The Golden Years

During the 50's many people, especially in countries more and more "developed", they realized that times had improved significantly, they decided to call it "the 30 glorious years." For the U.S. was not as revolutionary as the growth rates of other countries which started from a much smaller base. It was not until the 60s when Europe just assuming its prosperity. One of the reasons that are slow to recognize the limited scope was in the 50s that economic growth seemed to be global regardless of economic regimes. The growth rate of the USSR in the 50s was higher than any Western country and the economies of Eastern Europe grew almost as quickly, more quickly in countries hitherto backward and more slowly in total or partially industrialized. Communist East Germany, I am far behind the West German Communist not. In the 60s it became clear that was the CAPITALIZMO, but the socialism that was the lead. The Golden Age was a global phenomenon, the third world population grew at a phenomenal rate: the number of people in Africa, the Far East and South Asia doubled in the 35 years that have passed since 1950 and the figure Latin American population increased even more quickly. During the golden decades no major famines, except as a result of war and political madness, as in China. While multiplying the population, life expectancy was prolonged an average of 17 years in the late '60s. This means that food production grew faster than population, as happened both in developed areas and in all major regions of the industrialized world. The total food production in poor countries in both the '50 and in '60 increased faster than in developed countries. There was a side effect of this extraordinary explosion, which had a threatening aspect: pollution and environmental damage. The industrialization of the socialist countries was fully behind the ecological consequences that would bring the massive construction of a rather archaic industrial system based on iron and coal. "Where there's dirt, there is gold" (ie, pollution is money). A well located single building could make one a millionaire with virtually no cut at all, as you could ask for a loan guarantee of future construction, and expansion of the credit as the building (built or under construction, full or empty) was rise. Replaced airports railway stations as the symbolic building of transport par excellence. The impact of human activities on nature, especially urban and industrial, but also the agricultural, suffered a sharp increase from mid-century, largely due to the increased use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas, etc.). One of the reasons why the golden age was of thumb is that the price of a barrel of Saudi crude was below $ 2 over the entire period from 1950 to 1973, thus making energy was ridiculously continue constantly getting cheaper and cheaper. Only after 1973, when oil producers, OPEC finally decided to charge what the market was willing to pay, the guardians of the environment took minutes for the effect of the huge increase in traffic of vehicles with gasoline engine. Also, the production of chemicals that affect the ozone layer and, experience an almost vertical rise. With the automobile age, the model of mass production of Henry Ford was released by new car industries in the world, while in the U.S. Ford's principles were applied to new forms of production, from eateries up garbage (Mc Donald's is a successful post-war). And services previously restricted to a minority, now thought to be a mass market, as happened with the mass tourism to the sunny beaches, before the war had never traveled. What had once been a luxury became a common welfare, at least in rich countries: refrigerators, washing machines, telephones. In short now the average citizen of those countries it was possible to live as only the very rich had lived in the time of their parents, with the natural difference that mechanization had replaced the servants. The technological revolution, not only contributed to the proliferation of products rather than later, but for unknown products, including many that virtually no one imagined even before the war. Some revolutionary products such as synthetic materials known as plastics, nylon (1935), polyester and polyethylene. Others, such as television and tape recorders, just emerging from its pilot phase. War, with its demand for high technology, prepared a series of revolutionary processes and then adapted to civilian use, the radar, the jet and several ideas and techniques that paved the way for electronic and information technology of war. The golden age lies on the most advanced scientific research and often absurd, now find a practical application within a few years. Industry and even agriculture for the first time exceeded decisively nineteenth century technology. 3 THINGS OF THIS EARTHQUAKE TECHNOLOGICAL: 1 º) turned completely everyday life in the rich countries or even, to a lesser extent, the poor, where the radio came now to the most remote villages through the transmitters and batteries miniature long-term, where the "green revolution" transforms the rice and wheat, and plastic sandals replaced barefoot. Most of the contents of the fridge or freezer (none of which have figured in most households in 1945) is new: freeze-dried foods, farm products, poultry, meat filled with enzymes and chemicals to alter the taste , or even manipulated to "imitate high quality boneless cuts, not to mention fresh produce imported from across the world by air, something that previously would have been impossible. Technology revolution is that penetrate the consciousness of the consumed to the point that the novelty became the main attraction at the time of selling all The premise was that the "new" does not just mean, something better, but also revolutionary. In terms of products representing technological developments visible, the list is endless and requires no comment: television, vinyl records, followed by the tapes (the tapes appeared in the '70s) and compact discs, small radio transmitters laptops, digital watches, pocket calculators, batteries first and then with solar energy, and then the other components of electronic equipment, photo and home video. 2 º) to more complexity of the technology in question was made more complicated way from the discovery or invention to the production and more complex and expensive process of creation. The "RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT" was crucial to economic growth and by the "developed market economies." The innovators who could not protect themselves so easily had to take the opportunity faster, because as soon as other products entering the market, prices plummeted. 