The wave of populism in the western world which has given us Brexit, and may carry Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen to power in the US and France respectively, has been compared to the social forces which drove the politics of the 1930s. Increasing job insecurity or unemployment in Europe and the failure of median wages to rise for many years in the US are cited as the “root causes” of the phenomenon.

This is a “social-democratic” explanation of the current western political crisis. The suggested remedies that flow from it are also predictably social-democratic: reducing job insecurity and inequality, increasing social benefits, especially for those in work, and raising taxes. If you have no choice, reduce immigration before the populists do it for you.

However, the parallel drawn with the politics of the 1930s is overblown. Fascism in Germany and Austria and revolutionary leftism in Spain thrived as a result of truly extreme economic deprivation. Gross domestic product in Germany fell by 30 per cent after the Great Crash in 1929, and unemployment reached 6m. In Spain the Civil War was preceded by widespread hunger in the south and artillery shelling of striking miners in the north.