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We used to see these "good old days" posts from boomers. They mostly seem to have stopped since they mostly learned that this was a fantasy not shared by most people. It also ignores that most people today don't actually want to live under the conditions above. In 1960 only about half of all households had washing machines. This idyllic fantasy ignores that some lucky ladies were making this possibly with hours of hard domestic labor per day. It also ignores that huge economic boost the US got after WWII for being the only country that still had intact industry.
edit: typo
And you're ignoring that Regan et al went after the unions and undermined your ability to negotiate against your much more powerful employer.
But I do agree, a lot of people forget that, while stress and uncertainty are up for a lot of people, material wealth is also way up. The thing is, it's an unnecessary trade-off. We could have an abundance of security in all areas of our lives.
As much as I think "whataboutism" is an overused word, this is a perfect example of it. It's not germane to anything in my post. I pointed out that the "good old days" claim in OP is a myth. A claim of, "so and so made things worse" has nothing to do with my statement.
While Reagan was president, one of my grandparents was in a union. They still had to use a toilet in the hall that they shared with the neighbor. They couldn't afford a car. They didn't have a TV. None of those things were available because all the factories in their country got bombed. At the same time my other set of grandparents paid taxes but never got to vote. They lived in a colony of the democracy-loving British but since they were natives they were second class citizens.
Pretending that the world was some paradise until Reagan and the neocons showed up is just willful ignorance.
Maybe I didn't acknowledge strongly enough that you're 100% in saying that shit sucked back then. Shit sucks now, too. They just suck in different ways unique to each time.
The killing the unions comment was in reference to the idyllic income OP is nostalgic for, since they are part of the reason such a situation was possible. Sorry if that felt like "whatsboutism," it wasn't intended to be that way.
That makes sense.
I get frustrated at frequent oversimplifications. Reagan and the neocons certainly made things worse but they were a few out of many factors.
Even if we imagined a world where we have a bunch of Bernie Sanders all over government there are limits to what they can do. Strong unions in the US wouldn't have done anything to stop Asia from industrializing, Europe from rebuilding its economy or the rest of the developing world from trying to move out of agrarian economies. When the US car companies were the only game in town there was a lot of excess that could be spread around to workers. Once a bunch of other countries started offering cars it put more and more pressure on the US companies to spend more money on quality and charge less for finished products. Over here we got used to a war induced monopoly and convinced ourselves that's "normal" or that it's simply the result of democracy or American ingenuity.
If we actually want to improve the state of regular people we'll have much better success if we're honest with ourselves about both the present and history.
Yup, totally agree, and I think the improved standards of living in those areas are absolutely a good thing, even if it's changed the way the American economy works. It was never going to be static anyhow. China is starting to produce higher quality products and their standard of living is increasing, too. Their low-end labor has moved to Vietnam, among other places, and hopefully they develop their own mature economy in due time.
I don't think a highschool education is enough to have a high standard of living in the American economy, that fact was pretty much always going to be true with the way the economy has changed. Still, the bottom has fallen out and there's little reason it should have outside of the union busting.
I suppose, had the American unions stayed strong this whole time, this meme might still have been produced, with people still remembering a time when less education was enough to climb higher on the economic ladder.
In 1960 only about half of all households had washing machines. This idyllic fantasy ignores that some lucky ladies were making this possibly with hours of hard domestic labor per day.
Being fair here, the absence of a washing machine in the home does not necessarily mean doing laundry by hand. Laundromats have been around since the 30s.
Also that the average house was like 1/3 the size of new homes today and a large portion of families had one car or fewer.
I would happily buy a below average size house instead of living in a below average sized apartment if that were an option.
There were many many things that were worse about the "good old days".
Cars sucked, phones sucked, computers sucked, houses were smaller, appliances sucked (if you had them at all), clothes sucked (yes there were some cool outfits but they were expensive, uncomfortable and high maintenance).
It's not like work conditions were universally awesome either. Consider how many women were regularly getting raped as part of their job and we didn't prosecute the Cosbys and Weinsteins of the world until recently. Today, if your boss sends you a harassing text, you go public with it. Back then, if you complained about your boss calling you "sugartits" and copped a feel, your options were basically STFU or GTFO (because you almost certainly can't prove it).
If we want to strive for a better future, we're more likely to succeed if we avoid romanticizing the past.
cars, phones, computers, and appliances were serviceable. that's something we can lament changing.
Sort of.
Some people could service cars, if they had the space, equipment and skills to do it.
For much of that period the people who could afford phones were not the ones who knew how to fix them. Part of it is that phones do more now. If you get an old flip phone it's basically bulletproof and you don't need to worry about repairing it (although you can typically swap out broken pieces). The problem is that you'll be rockin an ancient flip phone. Once you start adding a bunch of stuff (capacitive touch screen, wifi, camera, bluetooth, etc) it's gonna be harder to fix.
My desktop today is designed to be more serviceable than early computers were. I don't need to solder anything, parts just fit together and there's far better standards support. Did you ever have the joy of messing with autoexec.bat and config.sys just to get your mouse working? Do you remember what a PITA it was getting an old Soundblaster to work?
I've had a guy come out to repair by boiler, my dishwasher and (twice) my washing machine. Appliances are still serviceable but (just like in the old days) it usually involves calling someone.