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That’s revisionist history. In the 1950s, the standard of living was really low. Most people only had a high school education. They lived in very small houses. They usually only owned one automobile. In 1950, only 34% of High School grads went to college and the vast majority were white men.
I feel a little icky about pointing this out, but the poster you quoted has demonstrated a willingness to form very serious opinions and judgments about society, on the basis of TV sitcoms.
So... Yeah! Take that for whatever it is worth to ya.
I wish I could share some photos of what the 50s were like for my family. Deep poverty, alcoholism and abuse were the main themes. My Grandma had five kids who lived, and several that did not for various reasons, and she would send her boys out into the North Carolina swamps to find whatever critters they could kill and bring home for supper. I've heard endless stories about the best way to cook squirrels and frogs.
And then of course, we could ask black Americans what the 1950s were like for THEM. There are still some around who would remember.
Just because something is not IMPOSSIBLE doesn't mean the pathways have been "cleared". Of course it does. The pathways were cleared for a Black President long before Obama became one.
I can find one example of almost anything you care to mention - and that is more a case of "the exception proves the rule" not that the rule is nonexistent. Don't say you believe that because we had a black president that the pathways are clear. What then does it mean that we've not yet had a woman as president?
It means nothing. Nothing at all. Well, it might mean that the woman who ran did not get enough electoral votes, but no more than that.
And when we do have a woman President that will mean nothing, also. Obviously, the pathway has been cleared; it was cleared years ago. Lots and lots of things have not yet happened, and that also means nothing.
You should mention some pathways to success that have not yet been cleared. That may help your argument.
Don't say you believe that because we had a black president that the pathways are clear. What then does it mean that we've not yet had a woman as president?
Hillary Clinton didn't lose because she's a woman. She lost because she's an idiot, and people didn't trust her. If, say, Kristi Noem (R-SD) runs for president, I'll be happy to vote for her.
It means nothing. Nothing at all. Well, it might mean that the woman who ran did not get enough electoral votes, but no more than that.
And when we do have a woman President that will mean nothing, also. Obviously, the pathway has been cleared; it was cleared years ago. Lots and lots of things have not yet happened, and that also means nothing.
You should mention some pathways to success that have not yet been cleared. That may help your argument.
While I agree that women have a pretty much equal chance to get the popular vote (as long as they're "connected"), let me know when a 5' 2" atheist president gets voted in, and I'll tell you when we have a true meritocracy and truly rational voters
What defines "cleared" to you? Someone else did it? Did Arnie "clear the way" for every Austrian dude to win Mr. Olympia?
Public transit was much better and much safer back then---streetcars and interurban trains ran even in modest-sized cities. So there was less need for everybody and their brother to drive. There was far less need to go to college, either. Trades and other jobs were so plentiful, you could get hired pretty much by walking in off the street, provided you could do the job.
This is nutty. In 1950, the middle class family vacation was a car and a tent. In 2021, it's a jet to Disney and mouse ears. It's a completely different standard of living.
That’s revisionist history. In the 1950s, the standard of living was really low. Most people only had a high school education. They lived in very small houses. They usually only owned one automobile. In 1950, only 34% of High School grads went to college and the vast majority were white men.
The 1950s had a lot of problems, but there is some truth to the idea that it was a golden age for the US.
How well off you feel is mostly relative. This isn't an off-the -cuff remark; psychologists have studied this and found that relative comfort is more rewarding than absolute comfort.
In the 1950s, it was absolutely amazing that car ownership was common among the American middle class. Peer countries like the UK still had rationing, were much poorer, and had housing that was closer to tenements than the two bed one bath crackerboxes (in retrospect) that the American family of the 1950s lived in.
That family didn't miss trips to DisneyWorld or flights or flat screen TVs with Netflix, because they didn't know those things were possible.
Materially, tomorrow is almost always better than today. But socially, America has seen better days. That's because the gap between American affluence and the rest of the world has narrowed. Being American isn't as special as it was in the 1950s.
