Chapter 51 Chapter 9 The Golden Age 1

1 People in the world are often similar to historians in their observation and reasoning: only when they look back on the past can they recognize the essence of their own experience. In the 1950s, everyone began to realize that times are indeed getting better, and when compared with the days before the outbreak of World War II, they are even better.Those who hold this kind of thinking are especially the residents of those "developed countries" that are thriving. In 1959, a Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom retained the Prime Ministership and won the general election with the slogan: "You have never had such a good life." This sentence is obviously quite true.But it was not until the turbulent 1970s, the turbulent 1970s, and the scarred 1980s that the observers—mainly economists at the head—woke up to the fact that The world, especially the world of advanced capitalism, is coming to an end of a very special period unprecedented in history.People searched hard, trying to come up with an appropriate name for this period; so the French have "30 glorious years", and the Anglo-American society has various sayings about "a quarter of a century golden age" (Marglin and Schor, 1990).Against the backdrop of the ensuing decades of dark crisis, the golden brilliance is all the more brilliant.

There are several reasons why people are so slow, and it took so many years to realize the specialness of the beauty of the year.Prosperity was nothing new for the United States, not a revolutionary breakthrough, but a continuation of wartime economic expansion.Since the beginning of the Great War, the country has been prosperous thanks to the war. Not only has it not suffered any material damage, but its gross national product (GNP) has increased by two-thirds (Van der Wee, 1987, p. 30).By the end of the war, the United States had leapt to account for almost two-thirds of total global industrial production.But precisely because of its large structure and rapid growth, the performance of the U.S. economy in the post-war golden age was relatively not as impressive as that of other countries during this period, because the latter started from a much weaker foundation than the United States. Between 1950 and 1973, the growth rate of the United States was lower than that of other industrial countries (except the United Kingdom); more importantly, its growth rate was also less than the impulsive vitality of its previous period.Among other industrial countries, even the United Kingdom, whose growth rate is much slower than other countries, has broken its previous record (Maddison, 1987, p. 650).In fact, as far as the United States is concerned, from the perspective of economy and technology, the development of this period has not progressed, but has been relatively regressed.The gap between Americans' productivity per unit of work and other countries has narrowed.Take 1950 as an example. Although the per capita income of the gross domestic product of the United States was twice that of Germany and France, five times that of Japan, and more than half that of the United Kingdom, other countries rushed to catch up until they entered the 70s and 1950s. The 80s still haven't stopped.

The primary goal of Japan and European countries after the war is naturally to restore the vitality damaged in the war.Therefore, in the first few years after 1945, the standard for measuring national success was not based on the future as a yardstick, but based entirely on the degree of closeness to the past level.For non-communist countries, this process of healing also means that fears of the war and the legacy of the wartime resistance movement - that is, the fear of social revolution and the power of the Communist Party - must be left behind. .By 1950, most countries (except Germany and Japan) had returned to prewar living standards.However, the early Cold War, coupled with the remaining strong communist forces in France and Italy at that time, made everyone dare not feel at ease at that time.All in all, it took a long time before people finally felt the material benefits of growth.In Britain, for example, this feeling did not become apparent until the mid-1950s.Prior to this, it was believed that no politician could win any election with the aforementioned campaign slogan of Macmillan.Even in a region as rich as Emilia Romagna in northern Italy, the benefits of a so-called "affluent society" did not become common until the 1960s (Francia, Muzzioli, 1984, pp. 322-379).What's more, the secret weapon that usually exists in a generally wealthy society, that is, the phenomenon of full employment in society, did not become a general trend until the 1960s, when the unemployment rate in Europe was about 1.5%. .In the 1950s, Italy still had an unemployment rate of 8%.In short, entering the 1960s, European countries took their phenomenal prosperity for granted.From then on, all "savvy" observers agreed that the general economic trend would only go forward and upward forever. In 1972, a member of the United Nations wrote in a report: "The growth trend of the 1960s will undoubtedly continue in the early and mid-1970s. ... At present, no factors can be seen that will affect the external environment of the European economies. have a major impact.” As the 1960s progressed, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a club of advanced capitalist industrial countries, also revised its forecast for future growth. for a more optimistic figure.By the 1970s, the OECD's forecast for economic growth ("conservative medium estimate") was set at more than 5% (Glyn, Hughes, Lipietz, Singh, 1990, p 39), but The development of facts has proved that the result is not the case at all.

Looking back and observing now, the golden age of 30 years is basically the patent of developed capitalist countries. In 30 years, these countries accounted for 75% of the world's total output and more than 80% of the total export volume (OECD, Impact, 1979, pp. 18-19).But there was another reason at the time that made this period of prosperity less visible for a while.That is, in the 1950s, the phenomenon of the economic upsurge seemed to be a worldwide development, independent of a particular economic region.In fact, at first, the newly expanded socialist countries seemed to have the upper hand.The growth rate of the Soviet Union in the 1950s was higher than that of any other country in the West; and the economic growth rate of Eastern European countries was almost as fast as that of the Soviet Union—especially the countries that had always been backward in the past were the fastest, while the industrialized or semi-industrialized countries were relatively slow (Communist East Germany, however, lagged far behind the non-communist German Confederation).In the 1960s, the growth of the Eastern European bloc began to lose momentum, but its national income growth in the golden age was slightly higher (and lower in the Soviet Union) than that of the major capitalist countries at that time (IMF, 1990, p. 65).By the 1960s, capitalism was clearly ahead of socialism.

