I'll bet you could pick up a random op-ed from a 1960s Readers' Digest and someone would be making the argument that Americans spend too much time watching TV and pouring their creative energies into advertising, cosmetics and pop records while the Soviets are conquering outer space and South East Asia.
Interestingly, despite not having large, obvious, centralized manufacturing hubs, the US is not far behind China in overall manufacturing output, despite putting far less effort into it.
US is at 18% of global manufacturing vs China's 20%, but the US only gets 12% of it's overall GDP from manufacturing compared to China's 27%, and with about half the percentage of it's workforce (with a much smaller workforce).
Only if you measure manufacturing in dollars, which is then artificially inflated by the military sector.
If the US had to manufacture the products that are currently manufactured in China, the amount of dollars generated would be lower, or the share of people employed in manufacturing would explode. GDP would of course decrease.
Yah, there is this incomprehensible gnawing notion that crushing oppression is somehow a great way to innovate, and that liberty and self-expression is no more than dalliance.
And at least back then you could point to statistical trends indicating that American poverty, income inequality, and standard of living were all trending in a desirable trajectory.
