The edges of the market needed to be softened with public sector jobs and by making sure no one went hungry—the very future of capitalism was at stake. During the Cold War, no country in the free world was immune to this pressure. In fact, the achievements of mid-century capitalism, or what Sachs calls “normal” capitalism—workers’ protections, pensions, public health care and state support for the poorest citizens in North America—all grew out of the same pragmatic need to make major concessions in the face of a powerful left.
