Introduction Throughout history, many cultures have believed that contemporary society was inferior to that of a past golden

age. The theme recurs so often, in so many different forms, that it is tempting to identify the yearning for a mythical past as an inherent trait of human nature. The belief in a lost utopia can be found in Greek mythology, as well as in the Judeo-Christian Book of Genesis. Later, in the Early Modern Era, many humanists looked back with rose-colored glasses on classical Greece and Rome. Historian Edward Gibbon, for example, wrote in The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776) that if a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. By the end of the twentieth century, the decline of classical humanities and the rise of modern technology led to a re-evaluation of what constituted a golden age; after all, who would want to live in a utopia without electricity, automobiles, or modern medicine? As a result of this, many people have begun to locate paradise in the future, rather than the past a trend spurred by the popularity of science fiction as an art form. Nonetheless, a significant degree of nostalgia still persists in modern-day America, especially among older Americans. Although there are a few paleoconservatives who would prefer to return to much older modes of life (and probably a few tycoons who secretly yearn for a return to the Gilded Age), the most politically potent strands of nostalgia place Americas golden age in the decades immediately following World War II. There is, however, little consensus as to which decade is the ideal. By and large, older

conservatives tend to identify themselves with the seemingly staid 1950s, and older liberals tend to identify themselves with the reportedly revolutionary 1960s. Where did these perceptions come from? While there are still many Americans who lived through these times, societys image of the 1950s and the 1960s is largely shaped by popular culture. This is especially true for younger Americans with no personal experience of life in the immediate post-war era. When someone mentions the 1950s, what comes to mind for most Americans? Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit all images from popular culture, and most of them rather staid and conservative in nature. The 1998 film Pleasantville is perhaps representative of modern liberalisms view of this era; it portrays a fictional 1950s town that is boring, puritanical, and literally colorless. In contrast, a very different set of images comes to mind when the 1960s are mentioned: hippies, Haight-Ashbury, the Beatles, anti-war protests, Martin Luther King. These media images are why the 1950s are typically thought of as an era of conformity, while the 1960s are generally considered to be an era of rebellion. Given the influence of mass media in shaping our cultural values, it is thus not particularly surprising that conservatives should gravitate to the 1950s, while liberals tend to have far more sympathy towards the 1960s. But are these widespread views accurate? A careful analysis of the data indicates that many of the common perceptions of the 1950s are fundamentally misguided. Far from being a stagnant era, the 1950s featured major and substantial progress in the social, political, and economic realms. In many ways, the booming post-war economy of the 1950s offered more economic opportunity to the middle class than todays system of cutthroat globalized capitalism. The 1950s are often criticized for the marginalization of

women and African-Americans, but both groups in fact saw substantial gains during this period. The alleged breakthroughs of the 1960s, for the most part, were not sui generis, but were instead continuations of trends that had begun during the 1950s. Rather than rejecting the 1950s, modern liberals should embrace the legacy of Americas golden age, and incorporate the best elements of that legacy into a vision for the countrys future.

Literature Review The assumption of the 1950s as a fundamentally conservative era is so deeply rooted in American culture that it is usually taken for granted or implied in passing, rather than explicitly stated. During the 1996 Presidential campaign, Vice-President Al Gore contrasted the tenor of Bob Doles campaign, which he saw as backward-looking, to the Clinton campaigns modernist orientation: In his speech from San Diego, Senator Dole offered himself as a bridge to the past. Tonight, Bill Clinton and I offer ourselves as a bridge to the future (Staats, 1996). What was the past to which Gore referred? Obviously not the 1960s, for which many Democratic Party loyalists (including, most probably, Clinton and Gore themselves) had fond memories. Clearly, it was the 1950s that was the past to which Dole (a World War II veteran) was accused of wanting to return and this past was implicitly assumed to be linked with conservatism, so much so that it did not need to be stated outright. Some sources emphasize the alleged conservatism of the 1950s more clearly but even then, they often must brush aside specific inconvenient facts in order to sustain this claim. Alan Wolfe (2003) concurs with popular perceptions of the decade when he states that in the early 1950s, Americans were a fearful people, convinced that their way of life

