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More like it was the collapse of USSR in the 80's and diminished threat of Communism in west that caused oligarchs to be bolder and grab more share of national
by myth_drannon 5y ago
More like it was the collapse of USSR in the 80's and diminished threat of Communism in west that caused oligarchs to be bolder and grab more share of national wealth.
Specially in the last year or two when only select few got extremely rich by loading debt on the rest of society.
I wonder if Amazon's working conditions would be possible in the 60-70s with strong labour unions back then.
- steveBK123 5y agoSure that's a factor, but people discount how much 1940-1980 was a historical anomaly for the US. Virtually every advanced industrial economy with which we competed had their industrial base leveled and colonial empires in full retreat. They then spent 1950s-1970s rebuilding. Then China came online as an industrial power in the 1980s-2000s. By 2000 the scale of competition on cost and/or quality with our industrial might was at a scale we had not seen in generations.
- medvezhenok 5y agoIt's also some of the Russian oligarch money that came in to western institutions (via shell companies etc - some revealed in the Panama papers) and started influencing the discourse here. Especially in the last 20 years. They finance a lot of the disinformation campaigns, the social division, etc. In the times of the USSR there were surely influence campaigns, but people were more on the look out for it and there was a common external target, so it was easier to unite the country.