In his theory of history, Arnold Toynbee introduced an idea he called the “idolization of ephemeral institutions.” Countries that face economic or military decline have tended to look for solutions to those ideas and institutions that they associated with their past glory. The British in the 1920s looked to the gold standard as the solution to their economic slump. The Germans and Italians hearkened back to their authoritarian past. In the U.S., the specter of decline has revived arcane notions of economic and political individualism and pre-Keynesian economic theories. As Obama’s half-measures of spending and stimulation have failed to stem the rise in unemployment, many Americans have concluded that the fault lies with government intervention itself.