This is a contentious subject. Please keep the discussion respectful. I think this will get more traction, here, but I’ll cross-post it to !Communism, too.

Workers who sell their labour power for a wage are part of the working class, right? They are wage-workers because they work for a wage. Are they wage-labourers?

“They’re proletariat,” I hear some of you shout.

“Not in the imperial core! Those are labour aristocrats,” others reply.

So what are the workers in the imperial core? Are they irredeemable labour aristocrats, the inseparable managers and professionals of the ruling class? Or are they proletarian, the salt of the earth just trying to get by?

It’s an important distinction, even if the workers in any country are not a homogenous bloc. The answer determines whether workers in the global north are natural allies or enemies of the oppressed in the global south.

The problem is as follows.

There is no doubt that people in the global north are, in general, more privileged than people in the global south. In many cases, the difference in privilege is vast, even among the wage-workers. This is not to discount the suffering of oppressed people in the global north. This is not to brush away the privilege of national bourgeois in the global south.

For some workers in the global north, privilege amounts to basic access to water, energy, food, education, healthcare, and shelter, streetlights, paved highways, etc. As much as austerity has eroded access to these basics, they are still the reality for the majority of people in the north even, to my knowledge, in the US.

Are these privileges enough to move someone from the ranks of the proletariat and into the labour aristocracy or the petit-bourgeois?

I’m going to discuss some sources and leave some quotes in comments, below. This may look a bit spammy, but I’m hoping it will help us to work through the several arguments, that make up the whole. The sources:

  • Settlers by J Sakai
  • Corona, Climate, and Chronic Emergency by Andreas Malm
  • The Wealth of Nations by Zac Cope
  • ‘Decolonization is Not a Metaphor’ by Eve Tuck and K Wayne Yang.

I have my own views on all this, but I have tried to phrase the points and the questions in a ’neutral’ way because I want us to discuss the issues and see if we can work out where and why we conflict and how to move forwards with our thinking (neutral to Marxists, at least). I am not trying to state my position by stating the questions below, so please do not attack me for the assumptions in the questions. By all means attack the assumptions and the questions.

  • redteaOP
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    ‘Decolonization is Not a Metaphor’ by Eve Tuck and K Wayne Yang

    I mention this source because it re-frames class structure in the US. From the abstract:

    Because settler colonialism is built upon an entangled triad structure of settler-native-slave, the decolonial desires of white, non-white, immigrant, postcolonial, and oppressed people, can similarly be entangled in resettlement, reoccupation, and reinhabitation that actually further settler colonialism.

    Later (page 3):

    The too-easy adoption of decolonizing discourse (making decolonization a metaphor) is just one part of [a] history [that] … taps into pre-existing tropes that get in the way of more meaningful potential alliances. We think of the enactment of these tropes as a series of moves to innocence

    The basic idea is that people living in the US cannot claim they are innocent just because they were not the white Europeans who first arrived on Turtle Island and committed that original genocide.

    If Tuck and Yang are correct, then we need to re-frame the first interpretation of Sakai’s comment about ‘revisionists’, in the comment above: So:

    1. Don’t appeal to the white working class because its interests do not align with the interests of oppressed peoples. Becomes:
    • Don’t appeal to the white working class because its interests do not align with the interests of indigenous nations and oppressed peoples [in the global south].

    Tuck and Yang argue that the interests of most people in the US are aligned with the ruling class. This includes even the descendants of slaves because their jobs, homes, businesses, etc, all rely on the continual refusal to give the land back to the indigenous nations. Following this logic, all workers in the US would rather side with the ruling class against the indigenous nations and oppressed peoples outside the US.

    This may seem to be an extreme position. But look at the numbers in the Cope and Malm comments: all workers in the global north benefit from global mechanisms of unequal exchange; using the land for anything other than reparations to indigenous nations may amount to a refusal to decolonise the US.

    This refusal supports colonisation by providing a bulwark between oppressed indigenous nations and the ruling class – the ruling class can rely on the more privileged workers to defend their property rights, because the alternative (without revolution and solidarity) is becoming destitute.

    I’ll note here that although Yang and Tuck rely on Franz Fanon, they are not Marxists. If they are, their Marxism is deeply problematic. In the cited article, in footnote 2 on page 4, they write (references omitted):

    Colonialism is not just a symptom of capitalism. Socialist and communist empires have also been settler empires (e.g. Chinese colonialism in Tibet). “In other words,” writes Sandy Grande, “both Marxists and capitalists view land and natural resources as commodities to be exploited, in the first instance, by capitalists for personal gain, and in the second by Marxists for the good of all” (…).

    FWIW Tuck and Yang’s paper argues against the trend to treat decolonisation as something that can be achieved just by talking about and recognising colonialism: adding a few classes on colonialism into a curriculum, for example. They argue that this will not decolonise the US. Their paper is very good at highlighting and articulating the problem. The question for Marxists is whether their (Tuck and Yang’s) solution is correct, and if not, what is the right way forward.

    Edit: added a line as my editing made it look like my summary was part of a quote.

    • CITRUS
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      2 years ago

      To be honest I am pretty put off that they discredit some of the biggest strides in decolonization, and I think it stems from a lack of class analysis. Why do they see exploitation of the land for the good of all as settler colonialism?

      From what I have garnered so far, settler colonialism is based on hierarchy of “national classes” (for lack of a better word). Nations have a class of proles and bourgeoisie, when in a settler colonial state the bourgeoisie give a their proletarian cultural group a priority and kickbacks for settling hence the bourgeois position. So the settler proles and oppressed proles hold contradicting positions, as long as the settler proles hold a bourgeois position.

      We have seen settlers and indigenous nations work together to overthrow colonialism, in the USSR, China, Cuba and even with bourgeois democratic states in LatAm. Why is this? I believe it is because the class of settlers have been proletarianized enough to align with the oppressed and synthesize into a new state. Russians, Han Chinese, and Spaniards under the boot of Imperialsm had proletarian positions, and thus could synthesize with any oppressed nationalities With DOTPs specifically we see the first blow to settler colonialism, the elimination of the bourgeoisie as an oppressing class and thus the need for nations in the first place has started crumbling.

      Sadly Tuck and Yang’s Liberalism holds them back from a class analysis, but their own class interests allow them to address settler colonialism. At the moment, they ARE right in saying that the most progressive way to decolonize the US is putting land back in Indigenous hands (proletarian hands). This is because as long as US Imperialism exists (as it does now) the Euro Americans hold a bourgeois and counter revolutionary position. (keep in mind this is not an exact science, and anglos are being proletarianized more and more each day. Hell I am a white settler and I am living barely on paycheck to paycheck).

      What happens is the Indigenous revolutionary kernel is much more developed compared to the Settler revolutionary kernel. Thus the indigenous people hold a vanguard position, as any indigenous population has always had across history. Only when settler’s kernel is developed enough can it synthesize with the oppressed nations into a DOTP. And you can see indigenous leaders for decolonization even without a class analysis advocate for this synthesis. The more settlers work together with the oppressed nations, the less it will be solely indigenous but until that happens it holds an indigenous character (if that makes sense)

        • CITRUS
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          2 years ago

          Thanks, Ive thought about this pretty much since the patsoc purge, I believe I worded it poorly and left many things out, but it’s a jist of what I understand. Mixes of the National Question and Inter-communalism in there.

          • Lemmy_Mouse
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            2 years ago

            My only concern with decolonization is how it’s implemented: The knowledge of the native Americans must be raised if they are to play a vanguard role. Potential possessed and potential realized are not the same thing. Logistics and all that.

      • freagle
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        2 years ago

        Is it accurate to refer to the indigenous populations of settler colonies as proletarian? Do they work in factories to reproduce their society or do they work in factories to reproduce someone else’s society?

        Can the indigenous trust the settler proletariat? Is it possible to build solidarity while there is oppression? Tuck and Yang talk about the interests of the indigenous being different than the interests of the settler proletariat. That’s not to say that the settler proletariat is inherently bourgeois-aligned, but rather that the satisfaction of the indigenous interests necessarily destroys, through synthesis, the way of life of the settler, which generates reaction.

        The question isn’t one of idealism but rather one of the dialectic. It challenges us to consider whether the idea of international worker solidarity in the context of settler colonialism is actually an idealist position.

        • lxvi
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          2 years ago

          honestly I’d look to the South and how they’ve handled this issue and do the same rather than reinventing the wheel. All of America is a settler colonial society. All of it. The North likes to think It’s special in this but they aren’t. We should look at what the South has done in coming to a resolution and providing special representation. When the time comes where we have a government willing to have a resolution we should open a panel involving all of America and come to a settlement that reconciles us all to each other.

          • freagle
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            2 years ago

            I don’t think landback is a uniquely northern thing. However, you’re right that the north doesn’t look to the south for answers. If we did, we’d see the mestizo movement, the plurinational movement, and the continuing problems of indigenous self determination. We would also see that those movements don’t exist in the north, and that developing them artificially would be nearly impossible, as they were partially born from the distinct material conditions of Spanish colonialism in significantly different natural ecosystems and in their relationship with North American colonial foreign policy.

            In fact, it is likely that if landback in the north takes hold, the lessons learned will influence indigenous peoples in the South and potentially change the dynamic.

            • SovereignState
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              I don’t have much to add other than I think the enemies of colonization (or the proponents of decolonization, however you want to look at it) are going to need to look at Bolivia and Nicaragua as prime examples of how it can be done. Reading Álvaro García Linera’s work, former Vice President of Bolivia (and principled Marxist-Leninist), has been inspiring in reinforcing the possibility and plausibility of decolonization in even the imperial core, for me. As we can look to AES states for inspiration for how socialist construction can be done, we absolutely should also be looking at states with a policy of decolonization and the indigenous autonomy they’ve fought for and earned for inspiration.

              China is also often homogenized as being totally “Chinese”, with “Chinese” often denoting some level of Han hegemony when used in Western discourse - completely obfuscating the supreme level of ethnic diversity of China and the policies for indigenous autonomy being pursued by the CPC and the activists and officials within its autonomous zones. China can offer an extremely illuminating example of how autonomy can be achieved in a diverse nation, if activists in the west allow it to.

              • freagle
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                I don’t disagree. I just think the material conditions in North America are fundamentally different. Giving indigenous people autonomy is going to run face first into military uses of land to defend the settler nation, non-indigenous agrarian uses of the land to feed the settler nation, and the reality of the pioneer and frontier mentalities that continue to have serious repurcussions on North American society. The systemic injustices, the eugenics programs, and many other issues will be points of contradiction that will require concessions from the settler proletariat that will generate significant reaction. I think unlike the smaller nations in the South, the US has a serious complex of reaction around it’s role in indigenous oppression that generates a serious risk of patriotic socialism finding purchase and driving the nation continually towards fascism. It’s not clear this can be resolved through plurinationalism, but its possible. It will take on significantly different characteristics to meet the challenges of the unique conditions in the north.

                China offers a lot of great solutions, but what you don’t see is the British maintaining their settler existence and sovereignty in Hong Kong, nor in India. We also see the Europeans leave most of their colonies in Africa. It’s unclear to me why it’s such a difficult thing to imagine a complete dissolution of the settler states in the Western hemisphere

                • lxvi
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                  2 years ago

                  Everybody here believes in the dissolution of the capitalist state. The question is what is to be done afterwards. The things you’re talking about are tied to the capitalist state. I don’t think there’s room to talk about reformations outside of the revolutionary process, because these reforms are impossible outside of a greater revolution.

                  Obviously giving everything back to the American Indians is unrealistic. It’s never going to happen. There’s no point of making that your final thesis.

                  There should, however, be special attentions paid to the tribes. They should be given special representation in their local and federated governments.

                  As far as breaking Western Settler-Colonialism ideologically and politically, the new government should reject its special affinity for Europe and emphasize cultural and civilizational ties to America. We need to unify the North to the South as much as possible while severing our unnatural relationship with Europe. Then there will no longer be a “West”. There will be America and there will be Europe.

                  Edit: I don’t think that the South is much smaller than the North. I think there are also many similarities among the indigenous South. They have their unique culture separate from the settler governments that rule them. Their lands are exploited for industrial farming, lumber, and mineral extraction. They are militarily and politically repressed.

                  The major difference between the North and the South in this is that the Southern indigenous are more numerous and more capable of exerting their own political will. That has to do with them being pushed into the jungles rather than the desert.

                  As far as patriotic socialism driving the US towards fascism. I think the US is already a fascist nation. You’re giving the patriotic socialists too much credit. Their wishy-washy position is incapable of providing a meaningful critique. As socialism becomes more popular its going to attract a lot of revisionists. That’s the way of it. If you’re worried about fascism, the liberals are who you should be more afraid of. I don’t have it in me to be worried about a couple of 18 year old gym rats with no theoretical grasp of socialism dismantling the eternal science.

        • CITRUS
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          2 years ago

          What do you mean by way of life of the settler? Living standards or some bullshit idea of “American Values”?

          I mean, yeah they are still proletarian, that would be like saying the global south isn’t proletariat because they produce many good exploited by the core. I certainly don’t see too many bourgeois indigenous peoples. I guess it’s more there’s “national class” that holds class character, like core and periphery, where in a settler colonial context the oppressed nations are an internalized periphery.

          I think it’s important to point out that while Indigenous peoples having children is an act of resistance against the settler state, settlers having children isn’t inherently an act of repression against Indigenous populations. As at the very basis the settlers are still exploited, even though under imperialism they gain a privileged position of labour aristocracy. Once imperialism is defeated, then the majority of settlers will have their interests align more and more with Indigenous peoples, as the contradictions boil inwards.

          Maybe I’m missing something, could you extrapolate more by what you mean interests?

          • freagle
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            2 years ago

            At minimum, the indigenous peoples of the Western hemisphere have a different material understanding of the world that they have not had a chance to develop fully. Doing so would necessarily require challenging the Eurocentric material understanding of the world. Doing this would be difficult, potentially impossible without a period of time wherein the indigenous analysis of the world is given a degree of primacy. Requiring that the indigenous adopt the understanding of the universe of the European order, which explicitly includes a history of excluding indigenous thought, is problematic.

            Then we’ll have to contend with the reality of trauma. Trauma research is showing how trauma is embodied and heritable. Resolving that trauma in the indigenous population will likely require, at minimum, reparations and at some level national self direction. National self direction of indigenous people will be assuredly run counter to settler interests.

            Even without considering trauma, social necessity includes cultural components, not merely commodities. The development of those socially necessary cultural components will require allocations of resources at minimum, but will likely also require dismantling some of the material components if settler cultural and social reproduction.

            Conflicts will arise in some manner, and the settler proletariat must comes to terms with that conflict by deferring to the indigenous population to avoid recreating contradictions inherent in oppression. But this requires the settler proletariat to accept the indigenous position even when it harms the settler economically. This will be very difficult without a framework of decolonization.

          • ⚧️TheConquestOfBed♀️
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            2 years ago

            What do you mean by way of life of the settler? Living standards or some bullshit idea of “American Values”?

            Bullshit or not American “values” made America what it is. The reflection of the ideology manifests as armies, guarded borders, racist policies that actually harm people, redlining, etc. Artificial divisions between people aren’t just illusory. They are made real through actual physical violence.

            For example: the early stages of the Northwest Indian War were fought by militias and white insurgents who settled west of the Proclamation Line of 1763 technically illegally. It wasn’t until these groups failed that Washington raised an army himself to finish the job. And this army was still using the manpower of settler proles.

            Obviously, the bourgoisie did fully intend to design the system around their interests in land speculation. The immediate result of the Northwest Indian War was Washington being granted access to 20000 acres deeded to him in Ohio. But it was the colonists already living there ahead of legal tracts being established that create impetus for and foment the war path.

            We can see a similar situation in the West Bank. Suburbs of Israeli colonists are illegally cropping up all over, and they’re filled with the worst people who think they deserve to live there, and will aim to do so no matter how much Palestinians try to reject them to enforce treaties. In their minds, they are victims, because they don’t see their posession of Palestinian land as violence.

          • redteaOP
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            I understand and agree with the reluctance to accept something as vague as ‘values’ or a ‘way of life’ might determine material reality. Marxists appear to argue for the opposite when they insist that material factors, not ideas or idealism, is determinative. The question is whether values or a way of life is material or ideal.

            The issue concerns the metaphor of base and superstructure (the base determines the superstructure). The opposite can happen, too: Law can affect the political economy, for example.

            Althusser may be helpful for thinking about ‘American values’. In ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’, he considers the ‘reproduction of the relations of production’: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm.

