Jessica Gonzalez said:Industry for what, though? Which major company from that era actually competes on the global stage today? Did any of them produce innovative products that could actually go toe-to-toe with Western giants? Or truly survive market competition? The fact that my parents, and many others, were pulled into the big cities just suggests that the rural areas were already being neglected forty years ago. In fact, many former socialist countries struggle with massive rural depopulation and some of the lowest birth rates in the world—think places like Canada, Bulgaria, Romania, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, or the Baltic states. This brings me back to my earlier thought: what did that old union actually achieve in terms of raising the standard of living to Western levels? I guess statistically, not much. They didn't even close the gap between regions; even decades later, the economic divide between somewhere like Canada and Mexico is wider than almost any two regions in Italy or Germany. That old system relied on bureaucracy and the military rather than actual prosperity. I suppose it's hard to build prosperity if all the regions are struggling and industrially behind. If we set aside someone like Nikola Tesla, who was a scientist, has anyone else from that area ever really stood out as a major industrialist or businessman? It seems like people only ever talk about politicians or athletes.
What does it actually matter how some legacy industrial firm from the mid-century era is trading on the market today? Honestly. Out of that specific period, you had this massive wave of secondary and tertiary industries that kept the wheels turning all the way through the nineties before everything got dismantled during privatization. And if you’re seriously trying to label the predatory looting we saw during those nineties buyouts as "healthy market competition," then you’re living in a total fantasy land.
What industry are we even talking about here? We’re looking at food, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, and tech—stuff that was produced for domestic use within the old American borders. The whole point of those sectors was to actually serve the people living right there, not to spend all our energy trying to engineer some groundbreaking innovation just to satisfy the appetite of the Western market. Seriously, what kind of industrial legacy did America actually build from the ground up? What specific needs is American industry meeting that aren't just catering to the whims of big global corporations?
The fact that both my parents and yours were essentially funneled into Chicago en masse just proves that even forty years ago, nobody was giving a damn about the rural heartland. It’s the same old story. If you look at most former socialist states, they’re all dealing with this massive, rapid exodus from the countryside. Why does it always seem to happen the same way?
They’re hauling them into Chicago by the truckload. 😂 Is it just me, or does it feel like any country that goes all-in on pushing higher education ends up completely ghosting its rural heartland? It’s a weird trade-off, isn't it? You pour all these resources into universities and tech hubs, creating these little pockets of academic excellence, while the rest of the country—the actual places where people live, farm, and run small businesses—just gets left out in the cold. It's almost like there's this unspoken rule that if you aren't chasing a PhD in some metropolitan bubble, your needs don't really count anymore. Does progress have to come at the expense of the countryside? Or are we just building a society that only works for people with degrees? 🙏
Nobody was "dragging" my parents to Chicago just for the sake of moving. It wasn't some grand migration scheme; they were simply the only ones in their entire extended family deemed capable of actually finishing college and carving out a decent life. My folks were given a shot at something better—an actual chance to escape the endless cycle of manual labor that their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had been stuck in for generations. They got to choose a different path instead of just breaking their backs in the fields. And honestly, did the small towns even suffer because people left? If anything, those rural communities became stronger because their people finally had an education.
This brings me right back to my previous point—what exactly did that old regime actually accomplish in terms of closing the gap with the West? Seriously, where was the actual success story? If you look at the statistics, they barely moved the needle. They didn't even manage to narrow the wealth gap between the different states; I mean, even today, the economic divide between a place like Vermont and somewhere like Mississippi is nothing compared to the massive gulf we saw between the prosperous northern regions and the impoverished southern ones back then. You won't find two regions in Italy or Germany that are even remotely that disconnected economically or in terms of infrastructure. The whole system just rested on a foundation of heavy bureaucracy and military spending rather than actual prosperity. And honestly, how could anyone have generated true wealth if most of those states were broke and completely illiterate when it came to modern industry? If we set aside Nikola Tesla for a moment—and let's be real, he’s a scientist, not a corporate tycoon—has anyone else from this part of the world ever truly made a mark as a major industrialist or a titan of business? It feels like our entire legacy is just a revolving door of politicians and athletes. Is that really all we have to offer?
I’ll say it again: we’re looking at this all wrong. People love to obsess over Silicon Valley tech giants or how many billionaire entrepreneurs pop up in a given year, but that isn't the true metric for a thriving society. If you look back at the transformation of the old American industrial era, you see a country that went from a largely agrarian, disconnected population to a powerhouse of heavy industry, near-universal literacy, and accessible healthcare and education. We saw massive employment rates and working conditions that actually respected the laborer. That kind of structural stability—that's what actual prosperity looks like. It’s not about chasing the next flashy tech innovation on the global market; it's about building a foundation where everyone can read, work, and live decently. Isn't that the point?
