Introduction
The end of the Second World War brought incomparable changes to American society. The government started working on an economic boom which made people prosperous. The government expenditure on ammunition and the hiring of soldiers was redirected to growing the economy. Consequently, there were numerous employment opportunities, and most Americans were absorbed into the service and production industry. As the economic boom progressed in the USA, different dogmas started spreading and changed the way people lived and interacted. Ideologies function as organized systems that educate and motivate people to accept given world opinions and change their ways of life. It is imperative to note that any given ideology governs human relationships, influencing societal change. This essay analyzes how the cold war ideologies shaped and reflected American society after the Second World War. The cold war ideologies negatively impacted American society as capitalism led to the rise of poverty and inequality levels.
Cold War Ideologies
The key powers involved in the cold war were the United States of America and the Soviet Union. While the Americans believed in a capitalist economy and a democratic leadership system, the Soviet Union believed in communism and dictatorship leadership. The ideological clashes between the two world powers caused significant impacts on the citizen’s way of life. The wars experienced in Korea and Vietnam resulted from the Soviet Union trying to spread communism. On the other hand, America worked hard to stop the spread of communist ideology by monitoring all efforts by the Soviet Union to increase its arms. The Soviet Union advocated for communism because it worked to lower unhealthy competition, made people equal, and ensured an efficient distribution of resources. The Americans, on the other hand, believed in capitalism and individualism because they helped people work harder and to improve their economy.
How the Cold War Ideologies Shaped the American History
The capitalist ideology advocated by the Americans significantly impacted their economy and ways of life in the affluent society. As the Americans adopted capitalism while building the economy, the society was divided into two classes, the rich investors and the poor (Sitkoff 18). Further, democratic ideologies gave people the right to revolt and fight for their rights. The cold war ideologies shaped American history as they engineered inequality, economic expansion, environmental degradation, and increased revolutions leading to deaths.
Inequality
The capitalist economy made fewer people accrue huge wealth at the expense of the workers. The capitalists had full control of their investment, so they offered poor wages, and the workers languished in poverty. Despite the growing economy, only a small percentage of Americans enjoyed the wealth created. Although the demand for luxurious goods increased in post-war America, they were purchased by a small percentage of Americans (Chafe 71).
The gap between the rich and the poor grew, and the formation of slums and other informal settlements emerged. As the industries demanded more labor, most people migrated to urban areas for employment as a way to improve their quality of life. The industrialized urban centers were regions where race, poverty, and labor intersected (Sitkoff 27). If the Americans had adopted communism, all people would have been treated equally, and the poverty rate could have been reduced. By 1957 the USA had increased the economy by 35%. However, one-third of Americans lived in abject poverty (Chafe et al. 64). The dogma promoted increased poverty levels and low quality of life among middle-class workers.
The increase in the slums in the USA significantly impacted the citizens’ day-to-day lives. The slums were viewed as places of crime, disease, and poor living conditions. History was shaped when the California industrial relation formed a law in 1950 to identify housing status and implemented laws requiring all prominent farmers who hired workers on their farms would offer housing services (Chafe 34). Enumeration of the house services was made possible, and slum upgrade services were initiated. The housing act formulated by the American government was in response to the poverty levels induced by capitalist societies. The economic inequality led to the deteriorating quality of life for the lower economic class.
Economic Expansion
Capitalism is undoubtedly the major cause of exponential economic growth worldwide. The United States of America supported crony capitalism by giving tax holidays to investors who created employment opportunities for the citizens. As a result of the government support for cronies and increased employment levels in the country, infrastructural development increased as the industries required roads to access the raw material. Further, corporate social responsibility by the companies increased health quality, as the companies gave back to society by building schools and empowering students to perform better (Chafe et al. 33).
Consequently, the quality of education increased, and more qualified graduates were released to the booming economy. As the middle class expanded and industries flourished, it allowed Americans to work without being forced by areas where they were unhappy. The freedom to own property improved the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and increased the competition level. As products competed against each other, the final products improved, and the customers enjoyed higher quality goods and services.
As the government diverted war funds into economic recovery systems, most industries grew, and the excess goods were available for exports. As the investors competed for the American market, a surplus was generated, and the value of foreign exchange increased exponentially. In 1959, the USA was a major exporter of food and manufactured goods to other parts of the world (Sitkoff 13). The USA exports were higher than the Soviet Union because the communist ideology did not expand the production capacity (Chafe 32). Capitalism enabled the working class to access loans and build semi-permanent settlements known as the suburbs. The development of infrastructure and an increase in the number of personal cars was the prerequisite for GDP growth.
Pollution and Inhumane Treatment of Workers
Pollution and global climate change became an issue of concern in the 1950s as the number of industries emitting greenhouse gases increased. As capitalists competed to expand their economic empires, they caused environmental degradation, which increased the levels of global warming. The impacts of global warming are still being felt to date. The people in the nation were more concerned about improving the economy, and little effort was made to the climate change. The significant temperature rise in the 1950s indicated that capitalism led to the pressure toward industrialization and consequently affected society (Chafe 21). The rise in pollution levels impacted the increase of diseases such as cancer, respiratory diseases, and stroke in the flourishing American economy and the need for healthcare services. However, the poverty-stricken workers could not afford medical expenses because of the inequality that has spread in society, increasing the mortality rate.
As capitalism grew, the factory and machinery owners, whose main income was profit, misused the workers and treated them as tools to maximize their income. When the investors compete to increase profits, they lower the wages while increasing the number of hours worked (Chafe 12). The increase in the number of working hours and the reduction of wages led to miserable lives among the working class, and they could not afford decent means of life and revolts started being witnessed. The rise of social work increased at that time as the workers wanted to have a common ground for expressing their grievances. Since one of the cold war ideologies was democracy, Americans were free to stage peaceful demonstrations to reject the inhumane treatment. Most civil rights protests were witnessed between 1950 and 1960 because of the ideologies. Such protests were not witnessed in the Soviet Union because the dictatorship did not allow the subjects to question authority.
Conclusion
Post-war America witnessed a booming economy and an exponential rise in GDP as the government redirected the war budget to develop the economy. However, the spread of the cold war ideologies shaped how people behaved and carried out their day-to-day activities. Capitalism was the main cold war ideology in the USA and had both positive and negative impacts. Although it led to the exponential growth of the economy, it had numerous negative impacts, such as inequality, pollution, and increased civil rights riots. The spread of the ideology shaped American history through the rise of suburbs, unequal societies, increased pollution, and numerous revolts that claimed innocent people’s lives. Capitalism is an effective economic system but must be controlled to ensure sustainability.
Works Cited
Chafe, William H, et al. A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America. 8th ed., Oxford University Press, 2012.
Chafe, William H. “The Liberal Consensus Reconsidered: American Politics and Society in the Postwar Era.” (2018): 1070-1071.
Chafe, William Henry. The unfinished journey: America since World War II. Oxford University Press, USA, 2003.
Sitkoff, Harvard, and William Henry Chafe, eds. A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America. Oxford University Press, 1983.