The Triumph of Broken Promises

The Triumph of Broken Promises
Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Total Pages : 441
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780674275812
ISBN-13 : 0674275810
Rating : 4/5 (12 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Triumph of Broken Promises by : Fritz Bartel

Download or read book The Triumph of Broken Promises written by Fritz Bartel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful case that the economic shocks of the 1970s hastened both the end of the Cold War and the rise of neoliberalism by forcing governments to impose austerity on their own people. Why did the Cold War come to a peaceful end? And why did neoliberal economics sweep across the world in the late twentieth century? In this pathbreaking study, Fritz Bartel argues that the answer to these questions is one and the same. The Cold War began as a competition between capitalist and communist governments to expand their social contracts as they raced to deliver their people a better life. But the economic shocks of the 1970s made promises of better living untenable on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Energy and financial markets placed immense pressure on governments to discipline their social contracts. Rather than make promises, political leaders were forced to break them. In a sweeping narrative, The Triumph of Broken Promises tells the story of how the pressure to break promises spurred the end of the Cold War. In the West, neoliberalism provided Western leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher with the political and ideological tools to shut down industries, impose austerity, and favor the interests of capital over labor. But in Eastern Europe, revolutionaries like Lech Walesa in Poland resisted any attempt at imposing market discipline. Mikhail Gorbachev tried in vain to reform the Soviet system, but the necessary changes ultimately presented too great a challenge. Faced with imposing economic discipline antithetical to communist ideals, Soviet-style governments found their legitimacy irreparably damaged. But in the West, politicians could promote austerity as an antidote to the excesses of ideological opponents, setting the stage for the rise of the neoliberal global economy.


The Triumph of Broken Promises Related Books

The Triumph of Broken Promises
Language: en
Pages: 441
Authors: Fritz Bartel
Categories: Business & Economics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2022-08-09 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A powerful case that the economic shocks of the 1970s hastened both the end of the Cold War and the rise of neoliberalism by forcing governments to impose auste
The Triumph of Broken Promises
Language: en
Pages: 441
Authors: Fritz Bartel
Categories: Business & Economics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2022-08-09 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Communist and capitalist states alike were scarred by the economic shocks of the 1970s. Why did only communist governments fall in their wake? Fritz Bartel argu
Shattered Dreams, Broken Promises
Language: en
Pages: 314
Authors: Michael Viner
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2007 - Publisher: Phoenix Books, Inc.

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Viner traveled to various Eastern European countries to interview women of all ages and circumstances who are willing to do anything to get to America. The reve
Triumph and Demise
Language: en
Pages: 568
Authors: Paul Kelly
Categories: Political Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-08-21 - Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Drawing on more than sixty on-the-record interviews with all the major players, Triumph and Demise is full of remarkable disclosures. It is the inside account o
The Great Persuasion
Language: en
Pages: 314
Authors: Angus Burgin
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-10-30 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Just as economists struggle today to justify the free market after the global economic crisis, an earlier generation revisited their worldview after the Great D