Maoism-Third Worldism: 8 Point Program

[AvanteRedGarde]

As far as I can tell, this is the basic program of Maoism-Third Worldism. I retrieved this from Monkey Smashes Heaven. This is my abbreviated version.

The original is here: http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/sunrise-in-the-east/

1. "...There are no significant exploited social groups in the First World..."

2. "...The principle contradiction [...] is between the West and the East, the First World and the Third World... The principle enemy of the world's peoples is imperialism, especially U.S. imperialism. [Maoism-Third Worldism] upholds the broad united front against imperialism."

3. "At the core of revolutionary science today is the global people's war model... The world revolution can be represented as a torrential flood of people's wars that advance wave upon wave from the [Third World] to encircle and crush the [First World]."

4. "...The imposition of a joint dictatorship of the exploited nations and their allies over the exploiter populations... [Support for] the payment of massive reparations from the First World as a whole to the exploited and oppressed nations ...[and the] the disbanding of the United States and Canada (the White nation) as sovereign entities. This entails support for national liberation and self-determination for the oppressed (but often not exploited) nations currently held captive within the borders of the First World, especially within the borders of [the] U.S. and Canada, [and] requires [the] return of the land."

5. "At the core of revolutionary science today is the reaffirmation that a new bourgeoisie arises within the heart of power within a socialist society. This new bourgeoisie arises under the dictatorship of the proletariat due to remaining ideological problems, structural problems and inequalities... Cultural revolutions are needed to continue the forward momentum under the dictatorship of the proletariat , thus preventing counter-revolution. The causes for capitalist restoration are not just internal, but also external because the new bourgeoisie can be principally comprador. The [Great Proletarian] Cultural Revolution in China was the further advance towards communism in human history."

6. "...The rejection of both the Theory of Productive Forces and the associated idea that socialism is the mere extension and democratization of bourgeois privilege..."

7. "...The reaffirmation of the doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Class neutrality does not exist. There are no class-neutral institutions nor class neutral cultural spheres that can serve as a path for the proletariat to gain power... The old world must be destroyed with all-around dual institutional and cultural power."

8. "...People's war, broadly construed, must be carried through to the end. Without people's war, the proletariat cannot achieve state power. Without a people's army, the people have nothing..."

[PeaderO'Donnell]

6. "...The rejection of both the Theory of Productive Forces and the associated idea that socialism is the mere extension and democratization of bourgeois privilege..."


That is a huge step in the right direction. Some of the "Ultra-left" in the cultural revolution seem to have been moving in the direction of Communism...Of course they were turned on than by Mao.

[Saorsa]

This is rubbish.

[Q]

1. "...There are no significant exploited social groups in the First World..."
I stopped reading right here.

[AvanteRedGarde]

I stopped reading right here.

Why, did you have to rush out the door to pick up the latest consumer product?

[Andropov]

Why, did you have to rush out the door to pick up the latest consumer product?

Are you suggesting there are no exploited people in the First World?

[Wanted Man]

1. "...There are no significant exploited social groups in the First World..."
Stopped reading. Go live on €600 a month with no job security whatsoever. Oh, right, this stuff is only dreamt up by children of the new left baby boomers who have since made it big so that their kids could go to university with daddy's money so they could think of theories about why the dumb masses have not yet joined their righteous cause.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Maoism Third Worldism suggests that certainly. I was specifically implying that Q looks like a brat: someone who can't bear to sit and read something for 2 minutes, insofar as it challenges their established view of the world, and would rather chase after something more is either more fun or otherwise reinforces their previously established world-view.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Charming Man,

If you are from many European countries, a minimal level of security is afforded by the state. In between procurring subsistence, you certainly find ample time to opine on RevLeft.

Furthermore, what if I were to tell you that I'm from Nairobi, i make 60 euros a month and your upper-crust centric, worker fetishism is aboslute indicative of your privileged background.

In any case, identity politics- while useful for real revolutionary struggles- are indicative of intellectual weakness when it comes to actual debates on the realities of class and social relationships. Since there is no way of verifying your background (nor am i advocating that you or anyone else does), identity politics in this context is about as intellectuall stimulating as jerking off.

Furthermore, if I am a child of rich new-left baby boomers (which i suppose is true in a more philosophical manner than we are all children of the generation before us) in a sea of proles, it would certainly open the question as to why I advocate for revolutionary change whilst to "masses" of Europe and Amerika consistently don't.

[Q]

I guess I have to thank you AvanteRedGarde. Your nationalistic and reactionary asshattery is showing perfectly well why Maoism is completely unable to lead the workers movement.

Now please move along, we have no interest on how you feel so sorry for yourself.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Q. Wow. Still unable to actually argue over any specific point. Instead you are stuck in emotionalism. I must say, given that your first chose to subtract from my reputation leaving only "asshole" as a comment, I'm not entirely surprised.

In case anyone is wondering, the economic principals are already being debated in this thread: http://www.revleft.com/vb/few-questions-maoist-t95446/index.html

I would suggest reading through the second half of the first page and the entirety of the second page so you can see what has already been addressed. I would also suggest posting comments about economics there, so that i don't have to repeat myself as often.

I was specifically wondering about the other points and what people thought. I have my own criticism, but noone has raised them or similar ones yet nor asked me what i thought.

[Kassad]

1. "...There are no significant exploited social groups in the First World..."


Of course not. Women forced to accept lower wages and harassment? No big deal. Employers refusing to hire minority workers? That's just the way it is. LGBT couples being refused the same marriage rights as straight couples? They'll live. Workers being forced to choose between spending time with their families or survival? That's life.

You're disgusting.

[turquino]

Of course not. Women forced to accept lower wages and harassment? No big deal. Employers refusing to hire minority workers? That's just the way it is. LGBT couples being refused the same marriage rights as straight couples? They'll live. Workers being forced to choose between spending time with their families or survival? That's life.

You're disgusting.

That might be oppressive, but it's not exploitation.

[Kassad]

That might be oppressive, but it's not exploitation.

A company cuts its healthcare benefits at the expense of the workers and allows them to go without proper healthcare coverage, just so that company can make extra profits. That's exploiting the worker for personal gain. Are you brain dead?

[Hoxhaist]

1. "...There are no significant exploited social groups in the First World..."
This is not true!

[Hoxhaist]

Hoxha objected to a class system among nations and believed that developed and developing countries were equally exploited and that they both required revolutions. He saw the Three Worlds approach as an opportunity for China to create its own social-imperialist bloc

[turquino]

A company cuts its healthcare benefits at the expense of the workers and allows them to go without proper healthcare coverage, just so that company can make extra profits. That's exploiting the worker for personal gain. Are you brain dead?
A worker is exploited when they are paid less than the value of their labour. IF their wages and benefits combined were more than the value of their labour, then they weren't exploited in the first place.

[Kassad]

A worker is exploited when they are paid less than the value of their labour. IF their wages and benefits combined were more than the value of their labour, then they weren't exploited in the first place.

And that happens in America. A worker's needs are tossed aside to make way for further profits. You just made my argument, unless you're so ignorant that you think this doesn't happen in the United States.

[dez]

While I consider the third worldist proposal to be utopic, I also consider claims of dire exploitation on the first world to be farfetched.

Masses of oppressed workers in the third world go through near death risks to be able to work in a worse condition than workers in the first world (illegals), so that should tell you something about difference in relations of production in countries.
There is an aristocracy of labour, folks, and the bourgeoise uses you to maintain their world order and their status quo.




Another fun thing id like to point out are first world proles coming to third world nations to mingle with the local elite. That happens a lot actually. How do you explain that, by the way?

[Kassad]

No one here is saying that the people in impoverished and underdeveloped nations are exploited in the same manner as those in technologically developed and often imperialist countries. It's just totally ridiculous to claim that no social groups in the developed world are exploited. Workers are exploited everywhere that capitalism exists. There are varying factors, national characteristics and situations, but exploitation is universal. Regardless, it's very elitist for someone to preach from their pedestal and claim that all people in the developed world are merely malinformed consumers just because we were born and raised in a consumerist culture. It's not like we all fought for a spot in the most privileged countries and some people lost.

[redwinter]

Hoxha objected to a class system among nations and believed that developed and developing countries were equally exploited and that they both required revolutions. He saw the Three Worlds approach as an opportunity for China to create its own social-imperialist bloc

This is one of the places where Hoxha was wrong. The USA is "equally exploited" as Zambia, imperialism doesn't exist? For all his talk of "pure Marxism-Leninism" this goes straight up against Lenin's theory on imperialism. There is no labor aristocracy in the First World? Or is there one in the Third World too that is at the same level of "desperation" as First World unionized skilled factory workers making $70,000 a year? (Not to say there isn't a deeper and more oppressed section of the proletariat in every imperialist country, numbering in the tens of millions in the USA.)

To say that "it's all the same" is just not in line with reality -- kinda reminds me of the Trot ISO's article where they critiqued the RCP for writing that First World workers have better living conditions than in the Third World, having things like potable water and vaccines...

(This has nothing to do with the bullshit "Three Worlds Theory" put forward by Deng Xiaopeng, this is simply the communist analysis of imperialism from Lenin and Mao)

[AvanteRedGarde]

Another fun thing id like to point out are first world proles coming to third world nations to mingle with the local elite. That happens a lot actually. How do you explain that, by the way?

That's a damn good question. How does one explain the fact the Third Worlders come to the First to work in some of the lowliest occupation while First Worlders go to the Third world on vacation?? Thanks for the insight Organ!

[dez]

I understand there is a certain elitism involved in third worldism, but the fact that some people consider that they have more right to be politically active in the fight against exploitation does not mean that some of what they say might not be true.

While some people were born and raised in a consumerist culture, have more access to resources and jobs (yes, comparatively, there are different worlds), others starve to death and have virtually no way out of it, or work 48hrs a week to make less than $400 (per month, by the way. 69% of the brazilian economically active population is included there, and brazil is comparatively a rich country internationally!!!)!!

Think about people labouring their lives away in putrid conditions in sweatshops, merely because they have no better options, and think about first world proletarians, having few financial securities and not much extra money than what they need to live, but nevertheless having access to modern resources, technological developments and knowledge!
I am not saying people in ´developed` countries are not exploited, but there is a clear difference and that difference is determined by birth!
Nationalism and the bourgeoise once more get in the way of proletarian internationalism!

