What would it take for America to have an equivalent 1950s economy again? (companies, wage)

[Marleinie]

For our time, what would need to be done for your average joe to have the same opportunities today as one would have had in the 1950s?

[mathjak107]

we would have to go back to poorly built products ,shoddy workmanship dependent on human intervention and we would pay more for everything . it would be a big step backward !

[Astral_Weeks]

We'd also have to destroy most of Europe and Japan....and turn all those aging baby boomers back into the youngsters they once were.

Growth Rate of GDP = Growth Rate of Population + Growth Rate of GDP per capita,

[Thatsright19]

Us share of world GDP was 40+ percent after ww2. Today, it's half that. What would it take to double an economy the size of the u.s GDP while keeping rivals stagnant? Or to shrink their economy (while not hurting ours at the same time...)and keep ours the same level basically? What you're asking can't be done in a multipolar world. What existed was a unique anomoly in world history.

It would take a world war and untold suffering, that can no longer be effectively waged because of nuclear weapons.

[cdelena]

Time machine.

[james777]

Bring back jobs from overseas, quit sending jobs and entire companies overseas, stop all legal and illegal immigration until unemployment goes down drastically.

[engineman]

In the 50s every young man could look forward to being drafted. Until he had done his military time, no one wanted to hire him because about the time he learned his job he would be drafted. I know this because I was there.

[cyrano]

Abolish the internet, rid the world of all but about a thousand computers, bring back overt discrimination against women and minorities, criminalize both abortion and birth control. And start at least a Cold War,preferably a hot one.

[Astral_Weeks]

Originally Posted by Marleinie

For our time, what would need to be done for your average joe to have the same opportunities today as one would have had in the 1950s?

I am a guy but what about the average Jane? Ok, just kidding and leaving aside the obvious distinctions about discrimination in the 50's I am going to paint a rather realistic but not particularly optimistic picture about the future.

It has been shown, both theoretically and empirically, that technological progress is the main driver of long-run economic growth.

Robert Gordon, an economist at Northwestern, wrote a book in 2016 called, "The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War," which covers this topic comprehensively.

In a nutshell, he argues that technological progress is the key to what drives economic growth and promotes higher standards of living. Moreover, the periods of great technological progress have come and gone and are not likely to resurface anytime soon.

The period from 1870 to 1940 was the most transformative while the period from 1945 to 1970 was also strong just not as revolutionary.

Specifically, he has argued that the I.T. revolution is less important than any one of the five Great Inventions that powered economic growth from 1870 to 1970: electricity, urban sanitation, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the internal combustion engine and modern communication.

Moreover, he argues that the benefits from the I.T. revolution pretty much came and went by the year 2000. GDP Growth in the U.S. grew above 4.0 percent for four consecutive years from 1997 through 2000. We have not seen GDP growth above 4 percent since 2000.

Gordon says that the rapid economic growth associated with the post World War II era is not coming back. Everything since has at best been a faint echo of that great wave, and Gordon doesn’t expect us to see anything similar in the coming decades.

Gordon suggests that the future is all too likely to be marked by stagnant living standards for most Americans, because the effects of slowing technological progress will be reinforced by a set of “headwinds”: rising inequality, a plateau in education levels, an aging population and more.

[james777]

Originally Posted by cyrano

Abolish the internet, rid the world of all but about a thousand computers, bring back overt discrimination against women and minorities, criminalize both abortion and birth control. And start at least a Cold War,preferably a hot one.

You sure you don't want to bring back slavery, also?