In many ways, Europe eventually benefited from having nothing to build on. They had to begin their economies from scratch which meant their governments had to supply them with currency to fuel that beginning and then to fund the growth that resulted. They never became confused about where the money comes from, or who it should benefit. Their need was simply too large for anything other than their governments to supply

America had its full capacity of production intact at the end of the war and simply had to convert it to domestic use from building weapons. It also benefited from having a visionary for President who was smart enough to ignore the gold standard and just fund the economy as needed. Since America was already past full capacity and its largest corporations were raking in the war bucks it never felt the urgency to break from the capitalism that had destroyed its economy just a few years prior.

For a while, it was a strange combination of socialism developed in response to the depression and extractive capitalism that was necessary for the war effort. Its biggest problem was controlling inflation, not rebuilding anything. It was quite easy for America to fall into an unhealthy relationship between its government and its capitalists. The people used their socialist benefits to purchase the land yachts and tract homes that became the style dominated by excesses of consumption.

With the rest of the world trying to sell us anything we wanted at bargain prices and a great advantage of having the currency all trade was denominated in, America became very cozy with the capitalists that would eventually take back all of their homes and cars, or mortgage them at prices far beyond their worth to feed shareholders who had become addicted to extreme profits that couldn’t be sustained after the rest of the world rebuilt. A generation that watched its uneducated parents support their families by pushing one button or pulling one lever over their working lives found the buttons and levers moved overseas where people would push or pull them for much less and as soon as production was decoupled from consumption the end was in sight for America’s style of capitalism.