[dez]

That's a damn good question. How does one explain the fact the Third Worlders come to the First to work in some of the lowliest occupation while First Worlders go to the Third world on vacation?? Thanks for the insight Organ!


Not just on vacation.
They often stay here on jobs that pay almost what they make on their home countries, something that here puts them in a very wealthy economic cathegory...

[AvanteRedGarde]

So would you say that First Worlders who move to the Third World and find jobs are often amongst the richest 10-20% of your country.

Another interesting - perhaps inverse- phenomenon is people who've received advanced formal education in the Third World, will come to the First World and work as cab drivers, janitors and other menial occupations.

[AvanteRedGarde]

And why 48 hours? Is that typical? In America, 40 hours is considered "full time" and any time spent working beyond that is usually compensated at 50% above one's normal wage.

[dez]

So would you say that First Worlders who move to the Third World and find jobs are often amongst the richest 10-20% of your country.


More like 3-4%.
Internal cohesion of the latin american (and other third world elites, but Ill speak on the behalf of latin america because I have seen it) elite involves remembering their european origins and discriminating natives, so they have privileges (notably, language teaching schools). First world proletarians are also more qualified than third world proletarians, and have access to a wider variety of specialized jobs.
So what usually happens is that they come here, make a lot of money, get inserted in some high middle class circle and live in modern feudal enclaves (third world version of the american downtown) completely separated from the people and being worshipped for their godly (often) european background.



Another interesting - perhaps inverse- phenomenon is people who've received advanced formal education in the Third World, will come to the First World and work as cab drivers, janitors and other menial occupations.

And they do it happily, if they get a visa, because it pays.

[dez]

And why 48 hours? Is that typical? In America, 40 hours is considered "full time" and any time spent working beyond that is usually compensated at 50% above one's normal wage.

We have the same laws, maybe not the same compensation, but minimum wage here is $200.

People often have other ways of complementing their income, though, and an average of work time is 48hours.

Honestly, I dont have that background.
Im a middle class guy, really privileged, but that does not mean I cannot renounce my class identity and join the proletariat in their struggle.
Anyway, the reason I brought in my background is to give an example of a woman in my university. She works on two jobs (morning and night), studies in the university in the afternoon and has to take care of two children. Most people end up doing something of the sort. And she makes less than a prole would in any developed country.
:)

[AvanteRedGarde]

First Worlders are amongst richest 3-4% of Brazilian society?! That puts them right up next to the bourgeoisie, doesn't it?

[AvanteRedGarde]

Im a middle class guy, really privileged, but that does not mean I cannot renounce my class identity and join the proletariat in their struggle.


Well put. Me too

But their is a logical inconstancy in this and some of your previous, more ambiguous statements.

Let's use you as a hypothetical bar for exploitation.

If you are not exploited yet are poorer than most Americans, then most Americans are similarly not exploited- they are exploiters. This who lead to my position whereby i recognize my exploiter class-background, but instead opt to support the struggles what i recognize to be the proletariat.

The other option would be to say that most Americans are exploited, thus since you are poorer than most Americans, you are likely exploited also and part of the proletariat.

This begs the question of which is more likely.

[Wanted Man]

Charming Man,

If you are from many European countries, a minimal level of security is afforded by the state. In between procurring subsistence, you certainly find ample time to opine on RevLeft.

Furthermore, what if I were to tell you that I'm from Nairobi, i make 60 euros a month and your upper-crust centric, worker fetishism is aboslute indicative of your privileged background.
Nobody here is denying imperialism or even the fact that people from imperialist countries are privileged compared to those who aren't. Except maybe the most vulgar among the anarchists and trots. Yet while they are right-opportunists, the weird MIMite ideology is just the ultra-left side of the same coin.


In any case, identity politics- while useful for real revolutionary struggles- are indicative of intellectual weakness when it comes to actual debates on the realities of class and social relationships. Since there is no way of verifying your background (nor am i advocating that you or anyone else does), identity politics in this context is about as intellectuall stimulating as jerking off.

Furthermore, if I am a child of rich new-left baby boomers (which i suppose is true in a more philosophical manner than we are all children of the generation before us) in a sea of proles, it would certainly open the question as to why I advocate for revolutionary change whilst to "masses" of Europe and Amerika consistently don't.
Identity politics are useful for real revolutionary struggles, but not for discussing the realities of class? Umm, okay. Anyway, I guess it is indeed just "jerking off" and "intellectually weak" when a working class person is conscious of being exploited and advocates revolutionary change (a consciousness which you attack as "jerking off" from your ivory tower)...

The last paragraph just shows the idealist roots of your revisionist (and ultimately counter-revolutionary) worldview. Because you have made it your intellectual hobby (evidently not your class interest) to advocate revolutionary change, you feel exalted above the "masses" (scare quotes ftw!) of unwashed proles who are too dumb to even die for your "revolution" (read: being stuffed into "One Big Gulag" as fantasised by some MIM-ite nutjobs). Apparently, your individual ideas are more important than the class struggle of the working masses anywhere in the world. Which happens to make those ideas thoroughly bourgeois in their nature.

[Revy]

As far as I can tell, this is the basic program of Maoism-Third Worldism. I retrieved this from Monkey Smashes Heaven. This is my abbreviated version.

The original is here: http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/sunrise-in-the-east/

1. "...There are no significant exploited social groups in the First World..."

Wrong! The First World obviously has an exploited working class, and oppressed social groups. You "Third Worldists" have a flimsy definition of what the working class is.


The rest is a bunch of "Clash of the Civilizations" babble and lofty, meaningless phrases.

Revolution is not "crushing the First World". Revolution is crushing the capitalists, by uniting the international working class.

[dez]

Well put. Me too

But their is a logical inconstancy in this and some of your previous, more ambiguous statements.

Let's use you as a hypothetical bar for exploitation.

If you are not exploited yet are poorer than most Americans, then most Americans are similarly not exploited- they are exploiters. This who lead to my position whereby i recognize my exploiter class-background, but instead opt to support the struggles what i recognize to be the proletariat.

The other option would be to say that most Americans are exploited, thus since you are poorer than most Americans, you are likely exploited also and part of the proletariat.

This begs the question of which is more likely.

I dont recognize me or americans as exploiters per se, but as labourers privileged by a system of exploitation that often take reactionary positions to preserve what little was given to them by their bourgeoise overlords.


A good comparison is the imperialist colonial strategy, in which the colonialists picked a small group to be privileged to legitimize their exploitation of the people and usage of the natural resources of a colonized country.

[redwinter]

Well put. Me too

But their is a logical inconstancy in this and some of your previous, more ambiguous statements.

Let's use you as a hypothetical bar for exploitation.

If you are not exploited yet are poorer than most Americans, then most Americans are similarly not exploited- they are exploiters. This who lead to my position whereby i recognize my exploiter class-background, but instead opt to support the struggles what i recognize to be the proletariat.

The other option would be to say that most Americans are exploited, thus since you are poorer than most Americans, you are likely exploited also and part of the proletariat.

This begs the question of which is more likely.

I think it's important here to define what exploitation is. It is not simply a quantum of income in some reductionist way (I make $5 an hour, you make $5 a month. I therefore exploit you.)

It has to do with the relations of a class of people to the means of production. If there are people doing labor, that labor has to be exploited (with the extraction of surplus value) to be profitable and the capitalists would not be able to survive by giving overvalued paychecks to the proletariat in the First World and make it up in the Third World. In fact, if we look at the statistics there is much more (by a factor of several times) imperialist foreign investment (quantitatively) going on *between* imperialist countries, than in the Third World. Germany's BMW opens up factories in South Carolina, USA, and the USA's General Motors opens factories in Ontario, Canada - and even deeper than that you have huge amounts of speculation and billions of dollars exchanged in investments by blocs of finance capital rooted in different imperialist countries.

This is not to say something puerile like "There is no imperialism or difference between oppressed nations and imperialists," there are very real differences and the fact is that in the oppressed nations (where there wasn't even the establishment a significant local bourgeoisie that could act independently of foreign imperialist domination) all economic development is distorted and twisted to the interests of imperialism. For instance the railroads in many oppressed countries in Latin America or Africa were constructed specifically to go from the sources of raw materials to the coasts -- not even between the cities for the people of the country itself to be able to use. So development, even through capitalism, is heavily retarded and held back, and there is often a semi-feudal, semi-colonial situation going on with feudal property relations persisting outside of the main sites of imperialist investment (concentrated in the cities where the local lackey bourgeoisie has its power).

This presents a problem for the imperialist bourgeoisie, because then they have some real necessities imposed on them as far as their labor force goes. They have held back development so many people are illiterate, but still need people to do a lot of skilled labor. They can train people in the oppressed countries to a certain extent (which we saw with the wave of factory closings and the decline in manufacturing in the USA from the 1970s on) but there are some things that they need a labor force that has had more investment in education and training that they don't want to provide to the other countries. Also, in some industries like meatpacking, construction, or transportation, they are jobs that literally cannot be exported (with current technology) - so the ones that are relatively less in need for formal skills they can try to import some workers from oppressed countries and superexploit them in the imperialist citadels, but others they still are going to need to use that First World labor (which is also under attack).

Another thing is to compare cost of living. In New York City, to have a 3m by 3m studio apartment, last I heard, was around $1000 per month (this could be wrong - I never lived there - new yorkers feel free to give current data). Just to pay rent one month would require more money than the average person in central Africa might earn in a year - does that mean that scientifically there is a relationship of exploitation between the two?

[turquino]

If the total social product of £37 trillion (2007 nominal GDP) is divided amongst the working population of the world (say 2/3 the population: £37 trillion ÷ 4.5 billion), each working 2000 hours per year, then the result is an hourly wage of ~£4/hour, lower than the current minimum wage in the United Kingdom. And that wage is generous because the GDP estimate is probably too high and most of the world works longer than 40 hours per week. It's clear that if every worker in the world received even the UK minimum wage of £5.73/hour, total profits would be negative, so we can infer that the exploitation of labour must be concentrated in low wage countries and especially high wages are made possible by this exploitative international relationship.

Marx had reservations about the revolutionary potential of English workers at a time when their wages were only 4x that of workers in the colonies. Today English wages are on average about 10-15x higher than workers in China or India, and they benefit from generous social programs. A global leveling of income would be to the detriment of most workers in the capitalist centre. Hopefully this current capitalist crisis 'proletarianizes' some of the West's working class and a real class conscious movement can be born. If fascism takes hold, then they are probably the most reliable social class to oppose it.


