Sol-1 [Infinite Worlds]

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The Vietnam War was less than a blip on either America's or Europe's radar. And the switch back to pushing land reform over aiding strongmen made for a less brutal world.

This is quite a major change though. If the Americans actually figure this out completely and start promoting land reform I think it kills Communism as a global threat. People in third world countries would be just as happy, indeed probably happier, to support democratic revolutionaries as communist ones. It's just that the democracies aren't willing to support to efforts to throw out the oppressive landholding aristocrat scum and the communists are. Of course you can't do this without effectively supporting revolutions - there is a reason nobody tried it in Vietnam until it was too late, and frankly I think it would prevent accepting American aid in this case - no existing government is going to implement land reform because they wouldn't be the government if those aristocratic scum weren't supporting them. You can't break the power of one without breaking the other.

[AlexanderHowl]

Without Communism being a threat in the 1960s, I do not see much initial support for the space program, at least not enough to support an Apollo mission. Without an Apollo mission, you do not really have to science for the lunar mines and L4/L5 colonies required to assemble and deploy an orbital solar array. Without an orbital solar array, you end up with our level of space infrastructure or worse, as there is no evidence that going into space is economically worthwhile beyond autonomous satellites.

One of the interesting consequences of a stronger union presence in American politics (which is a given without Reagan) is solid opposition against automation and outsourcing jobs. American companies that did either could find their liability protection revoked (a rarely used option right now), as corporations were supposed to serve the common good in exchange for limited liability, which would open up their shareholders to financial liability. In such a economic and legal framework, American companies would likely find themselves protected from competition through tariffs because they are seen to serve the common good, rather than because they serve themselves.

What would be the result? No free trade deals between the USA and other nations, so no NAFTA, no massive increase in trade with China and India, etc. Even as the orbital solar array opened up new jobs for Americans, and expanded the economy 25% beyond OTL, the ATL economy would be much stronger. Just keeping with the same ratio of medium household income to average household income of 1977, the medium household income would be 50% greater without the 25% increase from the space economy. With it, you are talking about medium household incomes being over 80% greater than OTL.

[Varyon]

I would expect reduced automation to result in reduced technological growth. First off, you'd obviously lack the growth that results simply from research to allow for increased automation. Secondly, with plentiful labor jobs, there's less draw toward extended education, so there are fewer people with degrees working on research and development (although your Democrat-paradise world might have sufficiently low tuition to somewhat combat this). Higher union influence is almost certainly going to result in higher mafia influence, and when things are going good for the mafia they're going to be pretty resistant to change. Reduced automation is also going to make space operations much more costly, as you're likely to have more errors and you need to bring far more with you, since you need to support more humans to do the work automation would eliminate/reduce in OTL.

Granted, none of this is necessarily a deal breaker given the setting (where rather improbable things happen anyway).

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Without Communism being a threat in the 1960s, I do not see much initial support for the space program, at least not enough to support an Apollo mission. Without an Apollo mission, you do not really have to science for the lunar mines and L4/L5 colonies required to assemble and deploy an orbital solar array. Without an orbital solar array, you end up with our level of space infrastructure or worse, as there is no evidence that going into space is economically worthwhile beyond autonomous satellites.

One of the interesting consequences of a stronger union presence in American politics (which is a given without Reagan) is solid opposition against automation and outsourcing jobs. American companies that did either could find their liability protection revoked (a rarely used option right now), as corporations were supposed to serve the common good in exchange for limited liability, which would open up their shareholders to financial liability. In such a economic and legal framework, American companies would likely find themselves protected from competition through tariffs because they are seen to serve the common good, rather than because they serve themselves.

What would be the result? No free trade deals between the USA and other nations, so no NAFTA, no massive increase in trade with China and India, etc. Even as the orbital solar array opened up new jobs for Americans, and expanded the economy 25% beyond OTL, the ATL economy would be much stronger. Just keeping with the same ratio of medium household income to average household income of 1977, the medium household income would be 50% greater without the 25% increase from the space economy. With it, you are talking about medium household incomes being over 80% greater than OTL.

So a richer more insular United States and a poorer everywhere else. Canada for example would have no part of the space pie and a declining export market for both minerals and energy, and not enough of a domestic market to support its own manufacturing concerns.