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Comment by bubuga | Hacker News Reader

> Only significant if you ignore 1933 to 1978.

You do know that between 1933 and 1978 there were a couple of incidents that ended up influencing the world's economy more than basic economic models, don't you?

I mean, I'm sure we can agree that an event like WW2 alone, with the shift from peace-time to war-time economy experienced by the leading economies of the world, does influence things a bit more than the theoretical effect of some economic systems.

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Nobody disagree that it didn't influence things, but how it did is up for discussion.

People who back up Keynes, will say it was the wartime investment that drove the economy.

Neoliberal will say the war pretty much destroyed every economy except the American, leaving America relatively rich, which is why that period looked so good for them. Had there been no war, everybody would have been better off.

Ironically, most of the people I've seen claiming it was the war that saved the economy were neoliberal in their feedback economic beliefs, while many notable Keynesians have argued that domestic policies played a major role in the wake and post-war expansion, with only a weak connection to the war (in that the war weakened political resistance to them.)

One of the things that happened in the war was the government effectively erased private debt in the US. And took on a like amount onto it's books. And it raised top rate income taxes sky high and kept them there for decades. That's the period of high growth.

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