US Cold War anti-communism reshaped the drafting of social and economic rights

Evidence

Speaking as the representative of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt stated that the ILO text was ‘both complete and adequate’. Despite her own personal commitment to social welfare, Roosevelt represented a country in which the consensus that underpinned the New Deal was giving way in the face of the anti-communism of the nascent Cold War. … In a memo of March 1948, Roosevelt was informed that Lovett ‘felt that if these were expressed they could far better be expressed in terms of ‘better standards’ rather than a right to a “decent living”’. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 190

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader work on how human-rights discourse was shaped by geopolitical and class interests at its founding moments. — connects to: Postwar currency reform and Marshall aid signaled anti-communism replacing anti-fascism. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1724; The Great Depression and socialist threat drove inclusion of social rights in the UDHR — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 150; Soviet propaganda about US racism forced Cold War-era civil rights reforms — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project: A New American Origin…, 1275 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Cold War competition pressured the US toward race-neutral governance. #expands (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 376
• Cold War competition with the Soviets made domestic racism a national security liability #expands (0.85) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 465
• Cold War competition over decolonizing markets drove US federal action against domestic discrimination #expands (0.85) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 905
• The postwar universal human rights regime depended on American hegemony for its relevance #expands (0.80) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 524
• Soviet propaganda about US racism forced Cold War-era civil rights reforms #exemplifies (0.75) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1275
• The Cold War’s end removed international moral pressure for American racial equality #complicates (0.75) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2196
• Cold War socialist rivalry once pressured American racial equality, but that pressure is gone #complicates (0.75) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2196