• Th4tGuyII@fedia.io
    32·
    2 days ago

    The sentiment is true, that the middle class are being pushed back - but it was hardly a fluke.

    Unions became incredibly strong post-WWII and actually had teeth back then, so the average person became much better off as a result.

    But since then the wealthy have slowly perverted the law to rip out those teeth and started pushing back what was fought for. And we’re now getting towards the end-game.

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
      16·
      2 days ago

      People fought, went to prison, and died to have unions, that’s why they had teeth.

    • Commiunism@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      13·
      2 days ago

      Workers had much more teeth back then due to crisis of profitability prior to WW2 that affected the entire world, as seen by the great depressions and austerity. Bad conditions = unrest

      After WW2, in US especially whose capital didn’t get destroyed in the imperialist war, there was a period of superprofits due to everything having to be rebuilt, baby boom, etc. New outlets for investment opened up.

      Workers were still rowdy, but got suppressed by red scares, failed revolutions, and concessions bourgeois used from the newfound superprofits to fund keynesianism/welfare states.

      Now that rate of profit is back in the gutter again (it always falls), we are going back to austerity and it’s what ultimately drives everything, not some evil cabal but tendency for rate of profit to fall

  • TheTechnician27English
    152·
    2 days ago

    “It was a fluke, but also it was intentionally designed by ruthless, calculating elites to prevent them from crumpling under a revolution. The enemy is simultaneously strong and weak, sheeple!!”

      • TheTechnician27English
        10·
        2 days ago

        Zero idea what you’re on about, but the post is classic doublethink, breathlessly holding that the middle class* was simultaneously a fluke and that its existence was designed and carefully puppeteered for decades – so controlled that it can now be carefully dismantled. And of course the elites designed the fluke™ because without it, they would’ve folded under a communist revolution.

        * which is not even close to just 50 years old unless Friedrich Engels was talking about some other “English middle class”, but then I don’t think this author actually cares; they seemingly just pulled “50-year” out of a hat because it’s a nice, round number.

        • Sarah Valentine (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          38·
          2 days ago

          breathlessly holding that the middle class* was simultaneously a fluke and that its existence was designed and carefully puppeteered for decades – so controlled that it can now be carefully dismantled. And of course the elites designed the fluke™ because without it, they would’ve folded under a communist revolution.

          This characterization is entirely in your head. Don’t delusion at me like it’s objective fact. There’s no way in hell you will or should be taken seriously. Get a grip.