What were the consequences of economic decline in the 1970s?

TTHE GREAT POSTWAR ECONOMIC BOOM came to a close in the early 1970s, opening a long period of economic stagnation, widespread unemployment, and social dislocation. By the end of the 1980s, the postwar social and political consensus based on prosperity, full employment, modest regulation, and generous welfare provisions had been deeply shaken.

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The Social Consequences of ThatcherismAs police watch in the background, picketers outside the largest coal mine in Britain hold up a poster reading “Save the Pits” during the miners’ strike of 1984 to 1985. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher broke the strike, weakening the power of Britain’s trade unions and easing the turn to free-market economic reforms. Thatcher’s neoliberal policies revived economic growth but cut state subsidies for welfare benefits and heavy industries, leading to lower living standards for many working-class Britons and, as this image attests, to popular protest. (Bride Lane Library/Popperfoto/Getty Images)