#as ever the rich get richer on the backs of stolen wealth accumulation

[captain-kit-adventuress]

The cause and effect chain is almost correct. The real chain starts at “FDR worries that as the result of rapidly rising wages there will be runaway inflation.”

Inflation is when companies, as a whole, raise prices. No, I’m not joking when I say that, that’s really all it is. Some inflation is organic as the result of real, provable changes in supply and demand, but most inflation is actually down to demanded increases in shareholder returns without a parallel increase in company value. Aka the constant growth mindset, because most growth is actually a carefully cultivated mathematical illusion (though it’s much, much worse since about the ‘70s than it was during the war, almost as bad as the period of ca. 1880-1929).

In this case, FDR worried about runaway inflation because of the significant rise in wages. So what does that tell us? Companies would not want to increase wages without also a parallel increase in prices, because the increase in prices neutralises the increase in wages. Pro-corporate POVs might claim this is to keep their costs in check, and they may or may not be right (or at least not lying), but more likely it’s down to making sure that a large swathe of the American public isn’t suddenly prospering on the backs of the executive suite, because that equals an income redistribution from the owning class to the labouring class. Can’t have that, even if it’s relatively small. This is where I could talk about the giant scam that is insurance, health insurance in particular, but that’s not in the scope of this post.

So really, those hospital bills are because FDR worried the owning class (rich people) would penalise working-class Americans for being able to “take advantage” of a shortage in (mostly) manufacturing labour because of the war. Even though working-class Americans weren’t taking advantage of it at all, that’s just the same so-called free market forces the owner class uses to bilk us most of the time not being in their favour.

In conclusion: the real catalyst for the $18k+ birth “cost” (read: price) is the same as it always is, capitalist exploitation. I’m not saying the war didn’t play a part, just that it created a window for circumstances to change in a way rich people didn’t like because they couldn’t benefit from it, and might level the playing field in ways they didn’t want to set a precedent for—especially for people of colour, never forget that the capitalism is able to support a much wider culture of racism than some other fairer economic systems. So the US’s entry into WWII was a factor, but I wouldn’t say it was the catalyst. The owner class could have just…not done that, especially because the majority of the price inflation leading to today’s $18k birth bill came about well after the war was over.

Always remember that the US being a plutocracy has been true, and even the point, since its founding, just not always to the same degree as it is now.