Men make their own history, but they do not make it under circumstances of their own choosing, wrote Marx in 1852. But how true is that today?

Monetary union, once so full of promise for the nations of Europe, is beginning to look like bondage. As weaker partners fall sick and fears brew of contagion, the rest writhe impotently under the chains of the single currency. Perhaps some miracle will allow them to regain control. As things stand, Europe looks very much at the mercy of history.

In Britain it is hard to avoid the same conclusion. Government and public alike are swept along by events. The Prime Minister says we are “paralysed by gloom and fear” and need a “can-do optimism”. Gloom and fear are a symptom, not a cause. Paralysis stems rather from the conditions of the economy, and the government’s inability to deal with it.

Marx’s ‘men’ – or rather men and women – are facing substantial declines in their living standards. According to the IMF, higher taxes, benefit cuts, inflation and stagnant wages are likely to leave households £1500 worse off as the Coalition attempts to cut the nation’s debt by 2016. They have a government whose economic agenda more than 70% of them did not vote for or voted against. Over 2.5 million people are unemployed. In my own London borough, Lewisham, there are around 14 times more jobseekers than there are vacancies.

This is not making history, but suffering it. And yet, is there any reason to be surprised? The 1910s, ‘20s and ‘40s were devastated by war and its effects; the ‘30s and ‘80s by mass unemployment and meagre welfare policies; the late ‘60s and ‘70s by inflation, stagnation and civil strife. In the prosperous ‘50s and early ‘60s alone, perhaps, did the sun shine for most in Britain. Many historians see external forces as more instrumental than the government even then.

“You’ve never had it so good”, remarked the Prime Minister at the time, Harold Macmillan. It is a shame this reminder was so rarely echoed by politicians in the New Labour years. The sustained economic growth of the 1990s and 2000s seem a golden age when set in the context of our past. What should have been treasured was taken for granted.

I always used to wonder how people could simply get on with their daily lives while regions, towns, businesses, jobs, communities and lives were ruined by the Thatcher government’s foul medicine for Britain’s economic woes. But as our economy continues to stagnate and the government quietly ditches lifelines for the most in need – from benefits to healthcare to charities to access programmes – I realise I am doing the same. As ever, the whirl of social and academic life in the Cambridge bubble goes on. Political and economic problems are things we read about in the papers, things that happen elsewhere.

Of course, some rant in the pub, some blather for Varsity, some wave their placards, some even sit on the local council. Yet it is difficult to see what difference any of them make. Protest at its best can obstruct and force retreat – on Vietnam, on cuts to housing benefit and to bursaries in Cambridge, to take just three. In the long run, however, it rarely stops the tide. The truth is that even those bent on making their own history have little choice but, as Fitzgerald put it, to “beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”.

Today that goes as much for the governors as for the governed. They find the levers of power either broken or illusory in the face of the worst crisis since the 1930s. We are rediscovering the real meaning of politics, what philosopher John Gray called “the art of devising temporary remedies for recurring evils”. These at most should be our hope.