Rules TBD.
I'd argue it started with FDR not the cold war. FDR did end up helping many Americans, but the concessions given slowed and/or completely stopped many workers movements in the US. Halting further progress amongst socialist or communist parties in the US.
The middle class wouldn't emerge until the late 1940s, but the groundwork was set in the 30s
It was the same fear though, there was a really strong working class movement in the US after the great depression, and a lot of communist organizing happening within unions.
That is why I called them concessions
fair
RIP left wave USA 1930-1975
RIP right wave China 1980-2015
This is why I advocate for, hear me out, liberal arts. 🤢
Soc 100 or 101, can't remember which, taught this.
After not enjoying Applied Calculus, I took Modern Math, AKA Math For English Majors, to complete my math requirement.
It was a great class! Lots of useful, real-world math skills. It didn't use anything much more complicated than simple algebra, but we talked about the traveling salesman problem and ways to fairly split up an estate.
We also talked about election math, and how first past the post is objectively a terrible election system, and how there are several systems readily available that are mathematically more representative of the will of the people. I don't even know if the teacher had a specific political stance, or if she was just mathematically offended by our outdated democratic operating system.
Great class. Wish they would start teaching subjects like that in high school.
As a STEM grad who spent 2 years undeclared, it sounds like a course even STEM people could use.
I'm so thankful that I sort of accidentally backed into a well rounded education. I cannot say the same for the majority of my STEM colleagues.
I think especially STEM students should have lib arts requirements.
100%. Some of the most useful courses that I took were either electives or simply did not count toward my major. Specifically: a logic course, a course about the history of socialism, and a writing course (including research papers)
Critical thinking and logic 101 (syllogistic logic) were infinitely valuable, imo. I think critical reading should also be required.
There are two classes, the senatorial class and the plebeians. Just like in Rome with the worst psychopaths at the top.
The middle class has always been systematically crushed under capitalism, which has been a primary project and function of the state. This pressure is felt by the middle class and forms the human basis for fascism.
This is why fascism is an intrinsic part of capitalist social relations. As long as there is a middle class to squeeze, there will be the structural basis to blame someone other than those responsible.
I'd be careful to say that the middle class is being turned into peasants. Its not completely wrong, but its a rhetorical statement (peasant bad, middle class good) rather than a materialist statement based on understanding social forces. I'm unconvinced that by destroying the material basis for the middle class, the capitalists are creating a whole new class, or reproducing older ones. If anything, destroying the middle only brings more attention to the central feature of capitalism that creates two diametrically opposed classes rather than many differing castes or classes, which stabilized previous modes of production. Capitalism creates capitalists and workers. Everything else is unstable or illusory.
well put
Recommend: The Blind Spot: How Oligarchs Dominate Our Democracy - Jeffrey Winters
Silence, the two braincells of a progressist are working now.
Don't worry about that, the threat will be back.
We just have to reach the level of peasantry that started the communist revolution.
Worry about that.
It wasn’t a fluke - it was a benefit from the capitalist overlords to workers in the belly of US imperialism to hedge against workers coming to a class consciousness that might have them taking over ownership of the means of production as they did in the Soviet Union. It was an indirect benefit because of the USSRs existence. That is how scared of communism the ruling capitalist class is…they gave us a little to lose because when we have nothing left to lose, we will start to mobilize as a working class.
Arguably, the fluke was Germans shitting the bed and failing to have a communist revolution. If Germany went communist instead of fascist in 1930s, then the rest of Europe would've almost certainly followed. The US had a strong isolationist movement at the time, so it likely would've remained a regional power. There was also a strong communist and union movement as a result of the great depression, and with Europe being communist, it would've had a huge amount of international support. So, we basically live in one of the worst possible timelines thanks to the Germans.
I agree! The reformist social democrats are to blame….and we need to learn from this. Only a revolutionary program will lead the way to capitalism’s demise and the liberation of the people of the world.
Unfortunately, we are seeing the DSA in the US absorbing a lot of discontent and potential revolutionary energy, funneling it into a reformist, populist, electoral program….even running within a capitalist party. The DSA needs to break with the democrats now as a first step of correcting this course. There needs to be a united front of various revolutionary caucuses to bring this political fight to the forefront!
So, we basically live in one of the worst possible timelines thanks to the Germans.
Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten!
Middle class is and always was just a third class aristocracy that preside over the stolen labour of the imperial periphery. That includes me and I imagine most Western Lemmy users whether we know that's what's happening or not. Maybe not as bad as the real aristocracy but very far from blameless for the exploitation happening in the world. Not wanting to live off the exploitation of others is not an excuse for it actually happening. We're all culpable.
I'd even go as far as to say there is no true proletariat in the imperial core because of how pervasively the spoils of exploitation is distributed here. The poorest person here still actively lives off the labour of even poorer people in the periphery.
Middle class is and always was just a third-class aristocracy that preside over the stolen labour of the imperial periphery.
Petite Bourgeois. Professional Managerial Class. Mercantile Class. Yeomen/Freeholder. The Third Estate. There's a bunch of different names for it, depending on which socio-economic system you operate under.
We’re all culpable.
To be culpable, you need a certain level of agency. I'm reluctant to hang blame on a cog in the machine, even if that cog gets a marginally nicer standard of living than their peers. That way lays liberalist self-flagellation, rather than proletarian unity. The House Slave has no more say in the running of the plantation than the Field Slave, even if the clothing is nicer and the living quarters less drafty.
I’d even go as far as to say there is no true proletariat in the imperial core because of how pervasively the spoils of exploitation is distributed here.
sound of J. Sakai's Settlers hitting the desk
If you're looking for a "real" proletarian underclass, look no farther than all the prison labor camps our country has perpetuated. You've got homeless folks and debtors picked up by the modern day Press Gangs to do piecework for subsistence wages.
But climb up a rung or two to the modern-day service sector, what's left of blue collar industry, the vocational trades, and the third-string office jobs. You're still going to find debt peonage and a carceral state. People showing up to work with ankle monitors because they're still on probation. People perpetually underwater on the car they need or the college debt they need or the housing note they need to stay out of bankruptcy and homelessness.
The domestic infrastructure is much nicer. When we need health care, there are doctors in the neighborhood who can provide treatment (which we maybe can afford) and schools that provide some professionalized education (which will maybe result in a sustainable employment) and highways/railways to get us where we need to go, and even parks and theaters and other amusement centers for a degree of recreational relief.
But any Roman will tell you that walking distance from the Colosseum didn't make you more or less of a slave. Proletarianization isn't about whether or not you hate your life. It's about whether or not you own your labor.
But the threat is neither dead nor gone
For a while the ruling class managed to convince people that it really was the end of history.