Another thing is to compare cost of living. In New York City, to have a 3m by 3m studio apartment, last I heard, was around $1000 per month (this could be wrong - I never lived there - new yorkers feel free to give current data). Just to pay rent one month would require more money than the average person in central Africa might earn in a year - does that mean that scientifically there is a relationship of exploitation between the two?You are right, there are differences in the cost of living between New York and Central Africa -- particularly in housing. However, keep in mind that the type of housing most people live in other parts of the world cannot even be obtained in North America, and would probably be condemned if it existed. It reminds me of an article i read about americans making over $100000 a year who claimed they were only just able to get by because they needed a 4000 square foot home and a boat. Clearly they had exaggerated ideas about the level of consumption necessary.

[redwinter]

the other question for the "third worldists": is the labor theory of value still valid?

i think it's useful to look at global income statistics and turquino is right to point out the living conditions in Central Africa for many are much worse (even than the homeless) in New York City.

so there's definitely benefits to everyone living in imperialist countries that come directly from superexploitation of the oppressed countries. the question is: does that mean everyone in the imperialist country somehow (maybe metaphysically?) is directly an exploiter of the third world in an economic sense? i know lenin said that revolutionaries had to be willing to tell workers in their countries that they will have lower living standards after the revolution - and i know the revolutionary communist party, usa, today is saying the same thing, and that it's going to be much more drastic than even it was for russia (that "prisonhouse of nations"). and is there no exploitation going on in the first world, and no potential for a revolutionary situation among the masses? that's what i think is unscientific about the claims of the thirdworldists.

btw here's that article i cited earlier in this thread:
"U.S. Imperialism, Islamic Fundamentalism…and the Need for Another Way" by Sunsara Taylor
http://revcom.us/a/091/iso-polemic-en.html

[Prairie Fire]

Oh, these third-worldists...



Why, did you have to rush out the door to pick up the latest consumer product?


The third worldist (and generally petty-bourgeois) fixation with "consumerism".

http://shubelmorgan.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/hatamshopb.png
(Courtesy of Maoist third-worldist Shubel Morgan)


It is not an accident that Maoist third-worldists, anarchists, primitivists, hippies/social democrats, and basically all of the "left' who become political within a country under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and are not members of a party of the working class, share common features.

Paramount among them is this feeling that "Consumerism" is the enemy.

As I said in a previous thread, this is a manifestation of Petty bourgeois guilt.
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1340813&postcount=28

A scientific communist understands that "consumerism" is not the issue.

Only the most foolish persyn would deny that the working class (and all humyn beings, in general,) require food, clothing,medical supplies, and other items. Under capitalism, these items, and all fruits of social production, are manufactured by private companies and distributed through private retail outlets.

In other words, "buy shit, or starve." There is no alternative mode of accumulation and distribution, and upstart utopian projects of idealistic survival agriculture by petty-bourgeois (who feel guilty for buying shit),
always lead to ruin. For a more in-depth analysis of this trend, see here:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1275931&postcount=13

The conclusion that the petty bourgeois comes to is that it is the fault of the workers, for gathering the goods that they need in this way, and that the "solution" is limited to life-style choices: boycotts, survival agriculture, or in this case, kill all the honkeys, and usher in a bright new world of idealistic survival agriculture ( Is survival agriculture practical or desirable to attend to the needs of over 6 billion humyn beings? Is small scale production a practical form of providing needed commodities to humynity? Are there, perhaps, reasons, that modes of accumulation and distribution arose? ).


The conclusion that the revolutionary workers and communists come to is that the blame lies upon the ruling class, the bourgeoisie, for appropriating the products of social production and distributing them in this way, and that the solution is to mobilize the working class to overthrow capitalism, and replace it with a new kind of socio-economic mode of production and distribution.

Here is Marx on the subject:



We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labor, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labor of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the laborer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.


Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriations
- Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party

Taking a class vague beef with "Consumerism" is idealist bullshit that ignores the real needs of the working class and humynity, ignores the fact that commodities and materials necesary to the sustainability of humyn life have to be procurred somehow, ignores the class relations to political power, the under-pinnings of why the dominant system of accumulation and appropriation is capitalism, and substitutes life style choices and persynal whims for dialectics and material conditions.

On top of all of this, from the binary "First world=para$ite, third world=
WIN!" outlook, need I remind the various pettty-bourgeois ideologues that
Being as almost the entire world is (currently) capitalist, the same
mode of accumulation and distribution is employed in the first world, and also in the "third world".




http://www.sierraleonetravel.com/freetown_flights_sierra_leone_flights/king_jimmy_market.jpg
Out door market, Freetown, Seirra Leone

OMG! OMFG! The glorious third world proletariat exchange currency for commodities?!!!Nooooooo!!!! Con$umeri$$m!

Lies! Bourgeoi$ Amerikkkan lies! A complete fabrikkkation!

Anyways, this fixation on "consumerism" does not challenge class relations,address why the current modes of production arose in the first place, or address the practicalities of meeting the needs of sustaining humynity. It is idealist crap without material basis.

Now, in regards to MonkeySmash heavens "manifesto":



1. "...There are no significant exploited social groups in the First World..."

This line varies from third-worldist to third-worldist.

A.)Some argue "There are no exploited social groups in the first world".

B.)Others argue "there are no white exploited social groups in the first world".


Both are bullshit, but first to tackle "A".

- Aboriginal peoples
Need I say more?

- "Temporary foreign workers"
http://cpcml.ca/Tmld2009/D39052.htm#1

(From the article)


In recent years the Canadian government has essentially replaced immigration with a program of indentured labour. At the same time, it has created conditions where more and more workers are undocumented and are considered "illegal." The federal government reported in December, 2008 that there were 252,196 temporary foreign workers in Canada in December 2008, 57,843 of whom are working in Alberta.

These workers are indentured to one employer and are provided renewable permits which allow them to work for one or two years. It is estimated that there are as many as 200,000 undocumented workers in Canada. Both the temporary foreign workers' program and the undocumented status are weapons used by the state to create a vulnerable strata of workers who can then be targeted for the worst exploitation with the aim of targetting the rights of all.

- National "minorities" (non-"white" proletarians, born in the "first world")

(Tim wise youtube talks:
"white like me" 1-8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG9h-0UO_Nc

" On white privlidge" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UJlNRODZHA&feature=PlayList&p=1EA205970C185CBA&index=0&playnext=1)


- Trafficked sex slaves:


estimated 600,000 to 820,000 men, women, and children [are] trafficked across international borders each year, approximately 70 percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors. The data also illustrates that the majority of transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation
United states state department.


That is just a few millions off of the top of my head. Now to tackle "B":

- Womyn:

Womyn are still no-where close to equal with their male counterparts anywhere on the planet earth, but certainly not in the "first world". Even third-worldist grand-daddy MIM recognized the social gender inequality, which lead them to take the extreme stance that "all sex is rape" under capitalism.

-The average Canadian womyn earns 72 cents on the dollar for every man, according to "earnings of men and womyn" published by statistics Canada, 1994.

- 1 in 6 womyn is attacked or raped in North America.

-Every single minute in America there are 1.3 forcible rapes of adult womyn.
(Kilpatrick, Dean, Christine Edwards, and Anne Seymour. April 1992. "Rape in America: A Report to the Nation," from "The National Women's Study", sponsored by the National institute of Drug Abuse, National Victim Center and National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center at the Medical University of South Carolina, Washington, D.C. )

Despite many of these facts, some third worldists take the standpoint of enlightened patriarchy:

"In the First World, gender is less and less connected to biology. Due to the high standard of living made possible through imperialism and advances in technology, First World women are less and less confined to traditional social and reproductive roles. First World women have access to a high degree of life options that are not strictly limited by reproduction as has been the general situation for women in the past. For this reason, inequalities between First World men and First World women should not be confused with traditional patriarchal oppression which is centered around biology and reproduction. Rather, these remaining inequalities should be considered a residual effect from traditional patriarchal oppression. It is likely that over time, these echoes of traditional oppression will become less pronounced."
MonkeySmashHeaven, March 8th 2009

-"White" proletarians:

35 million Americans faced hunger in 2006
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1432658720071114

Third worldists have actually argued to me before that (somehow)going without food is worse in the third world then in the first world.

Starvation is starvation.



2. "...The principle contradiction [...] is between the West and the East, the First World and the Third World...


So there is, in essence, no classes, only countries :rolleyes:.

The "third world" countries have no national bourgeoisie, and the "first world" countries have no working class.

It was this anti-Marxist line that lead the Peoples Republic of China to support Mobutu Sese Seko, Augusto Pinochet, the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, UNITA in Angola. In realpolitik application, this theory manifested itself as shameless Qaddafi-style proliferation of weaponry and aid, in the aim of expanding the social-imperialist sphere of the PRC.



3. The world revolution can be represented as a torrential flood of people's wars that advance wave upon wave from the [Third World] to encircle and crush the [First World]."


Misinterpretation of legitimate national-liberation struggles, padded with the hopes and dreams of the guilty petty-bourgeoisie.


4. "...The imposition of a joint dictatorship of the exploited nations and their allies over the exploiter populations..


As I said, to the third-worldist liberal there are no classes, only nations.
This is akin to the fascists, who see "race" as a unifying bond.

If any of these petty-bourgeoisie ever found themselves in a revolutionary situation, they may be dissapointed to see that national identity counts for very little.


the disbanding of the United States and Canada (the White nation) as sovereign entities.

Charming.

I don't think that this is the case in the US either, but at least in Canada there are two distinct "white" nations, one of which was subservient to the other.

Even though the Maoist scabs take the line that the Quebecois were also a settler state (ironically, they only seem to recognize "nation on nation"
clashes, but not in this case). While it is true that they were a culture that settled from across the ocean, and under different circumstances they also could have been genocidal conquerers, in anglo-canada they were generally refered to for the longest time as "white niggers" (like the Irish in the US and abroad), which speaks volumes about their socio-economic position that they occupied in the country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Niggers_of_America

Also, this raises an interesting question: Canada and the USA do not have homogenous ethnic make up in their population. There are millions of non-white people in the first world who, by third worldist standards, also are guilty of the Maoist "original sin" (aka, living in an imperialist country), and therefore also profit in-directly from the exploitation of countries abroad.
The program aknowledges this:

...This entails support for national liberation and self-determination for the oppressed (but often not exploited) nations currently held captive within the borders of the First World...

