I guess it's time for some jingoistic rewriting of history. If you want to sum up America's rise to power it's the slave trade, war and a healthy dose of luck (

I guess it's time for some jingoistic rewriting of history. If you want to sum up America's rise to power it's the slave trade, war and a healthy dose of luck (eg the Louisiana Purchase). There is a concerted attempt to rewrite history on slavery. You will hear things like "slavery was an economic drain" or "slavery was inefficient" or even "it was technology like the cotton gin that created wealth, not slavery". All of it's nonsense [1]. It's true that industrialization (particularly the railroad ans mass production of steel) was a huge driver in the mid-19th century but what really kicked the US into high gear was war [2]. It's true that material conditions and real wages started stagnating in the 1970s but this piece writes that off as Wall Street shenanigans. This was a political goal to break organized labor. We had McKinsey producing reports to argue that executives were "underpaid" [3]. The post-war era went from a marginal tax rate of 91% and the CEO to median worker ratio went from 21:1 in 1965 to 351:1 in the 2020s [4]. But also the post-war economy shifted from housing being a utility to being a speculative asset. The median house price went from $18,000 to $26,000 between 1953 and 1973 (in nominal terms) [5] and decreased in real terms. And, well, we know what's happened since. But what's less well-known is the link between money going into housing and decline in manufacturing. That's not an accident. Why invest money and run a factory when sitting on a house produces a 7%+ real returns that are government-protected? As for the whole "right to repair" bit for tractors and the like, yeah, companies engage in rent-seeking behavior in a capitalist mode of production. Film at 11. [1]: https://equitablegrowth.org/new-research-shows-slaverys-central-role-in-u-s-economic-growth-leading-up-to-the-civil-war/ https://equitablegrowth.org/new-research-shows-slaverys-cent... [2]: https://laraballard.substack.com/p/how-the-us-became-the-worlds-arms https://laraballard.substack.com/p/how-the-us-became-the-wor... [3]: https://observer.com/2013/08/the-godfather-of-ceo-megapay-mckinsey-consultant-arch-patton-didnt-invent-wealth-inequality/ https://observer.com/2013/08/the-godfather-of-ceo-megapay-mc... [4]: https://x.com/RBReich/status/1575516013009018880 https://x.com/RBReich/status/1575516013009018880 [5]: https://dqydj.com/historical-home-prices/ https://dqydj.com/historical-home-prices/