[1999]

I haven't read the paper and I probably won't, but it seems suspicious to me that the 1940 to 1970 timeframe mentioned just happens to coincide with WW2 and the aftermath and recovery. If you aren't prepared to systematically destroy foreign cities and industry I don't think you can recreate those conditions.

[bryanlarsen]

Generally, inequality increases during times of growth; it's a general rule that the rich get richer faster than the poor get richer.

It's during times of decline that you normally expect inequality to decline. After all, the rich collect the profits while the poor collect wages. Wages are relatively fixed while profits vary wildly.

[yellowbuilding]

This was a different situation. The union organizing was mostly done in the 30s, alongside voting FDR into office, then the war happened. When veterans came home with the VI Bill a lot of them went to college and got involved with the new science money (military industrial complex, etc.). In addition to the Kaynesian New Deal investments, America was just on top of the world and happened to upon the closest thing it had ever known to socialism.

[moorhosj]

US GDP growth continued after 1970 and reached pretty high levels in the 90s. You seem to be dismissing that because you already made up your mind without reading the article (or the multiple studies it mentions).

To put it a different way, which year are we allowed to start measuring without it being tainted by WWII?

[laurentoget]

These were also the years where the soviet union was at its most threatening and keeping workers happy to reduce the attraction of communism was at the highest. After that threat vanished the gains in productivity have been used to reward investors rather than workers.

[achillesheels]

How does this correlate with the mass exodus of members of the communist party in America in the 1930s after hearing about the conditions in Stalin’s Russia?

[yellowbuilding]

I don’t think that had much to do with it. There was a lot of conflicting propaganda at the time and conditions in Soviet Russia in the late 1920s were good. Regardless, communists weren’t so easily persuaded.

The exodus was partly a reaction to poor conditions in Russia and the fact that Stalin, as opposed to Lenin before him, did not believe in pursuing worldwide revolutions. Stalin withdrew efforts to support communist parties worldwide.

But the main thing that encouraged withdrawal from the communist party was The New Deal.