One theory I’ve heard about the accelerating of the worsening conditions of western proletariat is that the USSR used to provide a bulwark against things getting too bad. People would point at the USSR and the illusion that capitalism was better for individual prosperity would collapse in comparison. Then, with the USSR gone things have been deteriorating for the past ~30 years.
If that is true, even somewhat, why haven’t we seen a similar effect from China’s example? Is the theory simply wrong? Maybe western capitalism is just unable to even offer scraps from the table at this point. Maybe people are unaware of how things are in China? Could we dare to expect that China’s example will force a lifting of the boot from our necks?
Alongside the other points people have made- distance, Orientalism, racism, and the (heavily propagandized) notion that China is “just as capitalist”- and the fact that socialism and the left has been thoroughly demonized and rooted out in the west at this point- I think another factor is that the corruption, arrogance, and neoliberal financialization- in other words, the various contradictions of the western system- have set in too deep to be simply waved away as concessions, even in the most pathetic band-aids of measures.
That’s not to say we can be complacent- the contradictions have run their course before IMO, in the Great Depression and its impacts across the west (particularly the US and Weimar Germany) and we all know how that turned out. But IMO it will take a similar shock to make the west break out of its liberal (hell, worse than that- neoliberal) orthodoxy, what with all interests enforcing it to its fullest extent- and even then, the fascism button is always easier, more tolerable to capital, than even the slightest hint of concessions.