Indonesia and the United States are similar in recent economic development. Indonesia has experienced three decades of turbulence since the 1960s, as has the United States, especially in shifting demographics and overall age of the population. While both countries have experienced their economic difficulties in the past 20 years, both seem on the verge of entering a decade of calm, stable growth, while at the same time advancing the lifestyle quality of their inhabitants. This paper will compare and contrast the economic pasts of Indonesia and the United States to illustrate how and why they are both poised for unprecedented economic stability in the 1990s and beyond 2000. A conclusion will discuss the near future for both countries, economically and socially.
In the period between the end of the Civil War and the end of World War I, the United States witnessed profound changes: the country was internally bleeding following the war; many of the changes regarding blacks never materialized. The employers in the capitalist system employed workers at slave wages in extremely dangerous working conditions; the increased efficiency arising out of new technology was creating a new strata of worker, the skilled worker; labor began to organize; and socialist thought flourished in this milieu of death and despair. The average person was asking, "What will I have to do to survive?"
The most significant developments in this period were Darwinism, technological development and Socialism. Darwin was less a genius than an observer who put into words a concept intrinsically understood by many. There may well have been many scientists reading the theory of evolution and slapping their foreheads in self-abasement for not seeing the obvious. But much of the reason that they could not see the obvious was that society had no place to allow such a concept. Beyond the obvious threat to the strict interpretation of creationist philosophy, the g...