was under attack by Communists at home and abroad. Sexually conventional, they upheld the nuclear family as the gold standard of domestic arrangements and allowed considerable censorship of their popular entertainment. Likewise, Clay Risen (2006), reviewing conservative Ben Steins op-ed column in the New York Times, argues that Steins political worldview revolves around a fantastical view of yesterday, when men worked hard, companies were honest, and politicians always told the truth in short, the conservative Eden of the 1950s. Conservatives likewise decry what they see as unfair media criticism of their decade; Brian Murray (2005), writing for the conservative Weekly Standard, contends that modern films about the 1950s are usually about lynchings or gangland slayings or they parody the too-perfect family sitcoms that live forever in syndication. Pleasantville (1998) is typical, underscoring the notion that Americans living in the 1950s were held hostage in a world of media brainwashing and sexual repression. Fortunately, the 1960s liberated these poor souls and their descendants, who might otherwise still be wandering around like zombies, the men dressed like Fred Mertz, the women in aprons and pearls with minds fixed on refrigerators. Harold Meyerson (2005), reviewing George Clooneys period piece Good Night, and Good Luck, describes his initial views of the decade: The 1950s are the big sleep. Although he comes to change his views somewhat while viewing the film, he initially believes that from the vantage point of social progress, political courage, and cultural grace, the parents of the boomers were a lost generation. Such illusory views of the 1950s are nearly impossible to maintain in the face of serious scholarly research. David Halberstam, perhaps the foremost historian of the period, points out in The Fifties (1993) that the era was a much more interesting one

than it appeared on the surface (Preface, xi). Virtually every chapter of this seminal work belies traditional views of a puritanical, backwards decade. For instance, Halberstam notes that it was in 1953 that Alfred Kinsey published Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (p. 280); 1956 that the first clinical trials of the birth control pill were held (p. 604); 1953 that Hugh Hefner released the first issue of Playboy (p. 571). Nor were bland sitcoms like Ozzie and Harriet the entirety of 1950s culture; this was the decade in which Elvis Presley went mainstream, and Marlon Brando and James Dean were at the height of their powers. A careful reading of this history makes it clear that the musical and sexual revolutions of the 1960s were not a departure from the previous decade, but a continuation of the trends initiated then. The liberal strength of the 1950s is especially prominent in economic matters. Halberstam points out that the fifties were dominated by the shadow of a man no longer there Franklin D. Roosevelt (p. 3). And Roosevelts influence was strongest in his shaping of Americas economy. Opposition to the New Deal, and to state involvement in the economy, had been pushed to the fringes of politics. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, despite his affiliation with the Republican Party, privately ridiculed rightwing elements who wanted to dismantle popular social programs, and publicly criticized excessive military spending (Eisenhower, 1953; Eisenhower, 1954). It was Eisenhower who made the interstate highway system a massive tax-and-spend public works program a keystone of his domestic agenda when he was elected to office in 1953 (Petri, 2006). And, as noted by Reuven Avi-Yonah (2002), tax rates in the 1950s went as high as 91% on the top bracket of marginal income. Frydman and Saks (2005) point out

that CEO pay had soared from roughly 40 times that of the average worker in the postWorld War II era to over 330 times that of the average worker by the end of the century. During the 1950s, the nations industrial base was stronger than it had ever been before or since. At the same time, the legacy of the New Deal meant that the power and prestige of labor unions was also at an all-time high. The combination of these two factors meant that the 1950s were perhaps the best time in American history to be a member of the blue-collar working class. Fords River Rouge plant, an engineering marvel of the age, employed over 100,000 workers in a huge 1.5-square-mile complex (Paul, 2006). Although Ford was bitterly anti-union when the plant first opened in the 1930s, organizers had succeeded in bringing in the United Auto Workers by the start of World War II (Newsweek, 2005) and this resulted in a huge supply of well-paid union jobs after the war. Edwards (2005) notes that 1954 was the high-water mark of union density in the civilian labor force 35.6%, compared to 9.8% in 1997. (Newsweeks 2005 article notes that this figure had fallen still further by that time, to only 7.9%.) And the working mans dollar went a long way; mass production of new housing stock during the post-war era at Levittown and other similar new suburbs meant that a family home was far less expensive than it is today, even after inflation is taken into account. Halberstam notes (p. 135) that a basic Levittown house cost only $7,990; according to an online inflation calculator, this is equivalent to approximately $65,000 in 2006 dollars. During the 1950s, as documented by S.M. Miller (1988), the average 30-year-old man only had to spend 14% of his income on housing, while that figure had risen to a whopping 44% by 1984. The sharp rise in housing prices and concomitant decline in union density means that many blue-collar workers today are significantly worse off than their

