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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,
Worse than that. Europe was largely devastated, infrastructure was destroyed, UK went bust economically in 1944 (I think it was), manpower & population were drained down to dangerous levels, especially USSR & Germany, France, Italy. Crops were lost, destruction was Worldwide - along the Mediterranean, the Middle East, from Burma to Australia, up to China, Japan, Korea, across a wide swathe of the Pacific, to the Philippines. Disease, starvation, poor medical care. The neutrals in Europe did OK, maybe the neutrals in Africa & South & Central America.
If the US became a manufacturing country again, steel, ships, aircraft, machine tools, brought back unions as political/economic counterweights to the big corporations, got the rate of price increases under control for college & university tuition, healthcare, got pension funding on a fiscally responsible track, spent what it took to bring our infrastructure up to date.
It's a very tall order. The only way ahead for the US that I can see is to pursue high tech - fusion power, materials science, nanotech, go back to space, to the moon, to Mars, to near-Earth orbit & collect solar power, mine the asteroids & moon, push out into the universe. Return on investment on space transportation, technology, manufacturing, electronics has to be better than designing & building weapons we hope to never use.
You sure you don't want to bring back slavery, also?
Not what I want, just answering the OP's question. But no to slavery. Imagine being a low-skilled white man, trying to compete in a market where the market value of your skills is zero. Everything else I mentioned drove down wages or eliminated jobs for low-skilled white men, directly or otherwise.
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 !
A lot of things were made better back then. For example, my parents bought a freezer in 1959 which lasted until 1991.
Worse than that. Europe was largely devastated, infrastructure was destroyed, UK went bust economically in 1944 (I think it was), manpower & population were drained down to dangerous levels, especially USSR & Germany, France, Italy. Crops were lost, destruction was Worldwide - along the Mediterranean, the Middle East, from Burma to Australia, up to China, Japan, Korea, across a wide swathe of the Pacific, to the Philippines. Disease, starvation, poor medical care. The neutrals in Europe did OK, maybe the neutrals in Africa & South & Central America.
If the US became a manufacturing country again, steel, ships, aircraft, machine tools, brought back unions as political/economic counterweights to the big corporations, got the rate of price increases under control for college & university tuition, healthcare, got pension funding on a fiscally responsible track, spent what it took to bring our infrastructure up to date.
It's a very tall order. The only way ahead for the US that I can see is to pursue high tech - fusion power, materials science, nanotech, go back to space, to the moon, to Mars, to near-Earth orbit & collect solar power, mine the asteroids & moon, push out into the universe. Return on investment on space transportation, technology, manufacturing, electronics has to be better than designing & building weapons we hope to never use.
Interesting. I would argue, however, that the US would not be the same. With the above, we would no longer be a capitalistic society. Stifling growth by mandating US corporations only do business in the US is counter, to the very nature of what the United States is as a nation.
Medicine is part of the capitalism model
Education is part of the capitalism model
Infrastructure is a government responsibility which would likely need the capitalist model to complete.
A lot of things were made better back then. For example, my parents bought a freezer in 1959 which lasted until 1991.
Consumers spoke with their wallets and opted for cheap and replaceable than something that'll last you half a lifetime. Case in point was Sony had VHS players that could also last "close to forever", but consumers overall didn't want to pay $1,000 for it.
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?
1. We would need to turn to God to help us overthrow the globalists who don't want any countries to be totally self sufficient.
2. We would have to return to some old fashioned values like not having kids out of wedlock and avoiding divorce.
#2 Alone is a big reason for the shrinkage of the middle class. 40% of kids in America are now born outside of marriage. That's a huge handicap toward getting into and staying in the middle class.
Consumers spoke with their wallets and opted for cheap and replaceable than something that'll last you half a lifetime. Case in point was Sony had VHS players that could also last "close to forever", but consumers overall didn't want to pay $1,000 for it.
Back then, even modestly-priced items could last a long time.
It never cease to amaze me the obsession people have with the 1950's on C-D. No, the economic prosperity of the 1950's was indeed an anomaly brought together by a set of circumstances that have a slim and none chance of happening again. People need to learn to adapt to change instead of sitting on their butts complaining how things were so much better in the past and finding scapegoats like "immigrants" and "globalists" for their personal and society's failures.
I wonder if people were this ineffectual and whiny when the industrial revolution happened and slowly changed agrilculture.
A lot of things were made better back then. For example, my parents bought a freezer in 1959 which lasted until 1991.
Yes, indeed. In the garage I have a 40 something year old American made GE fridge that I inherited from a deceased relative. Thing has run non stop for all that time to this day. Nothing you buy today, even the high end models will last that long. Planned obsolescence is a very real thing.
1. We would need to turn to God to help us overthrow the globalists who don't want any countries to be totally self sufficient.
2. We would have to return to some old fashioned values like not having kids out of wedlock and avoiding divorce.
#2 Alone is a big reason for the shrinkage of the middle class. 40% of kids in America are now born outside of marriage. That's a huge handicap toward getting into and staying in the middle class.
Many middle class jobs have been automated or offshored. Nowadays you either have the high end jobs, like a dentist, or a computer programmer. And the low end low wage jobs that are are not yet automated like Walmart or fast food.
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