What’s interesting is that during the great depression they knew that economic collapse would lead to a socialist revolution, and so put in the work to “inoculate” the US against it. They would give us a little socialism, so that we wouldn’t go all in. Medicare, social security, minimum wage, all these things came out of that philosophy. And it fucking worked. The US had the single most robust economy in human history from the 40s all the way through to the 1970s. When, in response to the civil rights movement, white southerners actively voted against their own self interest KNOWINGLY, so that black people wouldn’t get a fair share of the pie. Nixon began the week to work to dismantle the New Deal, and we’re basically living with the shattered broken corpse of the best social program we were ever going to get with votes.
The US had the single most robust economy in human history from the 40s all the way through to the 1970s.
This was mostly due to being basically the only industrial economy to not be bombed to bits during WW2. We had the entire world reliant on US manufacturing
That certainly helped. But it lasted nearly 30 years and didn’t start to crumble until the Nixon administration inventivized big businesses to begin hoarding wealth. By just about any metric you look at, the US economy during those decades was the best any economy had ever been. And in 1973 it took a nose dive, and the only metric that continued upward was lifespan but that’s turning around now too.
The thing is, without the massive economic boon provided by those social programs, the US really wouldn’t have excelled the way it did. Wealth distribution was at an all time high. Laborers were becoming wealthy by going to work. Bell Labs was employing people to sit around and dream up problems to solve. The wealthiest 1% had about 8% of the wealth. Exports started steadily declining in the 1950’s, but the amount of new production was only going up. In 1966, exports declined nearly 2 billion dollars, and money spent building new factories was nearly 10 billion dollars.
Americans were consuming more of their own products. Post war production carried the US through about 1955, but to say that was the only reason the US did so well for 30 years after WW2 is really reductive and just plain wrong. It helped, but it’s far from the only cause and stopped being a factor pretty quick.
It’s so adorable that you think Democrats might ever actually do anything if they got power. Enjoy your cookie.
We have two pro capitalist parties in the US.
What’s interesting is that during the great depression they knew that economic collapse would lead to a socialist revolution, and so put in the work to “inoculate” the US against it. They would give us a little socialism, so that we wouldn’t go all in. Medicare, social security, minimum wage, all these things came out of that philosophy. And it fucking worked. The US had the single most robust economy in human history from the 40s all the way through to the 1970s. When, in response to the civil rights movement, white southerners actively voted against their own self interest KNOWINGLY, so that black people wouldn’t get a fair share of the pie. Nixon began the week to work to dismantle the New Deal, and we’re basically living with the shattered broken corpse of the best social program we were ever going to get with votes.
This was mostly due to being basically the only industrial economy to not be bombed to bits during WW2. We had the entire world reliant on US manufacturing
That certainly helped. But it lasted nearly 30 years and didn’t start to crumble until the Nixon administration inventivized big businesses to begin hoarding wealth. By just about any metric you look at, the US economy during those decades was the best any economy had ever been. And in 1973 it took a nose dive, and the only metric that continued upward was lifespan but that’s turning around now too.
It took most of the world that long to really rebuild. It took the UK nearly a decade to end rationing after the war for example.
You don’t have to convince me the Republicans ruined the great economy that gave us, that’s a given.
I’m more so getting at the reason we did so well. Having social security doesn’t suddenly mean your economy is globally dominant
The thing is, without the massive economic boon provided by those social programs, the US really wouldn’t have excelled the way it did. Wealth distribution was at an all time high. Laborers were becoming wealthy by going to work. Bell Labs was employing people to sit around and dream up problems to solve. The wealthiest 1% had about 8% of the wealth. Exports started steadily declining in the 1950’s, but the amount of new production was only going up. In 1966, exports declined nearly 2 billion dollars, and money spent building new factories was nearly 10 billion dollars.
Americans were consuming more of their own products. Post war production carried the US through about 1955, but to say that was the only reason the US did so well for 30 years after WW2 is really reductive and just plain wrong. It helped, but it’s far from the only cause and stopped being a factor pretty quick.
A boy can dream, can’t he?