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I'll bet you could pick up a random op-ed from a 1960s Readers' Digest and someone would be making the argument that Americans spend too much time watching TV a

by danjac 5y ago

I'll bet you could pick up a random op-ed from a 1960s Readers' Digest and someone would be making the argument that Americans spend too much time watching TV and pouring their creative energies into advertising, cosmetics and pop records while the Soviets are conquering outer space and South East Asia.

Apocryphon 5y ago
And at least back then you could point to statistical trends indicating that American poverty, income inequality, and standard of living were all trending in a desirable trajectory. Also, the moon landing.
- dash2 5y ago
  Yes, but it was also a time when Paul Samuelson and other economists predicted that the USSR would overtake US GDP by 1984: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/01/soviet-growth-american-textbooks.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/01/so...
jszymborski 5y ago
Yah, there is this incomprehensible gnawing notion that crushing oppression is somehow a great way to innovate, and that liberty and self-expression is no more than dalliance.
ethanbond 5y ago
Thankfully our competition at the time were agricultural societies LARPing as industrial ones and then a big pile of ruins in Europe. Not so today
throw_m239339 5y ago
The big difference here is that US manufacturing didn't over rely on the soviet back then, nor where they massively buying US bonds... What's the equivalent of Shenzen in US?
- epicureanideal 5y ago
  Interestingly, despite not having large, obvious, centralized manufacturing hubs, the US is not far behind China in overall manufacturing output, despite putting far less effort into it. https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scorecard-how-the-us-compares-to-18-other-nations/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scor... US is at 18% of global manufacturing vs China's 20%, but the US only gets 12% of it's overall GDP from manufacturing compared to China's 27%, and with about half the percentage of it's workforce (with a much smaller workforce).
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Only if you measure manufacturing in dollars, which is then artificially inflated by the military sector. If the US had to manufacture the products that are currently manufactured in China, the amount of dollars generated would be lower, or the share of people employed in manufacturing would explode. GDP would of course decrease.

by danjac 5y ago

Apocryphon 5y ago

And at least back then you could point to statistical trends indicating that American poverty, income inequality, and standard of living were all trending in a desirable trajectory. Also, the moon landing.

dash2 5y ago
Yes, but it was also a time when Paul Samuelson and other economists predicted that the USSR would overtake US GDP by 1984: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/01/soviet-growth-american-textbooks.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/01/so...

jszymborski 5y ago

Yah, there is this incomprehensible gnawing notion that crushing oppression is somehow a great way to innovate, and that liberty and self-expression is no more than dalliance.

ethanbond 5y ago

Thankfully our competition at the time were agricultural societies LARPing as industrial ones and then a big pile of ruins in Europe. Not so today

throw_m239339 5y ago

The big difference here is that US manufacturing didn't over rely on the soviet back then, nor where they massively buying US bonds... What's the equivalent of Shenzen in US?

epicureanideal 5y ago
Interestingly, despite not having large, obvious, centralized manufacturing hubs, the US is not far behind China in overall manufacturing output, despite putting far less effort into it. https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scorecard-how-the-us-compares-to-18-other-nations/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scor... US is at 18% of global manufacturing vs China's 20%, but the US only gets 12% of it's overall GDP from manufacturing compared to China's 27%, and with about half the percentage of it's workforce (with a much smaller workforce).
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Only if you measure manufacturing in dollars, which is then artificially inflated by the military sector. If the US had to manufacture the products that are currently manufactured in China, the amount of dollars generated would be lower, or the share of people employed in manufacturing would explode. GDP would of course decrease.