The 1980s (pronounced "nineteen-eighties", shortened to "the 80s" or "the Eighties") was a decade that began 1 January 1980 and ended 31 December 1989.

The decade, known as the Excellence Eighties and the Moderation Decade, saw a dominance of conservatism and free market economics, and a socioeconomic change due to advances in technology and a worldwide move away from planned economies and towards laissez-faire capitalism compared to the 1970s.

Quotes

• What was really so bad about the ‘80s was an excess of personal freedom. [...] Think of gridlock on the freeway: everybody free to drive but nobody able to move. The trick will be finding the courage to give up a little individual freedom so that all of us can be freer together--of the consequences of neglected children, for example. That is a tall order; the campaign season that just ended showed how adept our political system has become at telling us what we want to hear. What we don’t want to hear about, especially those of us who can afford it most, is sacrifice.
  • Daniel Akst, The Real ‘80s : If You Think It Was Just a Decade of Greed, You Missed the Revolution, Los Angeles Times, 13th November 1994

External links

• Encyclopedic article on 1980s on Wikipedia