J. Bradford DeLong: The End of the Age of Friedman

J. Bradford DeLong: Harvard professor Dani Rodrik -- perhaps the finest political economist of my generation -- recently said on his blog that a colleague has been declaring the past three decades "the Age of Milton Friedman."

According to this view, the coming to power of former US president Ronald Reagan, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping led to an enormous upward leap in human liberty and prosperity. I say yes -- and no -- to this proposition.

Friedman adhered throughout his life to five basic principles: strongly anti-inflationary monetary policy; a government that understood that it was the people's agent and not a dispenser of favors and benefits; a government that kept its nose out of people's economic business; a government that kept its nose out of people's private lives; and an enthusiastic and optimistic belief in what free discussion and political democracy could do to convince people to adopt principles one through four.

Measured against these principles, Reagan failed on numbers two and four and adopted the first one only by default -- former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker's anti-inflation policy in the 1980s dismayed many of Reagan's close aides. Thatcher failed on number four.

And Deng, while a vast improvement over his predecessors -- former Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and former Chinese leader Mao Zedong -- failed on all five, with the possible exception of number three. We do not know what Deng's desired set of economic arrangements for a system of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" was, and, in all likelihood, he did not know, either.

But I say yes in part to the "Age of Friedman" proposition, because only Friedman's set of principles self-confidently proposed both to explain the world and to tell us how to change it.

Still, I would build up a counterbalancing set of principles, because I believe that Friedman's principles do not, ultimately, deliver what they promise.

My principles would start from the observation that market economies and free and democratic societies are built on a very old foundation of human sociability, communication and interdependence. That foundation had a hard enough time functioning when human societies had 60 members -- eight orders of magnitude less than today's 6 billion.

So my principles would then be developed from Karl Polanyi's old observation that the logic of market exchange puts considerable pressure on that underlying foundation. The market for labor compels people to move to where they earn the most, at the price of potentially creating strangers in strange lands. The market for consumer goods makes human status rankings the result of market forces rather than social norms and views about justice.

This critique of the market is, of course, one-sided. After all, other arrangements for allocating labor appear to involve more domination and alienation than the labor market, which offers opportunities, not constraints.

Similarly, "social norms" and "views about distributive justice" usually turn out to favor whomever has the biggest spear or can convince others that obedience to the powerful is obedience to God. Market arrangements have a larger meritocratic component than the alternatives, and they encourage positive-sum entrepreneurship, making it easier to do well by doing good.

Nevertheless, the distribution of economic welfare produced by the market economy does not fit anyone's conception of the just or the best. Rightly or wrongly, we have more confidence in the correctness and appropriateness of political decisions made by democratically elected representatives than of decisions implicitly made as the unanticipated consequences of market processes.

We also believe that government should play a powerful role in managing the market to avoid large depressions, redistributing income to produce higher social welfare, and preventing pointless industrial structuring produced by the fads and fashions that sweep the minds of financiers.

Indeed, there is a conservative argument for social-democratic principles. Post-World War II social democracy produced the wealthiest and most just societies the world has ever seen. You can complain that redistribution and industrial policy were economically inefficient, but not that they were unpopular. It seems a safe bet that the stable politics of the post-war era owe a great deal to the coexistence of rapidly growing, dynamic market economies and social-democratic policies.

Friedman would say that, given the the world in 1975, a move in the direction of his principles was a big improvement. When I think of former US president Jimmy Carter's energy policy, Arthur Scargill at the head of the British mineworkers' union and Mao's Cultural Revolution, I have a hard time disagreeing with Friedman about the world in the mid-1970s.

But there I would draw the line: While movement in Friedman's direction was by and large positive over the past generation, the gains to be had from further movement in that direction are far less certain.

Comments

[Tushar]

A good argument, Mr. Delong.
However, this is too vague to be useful, and if meant literally is almost certainly false even from a social democratic worldview

"the gains to be had from further movement in that direction are far less certain."

What about the Drug war? Arcane laws on everything from shipping wine across state lines to possessing sex toys? FCC regulations on television and campaign finance regulations that stifle free speech? A ridiculously bloated and mediocre monopoly public education system? (Example: Witness the California ruling against liberty of parents to home school children)

One can certainly argue for the social welfare enhancing redistribution and tax policies. But stifling bureacratic meddling of the above sort can certainly be done away with.
Won't you agree?

