USA so called golden age, ca 1945 to 70s seems a myth to me?

[E.man]

Maybe, I don't think people in Sweden really consider any time of the country's history as a golden age, like we have the great power era but I'm not sure that is the same thing.

Depend what you mean with winning, in various health messures it seems like USA have been behind like Sweden and some other countries since like late 19th century and unlike many other countries have still never been able to reach parity with those countries.

Not Swedes considering their own country, but different ways of considering the U.S.

Such as your point there considering 'health measures ' , but others may place more emphasis on wealth.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Not Swedes considering their own country, but different ways of considering the U.S.

Such as your point there considering 'health measures ' , but others may place more emphasis on wealth.

I don't know what americans consider wealth, but I say health and time off work is a big part of a wealthy society, like what is the point of being rich if you don't have time to enjoy it?

 

[Verbose]

Which is pretty meaningless given it don't seems to benefit the people, like massive GDP but life expectency that had recently been occupied in a world war and a few decades later behind those countries.

It did precisely that in the decades past WWII. Americans lived longer, were generally healthier, richer. At least if you were white in the US.

It's from the 1970's things started going "clonk" in the American economy, in the sense that greater aggregate growth did not necessarily translate into more wealth for people in general. But in the 1940's - 60's it did. Everything was on the up – no unemployment, and more disposable wealth per year for (most of) the US general public. They even had trade unions like in Europe back then. They only killed them off later.

Americans in general up to the early 1970's were already about as economically well off as most Europeans today. And relative other countries at the time, Americans were usually rich af. Even Americans struggle to get their heads around how relatively much richer they were back then. They aren't poor, and not really poorer relatively – but compared to back then, they now look kind of normal compared to the rest of the developed world. Back then they looked like frikkin Gods...

 

[Verbose]

Maybe, I don't think people in Sweden really consider any time of the country's history as a golden age, like we have the great power era but I'm not sure that is the same thing.

Swedes largely don't know or think about history. It's very "now", or at times future-centric.

It's kind of super-modern in it self-conception, and part of modernity is regarding past history as just a lot of bad stuff happening – so clearly there can't be a "golden age" because the past by definition was at best sub-par, but really most often seen as just actively bad. If it was wall to wall, oppression, prejudice and exploitation, and the well-meaning attempts to build awareness of history in schools in effect comes to boil down to just... bad things. (The intention was not just to make students aware of injustices, but to understand processes etc., but the teachers don't necessarily do that either, so "bad" kind of becomes the general take-away for everyone.)

Students I got to interact with over this in the last 20 years or so have clearly developed gradually ever dimmer views of Sweden's past and history – including the popular ideas that Sweden was actively and happily on Nazi Germany's side in WWII, and before that it was Sweden that invented the Nazi theories of race – none of which was actually the case. The past is just bad to them.

Not even the Swedish Democrats are interested in history. They are interested in a weird form of culturalist, nativist narrative of "Swedishness" that has little actual relation to history. History can just be cherry-picked for some signal value stuff. But in reality SD has the same kind of a-historical relationship to the past as just "bad" in general. They were happy as clams to try to pin blame for the early 20th c. history of eugenics in Sweden on the Social Democrats. They are pretty damn unconcerned about their own Nazi past at the same time.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

It did precisely that in the decades past WWII. Americans lived longer, were generally healthier, richer. At least if you were white in the US.

It's from the 1970's things started going "clonk" in the American economy, in the sense that greater aggregate growth did not necessarily translate into more wealth for people in general. But in the 1940's - 60's it did. Everything was on the up – no unemployment, and more disposable wealth per year for (most of) the US general public. They even had trade unions like in Europe back then. They only killed them off later.

Americans in general up to the early 1970's were already about as economically well off as most Europeans today. And relative other countries at the time, Americans were usually rich af. Even Americans struggle to get their heads around how relatively much richer they were back then. They aren't poor, and not really poorer relatively – but compared to back then, they now look kind of normal compared to the rest of the developed world. Back then they looked like frikkin Gods...

