Full transcript
0:02so the period between 1945 and
0:051960 would see a new sense of social
0:11Conformity emerge in the United States
0:14and this was due in large part to some
0:18important economic changes that made it
0:21possible for Americans to feel like they
0:25could expand the middle class and
0:28provide an American Dream that made it
0:30possible for more people to be American
0:33in very similar ways uh the first of
0:37these was the adoption of kesian
0:41economic principles by the federal
0:44government kesian economics had emerged
0:47in the early 1930s laid out by a British
0:50Economist named John Mater ke ke wanted
0:54to demonstrate that governments could
0:58play a more direct role in managing
1:01economies and move away from L Fair
1:04capitalism towards what's going to
1:06become known as kesian uh
1:10capitalism uh and what Keen had argued
1:13back in the 30s was that the government
1:16didn't need to directly manage business
1:20or intervene in business so you didn't
1:22need governments to like Buy telephone
1:25companies buy energy companies buy
1:28internet companies
1:30uh to run them for the common good uh if
1:34the businesses that profited off of
1:37citizens were um willing to submit to
1:43the government spending money in ways
1:46that would influence the ups and downs
1:49of that economy right so government
1:51wouldn't have to in intervene in
1:53business directly if it's willing to
1:55spend money in ways that manage
1:59prosperity
2:00and by managing Prosperity I mean the
2:04government would influence how much
2:06wealth flowed in or out of a given
2:10economy so in capitalist economies when
2:15things do good we get inflation because
2:17there's more money going into the
2:19economy so uh governments could
2:23encourage a an inflation where
2:26businesses tend to make money by uh SP
2:30ing cash by putting cash into the
2:32economy but um infl when inflation gets
2:35too high it becomes problematic because
2:39it makes life too expensive cost of
2:41living goes up and the economies tend to
2:44recess or fall uh and can drop into deep
2:48depressions uh that correspond with the
2:51high point of inflation so governments
2:54had to manage inflation by cutting off
2:57spending money to try and bring those
2:59big waves down uh and then on the flip
3:03side of that coin they had to let
3:05recession occur to some extent because
3:07that tended to weed out people from the
3:10economy who shouldn't be in business who
3:12weren't healthy business people so they
3:15needed to decrease money to create
3:18recessions but they had to spend enough
3:21money those recessions didn't become
3:23catastrophic depressions like the one of
3:25of the 1930s so governments could Stave
3:28off recession and limit inflation and
3:32this would help create a more stable
3:35economy that would make political
3:38conflict less of a problem right so one
3:42of the things ke is worried about is the
3:44spread of socialism in Europe in the
3:471930s and he's trying to create an e a
3:50capitalist economy that European nations
3:52can adopt to stop the spread of
3:54socialism by demonstrating that people
3:57didn't need to elect socialist uh
4:00politicians in the United States FDR had
4:04begun borrowing on kesian economics
4:07particularly with the WPA that we've
4:10talked about recently right the WPA was
4:12a kesian tool he used to influence
4:16inflation to put more money into the
4:18economy to create more work and and
4:20better wages so now after the war what
4:25the federal government is trying to do
4:29is is to
4:31create uh the sense that it could
4:34indirectly manage the economy without
4:37telling businesses how to do business
4:40right um there was no need to fix
4:42capitalism by redistributing wealth
4:44which had been a popular idea in the mid
4:471930s now problems tied to poverty and
4:50deprivation which led to social and
4:53political conflict in the United States
4:55could be fixed with increased
4:57productivity and just making more wealth
5:01um this line of thinking said people
5:03with money didn't need to sacrifice
5:06because the nation could produce more
5:08wealth um if there wasn't enough money
5:11to go around because rich people had
5:13soaked it all up the government could
5:15just produce more money produce more
5:17wealth and that would fix social
5:20problems right so the first thing that
5:23helped spur economic growth in this
5:26sense of a larger middle class and
5:28social order
5:30was that the federal government pursued
5:31kesian economic policies that led to a
5:37um Surplus and money to earn but
5:41also a um they work to maintain the cost
5:45of living so people were able to make a
5:47lot of
5:48money and not have to spend it all
5:51meeting Bare Necessities that created
5:53the sense that like everybody was better
