rival George Bush. Despite the criticism, Reagan was elected with a supply-side platform, and once elected, managed to convince enough Democratic congressmen to pass the measure into law.

The problem arose when there was no immediate sign that the tax-cuts had had any positive bearing on economic performance. From all sides, people pressed Reagan to make changes that would have implied the tax cuts had been a failure. Reagan recalls how difficult a time this was, when all the evidence seemed to show that no progress was being made at all (An American Life, pp.314-315). But Reagan held firm and the economic indicators were to change, and to change in a dramatic fashion. Despite being practically a lone voice on the matter, the President maintained faith in his policy, and the country saw the results. The discussion of the merits of supply-side economics are largely peripheral to the fact that Reagan achieved what he set out to achieve on the economic front, in terms of job creation and a decline in the rate of inflation. The important point, for this discussion, is the willingness he showed in sticking to what he believed was right, and the rigorous independence of mind with which he did it.


Conclusion

Ronald Reagan deserves more credit than he is generally given for being a thinker. He was not introspective, and did to some extent understand the world in polar terms such as "good" and "evil". But the accusation that he was merely a political front man, a voice for other people's ideas, is untenable when we consider Reagan's history. His 1964 speech, in particular, demonstrated his grasp of contemporary issues, and the power of his own intellect. The fact that he wrote his own speeches whilst running for Governor in California, when Pat Brown, the Gubernatorial incumbent, thought they were written for him, speaks for itself. In the light of this, and all the arguments raised, I suggest that it would not be absurdly radical to describe the career of Ronald Reagan in these terms - lifeguard, actor, politician, thinker.