            There are ‘(repressive) State apparatus[es]’ (SAs)., ultimately backed by physical violence: ‘the Government, the Administration, the Army, the Police, the Courts, the Prisons, etc.’ And there are ‘Ideological State Apparatuses’ (ISAs):

            • the religious ISA (the system of the different churches),
            • the educational ISA (the system of the different public and private ‘schools’),
            • the family ISA,
            • the legal ISA,
            • the political ISA (the political system, including the different parties),
            • the trade-union ISA,
            • the communications ISA (press, radio and television, etc.),
            • the cultural ISA (literature, the arts, sports, etc.).

            The metaphor of base-superstructure suggests that, being part of the superstructure, ISAs and (repressive) SAs (which both may promote and rely on ‘American values’) have little effect on the economic base. But both kinds, ISAs and SAs, contribute to reproducing relations of production (the existing base).

            Althusser gives an interim summary and thinks through the implications:

            1. All [SAs] function both by repression and by ideology, with the difference that the (Repressive) [SAs] functions massively and predominantly by repression, whereas the Ideological State Apparatuses function massively and predominantly by ideology.
            2. Whereas the (Repressive) [SAs] constitutes an organized whole whose different parts are centralized beneath a commanding unity, that of the politics of class struggle applied by the political representatives of the ruling classes in possession of State power, the Ideological State Apparatuses are multiple, distinct, ‘relatively autonomous’ and capable of providing an objective field to contradictions which express … the effects of the clashes between the capitalist class struggle and the proletarian class struggle ….
            3. Whereas the unity of the (Repressive) [SAs] is secured by its unified and centralized organization under the leadership of the representatives of the classes in power executing the politics of the class struggle of the classes in power, the unity of the different Ideological State Apparatuses is secured, usually in contradictory forms, by the ruling ideology, the ideology of the ruling class.

            The role of the repressive [SA] … consists … in securing by force (physical or otherwise) the political conditions of the reproduction of relations of production which are in the last resort relations of exploitation. Not only does the [SA] contribute generously to its own reproduction (the capitalist State contains political dynasties, military dynasties, etc.), but also and above all, the [SA] secures by repression (from the most brutal physical force, via mere administrative commands and interdictions, to open and tacit censorship) the political conditions for the action of the [ISAs].

            … [I]t is the latter which largely secure the reproduction specifically of the relations of production, behind a ‘shield’ provided by the repressive [SA]. It is here that the role of the ruling ideology is heavily concentrated, the ideology of the ruling class, which holds State power. … [T]he ruling ideology that ensures a (sometimes teeth-gritting) ‘harmony’ between the repressive [SA] and the [ISAs], and between the different State Ideological Apparatuses.

            He presents some historical, then writes:

            I believe that the Ideological State Apparatus which has been installed in the dominant position in mature capitalist social formations as a result of a violent political and ideological class struggle against the old dominant Ideological State Apparatus, is the educational ideological apparatus.

            Importantly,

            … behind the scenes of its political [ISA], which occupies the front of the stage, what the bourgeoisie has installed as its number-one, i.e. as its dominant [ISA], is the educational apparatus, which has in fact replaced in its functions the previously dominant [ISA], the Church. One might even add: the School-Family couple has replaced the Church-Family couple.

            Why is the educational apparatus in fact the dominant [ISA] in capitalist social formations, and how does it function? …

            1. All [ISAs] … contribute to the same result: the reproduction of the relations of production, i.e. of capitalist relations of exploitation.
            1. Each of them contributes towards this single result in the way proper to it. The political apparatus by subjecting individuals to the political State ideology, the ‘indirect’ (parliamentary) or ‘direct’ (plebiscitary or fascist) ‘democratic’ ideology. The communications apparatus by cramming every ‘citizen’ with daily doses of nationalism, chauvinism, liberalism, moralism, etc, by means of the press, the radio and television. The same goes for the cultural apparatus (the role of sport in chauvinism is of the first importance), etc. The religious apparatus by recalling in sermons and the other great ceremonies of Birth, Marriage and Death, that man is only ashes, unless he loves his neighbour to the extent of turning the other cheek to whoever strikes first. The family apparatus …but there is no need to go on.
            1. Nevertheless, … one [ISA] certainly has the dominant role … the School.

            It takes children from every class at infant-school age, and then for years, the years in which the child is most ‘vulnerable’, squeezed between the Family State Apparatus and the Educational State Apparatus, it drums into them, whether it uses new or old methods, a certain amount of ‘know-how’ wrapped in the ruling ideology (French, arithmetic, natural history, the sciences, literature) or simply the ruling ideology in its pure state (ethics, civic instruction, philosophy). Somewhere around the age of sixteen, a huge mass of children are ejected ‘into production’: these are the workers or small peasants. Another portion of scholastically adapted youth carries on: and, for better or worse, it goes somewhat further, until it falls by the wayside and fills the posts of small and middle technicians, white-collar workers, small and middle executives, petty bourgeois of all kinds. A last portion reaches the summit, either to fall into intellectual semi-employment, or to provide, as well as the ‘intellectuals of the collective labourer’, the agents of exploitation (capitalists, managers), the agents of repression (soldiers, policemen, politicians, administrators, etc.) and the professional ideologists (priests of all sorts, most of whom are convinced ‘laymen’).

            Each mass ejected en route is practically provided with the ideology which suits the role it has to fulfil in class society: the role of the exploited (with a ‘highly-developed’ ‘professional’, ‘ethical’, ‘civic’, ‘national’ and a-political consciousness); the role of the agent of exploitation (ability to give the workers orders and speak to them: ‘human relations’), of the agent of repression (ability to give orders and enforce obedience ‘without discussion’, or ability to manipulate the demagogy of a political leader’s rhetoric), or of the professional ideologist (ability to treat consciousnesses with the respect, i.e. with the contempt, blackmail, and demagogy they deserve, adapted to the accents of Morality, of Virtue, of ‘Transcendence’, of the Nation, of France’s World Role, etc.).

            Of course, many of these contrasting Virtues (modesty, resignation, submissiveness on the one hand, cynicism, contempt, arrogance, confidence, self-importance, even smooth talk and cunning on the other) are also taught in the Family, in the Church, in the Army, in Good Books, in films and even in the football stadium. But no other [ISA] has the obligatory (and not least, free) audience of the totality of the children in the capitalist social formation, eight hours a day for five or six days out of seven.

            Messages taught by ISAs in settler states, such as American values, prop-up the settler state’s oppression against the indigenous people. The ideological function of such ISAs materially reproduce the settler state.

            I’m unsure if this relates to @freagle’s point about ‘way of life’, but the discussion reminded me of Althusser, whose article seems applicable, here. Is this useful / relevant?

      • redteaOP
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        2 years ago

        Good points. We’re going to discuss a book on this in the NEBulae reading group thread this Weds. Maybe The Red Deal has some answers for us.

    • QueerCommie
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      2 years ago

      I’d say that there is not no hope for appealing to the masses in the west, for though we benefit in some ways from imperialism, overall we would benefit much more from a dictatorship of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie may have bought off many people, but as contradictions heighten they will need to increase proletarianization, as many have already had happen to them.

      • redteaOP
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        I agree. Even if overall wealth decreased in the West, whatever wealth was left would go a lot further for ordinary people under a DotP. For example, how much of the ‘extra’ is spent on pointless goods? Like phones and laptops that break every four years, and cars that are only needed because we don’t build trains or run buses properly. We’d have none of that nonsense!

    • Lemmy_Mouse
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      " basic access to water, energy, food, education, healthcare, and shelter, streetlights, paved highways, etc. As much as austerity has eroded access to these basics, they are still the reality for the majority of people in the north even, to my knowledge, in the US…all workers in the global north benefit from global mechanisms of unequal exchange"

      The only thing which is consistent for all workers in the US on this list is paved highways. Some streets don’t have lights especially in rural America, access to clean water (Flint was only 1 city there are many), education and food are degraded to the point they are actually toxic and provide little benefit for the worker, shelter and healthcare are increasingly unaffordable with the number of both increasing every year. The underclass is overgrown and wages no longer hold to obtain these spoils of plunder. With the privatizing of everything these spoils disappear almost completely.

