Activity

It was hard to believe that California could continue its postwar hot streak, especially after the end of the space race and the defeat in Vietnam. The resulting wave of layoffs confirmed the widespread suspicion that it all couldn’t last. In the next chapter I’ll cover the personal computer indust…

Individualism, privacy, property, competition: This conceptual constellation gave the political right a way to talk to people beyond the material appeal of their policies. Rather than the government providing a basis for individuality by spreading the costs of independence and creating a fair field…

They could not do it alone, however. How would they sell individualism to the unemployed? Promising to whip inflation helped, but elements of the working class had to be persuaded to accept a cure that, for them, was probably worse than the disease. California, where liberals experienced serious se…

With its high profits and bifurcated labor force, California modeled capitalist discipline for the nation. Investment capital fled west, rewarding the state’s owners. Between 1979 and 1986, total manufacturing as a share of gross national product stayed nearly flat, but the sector’s composition cha…