Crisis, Ideas, and Economic Policy-making in Britain during the 1970s Stagflation

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between crisis, ideas, and economic policy-making in Britain during the 1970s stagflation, looking specifically at the turbulent years 1974–76. It argues that existing ideas-based approaches either fail to define ‘idea’ with any precision, or explain both the causes and resolution of the crisis in terms of competition between ideas, and therefore appear tautological. Instead, the article develops an Open Marxist framework suggesting that crises should be understood as an inherent systemic feature of capitalist social relations, which requires constant management so that governments can simultaneously achieve international financial market credibility and domestic political legitimacy. It uses this framework to produce an interpretation of economic policy change in Britain during the 1970s that argues policy-making was problematised in terms of the competing demands of international financial market credibility and domestic political legitimacy, and not in terms of a debate about economic ideas conducted in a context of crisis.

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