I wish I could upvote this more. It constantly astounds me that people construct elaborate theories about the decay of morality amongst the elite of America wh

I wish I could upvote this more. It constantly astounds me that people construct elaborate theories about the decay of morality amongst the elite of America when faced with such a powerful supply/demand argument. It's pretty simple really: the industrialized nations spent tremendous resources over a span of about 7 reducing each other to rubble. At the end of it, they wanted to rebuild, and the only country with industrial capacity remaining was the United States. Furthermore, the process of rebuilding was extremely labor-intensive, involving construction and manufacture of durable commercial and consumer goods in an environment with low automation. To top it all off, when the other nations were finally rebuilt and started to be competitive again, the size of the available labor pool simultaneously started to expand as women entered the workforce. The middle-class American dream was the result of a global labor market anomaly that lasted for several decades, which was long enough to convince everyone that it was the new normal, and the long decline since the late 70s was the result of that anomaly ending.