> Mike Beggs posted (but didn't write?) this, which I think is rather wrong:
No I didn't write it - it's from the site I linked to. And I think you're right that it was certainly a general social crisis. But I think the 'and what will be left of them' ideas about the survivals of the 1960s into the 1970s, and that things could have gone another way, is a very interesting one worth exploring.
As for books - a couple of Verso essay collections give good contemporary/slightly-retrospective views from the left: Stuart Hall's 'Hard Road to Renewal' collects his essays on culture and politics on the late 1970s and Thatcher period, and 'Working Class Politics in Crisis' has some great analyses of the period by Leo Panitch.
Despite getting ritually kicked in essays on Marxian crisis theory, Glyn and Armstrong's [1971] 'British Workers and the Profit Squeeze' is quite prophetic in its argument that union bargaining power will call forth a severe political backlash unless it is matched by political power to socialise investment.
Mike Beggs