Workers rejected wartime ‘equality of sacrifice’ rhetoric as hollow
Evidence
Th e rhetoric of “the equality of sacrifi ce” appeared empty in the face of soaring profi ts of industrial capital and speculation on the one end, and insuffi cient wages to cope with the mounting prices of basic living necessities on the other. Headlines from the Daily Herald, the independent daily of the British Left , denounced what workers widely saw as criminal political choices: “Merciless Exploitation: Labour Calls on Government to Reduce Cost of Living or Resign” (July 10, 1919) and “Penalty of Being Poor: How Workers Struggle Daily to Exist Under Present High Prices. Forced to Work Overtime” (August 26, 1919). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 201
Categorization
- ADDENDUM: Directly relevant to the ‘On Sacrifice’ article — this is a historical case where the rhetoric of shared sacrifice was exposed as covering material inequality, showing sacrifice discourse as a legitimating ideology for stratified systems.
- SEED: Angle: ‘The Sacred Rhetoric of Sacrifice’ — how elites deploy the language of equal sacrifice (war, austerity, pandemic) to justify unequal material outcomes.
- XREF: connects to: The rhetoric of shared sacrifice operates ideologically without requiring belief — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 726
Broader Connections
- The rhetoric of shared sacrifice operates ideologically without requiring belief
#expands(0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 726