However, the Golden Age is still a worldwide phenomenon, although for the vast majority of the world's population, they live in poor and backward countries. country whitewash).The population of the third world countries continued to increase rapidly. After 1950, the population of Africa, East Asia, and South Asia more than doubled in 35 years; the population growth rate of Latin America was even more alarming (World Resources, 1986, p.11).In the 1970s and 1980s, the third world suffered from frequent famines and devastation.The standard image of this famine, that is, the bony foreign child, frequently appears on the TV screen after dinner in Western families.But back in the golden age, there was no such collective famine phenomenon.The only exceptions are the tragic consequences of war and political madness.In fact, the population doubled at that time, and the average life expectancy was also extended by 7 years - if the figure in 1960 was compared with that in 1930, it was as high as 17 years (Morawetz, 1977, p. 48).At that time, the phenomenon that the increase in food production outstripped the increase in population was true in developed countries and in all major non-industrial regions. In the 1950s, average national food production increased by 1 percent per year in every "developing region."Only Latin America is slightly less, but it is also growing, but not as fast as elsewhere.Into the 1960s, food production continued to grow in non-industrial regions of the world, but at an unusually slow rate (with the exception of Latin America again, only this time it lagged behind and led the rest of the world).All in all, the combined food production of poor countries grew faster than that of developed countries in the 1950s and 1960s.

In the 1970s, some countries that were originally poor areas also began to show great differences. Therefore, it would be meaningless to confuse the figures of these countries.Today some regions, such as the Far East and Latin America, are growing faster than their populations; Africa is lagging behind by 1% a year.By the 1980s, in poor areas of the world other than South Asia and East Asia, national food production had completely stopped growing (even in these two areas, the growth rate was worse than in the 1970s, such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, etc.).As for some other regions, the level has been much lower than that in the 1970s, and even plummeted, especially in Africa, Central America and the Near East of Asia (Vander Wee, 1987 p.106; FAO, The State of Food, 1989 , Annex, Table 2, pp.113-15).

Meanwhile, developed countries have the exact opposite problem.Their trouble is the overproduction of food, so much that they simply don't know what to do with it.Therefore, in the 1980s, they had two countermeasures: one was to massively reduce production, and the other was (as done by European organizations) to dump their "creams of cream" and "rivers of milk" products to poor countries at prices below cost.Producers in poor countries could not compete, so Dutch cheese was cheaper on the Caribbean islands than in the Netherlands itself.Strange to say, food surplus on one side and starvation on the other, this kind of scene aroused much indignation in the world during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but now in the second half of the 20th century, few people hear about it.The discrepancy highlights the widening gap between the rich and the poor since the 1960s.

Regardless of capitalism and socialism, the pace of industrialization is naturally accelerating around the world, and this phenomenon even includes the "third world".In the west of the Old World, in places like Spain and Finland, a dramatic Industrial Revolution took place.And in the "real" existing socialist countries, such as Bulgaria and Romania (see Chapter 13), large-scale industrial sectors also began to be established.As for the third world, the so-called "newly industrialising countries" (NIG), although they only appeared after the golden age, the number of countries that are still dominated by agriculture has rapidly decreased, at least no longer focusing on agriculture as a means of exchange for other countries. means of importation.By the end of the 1980s, only 15 countries were still relying on exports of agricultural products for half of their imports.Except for New Zealand, these countries are located in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America (FAO, The State of Food, 1989, Annex, Table 11, pp. 149-151).

The world economy is growing at an explosive speed, and the progress is fast. By the 1960s, it had formed an unprecedented prosperity. During the 20 years from the early 1950s to the early 1970s, the total output of manufacturing industries around the world increased by as much as four times.What's more, the world's trade volume of industrial products has increased by more than 10 times.During the same period, the total output of agricultural products in the world has also increased substantially, although the growth rate of agricultural products is not as alarming as that of industrial products.This time, the increase in agricultural output is not due to the increase in the productivity of the existing cultivated land, as in the past.The amount of grain harvested per hectare tripled between 1950-1952 and 1980-1982—and more than tripled in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia.At the same time, global fish production also tripled before shrinking again (World Resources, 1986, pp. 47, 142).

