When we say puppet, it means that the country in question has to let Americans have their military near major population centers, open up their economy for American firms to buy, never oppose American foreign policy, don’t grow powerful enough to challenge the US, etc.
It doesn’t mean that a CIA agent is telling their PM exactly where to build a railway. They have the freedom to act within the boundaries set by the US. Thet get punished only when Japan steps out of the line like when they traded with the USSR.
We use the word puppet to derogate dogs of the empire but it’d be more accurate to say vassal or protectorate.
To continue answering your question, most core vassals such as Canada, Western Europe, Japan, etc. have better infrastructure and social security than the USA. There are many reasons for this phenomena, such as deindustrialization, but I will focus on one topic - deurbanization.
Less effort is required to establish infrastructure with a concentration of population. For an easy thought experiment, it is takes less materials and labor to build a water pipe to an apartment complex that house 10,000 people than to a housing complex that has an equivalent number of people in it. For the apartment complex, you can build one bus stop. For the housing complex, you have to build 50. America is the only country in the world that deurbanized largely due to racism. If you don’t want to live next to black, Jewish, and Irish people, you have to move away from the city. As a result, the cost of building infrastructure to serve 80% of the population is much greater than that of other advanced economies.
When we say puppet, it means that the country in question has to let Americans have their military near major population centers, open up their economy for American firms to buy, never oppose American foreign policy, don’t grow powerful enough to challenge the US, etc.
It doesn’t mean that a CIA agent is telling their PM exactly where to build a railway. They have the freedom to act within the boundaries set by the US. Thet get punished only when Japan steps out of the line like when they traded with the USSR.
We use the word puppet to derogate dogs of the empire but it’d be more accurate to say vassal or protectorate.
To continue answering your question, most core vassals such as Canada, Western Europe, Japan, etc. have better infrastructure and social security than the USA. There are many reasons for this phenomena, such as deindustrialization, but I will focus on one topic - deurbanization.
Less effort is required to establish infrastructure with a concentration of population. For an easy thought experiment, it is takes less materials and labor to build a water pipe to an apartment complex that house 10,000 people than to a housing complex that has an equivalent number of people in it. For the apartment complex, you can build one bus stop. For the housing complex, you have to build 50. America is the only country in the world that deurbanized largely due to racism. If you don’t want to live next to black, Jewish, and Irish people, you have to move away from the city. As a result, the cost of building infrastructure to serve 80% of the population is much greater than that of other advanced economies.