6 ms·

It is funny, people somehow think that a momentary episode of utter economic dominance after all other economic powers had been bombed into dust should be the n

It is funny, people somehow think that a momentary episode of utter economic dominance after all other economic powers had been bombed into dust should be the norm. And the 50s and 60s weren't that great for e.g. black people or women in the US either.

coldtea 3y ago
>And the 50s and 60s weren't that great for e.g. black people or women in the US either. This argument is repeated a lot anytime someone mentions the working conditions in the 50s/60s, but how is it any relevant? Is there some natural law that says that mistreatment of blacks for example have to always go hand in hand with livable wages? And that anybody that likes the latter from the 50s/60s must also want the former?
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  There are enormous amounts of study on the concept that the above-average lifestyle enjoyed at that specific point in history by white men was built on the exploitation of other groups. Frequently, people who name that specific point in time as the model for how they would like the world to be are simply unaware of this tradeoff and have no idea that simply reverting society to that point would make it worse for some groups - this is why it gets mentioned when someone says "let's go back to those good times", to educate these people. Less frequently, they already know this and simply don't care, and it's always useful to give this group an opportunity to be explicit about their priorities.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    The "above-average lifestyle enjoyed at that specific point in history" came in the US because Europe was destroyed in WWII, and they got to easily be the world's producer and exporter and dictator of terms for decades. That plus strong unions and growing economy. And the tide also lifted black people with it, that's the era when the civil rights progress was made, for example. Oh, and Europe also ended up enjoying a similar stability and uplifting economy a few decades later, as the economy recovered there too, without having those other groups to exploit, and even for countries which lost their colonies the decades prior. The economic rise since the 60s though (in productivity, GDP etc) hasn't translated to similar stability, because the unions were left to die, and neoliberal politics and attitudes became the norm, while the banks and capitalists got a free pass to anything they wanted. >Less frequently, they already know this and simply don't care, and it's always useful to give this group an opportunity to be explicit about their priorities. I think it's more that people making your argument are with the side of capitalists, and you want to make a bogus argument as if livable wages and job prospects are racist and only feasible when combined with exploitation, to absolve the current neoliberal order as "the best possible world". So they weaselly mark anybody pointing to those things as pinning for the rasist aspects of 1950s/60s too.
    - ang_cire 3y ago
      Hear, hear!
- optimalsolver 3y ago
  People that pine for the 50s are def suspicious.
  - bt4u 3y ago
    [dead]
  - coldtea 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - soligern 3y ago
      In the United States, if you’re not a white male it probably is. It was also probably pretty good for white women that didn’t want a job and wanted to be a homemaker.
      - coldtea 3y ago
        There are changes (systemic and "organic") in the United States that made it worse for everybody, including people that are not white males, while at the same time issues like systemic racial injustices got better. A vibrant economy and an on the rise domestic production, for example, meant many more working class jobs for everybody, for example, including blacks. Housing and healthcare was more affordable, including for blacks. That's how millions of blacks post-war could enter into middle class, a class that is now squeezed for both blacks and whites. Amazing, how orthogonal changes can happen in both directions? And that eras are not just defined from a single aspect, and are not just like their mass media caricatures?
    - barrysteve 3y ago
      That's why facebook allows teenage girls to bully each other into suicide. Show me the facts and we won't have to agree on sophistry. We used to share the same facts as a society, in the 1950s. Society can't agree on the shape of the earth anymore as a basic fact, and you want to tell me everything is better in all aspects.
usrbinbash 3y ago
Gimme a good argument why good conditions should diminish, or deteriorate, despite the fact that workforce productivity, as well as corporate margins, have been growing steadily ever since.
- kaashif 3y ago
  I don't know whether they should or not, but it's clear that there was a very unusual set of conditions and it is unsurprising it didn't last forever, right or wrong.
  - usrbinbash 3y ago
    On the contrary, it is VERY surprising these conditions didn't last, given that productivity only ever increased since then. If favorable, but short lived conditions were behind this sudden change, then it would affect the entire economic system, not just the workforce. How well people are off is a function of how many resources there are to go around. Since the end of WWII, these resources only ever increased. So did worker productivity, aka. the amount of resources produced per worker. So if people are worse off now, that leads to the very easy deduction that the fault lies in how these resources are distributed, not with a scarcity of the resources themselves. Or to put this another way: If the previously better conditions were just a fluke that couldn't be expected to last, how come that corporations seem to rake in ever more money as time goes on?
    - Aurornis 3y ago
      > How well people are off is a function of how many resources there are to go around. Since the end of WWII, these resources only ever increased. This is a very US-centric view. Demand for resources across the world has increased dramatically as everyone’s living standard increased. The situation isn’t going to make sense if you continue to ignore the rest of the world and try to understand the United States as if we lived in a perfectly isolated bubble.
      - usrbinbash 3y ago
carlosjobim 3y ago
This point of view is simply not true. The return on labour was massively much higher for previous generations outside of the US as well, including in countries bombed into dust. Educate yourself on history, there is a world outside the United States. There are struggles that have nothing to do with race relations in the United States.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

coldtea 3y ago

>And the 50s and 60s weren't that great for e.g. black people or women in the US either. This argument is repeated a lot anytime someone mentions the working conditions in the 50s/60s, but how is it any relevant? Is there some natural law that says that mistreatment of blacks for example have to always go hand in hand with livable wages? And that anybody that likes the latter from the 50s/60s must also want the former?

