Abstract
There is in much economic and political discourse a strong belief that there remains a guarantee of rising living standards so long as policy is correctly set in the circumstances of the new world to achieve them. Yet any assumption that there must be a way out of the present economic crisis that returns the West to steady year-on-year growth punctured only by relatively short recessions is hard to justify. Such a faith rests on denying even the possibility that the ongoing rise in material living standards witnessed over the past two centuries is coming to an end, or indeed that the carrying capacity of the earth may be less than the material expectations of the world’s sharply rising population. History suggests such a faith has no foundations in past experience. What happens to this presumption as the fallout of the multiple problems around oil at work play out will challenge expectations of democracy and the idea that time guarantees progress.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Dunn, John. 1993. “Conclusions.” In Democracy: The Unfinished Journey 508 BC to AD 1993, edited by John Dunn, 239–266. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dunn, John. 2006. Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy. London: Atlantic Books.
Gordon, Robert J. 2016. The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The US Standard of Living Since the Civil War. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Runciman, David. 2013. The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War 1 to the Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Streeck, Wolfgang. 2014. Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. London: Verso.
Summers, Lawrence H. 2016. “The Age of Secular Stagnation: What it is and What to Do About it.” Foreign Affairs 95: 2–9.
Tombs, Robert. 2015. The English and Their History. London: Penguin.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Thompson, H. (2017). Conclusions. In: Oil and the Western Economic Crisis. Building a Sustainable Political Economy: SPERI Research & Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52509-9_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52509-9_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-52508-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-52509-9
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)