Postwar affluence triggered a neoliberal counter-surge rather than classlessness

Evidence

But even more to the point, we have seen that the generic terms “the English working class” or “the English proletariat” mask the social and historical realities that accompanied the introduction of industrial capitalism in England and its Empire. Social divisions and habits of life and attitude that predated capitalist production continued into the modern era and extended to the working classes located in Britain specific social sensibilities and consciousness. The English working class was never the singular social and historical entity suggested by the phrase. An even closer study of its elements—for we have merely reviewed the more extreme case with the Irish—would reveal other social divisions, some ethnic (Welsh, Scottish, and more recently West Indian and Asian), some regional, and others essentially industrial and occupational. The negations resultant from capitalist modes of production, relations of production, and ideology did not manifest themselves as an eradication of oppositions among the working classes. Instead, the dialectic of proletarianization disciplined the working classes to the importance of distinctions: between ethnics and nationalities; between skilled and unskilled workers; and, as we shall see later in even more dramatic terms, between races. The persistence and creation of such oppositions within the working classes were a critical aspect of the triumph of capitalism in the nineteenth century. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 267 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Postwar affluence and mass culture threatened Labour’s class base; Postwar affluence marked a transition to post-industrial class structures, not classlessness; Postindustrial class structures arose from consumer affluence and corporate capital (+2 more)

Related

• Postwar affluence and mass culture threatened Labour’s class base (similarity 0.84)
• Postwar affluence marked a transition to post-industrial class structures, not classlessness (similarity 0.83)
• Capitalism triumphed by cultivating divisions rather than erasing them within the working class (similarity 0.82)
• Modern capitalist societies experience themselves as pluralistic rather than unified (similarity 0.82)
• Proletarianization created divisions among workers instead of erasing them (similarity 0.81)
• The Volksgemeinschaft outcompeted communism by promising upward mobility and instant realization (similarity 0.80)
• Postwar affluence shifted class structures from embedded tiers to consumption-based forms (similarity 0.80)
• Ethnic divisions within a working class can be exploited to strengthen capitalist rule (similarity 0.80)
• Soviet wage differentials and competition destroyed working-class solidarity (similarity 0.79)
• Capitalist proletarianization reproduced internal divisions rather than unifying the working class (similarity 0.79)
• Post-1877 capitalism used differential reward by race to stabilize wealth (similarity 0.79)
• Postindustrial class structures arose from consumer affluence and corporate capital (similarity 0.79)
• English racialism predated ruling class divisions and shaped proletarianization itself (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Capitalism triumphed by cultivating divisions rather than erasing them within the working class #corroborates (0.80) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 267
• Modern capitalist societies experience themselves as pluralistic rather than unified #corroborates (0.70)