counterparts from half a century ago. Jeff Grabelsky (2005) focuses specifically on the plight of construction workers, who have seen their wages decline by roughly one-fourth in the past three decades alone, due to a substantial decline in the power of unions during that time. In contrast, Jean Namias (1967) uses U.S. Census records to document that, between 1949 and 1959, the average annual wages of American workers rose from $2,000 to $3,100 an increase of 55%. These figures probably underestimate the average American familys quality of life, since they include many married women who worked part-time for relatively low wages. Historical U.S. Census figures (2006) list the median male income in 1959 as $3,997. The 1950s have often been thought of as a particularly bad decade for members of minority groups. Noted historian Stephen Ambrose, in a 1997 interview with Mary Lou Beatty, argues that, for African-Americans, the fifties were a dreadful decade, and that progress [on civil rights] made in the fifties was inconsequential. While no one would question that African-Americans have seen a great deal of political and social progress from 1960 onward, Ambroses analysis seems unnecessarily harsh. By 1950, Jim Crow was already under siege; Harry Truman had desegregated the armed forces in 1948, and Jackie Robinson had crossed Major League Baseballs color line in 1947. As described in a history of desegregation by the U.S. Courts Educational Outreach (2007), various cases had already begun to chip away at the segregationist 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision. The 1950 cases of Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma Board of Regents of Higher Education strictly interpreted Plessys separate but equal language to rule specific forms of segregation unconstitutional; finally, the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawed school segregation entirely. When this order was

defied by Southern segregationists, President Eisenhower called out the National Guard to enforce it. Neither was Congress idle during the 1950s; the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first such legislation to be passed since Reconstruction. While Theodore Hesburg (1972) and many other commentators deride the Act as toothless, it set an important precedent and was considered problematic enough by the segregationist South that Strom Thurmond spoke against it on the Senate floor for over 24 consecutive hours, the longest filibuster in American history. (It passed anyway.) The role of women in the fifties has also been a common sore point with modern liberals. Ambrose, in his 1997 interview, goes as far as to describe the 1950s as perhaps the worst [decade] in this century for women. The decade certainly left something to be desired for those women who wished to enter the workforce; the return of men to the American workplace following World War II drove out many female employees. Nonetheless, there were still signs of progress: Namias notes that the proportion of wives in the paid labor force increased from 19% in 1950 to 26% in 1960. At the same time, the 1950s were probably a more secure time than today for the not-inconsiderable number of women who choose to be housewives and homemakers. Mary Ann Mason, in The Equality Trap a 2002 analysis of the impact of divorce laws on women notes that, in the 1950s, it was significantly more difficult and expensive for a successful husband to dump his long-term partner for a young trophy wife. Women in the 1950s were far more likely to gain sole custody and substantial long-term alimony payments than their modern-day counterparts. Surprisingly, given the strong currents of social and cultural progressivism in the 1950s and an economic system substantially more egalitarian than todays research

found no liberal commentators who attempted an explicit liberal defense of the 1950s. This paper will mount such a defense, and describe how the lessons learned from Americas success in the 1950s can serve as a blueprint for a progressive agenda in the 21st century.

Main Argument The argument for 1950s-style liberalism is perhaps strongest in the field of economic policy. Although World War IIs devastation of Europe and Japan partially accounts for Americas post-war dominance on the international economic stage, the fact that this prosperity was broadly shared among all classes of Americans must be attributed to the fact that government policy encouraged such an outcome. During the 1950s, the political class driven by the experience of the Great Depression and World War II had come to see the economic well-being of the middle class as intricately bound with the strength of the nation as a whole. President Eisenhower, though a Republican, had no desire to roll back the New Deal, and expressed contempt for those who did; in a private letter to his brother, he wrote (1954): Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid. Although Eisenhower never said anything so blunt in public, the actions of his administration clearly reflect a man steeped in the New Deal consensus of the times.

