We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
‘Once the principle is admitted that the government undertakes responsibility for the status and position of particular groups, it is inevitable that this control will be extended to satisfy the aspirations and prejudices of the great masses. … in the existing state of public opinion nothing else would be practicable. But what to the politicians are fixed limits of practicability imposed by public opinion need not be similar limits to us. Public opinion on these matters is the work of men like ourselves. …’
Prelude: A sudden discontinuity in government (1975)
Keynesian policies postponed recession rather than abolishing it. In the second half of the 1960s in the developed world, the rate of industrial profit began to fall (Mandel 1978), and 1974 and 1975 saw the first common international recession since the 1930s. Production, investment and employment collapsed. Inflation climbed, ruling out the Keynesian solution of using public spending to reflate the economy. The United States' real GDP fell by 0.5 per cent in 1974 and 1.3 per cent in 1975. As Table 4.1 shows, in Australia growth slowed rather than fell, but inflation was above the OECD average.
The Australian Government's first response was to reaffirm Keynesian economic strategies. In the 1974–75 budget many new Labor programs were introduced and outlays rose by 19.9 per cent in real terms, the largest increase since the war.
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this book to your organisation's collection.