The 1950's were not all that great and they are not coming back

[Peacetrain]

The racism, sexism, xenophobia, fear of the other, that so permeated the 50's... (yes I was a kid then) that the Trump and others keeps trying to drag the United States back to.. well we can drag ourselves back to the hate pretty easily.. but the jobs and the industries that brought so many into the middle class.. they are not there and never will be again.. the world has moved on..

When you graduated high school in the 50's and even if you didn't graduate.. you could get yourself a half way decent paying job.. you might have to move to places like Chicago or Detroit.. but that work was there.

The world was recovering from the devastation of WW2 .. and 50 % of the world manufacturing was done in the United States.. 50%.. just think about that.. because the rest of the world was in rubble.. literally..

Unions boomed.. and 1 car per family was plenty and the norm.. 1 phone was all the family needed.. forget about computers, laptops etc that change every 2 years and you have to dig into the money you do not have because you need that intersection with the internet now..HUGE changes in how we have to live and conduct our lives now..

The industries are gone.. they moved overseas to cheaper human labor.. but even if you moved those industries back aka Trump.. they are automated.. you do not need those vast numbers of people on the line to get a product out.. those days are gone forever.

This is a changing time.. and how we come out on the other side of this is anyone's guess at this moment.. but the longing for those 50's type jobs.. that is not going to happen.. we would have to destroy the world again to get back to have all the industrial production in our country .. and even then.. we would not need the same number of workers.

My Dad started out in coal country.. as a coal miner.. and got to go to school on the GI bill that landed us in the Midwest.. but coal miners.. if the coal industry came back full tilt .. it is automated.. you wold not need the same number of workers.. just an example


Politicians selling that to people are selling them a lie.. they did it in the UK..

What we need are people willing to pull us into what ever the next great movement is.. Millennials and younger Xers..understand this.. the days of the 50's type jobs were just a blip in history..

3D printers are making cars and buses.. guns and furniture etc etc.. its a brave new world out there..

Its fearful, because we have never been there before.. and that is what we are dealing with now.. fear of what is ahead and the changes coming..

[Recursion]

1. This needs to be written on a tablet of bronze (nt)

[JustAnotherGen]

2. +1000

[yeoman6987]

41. Everyone is talking economic

When a high school grad could go to a factory. Make enough to raise a family and buy a house. After 40 years have a decent pension to live out their retirement comfortably. That's the 1950's everyone wants.

[Recursion]

45. And it was false then

It was predicated on restricting that to white males.

That wasn't incidental; it was integral.

[tk2kewl]

79. And having the same government investment in education and infrastructure

While ensuring no group is excluded would be a bad idea?

[Recursion]

80. It wouldn't push wages up

It would be a good thing, but it wouldn't change the fact that the workforce is no longer restricted to about a quarter of the population for good jobs.

[tk2kewl]

81. I think large investments in transportation, energy and communications infrastructure

Would increase wages

[Recursion]

84. I don't, though I think they'd be absolute goods on their own

Personally I think wages are a concept that have about run their course; human labor is only going to get less and less valuable. We need to think of new ways for people to get stuff other than trading labor for it.

Energy investment would make automation cheaper, which would depress wages. Transport and communications investment would make labor mobility higher, which would depress wages.

[tk2kewl]

96. Shorter term... More jobs will boost wages

Longer term you're probably correct

[Recursion]

97. Great point

There's definitely a different in the near-term and long-term effects there.

[cagefreesoylentgreen]

3. I've never understood the nostalgia for the 1950s

I suppose you could be nostalgic if you loved that "coloreds knew their place" and a lack of women's rights. Nope, for all its faults, I'm happier right where we are.

[rurallib]

11. I grew up in the 50s - black and white TV was perfect

as a way to feel about the 50s - little color, little variance, no nuance. Everything was this way or that. My brothers thought it was great, I hated it.

But it wasn't hard to make decisions - there was simply little choice - one crappy car or another, certain people lived in specific neighborhoods, went to certain churches (and everybody went to church).

There was some certainty with little choice. If you had money and were white it was great.

[99th_Monkey]

24. 1950s = Pleasantville

[genxlib]

34. That movie came to mind as well

I think it is really underrated. I love the use of color to represent the move from boring to complexity that makes the world far more interesting.

[floriduck]

28. And network news was straight news without heavy bias.

[raccoon]

73. ITA,

There was some certainty with little choice.

[lastlib]

93. "When the world and I were young, Just yesterday..."

