It was a great 20 year party, which ended with a real blow out and gifts being distributed to almost everyone. When Reagan was elected real wages had been declining for 7 years. At the end of the 90s real wages began rising again.
My politics lean to the left but there are some issues where either the left response has been weak or I simply haven't read the right books. Why did real wages decline or stagnate from 73 to 95? LBO recently pointed out how abnormal those decades are compared to the rest of American history. Please don't tell me that wages declined because of the right-wing, I doubt the 70s and 80s were more conservative than the 1920s or the stretch 1865 - 1900, during which real wages rose. The right wing has a good line regarding these decades - that the economy had become stifled and over regulated, that Thatcher and Reagan unleashed a new era of creativity, that the boom of the 90s was dependent on the wave of innovation set in motion by the political changes of the 70s and 80s. What is the left argument on these decades?