From Gold to Clicks: How the 1970s Rewired the Modern World

The 1970s are often remembered—or imagined—as a decade of disco, gas lines, and bell-bottoms. But beneath the surface, it was the most structurally transformative decade in modern history. The foundations of today’s political polarization, economic volatility, and attention-driven culture were all laid during this quiet revolution.

Three core shifts from the 1970s reshaped the modern world—not with fanfare, but with deep, lasting consequences. If you want to understand how power, influence, and scarcity operate today, look no further than this underappreciated decade.

1. From Gold to Oil: The Dollar’s Redefinition and the Birth of Modern Monetary Policy

In 1971, President Richard Nixon ended the convertibility of U.S. dollars into gold, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system and unleashing the era of fiat currency. This was not just a technical tweak—it transformed the very nature of money.

Floating currencies gave central banks newfound power. They could now manipulate interest rates, expand credit, and inject liquidity into the economy without commodity constraints. This flexibility enabled tools like:

• The federal funds rate (to control short-term interest rates)

• Quantitative easing (to influence long-term liquidity and asset prices)

But it also introduced risk. Without the discipline of a gold standard, governments could print money to fund political priorities, creating new temptations for inflation and unsustainable debt.

That risk materialized almost immediately:

• The U.S. experienced stagflation (high inflation + low growth) throughout the 1970s.

• Inflation peaked at over 13% in 1979, before Paul Volcker’s harsh rate hikes tamed it.

To stabilize global demand for the dollar, the U.S. struck a petrodollar agreement with Saudi Arabia in 1974: oil would be priced exclusively in dollars in exchange for American military and economic support. This deal:

• Cemented the dollar’s global dominance

• Fueled Wall Street with recycled oil profits

• Deepened U.S. geopolitical entanglements in the Middle East

The dollar was no longer backed by gold—it became the default oil trade currency, sustained by U.S. power and global trust. That trust is now a key fragility.

2. The Primary System That Undermined Democracy

In the aftermath of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the McGovern-Fraser Commission introduced sweeping reforms to how presidential candidates were selected. The goal was democratic: shift power from party insiders to voters through primaries and caucuses.

But this well-meaning reform had unintended, long-term consequences:

• Moderation collapsed. Candidates no longer had to appeal to broad coalitions but could now focus on energizing ideological bases.

• Fundraising overtook governing. Success in primaries depended on media performance and donor access, not coalition-building or legislative skill.

• Congressional dysfunction exploded. Elected officials began fearing primary challengers more than general elections, resulting in rigid partisanship and performative politics.

Today, party leadership in Congress often dictates outcomes, not through debate but through top-down negotiation and fundraising quotas. Legislators rarely write laws; they vote on omnibus packages designed by leadership to satisfy narrow coalitions and donor classes.

As John Adams warned:“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties… This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

That political evil is now normalized. McGovern-Fraser did not democratize politics—it fragmented it, shifting power from voters to funders. The next graphic shows how "party-line" or party unity voting has changed since 1972.

Source: The Brookings Institution

Vital Statistics on Congress

3. The Attention Economy: From Scarcity of Information to Scarcity of Focus

In economics, scarcity defines value. What’s limited and in demand becomes the most valuable resource—and the organizing principle around which companies innovate, compete, and profit. In the industrial era, it was land, labor, and capital. In the information era, the scarcest resource is no longer knowledge—it’s human attention.

The late 1970s marked the beginning of this shift. When Apple released the Apple II in 1977, it wasn’t just launching a product—it was catalyzing a new era of information abundance. What followed was an explosion of access: newspapers gave way to blogs, libraries to search engines, and television to infinite scroll.

In a world flooded with data, the economic incentive shifted from controlling supply to meet demand to capturing demand by influencing behavior at the level of neurobiology—your time, clicks, and cognitive bandwidth.

Scarcity formerly existed in the external world—raw materials, goods, information. Today, it lives inside your head. That’s where the market now competes for your attention.

