Gordon claims that the staggering changes in the US of 1870-1970 were built on transformative, one-time innovations, and therefore Americans can't expect similar levels of growth to return anytime soon, if ever. The remarkable thing is "not that growth is slowing down but that it was so rapid for so long", he writes. In Gordon’s view, this slowdown isn’t anyone’s fault: "American growth slowed down after 1970 not because inventors had lost their spark or were devoid of new ideas, but because the basic elements of a modern standard of living had by then already been achieved along so many dimensions."