DBWI: slow decline of U.S. middle class following 1973 oil embargo?

And yes, I can hear you saying it right now, energy conservation and alternate energy were such obvious moves, it's hard to come up with a way where the United States didn't do them. In fact, it became a modest job creator.

Yes, this whole thing might be borderline ASB, but work with me. Let's see if we can find a way.
 


Of course, we were going to ramp up Hydro. Why would we possibly do anything differently ? ! ?

This one's on the Columbia River in the Pacific northwest.
 
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Oh please. The oil industry could never be powerful enough to stop the investment into modern energy sources. And the middle class won't stand for the decline of unions, which is the only way I see this happening. I suppose some demagogue could initiate it, but I can't imagine who. I would have thought President Rockefeller would be the obvious choice for that, but he wasn't all that conservative and he ended up discredited after Iran went to hell.
 
This is completely ASB, electric cars have been around since the late 19th century and the invention of the electric starter motor in 1912 already made them a viable alternative, it is obvious the 1973 oil crisis is going to push for alternative fuels and further the development and dominance of electric cars no matter what.

How are you gonna stop technological progress? Oil lobbying? Please, the US would need to turn authoritarian for oil lobbies to grow that powerful.

I can't imagine the 21st century with outdated internal combution engines still being the primary form of transportation, it's as nonsensical as those "steampunk" timelines.
 
Actually empires going into decline is something of a constant in history and some say this is starting to happen to the USA right now, its just that the 1970s just seems too early for the process to start. Its only three decades after the surrender of Japan.
 

Wallet

Banned
Have Carter win in 1976. Reagan would then beat him in 1980, and we get 2 terms of neo-liberal policies instead of Ted Kennedy who protected unions and the middle class
 

Bulldoggus

Banned
Well, here's the thing. In the early 70's some random dipshit lawyer called Powell wrote basically a strategy guide for billionaires to push hard-right ideologies. There was also a mushrooming of conservative think tanks and rags (Reason, National Review, etc.) around this time. Most of these either withered and died due to lack of funds or fell apart after doing odious shit, like when the libertarians at reason published an entire issue promoting Holocaust Denial.* Maybe had some billionaires decided to act as sugar daddies to these groups and used them as incubators of talent, that would have led to a right-wing uprising.

*A true story.
 

Insider

Banned
From what I know renewable energy is one of the fastest growing sectors both in USA and EU... and the process of seriously researching them indeed started in 1970's. DBWI means that in world we should consider things went other way... I don't entirely understand how the premise is different from OTL... could you provide some explanation or resources for noobs?
 
I think that had Nixon chosen someone other that Nelson Rockefeller to replace Agnew as VP, the Democrats wouldn't have been so split as to whether they needed to go liberal or centrist and renominated Humphrey. Maybe a Robert Dole (Senator from Kansas) to appease the conservatives or Gerald Ford (Rep. from Michigan) in a compromise to both sides, would have left the Republicans weaker in 76.
 
. . . the middle class won't stand for the decline of unions, which is the only way I see this happening. I suppose some demagogue could initiate it, but I can't imagine who. I would have thought President Rockefeller would be the obvious choice for that, but he wasn't all that conservative and he ended up discredited after Iran went to hell.
Pres. Rockefeller didn't go hardcore like he had in New York state with his war on drugs. That's one potential branch point.

And when President Rockefeller died in the arms of his mistress on Jan. 26, 1979, yes, that's embarrassing no matter how you look at it. Although one silver lining is much greater public knowledge of compression-only CPR and the presence of Automated External Defibrillator (AEDs) in every grocery store or store that size. In fact, it would feel weird if the store didn't, as if it didn't have a fire extinguisher.

Maybe if Vice-President Bush didn't announce that his would be a caretaker presidency and didn't also matter-of-factly say that he was sticking with this commitment even when there was a "Draft Bush" movement in 1980 ? ? Yes, this might be one potential POD. As it was, the Republicans made a mistake going right and nominating Reagan, and Ted Kennedy mopped the floor with him. President Kennedy's administration did have two financial scandals regarding infrastructure money, and the '84 re-election vs. Tennessee Senator Howard Baker was closer than it should have been. But I think the majority of the public felt he had responded appropriately and put the controls in place which needed to be in place. And then there was the modest 1980 and '82 double-dip recession, but I can't see that being too much worse. Certainly not as bad as the '75 recession, and nowhere near as bad as the worse economic downturn since the Great Depression. No, that's not realistic either. Once again, we're left with a paucity of branch points.
 
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A high-efficiency natural gas turbine for generating electricity.

Maybe if we had immediately gone pie-in-the-sky by trying to kludgeware solar into working, and then being disappointed when our hopes were dashed ? ?

Maybe some remote chance. But I really can't see us doing that clunky a move, other than fun experiments of course. Yes, we're going to bend the path and work to improve existing technology.
 
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POD: The April-May 1980 VA Doctors' Strike goes badly! President Bush squelches it down, and this sets the tone for an anti-union '80s? Yes, I think this might work.

As it was, it was very well-organized with the doctors striking for 3 days the beginning of April and then 6 days the beginning of May. They left a skeleton crew in place, and since they were picketing out front, no one could say they were unavailable for an emergency. And they had much support among veterans, the public at large, and staff workers such as these AFGE union members (American Federation of Government Employees). And most members of Congress, as well as President Bush, did come to the conclusion, yes, we need to increase VA staffing.

But what if it had been different?
 
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. . . How are you gonna stop technological progress? Oil lobbying? Please, the US would need to turn authoritarian for oil lobbies to grow that powerful.