"Life was such a simple game, a child could play...It was easy then to tell truth from lies, Selling out from compromise, Who to love and who to hate, The foolish from the wise..."

[madokie]

105. I grew up in the '50s

born in march of '48. We didn't even get electricity in our neck of the woods until about '53 or '54. We never had a tv until I was a grown boy. We were poor folk if you haven't figured that out yet

[SharonAnn]

95. Not to mention 1950's diseases like polio, measles, etc. Childhood leukemia was a death sentence.

I lost classmates to these diseases.

[sufrommich]

5. They were awesome for straight white men. Women not so much. nt

Last edited Sat Jun 25, 2016, 02:45 PM - Edit history (1)

[Urchin]

23. I thought I heard that women

are more unhappy today.

[lunatica]

26. Do you have a link to back your statement?

If you've been around DU for any length of time you'll notice that anyone who talks supposed facts always back their assertion by providing links to articles or studies. It's pretty much a rule here.

It's the way we keep it real. Using facts as opposed to believing someone else's opinions as if they were facts.

[brush]

29. YES!

[Urchin]

103. You can find it

In my reply to lunatica.

[Urchin]

102. I didn't realize this was such a big secret

Published: Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2009. "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness," American Economic Journal

"By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women's happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women's declining relative well-being is found across various datasets, measures of subjective well-being, and is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries. Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s typically reported higher subjective well-being than did men. These declines have continued and a new gender gap is emerging -- one with higher subjective well-being for men."

Full paper: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14969.pdf

[lunatica]

107. It's not that it's a secret or not

It's a matter of being able to back up your statement in such a way that anyone can see your source for themselves. It's pretty accepted practice on this site because we tend to like discussing facts in this world where it seems too many people are confused about what the difference is between their opinion and actual facts.

As far as I can tell your link is about two people taking an extensive multi-university study and correlating the data into graphs and tables that show what the study has found and writing about it in a way that shows what they deduce as the lack of happiness in modern men and women. It doesn't go very deeply into what this lack of happiness is about, it just compares it to studies done earlier in the 1970s. These papers have not been peer reviewed which in any quality university makes them less than useless. But perhaps these papers were on their way to being peer reviewed, and I'm just jumping to conclusions.

Your statement that women are unhappier now gives the idea that their happiness quotient stands out as being different than the happiness quotient of men. Yet the papers do mention that men are also unhappier. And even though I didn't spend a lot of time reading it carefully once I saw it was no more than a compilation of survey data and hadn't been peer reviewed, I didn't see any real comprehension on the causes of everyone's diminishing happiness.

But I do appreciate that you provided a link. And welcome to DU.

[Mariana]

63. Do you usually just believe things you thought you heard?

Do you make any effort to verify whether the things you thought you heard are actually true?

[Urchin]

104. Look for my reply to lunatica

with the subject line "I didn't realize this was such a big secret"

Had you been objective, you would not have insinuated that my statement was unfounded.

Instead, had you been objective, you would have said, "Gee Urchin, that's an interesting idea. Could you give link me to a study or something? I always like to learn as much as I can about life"

[yardwork]

37. White straight men. Gay people were considered mentally ill in the 1950s.

We were oppressed in every way.

[sufrommich]

48. Yikes,of course you're right. I'll edit. nt

[yardwork]

51. No problem. I knew it wasn't an intentional oversight.

[sufrommich]

52. It was unintentional,but I like to be historically accurate.

Lest we forget.

[spooky3]

90. Yes. There was never a time that women

Could drop out of high school and count on well- paying jobs. Even when they graduated with useful college and sometimes advanced degrees into the 70s and later, employers had no difficulty putting them in low paying secretarial roles or refusing to hire them at all.

[uponit7771]

25. +1

[Surya Gayatri]

67. Bingo! "Racism...that's the basis of the nostalgia."

[JustAnotherGen]

7. Rec - because

It's gone and we have to keep going on.

I'm one of the younger Gen Xers and the IoT - anything I can do to push that along before I depart my company I will. That includes slowing down cell phone sales because as the network providers move to the IoT - people will be in a television purchase mode. The phone "leasing" aka "payment plans" are prepping the consumer for full retail price. Point blank - who buys a new tv every two years? Less phones but a much more durable quality. That will hurt China, Taiwan, South Korea, Philippines - but they will have to change too. Reality - some of their jobs are going away.