What happens to them, when the "global peoples war" comes? If they fit the same "exploiter" criteria as the "white" proletarians, why are they spared the impending genocide that is apparently reserved for millions on the basis of skin pigmentation?



5. "At the core of revolutionary science today is the reaffirmation that a new bourgeoisie arises within the heart of power within a socialist society.


I will agree with this part, but not with this:



The [Great Proletarian] Cultural Revolution in China was the further advance towards communism in human history.


An excerpt from "Imperialism and the Revolution", by Enver Hoxha:


But what attracted our Party's attention most was the Cultural Revolution, which raised a number of major questions in our minds. During the Cultural Revolution, initiated by Mao Tsetung, astonishing political, ideological and organizational ideas and actions came to light in the activity of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese state, which were not based on the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.

In judging their previous dubious actions, as well as those observed during the Cultural Revolution, and especially the events following this revolution up till now, the rises and falls of this or that group in the leadership, today the group of Lin Piao, tomorrow that of Teng Hsiao-ping, a Hua Kuo-feng, etc., each of which had its own platform opposed to the other's, all these things impelled our Party to delve more deeply into the views and actions of Mao Tsetung and the Communist Party of China, to get a more thorough knowledge of "Mao Tsetung thought" When we saw that this Cultural Revolution was not being led by the party but was a chaotic outburst following a call issued by Mao Tsetung, this did not seem to us to be a revolutionary stand.

It was Mao's authority in China that made millions of unorganized youth, students and pupils, rise to their feet and march on Peking, on party and state committees, which they dispersed. It was said that these young people represented the "proletarian ideology" in China at that time and would show the party and the proletarians the "true" road!

Such a revolution, which had a pronounced political character, was called a cultural revolution. In our Party's opinion, this name was not accurate, since, in fact, the movement that had burst out in China was a political, not a cultural movement. But the main thing was the fact that neither the party nor the proletariat were in the leadership of this "Great proletarian revolution". This grave situation stemmed from Mao Tsetung's old anti-Marxist concepts of underestimation of the leading role of the proletariat and overestimation of the youth in the revolution.

Mao wrote: "What role did the Chinese young people begin to play since the 'May 4th Movement'? In a way they began to play a vanguard role - a fact recognised by everybody in our country except the ultra-reactionaries. What is a vanguard role? It means taking the lead...". Mao

Thus the working class was left on the sidelines, and there were many instances when it opposed the red guards and even fought them. Our comrades, who were in China at that time, have seen with their own eyes factory workers fighting the youth. The party was disintegrated. It was liquidated, and the communists and the proletariat were totally disregarded. This was a very grave situation.

Our Party supported the Cultural Revolution, because the victories of the revolution in China were in danger. Mao Tsetung himself told us that power in the party and state there had been usurped by the renegade group of Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping and the victories of the Chinese revolution were in danger. In these conditions, no matter who was to blame that matters had gone so far, our Party supported the Cultural Revolution.


Our Party defended the fraternal Chinese people, the cause of the revolution and socialism in China, and not the factional strife of anti-Marxist groups, which were clashing and fighting with one another, even with guns, in order to seize power.

The course of events showed that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was neither a revolution, nor great, nor cultural, and in particular, not in the least proletarian. It was a palace Putsch on an all-China scale for the liquidation of a handful of reactionaries who had seized power.

Of course, this Cultural Revolution was a hoax. It liquidated both the Communist Party of China, and the mass organizations and plunged China into new chaos. This revoltion was led by non-Marxist elements, who have been liquidated through a military putsch staged by other anti-Marxist and fascist elements.




6. "...The rejection of both the Theory of Productive Forces and the associated idea that socialism is the mere extension and democratization of bourgeois privilege..."

I think that this reveals the foundations of Maoism third-worldism: Idealism and whim.

To the third-worldists, just as there are no classes(only nations), there are no material conditions, no dialectics, no class struggle. In this theory,
the basis of all social change hinges on having the proper ideas.:rolleyes:

Therefore, the concept that the world (or even a single country) can reach the socio-economic stage of communism,without revolutionizing production and providing for the needs of their working masses, is totally feasible. Apparently, by wishing upon a red star, communism and a classless society of plenty can materialize from lifestyle choices and small scale survival agriculture. :lol:


"...it is only possible to achieve real liberation in the real world... by employing real means... slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine and the mule and spinning-jenny, serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture, and... in general, people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. “Liberation” is a historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions, the development of industry, commerce, agriculture, the conditions of intercourse [Verkehr]...
Karl Marx and Freiderich Engels, the German Ideology

Then again, fuck those two crackers, right? White imperiali$t para$ites!



7. "...The reaffirmation of the doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Class neutrality does not exist. There are no class-neutral institutions nor class neutral cultural spheres that can serve as a path for the proletariat to gain power... The old world must be destroyed with all-around dual institutional and cultural power."


I would agree, but this is funny coming from a manifesto that preachs for "the third world" to encircle the "first world". It is next to impossible to hold such a view without feeling that national identity determines wether or not you are revolutionary.

On the one hand these third-worldists preach from a pulpit of "one nation politics" and class conciliation (not unlike the PRC itself.Their flag alone displays four small stars representing four classes: the proletariat, peasantry, petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie. From the begining, the Chinese amalgamated their exploiter classes into the make up of their
"socialist" state, and Mao himself said “Just as everyone should share what food there is…there should be no monopoly of power by a single party, group, or class" Mao Tse-tung, “New-Democratic Constitutional Government”. Mao’s speech was delivered before the Yenan Association for the Promotion of Constitutional Government on February 20, 1940)

On the other hand, they embrace convenient amnesia, pay lip service to Marxism-Leninism, and all of the sudden aknowledge class divisions, after attributing all struggle in the world to narrow national identities and the political boundries of countries.:lol:



8. "...People's war, broadly construed, must be carried through to the end. Without people's war, the proletariat cannot achieve state power. Without a people's army, the people have nothing..."


...and here we are again, back to class-conciliation. As with the Kruschevites and their negation of the dictatoship of the proletariat as a class, in favour of the "party of the whole people", the Maoists also embrace the class-conciliationist, class-vague mantle of the Peoples war.
Does this "people"'s war include exploiter classes, like the national bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie? Well, in China it did.

And then, these are the same bunch who accuse all first world workers of being complicit exploiters, while ignoring blatant conciliation with the bourgeoisie in Maoist China, and advocated by other Maoist parties :lol:!

“The labour laws of the people’s republic…will not prevent the national bourgeoisie from making profits…” Mao Tse-tung, “On Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism”. Mao’s speech “On Tactics” was delivered at the conference of Party activists which was held at Wayaopao, northern Shensi, after the Wayaopao meeting of the Politburo of the CC in December 1935.

“Inevitably, the bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeoisie will give to their own ideologies…you cannot expect them to do otherwise…We should not use the method of suppression and prevent them from expressing themselves…” Mao Tse-Tung, Selected Readings, 1st ed., p.466


Anyways,here is my take on third-worldism:

Well, it is true no doubt that to some extent the peoples of the advanced imperialist countries do live off of the backs of the "third world"; this is
imperialism. The ruling class does part with some of it's profits to
create an environment where they won't get lynched in public, this I do not deny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Xe1kX7Wsc&feature=PlayList&p=95592789F55AF875&index=0&playnext=1

However, there are many flaws with the Maoist outlook on this:

1. Proletarians in imperialist countries have no say in this; we can't
exactly refuse the bribe, even if for some crazy reason we wanted to.

If you acknowledge the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat, conversely you must aknowledge that a dictatorship of the bourgeosie exists in the imperialist countries ( and pretty much every country, actually).

If you aknowledge the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, you need to aknowledge that workers in imperialist countries have no say in the politics and governance of a country.

For example, in my country the population (predominantly "white") is consistently 60-70% against Canadian involvement in Afghanistan. In sharp contrast to this, the bourgeois parlaiment votes unanimously in favour of continuing the occupation everytime it comes up; no one has abstained the vote, no one has voted against.

That's right; these cracker parasites are being ignored by their fellow cracker parasites in the parliament. It's almost as if there was some other type of division between them... like a class, or something...

2. What is today an imperialist country, might be a "third world
country" in a century or less. A neo-colonial possession can also
become an imperialist power in it's own right in a century or less.

Turkey used to be the pinnacle of a powerful empire up until 1923.
Now, they are an impoverished country with mandatory military service and a minimum wage of €302.61 per month (around 474$ US).

As with the falacie of third worldists refusing to aknowledge dialectics, they can not understand that the economic situation and balance of geopolitical power is constantly in motion, hence using nations and countries as a basis (substitute) for class struggle is flimsy.



Marxist-Leninist dialectics teaches us that there is no limit to
development, that nothing stops changing. In this process of unceasing development towards the future, quantitative and qualitative changes occur. Our epoch, like any other, is characterized by profound
contradictions which Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin defined so clearly.
It is the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, hence, of
great quantitative and qualitative transformations which lead to
revolution and the seizure of power by the working class in order to
build the new socialist society."
- Enver Hoxha, Revolution and Imperialism

3. Revolutionary content is not based on skin colour, nor race, nor
geographic location.

Tin pot dictators like Pinochet and Mobutu were from the glorious "third world', and Maoist hero Norman Bethune was from the "first world".

Whether or not you are a revolutionary has nothing to do with racialism or geographic location.



4. No proletariat is "more deserving" of revolution than others, and it is not "national chauvenist" to have a revolution. Here is an excerpt
by Hoxha from "Imperialism and revolution":

" Marxist-Leninists always bear in mind that in all countries, with the
exception of those where. the revolution has triumphed and socialist
order has been established, there are the poor classes with the
proletariat at the head, and the wealthy classes with the bourgeoisie
at the head.

In every capitalist state, wherever it may be, and however democratic or progressive, there are oppressed and oppressors, there are exploited and, exploiters, there are antagonisms there is merciless class struggle. The varying intensity of this struggle does not alter this reality. This struggle has its ups and downs, but it exists and cannot be quelled.

