I'm in a good mood this evening. Had a great day at work.


Lets have a fun civil discussion.


When did people start caring more about social issues rather than economic issues when it comes to national conversation and politics.

No talking about 21st century politicians as they are way too late.

Civil War followed by Civil Rights Act of 1964 and set in stone by Roe v Wade 1973

It is hard to separate the two as they are extremely intertwined but if I had to pick one turning point historically I would strongly consider the French revolution as well as the American revolution.

If you want to go back even further the murder of Socrates probably awakened many people to social issues.

EDIT- if we are talking strictly American I would say the Civil war.

Most people only care more about social issues while the country is doing well economically.

Keith

Sorry....yes, I'm referring to America.

I agree but Why do you say this? Lets have a great conversation.

Social issues are always to the forefront except during econmic crisis. It's why the last election was as close as it was because both major candidates were terrible on bott fronts but if not for the Scalia seat, it would of sent the other way. It's partly why the midterms went the way it did.

It all started in the 60s

The reason is that most social issues are of very trivial importance. When people are starving all of their concentration goes to finding food. When people are homeless, all their concentration goes to finding a home. When people are dying of thirst, all their concentration goes to finding something to drink.

Abraham Maslow listed a hierarchy of needs for humans, that has a great deal of truth to it.



I will go further and state that we as a species need to go through tough times to winnow out the poor genetics or we will weaken as a species. We need to have the drive to go after the lower needs first.

We are both animal and divine.

Keith

No need to apologize, my fault for misreading.

Thinking further on this there is no doubt in my mind the defining moment when social issues started to be pushed to the forefront was suffrage. First major thing that happened after suffrage was prohibition and social issues have been central to most campaigns since then.

Not long after the great depression.And just before the second world war.

One needs to be able to see through the fog or haze all the time. Some seemingly popular social issues are simply what a certain politician, party or group feels will get them the most favor or votes at any particular time. Sometimes though real issues and problems exist. Separate the problem solvers and decent ideas by some, from those who simply take advantage of issues, with zero intention of implementing any type of solution.

I think this happened about two thousand and nineteen years ago.

Slavery was and still is a social issue. Unfortunately nobody cares about today's slavery of more people than ever existed during the western slave trade. All attention is on the old slavery.

To this actually started in the late 1800s when this country began the switch that character was important instead of personality. We now have carried that significant behavior change to the extreme and much of it started when we were able to sit and passively watch on TV what people wanted us to see.

Bryce

Freed slaves made up a tiny amount of the total voting population, women instantly were 50% of the voting bloc. I dont think pre suffrage most people were voting based on slavery but I am open to being wrong about that.

Really? The slavery issue nearly prevented the Constitution from being ratified and tore the country apart. Has nothing to do with who could or could not vote.

At the turn of the 19th century there definitely was a lot socially going in. Totally forgot about suffrage and prohibition. Seems like a huge tide abiut that time.

A significant part was moral/social but I also think that it was also economic. No?

That was my line of thinking as well, more economic than social.

Not really. Slavery wasn't exactly the gold mine people today thought it was for the plantations. In fact it was nearly done in until the cotton gin was invented then it had a resurgence. Small wonder why the inventor doesn't get much flack today.

The cotton gin was invented in the late 1700s. Slavery I think was a social issue for the Midwest/great lakes and rural New England and economic for those in the south and urban New England.

In 1860 there were 9 million people living in the states that formed the Confederacy. Of those 9 million almost 1 million were slaves or 10% of the population or more. With an agriculture based economy that utilized slave labor the argument that slavery was not an economic issue to the south holds little water. The main asset the south had most like was their human owned assets as it was an asset that could be bought and sold and the labor created the revenue from their land. Losing slaves as assets was a major cause of concern for the south and after 4 years of war and losing that war they were right in believing so.

Bryce

Would be interesting to see property tax or insurance records to determine what was the assessed value of those in slavery. Also would be curious what was the ROI for the average size slave holding property.

Forty percent of all the slaves sold in the USA were sold in Charleston, SC. I don't know about taxes or property insurance etc. but the may well have many records of sale prices of the human assets which could be used to formulate a total value of all the slaves. It probably is the best place due to the volume of sales there. Also many were purchased long before the USA was created so that may impact records as well.

Bryce

When economic needs are met, it's no longer the most important issue. It started with the industrial revolution. Machines made it possible for one person to do the production of 10 people. People moved away from hard labor to earn their money to just plain old labor. With production way up, everyone became wealthy. Wealthy people don't worry about money.

When collectivism became came more atractive economically to those who lacked the necessary effort to succeed individually

60 ' s maybe

FDR and the Depression era. The social programs that were passed, works programs, social security, CCC, FHA, CWA, FSA, PWA, TVA, etc. (sorry I got interrupted.) No one should suffer like the Depression brought out. (mentality) These programs take us to where we are today. I understand the slavery point and agree but to me The Depression changed it all. FDR Democrats elected Dems until Nixon in 1968.

1860's?

I was reading something the other day from the depression era that people were that they were glad they were American poor rather than old world poor.

I'm still really stuck on suffrage, prohibition and the late golden age. Lots of commies and anarchist, 2 presidents assassinated and more bombings than I can count.

Mid to late 1960's. The Vietnam war, drugs, introspection (while on drugs), Eastern mysticism, etc, etc..
OP asked when it started. I don't know why it started but the things I mentioned above may have had something to do with it.