The Golden Age Illusion: Rethinking Postwar Capitalism

Reassessing common interpretations of postwar economic history and geography, this book focuses on the evolution of the global economy from the 1950s to the present. It integrates theoretical and empirical work and draws data from around the world, with detailed studies of two advanced industrialized nations - Japan and the United States; two semi-peripheral economies - Australia and Canada; and three newly industrializing countries - Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan. The authors build on standard models of economic change to incorporate new developments in regional dynamics: they use nonlinear, nonequilibrium, and evolutionary arguments to frame discussions of profit rates, technological change, and interregional capital flows. They then assess traditional explanations of postwar economic growth and crisis - from fordism, organized capitalism, industrial divides, and technological regimes to falling rates of profit and golden ages. Highlighting the geographic form of postwar growth, namely, globalization, their work clearly illustrates the failure of traditional theories to adequately account for the emergence of selected newly industrializing countries. The authors conclude with a new interpretation of the global slowdown - one that emphasizes the endogenous nature of capitalist crises and demonstrates how the newly industrializing economies expanded as a result of that slowdown. Theoretically sophisticated and up-to-date, this detailed work provides both faculty and graduate students with an enlightened perspective on theories of economic dynamics and regional development. It can also be used as a text for courses in geography, economics, political science, and sociology.