There’s a clear argument to be made that the end of USSR really let capital off the leash so to speak. So if you imagine the theft of surplus value being a spectrum, after the USSR was no longer a counterweight
I think collapse of the USSR was a symptom and not a cause
Average heights in the west started falling from 1970 onwards. Not just the US but all of europe too, so it had nothing to do with immigration
US wages have also been stagnant since 1973. IDK what the wage timeline is for europe
I agree, didn’t mean to say it was the only thing that caused this shift. More so that capital no longer had as much resistance to its dominance globally as the USSRs influence in global consciousness waned. It’s partly what leads into the neoliberal turn, end of history, irrational exuberance, believing their own propaganda, etc. There’s no longer any real counter-narrative, only the marketplace of capitalist competition where the truth is up for bid. There’s also other factors too. Global financialization and free trade agreements pushed via IMF and World Bank etc have aided the consolidation of capital to a point of concentration that’s unprecedented to my knowledge. But this is still interrelated to ‘no other option’ ideology that propagated directly from the fall of the Berlin Wall etc.
I don’t know enough about geopolitics in the 70s to point to more direct events or such. But it’s pretty clear that once 68 failed to realize actual socialism, most labor power blocs start to decline in the face of cold war propaganda. The window of discourse in the west gets pulled further right until the ‘greed is good’ 80s anchors it on the right.
I think collapse of the USSR was a symptom and not a cause
Average heights in the west started falling from 1970 onwards. Not just the US but all of europe too, so it had nothing to do with immigration
US wages have also been stagnant since 1973. IDK what the wage timeline is for europe
I agree, didn’t mean to say it was the only thing that caused this shift. More so that capital no longer had as much resistance to its dominance globally as the USSRs influence in global consciousness waned. It’s partly what leads into the neoliberal turn, end of history, irrational exuberance, believing their own propaganda, etc. There’s no longer any real counter-narrative, only the marketplace of capitalist competition where the truth is up for bid. There’s also other factors too. Global financialization and free trade agreements pushed via IMF and World Bank etc have aided the consolidation of capital to a point of concentration that’s unprecedented to my knowledge. But this is still interrelated to ‘no other option’ ideology that propagated directly from the fall of the Berlin Wall etc.
I don’t know enough about geopolitics in the 70s to point to more direct events or such. But it’s pretty clear that once 68 failed to realize actual socialism, most labor power blocs start to decline in the face of cold war propaganda. The window of discourse in the west gets pulled further right until the ‘greed is good’ 80s anchors it on the right.