Golden Age Research Paper

The post war boom, or the ‘golden age’ as it is commonly referred to, signified the large levels of economic growth from the end of the Second World War until around 1973, at least for countries in the west. It is evident that industrialised western countries experienced a boom, with the social wage steadily growing throughout the 50s and 60s, historically low levels of unemployment/poverty, and this period marking an improvement in ‘social capabilities’ for growth (Abramovitz, 1986). This essay will seek to address the factors that created this ‘golden age’, and explain why it ended in the early 1970s. Firstly, I will outline the different reasons for the boom, from the Labour party landslide victory in 1945, to the Bretton Woods Conference, …show more content…
‘The Bretton Woods conference was ostensibly the culmination of John Maynard Keynes’ lifelong crusade to resolve the gold standard’s tendency to generate (and propagate) financial instability’ (Morrison, 2013. P.419). What resulted was essentially an agreement between the UK and the US to ensure open, liberal trading and fixed exchange rates to ensure monetary stability and prevent another deep recession. The pegged rate of the dollar to gold at $35 to the ounce prevented high levels of fluctuation and the US became the lynchpin of the Bretton Woods System. For example the UK pound maintained its value against the US dollar for 18 years from 1949 to 1967, this demonstrates just how stable the system was throughout the post-war boom. As long as the US economy was strong, the Bretton Woods system was perfectly viable, however this dependence on the US economy was a weakness of the system and would inevitably become its downfall. Nevertheless, believers in the Bretton Woods System saw this new stability as an opportunity for economic growth and the reliable monetary system allowed the west to boom into the post-World War Two ‘golden …show more content…
Fordism first appeared in 1914, however it wasn’t until 1945 that it became ‘a fully-fledged and distinctive regime of accumulation. As such, it then formed the basis for a long post-war boom that stayed broadly intact until 1973’ (Harvey, 1935. P.129). The Fordist method of production consisted of vertically integrated factories with an assembly line division of labour, which produced a standardised product. A critical component of Henry Ford’s thinking was that ‘a happy workforce is a productive workforce’, so Ford paid his workers a fair wage, which meant that they could conceivably afford the products they helped build and a system that followed production, consumption, production… It was such ideas that led to a sustainable workforce, mass consumerism and it now defines the labour market of the post-war

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