Echoes of a horrific decade are getting louder, and the UN climate accord is the equivalent of Chamberlain’s piece of paper
More than any other decade, the 1930s act as a reference point for just how bad things can get. Mass unemployment, totalitarianism, war: a repeat of these horrors is to be avoided at all costs. Eighty years after Neville Chamberlain agreed to Hitler’s demands over the Sudetenland, there is still no greater insult than to dub a politician an “appeaser”.
The determination in policy circles to avoid a return to the 30s helps explain why up until now it has never happened. Central banks slashed interest rates and turned on the electronic printing presses a decade ago because they feared a second Great Depression. Welfare states are more generous than they were when John Steinbeck was writing The Grapes of Wrath. Decades of growth have made societies wealthier; advances in medical science have made them healthier.
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