ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the fragmentation of modernity which has consisted of an ever-increasing succession of economic and political developments that indicate a retreat from the post–Second World War settlement between the government and the people. These agreements were primarily based on the full-employment, subsidized housing, free education and ‘cradle to grave’ welfare policies which were to provide socio-economic orthodoxy throughout the Western world until at least the mid-1970s. This period – little more than 30 years in total – arguably marks the highpoint of modernism. The world was often unequal, but things were on balance getting better and there was still widespread confidence in the capacity of social democratic institutions and the relevant grand theories to deliver the good life. But cracks within the modernist project were becoming increasingly apparent, and by the first two decades of the twenty-first century, they had reached virtual crisis point with a serious decline in the confidence of the old trusted grand theories to take us to the promised land. The sacred texts had been found increasingly inadequate or simply wrong. Yet, ironically, they were to find credibility amongst previously fringe political groups who have gained in popularity among whole groups of the previously politically unrepresented.