Strong labor laws were one of the most important aspects of the shared prosperity of the 1950s. Although union rights are theoretically protected even today by the National Labor Relations Board, both the culture and the composition of the Board has dramatically changed. In the 1950s, labor peace was considered to be a good thing, and corporate leaders were applauded for quiet compromise. By the 1980s, things had changed led by a new, more aggressive post-Goldwater Republican Party and union busting was the order of the day. The union culture of the 1950s was key to the unparalleled prosperity that the blue-collar working class experienced during that age. As documented by Edwards (2005), unionization among the civilian labor force dropped from a high point of 35.6% in 1954 to a mere 9.8% in 1997. Newsweek (2002) chronicles an additional decline, to 7.9%. In the five years since then, a pro-corporate Republican labor board and the increased ascendancy of virulently anti-union Wal-Mart have eroded the figure still further. Weak unions meant that blue-collar workers could no longer command a living wage in most parts of the country, let alone support a stay-at-home spouse and children. Grabelsky (2005) chronicles the sad decline in living standards for American construction workers, whose union density fell from 80% in the aftermath of World War II to less than 18% at the time the article was published. Grabelsky notes that during the 1950s, construction unions enjoyed formidable bargaining power, and their members were among the highest-paid blue collar workers in the world. In contrast, today, the diminished power and presence of unions in the industry have meant that all construction workers union and nonunion, alike work harder, for less, under harsher conditions. Wages in the industry, he states, have declined by 25% in real terms. As Grabelsky

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touches upon, the presence or absence of unions has effects that are felt beyond the unionized workplaces themselves. During the 1950s, if a workplace wanted to keep out the union, it would often be compelled to address worker demands and raise salaries to near-union levels. Just as a credible threat of military force can sometimes achieve the same results as actual use of force, the threat of unionization was often enough to fix workplace problems without an actual union being required. In contrast, today, unionization drives against large firms are nearly hopeless, and both sides know it. This makes it nearly impossible for rank-and-file workers to exercise any leverage against their bosses. Rather than meeting demands, modern firms resort to sophisticated forms of union avoidance, many of which are illegal, for the current National Labor Relations Board is virtually toothless. Often, modern management finds it expedient to simply fire union organizers, tie the organizing drive up in court, and then dismiss whatever paltry penalties are finally imposed as a cost of doing business. As labor declined, the cult of the corporate executive was in ascendance, and CEOs and other top management took home more and more obscene salaries. Before World War II, the average top executive was paid roughly 63 times the salary of the average worker; by the 1950s, this multiple had fallen to the 40s. Starting in the 1980s, however, it began to shoot upward, and by the turn of the century, the average CEO was paid compensation worth a staggering 330 times that of the average corporate worker (Frydman and Saks, 2005). Powerful labor unions were one pillar of the New Deal consensus, and high marginal tax rates were another. Analyzing the history of tax policy after World War II, Avi-Yonah (2002) points out that income above $400,000 per year was taxed by the

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federal government at a 91% rate during the 1950s. ($400,000 in the early 1950s is equivalent to almost $3,000,000 in todays money, so this rate did not affect the upper middle class, hitting only the extremely wealthy.) Not until 1964 was the top marginal federal tax rate reduced to 77%. In 1974, it was further decreased to 70%, exactly twice the current figure. Did the high tax rates, strong unions, and low executive pay hurt the competitiveness of the 1950s economy? Obviously, it is difficult to determine the truth in any counterfactual, but it is difficult to argue that they caused substantial economic harm. After all, as Avi-Yonah notes, the period from 1951 to 1963 represented the golden years of the U.S. economy, with an average annual rate of productivity growth at 3.1%. (Between 1981 and the articles publication in 2002, in contrast, productivity growth was only about 1.5% per annum.) Thus, there seems to be no empirical evidence for the common conservative theses that low tax rates spur economic growth and that high CEO pay is a necessary part of a capitalist meritocracy. Admittedly, few wealthy Americans actually paid the full 91% marginal rate, because the tax code of the 1950s had far more loopholes than todays. Nonetheless, the existence of this rate was in itself an important societal factor; it discouraged corporations from grossly overpaying their top employees and set forth a general national expectation that the rich had a greater obligation to American society due to the good fortune that they had achieved within that society. Liberals should point to the historical fact that, during the 1950s, very high tax rates on the wealthy coincided with broad-based prosperity and strong economic growth. Most politicians shy away from raising taxes, even when the levels of spending desired

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by the public clearly require it. This anti-tax pandering should stop. Instead, politicians on the left should unashamedly tout the importance of high tax rates not only because of the public services their revenues provide, but also because they serve an important function as a moderating factor against excessive inequality in America. Moreover, heightening tax rates for the super-wealthy would provide more room to decrease taxes for the working class, thus increasing its standard of living. According to Avi-Yonah, if the one percent of taxpayers with the highest incomes had their taxes increased by 25%, this would be sufficient to finance an across-the-board 10% rate cut for the other 99% of taxpayers. Alternatively, of course, the money could be spent on providing national health insurance or other desperately needed social services. Likewise, liberals need to reverse the trend, seen among New Democrats and neoliberals, of marginalizing organized labor. Real teeth need to be added to laws that protect union organization. The current process, which permits employers to demand a secret ballot election, should be abolished; it gives company bosses several long months during which to cloud the issue and overtly or covertly threaten, fire, or cajole pro-union voters. Instead, the far more streamlined card check process should be designated by law as the standard organization method. Under this process, employees can form a legally recognized union if a majority of them sign cards designating the union as a bargaining agent. This makes employer intimidation far more difficult, since there is no specified time frame and the employer may be unaware that an organizing drive is taking place. Card check has been proposed by the current House of Representatives this year, but faces a probable filibuster in the Senate.

