Explanation: US corporations, often with the backing of the US government, have a long history of using ‘red scares’ as ammunition (ha) to suppress workers in developing countries who want those dastardly communist ideas like (checks notes) a living wage, safety regulations, or a general reduced level of exploitation. Sometimes this goes so far as to end up resulting in coups and military juntas, most infamously over the democratic government in Guatemala.
Goddamn Reds! How dare they FORCE us to do this?! 😭
When the US outlawed slavery, the plantation class switched to arms length plausible deniability by installing brutal dictators to oppress laborers in other countries.
That may seem like a neat narrative, but I would very much argue that it’s false.
Wish we could blame the slavers for this one, but the planter class had much of its influence over foreign affairs reduced after the Civil War, even as they clawed their way back into regional power. Their restoration of the racial caste system in the South was predicated on acquiescence, going forward, to the interests of the industrialist class of the North, rather than antagonism.
Unfortunately, the installation of brutal dictators to oppress laborers in other countries was just a natural outgrowth of the period of capitalist imperialism and ‘great power politics’ of the late 19th and early 20th century, and then of the insanity of the Cold War.
Tarte
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Explanation: US corporations, often with the backing of the US government, have a long history of using ‘red scares’ as ammunition (ha) to suppress workers in developing countries who want those dastardly communist ideas like (checks notes) a living wage, safety regulations, or a general reduced level of exploitation. Sometimes this goes so far as to end up resulting in coups and military juntas, most infamously over the democratic government in Guatemala.
Goddamn Reds! How dare they FORCE us to do this?! 😭
When the US outlawed slavery, the plantation class switched to arms length plausible deniability by installing brutal dictators to oppress laborers in other countries.
That may seem like a neat narrative, but I would very much argue that it’s false. Wish we could blame the slavers for this one, but the planter class had much of its influence over foreign affairs reduced after the Civil War, even as they clawed their way back into regional power. Their restoration of the racial caste system in the South was predicated on acquiescence, going forward, to the interests of the industrialist class of the North, rather than antagonism.
Unfortunately, the installation of brutal dictators to oppress laborers in other countries was just a natural outgrowth of the period of capitalist imperialism and ‘great power politics’ of the late 19th and early 20th century, and then of the insanity of the Cold War.