This statement is wrong and trivially falsifiable. Perhaps the author meant that the U.S. had by that point won some naval battles against the British?
Which is a shame because the role of the Colonial Navy and later the U.S. Navy in the war of independence and later in the War of 1812 is actually fascinating and often overlooked
John Paul Jones, for example had an amazing (as in interesting, not 'goodly') life ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Jones )
And the Battle of Lake Erie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lake_Erie
There is a concerted attempt to rewrite history on slavery. You will hear things like "slavery was an economic drain" or "slavery was inefficient" or even "it was technology like the cotton gin that created wealth, not slavery". All of it's nonsense [1].
It's true that industrialization (particularly the railroad ans mass production of steel) was a huge driver in the mid-19th century but what really kicked the US into high gear was war [2].
It's true that material conditions and real wages started stagnating in the 1970s but this piece writes that off as Wall Street shenanigans. This was a political goal to break organized labor. We had McKinsey producing reports to argue that executives were "underpaid" [3]. The post-war era went from a marginal tax rate of 91% and the CEO to median worker ratio went from 21:1 in 1965 to 351:1 in the 2020s [4]. But also the post-war economy shifted from housing being a utility to being a speculative asset. The median house price went from $18,000 to $26,000 between 1953 and 1973 (in nominal terms) [5] and decreased in real terms. And, well, we know what's happened since.
But what's less well-known is the link between money going into housing and decline in manufacturing. That's not an accident. Why invest money and run a factory when sitting on a house produces a 7%+ real returns that are government-protected?
As for the whole "right to repair" bit for tractors and the like, yeah, companies engage in rent-seeking behavior in a capitalist mode of production. Film at 11.
[1]: https://equitablegrowth.org/new-research-shows-slaverys-cent...
[2]: https://laraballard.substack.com/p/how-the-us-became-the-wor...
[3]: https://observer.com/2013/08/the-godfather-of-ceo-megapay-mc...
shapefrog•1h ago
Not at all ironic given the shrieking about China.
mc32•50m ago
shapefrog•44m ago
pocksuppet•43m ago
Not limited to IP, they also do this with real property when they can.
Not limited to property, they do this with every single regulation. Think about Europe and chlorinated chicken.