It exists everywhere, it exists in the United States of
America between the proletariat and the imperialist bourgeoisie, it
exists, likewise, in the Soviet Union, where Marxism-Leninism has been
betrayed and a new bourgeois-capitalist class which oppresses the
working people of that country, has been created. Classes and the class
struggle exist also in the second world., as in France, Britain, Italy,
West Germany, Japan. They exist also in the "third world", in India,
Zaire, Burundi, Pakistan, the Philippines, etc.

Only according to Mao Tsetung's theory of "three worlds", classes and the class struggle do not exist in any country. It does not see them, because it judges countries and peoples according to bourgeois geo-political concepts and the level of their economic development....

...But the class struggle, the struggle of the proletariat and its
allies to take power and the struggle of the bourgeoisie to maintain
its power can never be extinguished. This is an irrefutable truth and
no amount of empty theorizing about the "worlds", whether the "first
world", the "non aligned world", the third world, the nonaligned
world., or the umpteenth world, can alter this fact. To accept such a
division, means to renounce and abandon the theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on classes and the class struggle."

5. "Why won't the first world workers rebel then?" asks the third worldist.

The answer to this lies in basic Marxism-Leninism.

On the one hand, workers work, hence the reason for a vanguard party. the most advanced elements of the working class are generally those who have a bit of time to acquire the conciousness to play a leadership role. The rest are stuck in the daily grind, and when you are consumed with your material existence, social change is rarely on the radar.

On the other hand, as Lenin said, "the ruling ideas in society are the ideas of the ruling class". National Chauvenism, sexism, homophobia... these are learned behaviours propagated by the dissimenators of bourgeois ideology.

The same reason many "first world" workers display jingoistic imperialist support and ethnocentrism is the same reason that I have met other womyn who aspire to be submissive housewives: they have no "stake" in being a house-wife, it is simply the dominant ideology and social norms that they have been indoctrinated with.



In conclusion, the entire theory of "third worldism" is ridiculous. While I aknowldge that the exploitation and oppression is relative, one has to keep in mind that even in the dawn of the industrial revolution, the oppressed and starving masses of Dickensian England were living in a country that was profiting off of un-developed colonies abroad.

In the third worldists opinion, that would make even the most wretched of English street paupers a "labour aristocrat", because they live in an imperialist country. As my family is catholic, this whole thing strikes me as the Maoist version of Original sin. Just as a catholic baby is born "sinful", a child born in the first world is a "parasite" and a "little eichmann" in the eyes of the petty bourgeois ideologues of third-worldism.

At the end, it becomes a question of tactics, because while recognizing imperialism, it becomes a question of "what are we going to do about it"?

Now, we can either join a Marxist-Leninist party, and prepare the workers for revolution, or we can follow the lead of MIM, monkeysmashheaven,IRTR,Shubel mogan,etc, and simply sow defeatism, and disorient the revolutionary movement rather than build it.

Imperialism wil be smashed by the working class rising up and defeating their imperialist governments, not by saying a few "hail Mao's", going to confession (self criticisms), and seeking forgiveness for being born in an imperialist country.

[Saorsa]

Maoism and Third Worldism are two very different things. It's disgraceful these idiots equate one with the other.

[PoWR]

Comrades already debunked this crap here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../marx-engels-lenin-t62589/index.html) before.


...companies couldn't continue on if they were not exploiting their workers.

Of course there is a labor aristocracy, labor lieutenants.. trade union bureaucrats and the like..

All workers -- or even the majority or a large portion -- cannot belong to this aristocracy. The workings of capitalism (the very ones that gave rise to this upper crust) don't allow it, and the aristocracy itself could not live without a mass base of workers to rest on.

And of course workers in the imperialist-oppressed countries often have it subjectively worse than workers in the imperialist countries.. and indeed the capitalists in the imperialist countries super-exploit the workers in the imperialist-oppressed countries, and use the cheap consumer goods they make as they spread consumerism in their imperialist countries, taking workers’ minds off of their exploitation, alienation and the like..

But it cannot be confused that the majority of the population in the imperialist countries, like the imperialist-oppressed ones, are workers, and to advocate a scab line against them lines you up with the capitalist bosses, no matter the color of the flag you fly.

Instead, what this means, is that we must whole heartedly support the struggles in the imperialist-oppressed countries, which can deal death blows to imperialism, bring crisis to the imperialist countries, and signal the beginning of the end for capitalism.
"The epoch of imperialism is one in which the world is divided among the “great” privileged nations that oppress all other nations. Morsels of the loot obtained as a result of these privileges and this oppression undoubtedly fall to the share of certain sections of the petty bourgeoisie and to the working-class aristocracy and bureaucracy. These strata, which form an insignificant minority of the proletariat and of the toiling masses, gravitate towards “Struvism”, because it provides them with a justification of their alliance with their “own” national bourgeoisie, against the oppressed masses of all nations." - V.I. Lenin The Collapse of the Second International (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/csi/iii.htm#v21pp74h-217)
"...imperialist capitalism creates both in colonies and semicolonies a stratum of labor aristocracy and bureaucracy..." [so, the aristocracy is not just in the imperialist countries]. - Trotsky, “Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay.”
http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch1en/conc1en/img/carprod1950-1999.gif

Automobile production of the world. As you see, the three main imperialist countries still produce half of the world's cars. Add to that France and Italy's production - and it is clear that at least that sector of industry still makes most of its surplus value in the first world.
The workers in every country are oppressed and exploited, that's how capitalism functions. The same capitalist class is doing the exploiting and oppressing all around the world. The capitalist elite that exploit my uncle in a coke mill in Pittsburgh are the same capitalist elite that exploit another brother in another mill in Mexico, and another in Colombia.

Another problem you seem to have is your failure to understand that the world economy is not a zero sum game.

No one denies that there are all kinds of horrors being waged by imperialists all over the world, but to try to pin those on working people is as disgusting as it is un-communist.

You want to "criticize" someone? Criticize the bourgeoisie and organize against their rule. Even if every worker in the imperialist countries voluntarily gave up a large chunk of their wages (which they wouldn't do, as its against their material interests, and people act in their material interests--another basic communist understanding) the super-exploitation of workers in the imperialist oppressed countries would continue as it is, and even get worse (gains by workers in one place have a tendency to lead to gains by workers in other places as well). The only people that would benefit are the capitalist elite. In that regard, your line serves them well.

Communism isn't about working people anywhere taking the hit; it's about working people everywhere wrestling the means of production out of the hands of the bourgeoisie to reorganize society along democratic lines, in the interest of meeting human need.
Then there's the fact that industrial production has increased in the imperialist countries since the 1980's.

That's the case in the U.S., Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Spain and the UK.

Source (http://www.anonym.to/?http://allcountries.org/uscensus/1381_index_of_industrial_production_by_country.htm l)
It is in ["First World workers'"] interests to struggle against the exploitation of workers in the imperialist-oppressed countries because (a) the workers in imperialist and imperialist-oppressed countries share a common enemy and (b) the betterment of conditions in the imperialist-oppressed countries would prevent the worsening of conditions in the imperialist countries (when the bourgeoisie doesn't have a place with cheaper labor to run to, or lower-paid workers to bring in, when workers start fighting). This is all basic communist theory.
The tertiary sector in Mexico holds the biggest percentage of workers...

So this means all of them are basically parasites huh?
No, a perfect example of parasitism is a guy who inherits a factory and becomes a millionaire without ever lifting a finger.

A ticket-taker at a movie theater is a perfect example of a prole, who helps in the realization of profit and expansion of capital.

Let's say a capitalist owns a movie theater. He buys a reel of a new movie that comes out (do they still use reels? doesn't really matter) for $10,000.. Then he shows that movie for three weeks and makes $500,000. Where did that 490,000 come from? Without workers to run the theater he would just have a $10,000 reel. Those workers create value for him by providing a service*.

It's the same with the actors in the movie, who don't have anything to do with the production of the film it's recorded on, but still play a role in the expansion of capital by adding their acting to it. The final movie is a shared product of the actors, the folks that put the film together, the camera operators, etc.

* Marx wrote, "Productive labor is therefore—in the system of capitalist production—labor which produces surplus-value for its employer ... It follows from what has been said that the designation of labor as productive labor has absolutely nothing to do with the determinate content of the labor, its special utility, or the particular use-value in which it manifests itself.. The same kind of labour may be productive or unproductive... For example Milton, who wrote Paradise Lost for five pounds, was an unproductive labourer. On the other hand, the writer who turns out stuff for his publisher in factory style, is a productive laborer... A singer who sells her song for her own account is an unproductive laborer. But the same singer commissioned by an entrepreneur to sing in order to make money for him is a productive laborer; for she produces capital." (Theories of Surplus Value, Addenda to Part 1) -- emphasis added.
Marx wrote "The capitalist increases the number of these laborers whenever he has more value and profits to realize" (Capital V.3); he didn't say that would [I]prevent revolution from happening! If anything, the increase in the number of unproductive workers (which does not include people like restaurant workers, btw) indicates the advance of capitalism, which Marx showed, brings us closer to communism (or at least, brings the conditions for the creation of communism forward).

[Hoxhaist]

Mao created the Three Worlds Theory so its hard to separate Maoism and Three Worlds because they both come from Mao

[dez]

I dont agree with the manifesto, or with the third worldist movement. At all.
But I was bothered by some of the points in your post, prairie, which I found to be mostly partisan.



The third worldist (and generally petty-bourgeois) fixation with "consumerism".


Consumerism or not, people in the first world have more access to resources with their labour than people in the third world.



Only the most foolish persyn would deny that the working class (and all humyn beings, in general,) require food, clothing,medical supplies, and other items. Under capitalism, these items, and all fruits of social production, are manufactured by private companies and distributed through private retail outlets.

In other words, "buy shit, or starve." There is no alternative mode of accumulation and distribution, and upstart utopian projects of idealistic survival agriculture by petty-bourgeois (who feel guilty for buying shit),
always lead to ruin. For a more in-depth analysis of this trend, see here:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1275931&postcount=13

The conclusion that the petty bourgeois comes to is that it is the fault of the workers, for gathering the goods that they need in this way, and that the "solution" is limited to life-style choices: boycotts, survival agriculture, or in this case, kill all the honkeys, and usher in a bright new world of idealistic survival agriculture ( Is survival agriculture practical or desirable to attend to the needs of over 6 billion humyn beings? Is small scale production a practical form of providing needed commodities to humynity? Are there, perhaps, reasons, that modes of accumulation and distribution arose? ).


