In the cold war environment the term "free world" was linked inextricably to capitalism. This had great benefits to US living standards in the first few decades

In the cold war environment the term "free world" was linked inextricably to capitalism. This had great benefits to US living standards in the first few decades (as the US could utilise global resources more than other countries, just taking them with trinkets rather than guns like in colonial time), but as other countries caught up US standards of living started to plateau, and power concentrated on smaller and smaller parts, this time cannibalising US citizens still maintaining it was the "free world"