8 ms·

I read a similar things a few weeks ago. They were saying that the U.S. (government through laws and legal system) centered on "fairness" up until recently. S

by pfranz 9y ago

I read a similar things a few weeks ago. They were saying that the U.S. (government through laws and legal system) centered on "fairness" up until recently. Sometime after WWII the focus changed to Economics and growth. I'm guessing it was saying this is the cause of crazy inequality and "the jobless recovery." I'm not sure I buy all of it (the U.S. wasn't really a world power prior to the world wars, so they'd be dismissing that and other gains if it was their whole premise), but like this article, something to think about.

Retric 9y ago
That's somewhat misleading in 1800 the US population hit ~5.24 million vs England's ~9.2 million, it had more than doubled over the prior 30 years. Economically and Militarily England was much further ahead. But, unlike Europe the US's wars of conquest and genocide where mostly vs the Native Americans. Consider, Ohio only joined the Union in 1803. By 1870 the US GDP PPP(98,374) was at near parity with the UK (100,180). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P... and had a slightly larger population. Around the mid 1800's the US was clearly a world power, but in the way Germany is today. Big enough to have real impact, but not a super power.
- pfranz 9y ago
  Thanks for the background. That's why I thought it was interesting but had some skepticism and want to look more into it. I don't think the average person (including myself) knows enough about our history to be able compare things 50-100 years ago in the US to now. I remember hearing the US has benefited quite a bit by having oceans between us because after the World Wars we didn't have our cities destroyed. I believe that's one reason New York became a financial hub, picking up the slack from London. Is it a fair comparison to say a more egalitarian policy made us "happier" when we still had segregation, women couldn't vote, and much smaller welfare/social services?
  - afarrell 9y ago
    > we didn't have our cities destroyed We also were able to sell arms to the allies for two world wars. At the end of WWII we had 80% of the world's gold reserves. This meant that during the Bretton Woods conference, when a bunch of treaties were drafted to require the use of "gold-convertable currency", that was effectively the US Dollar...so they just put "US Dollar" in the final language for clarity and made USD the global reserve currency among other things.
fao_ 9y ago
What use is power if it doesn't make you or your descendants happy? How is being a world power a gain, if, by doing it, you sacrifice the very tenets that your country was founded on? What use is power if it begins the process of curtailing freedoms and privacy for the minorities and majority (respectively), all the while aggravating the problem by funding problematic groups (causing a feedback loop)?
- pfranz 9y ago
  Ehh, I wasn't saying being a world power is an excuse for concentrating power at the top. It was a more to show how it's hard to compare because so much has changed in the US since before WWI. Back then most people were considered poor and we had no social services or welfare to speak of, the "middle class" wasn't a thing yet, we still had segregation, and women couldn't vote.
throwaway91111 9y ago
Fairness in an economic sense is often difficult to pin down; americans often focus on employment rather than eg distribution of wealth.
losteric 9y ago
> They were saying that the U.S. (government through laws and legal system) centered on "fairness" up until recently. Sometime after WWII the focus changed to Economics and growth. I absolutely agree with this. Considering the history and how we used to run public schools, it seems almost obvious. American nationalism was at an all-time high during World War 2 and we rode that straight into the Cold War... 50 years of anti-soviet propaganda and public discourse, riding the post-WW2 American economic boom and global "anti-communist" imperialism. For an entire generation community-oriented principles, egalitarianism, collectivist ideas, and far-left leaders were demonized as Soviet sympathizers, replaced with rah rah unregulated capitalism, Ayn Rand-ian individualist, and military might. If you've ever wondered why many modern American Christians blatantly disregard the liberal social aspects of Jesus/the Bible, look no further. WW2's morale-boosting propaganda morphed into a cancer of civil discourse, deeply coupling nationalism with the perceived indisputable success of American capitalism. Consider these two points: * The Cold War started 70 years ago, and formally ended 26 years ago * 2016 Trump / Sanders popularity, bucketed by age: http://www.msnbc.com/sites/msnbc/files/age_of_voting_groups_18-24_25-34_35-44_45-54_55-64_65_and_over_chartbuilder_2.png http://www.msnbc.com/sites/msnbc/files/age_of_voting_groups_... American society takes time to change because our 2-party system is dominated by unengaged voters, the uneducated electorate that votes without thinking about it... heavily influenced by the world they grew up in, and what they were taught from k-12. When many election results are +/- 5%, moving the average 10% in one direction has long-term consequences. It's worth thinking about how our 17 year-old "War on Terror" will continue to change society...
- trynumber9 9y ago
  So, what was the first Red Scare, Sacco and Vanzetti, or the Scopes Trial in the 20s about then? Many of the things you attribute to the Cold War-era were present in the 1920s USA. The biggest difference was isolation.
  - losteric 9y ago
    What's the difference? The first Red Scare was 3 years of isolated domestic violent agitation, and public response was largely focused on those agitators. The second Red Scare was a 50-year ideological war that saturated the nation, a generation raised demonizing concepts as "un-American" before becoming the teachers and politicians of their children. It takes time heal from that dogma.
dredmorbius 9y ago
I very strongly recommend reading literature on the Industrial Revolution(s) generally, and on relating energy and economic growth. There's still a fair bit I've yet to read, but: * Vaclav Smil, Energy in World History (1994). Highly technical, short, dense, but quite readable. Focus is on energy and technology primarily, economics and politics only remotely. * Manfred Weissenbacher, Sources of Power (2009). Also technical, long, rambles, somewhat, and unevenly edited, but still recommended. Draws heavily on Smil as well as numerous other sources, and includes more politics (particularly recent) and economics. * Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth (2016). A good technical history, a middling economics text. Really hammers home the transformation in the United States, 1870 - 2015. * Daniel Yergin, The Prize (1992). A history of oil, which is to say, the last (and largest) segments of Weissenbacher and Smil's histories (Weissenbacher continues to a forecast / scenario), and much of Gordon's work. Focus is on energy. Gordon's book is part of a series edited by Joel Mokyr on modern industrial history and development, there are several other good books within it. I've yet to read, but still recommend, Karl Polanyi's Great Transformation. And yes, the obsession with economic growth was a post-WWII thing. Mostly, people didn't want to see a return of the Great Depression and pre-war crisis.

