When the pandemic wanes, bold ideas and big investment could create a new economic miracle for the 21st century
Economic history isn’t like normal history – it doesn’t repeat itself as farce and it doesn’t rhyme. Technology moves on, political and legal systems develop, debtors turn into creditors and vice versa. But some economic structures remain stubbornly the same. As Karl Marx said, we make our own history, but not in circumstances of our own choosing. Using the past to guide decisions in the present requires understanding what has endured and what has changed, and taking a sober view of our history – not simply replicating the supposed golden ages of the past.
For that reason, we shouldn’t aim to repeat the “roaring 20s” just because the decade starts with a two and we’re (hopefully) coming to the end of a pandemic similar to the Spanish flu. Despite the name, the roaring 20s were not all that great for most of the population. Growth was sluggish and the falling prices of consumer goods concealed widening inequality by making everyone feel rich, much like the decade preceding the 2008 financial crisis. In the 20th century as in the 21st, a period of growth ended in a financial crash, a lost decade, the rise of rightwing populism and leading countries turning their back on trading blocs.
