Introduction

Abstract

The Long Boom, or, to put it more poetically, the Golden Age of Capitalism began around 1950 and continued for almost a quarter of a century, delivering to the developed world unprecedented growth and industrial development, virtual full employment, rapidly rising living standards and much greater social justice. So that by January 1969, as the US celebrated its 95th month of continuous economic growth, it appeared that the problems previously thought inherent in capitalism had been solved and the key to perpetual prosperity found.¹ Yet within three years unemployment and inflation began to rise simultaneously, the Dollar-Gold Standard collapsed, followed soon after by the Bretton Woods System itself; the fixed currency exchange system that had underpinned the Golden Age.