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Right. Those times of inequality led to extreme actions, like raising high margin tax rates to 90+%, like we did all throughout the Boom of the late 40s through
by muhfuhkuh 16y ago
Right. Those times of inequality led to extreme actions, like raising high margin tax rates to 90+%, like we did all throughout the Boom of the late 40s through to the 60s.
Those unusually progressive tax rates correlated to the largest economic boom in our country's history, bigger than the roaring 20s and definitely more evenly distributed. I wonder why we were so scared of socialism then when it was right at our doorstep in the form of a nearly 30-year long virtual command economy.
- fleitz 16y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jong-il http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jong-il Thats why we were so scared of socialism when it was right at our doorstep.
- muhfuhkuh 16y agoOh, please. We've had extinction-level policies before, right here in our own country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears Some put native American genocide as on-par with the Holocaust in terms of lives taken. So, perhaps it wasn't the political policies we were afraid of, or in fact any policies in general. It was likely the Cold War.
- hga 16y agoThere's a huge, special one-time discontinuity that correlates with that period: much of the world's industrial capacity being destroyed, damaged or worn out from WWII. (I suppose the initial English first in the world industrialization period might be comparable). For that matter, it's sobering to look up the statistic of when world trade returned to pre-WWI levels. I can't remember it now, but it's much later than you'd expect.