      This is not currently the case in Europe AFAIK and is only beginning in the UK but both are headed this way. One by choice unimpeded (the UK), the others by choice too but they are fearfully dragging their feet unsure of uprisings from their workers I believe. The EU is indeed hook, line, and sinker in agreeance to liquidate their social democratic economies following the suit of the American bourgeoisie, however unlike the UK they cannot slowly and smoothly transition to this, it would be hard and sudden due to the conflict between Russia and NATO and European dependence on Russian energy. I believe this rough transition concerns the European bourgeoisie and explains their hesitancy in completely abandoning Russian energy.

      I believe the class character of the north is fractured into 3 camps, no longer just 2: The big bourgeois, the middle class pette bourgeois and labor aristocrats, and the proletariat. Historically the middle class almost entire eclipsed the proletarians in these countries, now the current numbers vary from region to region but for America it is currently I would guestimate at least 65% proletarian, 34% middle class and shrinking towards proletarian, and 1% big bourgeoisie. The number of prols shrink and the number of middle class grow as you move eastward which is due to the center of the core being America and the proximity to China and Russia causing “fear lag” in the bourgeoisie there. If they loosen things too fast they could instigate a mass exodus towards their competition.

      • redteaOP
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        2 years ago

        These are good points.

        As for the poorest settlers in the US, what is the chance that they could take an anti-imperialist line? Would they be more likely to argue for a bigger portion of the wealth that flows into the US?

        • Lemmy_Mouse
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          They might if things went that way, but I believe the material conditions arrange that. As a comrade said to me joking at something a socdem said once, “it’s funny because the rate of profit in the US is too low for any kind of social democratic reforms”. The US GDP to debt ratio has crossed the 100% threshold a few months ago, meaning the US officially owes more than it produces to cover these debts…on paper, we’re bankrupt. Debt speculation, the petrodollar, and imperialism keep the country afloat but those too are dying. It will be a long time before the US economy is in any kind of shape where the class of US workers could shift in a labor aristocratic direction, and as for what then, a much bigger question will be answered before then here: collapse or revolution? If we fail the puck gets passed to China who is also in a good position to take control in the event of a collapse so we are in good shape either way…assuming we don’t all kill each other or die from preventable hunger and diseases before then.

    • Giyuu
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      2 years ago

      Bookmarked for future reading. Thank you.

    • CountryBreakfast
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      Colonialism is not just a symptom of capitalism. Socialist and communist empires have also been settler empires (e.g. Chinese colonialism in Tibet). “In other words,” writes Sandy Grande, “both Marxists and capitalists view land and natural resources as commodities to be exploited, in the first instance, by capitalists for personal gain, and in the second by Marxists for the good of all”

      This part of the paper is tangential side note that is not really fleshed out or substantiated. It’s hard to even fit it in with the rest of the paper as it demands more questions that it gives any insight.

      It seems strange (and seemingly in opposition to other literatures on the matter) that there could be a settler-colonialism for the good of all, that is somehow juxtaposed to one that is destructive, after all, the good of all is exactly what settler-colonialism promises in the US. Are they suggesting that supposed Chinese settler-colonialism has been a humanitarian success in Tibet? It’s just a strange, seemingly random way to frame it.

      Because of how confusing and unclear it is, it’s a part of the paper that I discard unless I am looking into a deep deep dive into Eve Tuck, who is a very useful theorist. Most papers have minor flaws so maybe this is more a flaw than a major part of the paper’s substance.

  • lxvi
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    I’ve been reading “Decolonial Marxism” by Walter Rodney. In it he talks about how Marxism is often portrayed as a White Mans thing in Africa. The argument is used to discredit socialism as a foreign thing. He goes on to argue the same people have no problem using electricity and so on, and how certain politicals who denied class were later forced to recognize it after falling victim to the conspiracies of their bourgeois.

    A lot of this talk falls into two camps. The first is the victim game where the proletariat is subdivided by how bad they have it. The second camp is to reverse the issues Walter Rodney was discussing. Socialism isn’t for the white worker.

    Why bother with the divisions? Its already hard enough. A proletarian is someone who must exchange their labor for the means of their survival. Marx was writing to a European audience at the heart of colonialism. If you were making a critique on the professional classes rather than the common worker then you’d have a better argument. Then Lenin would back you up in your criticism of the overpaid and invented offices. If you were criticizing the middle classes Lenin would agree with you that they have a twin prejudices at one time siding with the proletariat and at another siding with the bourgeoisie.

    Who’s even being quoted besides rich academics who’s generations work in Western Academia has separated working people from the science which is their birthright?

    What did the USSR have to say about the American worker. What does China have to say about the American worker? What does Vietnam have to say about the American worker? The DPRK? So on.

    The problem with Western Communism is that they’re getting their queues from so called socialist intellectuals who’ve been sucking too long at the teat of bourgeois institutions.

    • CountryBreakfast
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      The first is the victim game where the proletariat is subdivided by how bad they have it.

      This is an oversimplification of the stratification of classes. This isnt some game of oppression creating moral qualities or revolutionary virtues. Stratifications are an inherent feature of imperialism and it explains not only class interests that are irreconcilable, but also explains why it is inherent in the system.

      The second camp is to reverse the issues Walter Rodney was discussing. Socialism isn’t for the white worker.

      You have to see whiteness as class. It is a colonial hierarchy that is defined by your social relations with colonial spoils. White people are by definition part of the global bourgeoisie. They benifit from imperialism, colonialism etc. So if you include white workers who intuitively expect a better deal than the rest of the world’s laborers, why would socialism be “for them.”

      Why bother with the divisions?

      Why bother with any distinctions regarding relations to production at all? Because that is a major part of marxist studies.

      What did the USSR have to say about the American worker. What does China have to say about the American worker? What does Vietnam have to say about the American worker? The DPRK? So on.

      I mean oftentimes US workers are approached rhetorically by workers in revolutionary movements in good faith. But is this a way to hope a few wont turn into weapons for capital aimed at their revolution, not necessarily because Americans have revolutionary sensibilities that can be appealed to as easily as any proletarian.

      The problem with Western Communism is that they’re getting their queues from so called socialist intellectuals who’ve been sucking too long at the teat of bourgeois institutions.

      So the intellectual is discredited and unusable for revolutary thinking because it’s too associated with the teat of imperialism and bourgeoisie institutions but some how white workers don’t need to embrace and grapple with their history as a weapon of the bourgeoisie. I see.

      The problem with Western Communism is white supremacy.

      • lxvi
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        2 years ago
        1. The black panthers found common ground with Vietnam despite having different circumstances. That’s the whole point of internationalism: we find common ground with an international proletariat. You’re right when you say capital stratifies people into a hierarchy of oppression. Class analysis works to break that stratification; whereas, you suggest it should be intensified.

        2. The problem with visualizing race as a class is that you end up seeing the poor white as the oppressor of the black millionaire. Modern colonialism works only because of a traitor class, willing to sell out their country. If race and class are going to be viewed as the same then it muddies the water of modern colonialism. The Black, White, and Mexican on the same shop floor have the same class interests. Those interests are opposed to the interests of the shop owner due to the physical reality of the organization of labor. If one race sells out the others in collusion with the bourgeois they hurt their own class interests along with the interests of the other races. White collusion doesn’t exclude the white worker from the proletariat. Stratification of the working class is harmful to everybody.

        Instead of addressing this, you go around telling the white worker that they’re benefited from it and are therefore excluded from socialism. They’re being directly harmed by a system of exploitation and you’re reinforcing the ideas which allow for it.

        1. Marxism is a study of systems. It’s a science which combines the political, economic, and social. Dialectical analysis is a method of identifying interconnectedness between countervailing forces. I don’t know what you’re talking about when you summarize Marxism is a study of divisions. Clearly their is a lack in your fundamental understanding of theory.

        2. So the actual socialist world approaches the Western Working Class in good faith as misguided brothers of the international proletariat, but we should listen to you instead because you actually know better.

        3. Bourgeois institutions have poisoned the well. They should be disregarded as nothing but harmful. There is a labor aristocracy in the West. It is lead by Academic Marxists, Union Reps, Democrats, NGO spokesmen, and the like who speak for the working class without any regard or attachment to the working class.

        • CountryBreakfast
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          The black panthers found common ground with Vietnam despite having different circumstances.

          Two colonized groups with similar ideology and the same enemy finding common ground is not earth shattering.

          Class analysis works to break that stratification; whereas, you suggest it should be intensified.

          Its intensified because people treat everyone the same when they aren’t and ignore history and deploy vulgarity as their class analysis. Making pety bourgeoisie more class conscious can make people reactionary, especially when you pretend they are proles.