Obviously not. Life expectency in USA in 1910 seems to been about 52 years, which is higher than many countries, but the leading country Denmark was at 58 and quite a few other countries was ahead of USA. In 1950 USA at 68 years was 4 years behind the leading country Norway at 72 years. By 1970 USA was at 71 (lower than Norway 2 decades ago) while the leading country Sweden was at 75 years. In 2019 USA at 79 while the leading country Monaco was at 87. So in the last 100 years or so, you can maybe not find a single year in which USA was the leader in life expectency. https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

Trade unions membership from what I can tell in USA was about 30% at its peak in 1950, lower than countries like Sweden today. Unemployment, poverty and economic resecions was very much things that happend USA during those times as well. No way early 1970s USA was as well of economically as most europeans today, it is probably not better of economically than modern USA when you consider all the things, life expectency is a bit better and 1970s households would be severally lacking in material goods compared to today. At a life expectency of 71, 1970 USA would have worse life expectency than perhaps even the worst doing european countries in that regard today and stuff like vacation time, work conditions and such was as bad in USA in 1970 as it is today.

 

[Verbose]

USA seems very strange, like it don't seems to really have developed the basic public infrastructure to take care of its people like other countries have and I don't understand why as it seems to make everyone, including the rich people significantly worse of than in other countries that manage to develop their infrastructure.

It had. It had things like public transport, railways, trade unions, health care etc. The US in the 1960's looked A LOT more like European countries today in its inner workings. And everyone was looking to the US for inspiration this side of the Atlantic. It then started diverging, to the point we are seeing today.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

It had. It had things like public transport, railways, trade unions, health care etc. The US in the 1960's looked A LOT more like European countries today in its inner workings. And everyone was looking to the US for inspiration this side of the Atlantic. It then started diverging, to the point we are seeing today.

Because it may look more like eureopan countries in 1960 than it do in 2020 don't mean it was doing particular well or even better than it do today and many of the same problems as today was very much there in 1960s.

 

[Verbose]

Because it may look more like eureopan countries in 1960 than it do in 2020 don't mean it was doing particular well or even better than it do today and many of the same problems as today was very much there in 1960s.

It was doing better than everyone – except if you cherry pick a few choice parameters, AND compare the US to the actual world-beaters. Meaning the US was not consistently better than everyone, in every parameter, all the time. The aggregate picture is still that the US was beating the rest of the world hands down in the period. Everything was consistently getter better in the US.

And since one of the countries you have picked out for comparison is Sweden – well, you have spotted Sweden's post-WWII "gold age".

Sweden was in the G6 still as late as 1948, i.e. in overall economic performance and ability at the time, its relative position was comparable to that of the UK or France today.

The only place Sweden in the 1960's would look to for inspiration was the US. Europe was completely uninteresting to Sweden - just broken crap all over still in the process of re-assembly. While Sweden was all modern, with the new relative wealth not as a thing in itself but an indicator, a measuring device, for that modernity. The only equally, or more modern place to compare was the US.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Sweden was merely still in the G6 in 1948 because it kept out of two world wars that buggered up most other countries.

 

[Angst]

War years wages went through the roof.

Scandinavia prosperity is a reasonably recent development btw. USA was still "winning" into the 80's.

In real terms (ignoring micro and petro states) Scandinavia, Germany, Canada, Australia about the best it gets on the planet now.

Several of those states won the geography jackpot+small population+effective government.

alright so a few notes here. the post is kind of vague and half-true, i'd like to just dig into some of the vagueness and how it can mislead, intentional or not. like specifically in regards to scandinavian geography, because i have quite a few thoughts on that.

first off, mentioning scandinavia, germany, canada and australia as examples of states that are generally doing well... that's true. but that "several of those states won the geography jackpot"... uh. it's a half-truth. like germany did. australia and canada ambigious imo.

scandinavia for sure didn't. like, norway and denmark randomly found oil, but beyond that, crap arable land (generally), scandinavia comparably little natural resources, particularly compared to germany and the us. sweden has some heavy industry and some very agriculture-friendly areas, but most of it just isn't, and if one wants to explain scandinavia's success with oil as a natural resource, and therefore good geography, it can never explain sweden, who's doing just as well. in regards to arable land, denmark has historically had its two of its most lucrative areas taken away (schleswig-holstein and scania). today, danish agriculture is all about proper mechanization, which we have to do in order to compete on the european market. point is, it's crap. and beyond that, denmark is a sand bank of nothing - and oil.

