La grande crise de 1974

This paper analyses the present world economic crisis from 1973 to 1976. The 1974 great slump is the result of the strong and simultaneous deflationary policies adopted by all large western countries in order to fight inflation, which reached a very high peak in 1973. The causes of this importance and simultaneity in price increase are analysed. Most of them are aspects of the international monetary system, either events which happened at the end of the former (Bretton Woods) regime and also caused this end, or traits of the new regime of managed flexibility. The increase in prices of raw materials plays only a secondary role. A number of these causes are themselves consequences of the central structure of modern capitalism, the dynamics of the inflation activity relationship in an economy of imperfect markets and government stabilization policiesKolm Serge-Christophe. La grande crise de 1974. In: Annales. Economies, sociétés, civilisations. 32ᵉ année, N. 4, 1977. pp. 815-823