…and those rights were enshrined in law and the “class war” as it was, was won. The only group that didn’t realise this were the unions.
Here’s an example; A good living wage in China is (say) €1 a day. This is enough to pay the bills, put the kids though school and put food on the table. In Ireland €10 an hour provides a lower standard of living in real terms. So will you, as a socialist, buy goods produced by the guy in Ireland for twenty times the price of the goods produced by the guy in China? Will you spend €2000 on the kids toys at Christmas (and will you ask everyone else to do the same)? If not then you may begin to understand how international trade and commerce works because at the moment it seems that you have no idea.
Your brand of socialism results in a true race to the bottom which deprives whole generations of hope and any realistic aspiration to a better life. The only reason countries in Southeast Asia have emerged as prosperous and stable political entities over the last 20-25 years is because Japanese and American companies pumped billions of dollars into their economies. Go and ask the tens of thousands of people working in Johor, the disc drive manufacturing capital of the world, if they would rather the big Japanese and US technology companies had stayed at home. Further afield go and ask the thousands of people working for Intel in Costa Rica if the big bad capitalist “Fat Cat” bosses should have stayed away. If you would like to save the air-fare I can tell you the answer; they would laugh in your face and tell you to open your eyes.