The Great Depression posed a serious threat to democratic capitalism as economic nationalism flourished and Communism and Fascism offered alternative models. In response, democratic capitalism was remade. Domestically, inequalities of wealth were reduced and social welfare extended to create a social contract between capital and labour. Internationally, new organisations created a rules-based international regime. Together, the result was ‘embedded liberalism’ that contained economic nationalism and allowed recovery of the international economy and rapid post-war growth alongside improvements in domestic welfare.

A lecture by Martin Daunton

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/great-depression

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege