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The progress of technology
The war is over, the money problems solved:it's time to move on. It was in the 1950s that we saw the appearance of the perfect profile of the fulfilled housewife, assisted by her thousand washing or cooking machines. Let's go for the apology of progress. Machines invade everyday life, replace chores, save time. These are all constructions that we could not have imagined before:after the war, the technological bases are more advanced. Modernization extends to industry and economic structures:it is a real impulse in both public and private domains. Since the post-war boom, the primary sector has fallen sharply. This is due to the mechanization of the countryside, as well as the modernization of farms. Imperceptibly, service trades are taking over work in rural areas.
Opening Europe to the world
With technological progress, Europe has enough to import and export mass production since fashion is for consumption. The borders are opening up, we are internationalizing trade, we are increasing productivity ever more. On the model of America and its supermarkets, the first hypermarket in France opened in 1963, in the Paris region. We compare France with the United States, and international exchanges also take place with French productions.
The establishment of a consumer society
This openness to international trade is synonymous with openness to consumerism. More and more people are encouraged to consume. Prices go down, wages go up. We manage, still on the American model, to reduce manufacturing costs. Abundance becomes the criterion of social success, with the support of the press, and essentially advertising images of the fulfilled housewife. In addition, unemployment is forgotten, there is work for “everyone”. So we buy, we buy, again and again since everything is still and always more sophisticated. The consumer society is taking hold, advertising is flooding the walls, salespeople are having a blast, and we are constantly taking out our wallets. Indeed, economic success depends on food. At the time of the glorious thirty, we are already beginning to over-consume and waste.
The End of the Glorious Thirties
During these thirty years, prices have not stopped falling, and wages have increased. The French rushed to the shops, prey to the consumer society. But in the 1970s, supply no longer met demand. Consequently, prices had to rise to restore the economy. This is the reason why the thirty glorious years led to inflation. GDP suddenly contracted by more than 5%. Unemployment is on the rise again, as companies try to fill the gap with machines and save on labour. They are then criticized for favoring quantity to the detriment of quality. In addition, with the rural exodus that occurred between 1945 and 1975, many French people migrated to the big cities, and the housing crisis appeared in turn.
In 1973, it was the first oil shock. The consumer society is shaken. In Switzerland, “car-free Sundays” are introduced in the hope of reducing the use of oil. Society is afraid of going backwards, of experiencing lack and poverty again. However, poverty has not disappeared since the end of the war, but we have preferred to keep it silent. In the 1980s, we see it reappear in power under the name of SDF, thus qualifying the most deprived people, without work or residence. But what we didn't know was that the cheap labor that lowered the prices was made up mostly of underpaid immigrants.
An “invisible revolution”
The thirty glorious years were the golden age, the time when everything was possible until the moment came when people spent too much, and productivity was no longer able to meet demand. After the improvement of living conditions, companies providing work for everyone, the reduction of working hours, longer holidays, consumerism has shown its harmful side, when wages are too high for what companies produce. . This is followed by a considerable price increase. The increase in wages will have marked the glory of these thirty years, but also the end of their prosperity.