Saw a post about this at [email protected] and was a bit confused by exactly how badly the people there were going at each others throats in the comments. Nobody seemed able to agree on what precisely happened in 1971. Suggested explanations included:

• Neoliberalism being declared the state religion by Grand Moff Richard Nixon
• The gold standard being abolished
• The oil crisis
• The Republican and Democrat parties becoming increasingly divided
• Declining birthrates
• Institutional Racism

If any of you could give some explanations with, like, sources that aren’t just 10 pages of graphs with arrows pointing at 1971, that would be pretty great.