From 1975 onwards the pace of economic growth in the developed countries slowed considerably. It fell by at least half and found itself back at the levels prevailing prior to the 'thirty glorious years'. In some years there was virtually zero growth, a situation that would have been unthinkable in the 1960s. Unemployment became omnipresent and structural. The growth model of the western economies had been based on various factors: very cheap energy supplies; importation of foreign labour; cheap raw materials; virtual full employment; fixed exchange rates between currencies; negative real interest rates; price inflation; and wage increases that followed increase in productivity, but with a six-month time-lag. This growth was underpinned by a very rapid salarisation of an originally agricultural population, an abundant supply of family dependants and a demand that was driven first by postwar reconstruction, and then by wars taking place in the Third World (Korea, Vietnam). This model finally ran out of steam more or less abruptly in all countries [...]