Also, the post ww2 US period is unique in that the rest of the world either didn’t have skilled manufacturing at all or not at the scale the Americans had immed

Also, the post ww2 US period is unique in that the rest of the world either didn’t have skilled manufacturing at all or not at the scale the Americans had immediately after the war. Everyone else was bombed or not fully developed yet - it’s hard to draw universal lessons from the American experience, but it makes sense to look at the other nations that progressed after that. Like Japan for example, which was industrialized but industrialized further up the value chain after WW2