[cycomanic]

Your link actually proves the OP right and you wrong. Look at the graph of the running average of GDP and you see that after a huge spike in the 40s (due to the WW2 effort) GDP growth settles on a new higher average (with significantly less fluctuation).

[rayiner]

The spike in the 1940s is the war itself and recovery from the Great Depression. Obviously NATO and the reserve currency and whatnot came after that spike. If you look at the second chart, we’re right around the same point as the historical 1.7% growth curve. If you look at the fifth chart, the large european economies also seemed to have grown slightly faster after the war than before it. So I’m not sure how much the U.S. is benefitting from being the hegemon.

The real reason the U.S. is so rich is that it was already the richest country in the world in 1900. The U.S. had almost 50% higher GDP per capita than western europe in 1900: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Population-GDP-and-GDP-p.... Today, its still about 50%.

[geoka9]

> If you look at the fifth chart, the large european economies also seemed to have grown slightly faster after the war than before it. So I’m not sure how much the U.S. is benefitting from being the hegemon.

Nobody's denying that the US-created world order has been good for its partners but that doesn't mean the benefit was at the US's expense. International trade is not a zero-sum game - the lifting tide and all that.