Today’s most powerful companies—Meta, Google, TikTok—don’t sell knowledge. They sell curated distraction, optimized to hijack your dopaminergic reward system:

• Notifications, reels, and algorithmic feeds trigger instant gratification.

• Each engagement reinforces habitual behavior, turning users into recurring revenue streams.

The implications extend beyond social media:

• Cognitive overload undermines critical thinking and long-term decision-making.

• Polarized content outperforms nuance, weakening democratic discourse.

• Mental health suffers, especially among teens navigating identity in attention-hacked spaces.

The 1970s created the infrastructure for abundance—but with it came a new frontier of exploitation: the competition for your mind.

Honorable Mentions: Other Structural Shifts Born in the 1970s

While the top three deserve focused attention, several other transformations from the 1970s continue to shape our world today:

Regulatory Realignment, Not Just Deregulation

The 1970s did not reduce regulation—they recast it. Economic sectors like airlines and trucking were deregulated to promote competition, but social and environmental oversight expanded. Agencies like OSHA, EPA, and EEOC gained new authority, enforcing rules on workplace safety, environmental impact, and civil rights. The focus shifted from controlling prices to enforcing fairness, safety, and equity. In net, the total regulatory corpus expanded more in the 1970s than in any decade in U.S. history.

China’s Economic Opening

Deng Xiaoping’s rise in 1978 marked a decisive break from Maoist central planning. Though gradual, the shift toward “socialism with Chinese characteristics” laid the foundation for China’s manufacturing boom, global supply chains, and today’s geopolitical power struggle. Globalization as we know it began in a quiet pivot behind the Great Wall.

The Birth of Environmental Consciousness

With the founding of the EPA (1970) and the first Earth Day, environmental policy became institutionalized. Laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act embedded long-term thinking into public governance. What began as activism became regulation—and now underpins everything from ESG investing to carbon markets.

Today’s World, Rooted in the 1970s

The structural changes of the 1970s weren’t theoretical—they launched the systems we live with today. From inflation management to fractured governance to attention-based tech platforms, we’re still operating within the frameworks built five decades ago.

The table below highlights five high-impact, real-world examples that clearly trace back to one of the Big 3 shifts:

Modern Example	Description	1970s Root Cause
U.S. National Debt Exceeds $34 Trillion (2025)	Historic deficits now fund routine political agendas—enabled by fiat currency and monetized via central bank tools like QE.	End of Gold Standard & Rise of the Petrodollar
Rise of Trump and Political Polarization	Primary-driven nomination systems reward ideological extremes and media spectacle over consensus-building. Just like other leaders and despots found in history, Trump is a reflection of the environment that produced him.	McGovern-Fraser Reforms & Primary Voting Shift and Information Age & Scarcity of Human Focus
TikTok Surpasses Google in Screen Time	Attention, not knowledge, drives platform design. Algorithms exploit dopamine responses to maximize engagement and ad revenue.	Information Age & Scarcity of Human Focus
Student Loan Forgiveness Debates	Voters increasingly demand entitlement expansions financed by deficit spending—decisions once constrained by gold-backed currency.	End of Gold Standard & Monetary Policy Flexibility
Congressional Gridlock and Declining Lawmaking	Legislators fear primary challengers more than general elections, reducing incentives for long-term governance or bipartisan reform.	McGovern-Fraser Reforms & Primary Voting Shift

These examples illustrate how the rules, incentives, and defaults built in the 1970s still shape both public policy and personal experience. Clearly, there are many other examples. From the structure of digital platforms to the behavior of political leaders, we are living downstream from the choices made in that pivotal decade.

Final Reflection

The 1970s did not just signal the end of an era—they launched the systems that govern our modern world. By untethering money from gold, restructuring the democratic process, and ushering in the attention economy, this decade quietly rewired the incentives behind how we govern, spend, and think.

These were not temporary shocks. They were foundational shifts that altered the architecture of power—moving it from tangible assets to monetary discretion, from voters to funders, and from institutions to algorithms.

