>Yes and No. The capitalists certainly seemed unhappy during the
>inflation; but Paul Samuelson in a Newsweek column suggested that the
>inflation was a positive because it represented a semi-invisible cut in
>wages of a level which if direct would have caused "blood in the
>streets." And from a left political perspective, the oomph went out with
>(a) the failure of various "fight-back" programs by left groups during
>the 74-75 recession, (b) the final defeat of ERA, and (c) the erosion of
>struggles for quality of worklife (as at the Lordstown plant). So
>perhaps it would be best to say that the ascent of Reagan simply
>registered a restoration that had occurred in the mid-70s. You have
>argued that bad times are bad not good for the left, and the mid-70s
>slump sure illustrated that position.
If you buy the political theory of inflation - that it's a symptom of unresolved class conflict - then the 1970s were a time of class conflict, and the 1980s marked the victory of the ruling class. With Lordstown, the ERA, OPEC, and all the other symbols of 1970s disorder, things were still unresolved; Volcker and Reagan resolved them.
Doug