[John Hart]

Nicely put. The most succinct example yet of "why I read Brad." ... even when I want to shut the laptop for the night!

[Naadir Jeewa]

Yeah, I have to agree with this article. Whilst market mechanisms are good at efficiency, they don't seem to be so good at equitable distribution.

I'm currently doing an essay on the lack of democracy in Pakistan, and Easterley refers to the country's lack of development of education on "economic growth without development." Reducing societies to a basic machine metaphor of increasing efficiency and reducing rent-seeking is certainly elegant mathematics/computer science, but it's real world effects are wholly different, and usually unwanted as well as unanticipated.

The lesson should be learnt from Beck's The Risk Society. Sociotechnical rationalisation leads to unanticipated consequences that escape the logic of control.

[dsquared]

[an enthusiastic and optimistic belief in what free discussion and political democracy could do to convince people to adopt principles one through four]

OK then, I'll be the first one to mention Chile then.

[Q the Enchanter]

"It seems a safe bet that the stable politics of the post-war era owe a great deal to the coexistence of rapidly growing, dynamic market economies and social-democratic policies."

But then why did those policies dissipate?

[Matt Lister]

I always feel good following the lead of Dsquared. It's not at all clear that Friedman believed these things when applied to _other people's_ countries, as his enthusiastic support of fascism in Chile showed. I suspect that it was only a contingent fact that he supported them when applied to his own country, that is, if the US has tried to elect a socialist I suspect Friedman would have rather had a military coup and non-externally-aggressive fascism of the Pinochet style here, too. It wasn't his first choice, but all evidence suggests he'd rather have that than for people to "abuse" their freedom by picking the wrong leaders.

[Jack]

Mrs Thatcher can only get a passing mark on point 2 if you qualify anti-inflationary with a particular approach. It may have been the intent but, given the Lawson boom, it was not always the consequence.

[Barry]

I'd like to point out that the 'age of Friedman' also suspiciously coincides in the USA with the 'age in which the gains from economic growth went to the top, and most of us got f*cked'.

BTW - speaking as an economic ignoramus, I also noticed that the 'age when most of us got f*cked' also seems to coincide with the 'age of moderation', in which the economic cycle was somehow damped. Perhaps this mysterious damper is the simple fact that half or more of the labor force was now the shock absorber?

[Mr Punch]

1975 was the end of the "trente glorieuse" period of postwar economic boom in Western Europe (which had sustained the captalist/social democratic model), but it is also the moment when it became clear that the growth was real, while Marxist-Leninist socialism couldn't deliver the goods -- a fatal flaw for a materialist philosophy. As late as about 1970, it was possible to believe that there weren't significant differences in economic performance between East and West Germany, North and South Korea, mainland China and Taiwan -- and that real existing socialism was doing a better job in terms of equitable distribution; suddenly, that view was longer tenable. The claim that Marxism was not falsifiable turned out be wrong -- experimental results are evidence.) What was discredited was not just a specific ideology, but the formerly widespread idea that markets are inherently inefficient and that efficiency is therefore (likely to be) improved by state intervention.

So it became obvious, at a certain point, that a lot of what Friedman had been saying was more or less right; and his work became the dominant explanation of what was happening. That's enough qualify as "the age of Friedman" in economic thought broadly considered, without arguing the specifics of what he said or did.

[Neal]

William greider writing in The Nation (12/11/06) "Friedman's Cruel Legacy"

(quote)
Friedman's broader argument--that a society should be governed by self-regulating markets instead of big government--did better but also did not lead to the utopia he promoted. His "free market" faith has produced instead the very thing Friedman regularly denounced: a bastardized system of interest-group politics that serves favored sectors of citizens at the expense of many others. Enterprise and markets were indeed set "free" of government regulation, but big government did not go away (it grew bigger). Only now government acts mainly as patron and protector for the largest, most powerful interests--the same ones that demanded their liberation. Instead of serving the broad general welfare, government enables capital and corporations to feed off the taxpayers' money and convert public assets into private profit centers, shielded from the wrath of any citizens trying to object. If that is what Friedman really had in mind, he should have said so.