Our greatest challenge is going to get coding into high schools and skilled crafts/professional blue collar trading . . . Think HVAC, Electricians etc etc. We've never trained our kids who may have zero desire to go to college to do jobs other than working at Xerox or Kodak on the line. NY States BOCES program needs to be implemented across the board.

[Peacetrain]

9. My son is a Middle Milleanial..

We were older parents.. and we have sat and talked for hours about the changing dynamics and world view between the generations.. and this is our great challenge.. what jobs will even look like.. and our changing social dynamic.. where you know people better on the internet than you do your neighbors.. and you can add my Mother into that discussion.. she is still with us (I am very lucky).. and it seems that those who never experienced those 50s type of work opportunities or debilitating work hells.. (its goes both ways).. have romanticized those days the most.. realistically .. most of us never experienced the 50's work situation..

I was a kid in the 50's but came of age in the late 60's and early 70's.. and it was changed and changing already..

[JustAnotherGen]

13. You are probably my mom's contemporary

And she and my dad "pushed me" into Telecom because they even saw the climate change coming. I was working for a snow additive, mountain engineering, and snow gun company out of college. Her dad owned a construction company (GI Bill shenanigans) then retired in his late 30's to Lake Tahoe. I was following in his foot steps - as he was doing mountain management for "fun".

[leveymg]

8. It's not The Bomb and White Citizens Councils that people miss. It's stable jobs with pensions

The OP doesn't get what's driving this revolt. It's not nostalgia for tail fins and segregation, it's economic insecurity that drove Brexit. It's a gathering belief that unfettered multinational corporations and free trade deals present an existential threat to the middle-class in the post-industrialized US, UK and EU countries.

Economic stability and Social Security could be a guarantee again, but we and the rest of the world would have to regulate businesses, reign in global banks, and tax the 1% again. Tear up existing free trade deals and erect punative tariffs against companies and products made in countries that refuse to sign a Universal Declaration of Social Security. That needs a revolution. A global revolution.

[Peacetrain]

10. Did you read the op?

Or just the first paragraph.. just curious.. because the jobs that drove the 50's are gone.. they do not even exist anymore.. you tear the rest of the world apart.. get those same industries back here. .and they are automated.. it is not working on the line anymore..but that is not the point.. it is a totally changing work scenario.. and that is what we have to acknowledge and stop romanticizing a time that was a blip due to a world war.

[rhett o rick]

14. Did you read his post? We recognize that the jobs are gone. That doesn't mean we can't

want economic stability. Finger shaking isn't helpful. We need a plan and Goldman-Sachs won't help, in fact they are working against us. We don't know the answer but we no we need change and not what's being offered by the neoliberals.

If we can't get economic justice soon, we will soon start losing all the social justice gains we've made since the 1950's. We will only retain them and improve on them if we get the Big Corp Money out of our so-called representative government.

The current neoliberals will cut safey nets and SS before they cut defense spending.

[Peacetrain]

18. Again what the hell are you talking about and to whom? this addressed to the Trumps

And Boris Johnsons of the world trying to sell a reality that is not going to come to fruition. and they are in every country.. romanticizing a time in the United States that they did not even participate in.. its crazy.. and it was not all that freaking great in the United States..

[JonLeibowitz]

54. It's pretty clear that this is more than Johnson and Trump.

I'm no fool, so I see what the implications are in this OP

[Freddie]

15. But the service jobs of today

COULD come with a decent wage, health care and a pension if the 1% and huge corporations changed their attitude towards the people whose labor runs their companies and stopped seeing everything as Shareholders are God.

[Peacetrain]

21. The service jobs of today are demeaned..

And that is why unions are so important.. and a living wage.. because these need to be seen as middle class jobs just like people in my parents generation working on the line in the factories were seen as steps into the middle class.. it has to do with a living wage.. I am right with you on that.. and the romanticism that Trump and his ilk do of the 50's industrial jobs is just nuts.. Also the right wing selling that service jobs are somehow less than and only kids do them is bunk..

All that going.. the job scenario that was present in the 50's, is just a blip in time.. changing world .. changing dynamic.. and we have to work with those changes not run from it.. our kids need the types of education that will bring them into whatever this new work arena will look like and be like

[leveymg]

16. Yes. But, the "'50s type job" (full benefits) and a generous social net is still worth fighting for

One has to look to the public sector to see it still in operation in the US or to the Scandinavian countries. To fund that model as a universal entitlement would mean raising taxes on the wealthy to levels not seen since Reagan, and implementation by all the post-industrial countries in unison. But, it is still a model of social security worth struggling for. I wouldn't give up so easily.

