In the past, concessions would be given to workers to stave off talk of revolution. Think of the new deal, etc.
These days, whether through incompetence or ideological intent (the end result is the same so the distinction doesn’t matter much to me), the ruling class just will not allow any pumping of the brakes, any tiny release valve to stop the pressure building.
I find it a fascinating phenomenon that they are incapable of doing something positive for society, even to save their own skin. It baffles me, especially considering how successful it has been in the past.
I think it helps if you consider that the ruling class aren't rational or smart. It seems like they see the world through a sheltered, religious view where science and reality don't matter. I think that they believe that they are in positions of power because they are chosen by God and that nothing they do is wrong because it is the will of God or some other force.
They think the less fortunate are that way for a reason, and that messing with that goes against Gods will.
At least, that is how they justify their own incompetence, ignorance and selfishness to themselves.
It goes against the image of the rapacious capitalist I have in my head to think that they really believe in gods plan, in their heart of hearts. I think deep down their only god is capital. If they are really willing to commit class suicide because of religious beliefs I’d be very surprised lol.
When I say God, I mean it in a very fashy 'divine right of kings' way that is tied up in money and power. You're probably right that it's not truly sincere belief, but rather a coping mechanism to absolve themselves of guilt and responsibility.
They don't want to (and don't think they should have to) give up any power to those they see as lower than themselves. Anything that would save capitalism would mean giving up power that they see as rightfully theirs and theirs alone, and it would also mean giving the poor more tools to fight back. Which in turn, might also mean they might face punishment or even death for crimes against humanity that their power and money previously protected them from.
They are so afraid of this, that to them it's worth risking the destruction of countless lives, the environment and society, as they reason that as long as they have all the money and power, they'll still be in the best position to build back afterwards.
I mean, 99% of people aren't completely sincere in their religious beliefs. I'm not trying to be all r*ddit atheist here, but if people truly, earnestly believed in Christianity (my biggest reference point as someone in the USA) they wouldn't do the things they do.
It's just a coping mechanism for the most part, there's always a level of separation because otherwise they'd have to follow all of the guidelines and rules that everyone has collectively agreed at this point don't really matter.
There is no reason to ascribe weird religious beliefs to the ruling class. Different members have vastly different weird beliefs and they don't matter. In fact I can assure you that if the few people I have met are any indication, they don't think about any of these things, they just think "fuck you I got mine, stop bothering me, poors", or they justify it to themselves by telling themselves that this is all for the best because otherwise the poors will fuck themselves over. No need for them to overthink it, after all capitalist realism and treating all this stuff as normal is the norm even for working class people, except working class people have reasons to challenge these ideas, and they have reasons to have them reinforced. There is no table they sit down on to deliberate what they're gonna do with the world, but there is a seemingly chaotic net of demands that converge to some specific thing. The state and its branches comes to figure out how to satisfy all of them, although there are still some secondary contradictions within the capitalist class which give rise to different factions.
The reason there aren't many concessions coming is because no one seriously feels like the current order is threatened enough right now, and definitely not more than can be controlled by repression. Americans can't even organise a strike. So what's the threat? Why should Biden care? Because people may roast them on Twitter? They can take some roasting.
Over here many laws have been scrapped because of large protests and strikes. Then there is other laws that cause many protests and strikes but can not be scrapped because they are forced by "higher ups" in the EU and require an immense amount of pressure to budge. But still you can see some results, you can frequently see the state fumbling in response to large events like that. Is it because they are "smart" here? No, in fact they are considerably less smart, and the state is very weak compared to the US. So the state being considerably weaker with weaker institutions combined with the fact that compared to the US labour unions and the left hold much more power, plus the fact that the country was pushed close to instability right after the crisis started which scared it out of them, mean they can't ignore everything. Where they have enough power that has never been challenged they don't have to do that.
Maybe not religious exactly, but some of them use an 'everything in its place' hierarchal way of thinking that is common in older religious institutions to justify their positions of power. Sort of like monarchists but replace 'son of the King' with 'son of a billionaire'.
The point is that we don't really know what exactly they personally think but it doesn't matter.
Yeah you're probably right lmao
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community
the invisible tentacle of the free market Cthulhu demon