          The problem with visualizing race as a class is that you end up seeing the poor white as the oppressor of the black millionaire.

          So it problematizes vulgar understandings of class? Good.

          The Black, White, and Mexican on the same shop floor have the same class interests.

          You may need this to be true but it isn’t. It’s important to understand tactical vs strategic interests when we work towards coalition. You cant pretend stratifications don’t exist if you want to move past them and you can’t utilize dialectical thinking unless you actually recognize contradictions.

          White collusion doesn’t exclude the white worker from the proletariat.

          Of course not. It’s relation to productivity does.

          They’re being directly harmed by a system of exploitation and you’re reinforcing the ideas which allow for it.

          I’m pretty sure racist colonial hierarchies that link white people to colonial spoils and inflated wages and bourgeoisie interests reinforce it more than I do but that doesn’t seem to be a concern.

          I don’t know what you’re talking about when you summarize Marxism is a study of divisions.

          Probably because I’m not saying that.

          So the actual socialist world approaches the Western Working Class in good faith as misguided brothers of the international proletariat, but we should listen to you instead because you actually know better.

          You say this as if you’ve never even imagined speaking with an enemy that would slaughter you wholesale in front of the entire world. Of course they want solidarity. The question is why can’t they fucking get it from us. Rhetoric of the south isn’t class analysis.

          Bourgeois institutions have poisoned the well. They should be disregarded as nothing but harmful. There is a labor aristocracy in the West. It is lead by Academic Marxists, Union Reps, Democrats, NGO spokesmen, and the like who speak for the working class without any regard or attachment to the working class.

          One of those institutions is whiteness.

          • lxvi
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            I just want to make a quick response in closing. In your opinion the white worker directly benefits from imperial adventurism with no regard to class. You feel that spreading class consciousness among white people would actually spread reactionary views. This is referring to your paragraphs under the second and sixth quote.

            You readdress what the actual socialist world says when referring to the topic themselves. You suggest that what they say can’t be taken for what they mean due to their cowardice. I just want to emphasize that all of the countries we’re talking about won their wars. They don’t shy when they’re criticizing capitalism. You’ve got Vietnamese drinking from the skulls of dead North Americans. You’ve got the DPRK shooting missiles over Japan and telling the US to invade whenever they feel froggy. China is China. These are not pathetic countries we’re talking about. These are not people who need you to speak on their behalf because they’re too timid to say what they mean. This to me is the most revealing comment.

            • CountryBreakfast
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              Pull whatever you want out of your ass but it won’t make rhetoric into theory. Seriously. Make whatever the fuck you want up about me and then use the global south as a shield like a coward. Then go do a victory dance in the streets. Do it all goddamn night. It won’t change the class conditions in north america.

        • redteaOP
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          Just as an aside, there is some great work on the relationship between race and class.

          Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth (Penguin, 2001) at pages 30–31 (italic and bold emphasis added):

          This world divided into compartments, this world cut in two is inhabited by two different species. The originality of the colonial context is that economic reality, inequality and the immense difference of ways of life never come to mask the human realities. When you examine at close quarters the colonial context, it is evident that what parcels out the world is to begin with the fact of belonging to or not belonging to a given race, a given species. In the colonies the economic substructure is also a superstructure. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich. This is why Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched every time we have to do with the colonial problem.

          There will be some disagreement as to how ‘rich’ are white people just because they are white in the US today. The crucial point is the final sentence, and that there is a significant tradition of Marxists re-considering class in light of race. If they’re right (they are persuasive and have persuaded me), then we may not be able to solve capitalist contradictions unless we do the same, because we will not be addressing all the facts of capitalism.

          • lxvi
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            In none of this am I denying the relevance of race. Pound for pound a white man will have it a little better than a black man, and that little might end up being a lot the lower down you go. The problem is when it becomes suggested that this is an overall benefit to white people or that white people should be recognized as a labor aristocracy because of this.

            I’ve met a fair share of whites who romanticize slavery. Just like when you watch Disney movies you’re supposed to imagine yourself as the royal. The existence of slavery was bad for white people. The white farmer was worse off because of slavery.

            NAFTA was, among other things, a plundering of Mexico, but it was also terrible for the US worker.

            Its not like the white worker is getting a share of the pie. If you witness someone get trafficked in front of you, you didn’t benefit from that relationship just because you weren’t the one trafficked. There isn’t a privilege associated with not being trafficked. There is an excess of harm being done to the victim. There isn’t an inherent wealth associated with not being murdered or abducted by the police. For me that is a sort of monstrous inversion of reality.

            Does it really sound like a “labor aristocracy” that the cops will kill you, but not as much; the cops will still abduct you, but not as much; you will still be extorted in cruel fashion, but not as much? That is your white privilege. That is white dignity over black.

            The sentence before the bold font more interests me, because it is not simply the inclusion of race in the analysis but the subversion of class as the dominant mode of analysis.

            The structure and superstructure have a dialectical relationship. They both cause each other, but structure is still primary. You can’t replace bread with the idea of bread. There are plenty of people who believe their whiteness makes them rich. There are plenty of people who believe themselves to be middle class because they’re making a couple dollars over minimum. This is important. It should be acknowledged for whatever effects it has, but it shouldn’t be taken at face value.

            If we’re going to accept the first clause; “you rich because you are white,” then let’s also address the second; “you are white because you are rich.” Whiteness is a superstructural element, and nothing will bleach your skin as quick as money nor darken it as quick as hunger.

            For me, addressing “the facts of capitalism” so far as race is concerned involves a reconciliation of race.

            You’re right that there cannot be a successful revolutionary movement that does not adequately address race. There will never be a successful whites only movement, nor can there ever be a successful movement that excludes the white worker.

            That isn’t a very complicated thing to get. Look down below and see the sort of rhetoric that suicides socialism in the North. You can’t be on the same side as people who are grounding their socialism in the idea of shipping all the white people to Europe. The CIA couldn’t have done a better job. We are a deeply unserious group of people.

  • redteaOP
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    The Wealth of Nations by Zac Cope

    Cope’s book is on ‘Imperialism and the Mechanics of Value Transfer’. He looks into the detail of unequal exchange in the modern world. Cope’s explanation supports Sakai’s argument. I’m going to try to keep the maths in this section simple, which means removing some nuance, which means there are holes in the numbers. Please focus on the points being made rather than the maths (unless I have made a blatant, crucial error).

    There’s an interesting section on pages 34–7, ‘Monopoly Rent and Metropolitan Wages’. Cope cites Adam Smith and N Brown, among others. I’ll summarise two points.

    First example, from Smith, keeping the numbers simple.

    • Take two workers, one in the global north (A), the other in the south (B).
    • A is paid $10/hour to make ’widgets’.
    • B is paid $1/hour to make widgets.
    • A and B both make 1 widget an hour and they want to buy each other’s widgets.
    • B must work 10 hours: 10 x 1$ = $10 = one of A’s widgets @ $10/each.
    • In the same hours of work, A can buy: 10 x $10 = $100 = one hundred of B’s widgets @ $1/each
    • The ratio of purchasing power is 1:100.

    But how does A exploit B? From Brown, and changing the scenario a little:

    • Multinational Company (MNC) makes pens and sells them for $40.
    • Materials, use of tools, rent, and energy, etc, cost $2
    • It takes two hours of labour to produce each pen, one hour each from A and B.
    • MNC pays A for part of the job and pays B for the other part of the job.
    • MNC pays A $10 for their hour of work, and pays B $2 for their hour of work: $12 total for labour. (B joined a union and secured a pay rise since the last example – working class hero!)
    • Production costs are $14 in total, leaving MNC with $26 profit per pen. Forget about this for a moment: all $26 was produced by the labour of workers, yes, but here we are interested in the relationship between A and B (which is mediated by MNC).
    • If the total cost of labour is $12 and two labour hours are needed to produce each pen, each labour hour costs $6.
    • If A is paid $10 but only produced $6 worth of value, then A was paid $4 more for their hour of work than they produced.
    • If B is paid $2 but produced $6 worth of value, then B was paid $4 less for their hour of work than they produced.
    • The extra $4 given to A comes directly from the value produced by B, meaning A functionally exploits B.

    In this example, A does not wake up and think ‘I’m going to exploit B today’. But it doesn’t matter. By they time they both go to bed, that is what has happened. They’re both ripped off by MNC, who keeps the bulk of the value produced.

