80
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] penitentkulak@hexbear.net 34 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)
[-] Grebgreb@hexbear.net 46 points 2 years ago
[-] OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml 42 points 2 years ago

True, but since I think I read the Harvard article say that this has been going on over the last 30 years I'll blame the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The sudden loss of competition on workers' rights and healthcare probably allowed capitalists to just say "fuck it."

[-] emizeko@hexbear.net 19 points 2 years ago

you might like this essay which has a similar thesis

Capitalism sucks for workers. It’s common to see the obvious failures of our current system as new horrors, and to conclude that we need to return to some time when things were better. Maybe the “better time” is vague — just a general hand-waving and an exhortation to make things great again. Or maybe it’s explicit, with policy nods towards, for example, Roosevelt’s New Deal. Either way, this better time was probably some period after the workday was reduced to only 8 hours but before neoliberalism really kicked off. Not coincidentally, this time period lines up with the existence of the U.S.S.R. (1917-1991). Workers’ lives improved when the West felt threatened by the rise of communism!

To protect their own interests against the growing enthusiasm for communism, the capitalist class of the West permitted the passing of worker-friendly social policies. Here, I’m going to walk through a few examples of these policies that were motivated by fear of the U.S.S.R. and its influence in the world. I want to show how these were strategic concessions by the capitalist class rather than the result of the establishment coming to see reason or bowing to the force of the better argument. I will build this argument by citing contemporary capitalists, mainstream news outlets and government officials, demonstrating how these policies were explicitly linked at the time to fears of communist organizing inspired by the U.S.S.R. I will also highlight how these policies softened the hard edge of capitalism to quell the rising interest in socialism, while still entrenching liberal, pro-capitalist principles.

continues at https://redsails.org/concessions/

[-] penitentkulak@hexbear.net 13 points 2 years ago

Yeah this data only goes to 2019. I'd say your analysis is good, covid-cool is part of that long running loss of rights.

this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
80 points (100.0% liked)

news

24484 readers
388 users here now

Welcome to c/news! We aim to foster a book-club type environment for discussion and critical analysis of the news. Our policy objectives are:

We ask community members to appreciate the uncertainty inherent in critical analysis of current events, the need to constantly learn, and take part in the community with humility. None of us are the One True Leftist, not even you, the reader.

Newcomm and Newsmega Rules:

The Hexbear Code of Conduct and Terms of Service apply here.

  1. Link titles: Please use informative link titles. Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed.

  2. Content warnings: Posts on the newscomm and top-level replies on the newsmega should use content warnings appropriately. Please be thoughtful about wording and triggers when describing awful things in post titles.

  3. Fake news: No fake news posts ever, including April 1st. Deliberate fake news posting is a bannable offense. If you mistakenly post fake news the mod team may ask you to delete/modify the post or we may delete it ourselves.

  4. Link sources: All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. If you are citing a Twitter post as news, please include the Xcancel.com (or another Nitter instance) or at least strip out identifier information from the twitter link. There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance, such as Libredirect or archive them as you would any other reactionary source.

  5. Archive sites: We highly encourage use of non-paywalled archive sites (i.e. archive.is, web.archive.org, ghostarchive.org) so that links are widely accessible to the community and so that reactionary sources don’t derive data/ad revenue from Hexbear users. If you see a link without an archive link, please archive it yourself and add it to the thread, ask the OP to fix it, or report to mods. Including text of articles in threads is welcome.

  6. Low effort material: Avoid memes/jokes/shitposts in newscomm posts and top-level replies to the newsmega. This kind of content is OK in post replies and in newsmega sub-threads. We encourage the community to balance their contribution of low effort material with effort posts, links to real news/analysis, and meaningful engagement with material posted in the community.

  7. American politics: Discussion and effort posts on the (potential) material impacts of American electoral politics is welcome, but the never-ending circus of American Politics© Brought to You by Mountain Dew™ is not welcome. This refers to polling, pundit reactions, electoral horse races, rumors of who might run, etc.

  8. Electoralism: Please try to avoid struggle sessions about the value of voting/taking part in the electoral system in the West. c/electoralism is right over there.

  9. AI Slop: Don't post AI generated content. Posts about AI race/chip wars/data centers are fine.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS