How the West won

O, that life were quite this simple.

The Granger Collection - A cartoon from 1949, soon after formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a counter to the Soviet Union.

There is no denying the corruption of the Soviet system, and its internal rot, but that does not license such ridiculous comments as this passage:

"The West, in the summer of 1979, was in poor condition, and Europe was not producing the answers. Creativity would have to come from the Atlantic again, and it did. Margaret Thatcher emerged in May, and Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980."

Mrs. Thatcher, the author writes, "knew when to be Circe and when to be the nanny from hell." As for President Reagan, Mr. Stone wisely quotes the man himself. "If it moves, tax it," Reagan said, summing up the liberal outlook to which he was adamantly opposed; "if it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." The story of the 1980s, in Mr. Stone's bracing account, is one of the West finding its true self after years of wandering in the wilderness, while the Soviet experiment at long last revealed itself to be the sham it had been from the beginning.

Yes, Thatcher got the UK moving, in large part, or at least in good part, by standing up to the miners and asserting her leadership. But Reagan's role is over-simplified.

If there is a law Congress passes that you don't like, break it surreptitiously; if your economic theories don't work, and in fact make matters worse, engage in Keynisian deficit spending and keep telling the same lies over and over. Say one thing, do another.