this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
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We can't say exactly what would or wouldn't have happened. What we can say for certain is that the war build up allowed the steel industry to make a lot of money off of old plants.
Jimmy Carter wanted to end America's oil dependency in 1976. He installed solar panels on the White House as a symbolic way of saying we were going to get off the oil addiction. Reagan tore those things down and kept us dependant on oil.
We can say, because the things you list are almost completely independent of the fact that Germany, Japan, France (to a certain extent), and later China all made major advancements in their industrial capabilities post-war, and they (along with countries within their geographic and political spheres of influence) didn’t have to buy from the US anymore.
Would a 1970s and 1980s green energy revolution in the US have been a good thing that would have benefitted the United States? Most likely yes (and everyone else for that matter) — but again, that doesn’t change the fact that the countries left with minimal industrial output post WWII were going to rebuild that output. Individually many of them my not have surpassed the US (and may never do so), but in aggregate they (especially China) have reduced the US’s near sole-source influence they had on the supply chain for manufactured goods in the 50s and 60s. This was always going to be outside the US’s control and ability to change in any significant manner — they were always going to go from “virtually no competition” to “competition with virtually everyone” in the post-war years.
So, you're telling me you know exactly what would have happened if Humphrey had won in 1968 and had pushed for a massive increase in NASA's budget, resulting in a vast leap ahead in US technology?
The US ceding manufacturing to China et al was a political choice by Reagan and the GOP. They wanted to destroy the Unions, and were happy to let cities like Detroit implode.