His most profound damage, however, was as a moral philosopher. He championed an ethic of unrelenting, unapologetic self-interest that effectively pushed aside human sympathy. In fact, humans' responsibility to one another has been delegitimized--portrayed as an obstacle to the hardheaded analysis that maximizes returns. Friedman explained: "So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no, they do not."

Pay no attention to the collateral consequences. Your only obligation is to the bottom line. Friedman's message was highly appealing--he promised people a path to freedom--but it triumphed, ultimately, because it served the powerful forces of capital over labor, economic wealth over social concerns. Government was indeed failing on many fronts, especially inflation, and liberalism had no answer. Friedman's answer was alluringly simple. Get rid of government.

People everywhere now understand what Friedman's kind of "freedom" means. America has been brutally coarsened by his success at popularizing this dictum--millions of innocents injured, mutual trust gravely weakened, society demoralized by the hardening terms of life. Most people know in their gut this is wrong but see no easy way to resist it. Friedman's utopia is also drenched in personal corruption. The proliferating scandals in business, finance and government flow directly from his teaching people to go for it and disregard moral qualms. When you tell people in power that their highest purpose in life is to maximize their own returns, there is no limit to how much "good" they will do for the rest of us. I don't recall hearing Friedman express any discomfort. Perhaps he regarded looting and stealing as natural features of capitalism that market forces would eventually correct.

(end quote)

[ogmb]

"Indeed, there is a conservative argument for social-democratic principles. Post-World War II social democracy produced the wealthiest and most just societies the world has ever seen. You can complain that redistribution and industrial policy were economically inefficient, but not that they were unpopular. It seems a safe bet that the stable politics of the post-war era owe a great deal to the coexistence of rapidly growing, dynamic market economies and social-democratic policies."

Excellent post, but I find the above paragraph unconvincing. Popularity is not an economic metric, and if a set of policies leads to sustained improvements in social welfare despite underperforming on the dominant economic metric, we have to question the validity of that metric. If the creation of a welfare state was simply a popular measure adopted by democracies at the behest of the populace, we would observe democracies perform poorly compared to autocratic societies in the long run. But we don't. One of the problems with economic efficiency as a metric for public welfare is that it assumes gains from trade for those who participate in market exchanges but ignores those who, for lack of skills or luck, are left out from the exchange. The underlying assumptions is that unsuccessful market participants will eventually leave the market and disappear from the economic efficiency balance sheet. But people rejected by the labor market don't simply disappear. Some of them resort to crime or other other activities that impose externalities on the society. Some will engage in fringe activities, and very few will invest in education. The upshot is that an efficiency-maximizing policy might maximize the aggregate of private returns but fails to maximize social returns, which is why we see social-democratic systems succeed in the economic sphere.

[ogmb]

"Indeed, there is a conservative argument for social-democratic principles. Post-World War II social democracy produced the wealthiest and most just societies the world has ever seen. You can complain that redistribution and industrial policy were economically inefficient, but not that they were unpopular. It seems a safe bet that the stable politics of the post-war era owe a great deal to the coexistence of rapidly growing, dynamic market economies and social-democratic policies."

Excellent post, but I find the above paragraph unconvincing. Popularity is not an economic metric, and if a set of policies leads to sustained improvements in social welfare despite underperforming on the dominant economic metric, we have to question the validity of that metric. If the creation of a welfare state was simply a popular measure adopted by democracies at the behest of the populace, we would observe democracies perform poorly compared to autocratic societies in the long run. But we don't. One of the problems with economic efficiency as a metric for public welfare is that it assumes gains from trade for those who participate in market exchanges but ignores those who, for lack of skills or luck, are left out from the exchange. The underlying assumptions is that unsuccessful market participants will eventually leave the market and disappear from the economic efficiency balance sheet. But people rejected by the labor market don't simply disappear. Some of them resort to crime or other other activities that impose externalities on the society. Some will engage in fringe activities, and very few will invest in education. The upshot is that an efficiency-maximizing policy might maximize the aggregate of private returns but fails to maximize social returns, which is why we see social-democratic systems succeed in the economic sphere.

[Mandos]

OK, this is unbelievable.

1. If the US had followed Jimmy Carter's energy policies to any serious extent, the world may not be in the energy-related predicaments it is today.

2. By your attitude towards Scargill, I take it that you actually *approve* of Thatcher's war on organized labour and perhaps even the decline of organized labour in the USA? I cannot imagine how this stand is a moral one, or jibes with your claim to be interested in redistributive justice.