    How are the millions of As in the global north supposed to act in solidarity with the billions of Bs in the global south, when the basic prosperity of A relies on exploiting B?

    In a section on ‘wage differentials’ (pages 49–53), Cope engages with another idea discussed by Adam Smith (and also by Marx), on how the town can exploit the countryside with capitalist trade. We now see the same on a global scale.

    In 1961, if an hours worth of work was paid the same in the Phillipines as in Canada, Philippine exports would have totalled 5.269 billion pesos. Due to ‘wage differentials’ (Canadian workers being paid more than Philippine workers), those Philippine exports only brought in 1.129 billion pesos. So in that year, for one aspect of one relationship, Canada quietly kept 4+ billion pesos that should have gone to workers in the Philippines. To put it another way, if it were not for this exploitation, the relevant workers in the Philippines should have been paid almost 4x more than they were paid.

    Similar money unequally transferred to the global north goes to support the welfare systems of the global north. Those systems, however damaged they are today, directly rely on the exploitation of the global south. Much of that stolen wealth goes to the ruling class, so under a different model of distribution, perhaps the welfare systems can be maintained only from value produced in the global north.

    In the meantime, how are the interests of the workers across the globe aligned? Can the workers in the global north, even minimum wage workers, call themselves proletariat? Can those who rely on the above exploitation be persuaded to act in solidarity with the global south?

    Edit: The consensus view seems to be, and I am reliably informed that, 40-2-12=26 not 36.

    • Lemmy_Mouse
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      I believe so yes.

      Firstly, 40-2-12=26 not 36.

      Secondly, exploit means: transitive verb 1 : to make productive use of : utilize exploiting your talents exploit your opponent’s weakness 2 : to make use of meanly or unfairly for one’s own advantage

      • Merriam-Webster

      In economics it means to subject one to the extraction of surplus labor value via imbalanced power dynamics in relations over the means of production. How does worker A have control to manipulate worker B? They don’t. They have control over their labor and by extension their oppressor to a certain degree which is proportionate to their labor’s value, which is increased by joining a union (good job worker B). I know, you said not literally but I’m a stickler for specifics.

      What he is trying to state is that worker A indirectly benefits from the poverty of worker B, which is accurate as it is the relation a labor aristocrat has with a proletarian, however if neither worker A nor worker B can afford luxury (non essential basics of life) and even fight to afford those basic necessities of life (food, water, shelter, clothing, transportation depending on the conditions) then this doesn’t matter as they’re both so exploited that neither are benefiting in any significant material way from the other’s worse situation. Then they are both proletarian, this is the relationship 2 prols have.

      • redteaOP
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        I believe you are correct with those numbers. Thanks for pointing that out!

        Good points about the power involved in exploitation.

        I agree that that A should act in solidarity with B but is that likely? The example above only captures people earning $10 and $2 because it keeps the numbers simple (still apparently too complex for me, but there we are). This isn’t far off the average hourly wage in the US (fluctuating around $11.00).

        But what if it’s $37.31 (median hourly wage for nurses, apparently: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm) versus $0.42 (median hourly wage in Rwanda: https://wageindicator.org/about/publications/2013/wages-in-rwanda)?

        Just for the sake of argument, imagine the worker in Rwanda makes something used in the nurse’s hospital. The nurse can’t do their job without it. And imagine the nurse’s employer also owns the majority share in the Rwandan factory.

        How does one convince the US nurse to fight for the Rwandan worker? Is the nurse more likely to argue for their own pay rise, job security, and benefits, etc, or to argue for an overhaul of the whole system (meaning that, potentially, the nurses wages are lowered while the Rwandan worker’s are increased)? Hope likely is there nurse to say, ‘but everything is cheaper in Rwanda, so they don’t need to earn as much as me living in the expensive US’?

        • Lemmy_Mouse
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          Thanks for the thought-filled reply. I think it’s our perspective on this issue that, once shifted, will provide a better understanding and method of gauging material motivations of workers:

          We exchange our labor power for wages to exchange for commodities.

          The agreement between worker and owner is the market value of our labor power (what we’re going to be paid for the labor we work. $/hr).

          However, what happens when the price of basic commodities (basic necessities) are higher than the agreed upon wage? Poverty occurs. Yes there are more complications to this (debts, stocks, crypto, “side gigs”, meth money, etc…) but it all comes down to can basic commodities be afforded with the financial resources one has. (In the event of poverty, capital is liquidated to obtain these basic necessities)

          Marx differentiates the agreed upon exchange rate of one’s labor value and the exchange value one’s wages represent as nominal wages vs real wages (Wage Labour and Capital)

          This is what I believe we should focus more on this to understand the proletarianization of the labor aristocracy. On paper, we are rich, but how many of the same commodity can each wage afford each worker? Yes no doubt the number and value of the food, water, shelter, etc… are much lower in the global south, however the commodities afforded by both the worker in the south and the north proletariat worker are both only basic with no luxuries afforded.

          I want to specify that this goes beyond inflation. The prices of a commodity are determined first by the cost of production, then minus the wages of the labor force. This is the actual price, the material cost of production, the price they can then charge for said commodity are determined by various market conditions. 2 of which are:

          • Competition or lack thereof; if demand for a product is high and the supply is rare, the cost of the commodity rises. To put it simply, when there are 5 fishermen all selling fish, they try to outsell one another by deflating the cost of commodity to the floor (it’s production value), minimize their surplus per fish, and aim to sell more fish than the other fishermen to gain more surplus. Why? Why would you choose to pay $5 for a bass when you can pay $1? This is the law of competition.

          • The rate of profit and it’s tendency to fall. Due to the division of labor, the rate of profitability of a company decreases after it reaches a crescendo. After which more and more capital must be obtained in order to maintain the business. Failure to do so and they will go bankrupt or be bought out or simply out-competed.

          This is why we are paid $11/hr but it only covers the same amount as what a basic wage would in the global south. There are other aspects such as predatory debt, indoctrinated financial irresponsibility, lack of beneficial standardized education on the subject, and mass propagandization and a culture around consumerism which also play a role in why this is the case but it predominately revolves around the conditions of the market and the laws of capital.

    • linkhidalgogato
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      this analysis fails to account for a pretty important fact if both A and B lived in a socialist country and everything else was the same then A and B could be paid the 12$ + the 26$ the capitalist kept which devided equally would leave both A and B with 19$, so if anything this example argues that the workers in the global south and the global north share the same class interest.

      and considering how much money leeches like executives, stock holders and landlords or just capitalist in general well… leech im pretty sure the example is accurate to reality

      • redteaOP
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        I agree in principle. But how to get A to argue for that when they will find it much easier to argue for a bigger share for themselves (leaving B the same or worse off) and will also find themselves on the same side as the employer and the empire, with all the support that comes with it?

        • linkhidalgogato
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          well would the capitalist give concessions equaling what A could get by cutting out the capitalist and sharing equally with B, idk maybe, but either way it would be an inherently unstable arrangement like the social democracies of Europe, where it took an exceptional threat in the form of the USSR for them to even exist and even those concessions have almost all but been clawed back by capitalist.

          but yeah i suppose that for that time that would put the interest of the working people of the global north at odds with those of the global south.

          also theoretical are all well and good but at the end of the day i can tell you the american capitalist definitely dont pay me well enough to not want them decapitated so does it even matter.

          • redteaOP
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            I think the bourgeoisie would try if they were under threat again, as happened with welfare states / the New Deal when the USSR was rising and rising. But super-profits were possible back then, which go a long way when shared between a (relatively) small group. If the world continues to go along the path that seems to be opening up, though, the global south will be turning towards China. The US, EU, etc, will start to lose their super-profits. For how long will they have enough to buy off the domestic labour aristocrats? It’s hard to predict and a lot can change – in either direction.

    • Shaggy0291
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      How are the millions of As in the global north supposed to act in solidarity with the billions of Bs in the global south, when the basic prosperity of A relies on exploiting B?

      Because that “prosperity” is a relation that can only be temporary due to TRPF. Eventually all workers must be exploited and immiserated; labour aristocrats can only be maintained so long as there is sufficient surplus profit to go around, a surplus which is constantly shrinking. Therefore, in the final analysis it is still in the interest of the working masses in the north to unite with those in the south against their exploiters.