(my point is not that we're tundra, because we're not; it's more that a lot of danish land is a bunch of sand and clay. norway is mountains. it's crap)

scandinavian prosperity both is a reasonably recent and isn't. denkt has some good points in regards to life expectancy, but... ok i'm gonna talk from mostly the danish perspective. historically, the nordic countries managed to achieve some quite impressive imperialism, but it could never stick due to low population. the danelaw was possible due to britain being an example of the dark ages actually making sense to call a period, whole area was a mess. swedish imperialism in europe was possible in germany due to german infighting; elsewhere it was good military doctrines and largely periodic as other, more powerful countries eventually reformed their armies and could properly execute on their many disadvantages. same holds true for the short-lasting advantage of longboats. so yes, that scandinavian prosperity is recent is quite true, at least how improbable it should be in regards to a base of resources and population. just look back to historical scandinavian mass migration to the us; there was a reason for this. the population dent is still felt today. scandinavia was not doing well. point is, yes, the current absurd levels of HDI, GDP per capita, good GINI, etc, is recent, and compared to eg germany and the us, it's done in spite of pretty awful geographical conditions; like to be clear, the geography of the us and germany is just trouncing scandinavia. so what's been done is actually, yes, mostly policy.

and with that, let's return to the thread. so no longer musing about what you wrote specifically.

the thing is that in spite of all the domestic horrors in the us (in regards to women and minorities), up until the 70s and 80s, the us and scandinavia were generally following the same political path. in different implementations, not as universal, and sometimes not as extreme, but if you look back at a lot of us policies before neoliberalism, you'd see things that are standard practice in scandinavia today. high tax rates, practical subsidies (even if just to white kids), stuff like that. the recent destruction of common prosperity in the us is a very intentional one. not necessarily because of callousness, but because people with money want more money that they don't need. and sometimes because of callousness. it was a golden age, not necessarily because things were good, but because they were getting better, so damn fast.

i always looking at geography first when explaining something. it's always geography, except when it isn't. the sound due and triangle trade built denmark until sweden finally won the bloody centuries of war and took scania. then we were left with mostly crap natural resources as eg germany was consolidating its soil.

one of the reasons for the vast amount of disorder today is that many us citizens - rightfully - recognize that there is so much natural wealth in the us that is not being allocated accordingly. there is a discrepancy here - a contradiction, if you will. you don't see greenlanders rebelling against the greenland government for taxing agriculture too much, or danish mining communities collapsing because their government aren't investing in areas afflicted by a dying industry. see, denmark doesn't have any real domestic mining, and greenland is an ice sheet. the us is at the forefront of goods industry, agriculture, tech - and when the us doesn't have a resource, they've ensured (forcibly or not) postcolonial deals globally to get the resources they want, cheaply. all while the poor are denied access to this, and are often actively discriminated against beyond that very basic principle. in the us, one could just allocate the resources to ensure prosperity; it's obviously working in scandinavia despite our conditions.

the nordic model is not perfect, but it allows countries without real resources to punch way above their weight. and the us were well on the same path for a few decades of the 20th century, the supposed golden age of the country.

(sidenote 1, scandinavian ethnic cohesion is not really an argument here; denmark and norway are a gathering of a multitude of incomprehensible dialects - in denmark, they're only recently disappearing; sweden and denmark fought a centuries long ethnic vendetta. cohesion in scandinavia is a very recent thing and quite artificial; and if it really matters, the us's lack of cohesion is on the us themselves. if you speak english, you can mostly make due from the atlantic to the pacific. italian, german and scandinavian descendants have no relevant nationalist aspirations in the us. non-federal state nationalism is mostly politically insignificant. if cohesion was as big of a factor as the detractors of the nordic model claim, it would not be the reason for the us to be that bad.)

