4 ms·

> In the 60s it was possible for a man to work an ordinary job, buy a house, settle down with a wife and support two or three children. Every kind of a man, or

by Demiurge 11mo ago

> In the 60s it was possible for a man to work an ordinary job, buy a house, settle down with a wife and support two or three children. Every kind of a man, or woman? > Do people really think more technology is going to be the path to a better society? Because to me it looks like the opposite. Well, this probably why statistics exist.

Karrot_Kream 11mo ago
Yeah if you bar over 50% of your workforce from working at market clearing wages then naturally the other 50% are going to get paid at their expense. When you underpay minorities and often outright ban women from working formal employment, it's not hard to see how wages for the others remain high.
- jimbokun 11mo ago
  Well congratulations! We have succeeded in having stagnating wages and stagnating standard of living for everyone now!
  - doctorpangloss 11mo ago
    Lemme guess, we should bring back Bretton Woods?
  - Karrot_Kream 11mo ago
    Do you want to take a 20% pay cut so I can take the marginal benefit? Who wants to volunteer to be barred from working so I can negotiate better salary?
    - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
      I have no full time job, so I already took the cut. You're welcome.
  - satvikpendem 11mo ago
    Will you volunteer to not work so that I can instead?
jitix 11mo ago
Thanks for pointing out this skewed view of economic history common in North America. The short period of boom in 50s/60s US and Canada was driven by WW2 devastation everywhere else. We can see the economic crisis' in the US first in the 70s/80s with Europe and Japan rebounding, then again in 90s/00s with China and East Asia growing, and now again with the rest of the world growing (esp Latin America, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Philippines, etc). Unless US physically invades and devastates China, India or Brazil the competition will keep getting exponentially higher. It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs. In short, its easier to have high standards of living in your secure isolated island when the rest of the world (including historical industrial powers) are completely decimated by war.
- jimbokun 11mo ago
  > It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs. What does this sentence mean?
  - redhed 11mo ago
    I assume the idea is more money could've been invested into bringing the bottom rungs of American society up and created a more skilled and educated workforce in the process.
    - jimbokun 11mo ago
      So "social capital" == "education"? The US has pushed a shit ton of money into education. I mean an unreasonable amount of it went to administrators. But the goal and the intent was certainly there.
      - nradov 11mo ago
        Education is part of it. But a lot of the social capital which makes societies prosperous is separate from what we usually consider to be education. On an individual behavior level that includes things like knowing how to show up for work on time, sober, and properly dressed, and follow management instructions without arguing or taking things personally. These are skills that people in the middle and upper classes take for granted but they forget that there are a large number of fellow citizens in the economically disconnected underclass who never had a good opportunity to learn those basics. As a society we've never done a good job of lifting those people up.
cedws 11mo ago
I'm not going to engage with you on a debate because you aren't acting in good faith.
jimbokun 11mo ago
> Every kind of a man, or woman? Why do so many people miss the point on this? Instead of making this dream true for all the people who were previously excluded, we have pursued equality by making this dream accessible to NO ONE. > Well, this probably why statistics exist. Like the statistics on plummeting mental health and happiness, an obesity epidemic, increases in "deaths of despair", and plateauing or decreasing life expectancy?
- apsurd 11mo ago
  You're both right. I take your point to mean similar to the disastrous outcome of "no child left behind" act. I do agree with you, but people didn't seriously _intend_ for the result to be everyone lowers to a shit position. Or maybe you're saying that's always how these initiatives turn out? It can't be helped?
  - atq2119 11mo ago
    It's important to remember that people are not some homogenous mass. There were certainly some rich and powerful people who did intend to lower everyone (else) to a shit position. That's what stuff like anti-union policies are about. Sure, they drape it up in nice rhetoric, but ultimately the intent is to reduce the power (and thereby the material outcomes) of the common the worker. But of course there were also other developments that had the effect more unintentionally.
- watwut 11mo ago
  I think there is something to be valued about historical accuracy. > Like the statistics on plummeting mental health and happiness, an obesity epidemic, increases in "deaths of despair", and plateauing or decreasing life expectancy? In the 60ties, suicide rates went UP. Peaked around 1970 and we did not reached their levels. Long terms statistics about alcoholism rates and drug use are also a real exiting thing. We know that cirrhosis death rate was going up in the 60ties up to 70ties, peaked and went down. It was the time when drinking and driving campaigns started. Current drug use is nowhere near what it was a generation ago.
- johnnyanmac 11mo ago
apsurd 11mo ago
I originally upvoted the parent comment. But I changed it. "The good ol' days" ... yeah, but good for who?
- crossbody 11mo ago
  The good old days... that never were! Life has improved for nearly everyone on nearly every metric. But if one myopically focuses on house purchasing as the only thing that matters and takes anomalous post WW2 period, then sure, things are bad (ignoring the fact that housing space and quality + amenities improved dramatically, but hey, who cares about nuance, we just love to complain!)
tharne 11mo ago
> Well, this probably why statistics exist. How are statistics going to answer this question? Statistics are used to measure things. They don't tell you what things you should be measuring.
scythe 11mo ago
A lot of the people who admire the caricatured midcentury economy are probably actually just nostalgic for the '90s. Case-Shiller was much lower, gas was cheap, college was still relatively affordable. The biggest economic complaints of the present day were not as serious then. (There were still affordable parts of the Bay Area!) The subjection of black people and women that existed in the 60s obviously wasn't necessary for those things to be possible. But each decade's economy is the product of decades past. The policies of the 90s brought us to the present. So we don't want to repeat the mistakes of the 90s, and the 80s are associated with the iniquities of the Reagan administration. Thus you get this misplaced nostalgia for the 50s-70s without really understanding the problems or the progress that society made even as the highest levels of government seemed to drift off course.
lizknope 11mo ago
> Every kind of a man, or woman? Exactly. What about black people or any other minority? Black people couldn't even vote until 1965. Housing discrimination and things like redlining would prevent people from living where they wanted even if they had the money.

