https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
The premise of the article is that people who live live in the imperial core are not “brainwashed” it’s just against their material interests to take action against imperialist countries.
It’s a combination of both. To reduce it solely to brainwashing would be idealist. To say that propaganda and indoctrination play no role and that it’s all material interests would be reductionist. Empire actually incurs a significant cost and that cost is borne primarily by the working class whereas the gains are highly concentrated at the top and only relatively small amounts trickle down. And as the plunder dries up that trickle gets weaker while the costs remain. Imperialism is as inherently unsustainable as any other stage of capitalism. As contradictions sharpen the internal order of the empire deteriorates, while simultaneously the ability to project power outwards wanes and desperation sets in among the imperial elite. This results in a mix of intensified propaganda and heightened repression at home coupled with a self-destructive escalation of external aggression that only accelerates the decline.
Kwame Nkrumah argues in Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism that ex-colonies were turned into neo-colonies because the imperial powers had to export the contradictions of a powerful, organised proletariat (post-WWII) away from the imperial core.
It was only a matter of time before the contradictions exported to the periphery reached a sharp point.
But there is nowhere else to export them once they become, using Mao’s phrase, an antagonistic contradiction.
It seems that capitalists, unaware of their history perhaps, are now turning to cannibalism and trying to export the fiercest contradictions out of the periphery and back into the imperial core.
I’m wondering whether, in this attempt to save themselves, the capitalists succeed in re-introducing those once-exported contradictions back into the imperial core. Once conditions worsen enough in the imperial core, whatever the effect of propaganda, the workers there may (once again?) see that they are in the same boat as global south workers. Which will happen sooner: this scenario or climate catastrophe?
The safe bet is on a climate catastrophe which will even further sharpen the contradictions facing the imperialist system. My question is: will that be just another drop in an almost overflowing bucket, or the straw that broke the camel’s back?
That remains to be seen, but at the moment the indoctrination that the population of the imperial core has been subjected to makes it so that their pain threshold may in fact be higher than many of us would expect. It’s not just the material conditions that contribute to the people of the global south having vastly more revolutionary potential than those of the imperial core, it’s also the existence and prominence of deeply reactionary ideologies and forms of false consciousness (chauvinism, exceptionalism, etc.) in the imperial core that serve as a very effective immunization against the formation of revolutionary movements. Revolutionary energy is effectively redirected and dissipated, first into the false promises of reformism and social democracy, and then when that inevitably fails into brutal, naked fascism. The control over the narrative through the media and other institutions is also much stronger in the core than in the periphery, and falsifications of history much more deeply embedded into the collective unconscious.
I fear you’re right, but I’ll remain hopeful(?) that climate catastrophe breaks the camel’s back.
Aye, the propaganda machine is inordinately powerful and refined.