Concerning Civil War veterans, Dora L. Costa, Matthew E. Kahn, Christopher Roudiez, and Sven Wilson write,
Veterans preferred to move to a neighborhood or a county inhabited by men from their same war company. This co-location evidence highlights the existence of persistent social networks. In our study, the social network already exists but an individual veteran seeks out economic opportunities. A co-ordination game arises and by co-locating in cities, veterans can achieve the mutually beneficial gains from cities while still preserving their network.
I believe that something similar happened after World War II. I think that this new mobility might have been a significant factor in making the economy stronger after the war than it had been in the 1930s. It is easier for new patterns of sustainable specialization and trade to form if people are willing to move.
So to fix the economy, all we need is to create a Post-War Vistory economy? How do you suggest we do this reality without actually having a great War. I have always thought about post war is created by two realities: First, war is the ultimate form of “Creative Destruction” and the war deaths creates a short term Labor Supply Shortage.
Additionally, why did the veterans of Vietnam do so poorly? There was lots of moving communities there.
Well, we subsidize college. How much of the benefit of college is facilitating moving?
My guess that college does facilitating moving but it has different social-political outcomes. (These are general thoughts)
1) In reviewing the great post War migration, the primary goal of most Americans is build local community and support local institutions. The current Blue State College model has created a population that assumes constant moving and they don’t look to become as much as part of the community.
2) The college model only has the ‘moving’ effect on the college educated future workforce not the non-college workforce. Witness the concerns of white working class today and only the most talented seem to ‘Get Out.’
3) Look what is happening of the age of first marriage and being pushed back to 30.
“Veterans preferred to move to a neighborhood or a county inhabited by men from their same war company”. If I know my history correctly, recruitment was done geographically. Most in a company would have come from the same county to begin with. If they merely went back home after the war, you would see this result!
I have long suspected, based on anecdotes, personal observation, recollections of world war two veterans who were the fathers off my schoolmates, and odds and ends I picked up in my reading, that the periods after major American wars enjoyed unusual growth because of the creation of strong networks of trust among military veterans. Also, people who faced physical risk, and lost friends, appear to be highly risk-tolerant with regard to merely economic risk. I recall one story about the founders of a major Chicago law firm, who were war veterans, and in the recollection of like people who work for them, the old guys were fearless, they would take on anything, if it would make them money, and they treated the whole thing as fun, or like a big prank. That generation seems to have been suffused with what we would now call a “zero fucks given” attitude. The infusion of millions of young men who are part off strong trust networks, and highly open to risk and initiative, would reasonably be expected to create a significant boost to economic productivity. I’m not sure how one would test this empirically.