Like, Roosevelt broke up monopolies, for instance. That stuff was insufficient, but it was SOMETHING. Unlike now, where they just let capitalists do whatever they want.
Roosevelt saved capitalism from itself, and the capitalists repaid him by committing to a 70 year political and ideological project to make sure it can never happen again.
nothing in history has baffled me more than wondering how such a contradictory, shitty, system has remained chugging along for so many god damn centuries
But capitalism is always resilient because people like to tyranize others
Marx said that part of the growth of the proletariat would be organizing itself to the extent that it could extract concessions from the bourgeois state. Meanwhile the progressive petty bourgeois elements had a lot to gain from the breakup of monopolies, the nationalization of certain industries, and the expanding of democracy.
Today the American proletariat is weak and divided. The petty bourgeois has turned sour and reactionary without the leadership of the workers. The largest uprising in decades (2020) saw a single police station burned down and some windows smashed. What does the bourgeoisie have to fear?
As I recall lenin wrote in state and revolution that in times of revolutionary stress the state can act as a genuine arbiter between the interests of classes.
Roosevelt was president while the great depression was happening
wrong roosevelt, but the point is still true, as there were massive labor movements during Teddy’s time. The anthracite coal strike was noteable because the US government sided with the workers and threatened to begin operating the mine with the military so the owners would get no profits.
Unions, especially the I.W.W had a lot to do with it. The government would often fight against (sometimes literally shooting at) people working to fix the problems capitalism was creating. Perfect example of this were the first Company Towns which were rife with abuse and just the best example of raw unfiltered capitalism and it was awful. Unions would go in and help them organize and break them out of the strangle-hold of power. The state did nothing as the business tyrants rained bullets upon their subjects. Then as soon as the unions finally win and dismantled these company towns, THEN they come in and claim credit for ending them. It’s disgustingly common.
Part of it was because there was established capital (real estate, old plantation families, old colonial stocks and trader families), burgeoning industrial capital (railroad, steel, coal barons, Rockefellers etc.) and coming into industrial manufacturing capital (Ford, Edison, etc.), all of which had different interests. While they were often in line, much like with the international finance capital and local industrial capital today, there were disagreements that could be exploited for political gain.
For Teddy, being old money, much of the old money had been sidelined politically by industrial capital over the last half of the 1800’s. So, they used the ‘progressive’ movement, which was itself a coopted movement from the descendents of the German 48ers (probably best described as radical socdem) movements in the Midwest (particularly cities such as Milwaukee), which was an incredibly popular movement, to break the backs of the monopolist trusts. However without the subsequent ‘social revolution’ that any actual ‘progressive movement’ follower had in mind (with redistribution of land being a priority), all that it set up was the political domination of old money financial capital and manufacturing capital for the 10’s and 20’s, which in part led to the old trust people moving more into military and intelligence politics (things that didn’t rely on popular politicians).
Which one of the many reasons you should be wary of ‘progressive’ politicians in modern era. Cause classically, they have just been another way to legitimize capital power disputes using the language of labor.
Nowadays, capital is much more in lockstep. The only divisions are the two, and the trusts have totally captured the intelligence side of things (which didn’t exist in before WWI). Now is the time of monsters.
Sadly, we may not even be at the end of it. It is likely our children or grandchildren that will see it happen. The lights are off, nobody is home, but the house will still stand for a few generations more.
