Economic Pessimism Growing in U.S.

Re:Economic Pessimism Growing in U.S. by aksss on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @03:29PM (#31573812)

Depends on the scope of “history”. You could also say that historically that’s when a civilization gets put under a feudal yoke for scores of generations. Successful revolution by “the workers” is more the exception than the norm in the story of humanity, I should think. there are plenty of places in the world that are ruled by truly oppressive regimes, and I think most of the world, most of the time, has looked like that, not like the developed “West”.

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Re:Economic Pessimism Growing in U.S. by ChuckNorris89 on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @03:32PM (#31573862)

>not like the developed “West”

The west is like this today (apart from the countries that built themselves up on colonial empires of theft) in part also to a lot of violent and sometimes deadly revolts against the ruling class.

US, UK, France, Italy, Germany, etc. all saw bloody strikes and protests, in order to get fair living conditions. Noting was ever given out of pure generosity, without a fight.

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Re:Economic Pessimism Growing in U.S. by dragonwriter on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @03:45PM (#31574004)

> The west [...] (apart from the countries that built themselves up on colonial empires of theft)

That's...barely a thing at all.

> US, UK, France, Italy, etc.

If those are your examples, you really don't need the “apart from...”

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Re:Economic Pessimism Growing in U.S. by ChuckNorris89 on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @04:26PM (#31574497)

My point was that all the theft from colonialism didn't really improve things much back home for the average folk in those countries later on, as all the stolen wealth ended up in the hands of the few elites, and the working class people were left to sort it out for themselves.

The wealth inequality was absolutely insane. It's not like thanks to colonialism, everyone living in the UK victorian era could afford to prop their feet up, live off free stuff taken from the colonies, and never have to work a day in their lives. Quite the contrary, they were working long hours living in poor conditions.

The working class only saw lifestyle improvements when they fought back for them.

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Re:Economic Pessimism Growing in U.S. by goodpoint on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @05:06PM (#31574959)

Spot on!

During the industrial revolution life expectancy in UK was among the lowest in the world for the poorest industrial workers. Inequality was incredibly high.

Painting people in a country as being all benefiting (or being harmed) from an external factor is very misleading

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