Welfare concessions designed to appease workers instead inflamed demands to abolish capitalism.

Evidence

Th e general public was noticing that state intervention within the economy was not a neutral act in the name of the good of the whole, but rather an authoritarian force to ensure the profi t of the ruling classes. Chapter 2 explores how pressure from below pushed states to extend welfare measures in an attempt to appease their restless citizens. However, while these measures were reformist in intention, they were not so in their outcome. Indeed, they triggered further demands to fundamentally eradicate the very capitalist pillars that states set out to protect. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 111

Categorization

• XREF: A counterintuitive causal claim worth linking to the sacrifice/grafting threads already in the reader’s library about how concessions escalate rather than defuse demands. — connects to: Welfare functions as social control by giving workers something to lose — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1661; Enlightened capitalism captures workers with diversions that dissipate their transcendence — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 89; Full employment would let workers challenge capitalism itself, not just wages. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 256

Broader Connections

• Full employment would let workers challenge capitalism itself, not just wages. #corroborates (0.76) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 256
• Enlightened capitalism captures workers with diversions that dissipate their transcendence #corroborates (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 89
• Welfare functions as social control by giving workers something to lose #qualifies (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1661