3. And putting them both together with Mao's Cultural Revolution? For Heaven's sake.

Down with Friedman and the horse he rode in on.

[Matt]

"...strongly anti-inflationary monetary policy; a government that understood that it was the people's agent and not a dispenser of favors and benefits;..."

Yea, Milt, socialists say this stuff all the time and you are no different. A government worker who believes his government job is too important to be be subject to competitive pressure.

[sm]

I was going to link to this post until I read this:

"When I think of former US president Jimmy Carter's energy policy, Arthur Scargill at the head of the British mineworkers' union and Mao's Cultural Revolution, I have a hard time disagreeing with Friedman about the world in the mid-1970s."

How is the implied comparison valid? I would also like to know how Carter's energy policy was worse, given the ecological and political consequences of the last 30 years.

Then there is Chile.

[JoshK]

This is a silly argument. You are saying that the gvt will do a better job assigning resources than the competitive market. This makes you resort to vague arguments about "justice".

Milton Friedman argued for human freedom, which unfortunately has really never existed for long stretches at a time until someone came along promising to make life fairer and more just if only they gave up their control to me....

[Zhiyi Zhang]

It's not appropriate to apply the 5 principles to Deng's reform. Keep in mind that China was in a state of collective proverty, then Deng cracked the door open a bit and offered an economic opportunity/incentive (to everyone who is willing to take it) to seek his own fortune.

I don't think Deng knew Friedman, but what Dend did in China was exactly what Friedman preached: economic freedom, which has also led to political freedom - I know it's not getting to what westerners expect yet - but it's a great progress compared to where it began. Consider also the fact that the two political backslashes (1987 and 1989) couldn't revert it.

All in all, Friedman's idea has been a great success in China. It's funny though that the communist party in China denounced Friedman. (After 1989 Tiananmen event, Premier Zhao Ziyang was chastened for meeting with him.)

[tom f]

Delong on Reagan's accomplishments:

"A government that kept its nose out of people's economic business"

Greider on Reagan's accomplishments:

"a bastardized system of interest-group politics that serves favored sectors of citizens at the expense of many others. Enterprise and markets were indeed set "free" of government regulation, but big government did not go away (it grew bigger). Only now government acts mainly as patron and protector for the largest, most powerful interests..."

Which description, when applied to Federal economic policy from 81-88 has more empirical support? Did US protectionism (internal and external) and corporate welfare increase, decrease, or remain unchanged in this period? And how would such trends relate to "a government keeping its nose out of people's economic business"?

Aren't Delong's #'s 2 & 3 inextricably linked, especially from a classical liberal perspective?

[tom f]

JoshK

"Milton Friedman argued for human freedom, which unfortunately has really never existed for long stretches at a time until someone came along promising to make life fairer and more just if only they gave up their control to me...."

What a perfect distillation of perhpas the central historical fallacy of libertarian and classical liberal economic thought. To suppose, for instance, that mercantilism, feudalism, or 19th C economic nationalism and imperialism were the results of ecomomic populism displays a gross neglect of history.

The implication that economic liberalism arose cheifly in response to paternalism is itself storybook history which merely records 19th C propagandan as erudition.

[Nick]

From Wikipedia:
"In 1977 Carter had convinced the Democratic Congress to create the United States Department of Energy. Promoting the department's recommendation to conserve energy, Carter wore sweaters, had solar hot water panels installed on the roof of the White House, had a wood stove in his living quarters, ordered the General Services Administration to turn off hot water in some federal facilities, and requested that Christmas decorations remain dark in 1979 and 1980. Nationwide controls were put on thermostats in government and commercial buildings to prevent people from raising temperatures in the winter (above 65 degrees Fahrenheit) or lowering them in the summer (below 78 degrees Fahrenheit)."
"His Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act created 103 million acres (417,000 km²) of national park land in Alaska."
"The Carter Administration began a phased decontrol of oil prices on 5 April when the average price of crude oil was US$15.85. Over the next 12 months the price of crude oil rose to $39.50 (its all time highest real price until March 3, 2008[7]. During this period domestic U.S. oil output rose sharply from the large Prudhoe Bay fields while oil imports fell sharply. However, since there were no price controls on imported oil, this had no impact on boosting the supply of gasoline in 1979. Hence, long lines appeared at gas stations, as they had six years earlier during the 1973 oil crisis.

