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I recommend checking out the fantastic, "The Rise and Fall of American Growth". The book provides very strong evidence that the era of American growth which pro

I recommend checking out the fantastic, "The Rise and Fall of American Growth". The book provides very strong evidence that the era of American growth which produced our modern standard of living starts in 1870 and actually ends in 1940, though there was also an era of less important but still strong growth from 1940-1970. Furthermore, this is a bit of a counterfactual as we don't actually know the trajectory of technology without the war. Some thing we know for certain though, mass electrification and public health were well underway before the war and continued through it. These being probably the two most important developments that improved productivity and the quality of life for most people.

asdff 3y ago
Its crazy how little this country has really changed since 1970, when you remove the superficial fluff like iphones or flat screen tv. Take a neighborhood in socal. It might be full of dingbat apartments. 50 years ago in 1973 it probably looked exactly the same since thats when those apartments where built. Go back another 50 years though, and you have a former spanish ranchero with cattle, oil derricks, or fruit orchards depending on what block of southern californian suburbia you are considering. The world was growing and changing rapidly then basically stalled out. much more restrictive zoning separating degrees of use (e.g. apartment versus a home) versus type of use (residential vs industrial) came in to replace redlining in effort to limit movement of the working poor into certain neighborhoods so as not to affect real estate valuations, and now we have our world today, full of 50+ year old apartments and 70+ year old single story "starter" californian homes going for over $1000 a square foot thanks to our inability to add more housing to an in demand area.
- DubiousPusher 3y ago
  Yeah. I think that a lot of these changes after 1940 are much more to do with socio/political factors than growth. By 1940 you have the GDP to support a middle class. It's the collective experience of the Great Depression, WWII and the rheotric of the New Deal that produce a populace that just wouldn't put up with significant imbalance in the riches of society. People who fought in and justified WWII contrasted it with WWI. The claim being that WWI was a war fought on behalf of the old world system. And WWII was a true war for Democracy. I think it would've been very hard after that kind of mobilization, sacrifice and rhetoric to re-instute the Gilded Age ethos of a system which the rules of the game were sacred about the outcomes. In this way American Democracy is born of the FDR era. I don't mean this in the narrow sense of the size of the electorate though that is important. At every level, America's systems Democratized. From the way the Supreme Court interpreted the law, to the choices of industry in what to produce, to how the rewards of production were distributed. There was a broad transition from the notion that institutions existed to maintain rules towards a notion that these institutions in their largest sense needed to serve the people. I think a lot of what has happened since 1970 is a transition back to a way of looking at the world through the pre-democratic lense. The biggest difference being that now there is a plurality which is the upper half of the middle class who have some similar interests to the wealthy in protecting their wealth.
  - asdff 3y ago
    >I think a lot of what has happened since 1970 is a transition back to a way of looking at the world through the pre-democratic lense. The biggest difference being that now there is a plurality which is the upper half of the middle class who have some similar interests to the wealthy in protecting their wealth. I agree although I believe that the upper middle class and the capital class still don't actually have similar interests if you think about things that are actually in the upper middle class's best interest. In the context of a propaganda model (1), most people just aren't exposed to opinions that even align with their true economic interests. They are often exposed to opinions that actually kowtow the economic status quo that benefits the existing elite establishment more than anything. Mass media has been able to stratify labor: it has divided the working poor among right and left on cultural considerations versus unifying it through economic arguments, and made the white collar class which still has to sell their labor for wages believe they are no longer of the working class, and have little need to organize themselves. Labor as a unified movement has been divided and effectively conquered. A sad state of affairs. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  The people who got into power in the 70s basically still haven't left. Plenty of our politicians were born before the civil rights act.
  - asdff 3y ago
    I think its even more insidious than that. The political party machine on both the GOP and Dem side control what candidates are even put in front of us. Populist antiestablishmentism doesn't get you far because both the media and the political party itself are working against you. So you will still see younger politicians who hold these opinions in positions of power, because these are the opinions of the elite more than anything generational, and these are the candidates who receive the most support and most air time in front of voters.
    - DubiousPusher 3y ago
      Yes. I got very involved in my local district party a few years back. Probably the most powerful and effective organ of this party was its endorsements committee. I found it staggeringly depressing that round after round of endorsements went to exactly the same kinds of people: small business owners, cops, nurses, teachers and prosecutors. Basically, if you were for the system, you got in. Almost always the endorsement went to small business owners. Those endorsed almost always won the primary because they were immediately supported by party affiliated groups. The endoresment committee passed up social workers, corrections officers and public defenders. I remember one lady who worked in the sheriffs office for like 10 years came to talk about how things actually worked and what needed to change. She spoke clearly about the issue in the office, not polemical at all. Committee was a hard NO on her.