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Employers who persist in placing illegal pressure on union organizers or prounion workers should face substantially harsher penalties than they do now, in recognition of the harm that such activity does not only to the affected workers but to the middle class as a whole. These penalties should include prison terms for bosses who engage in the most egregious acts or command them from the executive suites. If America is to remain a middle-class nation in the 21st century, we must reject misguided lionization of the unrestricted free market and return to the system of carefully regulated welfare capitalism that served us so well throughout the post-war era. In addition to the presence of strong unions, the nations robust industrial base was also a major factor contributing to middle-class prosperity in the 1950s. Union contracts ensured that manufacturing jobs were well-paid; according to Halberstam (1993), the post-war contract between the United Auto Workers and General Motors guaranteed not only traditional wage increases but also raises tied to a cost-of-living index. Although expensive, this treaty of Detroit bought the corporation a generation of peace with its work force (p. 119). Ford and Chryslers labor agreements, in turn, were modeled on those of the much larger General Motors. While unions ensured that blue-collar workers were paid a middle-class wage, it was the manufacturing base that made these jobs plentiful. At the time, it was the finest in the world, and in many ways it has not been exceeded even today. Some of the manufacturing base preceded the war, and some of it had been built during the war, to bolster Americas status as the Arsenal of Democracy. When converted to peacetime use, the result was an unstoppable manufacturing juggernaut. It would be decades before the shattered economies of Europe and Japan would be able to compete. One of the

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shining achievements of American manufacturing, perhaps emblematic of the age, was Fords massive River Rouge construction plant. One of the modern wonders of the world, the River Rouge factory (initially built in the 1930s, and operational until around 1980) covered over 345 acres of land, contained nearly 100 miles of railroad track, and employed a hundred thousand workers (Paul, 2006; figures converted from metric to linear using online tools). The most impressive aspect of the River Rouge plant is that it was a truly complete manufacturing operation, from beginning to end. All that was necessary was raw materials; according to Paul, rubber, sand, iron ore, and wood would come in one end, and a finished vehicle would come out of the other. Today, industrialization tends to be far more decentralized; while this may save some money in the short run, it has serious long-run disadvantages. The advance of globalization has caused many manufacturing jobs to be lost to cheap overseas labor, further eroding the position of the working class. This, in turn, means fewer consumers and a less balanced economy. A modern globalized manufacturing operation is far less stable than a fixed 1950s-style manufacturing base. During the Cold War, it would have been considered a serious national security risk to offshore major manufacturing facilities to countries of dubious loyalty, but today we routinely allow corporations to shut down American factories in favor of factories in nations such as China that do not have our best interests in mind. What happens if the Taiwanese situation erupts into all-out war? Our long supply chains would create a serious logistics impediment during any long military conflict with a major rival power. It must be a liberal priority to roll back the misguided policy of globalization and encourage the redevelopment of an American manufacturing base that encompasses all major consumer

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and military goods: steel, electronics, plastics, and all the other accoutrements of modern life. This will make America safer in an often chaotic world; it will also provide numerous new blue-collar jobs, increasing demand for labor and therefore driving up the wages of hard-working Americans. Another bulwark of middle-class prosperity during the 1950s was the widespread availability of cheap housing. Even though construction workers were (as noted above) quite well paid, the incorporation of mass production techniques into housing construction made new homes easily affordable to the burgeoning middle class. Miller (1988) documents the increase in housing prices over the years: in 1973, the average 30year-old man would have to spend 21% of his income on housing, and that would rise to a staggering 44% by 1984. (After the housing boom of the early 2000s, these figures are almost certainly even worse today.) In contrast, during the 1950s, housing only cost about 14% of that same average mans income, which made affordable family formation far easier. As Halberstam (1993) notes, Levittown the first modern American suburb used a new kind of assembly line (p. 136) to speed construction and keep costs down. By building long rows of identical houses, and training each worker to do just one task repeatedly and do it fast, designer Bill Levitt managed to reach a price point of only $7,990 (p. 135). Modern liberals sometimes deride the suburb as inauthentic, plastic, soulless, and environmentally unfriendly. While these criticisms are not without merit, they should be seriously reconsidered. Affordable housing is a vital component of the middle-class lifestyle in America, and it should be the goal of liberals to make it more readily accessible, not less so. Prime land is no longer as readily available as it was in the

