IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/126624.html

Comparing rhetorics of crisis. Italy and the United Kingdom at the turn of the 1970s

Author

Listed:
  • Alberti, Manfredi
  • Telesca, Giuseppe

Abstract

This paper aims at challenging a consolidated reading of the 1970s as an age of crisis par excellence, from the perspective of Britain and Italy. It focuses on both real economic facts and their interpretation by economists, “second hand dealers in economic ideas” and policy makers. We reflect on the actors who “proclaimed” the crisis in the 1970s and the recipes they suggested to overcome it. We argue that the rise of neoliberalism and the paradigm change in economic policies were also the product of a narrative construction, influenced by political and ideological reasons, which contrasted an extremely negative picture of the 1970s to a very positive, nearly caricatural, representation of the 1980s.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberti, Manfredi & Telesca, Giuseppe, 2025. "Comparing rhetorics of crisis. Italy and the United Kingdom at the turn of the 1970s," MPRA Paper 126624, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:126624
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/126624/1/MPRA_paper_126622.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vecchi, Giovanni, 2017. "Measuring Wellbeing: A History of Italian Living Standards," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199944590.
    2. Daniel Stedman Jones, 2012. "Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9827, December.
    3. Francesco Cattabrini, 2012. "Franco Modigliani and the Italian Left-Wing: the Debate over Labor Cost (1975-1978)," HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 0(1), pages 75-95.
    4. A. W. Coats, 1978. "Economists in Government: A Research Field for the Historian of Economics," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 298-314, Summer.
    5. Kitson, Michael & Michie, Jonathan, 1996. "Britain's Industrial Performance since 1960: Underinvestment and Relative Decline," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(434), pages 196-212, January.
    6. Piero Bini, 2017. "Economic expertise and policy beliefs - The think tanks of the Italian economy from the social conflict of the 1970s to the Maastricht Treaty," HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2017(2), pages 5-23.
    7. A. W. Coats, 1981. "Britain: the Rise of the Specialists," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 365-404, Fall.
    8. Michael D. Bordo & Harold James, 2009. "The Great Depression Analogy," NBER Working Papers 15584, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Crafts, Nicholas, 1996. "Deindustrialisation and Economic Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(434), pages 172-183, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Howes, C. & Singh, A., 1999. "National Competitiveness, Dynamics of Adjustment and Long-term Economic Growth: Conceptual, Empirical and Policy Issues," Accounting and Finance Discussion Papers 00-af43, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    2. Stephen Nickell & Stephen Redding & Joanna Swaffield, 2008. "The Uneven Pace of Deindustrialisation in the OECD," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(9), pages 1154-1184, September.
    3. Alan Booth, 2003. "The manufacturing failure hypothesis and the performance of British industry during the long boom," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 56(1), pages 1-33, February.
    4. Raphaël Orange-Leroy, 2023. "UNCTAD experts as an intellectual basis for developing countries' involvement in the reform of the international monetary system. Paper presented at the Summer Institute of the Center for the History of Political Economy, Duke University, June 19-22,," Post-Print hal-04498357, HAL.
    5. Eric Gaisie, 2017. "Living standards in pre-independent Ghana: evidence from household budgets," HHB Working Papers Series 7, The Historical Household Budgets Project.
    6. Paul Berbée & Sebastian Till Braun & Richard Franke, 2025. "Reversing fortunes of German regions, 1926–2019: Boon and bane of early industrialization?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 307-337, June.
    7. Erich BATTISTIN & Sascha O. BECKER & Luca Nunziata, 2022. "More choice for men? Marriage patterns after World War II in Italy," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(3), pages 447-472, September.
    8. Marcella Alsan & Vincenzo Atella & Jay Bhattacharya & Valentina Conti & Ivàn Mejìa-Guevara & Grant Miller, 2019. "Technological Progress and Health Convergence: The Case of Penicillin in Post-War Italy," CEIS Research Paper 465, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 30 Jul 2019.
    9. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2021. "Augmented human development in the age of globalization," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(4), pages 946-975, November.
    10. Innset, Ola, 2023. "Dual Argument, Double Truth: On the continued importance of the state in neoliberal thought," SocArXiv kyvdm, Center for Open Science.
    11. Aaberge, Rolf & Atkinson, Anthony B. & Modalsli, Jørgen, 2020. "Estimating long-run income inequality from mixed tabular data: Empirical evidence from Norway, 1875–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    12. Armando J. Garcia Pires & José Pedro Pontes, 2021. "(De)Industrialization, Technology and Transportation," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 527-538, July.
    13. Giacomo Gabbuti, 2022. "Those Who Were Better Off: Capital and Top Incomes in Fascist Italy," LEM Papers Series 2022/31, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    14. Maria Carmela Schisani & Luigi Balletta & Giancarlo Ragozini, 2021. "Crowding out the change: business networks and persisting economic elites in the South of Italy over Unification (1840–1880)," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 15(1), pages 89-131, January.
    15. Tomasz Marek Mickiewicz & Anna Zalewska, 2005. "De-industrialisation and the post-communist transition: Rowthorn and Wells' model revisited," UCL SSEES Economics and Business working paper series 59, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES).
    16. Christian A. Belabed, 2016. "Inequality and the New Deal," IMK Working Paper 166-2016, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    17. Fontaine, Philippe & Pooley, Jefferson, 2020. "Introduction: Whose Social Problems?," SocArXiv w59f3, Center for Open Science.
    18. Guler Aras & Paul F. Williams, 2022. "Integrated Reporting and Integrated Thinking: Proposing a Reporting Model That Induces More Responsible Use of Corporate Power," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-19, March.
    19. Maria Carmela Schisani & Luigi Balletta & Giancarlo Ragozini, 2021. "Crowding out the change: business networks and persisting economic elites in the South of Italy over Unification (1840–1880)," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 15(1), pages 89-131, January.
    20. Giovanni Michelagnoli, 2015. "The Shaping of Incomes Policy in the Eighties. The Contribution of Ezio Tarantelli," HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2015(2), pages 37-56.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • B0 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - General
    • N1 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:126624. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.