There's a lot more context behind why we were better at building things in the 1940s and 50s than less regulation and bureaucracy. For example we spent 7% of G

There's a lot more context behind why we were better at building things in the 1940s and 50s than less regulation and bureaucracy. For example we spent 7% of GDP every year on a government agency to build stuff - not because it was needed, just because it created jobs for people at the tail end of the Depression and first half of the War. Perhaps the entire industry that it fueled didn't die overnight and the millions of people they employed made building at scale during the largest economic expansion in American history helped.