      • CountryBreakfast
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        Because that “prosperity” is a relation that can only be temporary due to TRPF.

        This is true but remember it is a tendency that the bourgeoisie occasionally can affect to create a new deal just as it did after WW2 and in the 70s. A new deal can accommodate and weaponize privileged workers. So while the tendency can limit the options of privileged workers and push them toward solidarity it is not a done deal and still depends some on the agency and consciousness of the bourgeoisie.

        Now it would take a pretty hefty action to bring back a golden age, but western workers will still be more interested in that more than costly solidarity with the global proletariat. It is the path of least resistance, the path that aligns closer to their interests as privileged workers that rely on their relationships with the bourgeoisie, AND (perhaps the biggest problem) its the path privileged workers have historically taken meaning the theory of being that is crafted by the history of privileged workers will drive them to identify with a new deal as their grandparents did.

        I say this to emphasize the need for a movement that is rooted in history, and specifically not the history of white workers. It’s why, for example, Indigenous histories and ontologies cannot be ignored even as the rate of profit falls.

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    2 years ago

    Settlers by J Sakai

    Sakai argues the US was never founded on a white proletariat. At the 1775 War of Independence, 80% of European Settlers were bourgeois or petit-bourgeois. The others (15%) were ‘temporary workers’ and (5%) labourers. Most of the temp workers tended to be young men who arrived, worked, then bought land and moved upwards, to be replaced by more hopeful petit-bourgeois Europeans.

    Sakai criticises ‘“Don’t-Divide-the-Working-Class” revisionists, who want to convince us that the Euro-Amerikan masses are “victims of imperialism” just like us’ (footnote on page 12). This can be interpreted in two ways:

    1. Don’t appeal to the white working class because its interests do not align with the interests of oppressed peoples.
    2. Don’t appeal to white racist / chauvinist workers because they have no interest in aligning their interests with oppressed peoples, even if their material conditions can be similar (i.e. they still work for a wage).

    I think there’s scope to say that Sakai means #2. I suspect most of you will agree with #2 even if some would think that Marxists should still try to reach white racist / chauvinists to persuade them not to be racists and chauvinists rather than class-conscious members of the vanguard.

    • What if Sakai meant #1? Does that change your view?
    • If Sakai meant #1 or #2, does that mean there can never be solidarity between workers in the US and indigenous nations and other oppressed peoples?
    • And has the situation changed since Sakai wrote this?
    • What about the rest of the Euro-Amerikan empire? Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan?
    • CITRUS
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      2 years ago

      I think its a general rule of thumb you’ll get more bang for your buck radicalizing oppressed peoples. Now should we “not appeal” to the “white” working class? What does Sakai mean by appeal or whiteness?

      Not appeal as in ignore them entirely or try not to placate to white comfort? The latter makes sense as it’s more than likely to be antagonistic to oppressed people’s liberation.

      What’s whiteness supposed to entail? Two car garage, backyard pool, slumber party hosting mother fuckers or still impoverished Appalachians descendant from Celts who recently gained the title of white? I assume the “middle class” is what Sakai tells us to count our bullets with.

      I think it’s important to note that overall in the US the workers at at the SocDem level of class consciousness for revolution, which entails through the current proletarianization of the “middle class”. White workers are being opened up to change it would be wise to utilize this and foolish to ignore the largest members of the US working class.

      • redteaOP
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        2 years ago

        More good points.

        I’m not sure that Sakai uses the phrase ‘appeal to whiteness’. That comes from one of my interpretations of his point in a footnote.

        I think you’re right that workers in the US have some revolutionary potential, and the class conscious should nudge the workers in that direction.

        But there seems to be one main barrier, which is true in other imperial core countries, too: how can the proletarianised middle classes be convinced to be anti-imperialists rather than for a ‘return’ to the middle class?

        • cfgaussian
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          They will not be convinced by us but by the material realities facing them, namely the realization that a return to the past is impossible and that the decline is irreversible. There will be no serious revolutionary movements in the West until the conditions deteriorate to such a point that a plurality of people face the same destitution and misery that have forced other parts of the world to revolt. As for the question of decolonization i am hopeful for South America due to the example of the plurinational model of Bolivia and other such experiments in indigenous self-determination, but for North America i sometimes fear it may be too late. I look at the numbers of indigenous people left compared to the many orders of magnitude bigger settler population and don’t see how they can ever mount a successful resistance.

          Are there any examples of successful decolonization taking place where the colonized are a minority? From my point of view their best hope is to enter into an alliance with the other internal colonies of the US settler state, particularly the systemically oppressed black and brown people who have already shown in recent years that they have revolutionary potential, especially when conditions of extreme police violence push them to mount uprisings. This demographic question plays a large role also for the liberation of Palestine, it is clear that the goal of the Zionist occupation is to expand the settler population and decimate the Palestinian to such a point that the Palestinians become a minority in their own land, as then the colonization will be all but irreversible. This is something that Palestine still fiercely fights against and has a chance of beating.

          Palestinians still have the numbers on their side. They also have allies and potential allies all around the region with whom they share a religion and a language and who could join them in an armed conflict to expel the occupier. How, in practical terms, is the indigenous population of the US and Canada supposed to defeat the settler state’s military and the white settler majority in order to take back their land?

        • CITRUS
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          I could give some highly thought out analysis of minor contradictions in the imperial world view, but to be honest the threat of Climate Change and Nuclear War are so existential that they affect the proletarianized middle classes (and even the labour aristocrtaic middle class) in horrendous ways that can only be solved with the dismantling of Imperialism.

    • linkhidalgogato
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      i dont think that little statistic about whites in 1775 america means anything, that was pre industrial and pre imperial power america it has nothing to do with the reality we live in now.

      if sakai meant the first then idk he was smoking something mighty cuz the US is 60% white you cant just actively ignore 60% of people outright and build a revolution from there its not gonna work

      there has to be solidarity otherwise this isnt gonna work, besides its not like white poor people are particularly advantage compared to black poor people or other poor oppressed people white people are just significantly more likely to be born richer to begin with (you know inherited wealth and a history of slavery/genocide/immigration dont generally go together) (not saying systemic racism doesn’t exist just that generational wealth is one of the biggest mechanism thru which it operates)

      i dont think the situation has changed much i think settlers was just mostly wrong to begin with

      idc thats for them to figure out im too ignorant and disinterested to have an opinion, tho im curious what you mean by japan do you mean Okinawa or the general american occupation of Japan

      • CountryBreakfast
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        i dont think that little statistic about whites in 1775 america means anything, that was pre industrial and pre imperial power america it has nothing to do with the reality we live in now.

        Yeah who needs history? That is unless you needed to show that the idea of a temporarily embaressed millionaire comes from our settler qualities and not from our position as hegemon after WW2. Or if you wanted to find evidence for white upward mobility as a factor that existed even at the founding of the US.

        Also the US immediately began expanding territory via genocide to make way for the slave economy that built Wallstreet and the same financial institutions that run the global political economy today. Surely this too is irrelevant to the history we presently must suffer.

        its not like white poor people are particularly advantage compared to black poor people or other poor oppressed people white people are just significantly more likely to be born richer to begin with

        This isn’t true in the slightest. Generational wealth is hardly the only factor. Every single crisis that harms poor whites harms colonized people two fold or more. For example, half of black wealth was destroyed in 2008 and covid was much much worse on Native peoples.

        Settlers isn’t wrong. You just don’t think history matters enough.

        • linkhidalgogato
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          2 years ago

          the upwards mobility for white people that the 1775 statistic points out literally doesnt exist anymore and it hasn’t for decades it says nothing about the relation of white and black working class people today.

          • CountryBreakfast
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            Yeah… and white people are being replaced by immigrants… and other such nonsense.

            • linkhidalgogato
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              2 years ago

              bruh what fucking reality do you live in where upwards mobility is a thing for fucking anyone.

              also fuck you too

                • linkhidalgogato
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                  you think upwards mobility is a thing in america? like actually that is your position, you think people can just idk pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become capitalist.

                  fuck dude if thats true what are we even doing here talking about revolution and socialism the capitalist where right all along you just gotta grind harder and youll be rich in no time, who knew we lived in the ever so elusive meritocracy after all.

      • redteaOP
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        What do you disagree with in Settlers?

        I just included Japan as being part of the ‘international community’ / global north / imperial core.

