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New Deal Vietnam War

Satisfactory Essays

I will say this about the New Deal. The "deal" part of the New Deal was an agreement with major businesses to stop enforcing antitrust laws (which WERE enforced vigorously during the 1920s; something we don't ordinarily associate with the laissez-faire of the time) in return for tolerating labour organising and collective bargaining. That was how the US wound up with the "Big Three" steel producers and "Big Four" automakers, which had "sweetheart contracts" with appropriate labour unions by 1940. And on the state level, things like Public Utilities Commissions requiring a "certificate of neccesity and convenience" for say, new trucking companies that would compete with existing truckers and which existing truckers had a handle for fighting. And later on, the FAA setting airline routes --and rates. The airlines did not compete on price until the 1970s. This in return for a unionised workforce with raises in real wages guaranteed by good work and seniority and a union grievance system that made it difficult to fire an employee, except in the office, which was considered management and illegal to organise. It was a system that provided stable jobs until retirement at 65 for employees--and a tightly controlled entry process to those jobs. Union jobs and apprenticeships were often reserved for the sons of existing union members. (And yes, women …show more content…

Ships plied the Pacific in great numbers with the first containerised freight (of military hardware and supplies. On the return trip, rather than return with empty containers, the ships began to stop at Japan and fill those containers with inexpensive Japanese cars and TVs and other electronic appliances. It was the beginning of Japan's real economic boom. And the beginning of the end for US competitiveness in a host of areas, which gave us the economy we see

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