by pfranz 9y ago

Retric 9y ago

That's somewhat misleading in 1800 the US population hit ~5.24 million vs England's ~9.2 million, it had more than doubled over the prior 30 years. Economically and Militarily England was much further ahead. But, unlike Europe the US's wars of conquest and genocide where mostly vs the Native Americans. Consider, Ohio only joined the Union in 1803. By 1870 the US GDP PPP(98,374) was at near parity with the UK (100,180). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P... and had a slightly larger population. Around the mid 1800's the US was clearly a world power, but in the way Germany is today. Big enough to have real impact, but not a super power.

pfranz 9y ago
Thanks for the background. That's why I thought it was interesting but had some skepticism and want to look more into it. I don't think the average person (including myself) knows enough about our history to be able compare things 50-100 years ago in the US to now. I remember hearing the US has benefited quite a bit by having oceans between us because after the World Wars we didn't have our cities destroyed. I believe that's one reason New York became a financial hub, picking up the slack from London. Is it a fair comparison to say a more egalitarian policy made us "happier" when we still had segregation, women couldn't vote, and much smaller welfare/social services?
- afarrell 9y ago
  > we didn't have our cities destroyed We also were able to sell arms to the allies for two world wars. At the end of WWII we had 80% of the world's gold reserves. This meant that during the Bretton Woods conference, when a bunch of treaties were drafted to require the use of "gold-convertable currency", that was effectively the US Dollar...so they just put "US Dollar" in the final language for clarity and made USD the global reserve currency among other things.

fao_ 9y ago

What use is power if it doesn't make you or your descendants happy? How is being a world power a gain, if, by doing it, you sacrifice the very tenets that your country was founded on? What use is power if it begins the process of curtailing freedoms and privacy for the minorities and majority (respectively), all the while aggravating the problem by funding problematic groups (causing a feedback loop)?

