roamed all over the world putting their money into risky new enterprises. The Germans created a remarkable industrial boom after the Prussian victory in 1871 in the war against France. Free markets thrived everywhere from the Turkish bazaars to the shops of London long before the American economy took off.What distinguished Americas post civil war industrial revolution was the enormous continent wide market place, which enabled America to sell goods on a scale that could not be matched by the other countries. The mass production that resulted was not just a matter of replacing labor with machines, which all advanced countries eventually accomplished. It seems that mass production in America was a highly complex system of producing and distribution that reduced the costs of manufacturing each unit dramatically as the volume of production was raised. This increase was made possible by a market large enough to absorb the goods that high volume factories could produce. For nearly a century no other nations mass production industries were comparable to Americas, nor was our rate of growth equaled by any other major country during this period. Between 1870 and 1913, the eve of World War I, Americas rate of growth rose to nearly four percent a year. Germanys gross domestic product (GDP) grew only 2.8 percent, Japan 2.3 and France 1.5 percent during this same period.Americas population grew faster than Europes over the same years. The GDP per person also faster at a rate of 1.8 percent a year between 1870 and 1913, while the GDP per person rose only 1.6 percent in Germany, 1.4 percent in Japan, 1.3 percent in France and a lowly one percent in Britain. By 1913, America was the most productive major nation in the world, producing 25 percent more per worker than Britain, who was the world leader for more than a century and twice as much per worker as Germany or France. By World War I, America was making more than 30 percent of the worlds...
