Postwar middle-class prosperity rested on colonial, racial, gendered, and ecological exploitation.

Evidence

Of course, we should never tire of pointing out that, even in the supposed “Golden Age,” the middle class was largely aspirational and a completely rigged game. Individualized consumer lifestyles depended on the neocolonial exploitation of the Third World, huge racialized underclasses (with virtually no access to debt or credit) (Winant 2001) and the systematic exploitation of women’s reproductive labour in the home and the market (Federici 2012). It also depended on a deep cultural conservatism enforced by homophobic terrorism (Kinsman and Gentile 2009) and what we now understand to be completely unsustainable ecological practices, including the mass exploitation of fossil fuels, the proliferation of toxic chemicals and plastics, and the mass production of commodities and their subsequent waste (Foster, Clark and York 2010). — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 519

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that racialized underclasses had virtually no access to debt/credit extends the reader’s financialization theme to its racial exclusions; ties toward a fuller accounting. — connects to: Post-war middle-class stability rested on repressing queer folk and women — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 145; Postwar welfarism and colonial economic exploitation were simultaneous, not opposed. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 236; Colonial racial ideology shaped gendered relations under colonial capitalism. (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Postwar welfarism and colonial economic exploitation were simultaneous, not opposed. #corroborates (0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 236
• Colonial racial ideology shaped gendered relations under colonial capitalism. #expands (0.75)
• Colonial education made deracination the price of Black middle-class status #exemplifies (0.75) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 861
• Colonial education produced a deracinated Black middle class serving as intermediaries. #exemplifies (0.75)
• Mixed-light complexions gain economic and social status in colonial societies #expands (0.75)
• Racial wealth inequality stems from dispossession of means of production #expands (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 89