Lets pretend for the sake of argument that morality isn’t a spook that should disregarded entirely. If everyone who wants to destroy imperialism moves out of the country, revolution isn’t going to happen. After all, who will be around to carry it out?

I’d say the ideal thing to do would be to stay and organize to chip away at the empire from within, not moving to another country. If that’s not feasible for whatever reason, moving does mean your taxes aren’t funding imperialism, but that’s also a minuscule amount per individual and it’s not going to have any effect unless there’s mass emigration, which won’t happen out of nowhere. Regardless, there’s no simple answer here. It depends on what country you’d be moving to and what you’d be able to do there compared to what you’d be able to do in your own country (and many other factors)

Comrades, am I missing something? Where is my argument flawed if it is flawed? Is there a justification to continue to pay into the war system when you have the option to stop?

According to Vorlander, ‘The moment anyone started to talk to Marx about morality, he would roar with laughter’ (Vorlander, 1904, p. 22; Lukes, 1985, p. 26).

I apologize in advance, but I find that this was a rather bizarre read. Almost like reading a text from those early proto-socialists of hundreds of years ago, before Marx, that were able to identify a problem but in response came with rather strange solutions to it.

As them, you identify accurately that the workers of imperialist nations are funding with their labor the war machines that the bourgeoisie uses to carve up the global south and exploit them in their pursue for the accumulation of capital. However, you have come up with a moral answer to it, all while ignoring the most important thing: is it useful?

Sure, moving abroad will make you cease paying a small share of your income to the military, and you may feel good thinking about it. But do you truly believe that this will hinder imperialism in any way? Perhaps you could argue that could make a difference if a noticeably large abount of people joined you: do you expect then that to ever materialize as a real event? Can you imagine hundreds of thousands of your country’s citizens leaving en masse to the global south in an organized movement to stop imperialism to be something that could happen in the future? Or does that sound to you as a rather idealist solution to pursue in comparison to a worker’s revolution?

A communist’s solutions are not based on an abstract and idealistic sense of morals: they are strategic and based on the pursue of real results in a material world. This is the only way to stop imperialism (and thus, ironically, what you could consider to be the moral choice).

Some really interesting ideas here.

I’ll challenge some of the points but this isn’t to disagree with the overall thesis, which, I think, is that you want to and that the rest of us should be doing the most to make the world a better place. Commendable.

Warning: some of this may seem a little bit doomer, but please take heart. We just have to identify the Marxist steps to take, and that requires the concrete analysis of concrete conditions. I’m not focusing on that here, as I’ll focus on reframing the issues that you raise. But if you want a positive view, you might enjoy:

• Lenin, What is to be Done?,
• The Red Nation, The Red Deal,
• Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything (I think that’s the one where she observers that we’re all hypocrites, but argues not to let it stop you from doing good),
• Aaron Bastani, Fully Automated Luxury Commission, or perhaps
• Erik Olin Wright, How to be an Anti-capitalist in the 21st Century.

(They’ve all got an uplifting and motivating message, in a round about way.)

The reason you might not find much literature along the lines of Singer from a Marxist perspective is because Singer is a Utilitarian and Marxists reject Utilitarianism. (Avoid Singer’s VSI on Marx, as he fatally misunderstands some of the basics.) This means, to be very crude about it, that Singer tries to weigh up all the possible good actions and bad actions and determine that if we only did this and stopped doing that, we could solve the world’s problems. He’s right, of course, but the world isn’t so simple.

Marxists tend to reject utilitarianism because it rests on individualism. The reason people don’t act in this super rational way is because the logic of capital (the economic base) overdetermines what is possible and how people act. Taking individual actions doesn’t change the underlying social relations. Marxists can and will weigh up the pros and cons of different actions. But this is just a natural part of being prudent. Utilitarians take it a step further and try to make this ‘logic’ universal.

Singer’s ideas can be traced through to Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. In Capital, vol 1, Marx calls Mill and/or Bentham philosophers who try to make philosophy out of common sense (paraphrasing the criticism).

As for the tax question, the figures need to be put into the context of imperialism. Two points.

First, before any worker is taxed, we need to account for the fact that their wages are as high as they are (even if they’re ‘low’, but especially if they are ‘middle’ or ‘high’) because the US constantly steals wealth from the global south. This isn’t to dispute the tax/military issue, but to observe that the tax/military issue is only one side of the tragedy – even if one could opt out of the tax/military problem, it wouldn’t resolve the mechanisms of global value transfer (GVT – see Zac Cope, *Wealth of (Some) Nations).

