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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   23106 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025

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if China is just 1950s America, and 1950s America was just 19th century Britain, aren't we headed for the same stagnation and broad irrelevance of the UK today?

I think this is too fuzzy an analogy to be much help.

In the 1950s the United States had quite recently literally destroyed the infrastructure of its major European competitors and made sure that only plausible hostile industrial competitor was thousands of miles away and surrounded by friendly client states. Compared to America of 1950, China doesn't have such an advantage, it has a dramatically worse age pyramid, and a worse debt-to-GDP ratio to boot. In fact, this is even true of China compared to America of 2025. To the extent that "America in 1950" describes any country in 2025, it's, uhhh, well it's the United States.

In the 1950s the United States had quite recently literally destroyed the infrastructure of its major European competitors

...as opposed to the Germans, Russians, British, French, and other Europeans doing so with the second generation-ruining war in a lifetime?

I wouldn't say it's opposed - the Europeans started the war, the United States finished the war (in part) by strategically bombing Germany and its allies/occupied territories (including France, Italy, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Austria, the Netherlands).

The American strategic bombing campaigns in WW2 were not what destroyed the infrastructure of Russia, Britain, France, Italy, Romania, Czechoslavakia, Austria, or the Netherlands.

The American strategic bombing campaigns in WW2 didn't even destroy the German war industry, even if you ignore the British and Russian strategic bombing campaigns. Germany as a European competitor was destroyed by occupation and post-war partition, during which it was still a relatively rich and industrialized portion of both super power camps both relative to the rest of Europe and much of the world.

The vast majority of infrastructure damage in Europe during WW2 was done via land-based artillery, urban fighting, and deliberate sabotage to deny infrastructure to the enemy. Plus occupational plundering of heavy industry, which was a signature of both the Nazi and Soviet occupational forces and centralized economic planning.

This is without addressing that the US was hardly the party that finished the European war, given the roles of not only the British but particularly the Soviet Union.

Just accepting all of this for the argument instead of quibbling (and I think there's a lot of quibbling that could be done, but Second World War bombing campaigns aren't really my area of expertise, so possibly I'm just wrong) the US was still an important part of the post-war partition, and an important part of the Soviet Union's victory in the East, and an important part in the reindustrialization or, if you prefer, continued industrialization of Germany after the war through the Marshall Plan, to say nothing of the shelling, urban fighting, and sabotage that you mention (and of course removing German scientists after the war to serve the United States).

My broader point, though, is that, despite the Iron Curtain, the world was the United State's oyster in a very real way in 1950 that it is not for China in 2025.

In so much that the world was the United State's oyster, it was because the Europeans destroyed themselves and had ruined much of the world via imperialist squabblings, not because the Americans destroyed the Europeans or their spheres of interests.

This is a hyperagency versus hypoagency point of the allocation of agency and responsibility. Just because the Americans benefited from being the last economy standing does not make the Americans responsible for the various european decisions that destroyed each others economies.

I don't disagree with your point about the Europeans shooting themselves in the foot, but by the same token of agency and responsibility, the Americans of the day did not merely sit around and let their country become the last economy standing by default (even though isolationism was probably a live option); they took advantage of the situation to better their own standing (perhaps some would argue not as much as they should have due to sympathies with and penetration by the Soviets).

The Europeans did not merely shoot themselves in the foot. The Europeans shot each other in the foot, femur, stomach, gut, chest, arms, hands, necks, and face, while some Europeans made a point of double-tapping the survivors. Some of the Europeans may have done so with often American ammunition, but that was ammunition they were desperately willing to buy to fight the Europeans who were doing so to them and who would also steal any salvagable organs and giblets if they won.

A much sounder argument for American agency and responsibility for destroying European industry primarily rests in providing the British and Soviets the ammo supplies more generally to shoot the Germans and Italians, rather than letting the British and Soviet war economies grind to a halt and be unable to fight for as long as they did. In turn, and especially for the Soviets, a Nazi victory over continental Europe would have meant... industrial-scale looting (and demographic slaughter) of the continental economies and industries through the typical state-looting policies, and an incompetent grand plan for German future prosperity that would have run the long-term industry into the ground as surely as communism did.

That the Americans took advantage of the European actions that destroyed the European states and empires does not mean the Americans had the agency, responsibility, or even the ability to stop them. Attributing their loss of industry to the Americans is a wrong claim of history.

A much sounder argument for American agency and responsibility for destroying European industry primarily rests in providing the British and Soviets the ammo supplies more generally to shoot the Germans and Italians

I did allude to this, yes!

The Americans of course gave much more than ammunition; they transferred tens of thousands of aircraft and dozens of ships, although my understanding is that those were compensated Lend-Lease transactions, not charity donations. In fact the aircraft transferred by the United States to Russia, if they had been transferred in one batch (they weren't) would have outnumbered the Luftwaffe at its peak strength during the war.

Attributing their loss of industry to the Americans is a wrong claim of history.

Perhaps it's a bit of a gloss, but it seems to me that, for the simple reason that the US destroyed (both directly by using American weapons delivered by American servicemen and indirectly by the provision of support) European industrial capacity, it's perfectly fine to ascribe (at least a goodly portion of!) the loss of European industrial capacity to the US.

Your point seems to be about ultimate responsibility. I was trying to make a claim about US intervention that I don't think is at odds with your claim about ultimate responsibility.

That the Americans took advantage of the European actions that destroyed the European states and empires does not mean the Americans had the agency, responsibility, or even the ability to stop them.

Is your disagreement here quibbles over a factual claim or with a moral claim that you think I am making? I'm not pushing some sort of revisionist line about how World War Two was part of some secret master American plan with the European countries being American puppets the entire time. (To finally make a criticism of the Star War prequel trilogy disguised as a point of historical commentary, if the United States had puppeted the governments of Europe in the 1930s they wouldn't have destroyed their own investments.)

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