ABSTRACT
Economic crisis is conventionally understood as the absence of economic growth. The conventional conception of economic crisis is incapable of grasping a situation that may for very good reasons be perceived by historical actors as a trajectory of economic development that is or will be in the foreseeable future a crisis closely connected to the economic system. This chapter illustrates this difference by analysing the debate about the problems of modern society within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The analysis of OECD debates demonstrate a variety of observations and interpretations that had emerged in the course of the post-war period and fundamentally contradicted central assumptions underlying the economic-growth paradigm. The 1960s focus on quantitative growth, it was argued, had led to overpopulation, alienation, social discontent at the work place, environmental destruction and student unrest.
