In Search of Stability

This book ponders the issue of how Western industrial societies overcame major challenges to political and economic stability in the 20th century. Successive essays ask - what ideological messages did American influence transmit to Europe after World War I, (then again after World War II)? Did Nazis and Italian fascists share an economic ideology or impose a unique economic system in the interwar period and during World War II? How do their accomplishments compare with those of the liberal democracies? After 1945, what was the relationship between concepts of productivity and class divison? How have the major experiences of 20th-century inflation arisen out of class and interest-group rivalry? Most generally, what has been the representation of interest in capitalist political economies? The chapters that address these questions include some of the author's frequently-cited papers, now often difficult to find elsewhere, with other essays designed especially for this volume.