But you are missing the larger point by a mile. Subtract us from WWII and post war decades. Yes we have made mistakes, but where would the world be?
This is a pointless debate, one often useful only to small minds that genuinely can't understand big pictures. The world is where it is, right or wrong, at the hands of many players. There is no going back to any rose-colored viewpoints of the past.
A hard question to deal with is how much "prosperity" can be afforded. Not just by one country or one budget, but by all people on our world.
Quite often those that have
some, but not as much as others, are ready and willing to argue against helping "everyone else". As in, I ain't barely got none and I sure as **** don't want to help "those people". Certainly a strong concern, from that small-minded point of view, but hardly an effective one on which to base international policies. This is rapidly followed up with "we can't afford to help everyone... so **** 'em, let someone else pay". Again, from a small-minded point of view that seems to have some sensibility.
Until "those people" realize they too, are being "left out".
Meanwhile a whole array of folks that ARE making a ton of money continue to wage a startlingly effective campaign of fear-mongering propaganda while robbing everyone blind. The "little people" are conned into paying for it all under various guises. Patriotism, nationalism, military campaigns, etc. Next thing you know they're faking pretenses for war... and the whole wretched cycle repeats.
Those that
have studied history are doomed to watch it be repeated by those that
haven't.