[coldtea]

>Statins, anti-retrovirals, common availability of antibiotics, treatment for TB, vaccines for many population-decimating (in the traditional sense of the word) viruses.

Those are technological innovations, not really relevant.

We could have had smartphones and anti-retrovirals AND affordable education/housing/healthcare/job prospects.

Like how people in the 50s and 60s could enjoy all kinds of technological and social innovations compared to 100 years before (electricity, TV, improved medicine, vaccines, etc) AND have cheap college tuition, affordable housing, etc.

Spare some catastrophe technology is monotonically increase -- it advances with new inventions.

So not really relevant as to whether we are more or worse off than the 50s and 60s in economic aspects.

[Godel_unicode]

You don't think what you get for your money is important in a discussion of economic advancement? It sounds like you decided on an answer, then went looking for a question which fits it.

> We could have had smartphones and anti-retrovirals AND affordable education/housing/healthcare/job prospects.

How can you possibly know that's true? Where are these example economies that have US-level innovation but also has the wealth distribution you crave.

[coldtea]

>You don't think what you get for your money is important in a discussion of economic advancement?

No, I think technical progress is not important in a discussion of economic advancement. The economy can go up and down, but technical progress only goes forward (spare some catastrophe).

Even in the Great Depression or WWII, technology advanced just fine.

>How can you possibly know that's true? Where are these example economies that have US-level innovation but also has the wealth distribution you crave.

US had US-level innovation AND that "wealth distribution I crave" in the 50s-70s.

[tsimionescu]

Well, an example would be the US in the 50s,60s and 70s.

[paulddraper]

> Those are technological innovations, not really relevant.

Those are extremely relevant, especially the source for those invocations.

E.g. I could believe the USSR achieved greater income equality, but I'm skeptical it would have produced those innovations.

[coldtea]

USSR was run by a party elite, devastated with millions dead/imprisoned in their purges, devastated with millions of dead in WWII, and starting from an agrarian economic base much behind the US of the time (1917) to begin with.

Without those aspects (but keeping equality more or less same, e.g. like Swedish style democratic socialism) it could be a very different story.

It's not like inequality produced them. If anything, today with rampant inequality we have far fewer innovations (and the US has far worse infrastructure, roads, etc) than in the golden post-war era up to the 90s.

[Godel_unicode]

I think a better comparison is East and West Germany.

You might also want to revisit your assumption that the US in 1917 wasn't an agrarian economy, given that the majority of Americans worked on farms between the World Wars.

Also, Baku (joined the USSR into 1920) produced over half the world's oil at that time.

[cheerlessbog]

> given that the majority of Americans worked on farms between the World Wars.

About 30% at the start of that period through 15% at the end.[1]

[1] https://www.ncci.com/Articles/Pages/II_Insights_QEB_Impact-A... first chart. And that's workforce, not "people"

[paulddraper]

Alright s/USSR/Sweden/ and same comment

[njepa]

Sweden had a very good run during the USSR time period. Especially post war until the ~90s. Somewhat ironically partly because we wanted to be more [0], and less [1], like the US.

[0] “In the end, all such authoritarian measures were dismissed by the Commission, which instead went with Sundbärg's goal of bringing the best sides of America to Sweden (unsurprisingly, as Sundbärg himself wrote the conclusions). First on his list of urgent reforms were universal male suffrage, better housing, general economic development, and a broader popular education which could counteract ‘class and caste differences.’” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Emigration_Commissio...

[1] “Always a dedicated traveler, Mr. Palme after graduation hitch-hiked around the United States for four months, visiting 34 states on a $300 shoestring budget that took him into pockets of poverty in a land of plenty. It was a shocking experience for the young aristocrat. He recalled having seen 'how poor some people were in the world's richest land.' The advanture marked a turning point in his life, and the comment was virtually a theme for what was to become the socialist ideology of his political life.” https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/01/obituaries/olof-palme-ari...