Economics: >Great Moderation just beginning >Stock market crash of 1987 was largest drop in DOW history, yet virtually no recession compared to even Dot Com, much less 2008 or 1929 >Communism falling apart and being replaced by neoliberal capitalism >hundreds of millions in the early stages of exiting poverty in India and China alone
Social/fashion/music: >Best Music >Rock Music >Retro Wave >Best Fashion >Aviators >Power Suits >Slogan T-shirts >Jordache >Velour >Triple Fat Goose >Gucci >Lacoste >Sweaters around the neck >Combed back hair >etc. etc.
Politics: >Reagan >Thatcher >Deng Xiaoping >Mikhail Gorbachev >many many more instances of good leaders that made smart and sensible reforms
Economics: The consolidation of the rich over the poor. Where I live, 80s Britain was grim, poor, and despressing. Suicide rate increased massively with the high resulting unemployment.
Social/fashion/music: Rose-tinted glasses here. There was far, far more shit music and fashion than the good parts you've decided to cherry-pick.
Politics: Yeah, the ever-present threats of nuclear war and Irish terrorism were great.
Grow up, kid.
Wyatt Fisher
When has Britain not been a depressing shithole?
Anyways, this thread was made to talk about the 80s in the only country that actually matters.
Jack Davis
That picture is a joke, literally so. It's satire.
> When has Britain not been a depressing shithole? Any time not in the 80s.
> Anyways, this thread was made to talk about the 80s in the only country that actually matters. Yeah, Britain.
Jackson Cox
>Neoliberalism >Good
fuck off
Evan Long
>Yeah, Britain.
Julian Watson
>high resulting unemployment
So what did you think 25% inflation like the 70s was somehow sustainable?
Also you're focusing solely on the UK and not the globe as a whole. The 80s saw the introduction of pro-market policies that have objectively taken more than one billion out of poverty. China and India may have huge inequality problems, but Chang and Pajeet are only working at Foxconn and Wipro because of the 1980s.
Gabriel Davis
If you're a leftie, fuck off.
If you're a right wing with a decent argument against free trade, note that most of the free trade shit like NAFTA and Chinese accession to the WTO happened in the 90s, not the 80s. Most American manufacturing got gutted in the 1990s, not in the 1980s. Reagan implemented various tariffs to protect select sectors while also expanding free trade.
Austin Robinson
>no arguments for a leftie lel
Elijah Rodriguez
80s is when supply side economics replaced Keynesianism as the de facto economic doctrine of the United States.
So far, this has caused at least one global recession, a wave of state failure, and a dramatic shift in political power from individuals to corporations in the developed world.
That's bad.
David Robinson
Indeed. The resulting globalisation was good for the globe, but it absolutely decimated northern England. Still hasn't recovered now.
The my childhood in that 80s northern England obviously coloured my entire view of the 80s, and always will.
Utterly loathsome decade. Not a single good came out of it.
Evan Wilson
>Thinking Thatcher was good
Back the fuck off, nigger.
Brody Jenkins
Maggie Thatcher the milk snatcher.
Mason Clark
>Supply side economics as the de facto economic doctrine
Perhaps as the doctrine of the Republican Party, but the growth of Rubinomics in the Democratic Party clearly suggests the opposite. Even George H.W. Bush wasn't a supply sider and he was a Republican, he called them "voodoo economists" and hiked taxes. Clinton did engage in deregulation, but that's not supply side economics. If you're going to say a school of economics won the 1980s, it'd be monetarism, which involves the central bank using monetary policy to avoid recessions, which objectively speaking did work during that time frame.
>caused at least one global recession
S&L, Dot Com, or 2008, which one was caused by supply side and please explain exactly how you reached that conclusion. You're most likely talking about 2008, which to blame on tax cuts is pretty much autistic. Supply side economics deals specifically with tax cuts, deregulation has occurred under Republican administrations (Reagan, I guess Bush Jr. too) and Democrats (Jimmy Carter started with deregulating the airlines, Bill Clinton deregulated telecoms and repealed Glass-Steagall).
Now, if you're arguing deregulation caused the financial crisis, that's a bit more cogent argument, but looking specifically at Glass-Steagall, the banks that were most in trouble during the financial crisis: Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs, were all pure investment banks and didn't have retail arms. Commercial banks like Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citi weathered the crisis much better. And there's significant evidence to suggest Glass-Steagall would've prolonged the recession since you wouldn't have had mergers like Bank of America and Merrill Lynch happening that reduced the bailout burden on the government.
Glass-Steagall being put in today would most likely favor banks like Goldman Sachs, whose commercial arms are significantly less profitable compared to their investment branches.
Owen Barnes
>the effect of these policies on one small region of my country should dictate whether these were the best times or not
Roaring Twenties were still the roaring twenties even though German hyperinflation happened at the same time
Luke Jenkins
Every economist worth their salt from Milton Friedman to Paul Krugman would agree globalization has had a net economic benefit for all involved parties.
Levi Gomez
I'm going to be frank, I have a habit of bundling multiple ideologies under one phrase, and then using that phrase as if people understand what I'm talking about.
Like, I'll use "Confucianism" to refer to not only Confucianism, but also legalism, Taoism, and every other Chinese political philosophy, and then not explain what I'm doing.
In this case, I was using supply side economics as a buzzword for neoliberalism, neoclassical economics, laissez-faire economics and the Reagan Revolution in general.
I do these things because it is very rare that anyone else in the thread reads books, and because I am lazy.
Adam Morgan
The pop culture aspect fascinates me. This is back when punk was a real thing, and not a (wildly neutered) fashion statement and when metal had riffs and solos and not a bunch of whiney faggots like today. Then the 90s came along and music went to shit with its whiney grunge bullshit.
Aaron Morris
You got this backwards.
>80s: hair metal, lycra, synthpop, and other faggotry >90s: distortion, drop d tuning, and the record companies throwing money at every weird garage band they can find because Nevermind sold 20 million copies
Dylan Cook
I'd much rather listen to dudes dressed like women playing actually good music than listen to Eddie Vedder gargle mouthwash to an un-headbangable song.
Jayden Smith
>implying you have to listen to either one of those things
Go listen to Faith No More
Parker King
Yet who has disproportionately faced the drawbacks of globalization? Certainly not the economic and political elites who drove it. The working-class in the West has been in slow decline since the Trilateral Commission decided that democracy and labor had to be stamped down on.
Jose Ross
In terms of living standards, the West peaked in the 1960s and early 1970s. Neoliberal robbers tore apart everything that made those decades good. And here's a good 1980s song about why that decade was shit:
