ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the main features of the west’s long depression and the changing character of state intervention. Contrary to widely held perceptions, over the long depression state intervention has assumed increased significance rather than being subordinate to market relations. Important shifts took place in the west’s political elites’ perception of the capacities and role of the state over the course of the golden age and the long depression, from “guiding progress” during the post-war boom years to containing crisis between the mid-1970s in the UK and the USA, the early 1980s in France and in the mid- to late 1980s in Japan and Germany, and finally to affirming capital’s increasing state-dependency in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007–2008.