asdff 3y ago

Its crazy how little this country has really changed since 1970, when you remove the superficial fluff like iphones or flat screen tv. Take a neighborhood in socal. It might be full of dingbat apartments. 50 years ago in 1973 it probably looked exactly the same since thats when those apartments where built. Go back another 50 years though, and you have a former spanish ranchero with cattle, oil derricks, or fruit orchards depending on what block of southern californian suburbia you are considering. The world was growing and changing rapidly then basically stalled out. much more restrictive zoning separating degrees of use (e.g. apartment versus a home) versus type of use (residential vs industrial) came in to replace redlining in effort to limit movement of the working poor into certain neighborhoods so as not to affect real estate valuations, and now we have our world today, full of 50+ year old apartments and 70+ year old single story "starter" californian homes going for over $1000 a square foot thanks to our inability to add more housing to an in demand area.

DubiousPusher 3y ago
Yeah. I think that a lot of these changes after 1940 are much more to do with socio/political factors than growth. By 1940 you have the GDP to support a middle class. It's the collective experience of the Great Depression, WWII and the rheotric of the New Deal that produce a populace that just wouldn't put up with significant imbalance in the riches of society. People who fought in and justified WWII contrasted it with WWI. The claim being that WWI was a war fought on behalf of the old world system. And WWII was a true war for Democracy. I think it would've been very hard after that kind of mobilization, sacrifice and rhetoric to re-instute the Gilded Age ethos of a system which the rules of the game were sacred about the outcomes. In this way American Democracy is born of the FDR era. I don't mean this in the narrow sense of the size of the electorate though that is important. At every level, America's systems Democratized. From the way the Supreme Court interpreted the law, to the choices of industry in what to produce, to how the rewards of production were distributed. There was a broad transition from the notion that institutions existed to maintain rules towards a notion that these institutions in their largest sense needed to serve the people. I think a lot of what has happened since 1970 is a transition back to a way of looking at the world through the pre-democratic lense. The biggest difference being that now there is a plurality which is the upper half of the middle class who have some similar interests to the wealthy in protecting their wealth.
- asdff 3y ago
  >I think a lot of what has happened since 1970 is a transition back to a way of looking at the world through the pre-democratic lense. The biggest difference being that now there is a plurality which is the upper half of the middle class who have some similar interests to the wealthy in protecting their wealth. I agree although I believe that the upper middle class and the capital class still don't actually have similar interests if you think about things that are actually in the upper middle class's best interest. In the context of a propaganda model (1), most people just aren't exposed to opinions that even align with their true economic interests. They are often exposed to opinions that actually kowtow the economic status quo that benefits the existing elite establishment more than anything. Mass media has been able to stratify labor: it has divided the working poor among right and left on cultural considerations versus unifying it through economic arguments, and made the white collar class which still has to sell their labor for wages believe they are no longer of the working class, and have little need to organize themselves. Labor as a unified movement has been divided and effectively conquered. A sad state of affairs. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
mrguyorama 3y ago
The people who got into power in the 70s basically still haven't left. Plenty of our politicians were born before the civil rights act.
- asdff 3y ago
  I think its even more insidious than that. The political party machine on both the GOP and Dem side control what candidates are even put in front of us. Populist antiestablishmentism doesn't get you far because both the media and the political party itself are working against you. So you will still see younger politicians who hold these opinions in positions of power, because these are the opinions of the elite more than anything generational, and these are the candidates who receive the most support and most air time in front of voters.
  - DubiousPusher 3y ago
    Yes. I got very involved in my local district party a few years back. Probably the most powerful and effective organ of this party was its endorsements committee. I found it staggeringly depressing that round after round of endorsements went to exactly the same kinds of people: small business owners, cops, nurses, teachers and prosecutors. Basically, if you were for the system, you got in. Almost always the endorsement went to small business owners. Those endorsed almost always won the primary because they were immediately supported by party affiliated groups. The endoresment committee passed up social workers, corrections officers and public defenders. I remember one lady who worked in the sheriffs office for like 10 years came to talk about how things actually worked and what needed to change. She spoke clearly about the issue in the office, not polemical at all. Committee was a hard NO on her.