3 º) new technologies used intensively eliminated the capital and labor (with the exception of highly qualified scientific and technical) or they arrived to replace it. The main feature of the golden age was that large investments needed constant and, in return, people need not go out as consumers. A main feature of the golden age was that large investments needed constant t, in contrast, did not need people, except as consumers. In all developed countries except the U.S., large pools of labor that had formed during the depression of the prewar and postwar demobilization, sold out, which led to the absorption of new labor forces from the field and immigration, and married women, who until then had remained outside the labor market, entered in increasing numbers.The ideal sought by the golden age was the production or service without human intervention, automatic robots built cars, and silent gaps filled with computer terminals controlling the production of energy, driverless trains. On the contrary all the problems that had afflicted capitalism in the era of disasters seemed to dissolve and disappear. The U.S., a country that had been devastated by war, defeat or victory, although he had accused the brief shock of the Great Depression. The other countries tried to imitate systematically the U.S., a process that accelerated economic development, and that is always easier to adapt existing technology to invent a new one. It is clear that the "great leap" was not only that, but there was a restructuring and a substantial reform of capitalism and a breakthrough in the globalization of the economy. The first point was a "mixed economy" that made it easier for states planning and management of economic modernization. The political commitment of governments to full employment and to a lesser extent to the reduction of economic inequalities, ie, a commitment to the welfare and social security, gave rise for the first time the existence of a mass consumer market luxury items would then be deemed necessary now. The poorest people are, the higher the proportion of their income they have to spend on essential expenses like food. The Golden Age democratized the market. The second factor multiplied the productive capacity of the global economy by enabling an international division of labor much more complex. At first, this was dedicated to the flames "DEVELOPED MARKET ECONOMIES" ie, the countries of the U.S. side. The area's socialist world was largely unnecessary and the third world countries with a more dynamic opted for a separate and planned industrialization, with its own production by replacing imports of manufactured goods. The restoration of capitalism and the advancement of economic internationalization were crucial. The impact on the civilian industry of the technology produced by the high-level scientific research was certainly not critical to the decades of post-1973 crisis, when there were major advances in information and genetic engineering as a whole series of jumps was unknown. The high technology and innovations soon constituted themselves part of the economic expansion. There were 4 things that decision makers were clear: First, the disaster of wars, which had not be allowed to occur under any circumstances. Secondly, the planetary system had enjoyed stability in another time by wing hegemony of the British economy and its currency, the pound sterling. In the interwar period, Britain and the pound were no longer strong enough to carry that responsibility, which now could only assume the U.S. and the dollar. Third, the Great Depression was due to the failure of free market without restrictions.Since then he had to supplement the market with planning and governance of the economy or to act within the framework of the same. And finally, social and political reasons, had to prevent the return of mass unemployment. The supremacy of the U.S. was a fact, although many of the ideas and initiatives coming from Great Britain, and the newly created International Monetary Fund (IMF). These institutions were intended to facilitate long-term international investment and monetary stability, and address balance of payments problems The proposal for an International Trade Organization held in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). In short, in so far as the brave new world planners tried to create a set of functioning institutions which would give body to their projects failed. Unlike the United Nations, the international trade and payments but not worked as intended in principle. The golden age was the era of free-trade, free movement of capital and exchange rate stability that planners had in mind during the war. There is no doubt that this was mainly due to overwhelming economic dominance of the U.S. and the dollar, which worked even more effectively as a stabilizer because it was linked to a specific amount of gold until the system broke down in late '60s and early '70s. All this was also due to fear of communism. Cold War was what prompted them to convince them to help their future cometidotes to grow as fast as possible was of paramount political expediency, is to come to think of the cold war was the main driver of the great economic expansion, enormous generosity of the Marshall Plan funds contributed to the modernization of all the benefits they wanted to use for this purpose. The Americans funded the doubling of the Japanese industrial production between 1949 and 1953 and it is no coincidence that Japan was for the 1966-1970 period of maximum growth. The capitalist world economy is developing around the U.S., an economy that posed fewer obstacles to international movements, with one exception: the international migration were slow to recover from its stranglehold wars. The great economic expansion of the golden age was fueled not only by the stop labor before, but by large internal migration, from rural to city, abandonment of agriculture. For example, factories in Lombardy and Piedmont South Italians flooded. It began to appear, especially from the 60s an economy increasingly transnational, that is, a system of economic activities for which the states and their borders are not the basic structure, but merely complications. This transnational economy became a global force. This process went hand in hand with an increasingly international as well as between 1965 and 1990 the percentage of global production dedicated to exports doubled. Transnational corporations (often known as "multinational"). The new international division of labor and the emergence of extraordinary activities in tax havens. The latter not only were the first forms of transnationalism to develop, but also showing more clearly and how the capitalist economy spirals out of control, national or otherwise. At one point in the 60s, an old international financial center, the city of London in a major offshore financial center, thanks to the invention of "Eurocurrency" especially the "Eurodollar", dollars deposited in banks outside the U.S. and undistributed became a negotiable financial instrument. These dollars floating huge amounts accrued and due to increasing U.S. investments abroad and the major political and military costs of the U.S. government, became the basis of a totally uncontrolled global market, mainly in short-term believed and experienced tremendous growth. In the end, all governments ended up being his victims as they lost control over exchange rates and money supply. In the early 80s the U.S. transnational companies together accounted for three quarters of the country's exports and nearly half of its imports and companies of this type. The main function of such companies was "internationalizing markets beyond national boundaries", ie, become independent of the states and territory. Much of what the statistics reflected as imports or exports is actually internal trade within a transnational entity such as General Motors, which operates in 40 countries. The ability to act in this way reinforced the natural tendency to concentrate capital. Europeans and Americans, these countries continued to be the growth engines of the golden age.