America’s weak labor movement and untainted bourgeoisie produced mass incarceration instead of welfare.

Evidence

Historians have long argued that there is a close connection between the underdevelopment of the American welfare state and the overdevelopment of its carceral counterpart. The US labor movement, as noted, was never as strong as its European equivalents. Nor was the indigenous bourgeoisie discredited by collaboration with fascism after the Second World War. On the contrary, it confidently presided over an expanding economic empire that extended its reach into Europe and the Pacific. American capitalists were thus able to roll back many of the limited social achievements of the New Deal, prioritizing the Cold War arms buildup and fillips to consumer spending. — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 234

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Frankfurt School material on why the US New Deal never altered economic structure.