The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium

by Martin Gurri

A similar dissonance applied to economic matters. Spain had been a very poor country within living memory. If “capitalism” meant the economic practices and institutions dominant since the end of the dictatorship, its accomplishments had been remarkable. In 2011, three years into the crisis, per capita GDP was five times what it had been in 1980: around $32,000 compared to just over $6,000. By the standard definition of such things, Spain was now a middle class country, no longer a poor one. Percentage of imports to GDP, always a good measure of wealth, had nearly doubled, from 17 percent in 1980 to 31 percent in 2011. The value of the Spanish stock market had jumped from $91 billion to over $1 trillion in the same timeframe. In 2012, four years into the crisis, there were more cell phones and cars per person in Spain than in the U.S.