Postwar welfarism and colonial economic exploitation were simultaneous, not opposed.

Evidence

Less than a decade after the UDHR’s adoption, the Swedish social democrat Gunnar Myrdal proclaimed that the welfare state, which was becoming a reality in all ‘advanced nations’, should be transformed into a ‘welfare world’. This dream was undercut by the reality of colonial exploitation. The same year that the UDHR was adopted, the UK’s minister of economic affairs, Sir Stafford Cripps, contended that Britain’s very survival depended on ‘a quick and extensive development of our African resources’. The demand to increase production in the colonies made the UK very wary of extending economic rights. For anticolonialists, who were accustomed to the gap between universal pronouncements and colonial realities, the seeming contradiction between welfarism at home and the denial of economic rights at an international level provided a lens through which to illuminate the post-war economic order. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 236

Categorization

• XREF: Builds on the same theme as Myrdal’s ‘welfare world’ concept and connect to Whyte’s broader argument about how human rights discourse was shaped against anticolonial economic claims. — connects to: Postwar middle-class prosperity rested on colonial, racial, gendered, and ecological exploitation. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 519; The postwar moment was defined by sweeping anti-colonial independence
• SEED: An essay angle: the colonial economic logic behind Britain’s refusal of international economic rights — welfare at home literally financed by ‘development’ extracted from Africa.

Broader Connections

• The postwar moment was defined by sweeping anti-colonial independence #contradicts (0.80)