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immediate post-war era, so it is unlikely that a new Levittown would be as cheap as the original. (Modern buyers also generally prefer larger dwellings, which require more materials.) Nonetheless, liberals can make housing more affordable by several methods. Interest rates should be kept as low as possible, since a substantial portion of a modern home mortgage consists of interest rather than principal. The Left should reject antisprawl movements, seeking instead to balance ecological and sociological concerns with the natural desire of families for affordable suburban living. In locales where housing is inherently scarce, such as New York City and San Francisco, the government should take matters into its own hands, subsidizing the building of modest but livable high-rise condominium dwellings. These condominium units should be sold not rented at subsidized rates; by giving the new owners a genuine financial and moral stake in the community, the fate that has befallen many housing projects can be avoided. Added atmosphere and convenience could be added by furnishing every fifth floor of the buildings for business use, and renting them out at market rates. Americas massive infrastructure development during the 1950s encompassed not only housing and factories (most of which were built by private industry), but the interstate highway system as well. Even today, the nation is interconnected largely by highways built during the fifties. As Petri (2006) points out, Eisenhower made interstates a keystone of his domestic agenda upon election, and pushed the necessary federal financing through Congress. It proved an exceedingly wise investment, one that reshaped American culture and continues to pay dividends even today. Throughout the past several decades, low-tax/low-spending policies have led to neglect of our infrastructure. Sometimes, this neglect manifests itself drastically, as it did

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in the failure of Army Corps levees during Hurricane Katrina. Sometimes, it instead manifests itself in a slow but steady decline. Attempting to save tax money by skimping on infrastructure development and maintainence is shortsighted and foolish. Liberals need to point to Americas long and successful history of public infrastructure development and encourage similar programs going forward. These programs should not merely involve better maintainence of what already exists (though that is an important factor), but must also entail expansion into entirely new fields. One prominent area where public infrastructure development may be needed is in the roll-out of broadband Internet service. Americas Internet infrastructure is among the worst of any developed nation; South Korea, Japan, and even many Latin American nations provide faster Internet service at lower costs. Ensuring access to all parts of a sprawling nation will not be easy, but it can be done, just as electrical service was initially brought to rural regions by the New Deal. In the 21st century, broadband Internet access will be a utility nearly as vital as electricity, and our lackluster performance in that arena indicates that it cannot simply be left to the whims of the marketplace. The 1950s are often thought of as an age of anticommunist hysteria. McCarthyism is sometimes given a disproportional amount of attention in analyses of the era, but this is misleading; McCarthys heyday only lasted four years, ending in 1954 when he overplayed his hand and launched vicious verbal attacks against popular Army officials on national television. By this time, he had long since alienated President Eisenhower and lost the confidence of many other Senate Republicans. He was censured by the Senate later that year, effectively ending his political career, and died of liver cirrhosis due to heavy drinking four years after that (Halberstam, 1993). The political system was

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robust enough to stand up to McCarthys wild excesses while still maintaining a strong defense against the genuine threat of Soviet expansionism. If the reaction to Communism during the 1950s is compared to the reaction against terrorism in the post-9/11 era, the fifties once again come off looking far better in many respects than the modern era. For one thing, the magnitude of the threat faced during the Cold War was far greater than today, and a somewhat greater level of concern was indeed justified then. The Soviet Union, our enemy during the Cold War, had a massive standing army, a seemingly strong economy (it was actually held together with string and bailing-wire, but no one knew it at the time), an empire spanning half of Europe, and by the end of the 1950s nuclear weapons capable not only of hitting the American mainland but of obliterating all other life on earth as well. In comparison, the threat from modern terrorists is puny; like the Communists, some of the terrorist groups possess a dangerous ideology that calls for expansion throughout the world, but unlike the Communists, they lack any real resources to carry these plans to fruition. What they have managed to do so far is nothing but a nuisance. Even the September 11 attacks, which resulted in the murder of three thousand American citizens, had a smaller death toll than one months worth of automobile accidents. The United States has reacted to the 9/11 attacks by invading an unrelated Middle Eastern nation (Iraq) and drastically increasing military spending. In contrast, President Eisenhower distrusted proxy wars; one of the primary reasons he had been elected was to reduce American involvement in Korea (this was accomplished, with active fighting ending in 1953). In many ways, Eisenhower ran a more dovish administration than his Democratic predecesor, Harry S Truman. Eisenhower, by 1953, had advocated what he

