For some twenty years after the Second World War, Keynesian economic policies in countries of the capitalist West were successful in generating rapid growth with high employment. This `golden age of capitalism' did not survive the economic traumas of the 1970s; nor has the more recent emphasis on monetarist policies and supply-side performance succeeded in regenerating comparable growth rates. Blending historical analysis with economic theory, this book seeks to understand the making and unmaking of this `golden age', questions the basis of much present policy-making, and suggests alternative directions for policy.
