Without the opportunities for investment created by the destruction of Europe, would the Trente Glorieuses have taken place?

At some level, war automatically generates economic stimulus in its wake, because someone has to clean up and rebuild. Moreover, investment in basic research (so as to create ever more ingenious ways to kill one another) ensures at war's end that there is a standing catalog of new technologies to be commercialized.

Arguably, the same could be had by simply making investment in basic research without the killing, but as a species Is suspect we aren't that clever.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg