The Oxford English Dictionary is generally acknowledged as the authority on the English language. The recently published 1993 edition contains many new entries. Perhaps the most remarkable among them is the new word "Reaganism."
Oxford defines Reaganism as: "The policies and principles advocated by Ronald Reagan, U.S. president (1981-9) noted for his conservative Republicanism; adherence to or support of these."It is not easy to get a word named after you. There are no such words as Bushism or Carterism or Fordism for the policies of those former presidents. Not even Kennedyism or Eisenhowerism made the Oxford dictionary. The basic rule seems to be that if you wish to have a new English word coined in your name you have to do something of lasting significance.
Five years have now passed since Reagan left office, and the outlines of his political legacy are beginning to emerge. Whether people like the Reagan legacy, it apparently has enough power and sweep to justify a new word.
Perhaps only one other man in this century had such a profound impact on the politics of the world. He was Karl Marx. And yes, Marxism has been a word for some time, defined in the dictionary as "the political and economic theories of Karl Marx."
For most of the 20th century a tremendous intellectual and political battle was fought between the ideologies of communism and capitalism. Marxism was the guidebook for the communists.
For a long time, communism appeared to be winning, but that all changed in the 1980s. All around the world, communist regimes collapsed, and though many live communists remain, the communist idea became intellectually bankrupt.
The triumphant ideological winner was capitalism, an idea now spreading with the same force and strength that once propelled communism. And Reaganism is the new guidebook for budding capitalists.
If we could step forward 100 years into the future, I think we would find three aspects of Reagan's legacy to be of lasting importance and still noted in the history books:
1. Prosperity. President Reagan presided over one of the longest economic expansions in American history. And, using the normal criteria economists use to measure such things - the number of jobs created, the amount of goods and services created, and the increase in the value of the stock market - it was also the greatest.
The Reagan boom in the 1980s proved at a critical time in history that modern capitalism is the most productive economic system yet devised by man, a stark contrast to the failing communist economies.
2. Peace. More important than prosperity was the withering away of the threat of nuclear war between the two superpowers. It was President Reagan who personally devised a strategy to stop this terror. Through a combination of an unprecedented buildup of conventional military power, the initiation of a radical missile defense strategy, popularly known as "Star Wars," and skillful negotiation, President Reagan ended the Cold War by winning it.
3. The Death of Marxism. The most important part of President Reagan's legacy was the intellectual defeat of the Marxist idea that fueled the communist internationale for so many years.
America's greatly enhanced military strength, backed clearly by the will to use it, convinced communist leaders everywhere that it would be futile even to think about attacking the United States. That power to protect liberty, combined with the demonstrated economic might of a free economy, proved to be more than sufficient to crack the philosophical shell of Marxism.
No one, not even Reagan, foresaw the extent of the political and economic changes that would unfold after he took office in 1981. As he explained it later in his farewell address on January 11, 1989: "Once you begin a great movement, there's no telling where it'll end. We meant to change a nation, and instead we changed a world."
The ultimate irony of the 20th century may be that lasting, worldwide political revolution was accomplished not by Marx and the communists, but instead by Reagan and the capitalists.