On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 02:50 PM, Charles wrote: > > Trade union support for the Democrats led a section of the ruling class to > support social spending? Nonsense.
I would refer Charles to the New Deal and Keynesian economics.The liberal wing of the ruling class does not support social spending because it is altrustic but because it sees it as a means of restoring mass purchasing power, ending disorder and instability, and preventing further radicalization in a social and economic crisis. I've nowhere said the trade unions "led" the bourgeoisie to adopt these policies, only that "the threat of further radicalization" within the working class was clearly one of the pressures mentioned above which prompted the state to act. Within that overarching framework, the British and European social democrats were already based on the unions which produced them, while the US Democrats seized the opportunity to acquire a mass electoral base in the expanded trade union movement which emerged during the New Deal. The debate within mainstream circles about social spending and taxation is commonly described as pump-priming vs austerity, and which policy has dominated has typically corresponded to the ebb and flow of the class struggle. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#42570): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42570 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/119773879/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
