HeavenlyPossum on Nostr: The most important thing to understand about the US is that a faction of disgruntled ...

The most important thing to understand about the US is that a faction of disgruntled elites staged, in essence, a revolt of the rich against the poor and imposed a system of unfettered exploitation, starting in the 1970s.

After the Second World War, US elites had implemented a system of programs and institutions designed to return to the working class a larger share of the wealth that class produced. They wanted to avoid the mistakes that had led to the rise of fascism and global destruction of the war; they wanted to give the working class fewer reasons to overthrow those elites.

But not everyone in the elite was happy about having to share wealth with the workers who produced it, and as the years passed the historical memory of the war faded from salience. So we had the neoliberal turn, launched first by Nixon and solidified by Reagan.

Americans are living in the crumbling ruins of that successful but ultimately catastrophic revolt of the rich.