this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
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Very hard to say, because the conditions necessary for economic collapse were the same conditions that incentived white chauvinism and nationalism.
Should be noted how the Reagan Era gave us a fresh wave of revanchist race and sex attitudes right alongside our own downturn. And the LGBT civil rights boom of the 90s paralleled the Clinton Era boom that the Soviets never got to enjoy. The UK economic downtown happening right now and holy shit are they going through some bigoted shit.
I guess a good litmus test for this theory is to observe how Eastern block states - China and India, particularly, but Russia as well going into the 2030s - come around during their own regional boom.
Yeah, I’ve always seen the 90s neoliberal harvest era (harvest of the collapsed USSR industries that were yet to be financialized) and the easy credit (financial deregulation) fueling the economic boom as temporary. Now that the economic boom has run its course, we are also starting to see a regression in LGBT and other civil rights in Western countries as well.
I don't understand the link here between economic prosperity and attitudes toward LGBT people, bigotry, etc. Is the idea that as economic conditions get worse people look for scapegoats?
Yes, worsening conditions mean people need scapegoats. The people in charge of the political machine may not even necessarily be scapegoating (though they often are). Sometimes there’s just a cultural search for explanations and the reactionary reasons happen to win out by the time they reach the ears of someone who can do something about it. Also, improving conditions make it easier for activists to operate. More resources, more hope, more free time, less death. It’s not a 1-to-1 link and there are other factors, but there’s a connection. You can also look at things like unequal distribution of prosperity. The success of the black suffrage movement in the US followed a boom where white Americans came into tremendous wealth which wasn’t shared among the black population. And where black communities were able to get some for themselves and develop their own prosperity, towns were bulldozed, flooded, or otherwise destroyed. And of course we already know about things like red lining. Prosperity plays a major part in that story.