> also known as the long depression in literature

Modern research agree that there was no 'long depression'. Its an invention of depression era economists who just looked back in history and said 'there was deflation, therefore there was a depression'. There have been multiple books on this but somehow this myth never dies because the left has put it as part of their narrative.

It was a period of sustained growth with recession in between but a strong avg.

I don't really care about inequality and I have never said it was a period of equality, if inequality was high during this period is because it was a new age of globalism and mass production. Of course the first people into that are gone be richer, but if you look at the consumption for everybody its absolutely clear that it was a period of improvement for most people.

Inequality does not automatically mean that the system was unfair or bad.

Secondly, its not wrong the imperialist polices by the US and others gave them some access amount of money and some people profited from that. However, you simply can not explain the amount of growth by point to exploitation of Banana republics, the numbers simply don't add up.

Claiming that companies like the East India were a replacement or somehow economically equal in effect to feudalism is totally wrong. In fact the amount of government granted monopoly was far, far lower during that time. Domestic monopolies were largely removed and trade monopolies were in fact far weaker then most people seem to think. It was possible in the umbrella of the East India company to have basically independent business and trade voyages. This is also how the stock market was invented in the Netherlands (btw without government protection or approval).

I never said a single thing about socialism and I would never claim that Smith was a socialist. I have no idea based on what you made that up.

> My point is that both sides is essentially working from a historic narrative thats more myth then reality, and that it's really hard to explain the incredible increase in wealth that we have seen since the last war to end all war ended as a result of anything but technological developments and prolonged peace

I do not accept this 'balance' view just because its balance. Growth does not magically happen when technology is around and their is peace.

These things have actually been studied by economists and there are tons of country back then and now that live in peace and that have access to those technologies, and you they don't have growth.

Also, technological progress is not automatic, its not a magical thing that just happens. Technological progress comes when people and companies try to improve their position in the market and produce things cheaper or better.

People like the 'evil' Robber Barron were actually some of the most important in that. Standard oil made a lot of innovations in all stages of oil production and so on. However it is not just them but millions of people who lived and worked back then.

Global capitalism and the global gold standard was an unqualified success that produced the largest growth spit in human history up to that point and it was not slowing down before WW1.