The postwar economy up to the financial crisis of 2008

After World War II, economic prosperity was the keyword. This period of economic growth, known as the golden age of capitalism , was marked by increased economic wealth, as well as high employment rates in areas as diverse as the Soviet Union and Western Europe.

However, nothing is forever, and this period of relative economic stability and growth ended in the early 1970s with the oil crisis.

This period also witnessed the rise of one economist, with a corresponding plummet in terms of popularity of another economist’s ideas. The ideas of John Maynard Keynes had been immensely popular in the early 21st century, and essentially this intellectual argued that economic growth could be achieved in times of recession through increased public spending. However, these ideas gave way to those of Milton Friedman, who was linked to concepts such as:

• Monetarism and monetary policy.
• Free market capitalism.

The ideas espoused by Friedman remain popular today, although Post Keynesian economists also have a place. However, with the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, the ideas of Friedman and the neoclassical school of economics in general began to be called into question, since those ideas were not able to predict the onset of the global economic crisis. and its consequences.