zlacker

My understanding is that our success was largely down to the Marshal Plan. The claim that it's due to legal quirks sounds dubious.

>>idle_z+(OP)
That seems rather focused on one policy that was big in the 50s. The Marshal Plan was great but that isn't something the modern US seems to be capable of - since around Vietnam I think was the change. It has been a good 50 years where the US just breaks stuff and leaves it broken.

Modern prosperity is caused by modern policy. I've seen some reasonable theorising that income basically comes from how easy it is to do business (thinking especially of https://www.grumpy-economist.com/p/the-cost-of-regulation). Which is linked in no small way to the cultural factors chgs pointed out - the most vibrant and high income industry in the world is also the one that sees laws impeding them as a problem that can be overcome.

The attitude of doing things that create wealthy even if NIMBYs object is an attitude that leads to wealth creation. Strange but true. Not the only factor, the political strength of the opposition matters a lot too.

>>idle_z+(OP)
The book Why Nations Fail makes a pretty strong argument for the core feature of successful societies to be strong institutions with low perceived corruption. Sensible laws that are upheld equally are a part of that.

The US in particular benefits from an absurd amount of resources (not least of which is land), a perfectly safe geographic position, the global language and an immigrant culture. Basically able to coattail the British after independence, the destruction of much of Eurasia during WWII cemented its position as first. And great diplomacy, including the Marshal Plan, enabled the US to create an international system with many benefits and natural synergies with its inherent strengths.