As the average vehicle of the time consumed between 2-3 liters (about 0.5-0.8 gallons) of gasoline (petrol) an hour while idling, it was estimated that Americans wasted up to 150,000 barrels of oil per day idling their engines in the lines at gas stations.[8]
Gas coupon printed but not issued during the 1979 energy crisis
Gas coupon printed but not issued during the 1979 energy crisis

During the period, many people believed the oil companies artificially created oil shortages to drive up prices, rather than simply high prices caused by natural factors beyond any human influence or control. Many politicians proposed gas rationing, such as the Governor of Maryland, Harry Hughes, who proposed odd-even rationing (only people with an odd-numbered license plate could purchase gas on an odd-numbered day), as was used during the 1973 crisis. Coupons for gasoline rationing were printed but were never actually used during the 1979 crisis. [9]

President Jimmy Carter made symbolic efforts to encourage energy conservation, such as urging citizens in a famous July 15, 1979, 'malaise' speech to turn down their thermostats. He also installed solar power panels on the roof of the White House and a wood-burning stove in the living quarters. However, the panels were removed during the administration of his successor, Ronald Reagan, after a leak. The panels were never replaced.

Carter's fire-side speech argued the oil crisis was "the moral equivalent of war". More importantly, Carter, as part of his administration's efforts at deregulation, proposed removing price controls that had been imposed in the administration of Richard Nixon during the 1973 crisis. Congress agreed to remove price controls in phases; they were finally dismantled in 1981 under Reagan. [10]

In 1980, the U.S. Government established the Synthetic Fuels Corporation to produce an alternative to imported fossil fuels."

I'm too young to know anything about this, but what was so bad about Carter's energy policy? It sounds like he was trying to de-regulate and remove price controls compared to his predecessors (which Friedman would have no doubt supported) and he also seems to be one of the first Presidents to do anything about conservation. Any ideas what Brad is thinking (and what he/Friedman would have done differently?)

[ogmb]

Fwiw, encapsulating Friedman in the "five principles" as Brad did is akin to encapsulating Marx in the principles of solidarity among workers, free healthcare for all, etc. The last twenty-five years were the age of Friedman because at the time the application of Friedmanian conservatism by Reagan and Thatcher cured more societal ills than it created. The age of Friedman is now meeting its own Pruitt-Igoe because as an ideology Friedmanism is just as flawed as Marxism, and the transformation of Friedmanism as a spot cure to Friedmanism as a panacea has led to the disasters such as the restructuring of the Soviet Bloc post 1990, the erosion of the middle class, twenty years of disastrous environmental policies, Iraq, and Brad's favorite topic, the erosion of the media as a banner carrier for free discussion and political democracy. I think I posted it here before, but economic life advances like a drunken bicyclist. Even if we'd like to stay on the road with the help of many subtle balancing moves, we're generally not able to do better than wildly veer the handlebar in the other direction just about when we're at peril of falling in the ditch. We were at that point in the late 70's, and the Friedmanist violently yanked the handlebar over to the right, which kept us on the road for twenty more years--twenty years during which we ignored that there is a ditch on the other side too.

[Measure for Measure]

I am baffled by the "Carter's Energy Policy" remark as well.

To continue Nick's timeline, IIRC Carter eventually relaxed price controls on gasoline -- and combined that easing with a windfall profits tax.

Nixon and Ford, in contrast, showed little respect for the price mechanism. Nixon instituted price controls and Ford thought that handing out WIN buttons could help curb inflation.

[Measure for Measure]

Friedman would say that, given the the world in 1975, a move in the direction of his principles was a big improvement. When I think of former US president Jimmy Carter's energy policy, Arthur Scargill at the head of the British mineworkers' union and Mao's Cultural Revolution, I have a hard time disagreeing with Friedman about the world in the mid-1970s.

Then again, Carter didn't become President until January 1977: he arguably was part of post-Friedman era.

[Measure for Measure]

Sigh: the first paragraph above was a quote from DeLong's article. (My italic coding was swallowed.)

