Robert J. Gordon’s The
Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil
War is an interesting read. I say that in spite of its length (652 pages of
text), its numerous graphs, its repetitiveness, and Dr. Gordon’s writing style
that, whenever possible, lets you know he is a Scholar with a capital “S,” and,
by gosh, he knows and uses his Latin plurals even if doing so detracts from
readability. (For example, insurance premiums become insurance premia. Technically correct, but a tad
precious.)
With that out of the way, Dr. Gordon, with the help of
numerous research assistants, spent nearly a decade putting this book together,
and he tells a history that, I suppose, should be obvious, but that I never
considered.
Dr. Gordon points out that from medieval times to about
1770 there was not much growth. Beginning about 1770 inventions here and there
allowed slow growth, and beginning in 1870 (and lasting until about 1970) there was phenomenal growth caused by what
he calls the “Great Inventions.”
He describes what life was like in 1870. Both on the farm
and in the cities family members bathed in a large tub in the kitchen (usually
the only room with heat) after carrying cold water in pails from the outside
and warming it over an open-hearth fireplace for which wood or coal would have
to be brought into the house as well. This was such a chore that people bathed
as seldom as once a month.
Lighting would be a candle or an oil lamp, both of which
were expensive and used frugally. Food was eaten in season. Winter vegetables
were turnips, potatoes, and whatever else could be stored. The Mason jar was
not invented until 1859, and only during the Civil War did canned meats become
available. Shoes and men’s clothing could be purchased from stores, but women’s
clothes were made at home (shades of Turkmenistan today, as I described in my
trip report last year). Food and clothing were both expensive.
Life for women without servants was pure drudgery. (And for
those with servants, the servants’ life was drudgery.) Water had to be brought
into the house for cooking and laundry (which was done on scrub boards and may
only have been done every few months), human waste was disposed of in privies.
Life for working men was not much better. On the farm, plowing, planting, and
so on was done with horse and mule power. In cities, hours were long and pay
was small. There was no retirement as we know it. Men worked until they
couldn’t and hoped their kids could take care of them.
Dr. Gordon says farm houses were generally of decent size,
but of course they were dark at night and isolated. City tenements were
crowded; many people would occupy each room—often each bed, and sometimes
sleeping was done in shifts, especially if some occupants worked days and
others worked nights. In smaller cities and towns most people lived in houses
of varying size and quality, none of which yet had water or sewer connections.
The horse was the main means of transport. In rural areas,
people were pretty much limited to the area they could reach by horse over
rutted dirt roads, so their world was pretty small indeed. An average horse
would produce 20-50 pounds of manure and a gallon of urine daily. And that was
one horse. The daily amount of manure in cities was 5-10 tons per square mile.
Add to that the fact that horses in this kind of service didn’t live too long,
and when they died, their carcasses were often left to lay in the streets for
days. Between the manure and the carcasses, you can (possibly) imagine the
hazards to human health that came with city life.
All this began to change in 1870. The first
transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, followed quickly by others.
Smaller cities built feeder routes to connect with these new railroads. People
could easily (if expensively) travel for the first time. The first plunger-type
indoor water closet was invented in 1875, after which the knowledge of drainage
and venting procedures necessary to install the device and prevent sewer gasses
from backing up into houses were developed as well as the idea of bringing
water into the home via indoor plumbing.
In 1879 Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, which made
candles and oil superfluous as sources for light.
Shopping was limited to local merchants and the occasional
peddler. In 1859 the first A&P was founded. Others followed. Soon chain
stores were available in most cities. Montgomery Ward introduced the catalog in
1872; Sears followed in 1894. Soon groceries, clothes, and a host of other
products were available at lower prices. Local merchants at first had the
advantage in that they would allow items to be bought on credit. When
Montgomery Ward and Sears began offering credit, that advantage was lost. Many
people—local merchants especially—objected to chain stores and catalogs, much
as many people these days object to Walmart and other “big box” retailers, but
it’s good to remember A&P and Montgomery Ward are history, and Sears is
struggling. Nothing lasts forever.
Karl Benz invented an internal combustion engine in 1879
and by 1886 had one mounted on a three-wheel chassis, eventually opening up
individual transportation to the masses (with much thanks to Henry Ford, whose
mass-produced Model T sold for $269 in 1926) and allowing for cities free of
horse manure and carcasses.
A personal note here: Many younger people who have no
personal knowledge and very little historical knowledge of urban transportation
condemn the automobile and are pushing for what they consider “public transit,”
that is streetcars—the very streetcars our ancestors happily replaced with
maneuverable and cheaper buses. I’m writing this during an ice storm here in
Kansas City. Our streetcar is inoperable, as it is so often during bad weather,
and buses are filling in for it. Buses are far cheaper than fixed rail transit
and far more maneuverable. Buses, in other words, are for transportation.
Streetcars are taxpayer-funded nostalgia. OK. Back to the 1870s.
In 2002, a massive ice storm hit Kansas City. Many of us were
without power for several days. (I was without electricity for ten days.) That
experience helps me understand a little what life would have been like in 1870,
but even then, I had indoor plumbing and access to transportation, so deprived
as I felt for ten days, that was nothing compared to the deprivations of
everyday life for everyone in 1870. Of course, they and none of their ancestors
going back centuries realized their deprivation. It was everyday life for them.
So much for the good old days!
After discussing life as it was and the miraculous
inventions that changed life for the better for everyone, Dr. Gordon points out
that the days of life-altering miracles may be over. (And speaking of
life-altering, his chapter on medicine is a must read.) Consider all the
infrastructure brought about by the automobile, indoor plumbing, sewers,
electricity, central heat, and so on, and you can see that, in addition to
changing lives for the better, these inventions mandated a massive jobs
program, which lifted many boats (and yachts). By 1940 the work was mainly
done. By 1970 it was pretty much over. Dr. Gordon allows that computers and the
internet have improved lives (mostly in the areas of communication and bargain
hunting), but they’ve not required a massive jobs program to bring them to
every home. They’ve not had a major impact on productivity with the exception
of the years between 1994 and 2004.
It’s often been stated that just about everything has
declined since about 1973, from wage raises to productivity. This book explains
why Dr. Gordon believes that to be the case. Further, Dr. Gordon doesn’t think
we’ll see growth like we saw between 1870 and 1970 again. So it’s possible that
we need to get used to living in the world we have and, other than bigger,
better, and flatter TVs and smartphones and so on, not to anticipate much in
the way of life changing innovation.
Dr. Gordon concludes with some suggestions, which include
making the income tax more progressive, including taxing dividends and capital
gains the same as ordinary income, raising the minimum wage, expanding the
earned income tax credit (I’d favor expanding it to a guaranteed basic income),
reducing incarceration, legalizing and taxing drugs, universal preschool,
immigration reform (especially for foreign-born graduates of U.S.
universities), tax reform--including a carbon tax, and facing up to the fiscal
reckoning.
This book was published before the 2016 election. One of my
takeaways from the book is that if this is as good as it gets, that may explain
some of the disenchantment people who voted for Donald Trump felt when they
went to the polls. In recent memory, each generation has had it better than the
last. If Dr. Gordon is correct, we will need to remember that was true only for
a century. Perhaps we can take comfort in the fact that even if this is as good
as it gets, it’s infinitely better than it was for our ancestors in 1870.
©
2018 Larry Roth
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