[Urchin]

31. We should raise the income tax to 90+ percent again

We should raise the income tax to 90+ percent again for the highest bracket, which bracket I would generously estimate should be around any earnings greater than a million a year.

The capital gains tax also needs raising to the same level if not even higher! (Why should money earned by the sweat of one's brow be taxed more than money collected from investments and speculation while sitting on one's arse?)

[Surya Gayatri]

68. Hear, hear...

"...it is a totally changing work scenario.. and that is what we have to acknowledge and stop romanticizing a time that was a blip due to a world war."

[pkdu]

17. Scotland and Northern Ireland call bullshit on your analysis. nt

[leveymg]

20. How so? Scotland and the Northern Ireland stand to gain by keeping EU membership, even if they have

to leave the UK to do so.

The Republic of Ireland looks like it will be a big, big winner by staying in the EU as the bridge between the US and Europe.

How does this disprove my analysis?

[pkdu]

22. Did you even reread your own post?..Scotland and Northern Ireland are just as impacted by income

inequality as the English ...often more so. This was NOT a income inequality "revolt" , it was an anti-immigrant fear-mongering appeal the the worst of our natures.
?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=03df8fb02a8b973725b4e6739b8d3c30|

[link:http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/16/nigel-farage-defends-ukip-breaking-point-poster-queue-of-migrants#img-1|]

[leveymg]

60. The regions of the English Midlands and South are the one that lost industry and jobs.

Last edited Sat Jun 25, 2016, 04:22 PM - Edit history (1)

That is the primary reason they voted to Leave. There are lots of causes, but loss of industrial, unionized jobs with decent pay and benefits in certain areas that voted to Leave has to be at or near the very top to explain the geographic breakdown shown below.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

[HughBeaumont]

77. +1,000

FDR's Second Bill of Rights.

America's going to throw this away at their own peril because all of the "Suck It Up, Buttercup"s on here want us to live in mud huts and eat bugs to teach us humility. That way when the die-off happens, there'll be resources a-plenty, right?

Of course, there's NEVER any talk of the wealthy sacrificing even one speck of their ostentatious fortunes from these people, is there? It's always US that needs to "suck it up, buttercup" because reasons.

[TheCowsCameHome]

12. Some stuff was good, some stuff was bad.

That could be said of every decade, I guess.

[Yo_Mama]

19. We're on our way to 1950s homeownership rates unless something changes!

I agree, the 1950s weren't so great.

[Urchin]

27. I completely disagree

The 1950s were great.

Trouble is, instead of building on what was good about the 1950s, the country took a wrong turn after JFK, and year after year after year destroyed the future happiness of even more Americans.

[brush]

33. The '50s were great if you were white and male. POCs and women need not apply back then though.

[yeoman6987]

44. My 2 grandmothers were housewives in the 1950's and were very happy

Broad brushes are not good.

[brush]

46. Did your grandmothers not want their own careers? How about you? You want to be a housewife?

And I'm African American. There was nothing good about sitting in the back of the bus or the lynchings by white racists.

Try widening your perspective.

[yeoman6987]

55. Lol. I'm a dude for one

I doubt they wanted a career in the traditional sense. They worked hard raising the family which brings a lot of self fulfillment. To many today are racked with guilt over decisions but you know that.

[brush]

64. Did you ever ask them if they wanted a careeer, instead of assuming, as men often do, . . .

that they know what makes women happy?

And I noticed you ignored commenting on the lynchings and back of the bus relegation of African Americans.

But white dudes were happy then, right, so that's all that matters?

[Surya Gayatri]

69. Don't expect a cogent reply any time soon.

Ah, the good old days when "a woman's place was in the home" and "a 'negro's' place was in the back of the bus".

How can any thinking person today justify those retrograde and repressive views?

This kind of misplaced 50's nostalgia leads to cognitive dissonance in the here and now.

Your interlocutor has no answer.

[raccoon]

74. I guess their husbands didn't beat them. because back then

if he did you were screwn.

[Urchin]

30. I don't get your meaning

Your chart shows a greater increase in the rate of home ownership during the 1950s than at any time since.

In fact, if you look at the period from 1941 to 1959, your chart shows the greatest increase in home ownership on your chart.