(sidenote 2, yea i'm expecting eg hygro to just show up and kick my rear end with some corrections and maybe worse, and i welcome it! anything actual economists write mostly supercede my own position)

 

[Verbose]

Sweden was merely still in the G6 in 1948 because it kept out of two world wars that buggered up most other countries.

No one attacked it. As Churchill put it in 1940: "The last thing we want is another casualty." Of course people can still demand it should still have thrown itself under the tracks of the then victorious Nazi Germany to make some kind of point.

You can think it "unfair" or something, but it doesn't change anything.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Not to mention it was the height of US industry. Mainly due to the massive industrial base built during WW2.

Not to mention the total devastation of the industrial/technological capabilities of Germany and Japan, who are both now industrial and technological powerhouses.

 

[Remorseless1]

As a late member of the US Boomer Generation, I have but one question:

Golden Age???

Never heard it labeled that way before. Sure, the US won the lottery by being the lone surviving major industrial power after WW2, but it paled compared to the massive social and cultural changes occurring in the US from 1945 until, really, now. Brown v Topeka was in 1954, which ended 90 years of segregation in the US. The first rumblings of the push for gay rights popped into the open with Ginsberg's "Howl." The US and the USSR actually cooperated to pry France and England off the Suez Canal they seized in 1956. In 1962, prayer was banned in schools (at least teacher-led prayers), the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts passed in 1964-65.

I don't ascribe to some fascist nonsense about a Golden Age and I don't think many of my fellow citizens do as well. Just one Boomer's opinion.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

In real terms (ignoring micro and petro states) Scandinavia, Germany, Canada, Australia about the best it gets on the planet now.

Several of those states won the geography jackpot+small population+effective government.

I remember effective government. Vaguely. It's been a long time since we had one, either federally or provincially, though the Liberals have tried to undo some of the Dark Decade of Stephen Harper. In fact, my province's government has become less effective every day for years. Now we have a BS!C woman as premier, who is determined to refuse to follow any federal laws she doesn't like, she courts the votes of domestic terrorists and separatists, and on the day of her swearing-in, she declared that the unvaccinated (covid anti-vaxxers) are the most discriminated-against group of people she's seen in her lifetime. Even when she was forced to address that, her speech did not acknowledge she was wrong, nor did it contain an apology.

Canada's motto is "Peace, Order, and Good Government." I guess one out of three is better than none (we're not currently at war with anyone, as far as I'm aware). Order went out the window with the Freedumb Convoy crap last year that disrupted normal life in multiple cities and blocked two of the international crossings between Canada and the U.S. Plans to storm Parliament (guess who was inspired by January 6 in the U.S.?), plus partying on and desecrating the National War Memorial and some woman actually dancing on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier... they didn't even charge her with anything for that. So much for order.

As for Canada winning a geography jackpot... yeah, we had lots of good stuff until various things happened. The fisheries on both coasts used to be excellent. Due to overfishing both domestic and foreign, they're not now. Pollution and climate change have taken their toll as well. There are lakes that used to be wonderful places for freshwater fish. Some of them are either dead now, or suffer periodic bouts of contamination. I'd never eat anything caught there now.

Oh, and "The Alberta Advantage"... even now there are people on the other side of Canada that resent my province for the O&G, as they imagine we're all rich here. I once asked another Canadian on a different gaming forum if she thought the roads here are pave with gold, and she actually said yes.

Well, most of our roads aren't bad; they were pretty good in lots of places when the government gave a damn and figured roads were important enough to keep in good condition.

The tarsands in the northern region of the province have received international attention and condemnation, and I understand that. It's an ecological disaster that our idiotic right-wing government insisted could be remediated within a decade.

Cow pies. Try a century or more, assuming they stop everything tomorrow.