While you are correct on the fact that attempting to create that "alternative" is counter revolutionary, denying the difference in relations of production between the first world and the third world is also counter revolutionary.



Anyways, this fixation on "consumerism" does not challenge class relations,address why the current modes of production arose in the first place, or address the practicalities of meeting the needs of sustaining humynity. It is idealist crap without material basis.


Understanding the differences of relations of productions internationally is important for the formation of the revolutionary mind.
Artificial political borders defining who is to be more exploited and who is to be less exploited make a strong argument in our favour before the proletariat of the world. Some like to call it proletarian internationalism.






35 million Americans faced hunger in 2006
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1432658720071114

Third worldists have actually argued to me before that (somehow)going without food is worse in the third world then in the first world.

Starvation is starvation.

"The U.S. Agriculture Department said a total of 12.65 million households were "food insecure," or 10.9 percent of U.S. homes, up from 12.59 million a year ago.
The USDA defines food insecurity - its metric for measuring hunger - as having difficulty acquiring enough food for the household throughout the year."




Starvation.
:rolleyes:

Most of the world is in "starvation" while 35 million americans are in "starvation" and nevertheless the 35 million americans get to be covered by reuters.


“The labour laws of the people’s republic…will not prevent the national bourgeoisie from making profits…” Mao Tse-tung, “On Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism”. Mao’s speech “On Tactics” was delivered at the conference of Party activists which was held at Wayaopao, northern Shensi, after the Wayaopao meeting of the Politburo of the CC in December 1935.

“Inevitably, the bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeoisie will give to their own ideologies…you cannot expect them to do otherwise…We should not use the method of suppression and prevent them from expressing themselves…” Mao Tse-Tung, Selected Readings, 1st ed., p.466


I am not a maoist, but...



In this connection, false references to Marx and Engels are the crowning argument of these two chieftains of social chauvinism; Plekhanov recalls Prussia’s national war of 1813 and Germany’s national war of 1870, while Kautsky argues, with a most learned air, that Marx examined the question of whose success (i.e., the success of which bourgeoisie) was more desirable in the wars of 1854-55, 1859 and 1870-71, and that the Marxists did likewise in the wars of 1876-77 and 1897. In all times the sophists have been in the habit of citing instances that refer to situations that are dissimilar in principle. The wars of the past, to which they make references, were a “continuation of the politics” of the bourgeoisie’s national movements of many years’ standing, movements against an alien yoke and against absolutism (Turkish or Russian). At that time the only question was: the success of which bourgeoisie was to be preferred; for wars of this type, the Marxists could rouse the peoples in advance, fostering national hatred, as Marx did in 1848 and later, when he called for a war against Russia, and as Engels in 1859 fostered German national hatred of their oppressors—Napoleon III (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/n/a.htm#napoleon-3) and Russian tsarism.[3] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/csi/iii.htm#fwV21P221F01)
Comparing the “continuation of the politics” of combating feudalism and absolutism—the politics of the bourgeoisie in its struggle for liberty—with the “continuation of the politics” of a decrepit, i.e., imperialist, bourgeoisie, i.e., of a bourgeoisie which has plundered the entire world, a reactionary bourgeoisie which, in alliance with feudal landlords, attempts to crush the proletariat, means comparing chalk and cheese. It is like comparing the “representatives of the bourgeoisie”, Robespierre (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/r/o.htm#robespierre), Garibaldi and Zhelyabov, with such “representatives of the bourgeoisie” as Millerand (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/m/i.htm#millerand), Salandra and Guchkov (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/g/u.htm#guchkov-alexander). One cannot be a Marxist without feeling the deepest respect for the great bourgeois revolutionaries who had an historic right to speak for their respective bourgeois “fatherlands”, and, in the struggle against feudalism, led tens of millions of people in the new nations towards a civilised life.http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/csi/iii.htm

Its always good to cite old comrade lenin to remember people that in certain conditions an alliance of the proletariat with the bourgeoise can be fruitful (as well as completely negative, but thats not the point).



1. Proletarians in imperialist countries have no say in this; we can't
exactly refuse the bribe, even if for some crazy reason we wanted to.


What about immigration laws?



If you acknowledge the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat, conversely you must aknowledge the a dictatorship of the bourgeosie exists in the imperialist countries ( and pretty much every country, actually).

If you aknowledge the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, you need to aknowledge that workers in imperialist countries have no say in the politics and governance of a country.

For example, in my country the population (predominantly "white") is consistently 60-70% against Canadian involvement in Afghanistan. In sharp contrast to this, the bourgeois parlaiment votes unanimously in favour of continuing the occupation everytime it comes up; no one has abstained the vote, no one has voted against.

That's right; these cracker parasites are being ignored by their fellow cracker parasites in the parliament. It's almost as if there was some other type of division between them... like a class, or something...


Agreed, the workers have no say on anything.
I am yet to see a government (or even a certain campaign by that government) exist without support though.



2. What is today an imperialist country, might be a "third world
country" in a century or less. A neo-colonial possession can also
become an imperialist power in it's own right in a century or less.

Turkey used to be the pinnacle of a powerful empire up until 1923.
Now, they are an impoverished country with mandatory military service and a minimum wage of €302.61 per month (around 474$ US).


Just like proletarians can become a part of the bourgeoise.
Individually, and by exploiting workers.



3. Revolutionary content is not based on skin colour, nor race, nor
geographic location.

Tin pot dictators like Pinochet and Mobutu were from the glorious "third world', and Maoist hero Norman Bethune was from the "first world".

Whether or not you are a revolutionary has nothing to do with racialism or geographic location.

4. No proletariat is "more deserving" of revolution than others, and it is not "national chauvenist" to have a revolution. Here is an excerpt
by Hoxha from "Imperialism and revolution":

" Marxist-Leninists always bear in mind that in all countries, with the
exception of those where. the revolution has triumphed and socialist
order has been established, there are the poor classes with the
proletariat at the head, and the wealthy classes with the bourgeoisie
at the head.

In every capitalist state, wherever it may be, and however democratic or progressive, there are oppressed and oppressors, there are exploited and, exploiters, there are antagonisms there is merciless class struggle. The varying intensity of this struggle does not alter this reality. This struggle has its ups and downs, but it exists and cannot be quelled.

It exists everywhere, it exists in the United States of
America between the proletariat and the imperialist bourgeoisie, it
exists, likewise, in the Soviet Union, where Marxism-Leninism has been
betrayed and a new bourgeois-capitalist class which oppresses the
working people of that country, has been created. Classes and the class
struggle exist also in the second world., as in France, Britain, Italy,
West Germany, Japan. They exist also in the "third world", in India,
Zaire, Burundi, Pakistan, the Philippines, etc.


Agreed.



Only according to Mao Tsetung's theory of "three worlds", classes and the class struggle do not exist in any country. It does not see them, because it judges countries and peoples according to bourgeois geo-political concepts and the level of their economic development....


I would like you to clear that up.
How, exactly, do you (and hoxha) think that the three worlds classification claims that there is no class struggle in the oppressor nations?




The same reason many "first world" workers display jingoistic imperialist support and ethnocentrism is the same reason that I have met other womyn who aspire to be submissive housewives: they have no "stake" in being a house-wife, it is simply the dominant ideology and social norms that they have been indoctrinated with.


How much, do you think, of this anti third-worldist hatred is part of an emotional reaction generated by the liberation of repressed nationalistic ideas?



In conclusion, the entire theory of "third worldism" is ridiculous. While I aknowldge that the exploitation and oppression is relative, one has to keep in mind that even in the dawn of the industrial revolution, the oppressed and starving masses of Dickensian England were living in a country that was profiting off of un-developed colonies abroad.


As you yourself recognize, we are not living in the dawn of the industrial revolution anymore.



At the end, it becomes a question of tactics, because while recognizing imperialism, it becomes a question of "what are we going to do about it"?

Now, we can either join a Marxist-Leninist party, and prepare the workers for revolution, or we can follow the lead of MIM, monkeysmashheaven,IRTR,Shubel mogan,etc, and simply sow defeatism, and disorient the revolutionary movement rather than build it.

Imperialism wil be smashed by the working class rising up and defeating their imperialist governments, not by saying a few "hail Mao's", going to confession (self criticisms), and seeking forgiveness for being born in an imperialist country.

I agree that defeatism is bad and action is important, but that in no way means one has to be proud about being born in an imperialist country. And not being proud is not the same as considering being born there is sinful.
:)



All workers -- or even the majority or a large portion -- cannot belong to this aristocracy. The workings of capitalism (the very ones that gave rise to this upper crust) don't allow it, and the aristocracy itself could not live without a mass base of workers to rest on.



People living in developed countries are not all workers or even the majority of the workers.



And of course workers in the imperialist-oppressed countries often have it subjectively worse than workers in the imperialist countries.. and indeed the capitalists in the imperialist countries super-exploit the workers in the imperialist-oppressed countries, and use the cheap consumer goods they make as they spread consumerism in their imperialist countries, taking workers’ minds off of their exploitation, alienation and the like..


They do not have it subjectively worse.
Conditions are objectively worse, there are different worlds, really.
Even within the country.
It is almost as if the upper middle class was inserted in the western world of consumption (they strive hard to be... Like first world proletarians!!) and the rest wasnt.



"The epoch of imperialism is one in which the world is divided among the “great” privileged nations that oppress all other nations. Morsels of the loot obtained as a result of these privileges and this oppression undoubtedly fall to the share of certain sections of the petty bourgeoisie and to the working-class aristocracy and bureaucracy. These strata, which form an insignificant minority of the proletariat and of the toiling masses, gravitate towards “Struvism”, because it provides them with a justification of their alliance with their “own” national bourgeoisie, against the oppressed masses of all nations."


Back then, yes.
Right now, standards of living of developed nations have developed so significantly that you could expand a bit this working class aristocracy.



http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch1en/conc1en/img/carprod1950-1999.gif
Automobile production of the world. As you see, the three main imperialist countries still produce half of the world's cars. Add to that France and Italy's production - and it is clear that at least that sector of industry still makes most of its surplus value in the first world.



Do you make cars with thin air?
Isnt there labour involved in the extraction of resources?
What about automatized production?


Production nowadays (specially machines and automobiles) is scattered all over.
Different parts are produced in different countries and assemblied in different countries. How do you insert that in that graphic?




