{"id":11302,"date":"2011-04-19T14:43:47","date_gmt":"2011-04-19T19:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sustainablog.org\/?p=11302"},"modified":"2011-04-19T14:43:47","modified_gmt":"2011-04-19T19:43:47","slug":"restructuring-the-american-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/restructuring-the-american-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"“Let No Man Say It Cannot Be Done”: Restructuring the American Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>By Lester R. Brown<\/strong><\/p>\n We need an economy for the twenty-first century, one that is in sync with the earth and its natural support systems, not one that is destroying them. The fossil fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy that evolved in western industrial societies is no longer a viable model<\/a> — not for the countries that shaped it or for those that are emulating them. In short, we need to build a new economy, one powered with carbon-free sources of energy<\/a> — wind, solar, and geothermal — one that has a diversified transport<\/a> system and that reuses and recycles everything. We can change course and move onto a path of sustainable progress, but it will take a massive mobilization — at wartime speed. Whenever I begin to feel overwhelmed by the scale and urgency of the changes we need to make, I reread the economic history of U.S. involvement in World War II because it is such an inspiring study in rapid mobilization. Initially, the United States resisted involvement in the war and responded only after it was directly attacked at Pearl Harbor. But respond it did. After an all-out commitment, the U.S. engagement helped turn the tide of war, leading the Allied Forces to victory within three-and-a-half years.<\/p>\n In his State of the Union address<\/a> on January 6, 1942, one month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the country\u2019s arms production goals. The United States, he said, was planning to produce 45,000 tanks, 60,000 planes, and several thousand ships. He added, \u201cLet no man say it cannot be done.\u201d<\/p>\n No one had ever seen such huge arms production numbers. Public skepticism abounded. But Roosevelt and his colleagues realized that the world\u2019s largest concentration of industrial power was in the U.S. automobile industry. Even during the Depression, the United States was producing 3 million or more cars a year.<\/p>\n After his State of the Union address, Roosevelt met with auto industry leaders, indicating that the country would rely heavily on them to reach these arms production goals. Initially they expected to continue making cars and simply add on the production of armaments. What they did not yet know was that the sale of new cars would soon be banned. From early February 1942 through the end of 1944, nearly three years, essentially no cars were produced in the United States.<\/p>\n In addition to a ban on the sale of new cars, residential and highway construction was halted, and driving for pleasure was banned. Suddenly people were recycling and planting victory gardens<\/a>. Strategic goods — including tires, gasoline, fuel oil, and sugar — were rationed beginning in 1942. Yet 1942 witnessed the greatest expansion of industrial output in the nation\u2019s history — all for military use. Wartime aircraft needs were enormous. They included not only fighters, bombers, and reconnaissance planes, but also the troop and cargo transports needed to fight a war on distant fronts. From the beginning of 1942 through 1944, the United States far exceeded the initial goal of 60,000 planes, turning out a staggering 229,600 aircraft, a fleet so vast it is hard even today to visualize it. Equally impressive, by the end of the war more than 5,000 ships were added to the 1,000 or so that made up the American Merchant Fleet in 1939.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\nA History Lesson in Economic Restructuring<\/h2>\n