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called the New Look, which reflected the Presidents belief that the true strength of America came from a healthy economy and that a heavy defense budget would diminish that strength (Halberstam, 1993, p. 396). It is clear in hindsight that Eisenhower was correct; the prosperity displayed by the American system during the 1950s did much to encourage similar systems of social democracy and discourage the spread of Communism in western Europe. Vietnam would later demonstrate the limits of American military power, while the final collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 not from a military assault, but from economic failure showed the wisdom of Eisenhowers prioritization of the consumer economy over the military. Eisenhowers credibility as Supreme Allied Commander of World War II gave him the ability to criticize military spending in a manner few other politicians have dared. In a famous speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Eisenhower argued that every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. He went on to argue that domestic spending on schools, highways, housing, and other infrastructure needs was far more valuable to the American public than a larger army (Eisenhower, 1953). This stance continued throughout his term; in his farewell speech to the nation, he warned against the dangers that the military-industrial complex posed to the economy and the society (Halberstam, 1993, p. 616). Although it will be difficult, and they will no doubt be attacked as soft on terrorism, modern liberals must fight for a substantial rollback of our modern-day military-industrial complex. Current American military spending dwarfs that of any other nation; it is an extreme outlier in the world community. Furthermore, the war in Iraq has

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in no way made Americans safer or more secure. A large military establishment is an attractive nuisance to politicians; after all, the troops are already enlisted and the weapons already purchased, so why not use them in a good cause? Eisenhower was right: military spending crowds out the ability to finance far more pressing social needs. The U.S. government must give up its addiction to proxy wars and hegemony. What are our genuine security needs? We need a nuclear deterrent, of course, to help stave off potential war with other major powers, especially China. And, since a full retreat from the global economy is not realistic, we need a robust Navy to keep the sea lanes clear of threats to international commerce. But most of our military spending has merely allowed grandiose leaders to indulge their dreams of empire. America does not need and cannot afford these dreams and the American left must condemn them in the same ringing terms as Eisenhower once did. While the post-9/11 era has seen a substantial curtailment of civil liberties in the name of the war on terrorism, the 1950s saw the opposite: a considerable expansion of freedom for American citizens. When California Governor Earl Warren was appointed Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1953, the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision the following year provided a preview of what was to come. The Warren Court would do more for civil liberties than any other Supreme Court before or since, and many vital modern-day precedents date to Warrens tenure. Although many of the Courts landmark cases, such as Miranda v. Arizona and Griswold v. Connecticut, were not decided until the 1960s, they represent a clear continuation of an already existing trend towards greater protection of Constitutional rights. The 1957 case of Dennis v. Yates, for example, limited persecution of self-professed Communists even at

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the height of the Cold War. Todays courts have been far less circumspect with the rights of terrorist suspects, especially those held without charges at Guantanamo Bay. Although the Warren Court was often blamed for increased crime rates in the 1960s and 1970s, there is little to no evidence for this; police quickly learned to work with decisions like Miranda v. Arizona, and a beneficial side effect was the increased professionalization of law enforcement work in America. The baby boom is a much more likely culprit for the crime wave of the post-fifties decades; an overwhelming majority of crime is committed by young men, and there was a substantial surplus of young men during that era. For the most part, there is no need for liberals to re-fight the battles of the Warren Court, most of which have already been won. There should, however, be strong efforts on both the legislative and judicial fronts to make racial equality in education more than a formality, by mandating that districts receive equitable financing. Currently, a majority of school districts are financed by local property taxes, which places poor (and predominantly minority) neighborhoods at an obvious disadvantage. A solution will not be easy, but one must be found. And, while the Warren Court made numerous advances in the field of civil liberties for accused criminal suspects, there is still more to be done. The Guantanamo Bay gulag must be shut down, and all prisoners there either placed on trial in civilian courts, held as military prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention, or released. With the civilian judicial system, activist liberals could focus on common-sense measures like requiring that all interrogations be videotaped (it is inexcusable, given the ubiquity of modern recording technology, that this is not already done). Courts should rule that prison rape is a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and mandate that active measures be taken to stop it. A general

