The US doesn't like educating the masses. When the US decided to join the Great War, it drafted a large number of men and screened them for intelligence. About 1/3 could not be trusted with a gun. That led to the US creating the public school system.
Once WWII left the US as the only hegemon, the US decided to develop rocket technology. US rockets were blowing up on the launchpads until the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Previously the USSR had developed atomic bombs, and Sputnik proved those bombs could land anywhere. This was when the US got serious about education. There was “new math”. There was screening children for intelligence by the 4th grade. There was special programs for the gifted. There was also NASA as a center for technology development.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, the US diverted military spending into finance. Welfare was abolished. Corporations were deregulated.
Then 9-11 happened. Oops! How do you compete with nonstate actors?
There was a lot that was good about the USSR. It looked after its people. It had to cope with tens of millions of serfs and peasants moving to the cities.They had to be housed. It had to cope with a murderous Russian upper-class out to take back by force what they had lost, and who were assisted by the west. It had to fight back the huge German invasion of the Russian homeland. At the same time it built a modern industrial state, powerful enough to challenge the West. It is infact the foundation of modern Russia.
As American capitalists adopted neoliberalism—profit for shareholders as the sole function of a corporation—they increased the rate of exploitation of the working class, and seized full control of the political process. Since the 1980s, the stock market and the capitalists’ personal wealth have increased exponentially, while 2/3rds of workers experienced stagnant or declining wages. The capitalists purchased elections through PACs, controlled legislation and appointment of public officials through lobbying, bought mainstream media, and wielded wealth and power to seduce and manipulate popular leaders. The ruling class is isolated from the masses, seeing them only as labor to exploit and discontents to suppress. They have their own philosophies, such as post-humanism, the Dark Enlightenment, and the Prosperity Gospel, and live in decadence above the law, as the Epstein files revealed. They are incapable of reform. They will only respond to pressure from below when it poses a threat to their very existence, and then with extreme repression or reforms that are too little, too late.
I disagree but curious your thoughts. I think the pressures still largely exist and think you can still find kindness in the system and people that treat capitalism like stakeholder capitalism and thinking of the whole. But over the years of deregulation and tax decrease you get the greediest capitalists gaining power over time and continuing the consolidate that leaves us to where we are at. I don't discount the outline you purpose.
Specifically that it wasn't more humane, capitalism has never really been humane in any real sense. But I I do think the vail in lifting in some sense to the immense inequality and that is largely systemic. Laid out in this post. https://substack.com/home/post/p-192207073
The US doesn't like educating the masses. When the US decided to join the Great War, it drafted a large number of men and screened them for intelligence. About 1/3 could not be trusted with a gun. That led to the US creating the public school system.
Once WWII left the US as the only hegemon, the US decided to develop rocket technology. US rockets were blowing up on the launchpads until the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Previously the USSR had developed atomic bombs, and Sputnik proved those bombs could land anywhere. This was when the US got serious about education. There was “new math”. There was screening children for intelligence by the 4th grade. There was special programs for the gifted. There was also NASA as a center for technology development.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, the US diverted military spending into finance. Welfare was abolished. Corporations were deregulated.
Then 9-11 happened. Oops! How do you compete with nonstate actors?
There was a lot that was good about the USSR. It looked after its people. It had to cope with tens of millions of serfs and peasants moving to the cities.They had to be housed. It had to cope with a murderous Russian upper-class out to take back by force what they had lost, and who were assisted by the west. It had to fight back the huge German invasion of the Russian homeland. At the same time it built a modern industrial state, powerful enough to challenge the West. It is infact the foundation of modern Russia.
As American capitalists adopted neoliberalism—profit for shareholders as the sole function of a corporation—they increased the rate of exploitation of the working class, and seized full control of the political process. Since the 1980s, the stock market and the capitalists’ personal wealth have increased exponentially, while 2/3rds of workers experienced stagnant or declining wages. The capitalists purchased elections through PACs, controlled legislation and appointment of public officials through lobbying, bought mainstream media, and wielded wealth and power to seduce and manipulate popular leaders. The ruling class is isolated from the masses, seeing them only as labor to exploit and discontents to suppress. They have their own philosophies, such as post-humanism, the Dark Enlightenment, and the Prosperity Gospel, and live in decadence above the law, as the Epstein files revealed. They are incapable of reform. They will only respond to pressure from below when it poses a threat to their very existence, and then with extreme repression or reforms that are too little, too late.
Precisely where it all went downhill for the masses and Epstein Predatory Pirana Class Parasites took control from their gilded castles 🤬
I disagree but curious your thoughts. I think the pressures still largely exist and think you can still find kindness in the system and people that treat capitalism like stakeholder capitalism and thinking of the whole. But over the years of deregulation and tax decrease you get the greediest capitalists gaining power over time and continuing the consolidate that leaves us to where we are at. I don't discount the outline you purpose.
Specifically that it wasn't more humane, capitalism has never really been humane in any real sense. But I I do think the vail in lifting in some sense to the immense inequality and that is largely systemic. Laid out in this post. https://substack.com/home/post/p-192207073
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000?ysclid=mnjkimk6zx859220424
Eugenics by military draft.