And that in the more than a half-century since the end if the 1950s, home ownership rate has barely increased at all.

like I've said elsewhere here, America was on the right track in the 1950s, but took a wrong turn after JFK and has stayed on the wrong turn ever since, taking us further and further away from an America that was a land of opportunity for the majority of Americans.

[Yo_Mama]

62. Rates, not percentage increase. Link to Harvard study

http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/jchs.harvard.edu/files/son_2016_200dpi_ch1.pdf

The above is the Executive Summary - see chart 2, which shows how deeply homeownership has fallen over a couple of decades for the younger cohort. The older cohort naturally has much higher rates of homeownership, and because the population as a whole has aged, demographics is masking a near-catastrophic drop in homeownership. Few households are able to successfully enter homeownership in their 50s, because they just don't have enough earning years left to pay off the mortgage.

Here's a link to the whole thing - it is good, and also discusses rents:
http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/research/state_nations_housing

Current homeownership rates data:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

Note that current homeownership rates are well below those of the 70s, and match the lows of the early 1980s (after a period of very high interest rates).

In addition, the real stat is much worse than it looks because the median age of the US population has risen sharply:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/241494/median-age-of-the-us-population/

Overall, the picture is of sharply decreasing household wealth and security, with a structural decline just built in.

[bucolic_frolic]

32. Life was simpler in the 50s

even the 80s. I don't remember the 50s, but I can say:

Fewer choices. 3 channels. You lived, you consumed. My household
at least wasn't hyped up over profit margins. Food was pure, or at least
not synthetic. McDonald's was like gourmet burgers at 15 cents. Howard
Johnson's was still cooking from scratch. No seat belts, but we never had
a serious accident.

I call them simpler times. Fewer things to do, fewer distractions, more time
for friends and family. Fewer bills. I try to live that way today by making sure
my life is time and resource efficient. No cable TV. I refuse to pay for commercials
and all the temptations of corporate agendas. Minimal cell phone. Home made
food, which enables nights out with friends and some good times. That's what's
important to me. Trinkets and bills don't matter to me. My family assembled all that,
and like many people it was hard to ditch it all, and what a waste!

Make your lifestyle relevant to your beliefs and requirements. Read the Desiderata
often. Keep learning, and striving for improvement. Wealth doesn't matter as much
as integrity. This is a rewarding method of living, to me at least.

[Urchin]

36. We have traded

We've been hoodwinked.

Just as those Indians traded Manhattan for $24 dollars worth of trinkets, we have traded away the most important things in life in return for cheap electronic trinkets.

Those same electronic trinkets that keep squawking over and over to us, that this is progress.

And the people that did it to us, are laughing all the way to the bank.

[Surya Gayatri]

70. Cher couldn't do it, and neither can you or anyone else. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be...

[Urchin]

100. The Founders Did it

America's founding fathers studied ancient democracies and republics, to turn back time in an age when all European governments were ruled by a monarchy.

I wouldn't be surprised if supporters of monarchy criticized them for trying to turn back time.

[FlaGranny]

92. I was a teen in the 50's.

My memories of that time include family and friends getting together frequently, especially in the early 50s. The entertainment was usually music. Back then most families I knew had many members who played musical instruments. People sang and danced and talked and ate together. After I married in the late 50s my first jobs were at Ft. Dix and Maguire AFB (civil service). I have worked since 1957 until just this spring. Coming from a farming community, there were many farmers. Some wives worked, others didn't. My father was self employed. For a while my mother had a job working in a munitions factory in town (Korean War). She had no desire to work but we needed the money. We knew everyone. I went to integrated schools. The first time I saw real discrimination, our family drove south for a vacation where I saw my first "white only" sign, which I remember as completely shocking. The 50s were good in my little part of the universe. Outside of there I later learned that things were not so great. But for me, the 50s (and 40s) were quite good.

I remember also that there were very few bills to pay. It was a simpler time.

[niyad]

35. "the 50's sound"

Kristin Lems – The Fifties Sound Lyrics


They say the fifties are comin' again!
Get out my bobby socks and run to the gym!
The fifties band has got them out on the floor -
Hey wait! I been through this nightmare before!

Those olden days were not so golden you know
Girls who got in trouble, they had nowhere to go
Couldn't take their lives into their own hands
Spent their time a swoonin' over rock n roll bands

In those days colored people knew their place
Didn't try to barge into the human race
But Elvis and the others picked up all their cues
And made a million dollars singing white boy blues

Whoa Whoa - whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa
They're dancing to what oppressed us 20 years ago.