At the same time as the explosive growth, it caused a side effect that was ignored by everyone at the time. Looking back now, it has already implied a threat, namely the pollution of the earth's environment and the destruction of the ecological balance.Except for people who are enthusiastic about wildlife and other humanities and protectors of rare natural resources, these two issues are rarely paid attention to in prime time.The reason for this is naturally the prevailing ideology, which believes that the measure of progress lies in the control of human beings over the natural world. The stronger the control, the greater the progress.Socialist countries were particularly influenced by this idea, and therefore, in total disregard of the ecological consequences, hastily established for themselves a heavy industry based on iron and smoke, which was backward in terms of the times.But even in the Western world, the old motto of 19th-century industrialists, the so-called "where there is garbage, there is money" (that is, "pollution is money"), still has a powerful persuasive force.Those who firmly believe in this, especially in the real estate industry of building roads and houses, once again found opportunities for huge profits in land speculation.There is absolutely no way to go wrong in this way of getting rich. As long as you pick the right piece of land and then sit and wait, the land price will naturally rise in a straight line, reaching sky-high prices in one go.With the right location, real estate speculators can become millionaires at almost no cost.Because he can use the future buildings on the land as collateral to borrow from the bank. As long as the price of the land continues to rise (regardless of whether it has been built or not, whether there are residents or empty houses), he can continue to borrow all the way.But at the end of the day, the illusion of high debt and bubble accumulation finally came to an end -- and, like all previous booms, the golden age came to an end with the collapse of the real estate sector and the collapse of the banks -- at last Before the end of the world comes, urban centers around the world, large and small, have been "developed" and destroyed.The old urban civilized landscapes of medieval cathedrals, such as Worcester in England and Lima, the colonial city established by Spain in Peru, were swallowed up and destroyed by this frenzy of development.Because at that time, the authorities of both the east and the west discovered a wonderful way to solve the housing shortage at the same time, that is, to apply the mass-production factory method to the construction of civilian houses, which not only can be completed quickly, but also at low cost.As a result, the outskirts of various cities are filled with a large number of high-rise apartment houses with dull faces, lack of change, and aggressive appearance. The 1960s, I am afraid, will forever remain infamous as the most destructive decade in the history of human urbanization.

In fact, looking back at the psychology at that time, not only did everyone have no worries about ecology and the environment, but they were complacent and had a sense of self-satisfaction.Don't you see that the consequences of pollution in the 19th century have now surrendered to the technological progress and ecological conscience of the 20th century? Since 1953, the burning of coal in London has been banned. Wouldn’t it have swept away the familiar foggy scene in Dickens’s novels, the perplexing and deep fog that swept across London from time to time?A few years later, don't you see trout swimming in the once dead upper Thames again?In the countryside and suburbs, the rows of huge factories that used to be a symbol of "industrial" civilization are now replaced by light and quiet new factory buildings?In terms of transportation, airports have replaced railway stations and become typical buildings for human transportation.With the evacuation of the rural population, a new batch of residents began to move in, most of whom were middle class.They flock to abandoned village farms, feeling closer to nature than ever before. Nevertheless, it is an undeniable fact that human activities have had a profound impact on nature.And the changes in this respect were not limited to cities and industry; the impact was so deep that everyone finally realized that even agricultural activities were deeply affected.And the impact of this shock, since the middle of the 20th century, has become more and more intensified.The reason is mainly due to the development and utilization of petrochemical energy in the formation (that is, natural energy such as coal, oil, and natural gas).Since the 19th century, some people have worried about the exhaustion of these energy sources.In fact new sources of minerals are constantly being discovered, faster than man can exploit them.Of course, the global energy consumption has naturally increased rapidly—from 1950 to 1973, the consumption in the United States even jumped tenfold (Rostow, 1978, p. 256, Table III, p. 58).One of the reasons why the golden age is so golden is that during the entire 14 years from 1950 to 1973, Saudi Arabia produced less than $2 a barrel of crude oil.During that time, energy costs were ridiculously low, and getting lower by the day.Paradoxically, it was not until 1973, when members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries finally decided to raise the price of oil to reflect the true costs that the automobile transportation culture could bear, that the consequences of the massive growth of oil-based transportation began to be affected by ecological Careful attention and treatment by observers.But it was too late, the sky of the car culture metropolis was already pitch black, especially in the United States, the first and most worrying phenomenon was the dense smog mixed with black smoke in the city.In addition, a large amount of carbon dioxide emitted also caused the temperature of the atmosphere to rise three times between 1950 and 1973, which means that the density of this gas in the atmosphere increased by nearly 1% per year (World Ressources, Table11.1, P.318; 11.4, p.319; V Smil, 1990 P.4 Fig.2).As for the output of chlorofluorocarbons (chlorofluorocarbons), which destroy the ozone layer, they have shown an astonishing increase in a straight line.At the end of World War II, the use of chlorofluorocarbons was almost zero; but by 1974, more than 300,000 tons of a single compound (one compound), and more than 400,000 tons of other compounds were emitted into the atmosphere each year (World Resources, Table 11 .3, p.319).The chief culprits of this pollution are the rich countries in the West, but the Soviet Union cannot reject its share.The industrial development of the Soviet Union was particularly damaging to the environment and ecology, and the carbon dioxide pollution produced was comparable to that of the United States. In 1985, it was almost five times that of 1950 (in terms of pollution per average population, the United States was naturally far ahead).During this period, only the United Kingdom has really reduced the per capita carbon dioxide emission of the resident population (Smil, 1990, Table I, p. 14).