ABSTRACT
Two revolutions ushered in new theological and political systems in Iran and Nicaragua, a new strand of capitalism was being born in Britain with the election of Margaret Thatcher in May 1979. She came to power at a time of deep recession in the capitalist world, and promised to control inflation, limit the powers of the trade unions and free the individual from the power of what she saw as an overbearing state. The former actor Ronald Reagan was elected American president and he entered the White House in 1981. Like Thatcher, he had to deal with the domestic effects of the global economic crisis. Both Thatcher and Reagan were free-marketeers who were followers of the ideas emerging from the Chicago School of Economics, perhaps most famously the economist Milton Friedman, whose name became as prominent as John Maynard Keynes’ was in the post-war years when social democrats shaped economic policy.