You want to "criticize" someone? Criticize the bourgeoisie and organize against their rule. Even if every worker in the imperialist countries voluntarily gave up a large chunk of their wages (which they wouldn't do, as its against their material interests, and people act in their material interests--another basic communist understanding) the super-exploitation of workers in the imperialist oppressed countries would continue as it is, and even get worse (gains by workers in one place have a tendency to lead to gains by workers in other places as well). The only people that would benefit are the capitalist elite. In that regard, your line serves them well.

Communism isn't about working people anywhere taking the hit; it's about working people everywhere wrestling the means of production out of the hands of the bourgeoisie to reorganize society along democratic lines, in the interest of meeting human need.


If the working people are promoting the interests of the bourgeois and engaging on the promotion of chauvinism (and bourgeois lies in general) they can and should be criticized / take the hit.


It is in ["First World workers'"] interests to struggle against the exploitation of workers in the imperialist-oppressed countries because (a) the workers in imperialist and imperialist-oppressed countries share a common enemy and (b) the betterment of conditions in the imperialist-oppressed countries would prevent the worsening of conditions in the imperialist countries (when the bourgeoisie doesn't have a place with cheaper labor to run to, or lower-paid workers to bring in, when workers start fighting). This is all basic communist theory.

Just like it is in the workers interests to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, but that is not necessarily what happens.
Fact is that even pseudo socialist movements reap benefits (in terms of influence) out of exploiting first world proletarians' fear of having their living conditions worsened... To a third world level.






My personal opinion is that capitalism is "developing" its relations of production towards a system that hides the bourgeois under a global aristocracy of the proletariat, that is highly specialized and will grant their children the opportunity to have an education and be highly specialized themselves, as opposed to a huge mass of unqualified workers that will most likely starve to death on all places and countries. That is the wet dream of most people speaking about globalization (the capitalist/economic one), and guess who will be prone to be in that aristocracy?

[Revy]

Is the Rural People's Party "third worldist"? They are a tiny Maoist sect in this country. They seem to worship Kim Jong-il, but most shockingly, the cult leader Jim Jones.

[AvanteRedGarde]

No. The Rural People's Party is not MTWist. I believe they have even written a polemic against Maoism Third Worldism. Monkey Smashes Heaven has in the past called Kim Il Sung and the DPRK a revisionist while defending them from imperialist saber-rattling.

Organ, I disagree that places like Brazil and America are "two worlds" insofar as they are separate and unconnected. Even though the material realities of each are vastly different, they are obviously economically connected.

America is and exploiter country and Brazil is exploited. It's that simple.

[dez]

No. The Rural People's Party is not MTWist. I believe they have even written a polemic against Maoism Third Worldism. Monkey Smashes Heaven has in the past called Kim Il Sung and the DPRK a revisionist while defending them from imperialist saber-rattling.

Organ, I disagree that places like Brazil and America are "two worlds" insofar as they are separate and unconnected. Even though the material realities of each are vastly different, they are obviously economically connected.

America is and exploiter country and Brazil is exploited. It's that simple.

I never said they were disconnected, and I never said there wasnt an aritocracy of labour here that is inserted in a similar reality than the (say) american proletariat.

What I meant is that there are two different worlds(connected to each other, but not necessarily with a exploiter-exploited relation), and that americans in general and middle class here are part of the same.

[AvanteRedGarde]

the other question for the "third worldists": is the labor theory of value still valid?

i think it's useful to look at global income statistics and turquino is right to point out the living conditions in Central Africa for many are much worse (even than the homeless) in New York City.....



Good point RedWinter. The Maoist-Third Worldist line, point number one, hinges on whether the vast majority of First Worlders are exploited or not. In order to even ask this question, we must properly understand what exploitation is.

Simply put, exploitation is when one works but does not receive the full value of their labor in return.

In another thread, I posed this hypthetical situation:


In order to for capitalism to work, you can't just have people making stuff. Afterall, capitalism wouldn't work if it just made things that collected dust in warehouses. They have to be bought also.

In a hypothetic case, lets say a we have two workers. Each makes widgets for 1 dollar an hour. Worker A makes one widget in an hour for one dollar. The capitalist takes this widget and sells it to worker B for 2 dollars. Worker B, essentially worked 2 hours to buy the product of 1 hours labor. The capitalist keeps the remaining dollar, the product of one hours labor, as his own.

now lets modify this situation. Lets say Worker A makes 1 dollar an hour and Worker B makes 10 dollars an hour (this is roughly comparable to the difference between minimum wage in Amerika and the average manufacturing wage in China). Now, Worker A makes one widget for 1 dollar in an hour. The capitalist, raises his price and sells the widget for 5 dollars to Worker B. In this case, Worker B purchases, through a half hour of work, the product of 1 hours work. This would represent a value transfer; with Worker B receiving more than the value of their labor.

Also in this latter situation, the capitalist appropriates 4 dollars as opposed to the 1 of the previous situation. Hypothetically, we can clearly see how First World workers and capitalists have a mutual interest vis a vis imperialist super exploitation.

In my opinion, this latter situation should be looked at seriously. Like i said, the 10 to 1 ratio of wages is roughly equivilent to the disparity between the American minimum wage and the average Chinese manufacturing wage. The biggest real world descripancy would be that for ever Worker Bs there would be 4-5 Worker As.

I've given so much evidence that challenges the traditional dogma, and all I receive back is abstract, vague responces that range from vulgar, emotionalist dogma to nuanced dogma. Can anyone provide evidence, not varieties of the same dogma about "workers" and "bosses" and the "means production" (since I've just shown how the question of who owns the means of production could be greatly downgraded in importance when considering questions of global exploitation), to support the idea that even half of American or British workers are exploited? :confused:

[Dimentio]

Good point RedWinter. The Maoist-Third Worldist line, point number one, hinges on whether the vast majority of First Worlders are exploited or not. In order to even ask this question, we must properly understand what exploitation is.

Simply put, exploitation is when one works but does not receive the full value of their labor in return.

In another thread, I posed this hypthetical situation:



In my opinion, this latter situation should be looked at seriously. Like i said, the 10 to 1 ratio of wages is roughly equivilent to the disparity between the American minimum wage and the average Chinese manufacturing wage. The biggest real world descripancy would be that for ever Worker Bs there would be 4-5 Worker As.

I've given so much evidence that challenges the traditional dogma, and all I receive back is abstract, vague responces that range from vulgar, emotionalist dogma to nuanced dogma. Can anyone provide evidence, not varieties of the same dogma about "workers" and "bosses" and the "means production" (since I've just shown how the question of who owns the means of production could be greatly downgraded in importance when considering questions of global exploitation), to support the idea that even half of American or British workers are exploited? :confused:

The thing is, that if all resources were available to all people of Earth, and managed in a rational and egalitarian way, the average life standard would not hit somewhere between a Chinese and American standard of life, but would be somewhat higher than the life standard for the American managerial class.

Therefore, western workers are exploited given the discrepancy between their living standards and the living standards of western bosses.

[Cumannach]

Simply put, exploitation is when one works but does not receive the full value of their labor in return.

In another thread, I posed this hypthetical situation:



I answered that in the same thread, but you wouldn't respond



I've given so much evidence that challenges the traditional dogma, and all I receive back is abstract, vague responces that range from vulgar, emotionalist dogma to nuanced dogma. Can anyone provide evidence, not varieties of the same dogma about "workers" and "bosses" and the "means production" (since I've just shown how the question of who owns the means of production could be greatly downgraded in importance when considering questions of global exploitation), to support the idea that even half of American or British workers are exploited? :confused:

If buying a commodity for which the worker has not recieved the full value of it, for producing it, is exploitation, then, every worker, First World or Third World, who has ever bought a commodity made by a First or Third world worker, is an exploiter of every worker in the First World and Third World. That's the logical conclusion of Third Worldism.

Third Worldism falls down on it's first principle, which is, that; First World workers recieve more than the value of their labour, in wages, and that therefore, they are not exploited, and indeed must even be exploiters themselves. It comes to this principle via a calculation of the global average of the value of labour, and the average wages in the First World.

Third Worldists forget that the value of labour naturally varies throughout the world depending on the local social conditons since the value of a product is the amount of socially neccesary labour to produce it. This already invalidates their conclusion that First World workers are not exploited.

It takes less labour to grow crops in a temperate climate than in a drier climate. This does not mean agricultural workers in the drier climate are exploiting the workers in the temperate climate.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Can anyone provide evidence, not varieties of the same dogma about "workers" and "bosses" and the "means production" (since I've just shown how the question of who owns the means of production could be greatly downgraded in importance when considering questions of global exploitation), to support the idea that even half of American or British workers are exploited? :confused:

This is rather old, but if the UK is anything like the US, wages have been faling since the 1970s:

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/7998/exploitation.png

Also, you can't say that the US economy is entirely based on circulatory and not productive work, as the US is still by far the biggest manufacturer in the world. Besides China no one even comes close:


Manufacturing output, 2007(billions $):

USA 1,831
China 1,106
Japan 926
Germany 670
Russian Federation 362
Italy 345
United Kingdom 342
France 296
Korea 241
Canada 218
Spain 208
Brazil 206
Additional countries of interest - not the next largest
India 167
Mexico 144
Indonesia 121
Turkey 101
Netherlands 94
Thailand 85
South Africa 46
Singapore 38
Vietnam 15.

The USA’s share of the manufacturing output of the countries that manufactured over $200 billion in 2007 (the 12 countries on the top of the chart above) in 1990 was 28%, 1995 28%, 2000 33%, 2005 30%, 2006 28%, 2007 27%. China’s share has grown from 4% in 1990, 1995 7%, 2000 11%, 2005 13%, 2006 15%, 2007 16%.
Total manufacturing output in the USA was up 76% in 2007 from the 1990 level. Japan, the second largest manufacturer in 1990, and third today, has increased output 15% (the lowest of the top 12, France is next lowest at 32%) while China is up an amazing 673% (Korea is next at an increase of 271%).

Since 2000 the USA has the second lowest increase in manufacturing output - up just 19% (Japan is worst with a decrease of 10%), the group of 12 is up 47% over that period. China is up 129%.The US has maintained relatively the same share of global manufacturing for the past 20 years.

