Welcome to the Age of Making Do
KENNETH BAKER

The Age of Abundance is dead; the Age of Austerity has begun. The Age of Abundance (1980-2007) was a unique phenomenon in which wealth was created and spread on a scale unprecedented in the history of the world. Huge prosperous middle classes emerged in China and India, and many other underdeveloped economies; life expectancy shot up; college and university became the norm for millions; and all this against a background where a war between the two major power blocs became inconceivable. "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/But to be young was very heaven."

In Britain and other Western economies a comfortable old age moved from being a dream to being a reality for most. Life was made infinitely more comfortable by affordable technology in the kitchen, the office and the home. Car ownership shot up and the industries supporting it produced graphs that pointed forever upwards. A generation whose parents might never have gone beyond a Butlins holiday camp went to sunny, exotic and romantic places, some even unheard of 30 years earlier. Home ownership became a right for hundreds of millions, but unfortunately it also became their Achilles' heel.

Governments and politicians flourished in the Age of Abundance since they could offer a cornucopia of rising expectations. Promises of a better future "dropped from their pockets like plates" and the promises became even more ambitious: the abolition of child poverty; inflation-proof pensions for all; and a university place for every other child. These were a great advance on "a chicken in every pot", but it will be infinitely more difficult for governments and politicians to address the inevitable constraints of an Age of Austerity, where falling expectations will be the norm.