by David Hetherington
Ideas, like fashion, move in waves. A big idea will form, expand, dominate, and fade. Along the way it will accrue adherents and opponents, leaving a trailing wake of subsidiary ideas.
The last century has seen the rise and fall of communism, fascism, and socialism. Democracy has proven more enduring, still expanding if not dominating. Yet the idea closest to the inflection point between domination and fade is the ‘free market’, the most influential concept in political economy over the past 40 years. Outlined in its modern form by the Austrian school of economists and expanded by Milton Friedman, the free market was the bedrock of the Thatcher/Reagan reforms. It defined the political orthodoxy for both right and left until the financial crash of 2008. |