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proportionality requirement should also be added to the Eighth Amendment, requiring that punishments fit the crime, and ending farces such as Californias lifetime incarceration of one rogue for stealing a slice of pizza. Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003), which permitted retroactive extension of copyright and essentially gutted the limited times modifier in the Constitutional clause, should be overruled. The Supreme Court should also overturn Gonzales v. Raich (2005), which prohibited states from experimenting with medical marijuana laws. The plight of women in the 1950s has been a subject of controversy ever since Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963. For the most part, the change in the status of women during subsequent decades have represented genuine improvements; the fact that lucrative careers in medicine and law are no longer closed to Americans on the basis of gender is a substantial moral advancement. Although there have been unintended side effects for instance, a reduction in parental involvement in childrearing, and serious shortages of teachers and nurses as women were no longer restricted to these fields alone this is one area in which the clock cannot and should not be turned back. Despite these overall improvements, women have seen their prospects dim since the 1950s in one particular area: divorce law. No-fault divorce began in the early 1970s with progressive intentions: cases often arose in which couples had no specific grounds for divorce, but simply did not wish to continue the marriage. In many such cases, perjury was committed by one or both parties in order to create false reasons to grant a divorce, and it was believed that no-fault divorce would end these charades. It did that, but in the process, it also meant that women especially housewives bore the financial brunt of the situation. Mason (2002), in a detailed criticism of no-fault divorce, notes that, in

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California, a woman can expect a 73 percent drop in disposable income one year after divorce, while her ex-husband experiences a 42 percent increase (p. 22). Along with required fault for divorce, old alimony laws and property-allocation laws that favored wives have gone the way of the dodo. This means that women who entered into marriage and left their careers to become housewives can suffer greatly if their husbands decide to leave them for younger trophy wives. Mason describes a case of one real-life couple, Jim and Mary Smith, who married in 1968 near the start of the no-fault divorce era. Both Jim and Mary worked hard to put Jim through law school; Mary worked at first, but then stayed home after the couples second child was born. Soon after that, Jim decided to leave Mary in order to find himself, claiming he had married too young. The financial settlement was clearly unfair to Mary; she received only a half-share in the family home, despite the fact that she had to support both children; spousal support was limited, and alimony was nonexistent. Despite the fact that she had put a great deal of effort into supporting Jim during his time in law school, Jim reaped all the benefits of his valuable law degree. Mason points out that, during the fifties, Mary could probably have refused to agree to a divorce unless it was on her terms, thus giving her a great deal more bargaining power. She would certainly have kept the family home as her own and could have asked for a combination of alimony and child support totaling 60 or 70 percent of Jims real income (p. 63). The 1950s divorce laws protected a wifes investment in a long-term marriage much better than current laws do. While attempting to eliminate no-fault divorce entirely is probably not feasible in todays social climate, there are certain aspects of the old system that can and should be revived. In particular, long-term alimony should be

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brought back in the case of displaced housewives, especially those with children, and child support payments should be raised. Child support should be based on physical custody, not legal custody (many divorced men file for joint legal custody simply to lower their support payments). Men who leave their long-term spouses for younger trophy wives should be required to bear the full financial costs of that decision. Liberals have long championed the cause of women in the workplace, and rightly so, but it is important that they also champion the cause of women as wives and mothers.

Conclusion Virtually everything that average Americans think they know about the fifties is wrong. Moreover, many of these inaccurate perceptions have had repercussions far beyond simple historical misunderstanding. George Orwell once wrote that he who controls the past controls the future. For the past several decades, American conservatives have reshaped our beliefs about the past, and thus altered our views of what is possible for the future. Americans would be less likely to accept conservative low-tax dogma if they realized that high tax rates on the wealthy during the 1950s corresponded with broad-based prosperity. Voters might be less likely to accept anti-union propaganda at face value if they realized the important role that unions once played in ensuring middle-class lifestyles for a sizable majority of Americans. They might be less afraid of social change if they realized that it was part of a trend dating back not to the chaotic 1960s but to the Greatest Generation. Liberals must reclaim the past, for it is their past; it was the New Deal, not its malcontents, that shaped the 1950s, and it was the judicious continuation of these wise policies by Presidents Truman and Eisenhower that made the

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era worth living in. In reclaiming the past, liberals will also find the strength to reclaim Americas future in the 21st century.

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