  • redteaOP
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    Corona, Climate, and Chronic Emergency by Andreas Malm

    Malm explains something we know well: the Anglo-European empire consumes far more than it produces. ‘If one calculates the amount of land … required to grow the commodities, feed them, mine them, process and assemble them …’, something becomes clear (page 51). It is not possible, under current arrangements, for Anglo-Europeans to consume as much as it does without exploiting the global south.

    The numbers are shocking. In 2007, Europe imported goods that require a landmass ‘as large as the entire surface area of India’. This is in addition to whatever is produced within Europe.

    And, of course, India has people in it, which means the whole area cannot be used for Europe, which is why Europe also exploits land and people throughout the rest of the world – including land that would otherwise be rainforest, etc. And wherever Europe decides to grow crops, etc, for Europeans, the biodiversity plummets. This includes Indonesia, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, and elsewhere. I cannot see Europeans being too keen on destroying every green space in Europe to maintain its levels of consumption.

    Now to get personal. How much labour does it take to support the life of one worker? All things being equal, one worker, right? Not quite. Some quotes (from pages 79–80):

    [M]easured in full-time person-years of employment embodied in commodities, hundreds of millions of lives’ worth of labour are shifted across the global marketplace.

    One resident in Hong Kong relies on seven workers – or ‘servants’ – from the rest of the world, in addition to the rest of the workforce, to purchase the goods … [they consume]; in absolute numbers of hours, the United States is, of course, the top importer. At the opposite end of the scale is Madagascar. It needs less than one third of its own workforce to make what it consumes, while more than two thirds toil producing things enjoyed elsewhere.

    It’s unclear from the text how the imports to the US or the EU are shared. It seems logical that not everyone will benefit from exploiting workers outside the US and the EU by the same proportions. But see the comment on Cope, below.

    Do these facts mean solidarity between Europeans and the proletariat in the global south is impossible?

    • Lemmy_Mouse
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      Well we really must break it down further than just nationality. Proletarian interests are universal, what we must really look at is the economic conditions of these nations, the class content of them, and the trajectory of class shifts (1 class to another) to answer that question. All of any capitalist nation will never have solidarity with the south, but some always will. When will the majority or enough to do something meaningful is the real question which comes down to class content and trajectory which is based on the economic conditions.

  • Muad'DibberA
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    Relevant section from Zak Cope - Divided world divided class:

    Labour Aristocracy

    The labour aristocracy is that section of the international working class whose privileged position in the lucrative job markets opened up by imperialism guarantees its receipt of wages approaching or exceeding the per capita value created by the working class as a whole. The class interests of the labour aristocracy are bound up with those of the capitalist class, such that if the latter is unable to accumulate superprofits then the super-wages of the labour aristocracy must be reduced. Today, the working class of the imperialist countries, what we may refer to as metropolitan labour, is entirely labour aristocratic.

    The labour aristocracy provides the major vehicle for bourgeois ideological and political influence within the working class. For Lenin, “opportunism” in the labour movement is conditioned by the preponderance of two major economic factors, namely, either “vast colonial possessions or a monopolist position in world markets.” These allow for ever-greater sections of the metropolitan working class to be granted super-wages so that it is not merely the haute bourgeoisie which subsists on profits. Thus, according to Lenin, it is not simply capitalists who benefit from imperialism:

    The export of capital, one of the most essential economic bases of imperialism, still more completely isolates the rentiers from production and sets the seal of parasitism on the whole country that lives by exploiting the labour of several overseas countries and colonies.

    For Lenin, superprofits derived from imperialism allow the globally predominant bourgeoisie to pay inflated wages to sections of the (international) proletariat, who thus derive a material stake in preserving the capitalist system:

    In all the civilised, advanced countries the bourgeoisie rob—either by colonial oppression or by financially extracting “gain” from formally independent weak countries—they rob a population many times larger than that of “their own” country. This is the economic factor that enables the imperialist bourgeoisie to obtain super-profits, part of which is used to bribe the top section of the proletariat and convert it into a reformist, opportunist petty bourgeoisie that fears revolution.

    There are several pressing reasons why the haute bourgeoisie in command of the heights of the global capitalist economy pays its domestic working class super-wages, even where it is not forced to by militant trade-union struggle within the metropolis. Economically, the embourgeoisement of First World workers has provided oligopolies with the secure and thriving consumer markets necessary to capital’s expanded reproduction. Politically, the stability of pro-imperialist polities with a working-class majority is of paramount concern to cautious investors and their representatives in government. Militarily, a pliant and/or quiescent workforce furnishes both the national chauvinist personnel required to enforce global hegemony and a secure base from which to launch the subjugation of Third World territories. Finally, ideologically, the lifestyles and cultural mores enjoyed by most First World workers signifies to the Third World not what benefits imperialism brings, but what capitalist industrial development and parliamentary democracy alone can achieve.

    In receiving a share of superprofits, a sometimes fraught alliance is forged between workers and capitalists in the advanced nations. As far back as 1919, the First Congress of the Communist International (COMINTERN) adopted a resolution, agreed on by all of the major leaders of the world Communist movement of the time, which read:

    At the expense of the plundered colonial peoples capital corrupted its wage slaves, created a community of interest between the exploited and the exploiters as against the oppressed colonies—the yellow, black, and red colonial people—and chained the European and American working class to the imperialist “fatherland.”

    Advocates of imperialism understood very early on that imperialism would and could provide substantial and socially pacifying benefits to the working classes in imperialist countries. Cecil Rhodes, arch-racist mining magnate, industrialist and founder of the white-settler state of Rhodesia, famously understood British democracy as equaling imperialism plus social reform:

    I was in the West End of London yesterday and attended a meeting of the unemployed. I listened to the wild speeches, which were just a cry for “bread!” “bread!” and on the way home I pondered over the scene and I became more than ever convinced of the importance of imperialism … My cherished idea is a solution for the social problem, i.e., in order to save the inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods produced in the factories and the mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists.

    • redteaOP
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      2 years ago

      An apt quote!

      I’ve not read this book yet. Does Cope consider what happens when there is nowhere left to colonise? Is it just a constant process of rejuvenation?

      • Muad'DibberA
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        You mean what happens in the imperialist nations, or the colonized ones?

        Cope mainly focuses in this book about the global class differentials that pit imperial-core labor movements against global south proletarians, and make nearly all of them, especially the “eurocommunist” and demsoc movements, class-collaborationist with their own national bourgeoisies, in order to preserve their priviledges. I definitely loved the book, because it refused to tell the same old fairy-tales that reduce class to the baby-level / simplistic definition of working class as “earning a wage”, and frankly answered the question of why imperial-core labor movements have and continue to support imperialism… because it benefits their class interests.

        As for what happens when national bourgeoisie’s fight over a declining surplus and colonies start to dry up, he does get into some historical analysis of WW1 and 2, and the wars of the 19th century in europe, which are excellent.

        He agrees with Lenin that the periphery / 3rd world, where the majority of the super-exploited proletariat live and create surplus value, is where revolution is most likely to happen… but I regret to say that Cope is in the same vein as Parenti in bashing China, and failing to recognize that China’s strategy of multi-polarism, creating 3rd world trade networks, and ending US hegemony so that global south countries are free to build their own socialisms, is doing exactly that: undoing the division between rich and poor countries, and ending US imperialism.

        BTW dessalines has recorded that book as an audiobook, you can find it on youtube or torrents.

        • redteaOP
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          You answered my (poorly worded) question. I was wondering about how Cope synthesises the points in your quote with the problem that arises when imperialist powers have already divided up the colonies (in various forms) between themselves.

          It’s a common feature in modern Marxist literature. ‘China’ could represent the limits of acceptable speech even for radicals and ‘radical publishers’. A kind of self censorship and imposed censorship. Then new writers are brought up in a tradition where earlier radicals have unwaveringly misunderstood China, so it becomes the paradigm.

          Thanks for the tip. I think I’ll listen to that audiobook.

          Edit: typo

  • redteaOP
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    Considering the direction of the comments, this may be a good place for a shameless advert.

    We’re going to read The Red Deal in the NEBulae book club (there’s a link to the PDF, here, https://lemmygrad.ml/post/495869/comment/358528).

    We’ll read ‘Part I, Divest: End the occupation’ together this Wednesday 1 Feb, ‘Part II, Heal our bodies: Reinvest in our common humanity’ the next week, and ‘Part III, Heal our planet: Reinvest in our common future’ the week after.