  We argue that the ground state of a two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba
spin-orbit coupling realizes one of several possible liquid crystalline or
Wigner crystalline phases in the low-density limit, even for short-range
repulsive electron-electron interactions (which decay with distance with a
power larger than 2). Depending on specifics of the interactions, preferred
ground-states include an anisotropic Wigner crystal with an increasingly
anisotropic unit cell as the density decreases, a striped or electron smectic
phase, and a ferromagnetic phase which strongly breaks the lattice point-group
symmetry, i.e. exhibits nematic order. Melting of the anisotropic Wigner
crystal or the smectic phase by thermal or quantum fluctuations can gives rise
to a non-magnetic nematic phase which preserves time-reversal symmetry.