Understanding the 1970s is not an exercise in nostalgia. It is a strategic imperative. To make better decisions today—financially, politically, and personally—we must first understand the deep structures we inherited from this pivotal decade. Only then can we begin to redesign them.

The 1970s did not fade. They embedded. And their influence is still unfolding.

What This Means for You

Understanding these structural shifts is not just an academic exercise—it’s a strategic advantage.

For individuals:

In an age where information is abundant but attention is scarce, how you make decisions matters more than ever. The systems launched in the 1970s rewired the modern world—and now require you to adapt. Navigating today’s world means:

• Curating high-quality, decision-relevant information

• Using structured tools and frameworks—especially for high-stakes, financial choices

• Recognizing the biases and incentives embedded in the platforms and institutions you rely on

Success no longer comes from accessing more data—it comes from applying better decision architecture.

For business and government leaders:

These historic shifts form the baseline for strategic planning. Whether you're crafting policy, running a business, or leading a nonprofit, understanding the incentives and system structures behind modern challenges enables smarter decisions.

At the center of this is scenario planning—the disciplined process of envisioning multiple plausible futures so you can adapt before disruption hits. In an information-abundant, fast-changing world, scenario planning is what prepares you to respond emotionally, culturally, and operationally when the unexpected becomes reality.

It enables:

• Smarter choices under uncertainty, informed by historical context and emerging signals

• Policy and product innovation that aligns with long-term trends, not short-term noise

• Resilient strategies grounded in first principles—not just reaction to headlines

  
  

To guide the future, you must first understand the past—not just what happened, but why.

The 1970s built the infrastructure of today’s complexity. Your success depends on how well you navigate it.

Resources For The Curious

Explore the economic, political, and technological shifts that emerged from the 1970s—and still define our world today.

• Hulett, Jeff. “Your Vote Does Not Matter as Much as It Should!” The Curiosity Vine, January 6, 2022 (updated July 11, 2024). → Analyzes how party-centered reforms, particularly the rise of primary elections, have weakened citizen power and shifted political incentives.

• Hulett, Jeff. “A Question of Choice: Optimizing Resource Allocation and an HOA Example.” The Curiosity Vine, October 29, 2023 (updated July 23, 2024). → Explores decentralized decision-making, incentive design, and structural inefficiencies in governance—key to understanding post-1970s policy systems.

• Hulett, Jeff. “The Hidden Wealth of Time: Turning Challenges into Opportunity.” The Curiosity Vine, January 2025. → Examines how attention, time management, and mindset became critical currencies in the post-industrial, information-driven economy.

• Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom. University of Chicago Press, 1962. → Explains the economic philosophy behind deregulation and monetary policy liberalization.

• Greenspan, Alan. The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. Penguin Press, 2007. → Offers insights into central banking after the gold standard and the evolving role of the Fed.

• Volcker, Paul, and Toyoo Gyohten. Changing Fortunes: The World's Money and the Threat to American Leadership. Crown Business, 1992. → Chronicles the shift in global monetary policy, including Volcker’s efforts to defeat inflation.

• Hacker, Jacob S., and Paul Pierson. Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality. Liveright Publishing, 2020. → Dissects the donor-driven, post-primary political structure rooted in reforms of the 1970s.

• Adams, John. The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States. Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1850. → Includes the original warning against factionalism and party-driven governance—now a defining feature of modern politics.

• Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Harvard University Press, 2014.→ Tracks wealth inequality trends accelerated by post-gold standard monetary and fiscal policies.

• Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. → Defines cognitive biases and dual-system thinking—essential for navigating attention-scarce, decision-dense environments.

• Hayek, F.A. “The Pretence of Knowledge.” Nobel Prize Lecture, 1974. → A caution against central planning and overreliance on technocratic models—delivered during the heart of the 1970s policy shift.

• Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society. Wiley-Blackwell, 1996. → A foundational analysis of how information technology, born in the late 1970s, reshaped global economic structures.

• Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs, 2019. → Explores how attention became the core tradable good in digital markets—rooted in the early tech revolutions of the 1970s.