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by hn_throwaway_99 575 days ago
This isn't an accurate take, because it wasn't just America. There are lots of post-war "miracle" stories:

Italian Economic Miracle: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_economic_miracle

Japanese Economic Miracle: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_economic_miracle

Spanish Miracle: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_miracle

Miracle on the Rhine: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirtschaftswunder

In all of these cases real incomes grew enormously. Yes, a big part of that was starting from a low base after the destruction of WWII. But I'd argue it was also a strong consequence of the technology of the time: the was an explosion in consumer goods enabled by new tech, but companies still needed lots of employees to create these products. In the past ~25 years I believe tech has instead allowed more wealth to accrue to a smaller and smaller subset of people.

1 comments

Yes, all fueled by ridiculously abundant/cheap oil. This is something that might not happen in Earth's history ever again, not to mention the climate change issues (which at least weren't clear until much later, 80s rather than 50s for oil depletion issues).