I remember being surprised and angered some years ago at finding a Cenovus ad in my Reader's Digest magazine. That company supports fracking, which is great for destroying farms and ranches in the ongoing search for oil & gas. Formerly productive land becomes useless. I decided then and there to stop my subscription... but when it came to explaining why to them (so I could get a refund on the unused portion of my subscription), they were clueless. They insisted that RD did not support pollution because the magazine was printed on mostly recycled paper. The explanation about ads supporting fracking sailed over their heads. I got my refund, but it's annoying that they had no idea what I was talking about.

And don't get me started about the ongoing arguments between those who want oil tankers to be able to go where they want on the west coast and those who know that one leak could kill an entire ecosystem that's crucial for the people and animals that live there.

So yeah, we initially lucked out on geography. But we haven't made proper use of it or managed it correctly, due to failure to adapt to climate change, and the greed to make a fast dollar rather than do what's necessary for long-term sustainability.

As a late member of the US Boomer Generation, I have but one question:

Golden Age???

Never heard it labeled that way before. Sure, the US won the lottery by being the lone surviving major industrial power after WW2, but it paled compared to the massive social and cultural changes occurring in the US from 1945 until, really, now. Brown v Topeka was in 1954, which ended 90 years of segregation in the US. The first rumblings of the push for gay rights popped into the open with Ginsberg's "Howl." The US and the USSR actually cooperated to pry France and England off the Suez Canal they seized in 1956. In 1962, prayer was banned in schools (at least teacher-led prayers), the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts passed in 1964-65.

I don't ascribe to some fascist nonsense about a Golden Age and I don't think many of my fellow citizens do as well. Just one Boomer's opinion.

"Golden Age" is a subjective term, and can apply to many aspects of society.

 

[Angst]

As a late member of the US Boomer Generation, I have but one question:

Golden Age???

Never heard it labeled that way before. Sure, the US won the lottery by being the lone surviving major industrial power after WW2, but it paled compared to the massive social and cultural changes occurring in the US from 1945 until, really, now. Brown v Topeka was in 1954, which ended 90 years of segregation in the US. The first rumblings of the push for gay rights popped into the open with Ginsberg's "Howl." The US and the USSR actually cooperated to pry France and England off the Suez Canal they seized in 1956. In 1962, prayer was banned in schools (at least teacher-led prayers), the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts passed in 1964-65.

I don't ascribe to some fascist nonsense about a Golden Age and I don't think many of my fellow citizens do as well. Just one Boomer's opinion.

i think golden age makes a bit of sense - "golden ages" as understood are normally pinnacles of power projection. this is why nations like netherlands have concepts of golden ages, where they were powerful but still not france. there are other golden ages, such as the danish one, which is small nationalist and therefore absolutely hilarious. we got crushed by the uk and sweden and never recovered, then spent like 50 years drawing forests and fields, and still call it our golden age in our textbooks. for some reason, the golden age ended when we got crushed by the germans, which kind of hollows the idea, because it's just like a couple of times of crushing, and then we up and decided nono this particular crushing was the good one. (which is where i'm at - in golden ages' logic, the 20th century probably was for the us, but it's a god damn stupid concept.)

the 20th century was the rise and cementation of international us hegemony. i understand that the sovjets were "the other" superpower but in retrospect, looking at numbers and such, i don't think it was as much the case as the people at the time made it out to be. it was definitely two superpowers of the world, but there's a material reason the ussr collapsed and the us didn't (yet).

i know a lot of people are twitching at what i'm writing, but i want to be as clear as possible - the ussr was a very powerful thing, but it was definitely the second hegemony, if anything because of international alignments of europe after the marshall plan had kicked in. yea yea there's a warzaw pact, but poland didn't compare to the uk.

every idea of a nation's historical golden age has been like that. spain was still next to france. rome facing persia. sweden facing poland and russia. it's kind of a stupid concept, and leads to some toxic beliefs, but if you *have* to place the us' golden age at some point, i don't think it's too far off thinking of the us' golden age as the 20th century, because it was the pinnacle of power projection. that it was dirty, awful and cruel says a lot about the nature of this thinking of course.

we'll see how the 21st century goes. i'd prefer golden ages to actually not include segregation, authoritarianism and imperialism. or you could be like the danes, going screw it all! - making their own golden age with blackjack and hookers, isolationist, racist, impoverished, painting trees.