Second, US taxpayers don’t pay nearly enough tax to cover even it’s middling social safety net or military spending. The difference is covered by taxing corporations that use those above mechanisms of GVT to deny profits to foreign producers. (I’ll try to link a video that explains this in relation to energy markets.) Some of this is possible because the state can borrow against future taxes (we’ve already passed the point at which these debts could ever be paid back from ordinary income taxes alone, I believe).

Besides the context of imperialism, there’s the issue that (and I could be wrong about this) US citizens still owe taxes to the US even if they work in another country. If I’ve not been misinformed, I dread to think what the consequences would be of leaving and not paying (it may ‘just’ be inability to vote, but I’m unsure).

The actual rate of tax may also be higher if you include sales and property taxes of various sources – it’s not only paid on income. (Then there’s the issue of how much US imperialists are able to steal from US and foreign workers because workers in the US tend to ignore imperialism when they do organise.)

As for leaving the US. There are a few objections.

If all the people ‘free’ to leave, leave, who will be left to struggle within the US? A lot of the people who could leave are the ones with the least to lose and the most flexibility – people in the best position to organise, help the struggle, and reframe the debate; if this group includes the ones already committed to maximising the happiness and minimising pain, they are also best placed to ‘sacrifice’ their own conditions and demand that US workers stand on their own feet without looting the world.

If a US citizen does move abroad, where will they go? If it’s an English-speaking country, all the same problems arise. If not, but it’s in Europe or Japan, same issue. If not, and it’s the global south, what job will they get? I can’t see them moving to work in a mine in Africa or LatAm. They probably will still expect a ‘good job’, otherwise they become the person who would’ve stayed in the US because they can’t afford to emigrate. Not to mention that even if the emigre gets a job abroad, they’ll likely still be employed for a US or other imperialist firm, so they still extract your surplus to pay for their military. Nor do Marxists wish for workers to impoverish themselves. We struggle because workers are entitled to everything they produce.

Plus, almost everywhere on the planet is capitalist. So the only way this works is if the emigre organises workers when they arrive but (a) that might not go down very well as it’s a bit patronising, and (b) better to do that within the US. The difference is if you have skills or technology and the drive and a plan to help your destination country survive climate change.

As for the consumer question, it’s going to be difficult to shop ethically. There is no voluntary labour for workers under capitalism. (Well, actually, we do a shit load of labour for free, but that’s a different issue, I think.) You could find a local tailor who makes everything by hand. Where are the materials from? Cotton produced by enslaved prisoners domestically, or cotton produced in such a way that causes drought in the third world? Either option is terrible for so many people in the logistics chain and for the planet. These issues can only really be solved on the production side of the equation (rather than the consumer side). You can struggle for that at home.

When I say struggle, I’m not talking about protests and clashing with the police. Protests have their place but it’s limited and you don’t want to be one of those liberals who tries to get themselves arrested! I’m talking about building socialism. Making sure your community is fed and it’s children can read. Making sure that elderly neighbours can get their groceries and their bins emptied. Setting up a campaign to make a change (not just a petition, but with organisation and strategy).

I’m not saying don’t travel. Go for it if you can. It could be fun. But don’t go because it will make the world better. Chances are, it won’t, and there are better ways of doing that at home. Better to do as Kwame Ture says, and ‘organise, organise, organise’.

Lots of good points brought up already, but I wanted to add that even if this plan somehow succeeded, the outcome would not be a weaker military but deeper austery cuts to bridge the gap. This action would only hurt the most vulnerable working class in the US while doing nothing to affect US military power. Thinking about it, creating a larger pool of desperate people might help boost military recruitment, which is a problem they’ve been having for awhile now. So this might help them instead.

I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to use money to outmaneuver those who control the money.

Get yourself educated in a field that will be useful where you intend to go, we’ve got enough people teaching English without formal training. Braindrain is a serious problem in the periphery, we lose many of the engineers and doctors we train down here to the core. Bring useful skills, be prepared to work for the benefit of the of people in the land you relocate to. Take out loans in the core and bring that money with you, consider not repaying said loans.

Be humble when you come. You’ll inevitably be frustrated by differences in ways things are done, don’t criticise untill you’ve spent at least five or more years and have some real understanding of why things are as they are. Learn the language.

I don’t think so. In response to the proposed taxes dilemma I’ve heard that by not paying taxes you also don’t pay for infrastructure and other good stuff, though I didn’t find that argument particularly compelling. I think as westerners we have a moral imperative to fight for revolution and against imperialism. We must organize, agitate and propagandize, spread a lack of support for intervention, educate, do mutual aid, if you work in immoral job like a military contractor do your best to sabotage, and so on. I don’t see what good you can do by leaving, though I get the impulse to jump from a sinking ship. My moral question is is it moral to intentionally go into an immoral career if you commit to doing as much sabotage as you can?