Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the SeventiesIn this fascinating new history, Judith Stein argues that in order to understand our current economic crisis we need to look back to the 1970s and the end of the age of the factory--the era of postwar liberalism, created by the New Deal, whose practices, high wages, and regulated capital produced both robust economic growth and greater income equality. When high oil prices and economic competition from Japan and Germany battered the American economy, new policies--both international and domestic--became necessary. But war was waged against inflation, rather than against unemployment, and the government promoted a balanced budget instead of growth. This, says Stein, marked the beginning of the age of finance and subsequent deregulation, free trade, low taxation, and weak unions that has fostered inequality and now the worst recession in eighty years. Drawing on extensive archival research and covering the economic, intellectual, political, and labor history of the decade, Stein provides a wealth of information on the 1970s. She also shows that to restore prosperity today, America needs a new model: more factories and fewer financial houses. --Publisher's description. |
What people are saying - Write a review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - rivkat - LibraryThingThe decisions that hollowed out the American economy were, Stein suggests, largely made in the 1970s and 1980s, when Cold War alliance-building led American politicians to ignore violations of free ... Read full review
Other editions - View all
Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the ... Judith Stein No preview available - 2010 |
Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the ... Judith Stein No preview available - 2011 |
Common terms and phrases
Advisers agreed American Ann Arbor Atlanta auto banks became believed bill billion budget campaign candidate capital changes Clinton Committee companies Congress conservative continued controls corporations Council countries created crisis deficit demand Democratic developing dollar domestic economic economists election energy Europe European exports Federal foreign George Gerald Gerald Ford Germany global growth Henry Kissinger House imports income increased industrial inflation interest investment issues Japan Japanese Jimmy Carter Library John July June Kennedy Kissinger labor leaders liberal Library and Museum major McGovern Meeting Memorandum needed Nixon offered party percent political president Presidential Press primary problem production raised rates Reagan recession reduce reform Republican rise Robert Secretary Senator social South steel thought told trade Treasury unemployment unions United University vote wages wanted White workers York
Bibliographic information
| Title | Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies |
| Author | Judith Stein |
| Edition | unabridged |
| Publisher | Yale University Press, 2010 |
| ISBN | 0300163290, 9780300163292 |
| Length | 352 pages |
| Subjects | › › Business & Economics / Economic History History / United States / 20th Century Political Science / Political Economy |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |