4 ms·

More than that, the first oil crisis gave the ruling class the go to break the postwar consensus and start dismantling the social contract

• _fizz_buzz_ 2y ago
  Yeah, that makes a lot more sense than the end of the gold standard. Brenton Woods was hardly a real gold standard anyway. The real gold standard was abandoned in the 30s (for good reasons). A lot of these charts also actually do seem to diverge at '73 rather than at '71.
  • aredox 2y ago
    The rebuttal says most economist (and charts, when you get enough resolution) place the break around 1978-1980
    • _fizz_buzz_ 2y ago
      I can see that. I think it is difficult to actually pin down to an actual year. But definitely a bit after 1971.
• AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  How did the oil crisis give them "the go" to start dismantling the social contract? I don't see the connection at all. Unless you mean "a random unrelated thing that they could use as an excuse"? If that's the case, then it's just an excuse, not a reason.
  • aredox 2y ago
    You see a constant growth, and then a plateau, and then divergence. But yeah, a reason, an excuse, I meant the same.
  • selecsosi 2y ago
    It is fair to argue that the oil crisis acted as a catalyst rather than a root cause for dismantling elements of the social contract. The crisis illustrated vulnerabilities in the postwar economic order, provided a convenient pretext for shifting economic policies, and exposed a population that, for various reasons, was less unified and mobilized than in earlier decades. While the ruling class had long-standing interests in undermining their “extracted duties” under the social contract, the oil crisis gave them a plausible narrative and a set of conditions that made such changes appear more justifiable and less resistible shifting the narrative from away from collective welfare solutions and toward individual responsibility and market-driven approaches. I kind of view it as the oil crisis serving as a stress test that revealed the fraying unity and decreasing mobilization capacity of the general populace which occurred alongside broader cultural and political shifts in the 1970s that coincided with a decline in trust in institutions (partly due to events like the Vietnam War and Watergate).
• deleted 2y ago
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