pfranz 9y ago
Ehh, I wasn't saying being a world power is an excuse for concentrating power at the top. It was a more to show how it's hard to compare because so much has changed in the US since before WWI. Back then most people were considered poor and we had no social services or welfare to speak of, the "middle class" wasn't a thing yet, we still had segregation, and women couldn't vote.

throwaway91111 9y ago

Fairness in an economic sense is often difficult to pin down; americans often focus on employment rather than eg distribution of wealth.

losteric 9y ago

> They were saying that the U.S. (government through laws and legal system) centered on "fairness" up until recently. Sometime after WWII the focus changed to Economics and growth. I absolutely agree with this. Considering the history and how we used to run public schools, it seems almost obvious. American nationalism was at an all-time high during World War 2 and we rode that straight into the Cold War... 50 years of anti-soviet propaganda and public discourse, riding the post-WW2 American economic boom and global "anti-communist" imperialism. For an entire generation community-oriented principles, egalitarianism, collectivist ideas, and far-left leaders were demonized as Soviet sympathizers, replaced with rah rah unregulated capitalism, Ayn Rand-ian individualist, and military might. If you've ever wondered why many modern American Christians blatantly disregard the liberal social aspects of Jesus/the Bible, look no further. WW2's morale-boosting propaganda morphed into a cancer of civil discourse, deeply coupling nationalism with the perceived indisputable success of American capitalism. Consider these two points: * The Cold War started 70 years ago, and formally ended 26 years ago * 2016 Trump / Sanders popularity, bucketed by age: http://www.msnbc.com/sites/msnbc/files/age_of_voting_groups_18-24_25-34_35-44_45-54_55-64_65_and_over_chartbuilder_2.png http://www.msnbc.com/sites/msnbc/files/age_of_voting_groups_... American society takes time to change because our 2-party system is dominated by unengaged voters, the uneducated electorate that votes without thinking about it... heavily influenced by the world they grew up in, and what they were taught from k-12. When many election results are +/- 5%, moving the average 10% in one direction has long-term consequences. It's worth thinking about how our 17 year-old "War on Terror" will continue to change society...

trynumber9 9y ago
So, what was the first Red Scare, Sacco and Vanzetti, or the Scopes Trial in the 20s about then? Many of the things you attribute to the Cold War-era were present in the 1920s USA. The biggest difference was isolation.
- losteric 9y ago
  What's the difference? The first Red Scare was 3 years of isolated domestic violent agitation, and public response was largely focused on those agitators. The second Red Scare was a 50-year ideological war that saturated the nation, a generation raised demonizing concepts as "un-American" before becoming the teachers and politicians of their children. It takes time heal from that dogma.

dredmorbius 9y ago

I very strongly recommend reading literature on the Industrial Revolution(s) generally, and on relating energy and economic growth. There's still a fair bit I've yet to read, but: * Vaclav Smil, Energy in World History (1994). Highly technical, short, dense, but quite readable. Focus is on energy and technology primarily, economics and politics only remotely. * Manfred Weissenbacher, Sources of Power (2009). Also technical, long, rambles, somewhat, and unevenly edited, but still recommended. Draws heavily on Smil as well as numerous other sources, and includes more politics (particularly recent) and economics. * Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth (2016). A good technical history, a middling economics text. Really hammers home the transformation in the United States, 1870 - 2015. * Daniel Yergin, The Prize (1992). A history of oil, which is to say, the last (and largest) segments of Weissenbacher and Smil's histories (Weissenbacher continues to a forecast / scenario), and much of Gordon's work. Focus is on energy. Gordon's book is part of a series edited by Joel Mokyr on modern industrial history and development, there are several other good books within it. I've yet to read, but still recommend, Karl Polanyi's Great Transformation. And yes, the obsession with economic growth was a post-WWII thing. Mostly, people didn't want to see a return of the Great Depression and pre-war crisis.