This is nutty. In 1950, the middle class family vacation was a car and a tent. In 2021, it's a jet to Disney and mouse ears. It's a completely different standard of living.
This line of thinking (nothing wrong with it a la carte, you're right) is a problem for me, because it's not the big picture. The things everyone should be comparing are the absolute basics: housing, food, transportation, and education. That's why I hate the "but your generation has iPhones" rebuttal. Yes, we have amazing technology for incredibly cheap for what they do. But it doesn't matter when the wage:COL ratio is falling. We're probably going to see homeless people biking around with ultra-capable 3D printers pretty soon...
The topic really isn't then and now. It was topical in both periods though. In the 1950's we still had wide wage disparity, just not as wide. The owner of a general store made more money than the manager....though it was more likely that the owner was the general manager. Businesses failed all the time though that had been popular and profitable at one point. As debt markets became more efficient and had greater reach, it became possible for companies to do the same.
Sears and Roebuck at that point was located at a point of Chicago, next to Montgomery Wards, that offered the best distribution options in the country. It was accessible by sea (via Great Lakes to Atlantic or south to eventually get to the Gulf of Mexico. Of course, there was the hub of manufacturing that was Chicago there as well, and it was augmented by the largest web of rail networks in the country. The small mom and pops supplied your area, and everything else you could order via catalog, especially a series of high quality items made and exclusively distributed by Sears.
The engine of commerce changed though. That vast selection to augment the local offerings could be defeated as department stores grew still larger. Ownership was replaced managers of companies that could perform more efficiently. They had cheaper capital. They had greater distribution and they had more markets to sell into. Sector by sector was reduced to impossible to compete....with the goliaths in turn killed by other goliaths. Remember Who's got mail? The small bookstore knocked out by the big one....which was killed by Amazon in turn. Where's Sear's now? All of those owners either pivoted to locally granted services, or they became workers. The biggest avenue to becoming wealthy narrowed on the traditional fronts. Yet new openings came even quicker. Did you know one of the largest initial internet offerings was a combination of Sears and CBS? There was a per e-mail charge. You could shop from home and a new "channel" to sell advertisements on. In the Game of Thrones that exists whether we recognize it or not, the prize for any given industry keeps getting bigger. In the end, foreign imports mastered American manufacturing methods, and like hordes of Dothraki, took over industry after industry. Just as a once young American nation took from industrialized Europe.
Positions at the top are not static. These arguments of what fair wages are fail to realize that. If you are a marketing director in food processing....you're not going to make as much money as if you were the same for the software industry. The difference isn't someone being mean and cruel. It's that margins in food are much lower than they are in software. Grocery stores operated on a single digit income margin even when I was young. Those with access to cheap capital and the willingness to run an ever larger and more complex organization have slowly acquired and consolidated those that were not. Yet even in the doom and gloom, what you can find are pockets of underserved populations from the majors, that can't possibly carry everything. Halal markets, specialist delicatessens, oriental style dried meats, foot to table operations....
The top is not static. The winning hand of now isn't the same as it was in the 1950s. Some businesses evolve, some get crushed by new entrants that move quicker. The most valuable companies today are Microsoft, Apple, Saudi Aramco, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta (Facebook), Nvidia, Berkshire Hathaway and TSMC. How many existed in 1950? How many of 1950's reign were around in 1900?
For good jobs, you need innovation. On the other hand, for those very old products, there should also be the bare minimum protections as well. There may be slim margins in meat, but we shouldn't be advocating a return to the ways described in Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" either. I'm comfortable with the government handling the latter part. After 100 years or so, even Senators can finally catch up their thinking on what needs to be done. How to handle AI direction, drones, social connectivity??? Forget it....how long did it take Congress to figure out smoking is bad for us?
It's not just above us though either. The other thing people were more likely to do in the 1950's....is move. If an area no longer has the prospects for an individual...they would move. People seem to be adamant about staying in areas that are no longer economically feasible for them now.
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