Girls wore thick makeup, boys wore thick grease
If you didn't have a steady, you were never at ease
Swearin' and sex, they were mortal sins -
Why the hell you think we brought the sixties in?

Everybody looked and thought and talked the same
And learned all of the details of the dating game
Boys, they were lettermen or else they were queer
If they were small or shy they lived in constant fear

Chorus

Think of all the folks who miss the fifties sound
The millionaires whose profits have been going down
For the ku klux klan, those were the good ole' days
And back then, women really knew their place

Administrators missed the days when students obeyed
Didn't meddle in the world the grownups had made
The Pentagon's nostalgic for the days of yore
When every kid would rush to join their latest war!

So all you kids soakin up the scene
Sorry to break in on your American dream
But we lived through it and it ain't no fun:
No one's gonna take back what we won!

Chorus

Teen angel, teen angel, rest in pieces!


Words and music by Kristin Lems c MCMLXXXIII Kleine Ding Music (BMI

[Urchin]

38. Just because something rhymes

Doesn't settle anything.

[niyad]

43. and your point is?

[JTFrog]

91. Well done!

[niyad]

98. kristin lems is one of my favourite singer/songwriters.

[jg10003]

39. Unions made the difference in the 50's

OP is right that the manufacturing jobs are not coming back. Walmart has replaced GM and U.S Steel as the major employers. But the difference is not the type of business of the employer, but rather how profitable the employer is. GM in the 1950's was very profitable, as is Walmart today. But GM paid its' employees enough to support a middle class lifestyle. Walmart employees are not paid enough to feed their families without food stamps. GM employees had a union, Walmart employees do not. The important factor is the relationship between employer and employee. It doesn't matter if the employee is building cars or stacking shelves.

[pansypoo53219]

40. we need to re-unionize.

kill tinkle down.

[ProudProgressiveNow]

42. K&R nt

[fob]

47. One minor change to a great post....

Those jobs didn' t "move" overseas, Chump and his 1%er ilk spent the time since the fifties forcibly relocating them out of reach of Americans. There is no way ti go back because those fuckers sold it all off

[IronLionZion]

49. There were no internet crimes back then and less terrorism

and many hippies think food was more natural. Also President Eisenhower is better than most Republicans these days. Some liberals liked the tax rates back then. Unions were plentiful. So there were some things that we could benefit from keeping. It's good to know what worked and what didn't.

But I would be blocked out from many jobs/housing and definitely murdered for dating white women so that's a big down side.

[awoke_in_2003]

50. Born in 68

child of the 70s. Ah, the good old days, when you could see the air and rivers caught on fire. In my lifetime, lynchings still occurred in the south. While religion wasn't all up in your face like it is now (of course, I wasn't in the babble belt) I have no desire to return.

[davidn3600]

53. The average jobs back then could susport a middle class lifestyle

Today, the jobs that replaced those 1950s jobs are barely enough to feed yourself.

It's also self-worth in what you do. A service job is highly looked down upon. These employees are paid crappy wages, terrible benefits, and customers/employers treat them like shit.

[Cryptoad]

56. Middle Class now has

to carry the main tax burden since we have abandoned progressive taxes...When the Rich carry their fair share of tax burden , middle class grows!

[AZ Progressive]

58. It took a world war and tens of millions of deaths to make it possible for us

We can't have another world war to make it happen again.

[maindawg]

57. The 50 s rocked

Had a head on when I was 6 so real glad we seat belts ,it was 1966. Those 50s cars were two ton death traps. The 50s were the beginning of consumerism.
America became a different place than it had been. The middle class was born out of the chaos of the first half of the 20 the century that featured two world wars , a great depression and the invention of the automobile. Our world was born in 1950.
Nothing has changed if anything , life in these America's has become more cumbersome.

Prior to the 50s , most people still lived a pretty simple lifestyle. Not a whole lot had changed. No TV most folks walked to where ever they went,school church the store. You made do, that was how it was. My grandma told me that, you made do.

Children played , sometimes even outside. I haven't seen anything like that since the 1970s and it was me.

Having said all that, we are still Americans down deep and we still rock . We may have lost our way in Vietnam, we may have too much violence between the police and the crazy mass murderers. Our political system is wac we are doomed , but there are still among us people who will not yield. Still a few warriors. Still a few who can see through the bullshit and still few who have a glimmer of hope. Still a few real Americans. A few

[demosincebirth]

59. 40% of the workforce, in the private sector, was unionized. One unionized job could support a family

of six, buy a home, two cars, and have enough to take a vacation once a year. I know because that was me. Now what does it take? I don't know. Now I live on my healthy Teamster Pension with full medical.

