Full transcript
0:00the 1950s really was sort of a golden
0:03age of the average American um whether
0:06that's good or bad I'll leave up to you
0:08um but it's clear in retrospect that by
0:13the 50s Americans have come to see
0:16success or achieving the American dream
0:19as the ability to be alike or the the
0:21freedom to be alike right Americans
0:24really still believed that the American
0:26dream was expressed in terms of personal
0:29freedoms
0:30but people were expected to express
0:33these personal freedoms in terms of
0:36spending money to look like and to act
0:40like other people so they
0:42demonstrated that capitalism and
0:44democracy had created an economy and
0:46Society where people could choose to be
0:49alike they do not see this as Conformity
0:52they see it as a a personal choice and I
0:56think this makes sense if you think
0:58about how life for the average American
1:00has
1:01changed uh since the
1:041930s um the average American of 1960
1:07had life so much better than their
1:09parents had had it um they've got 20%
1:13more purchasing power uh than their
1:15parents did uh average annual income is
1:19up $500 that doesn't sound like a lot
1:23but again you have to think about how
1:24little money people had made in the past
1:27so for they averaged to come up $500
1:30annually actually cumulatively is a
1:32pretty big deal you know Americans of
1:36the 1960s had seen the gross national
1:39product grow
1:41250% since 1945 and this at a time when
1:45people had believed it would decline
1:47because of the loss of wartime spending
1:50you know Depression era unemployment had
1:53never gotten below
1:5514% well during this period between 45
1:58and 60 it never gets above 5% if you
2:02wanted a job chances were you could get
2:06it Americans were healthier they were
2:11smarter uh in terms of being better
2:13educated at least uh than any American
2:16who had ever lived up to this point
2:18bluecollar jobs could now afford to give
2:22people a better standard of living to be
2:24a bluecollar worker in in some some
2:27parts of the country meant that you
2:28could make the money to live the life a
2:30white color person had had you could
2:32have a stable home you could have a two
2:34cars you could have a radio a
2:36refrigerator your kids didn't have to
2:38work they could stay in school all the
2:40way to graduation right so I think it
2:43even though there are a lot of
2:45African-Americans and Rural Americans
2:47still being left behind in this economy
2:50it seems like the economic growth of the
2:53period has created a sense of confidence
2:56that in some ways borders on arrogance
2:58you know this is a high of American
3:01exceptionalism uh certainly
3:04um one of the things Americans were
3:07blind to because of this was the
3:09concentration of wealth right um
3:12Americans were willing to not worry
3:15about the fact that 50% of the corporate
3:19wealth in the United States was owned by
3:21500 firms that's 1% of the total
3:26businesses so 1% of the businesses in
3:29the United States owned half of the
3:32corporate wealth in the United States it
3:34gives them a tremendous amount of power
3:37this was something that Americans of the
3:3930s had thought was tremendously
3:42problematic but
3:43remember Americans of 45 to 60 believe
3:46kesian economics has made this a
3:49nonissue they think the concentration of
3:51wealth isn't a really big deal because
3:53they no longer think that concentrating
3:56wealth with a small group of people
3:57means there's less money to go around
3:59they now believe more money can be
4:02created unfortunately what that doesn't
4:05do is eliminate the problems created by
4:08the concentration of power in American
4:11politics so Americans of the 50s are
4:15turning a blind eye to something
4:16Americans of the 1880s had been very
4:19worried about things that the Roosevelts
4:21have been worried about uh that a very
4:24small number of American businessmen
4:26were so rich that they could buy govern
4:29governments to pass laws that protected
4:32their wealth and privilege sometimes at
4:34the expense of other people but for the
4:37time being middle class Americans
4:39weren't too worried about that because
4:41the economy was growing so fast it
4:44looked like it had fixed the problems
4:46that had plagued it in the
4:481930s