The 1970s and after The political economy of inflation and the crisis of social democracy

The 1970s was the decade in which the left lost its historical role as the standard bearer of freedom and progress, the role it had proudly possessed since the French Revolution. It was the decade in which the dynamic for necessary change was hegemonised by the new right. This is why the 1970s are so crucial for an understanding of the present situation and the discussion of how to transcend the dominant neoliberal ideology that is in danger of becoming the common sense of the New Millennium. Yet there exists widespread historical amnesia in relation to the political economy of the second half of the last century.