These meager token “raises” are, for many if not most of us, wildly insufficient compared to the rising costs of everything (due in very large part to the aforementioned corporations and their year over year record profits).
Sounds nice on paper but that’s not reality for a significant number of people still scraping by paycheck to paycheck, many with college degrees and years of experience, one shitty day away from being homeless.
Actually yes… fascism is a natural consequence of late-stage capitalism as it’s one way to keep the exploited masses under control by focussing their anger away from the wealthy leaders.
Basically every historic precedent works here. The turn of the 19th to 20th century can be mainly characterized by the results of a rapid technological advancement via industrialisation in which the workers were left behind while the control sat in higher-up circles, partly made up from remaining aristocracy and partly from rich high education citizens who accumulated mnost of the produced wealth. This basically slowly eliminated a general middle-class, provoking clashes between left wing worker movements representing the majority but not having the power and an established rich upper class trying to exploit them for more wealth. (To no one’s surprise this is exactly the time when capitalism was defined in details: Karl Marx - Das Kapital (volume 1 to 3, 1867-1894 ))
That scenario can only (and usually has) resulted in either revolution or focusing that (poor, and usually less educated) majority’s anger into another direction. The latter resulted in nationalist populist movements all throughout Europe. The only thing in doubt is if it would have won everywhere over time (as in some countries there still was a stable enough middle-class to delay that development at least fo a time). I assume so, but we will never know, as the countries where this development won faster (usually because the pre-conditions for the poorer population were already worse) changed the course of history for all.
If you want to call it a rise of fascism (the original one in Italy), nazis (in Germany) or a definitely fascistic military dictatorship based on “popular front” politics -with some support by monarchists realizing the risk they were in- (Spain) doesn’t make a huge difference in the big picture.
Also: for a less historic and more “today” point of view look at Russia. Contrary to people still associating them with communism their form of oligarchy is definitely a variant of late-stage capitalism. In fact the risk of the US’ capitalism developing even further into a pure wealth-based oligarchy is a discussion topic for at least two decades. And look were Russia is taking pointers from right now… straight from the nazi playbook.
(And now that I have mentioned it… and the discussed risk of the US moving into the same oligarchy direction: Isn’t there a certain guy leaning heavily into far-right nationalism while using fascist and nazi rhetorics at times, who wants to become president again?)
Given their posting history, I’m sure OP will find a way to say it’s Biden and the Democratic party’s fault.
Looking at the states through this lens is like all the articles that blame “congress” while ignoring which people in which party of which half of congress caused the issue of the day.
There are a multitude of reasons why this metric would come to be, but according to the comments here the important part is to keep saying “America sucks right now” without identifying any realistic solutions.
Best you’ll get is a half assed hand wave of people mumbling about Karl Marx like that helps anything.
Must be all the fascism
Corporations paying poverty wages while reporting record profits probably doesn’t help either.
probablydefinitelyprobably definitelyunapologetically, immorally and deliberatelyActually, wages are higher during Biden’s term than they have ever been in the history of America
These meager token “raises” are, for many if not most of us, wildly insufficient compared to the rising costs of everything (due in very large part to the aforementioned corporations and their year over year record profits).
That’s not true, wages have outpaced inflation. So for most people, their costs have been covered by higher wages.
Can you cite a source for this? It is not what most people are anecdotally experiencing so you are being down voted.
https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-purchasing-power-of-american-households
Most people actually are better off, because 50% (the median) is doing much better under Biden than under Trump
Sounds nice on paper but that’s not reality for a significant number of people still scraping by paycheck to paycheck, many with college degrees and years of experience, one shitty day away from being homeless.
This was just as true four years ago, and it was true twenty years ago. I’m talking about the improvements under Biden:
https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-purchasing-power-of-american-households
I refer you to my previous comment.
Which previous comment
Actually yes… fascism is a natural consequence of late-stage capitalism as it’s one way to keep the exploited masses under control by focussing their anger away from the wealthy leaders.
What historical precedents would you cite as examples of your statement, “fascism is a natural consequence of late-stage capitalism”?
Basically every historic precedent works here. The turn of the 19th to 20th century can be mainly characterized by the results of a rapid technological advancement via industrialisation in which the workers were left behind while the control sat in higher-up circles, partly made up from remaining aristocracy and partly from rich high education citizens who accumulated mnost of the produced wealth. This basically slowly eliminated a general middle-class, provoking clashes between left wing worker movements representing the majority but not having the power and an established rich upper class trying to exploit them for more wealth. (To no one’s surprise this is exactly the time when capitalism was defined in details: Karl Marx - Das Kapital (volume 1 to 3, 1867-1894 ))
That scenario can only (and usually has) resulted in either revolution or focusing that (poor, and usually less educated) majority’s anger into another direction. The latter resulted in nationalist populist movements all throughout Europe. The only thing in doubt is if it would have won everywhere over time (as in some countries there still was a stable enough middle-class to delay that development at least fo a time). I assume so, but we will never know, as the countries where this development won faster (usually because the pre-conditions for the poorer population were already worse) changed the course of history for all.
If you want to call it a rise of fascism (the original one in Italy), nazis (in Germany) or a definitely fascistic military dictatorship based on “popular front” politics -with some support by monarchists realizing the risk they were in- (Spain) doesn’t make a huge difference in the big picture.
Also: for a less historic and more “today” point of view look at Russia. Contrary to people still associating them with communism their form of oligarchy is definitely a variant of late-stage capitalism. In fact the risk of the US’ capitalism developing even further into a pure wealth-based oligarchy is a discussion topic for at least two decades. And look were Russia is taking pointers from right now… straight from the nazi playbook.
(And now that I have mentioned it… and the discussed risk of the US moving into the same oligarchy direction: Isn’t there a certain guy leaning heavily into far-right nationalism while using fascist and nazi rhetorics at times, who wants to become president again?)
Given their posting history, I’m sure OP will find a way to say it’s Biden and the Democratic party’s fault.
Looking at the states through this lens is like all the articles that blame “congress” while ignoring which people in which party of which half of congress caused the issue of the day.
There are a multitude of reasons why this metric would come to be, but according to the comments here the important part is to keep saying “America sucks right now” without identifying any realistic solutions.
Best you’ll get is a half assed hand wave of people mumbling about Karl Marx like that helps anything.
No, it’s the greed.
But the left and right can unite on that, which is why you try to ignore it.