How Did The Civil War Affect The Economy After The Civil War

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• Agriculture aiding State power: Agriculture, with a very large percentage of population dependent on this at the start of development process, has started the GDP growth story everywhere. Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman openly acknowledged the use of food trade and aid as a political lever in an important policy-setting article entitled “Malthus, Marx and the North American Breadbasket.” “Our unmatched food-producing capability,” he asserted, “has strengthened our foreign policy immeasurably.” Its first effect was upon “the balance of power between East and West.” North America became a vital supplier of Communist nations’ food needs, with the result that their food deficits “are causing them to become politically and militarily …show more content…

The Civil War provided a sharp historical marker separating the pre and post civil war stages. Further, the first Census of Manufacturing, carried out in 1869, gave the nation an impetus/data, to progress fast and start taking benefits from transcontinental railroad, steamship and telegraph developing fast. The Civil War itself showcased these inventions when northern trains sped Yankee troops to the front and steamships blockaded supplies to the south from Britain, hastening southern defeat, again giving an impetus for growth. The flood of inventions that followed the Civil War transformed USA, transferring human attention and energy from the mundane to soaring skyscrapers and …show more content…

Both the Great Depression and World War II directly contributed to the Great Leap, proving that human societies/nations change when confronted with a crisis. Had there been no Great Depression, there would probably have been no New Deal, with its NIRA and Wagner Act that promoted unionization and that both, coupled with better technology directly and indirectly contributed to a sharp rise in real wages and a shrinkage in average weekly hours. In turn, both higher real wages and shorter hours helped boost productivity growth—higher real wages by promoting substitution from labor to capital during 1937–41 and shorter hours by reducing fatigue and improving efficiency. Production miracles during 1941–45 taught firms and workers how to operate more efficiently, again by using better technologies (ultimately proving that humans cannot block superior technologies) and the lessons of the wartime production miracle were not lost after the