lazyasciiart 3y ago
There are enormous amounts of study on the concept that the above-average lifestyle enjoyed at that specific point in history by white men was built on the exploitation of other groups. Frequently, people who name that specific point in time as the model for how they would like the world to be are simply unaware of this tradeoff and have no idea that simply reverting society to that point would make it worse for some groups - this is why it gets mentioned when someone says "let's go back to those good times", to educate these people. Less frequently, they already know this and simply don't care, and it's always useful to give this group an opportunity to be explicit about their priorities.
- coldtea 3y ago
  The "above-average lifestyle enjoyed at that specific point in history" came in the US because Europe was destroyed in WWII, and they got to easily be the world's producer and exporter and dictator of terms for decades. That plus strong unions and growing economy. And the tide also lifted black people with it, that's the era when the civil rights progress was made, for example. Oh, and Europe also ended up enjoying a similar stability and uplifting economy a few decades later, as the economy recovered there too, without having those other groups to exploit, and even for countries which lost their colonies the decades prior. The economic rise since the 60s though (in productivity, GDP etc) hasn't translated to similar stability, because the unions were left to die, and neoliberal politics and attitudes became the norm, while the banks and capitalists got a free pass to anything they wanted. >Less frequently, they already know this and simply don't care, and it's always useful to give this group an opportunity to be explicit about their priorities. I think it's more that people making your argument are with the side of capitalists, and you want to make a bogus argument as if livable wages and job prospects are racist and only feasible when combined with exploitation, to absolve the current neoliberal order as "the best possible world". So they weaselly mark anybody pointing to those things as pinning for the rasist aspects of 1950s/60s too.
  - ang_cire 3y ago
    Hear, hear!
optimalsolver 3y ago
People that pine for the 50s are def suspicious.
- bt4u 3y ago
  [dead]
- coldtea 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - soligern 3y ago
    In the United States, if you’re not a white male it probably is. It was also probably pretty good for white women that didn’t want a job and wanted to be a homemaker.
    - coldtea 3y ago
      There are changes (systemic and "organic") in the United States that made it worse for everybody, including people that are not white males, while at the same time issues like systemic racial injustices got better. A vibrant economy and an on the rise domestic production, for example, meant many more working class jobs for everybody, for example, including blacks. Housing and healthcare was more affordable, including for blacks. That's how millions of blacks post-war could enter into middle class, a class that is now squeezed for both blacks and whites. Amazing, how orthogonal changes can happen in both directions? And that eras are not just defined from a single aspect, and are not just like their mass media caricatures?
  - barrysteve 3y ago
    That's why facebook allows teenage girls to bully each other into suicide. Show me the facts and we won't have to agree on sophistry. We used to share the same facts as a society, in the 1950s. Society can't agree on the shape of the earth anymore as a basic fact, and you want to tell me everything is better in all aspects.

usrbinbash 3y ago

Gimme a good argument why good conditions should diminish, or deteriorate, despite the fact that workforce productivity, as well as corporate margins, have been growing steadily ever since.

kaashif 3y ago
I don't know whether they should or not, but it's clear that there was a very unusual set of conditions and it is unsurprising it didn't last forever, right or wrong.
- usrbinbash 3y ago
  On the contrary, it is VERY surprising these conditions didn't last, given that productivity only ever increased since then. If favorable, but short lived conditions were behind this sudden change, then it would affect the entire economic system, not just the workforce. How well people are off is a function of how many resources there are to go around. Since the end of WWII, these resources only ever increased. So did worker productivity, aka. the amount of resources produced per worker. So if people are worse off now, that leads to the very easy deduction that the fault lies in how these resources are distributed, not with a scarcity of the resources themselves. Or to put this another way: If the previously better conditions were just a fluke that couldn't be expected to last, how come that corporations seem to rake in ever more money as time goes on?
  - Aurornis 3y ago
    > How well people are off is a function of how many resources there are to go around. Since the end of WWII, these resources only ever increased. This is a very US-centric view. Demand for resources across the world has increased dramatically as everyone’s living standard increased. The situation isn’t going to make sense if you continue to ignore the rest of the world and try to understand the United States as if we lived in a perfectly isolated bubble.
    - usrbinbash 3y ago

carlosjobim 3y ago

This point of view is simply not true. The return on labour was massively much higher for previous generations outside of the US as well, including in countries bombed into dust. Educate yourself on history, there is a world outside the United States. There are struggles that have nothing to do with race relations in the United States.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]