A lot of people look back on the period from 1945 to 1970 as a golden age of growth under a more left-leaning economic regime than today. It sounds like you ar

A lot of people look back on the period from 1945 to 1970 as a golden age of growth under a more left-leaning economic regime than today. It sounds like you are one them, based on your "let's organize the economy" enthusiasm. The problem with that is that the post-WWII period was much different than today. Pretty much every other advanced economy besides the US had been economically devastated by a long and bloody war. The US didn't have to be competitive to compete against a Germany or a Japan where people were boiling shoes to eat the leather or catching rats for meat. They only had to be relatively competent. Also, both before and after WWII, scientists flocked to the US, fleeing from repressive and doomed regimes. US R&D got a huge boost from these people. Another question is just how "organized" the economy actually was back then. Most of the really complicated regulations like Sarbannes-Oxley were still far in the future in the 1940s. By the time the EPA was created in the 1970s, the US was already well on its way to stagflation and economic incontience. Tax rates looked high back then, but just like today, most truly wealthy people found ways around paying them. Of course the government has a role to play in funding research and moderating some of the excesses of capitalism. But to argue that some bureaucrat can just push a button and bring back the golden years of the 1950s is a leftist fantasy.