5:55off after the war because of the things
5:58the government was deciding to do do
6:00with monetary Supply immediately after
6:03the war the federal government also put
6:05into place a series of economic shock
6:08absorbers right uh one of the most
6:10important of these was the so-called GI
6:13bill which allocated tremendous amounts
6:16of money for returning War veterans to
6:18send them off to college to provide
6:21unemployment insurance to give them loow
6:24interest interest loans for houses uh to
6:27give them small business loans right all
6:30all what the GI Bill does really is help
6:35re ingrain veterans into American
6:38society by taking away the concern that
6:41there won't be Economic Opportunity out
6:43there for them uh it helped prepare them
6:46for for new better paying jobs it helped
6:49ease their economic transition back into
6:51the economy in general things like the
6:54GI bill made re-entry into a peace time
6:57economy uh more more palatable for all
7:01Americans other things that the
7:03government continued spending money on
7:06uh they continued spending uh money on
7:08Veterans Benefits uh they started the
7:11interstate um system Construction in
7:161956 uh the US would spend hundred
7:18billion dollar just that year alone
7:21starting the interstate system so it's
7:25important that the government spent
7:27money to help the economy convert back
7:31to a peacetime economy it also helped
7:34that technological progress that was
7:37accelerated by the war led to increased
7:40worker productivity in factories uh and
7:44also it created more sophisticated
7:46technology for high paid professionals
7:49so there's this very brief period of
7:51time in the 40s and 50s where factories
7:56become more mechnic and blue color
7:59workers lose jobs because of that but
8:02that particular generation of people was
8:05able
8:06to take monetary incentives to retrain
8:11themselves and to go to college to
8:13maintain the technology that was
8:16displacing them from uh factories so
8:19technological progress made factories
8:22more cost effective which led to higher
8:24wages it also created new types of jobs
8:28that were more secure and paid better
8:31right and then a final thing was um that
8:34baby boom ended up being a bit of a boon
8:37rather than a problem uh more babies
8:39meant more consumer demand uh it meant
8:43that there was there were new increased
8:45markets for diapers for formula for
8:48pediatricians for for preschool teachers
8:51for Kindergartens uh for pop War
8:54football on and on and on it created a
8:56growing segment of the economy
8:59it also spurred Suburban home ownership
9:03and growth it spurred the car industry
9:06uh it spur the road uh building business
9:09it really reverberated throughout uh the
9:12American economy this this baby boom so
9:16the second thing that helped feed the
9:17social order was a series of economic
9:19shock absorbers that guaranteed money
9:24could be made during these years that a
9:26larger middle class could be grown uh
9:29and then third I think that there
9:32there's a lot of change going on in the
9:341950s that made people want to feel more
9:37alike so you could think of these as
9:39like external pressures that made people
9:41sort of insist no you know this is going
9:44to be a good decade um the cold war in
9:47the second Red Scare which fer covers in
9:50the textbook so I won't hear uh start up
9:53by the by
9:541948 uh between 1948 and
9:571953 so Americans wanted the sense of
10:01social order because they felt like it
10:03was a way to demonstrate that despite
10:06fears about Soviet spies in an impending
10:10cold war that American society was
10:13Secure and safe and a preferable option
10:17to Communism and socialism and then race
10:21uh would would continue to be a problem
10:23in 1950s America um you know in
10:27retrospect we tend to celebrate
10:29the the big advancements of in civil
10:32rights of the 1950s but those
10:34advancements were hardfought they
10:36represented important social
10:39tensions uh and a lot of Americans felt
10:42like the difference between races in the
10:44United States was really an economic
10:47problem in that if Americans found ways
10:50to provide educational and employment
10:52opportunities that were better for for
10:54black Americans than the ones they had
10:57prior to the 1950s
10:59uh that race problems would sort of
11:02evaporate and go away so there's this
11:04concern about the Civil Rights Movement
11:08sort of upsetting this sense of
11:10togetherness and a lot of Americans said
11:13if we create a bigger middle class that
11:15includes black Americans these these
11:17problems with race can simply go away so
11:21in the last part of the lecture we'll
11:23talk a bit about how life for average
11:25Americans was different by 1960 and