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CHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDEROUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY“I have always believed thatthere was some divine planthat placed this great continentbetween two oceans to be soughtout by those who were possessedof an abiding love of freedomand a special kind of courage.”A SOCIETY IN TRANSITIONShifts in the structure of Americansociety, begun years or even decadesearlier, had become apparentby the time the 1980s arrived. Thecomposition of the population andthe most important jobs and skillsin American society had undergonemajor changes.The dominance of service jobs inthe economy became undeniable. Bythe mid-1980s, nearly three-fourthsof all employees worked in the servicesector, for instance, as retailclerks, office workers, teachers, physicians,and government employees.Service-sector activity benefitedfrom the availability and increaseduse of the computer. The informationage arrived, with hardware andCalifornia Governor Ronald Reagan, 1974software that could aggregate previouslyunimagined amounts of dataabout economic and social trends.The federal government had madesignificant investments in computertechnology in the 1950s and 1960sfor its military and space programs.In 1976, two young California entrepreneurs,working out of a garage,assembled the first widely marketedcomputer for home use, named itthe Apple, and ignited a revolution.By the early 1980s, millions of microcomputershad found their wayinto U.S. businesses and homes, andin 1982, Time magazine dubbed thecomputer its “Machine of the Year.”Meanwhile, America’s “smokestackindustries” were in decline.The U.S. automobile industry reeledunder competition from highlyefficient Japanese carmakers. By1980 Japanese companies alreadymanufactured a fifth of the vehiclessold in the United States. Americanmanufacturers struggled with somesuccess to match the cost efficienciesand engineering standards oftheir Japanese rivals, but their formerdominance of the domestic carmarket was gone forever. The giantold-line steel companies shrank torelative insignificance as foreignsteel makers adopted new technologiesmore readily.Consumers were the beneficiariesof this ferocious competition in themanufacturing industries, but thepainful struggle to cut costs meantthe permanent loss of hundreds ofthousands of blue-collar jobs. Thosewho could made the switch to theservice sector; others became unfortunatestatistics.Population patterns shifted aswell. After the end of the postwar“baby boom” (1946 to 1964), theoverall rate of population growthdeclined and the population grewolder. Household composition alsochanged. In 1980 the percentageof family households dropped; aquarter of all groups were now classifiedas “nonfamily households,”in which two or more unrelatedpersons lived together.New immigrants changed thecharacter of American society inother ways. The 1965 reform in immigrationpolicy shifted the focusaway from Western Europe, facilitatinga dramatic increase in new arrivalsfrom Asia and Latin America. In1980, 808,000 immigrants arrived,the highest number in 60 years, as thecountry once more became a havenfor people from around the world.Additional groups became activeparticipants in the struggle for equalopportunity. Homosexuals, usingthe tactics and rhetoric of the civilrights movement, depicted themselvesas an oppressed group seekingrecognition of basic rights. In 1975,the U.S. Civil Service Commissionlifted its ban on employment ofhomosexuals. Many states enactedanti-discrimination laws.Then, in 1981, came the discoveryof AIDS (Acquired ImmuneDeficiency Syndrome). Transmittedsexually or through blood transfusions,it struck homosexual men andintravenous drug users with particularvirulence, although the generalpopulation proved vulnerable aswell. By 1992, over 220,000 Americanshad died of AIDS. The AIDS epidemichas by no means been limitedto the United States, and the effort totreat the disease now encompassesphysicians and medical researchersthroughout the world.CONSERVATISM AND THERISE OF RONALD REAGANFor many Americans, the economic,social, and political trends of theprevious two decades — crime andracial polarization in many urbancenters, challenges to traditionalvalues, the economic downturn andinflation of the Carter years — engendereda mood of disillusionment.306307