- At the end of the Second World War, the industrialized countries experienced, for thirty years, accelerated economic growth, allowing full employment and mass consumption, but also the beginnings of globalization.
- In France, it is supported by the welfare state and the Marshall Plan. During these 30 years, France experienced an average growth of 6% per year, which made it possible to multiply the standard of living of the French by 5, catching up with the level of the United States. The baby boom and the work of women support this development, and it is estimated that the lifestyle has evolved more at the end of the postwar boom than during the past two centuries.
- From the 1960s Fordism ran out of steam, growth slowed and the first protest movements came to criticize the consumer society; but it was the oil crisis of 1973 that really put an end to this period of prosperity.
1973
Procedure
Since the Bretton Woods agreements (1944), the dollar has been the reference currency internationally; but the United States, embroiled in the Vietnam War, suffered monetary problems in the 1970s that reverberated throughout the rest of the world.
In 1971, the oil-exporting countries united in OPEC saw that the dollar was losing value and decided to raise the price of a barrel.
Aware of the oil dependence of Western countries, the OPEC countries, mainly Arab, use this lever as a means of pressure against the United States in the Arab-Israeli conflict which has been problematic since 1948. In 1973, OPEC multiplied by 4 the price of a barrel of oil:it was the first oil shock.
Indeed, oil is almost the basic element of the industry:the slowdown in the economy visible from the 1960s became in 1974 a real recession, which is sometimes called the “thirty pitiful ones”.
They are characterized by inflationary spirals and heavy state indebtedness, rising inequality and unemployment, but also more frequent economic crises, further aggravated by the oil shock of 1979. The crisis hits developing countries hard while that the growth of the newly industrialized countries is slowing down. It thus hits communist countries hard, where the situation is deteriorating.
Consequences
- The Trente Glorieuses enabled industrialized countries to leap forward and globalization to develop.
- The oil shock of 1973 slowed down this growth and increased inequalities in developed countries; after a period of recession, the economic situation is still difficult, but globalization in the 1980s enabled the socio-economic development of many countries in the South.
- The crisis of the Soviet bloc and China in the 1980s was greatly influenced by the oil shocks and the end of the Trente Glorieuses.