Try again:
DeLong: " Friedman would say that, given the the world in 1975, a move in the direction of his principles was a big improvement. When I think of former US president Jimmy Carter's energy policy, Arthur Scargill at the head of the British mineworkers' union and Mao's Cultural Revolution, I have a hard time disagreeing with Friedman about the world in the mid-1970s. "

MfM: Then again, Carter didn't become President until January 1977: he arguably was part of post-Friedman era.

[Bernard Yomtov]

"So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no, they do not."

This widely cited opinion alone renders Friedman, whatever his genius as an economist, a midget as a moral thinker. The statement is both inconsistent and repugnant. If executives have an obligation to obey the law, even at the expense of profits, why do they not have other obligations as well? No reason is given. But of course they do have other moral obligations, Friedman notwithstanding.

[Praxis]

Ah yes, Milton Friedman, the great advocate of human freedom except where it came into conflict with the power of the market, at which point it was to be speedily liquidated. After all, democracy was for legitimating capitalism, not to allow people a vehicle for challenging it!

Or more succinctly: Piochet, Augusto.

[Cranky Observer]

> Similarly, "social norms" and "views about distributive
> justice" usually turn out to favor whomever has the
> biggest spear or can convince others that obedience
> to the powerful is obedience to God. Market arrangements
> have a larger meritocratic component than the alternatives,
> and they encourage positive-sum entrepreneurship, making
> it easier to do well by doing good.

Again, back in the 1940-1980 period a typical salary range for a corporate employee [noting that the vast majority of Americans are employees of incorporated entities] was (in approximate 1985 dollars) 18,000 for an entry level hourly, 36,000 for an average hourly, 80,000 for a highly skilled hourly, 45,000 for an average professional (e.g. engineer), 80,000 for a skilled and experienced professional/manager, and 150,000 for a Vice-President, and 600,000 for the President. 20:1, say, between the average hourly employee and the President. These were very innovative and productive times and there was plenty of competition for a President's job. There was also a lot of community and social pressure to keep the President's salary in the 600k range and not much higher.

Today we have average hourly wages falling rapidly in real terms, professionals doing well but being laid off for good around age 45-50, and the self-styled "CEOs" paying themselves ** $20 million/year **. It is a little unclear to me how the average American is better off under that system, or why the social consensus around reasonable spreading of wealth within the competitive framework as something imposed by the "biggest spear".

Cranky

[Murraymises]

I'm sorry, but this has got to be one of the worst things Mr. DeLong has ever written. I have a longer post on why over here (http://www.wackedecon.com/index.php/2008/03/06/brad-delong-the-decider/), but I just wanted to look at this statement:

"Rightly or wrongly, we have more confidence in the correctness and appropriateness of political decisions made by democratically elected representatives than of decisions implicitly made as the unanticipated consequences of market processes."

Mr. DeLong isn’t sure he’s even right, but is still willing to allow an elected group of wise men dictate what the rest of society should and shouldn’t do rather than let individuals decide for themselves in the free market.

On what exactly is this faith in “political decisions” based? Governments have a terrible track record organizing the economy. As my co-blogger pointed out, they can’t even run a decent election once every four years. Why on earth should we allow them to manage the market or redistribute wealth?

Well, DeLong replies because “the market economy does not fit ANYONE’S conception of the just or the best.”

Really? No one thinks the market is just or best? Not the billions of people it has lifted out of poverty? Of course not. Because DeLong is the decider and he knows what is just and best.

[Cranky Observer]

> On what exactly is this faith in “political decisions”
> based? Governments have a terrible track record
> organizing the economy. As my co-blogger pointed out,
> they can’t even run a decent election once every four
> years. Why on earth should we allow them to manage the
> market or redistribute wealth?

Yeah, "the market's" record in reducing pollution emitted by automobiles was really stellar. Now that we are reaping the full benefits of the kick in the pants that the three Clean Air Acts (and the six tougher California versions) delivered to the big automakers (and that the German Green Party used to do the same to their auto industry in the 1984) we find that automobiles are not only cleaner, not only more efficient, but far better in every respect. Much as I loved my 1976 Oldsmobile with the cast-iron 350 V-8 it is disgusting to see one running at an antique show next to a highly efficient 3l computer-controlled Chrysler V-6. Yet I doubt very much any of the automakers would have gone down that road without the aforesaid kick from the three governments.

Cranky

No, Toyota wouldn't have done it on their own. Honda maybe, but they are small.