After Workd War 2 the US was in the unique situation of not being completely decimated by the war. They used this leverage to craft trade policies to benefit the US economy by relying on their weight. To say that the US growth was purely organic is not quite hitting the mark. By all intents, it was forced to a large degree and perhaps with even more bloodshed than we’d like to admit. With that being said, the US growth model is not the only model that exists, it just so happens it was the most recent and most successful to date. But I would say that the rate of growth in a China is unparalleled, especially in the last 30 years. Going from one of the poorest countries in the world to what they are today is mind boggling. The growth itself is unsustainable unless they take forced measures of building the infrastructure out to allow the growth to spread out. It’s going to be interesting to see how this all plays out and even more so with the current political climate in the west. I imagine the US isn’t just going to roll over and let it’s dominant position be taken from it so easily but we have to remember, there hasn’t been a single empire in history that has stood the test of time. The way China is approaching things might not be the best way to do it but we won’t know the true cost of today for another 30 years down the line.
Ha, I missed the mark here. The comment I was replying to mentioned 'railways' and 'the west' so I was thinking of the American West. Older use-case, and for national/internal development. You are right that the Marshall Plan is a good equivalent example. But I think its thinking was more obvious: it's either us or the soviet, and also rebuilt economies had only one major economy to trade with. These gave the USA major leverage. I don't see it here, leverage is a lot lower.
