• Gsus4
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    4 months ago

    I would argue that it was not capitalist benevolence that kept social peace for 80 years, it was partly the existence of the USSR that forced capitalist governments to make concessions to the social state to prevent communist influence from expanding westwards, flawed as it was.

    • BlackLaZoR@kbin.run
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      4 months ago

      capitalist benevolence

      Capitalism is neither benevolent nor malevolent - it just happens it has most aligned incentives between egoistic actors

      forced capitalist governments to make concessions

      Really, really not. People were escaping from socialist USSR republics to western countries. This is why USSR decided to build a wall - their disfunctional system couldn’t compete

      • Gsus4
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        4 months ago

        The New Deal is an example of capitalists understanding that you need to make some concessions to keep the peace, I’d call that sorta benevolent.

        About the USSR: yes, people escaped it, but there was a chance that democracies would flip communist if you squeezed the population too much, so there was a political incentive to creating social policies to control capitalist forces. Without fear of the USSR agitators and backing, they had less incentive to compromise a.k.a. TINA.