This starts in the 50s and and seems they argue for Land Reform. Maybe that was part of it. But I say these are far better reasons:

1. A local government friendly to the US. Gov type did not matter.

2. US Workers starting to want medical benefits, by the late 60s, hardly anyone would take a job without benefits. This includes sick time.

3. Environment Controls starting in the 60s. I think this is a big one.

4. High Wages in the US

5. Improved intercontinental flights and cheap shipping. I think in the 60s the US merchant was quickly being outsourced to cheap countries.

6. An of course corporate greed and the rush to make Wall Street happy.

You just need to look at ROC in the 90s, lots of companies started moving manufacturing there because Japan and Taiwan was getting too expensive.

Now I think they are slowly moving out of ROC to places it SE Asia like Vietnam.

I'm guessing the article never once mentions a 106 average IQ.

From the title, and skimming over this article, I notice an irony: the analysis is "short" by Eastern standards

They're only talking about the last 100-200 years. That's significant on the American time scale, but insignificant on a Chinese one.

It's interesting to me that older cultures like the Chinese, Japanese, and the Maya view history as cyclical, while Americans tend to have more a narrative of "linear progress", or even "manifest destiny" (a term I heard in grade school but probably didn't really understand until being an adult)

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I think Ray Dalio's explanation is the most concise and takes into account the cyclical nature of history (and wow this video has 55 M views now)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8

Roughly speaking, [edited] China and India likely had most of the world GDP for more than 1000 years [1] ... you can think of it as a miracle for them to rise again, or just part of a cycle.

And there are absolutely cycles in history, just ones that are longer than any "news" article tends to talk about

I also think Americans are now waking up to a cyclical view. Everyone is talking about how this is the "first" generation to make less money than their parents, or the "first" to have shorter life span

But it's only "first" if you don't recognize the cycles! That's understandable because of America's history, but it is a limited analysis

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[1] edit: I looked deeper into this, and I agree it's flimsy, as mentioned below. But I think the larger point still stands -- it's a only a "miracle" if you're looking at a certain time frame, and n=1