I can't imagine the 21st century with outdated internal combution engines still being the primary form of transportation, it's as nonsensical as those "steampunk" timelines.
The key linchpin for electric cars was standardized batteries where service stations could swap out a near-empty one for a full one. But that's such an obvious solution I think it would have developed in near any case.

PS Galveston, Texas had a rally last weekend for old internal-combustion AMCs: Gremlins, Pacers, and even more exotic models. There were about 50 cars in attendance, it was really something! :)
 
Well, here's the thing. In the early 70's some random dipshit lawyer called Powell wrote basically a strategy guide for billionaires to push hard-right ideologies. There was also a mushrooming of conservative think tanks and rags (Reason, National Review, etc.) around this time. Most of these either withered and died due to lack of funds or fell apart after doing odious shit, like when the libertarians at reason published an entire issue promoting Holocaust Denial.* Maybe had some billionaires decided to act as sugar daddies to these groups and used them as incubators of talent, that would have led to a right-wing uprising.

*A true story.
Ah, you're having a little fun with me. You know damn well Lewis Powell became an appellate judge and was even rumored to be on Nixon's short list for the Supreme Court.

I read part of the strategy paper because someone here asked me to. And it really was a bunch of horseshit and generalities about how young people today don't believe in the profit motive or the free enterprise system. Oh, I think young people believe in free enterprise just fine. They just don't want large corporations lying, cheating, stealing, and generally rigging the system.

The part with the billionaires might work. Although it might be a little like the end of a Greek play in which a god in a cloud descends and fixes everything. Plus, once people found out, it would be a royal turnoff, so maybe it wouldn't work.
 
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Bulldoggus

Banned
The part with the billionaires might work. Although it might be a little like the end of a Greek play in which a god in a cloud descends and fixes everything. Plus, once people found out, it would be a royal turnoff, so maybe it wouldn't work.
People can be fuckwits. If billionaires ensconced people in an echo chamber so strong that they think EVERYONE ELSE is biased and funded by billionaires, then you never know. But then again, people were never gonna read Reason after the Holocaust denial shit.
 

Archibald

Banned
Ammonia aircrafts, now an evidence - failure of the hydrogen aircraft is mostly forgotten now. on paper hydrogen had 250% more energy than kerosene, alas even in liquid shape storage was a PITA.
They hoped a 747 would be large enough to house all those fat hydrogen tanks, but they were wrong, and not much room was left for passengers and cargo. The aviation industry was lucky somebody at NASA thought about Ammonia as a possible successor.
Ammonia is an honest-to-god compromise between kerosene and hydrogene. NH3 - nitrogen and hydrogen, but no carbon.

Can someone remember all those studies on nuclear airliners ? Who needs to burn kerosene when you can just heat air through a nuclear reactor ? an aircraft running on hot air, now that something.
Even though public opinion burned the concept at the stake, it led to Molten Salt Reactors now replacing BWR and PWR with far higher safety coefficient
(the Japanese Monju MSR endured a 9 magnitude quake and a mind-boggling tsunami yet it safely stopped without a glitch)

More generally kudos to the U.S Army and their Energy Depot concept of 1963. Nuclear energy to make hydrogen, methanol and ammonia from air and water.It was a major breakthrough.
http://www.alternatewars.com/Fiction/SF_Tech/SP-263-650050.htm
 
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Deleted member 94708

OOC: Unless you can find a way to drastically hinder the information technology revolution, automation is still going to gut industrial employment, and rapidly.

Renewable energy, less offshoring, and strong unions can only slow this reality: we are rapidly reaching the end of the validity of our current model of wealth, income, and employment. We do not and never again will need more than a small fraction of the populace to meet all of our material needs.

Just as agricultural employment fell from 90%+ in 1790 to around 10% in the middle of the twentieth century to 0.5% today with production increasing all the while, industrial employment is in the process of doing the same thing against a backdrop of increasing production.

Where the excess labor will go is debatable but there isn't, IMO, sufficient demand for high-end services which can't themselves be automated to employ more than a small fraction of those who once worked in the factories of yesteryear.
 
OOC: AmericaninBeijing makes good points and in fact the issues with automation were predicted in the 1950s by Kurt Vonnegut in his novel Cat's Cradle.

But to see an alternative history with just as much if not more automation than in the US, but no dismantling of the middle class, look at Japan. No immigration, offshoring is more limited, retention of lots of manufacturing capability, and more interest in non-oil and non-coal energy because they pretty much half to. You still wind up with little to no economic growth, lowered employment, and a lot lowered birth rate. But very different in terms of how the people in the middle of the society are treated.
 
I really think that the election of President du Pont in 88, after the 8 years of the second Kennedy administration, brought about the shift from heavy to light manufacturing. The two years that he spent in his time from leaving his governorship in Delaware to winning the White House showed how important it was for a candidate to be out and meeting with voters across the country. His selection of Paul Laxalt for VP gave him important bridges to both the conservative wing who still were colored by the Reganite/Goldwater feud as well as to Western voters who were reluctant to tie the party to another member of the "Eastern Establishment" With the Republicans focused on job creation and balancing the increased social spending from Kennedy's massive expansion of Medi-Care into a national healthcare system, the need for more jobs and more employers in new and growing industries to balance the tax burden was almost liturgical in belief. The Du Pont administration saw where the technical work in building public transit vehicles, turbines for wind and water power, and electronic control systems for the management of everything would be the technically skilled jobs of the future. This created the teacher boom and the uptick in the STEM fields that we are still trying to build upon.
 
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