When Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, he was surrounded by advisors with radical ideas about economic management, health care reform, labor relations, and social policy. With Democratic control of both the White House and Congress, a more equitable vision of American capitalism seemed possible. Throughout the 1990s, the economy thrived, real wages increased, and unemployment reached a 25-year low. Alan Blinder and Janet Yellen later referred to this period as "The Fabulous Decade." However, Clinton's presidency is now viewed by many on the left as a significant failure, attributed to a full capitulation to neoliberal ideology, resulting in financial deregulation, privatization of government services, and rising class inequalities. In this comprehensive political history of the 1990s, Nelson Lichtenstein examines why the Clinton administration embraced neoliberalism so completely, despite various alternative options presented by those around him. By exploring key issues such as deficit politics, NAFTA, labor relations, tech regulation, and mass incarceration, Lichtenstein reveals an "intellectual history of an economy that wasn't" and analyzes how neoliberalism became entrenched in the U.S. economic and financial system by the end of Clinton's presidency.
