> The one unifying
> theme has been the ever diminishing political power of labor, the continuing
> shrinkage of government's role as a guarantor of social welfare, the rampant
> expansion of reckless deregulation, and the most malignant increase in the
> wealth and power of capitalists in a century.
Has labor and the government been weaker recently than during the stretch 1865 - 1900? The LBO recently showed real wages rose during the late 1800s. I'm looking for something unique to 1973 - 1995 to explain the fall.
> It has been era where
> billions of dollars have been squandered on follies associated with "paper
> entrepreneurship" ranging from the S&L bailout to the dot-com bubble; an era
> of rampant public stupefaction caused by media consolidation and the rise of
> the "entertainment economy"; an era where self-seeking charlatans like Lee
> Iacocca, Mike Milken, Jack Welch and Bill Gates are hailed as visionaries
> and embraced by a gullible public as heroes
This sounds more like a description of capitalism than a description of things that are unique to the stretch 1973 - 1995.