Karrot_Kream 11mo ago

Yeah if you bar over 50% of your workforce from working at market clearing wages then naturally the other 50% are going to get paid at their expense. When you underpay minorities and often outright ban women from working formal employment, it's not hard to see how wages for the others remain high.

jimbokun 11mo ago
Well congratulations! We have succeeded in having stagnating wages and stagnating standard of living for everyone now!
- doctorpangloss 11mo ago
  Lemme guess, we should bring back Bretton Woods?
- Karrot_Kream 11mo ago
  Do you want to take a 20% pay cut so I can take the marginal benefit? Who wants to volunteer to be barred from working so I can negotiate better salary?
  - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
    I have no full time job, so I already took the cut. You're welcome.
- satvikpendem 11mo ago
  Will you volunteer to not work so that I can instead?

jitix 11mo ago

Thanks for pointing out this skewed view of economic history common in North America. The short period of boom in 50s/60s US and Canada was driven by WW2 devastation everywhere else. We can see the economic crisis' in the US first in the 70s/80s with Europe and Japan rebounding, then again in 90s/00s with China and East Asia growing, and now again with the rest of the world growing (esp Latin America, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Philippines, etc). Unless US physically invades and devastates China, India or Brazil the competition will keep getting exponentially higher. It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs. In short, its easier to have high standards of living in your secure isolated island when the rest of the world (including historical industrial powers) are completely decimated by war.

jimbokun 11mo ago
> It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs. What does this sentence mean?
- redhed 11mo ago
  I assume the idea is more money could've been invested into bringing the bottom rungs of American society up and created a more skilled and educated workforce in the process.
  - jimbokun 11mo ago
    So "social capital" == "education"? The US has pushed a shit ton of money into education. I mean an unreasonable amount of it went to administrators. But the goal and the intent was certainly there.
    - nradov 11mo ago
      Education is part of it. But a lot of the social capital which makes societies prosperous is separate from what we usually consider to be education. On an individual behavior level that includes things like knowing how to show up for work on time, sober, and properly dressed, and follow management instructions without arguing or taking things personally. These are skills that people in the middle and upper classes take for granted but they forget that there are a large number of fellow citizens in the economically disconnected underclass who never had a good opportunity to learn those basics. As a society we've never done a good job of lifting those people up.

cedws 11mo ago

I'm not going to engage with you on a debate because you aren't acting in good faith.

jimbokun 11mo ago

> Every kind of a man, or woman? Why do so many people miss the point on this? Instead of making this dream true for all the people who were previously excluded, we have pursued equality by making this dream accessible to NO ONE. > Well, this probably why statistics exist. Like the statistics on plummeting mental health and happiness, an obesity epidemic, increases in "deaths of despair", and plateauing or decreasing life expectancy?

apsurd 11mo ago
You're both right. I take your point to mean similar to the disastrous outcome of "no child left behind" act. I do agree with you, but people didn't seriously _intend_ for the result to be everyone lowers to a shit position. Or maybe you're saying that's always how these initiatives turn out? It can't be helped?
- atq2119 11mo ago
  It's important to remember that people are not some homogenous mass. There were certainly some rich and powerful people who did intend to lower everyone (else) to a shit position. That's what stuff like anti-union policies are about. Sure, they drape it up in nice rhetoric, but ultimately the intent is to reduce the power (and thereby the material outcomes) of the common the worker. But of course there were also other developments that had the effect more unintentionally.
watwut 11mo ago
I think there is something to be valued about historical accuracy. > Like the statistics on plummeting mental health and happiness, an obesity epidemic, increases in "deaths of despair", and plateauing or decreasing life expectancy? In the 60ties, suicide rates went UP. Peaked around 1970 and we did not reached their levels. Long terms statistics about alcoholism rates and drug use are also a real exiting thing. We know that cirrhosis death rate was going up in the 60ties up to 70ties, peaked and went down. It was the time when drinking and driving campaigns started. Current drug use is nowhere near what it was a generation ago.
johnnyanmac 11mo ago

apsurd 11mo ago

I originally upvoted the parent comment. But I changed it. "The good ol' days" ... yeah, but good for who?

crossbody 11mo ago
The good old days... that never were! Life has improved for nearly everyone on nearly every metric. But if one myopically focuses on house purchasing as the only thing that matters and takes anomalous post WW2 period, then sure, things are bad (ignoring the fact that housing space and quality + amenities improved dramatically, but hey, who cares about nuance, we just love to complain!)

tharne 11mo ago

> Well, this probably why statistics exist. How are statistics going to answer this question? Statistics are used to measure things. They don't tell you what things you should be measuring.

scythe 11mo ago

A lot of the people who admire the caricatured midcentury economy are probably actually just nostalgic for the '90s. Case-Shiller was much lower, gas was cheap, college was still relatively affordable. The biggest economic complaints of the present day were not as serious then. (There were still affordable parts of the Bay Area!) The subjection of black people and women that existed in the 60s obviously wasn't necessary for those things to be possible. But each decade's economy is the product of decades past. The policies of the 90s brought us to the present. So we don't want to repeat the mistakes of the 90s, and the 80s are associated with the iniquities of the Reagan administration. Thus you get this misplaced nostalgia for the 50s-70s without really understanding the problems or the progress that society made even as the highest levels of government seemed to drift off course.

lizknope 11mo ago

> Every kind of a man, or woman? Exactly. What about black people or any other minority? Black people couldn't even vote until 1965. Housing discrimination and things like redlining would prevent people from living where they wanted even if they had the money.