> did we all just happen to make the exact same decisions in lock step since the 70s by incredible coincidence? It might have been a combination of circumstanc

> did we all just happen to make the exact same decisions in lock step since the 70s by incredible coincidence? It might have been a combination of circumstances and intellectual tides turning. The 70ties saw stagflation everywhere, which led to a decade of economic problems that couldn't be fixed with existing, socialist policies. Finally, voters everywhere (starting with Thatcher in UK ) decided it's time to try something else. Part of it might also have been a disillusionment with big leftist ideas in general - in the late seventies, there was enough reliable information coming from USSR and China to make it clear that anything resembling communism (a holy grail for much of the left back then) is an unmitigated disaster. People started to realise that capitalism, much like democracy, might be bad, but is better than all the alternatives.