The neoliberal approach to economic growth of the past forty years has been to drive down real wages, deregulate the financial sector, privatize various government functions, cut social expenditures and reduce taxes on large corporations and the wealthy. The period has been characterized by sluggish growth and widening inequalities. In contrast, the markedly higher rates of growth achieved from the end of the Second World War until the early 1970s were sustained in a regime of steadily rising real wages, which were consciously linked through policy or collective bargaining to improvements in productivity. This approach to industrial relations was played out within a context of substantial direct public-sector involvement in the economy, tight financial regulation, high and steeply progressive taxation and a more equal distribution of income and wealth.

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