The shocking cataclysm in America’s big, iconic heavy industries, steel and cars, along with the longer-term slowing of economic growth generally, created a chronic widespread dread and anxiety about the economic future. The economic right and big business used that confusion and fear to get free rein to achieve their larger goals. Times are tough! Government can’t save you! Adapt or die! But then when the acute crises passed and the economy stabilized in the late 1980s and ’90s, and productivity and economic growth returned to their long-term historical norms, the norms of fairness were not
...more
