History has ended, and capitalism is the last man standing.

The innovations and freedoms enjoyed by the Global North have shown that the free market

is the only viable economic system.

It is almost impossible to imagine a coherent alternative.

This was certainly the view of Margaret Thatcher, who was elected as Prime Minister amidst the

turbulence of 1980s Britain. For many, unleashed from the shackles of pre-1970s economics,

Thatcher restored order and long-term prosperity to a country in crisis,

solving industrial disputes, taking on the unions, cutting income tax, and creating a nation

of entrepreneurs and homeowners.

As we will hear, economic commentator Grace Blakely has little sympathy for this view.

For Blakely, neoliberalism was a system geared towards

maximizing share profits over goods and services, a dangerous economic model that put shareholders

first, customers second, and workers last. As we left the golden age of capitalism, the

rising tides of climate catastrophe, global poverty, and vast

increases of income inequality, eventually came knocking at the doors of the world governments,

but nobody answered. As prime ministers and presidents pretended they weren't home, a guest

arrived who hadn't the courtesy of knocking. In 2008, the world watched on as the market collapsed in the biggest

economic crash since 1929. The House of Cards had fallen. The contradictions of Western

free market economics had called up with us. After the crash, government spent 500 billion

in spending as they bailed out the world's banks. Now, history repeats itself once more in the wake of the corona crash.

Hello and welcome to episode 91 of the Pan Scicast. I'm the man who would sooner see the world burn than see the end of capitalism, Mr. Jack

Seim, so I'm joined once again by the gold pegging, Mr Andrew Horton.

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