What happen? You can thank numb nuts Reagan with the firing of the Air Traffic Controller in 1980. With his and his cronies help, for eight years the many states passed RTW laws and the rest is history. This may not be the full summation but the blame falls squarely on the Republicans and few Democrats

The law deregulating the trucking industry devastated the teamster union, sponsored by Ted Kennedy and signed into law by Carter The union lost 500,000 jobs to non union, low paying companies. This is one example and the snowball hasn't stopped yet


To all active union members...get more active. To all young union members...get active in you union and don't keep you mouth shut.

[HughBeaumont]

61. The era of automation is hardly going to be a "great movement".

It's going to be a starvation-wage dystopian nightmare you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

Americans aren't benevolent. By and large, they're me-first "earn yer keep, you lazy (insert pejorative, racial or generational snarl term here)s" pricks who would never for one minute stand for someone they deem culturally or economically lesser than them getting something for nothing even if it's truly and painfully necessary.

"Change is good" is pretty much always said by the people "change" least affects to the people who are going to get fisted by it.

[Surya Gayatri]

71. Change may not be intrinsically "good" (a value judgment), but it IS inevitable and inexorable.

"If I could turn back time" (and change), it would all be different and better.

Cher couldn't do it, and neither can you or anyone else.

Not how the universe is organized--relatively or quantumly. This natural law is called "entropy"--it rules the cosmos and us.

The passage of "time" IS change. Time = Change. That's how the universe rolls.

_____________________________________

“ The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum. ”

Does the existence of human civilization accelerate the trend towards increased entropy in the universe?

Is entropy increasing in the human society? Will it lead to its collapse?

The arrow of time
Main article: Entropy (arrow of time)

Entropy is the only quantity in the physical sciences that seems to imply a particular direction of progress, sometimes called an arrow of time. As time progresses, the second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases. Hence, from this perspective, entropy measurement is thought of as a kind of clock.

https://www.quora.com/Does-the-existence-of-human-civilization-accelerate-the-trend-towards-increased-entropy-in-the-universe

https://www.quora.com/unanswered/Is-entropy-increasing-in-the-human-society-Will-it-lead-to-its-collapse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy#The_arrow_of_time

ETA:

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, born Nicolae Georgescu (4 February 1906 – 30 October 1994) was a Romanian American mathematician, statistician and economist. He is best known today for his path-breaking 1971 magnum opus The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, where he argued that all natural resources are irreversibly degraded when put to use in economic activity.
...

Magnum opus on The Entropy Law and the Economic Process
According to Georgescu's own recollection, the ideas presented in his magnum opus were worked out in his mind over a period of twenty years or so before the final publication.[7]:xiv The three most important sources of inspiration for his work were Émile Borel's monograph on thermodynamics he had read while studying in Paris (see above); Joseph Schumpeter's view that irreversible evolutionary changes are inherent in capitalism; and the Romanian historical record of the large oil refineries in Ploieşti becoming target of strategic military attacks in both world wars, proving the importance of natural resources in social conflict.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Georgescu-Roegen#Magnum_opus_on_The_Entropy_Law_and_the_Economic_Process

[HughBeaumont]

76. I dunno, do you have a magical way to consume with no income?

You know, unless YOU'LL be the next Bill Gates and not the peon worried about where their family's next meal is going to come from.

During the Great Recession, several dozen people at my work, all college graduates and Master's degree holders, got laid off. What do you tell these people, that "They didn't work hard enough and you have to work even HARDER"????? That "they should have made better choices"?? That . . . . change is good and inevitable??

If we don't get the future right and remain the Americans we are, the "change" that's coming is going to make "The Great Recession" seem like a two car fender bender.

Is mysticism and philosophy going to solve starvation and never working again? Do you have some platitude that will cure permanent unemployment?

Unbelievably crass and abhorrent. COME on.

[Surya Gayatri]

78. It is neither good nor bad, it just IS, as the ruling principle of the universe.

You can label this principle "crass and abhorrent", but that does not alter its inexorable reality.

This is indeed a time of frightening, tumultuous change--universal entropy does seem to be accelerating.

