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Title: Nixon's Economy: Booms, Busts, Dollars, and Votes by Allen J. Matusow ISBN: 0-7006-0888-5 Publisher: University Press of Kansas Pub. Date: 01 April, 1998 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Breakthrough history of Nixon¿s Machiavellian economics
Comment: Over the last decade or so, there has been a substantial rethinking of the Nixon presidency.... Until the appearance of Allen Matusow's new book, however, Nixon's economic policies had not received a similar reassessment. In a very readable and well researched exploration of Nixon's economics, Matusow makes a compelling case that Nixon held no principled position whatsoever and that his economic policies were overtly and explicitly driven by his attempts to create a new electoral majority.... The Nixon presidency, as seen through Matusow's account, becomes an excellent case study in public-choice economics and the failures of interventionism.
Three major strengths of Matusow's book deserve special mention. First, he has made extensive use of archival materials that were inaccessible until recently. By using the presidential office files, Bob Haldeman's extensive notes, and the various books and recollections of Nixon's associates, he has assembled a large amount of material from a variety of sources to document various meetings and discussions in great detail. The result is a very ugly view of the politicization of economic policy that puts one in mind of the old saw about not wanting to know how sausages or laws are made....
A second strength of the book, of special interest to economists, is Matusow's careful documentation of the role played by well-known economists in the Nixon administration. Arthur Burns, Herbert Stein, Paul McCracken, Milton Friedman, and others all have starring roles in the drama. Except Friedman, none of them presents an appealing picture. Matusow extensively documents the ways in which Nixon's economic advisors were quick to sacrifice principles, particularly free-market principles, for political expediency.... Matusow makes extensive use of Friedman's Newsweek columns to illustrate the ways in which Nixon's policies did not correspond with the Friedman's free-market, monetarist line....
The book's third strength is Matusow's use of economics. In more than three hundred pages of analysis of Nixon's economics, I found very few places where Matusow made an obvious error of theory or history.... But in most cases he handles the economics nicely, especially in his discussions of inflation, where he keeps the behavior of the money supply always at the forefront, and the energy crisis, where he does a fine job of documenting the various government interventions that precipitated the crisis and the horrendous policy mistakes that exacerbated it.... Matusow deserves particular praise for his discussion of Bretton Woods and the gold window, in which he deals with some complicated issues in international monetary economics and does a good job of rendering them comprehensible....
Matusow has carefully and cogently documented Nixon's use of the instruments of power in pursuit of his own political goals and illuminated the disastrous results (double-digit inflation and the worst recession since the 1930s, not to mention a legacy of interventionism that has continued to the present) that Nixon's economics engendered. Matusow's book, though not couched in such terms, is an excellent case study in public-choice economics and is recommended to students of public choice and recent U.S. economic history.
Rating: 5
Summary: An excellent history -- well written
Comment: This book fills a big gaping hole in economic history. There are probably hundreds of books on Nixon and Vietnam, China, and Watergate. But very few exist on his other policies, including his economic policies. This is especially strange considering that his Administration presided over the final destruction of the gold standard, first sustained budget deficits, and the beginning of the Great Recession of 1970s.
Thus, this book is extremely useful. Almost month-by-month it describes the swinging pendulum of booms and busts that resulted from Nixon's economic mismanagement and the world economy's response to it. This is a very thorough work, meticulously documented. The author carefully documents endless cases of sacrifice of economic policies to blatantly short-term political goals.
It's also a good narrative, it weaves all the facts and explanation together, and it's organized very well. I found it very easy to read and understand it. It sheds much light on the economic causes of all those strange events of the 1970s. It's also a great companion to a more general history of USA during those years.
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Title: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis ISBN: 0393057658 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 10 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward ISBN: 074325547X Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 19 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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