Think even bigger than the moon landing. During WWII, the US economy was centrally planned. Civilian production lines were retooled; what once was a ford plant became a 24 hour production site of B24 bombers. Instruments of war were rapidly iterated upon and developed. We accomplished the Manhattan project in three years with massive investment and access to resources and technical staff.
Imagine if that organized planning carried forward into the golden age that followed when half the world was still in smoking ruin. Instead we see all that intellectual and production capacity squandered off into the free market system, where we now have the reality we see today, basically the 1970s with internet as far as actual standards of living go when you scrape off the layer of consumerist tech on top, instead of perhaps more of the expectations we set upon ourselves in the mid century. Things like access to limitless clean energy through atomic power. Supersonic transport. The ability to actually build out new and modern infrastructure, at scale, on time, without decades of litigation and political footballing. But sure, the new iphone that can't sit flat on a table really is nice too.
Central planning only worked because it was war time and everyone was willing to put aside their life and deal with a lower standard of living for a short time to help Japan and Germany find out after fucking around.
If you only focus on the positives of how ridiculous American war production became it seems great, but return to reality and it becomes clear that it wouldn't have been sustainable in the long term considering how people were having to compromise with rationing of basic goods like fuel, sugar, meat, metal, paper etc.
Imagine if that organized planning carried forward into the golden age that followed when half the world was still in smoking ruin. Instead we see all that intellectual and production capacity squandered off into the free market system, where we now have the reality we see today, basically the 1970s with internet as far as actual standards of living go when you scrape off the layer of consumerist tech on top, instead of perhaps more of the expectations we set upon ourselves in the mid century. Things like access to limitless clean energy through atomic power. Supersonic transport. The ability to actually build out new and modern infrastructure, at scale, on time, without decades of litigation and political footballing. But sure, the new iphone that can't sit flat on a table really is nice too.