Up to us earthlings to find the philosophical, spiritual, social, economic, political and personal wherewithal to cope with it. The destiny of the earth and our place on it are in the balance.

So far, and as humans are wont to do, we appear to prefer denying its encroaching reality, and would rather hark back to an "unchangeable and fossilized" past.

[HughBeaumont]

83. Yes, I suppose it's far easier to just wash our hands of the whole upcoming mess . . .

. . . instead of, you know fighting it. "Just deal with the fisting, because it's inevitable".

I could picture you over a starving family saying "What you're experiencing is neither good or bad, it just IS. Well, good luck and ta ta."

We need tangible solutions, not The Secret. That's what America as a collective thinks is going to get us out of our monetary ruts - positive thinking and great vibes. That nonsense doesn't solve wholesale greed that runs everything.

[Surya Gayatri]

86. Couldn't agree more: " We need tangible solutions..." and

"That nonsense doesn't solve wholesale greed that runs everything."

The "nonsense" of greed and selfishness can be tangibly solved only by change at the source--the individual human mind and spirit.

Which explains why philosophers and spiritual leaders of all persuasions agree that an "awakening" to our true human identity is required--a sine qua non to an upliftment of the human condition.

[SheriffBob]

65. Strom Thurmond

Was fighting against the civil rights agenda while sleeping with his black mistresses.

[Surya Gayatri]

66. And, THIS IS REALITY. Too many people refuse to look it in the face and deal with it.

Reimposing trade tariffs, restricting market access and reigniting trade wars WILL NOT bring those long-dead dinosaur jobs back.

No amount of demagoguery can change that reality.

Brilliant OP. Thanks.

[raccoon]

72. Houses were a lot smaller then. houses built in the 50's

for a FAMILY had 3 bedrooms and one bathroom, very often.

It wasn't expected that every child would have his/her own room. i didn't and neither did most of my classmates.

Kids wore hand-me-down clothes, families didn't eat out near as much, etc.

No air conditioning, in houses or cars. Those of you who never had to experience a summer in the sunbelt with no AC, I'm here to tell you the summers were brutal.

As others have said, if you were female, nonwhite, or gay, things weren't so great.

Abortions were illegal. Birth control not as reliable as today.

We had some great music, though.

[betsuni]

75. This is neither here nor there, but I came across it again today and like it.

Louis CK, "Everything is Amazing and Nobody is Happy."

[ileus]

82. Some of the best Vehicle designs of all time...

[leeroysphitz]

85. I wasn't "around" for the 50s BUT...

If it means going back to wearing thin ties and getting liqoured up at work like in Mad Men then I'm in.

[TNProfessor]

87. Interracial Marriage...

Would not have been allowed to marry my husband.

[LongTomH]

88. On some levels I agree, but with caveats.....

No, the good old days aren't coming back, and the prosperity of the 50s and 60s were built on unique conditions that won't recur; however, I don't buy the argument that we have to accept a much lower standard of living and a declining middle class. US GDP is larger than ever; but, with most gains going to the upper 0.01%.

When I started reading future studies, back in the 60s, some writers were bold enough to state the thesis: "Both capitalism and socialism as we know them are obsolete." What will replace them? We need to start a reasoned debate, with all actors: labor unions, environmental, and minority rights groups included.

[Ilsa]

89. "Leave It to Beaver" was not a documentary.

Just speaking in general about how different, not better, necessarily, things were in the 50s, and the nostalgia trap:

The Way We Never Were by Stephanie Coontz
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/270009.The_Way_We_Never_Were

We can change some things to be more fair, but we can't go back, nor would we want to.

[Joe Chi Minh]

94. ... and neither is the EU coming back. Brave New World was

satirically so-named. Huxley didn't believe in the inevitability of technological progress - at least not in terms of a concomitant social progress. Do you ?

[dembotoz]

99. duck and cover and fallout shelters? no thank you

[brentspeak]

101. Logical fallacy: if industry is so automated

Why are factories still being relocated to China, Mexico, and Malaysia? To take advantage of foreign robots?

No, to take advantage of cheap foreign labor.

Automation has cut some headcount, but industry will always require a large pool of human labor. There is no reason not to relocate manufacturing back to the US except for executive greed and politicians' hunger for large campaign contributions from Wall Street. Despite all the "sky is falling" B.S., prices of goods would not be exorbitant, and we have a built-in domestic market within our very large borders. Foreign exporters need us more than we need them.

[AgingAmerican]

106. It's was about income distribution

And the policy behind it.