 

[Remorseless1]

I think what be confusing to some us there is a period of time in US history that historians have generally agreed upon - the Gilded Age roughly 1870-1905. It was a time of industrialists that dominated American life, when a very few became filthy rich (living in "gilded" mansions) and most people were still dirt poor.

The "Golden Age" is a myth carried in the minds of rightists who long for the days when the franchise was far more limited and access to economic security was even more limited. Think 1850.

 

[Angst]

I think what be confusing to some us there is a period of time in US history that historians have generally agreed upon - the Gilded Age roughly 1870-1905. It was a time of industrialists that dominated American life, when a very few became filthy rich (living in "gilded" mansions) and most people were still dirt poor.

The "Golden Age" is a myth carried in the minds of rightists who long for the days when the franchise was far more limited and access to economic security was even more limited. Think 1850.

from what i understand, popular (right) sentiment is that the us golden age was 50s to whenever because of power projection.

to reasonable people, it doesn't make sense. not because of the power projection wasn't a thing, but because this romantization of suffering, whether domestic or internationally imperialist, is kind of oof.

golden ages are basically always crafted in retrospect, never make material sense when facing the real world, and cover up a lot of cruelty because of jingoism. and then there's some weird outliers, like my dear danish one, whose farcical reality i think really underlines the whole stupidity of the concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Golden_Age for unaware, but be aware that this has definitely been written by someone overimportance-ifying a crushed minor power's backyard art. it's a very avuncular wiki page.

like yea. the paintings are pretty. but that's about it.

 

[Remorseless1]

from what i understand, popular (right) sentiment is that the us golden age was 50s to whenever because of power projection.

to reasonable people, it doesn't make sense. not because of the power projection wasn't a thing, but because this romantization of suffering, whether domestic or internationally imperialist, is kind of oof.

golden ages are basically always crafted in retrospect, never make material sense when facing the real world, and cover up a lot of cruelty because of jingoism.

Myths like a "Golden Age" are the bread and butter of authoritarians and their running dog lackeys.

 

[Angst]

Myths like a "Golden Age" are the bread and butter of authoritarians and their running dog lackeys.

yep!

like the danish golden age is functionally integrated in modern right demagoguery. all imagery of nationalists draw on danish paintings from an era.


it's like a rolling field or a stupid beach with a danish flag over it and then right virtue signalling of the serenity evoked in the old paintings of just small(minded), happy people hanging out at their farm; the romantic paintings, but now in photography.

and it's why us fascism appeals to the 50s nuclear family. "this was our good period" "no it wasn't" "no i didn't mean those things". for denmark, it was a period of being functionally destroyed in the international community, still a monarch at the top and a lot of poor people, but hey! we have (expensive, oligarchic) neoclassical architecture and some painters. for the us, it was racism, political suppression, chauvinism, and internationally imperialist ventures, but hey, you got some economic growth and more fridges.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Obviously not. Life expectency in USA in 1910 seems to been about 52 years, which is higher than many countries, but the leading country Denmark was at 58 and quite a few other countries was ahead of USA. In 1950 USA at 68 years was 4 years behind the leading country Norway at 72 years. By 1970 USA was at 71 (lower than Norway 2 decades ago) while the leading country Sweden was at 75 years. In 2019 USA at 79 while the leading country Monaco was at 87. So in the last 100 years or so, you can maybe not find a single year in which USA was the leader in life expectency.

Life expectancy wasn't on the public radar until recent decades. The US was a nation of smokers until the mid 70s. Using today's popular metrics to judge previous eras is fraught with potential problems. Do you judge prosperous times by the then current situation and expectations or do you judge them by later standards? The US was in a period of economic expansion and world leadership as well as cultural turmoil from the 50s through the 70s and yet many see it as a period of greatness. Some of that is boomer hindsight since we lived through it and some of it is an economic and cultural reality. What one chooses to measure often determines the outcome you will get.