The 65 years up to the first world war in the UK was a period of price stability and wholly deregulated labour markets; there was no trade union movement, state spending was minimal, budgets were balanced, there was no employment protection and no welfare system. Employers were free to lower wages to whatever they considered the economic level. These years had violent annual oscillation in the unemployment rate from virtually full employment to over 10 percent.
2. Unregulated markets are unstable and inefficient -- and potentially dangerous. It was the lived experience of raw capitalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that gave birth to the two great ideologies of fascism and communism.