Understanding The Postmodern Economy
Lessons from history and the idea of an emergent, modern gilded age.
Steven Greenhouse’s work The Big Squeeze describes the how the United States economy was massively buoyed in the post-war time period in its chapter on the social contract.
The idea of the social contract is characterized as arising from the fact that after World War II, the United States was the only country with an intact infrastructure ready to produce industrial goods. Greenhouse remarks that:
“With Europe’s and Japan’s factories decimated, American industry reigned supreme and unchallenged” (71).
The shift from the prevalence of the automobile industry’s role in the economy to that of big retails stores such as Walmart becoming more important highlights a shift in focus from production to how items themselves are sold and marketed. This shift in the “signature corporations” of America is significant because it indicates the gradual decline of the “social contract” due to the changing economic atmosphere and due to the changes in the distribution of resources between different classes.
