Victoria Junior College :: Economics

Victoria Junior CollegeIn the period 1945-1973, the world prudence underwent a period ofexceptional growth in the following thirty old age that had never beenexceeded earlierly. Indeed, this Golden Age was differentiated frompast sparing waves by two principal(prenominal) characteristics dynamic and extensive frugal growth. By dynamic, the intricacy of the world economy madeit a truly international economy, with countries traffic with anddep abrogateing on each other instead of the autarkic empires that had beenthe hallmark of previous generations. Extensive growth was seen in theworld economy growing in the sense of the entire world and not byspecific regions, for example, the previously Euro centric economy ofthe Industrial Revolution. Yet the Golden Age, suddenly and swiftly,was replaced by what came to be known as the Crisis Decades in 1973,thus raising the perplexity was the Golden Age really an Age whichcould have lasted, with stable and restore foundations? To answe r thisquestion, we must look at three areas of study the distribution ofeconomic power during the Golden Age, the breakdown of the economicstructures of the Golden Age, the factors which had contributed to theboom and the long-term social and political viability of economicgrowth in the post-war years.The main nation upon which the stability of the Golden Age rested was,of course, the US. At the end of the Second World War, of the fivemajor pre-war industrial centres, (the US, Britain, Germany, Japan andthe Soviet Union) only the US had remained largely untouched by theeffects of essential war. As such, the US felt that it was necessary, oreven natural, that it should assume the economic, and by extensionpolitical, leadership of the world and guide it towards economicprosperity. Moreover, world economic prosperity was the only way thatthe US could continue its own economic growth the loss of productionnecessitated by war meant that the US economy was facing a slowdownunless it co uld divert its surplus potential into convey outside theUS and that meant the world economy. George Kennan spelt out theAmerican post when he wrote in 1948 that The US has 50 per centof the worlds wealth, but only 6.3 per cent of its population. Inthis situation, our real job in the coming period is to fabricate apattern of relationships which permit us to maintain this position ofdisparity.1 This posture could already have been found earlier inthe Bretton Woods Agreement, the system of rules that could have been said tobe responsible for the post-war economic boom. There, the US prevailall the major decisions and statues regarding the formation of