[dez]

The thing is, that if all resources were available to all people of Earth, and managed in a rational and egalitarian way, the average life standard would not hit somewhere between a Chinese and American standard of life, but would be somewhat higher than the life standard for the American managerial class.

Proof please.

[AvanteRedGarde]

If buying a commodity for which the worker has not recieved the full value of it, for producing it, is exploitation, then, every worker..

How is every worker and exploiter by buying something?? Did i ever imply that? In fact, If you look at the first situation, both workers are exploited (which would conversely mean that neither are exploiters). Talk about falling on your face. I told you in the other thread that you were simply build vague strawmen and throwing things to see what sticks.

Try reading through my hypothetical situation again. And this time, instead of pounding away at the keyboards about Marxist jargon, try to set up your own situation to prove that either, a) all workers are exploiters or (b) someone who makes 10-30 times the normal wages is exploited.

And again, I'm not talking in slight wage "variance." I'm talking about a clear trend where wages differ by a factor of 10 to thirty. I don't think that's what Marx meant by a kind of natural variance. In reality, such variance can only be accounted for through exploitation.

[black magick hustla]

How is every worker and exploiter by buying something?? Did i ever imply that? In fact, If you look at the first situation, both workers are exploited (which would conversely mean that neither are exploiters). Talk about falling on your face. I told you in the other thread that you were simply build vague strawmen and throwing things to see what sticks.

Try reading through my hypothetical situation again. And this time, instead of pounding away at the keyboards about Marxist jargon, try to set up your own situation to prove that either, a) all workers are exploiters or (b) someone who makes 10-30 times the normal wages is exploited.

And again, I'm not talking in slight wage "variance." I'm talking about a clear trend where wages differ by a factor of 10 to thirty. I don't think that's what Marx meant by a kind of natural variance. In reality, such variance can only be accounted for through exploitation.

What you say is nothing interesting and if you knew about the third world you would realize there is ridiculous variance in the country side and in the cities. For example, 50 percent of Mexico city has access to the internet in their houses while fucking Chiapas is a wasteland. Is Mexico city exploiting Chiapas? Your viewpoint is so naive and that is why third worldism is a dumb student phenomenom.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Well shit Marmot. If only everywhere in the Third World could be a capital city.

And just so you know, the minimum wage in Mexico is 4 dollars a day. Most homeless people in America can come across way more than 4 dollars in a day.

[black magick hustla]

Well shit Marmot. If only everywhere in the Third World could be a capital city.

And just so you know, the minimum wage in Mexico is 4 dollars a day. Most homeless people in America can come across way more than 4 dollars in a day.

:shrugs: Ive never said Mexico was a rich country. I was simply implying that the whole issue of *who makes more bucks or not* as somesort of ruler for exploitation is completely bankrupt. Furthermore, life is probably ten times cheaper in Mexico than in the US. For example, I could pay 7 bucks for a limitless amount of tacos and beer when I was in mexico in a nice restaurant. That would never happen here.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Well shit Marmot. Someone from mexico who makes minimum wage would have to work for nearly two days just to afford that feast you enjoyed. Its hard to conceive buying an unlimited plate of Taco's in America for nearly two days wages.

Going further, I can get around 3 taco's for 7 dollars in America. Let's say i can only eat 6 taco's. Hell, I can make 14 bucks in a in just over two hours working at minimum wage in America.

I'll I'm not saying that relative wage is the crowning factor, I am saying that such a massive disparity of wealth between the top 15% (which includes nearly all Americans) and the bottom 85%, and more importantly, the stark gab between these two groups, is indicative of an exploitative relationship.

[black magick hustla]

Well shit Marmot. Someone from mexico who makes minimum wage would have to work for nearly two days just to afford that feast you enjoyed. Its hard to conceive buying an unlimited plate of Taco's in America for nearly two days wages.

Going further, I can get around 3 taco's for 7 dollars in America. Let's say i can only eat 6 taco's. Hell, I can make 14 bucks in a in just over two hours working at minimum wage in America.

I'll I'm not saying that relative wage is the crowning factor, I am saying that such a massive disparity of wealth between the top 15% (which includes nearly all Americans) and the bottom 85%, and more importantly, the stark gab between these two groups, is indicative of an exploitative relationship.

Don't you hear what I am saying? That Mexico is a poor country. I am simply saying that if your ideas where correct, urban folks would be exploiting the countryside and thus they themselves would not be exploited. Furthermore, very few people in the cities make minimum wage. When I was working a shitjob in a grocery store I made 70 bucks per week.

[black magick hustla]

The average wage in Mexico City is 170 pesos, which is 15 bucks per day btw

[black magick hustla]

Going further, I am not saying the american bourgeosie does not fucks with Mexico. What I am saying that the issue here is not that american workers are exploiting Mexico, as urban folk in mexico are not exploiting the countryside.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Per person or household?? Sources?

The average for an American full time workers is over $100 a day. Of course, white Americans on average earn more.

Also, on average Mexican works over 200 more hours than the average American throughout the course of a year. Interesting.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.nr0.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time

[AvanteRedGarde]

]Going further, I am not saying the american bourgeosie does not fucks with Mexico. What I am saying that the issue here is not that american workers are exploiting Mexico, as urban folk in mexico are not exploiting the countryside.[/QUOTE]

How can you say for sure. You havn't set a bar for what is or is not exploitation. Can you somehow prove that both groups are exploited? I can show hypothetically how one group may not be. And I have given further evidence that American consume more value than they expend.

Face it. Everyone here is coming up with excuses and loopholes (and not doing that great of a job even at this), not providing an clear alternative model which includes American as part of an exploited class.

[black magick hustla]

Sources: http://www.esmas.com/noticierostelevisa/mexico/312191.html

The only thing you proved is that in the US life is more expensive and that the US is a rich country.

[Cumannach]

How is every worker and exploiter by buying something?? Did i ever imply that? In fact, If you look at the first situation, both workers are exploited (which would conversely mean that neither are exploiters). Talk about falling on your face. I told you in the other thread that you were simply build vague strawmen and throwing things to see what sticks.


This is what you said :

"Lets say Worker A makes 1 dollar an hour and Worker B makes 10 dollars an hour (this is roughly comparable to the difference between minimum wage in Amerika and the average manufacturing wage in China). Now, Worker A makes one widget for 1 dollar in an hour. The capitalist, raises his price and sells the widget for 5 dollars to Worker B. In this case, Worker B purchases, through a half hour of work, the product of 1 hours work. This would represent a value transfer; with Worker B receiving more than the value of their labor."

All commodities are sold at their value. Whenever you buy any commodity you are underpaying (value transfer) the worker who produced it, since he didn't receive the full value of the product of his labour, a part of it being expropriated by the capitalist who employed him.

In your example above, you claim that because worker B exchanges 1/2 hours labour for 1 hours labour, worker B is thereby exploiting worker A. Well, going back to the obvious analogy again, 1/2 hours labour produces a kilo of food in England, but 1 hours labour is needed to produce it in Ethiopia, because it rarely rains and you have to put more labour-time into irrigation. The amount of socially neccesary labour needed to produce food in Ethiopia is twice that needed in England. Are the Ethiopians exploiting the English because the value of their labour is greater? If an Ethiopian capitalist buys up some English farm land and uses cheaper English labour to produce a kilo of food, then sells it back in Ethiopia to an Ethiopian worker is that Ethiopian exploiting England?


Try reading through my hypothetical situation again. And this time, instead of pounding away at the keyboards about Marxist jargon, try to set up your own situation to prove that either, a) all workers are exploiters or (b) someone who makes 10-30 times the normal wages is exploited.
Alright, yet again:

Let's look at two textile factories, factory A in America, factory B in Indonesia. Worker A receives 10 times the wages of worker B, for creating the same textile.

Third Worldists conclude, that worker A recieves more than the value of the product of his labour, so, worker A is not exploited and is moreover exploiting B.

But from capital's point of view, to employ labour A, capital must pay high taxes, provide pensions, adhere to legal minumum wage levels and work hours, stick to collective bargaining agreements, respect safety standards etc. So effectively, the value of labour A is higher, because to employ it is more expensive. So, the value of labour A is higher than the value of labour B because of the local social conditions

To say that worker A is exploiting worker B, because worker A happens to live in a country where there are unions and labour laws which inflate the effective value of the product of his labour, makes no more sense than to say that worker B is exploiting worker A by stealing his job and depressing the level of his wages by offering his labour cheap to international capital.

[black magick hustla]

]Going further, I am not saying the american bourgeosie does not fucks with Mexico. What I am saying that the issue here is not that american workers are exploiting Mexico, as urban folk in mexico are not exploiting the countryside.

How can you say for sure. You havn't set a bar for what is or is not exploitation. Can you somehow prove that both groups are exploited? I can show hypothetically how one group may not be. And I have given further evidence that American consume more value than they expend.

Face it. Everyone here is coming up with excuses and loopholes (and not doing that great of a job even at this), not providing an clear alternative model which includes American as part of an exploited class.[/QUOTE]

My bar is bosses extracting surplus value from workers. This is itself quite evident. Your bar is just some nebulous concept of *first world vs third world*.

[Devrim]

Per person or household?? Sources?

The average for an American full time workers is over $100 a day. Of course, white Americans on average earn more.

Also, on average Mexican works over 200 more hours than the average American throughout the course of a year. Interesting.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.nr0.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time

But exploitation is not about who works the most hours or how much money they earn. It is about the extraction of surplus value.

I would imagine that the rate of exploitation is higher in a German car factory than in a Mexican sweat shop.

The fact that VW workers, for example, may have better terms, wages, and conditions does not mean that they are less exploited.

Devrim

[AvanteRedGarde]

No, I've actually proved that its cheaper in the U.S.
Let's take the average wage in mexico 15/day compared to America 100/day

The cost of living would be the same if everything in Mexico costs 6.6 times cheaper. Things like gasoline cost basically the same, thus making the cost of living in Mexico higher.

But lets look at something with more fluctuation. Tortillas (before the price went up) cost about $.80 per kilo (2.2. pounds) in Mexico. This would mean than unless the same amount of tortillas costs around $5.25 in America, the cost of living is actually more in Mexico. I'm pretty damn sure I can go to a grocery store and find 2.2 pounds of tortillas for less than five bucks.

[black magick hustla]

Again, you don't understand. I am not implying Mexico and the US are in the same boat. My original argument was that huge variances in wages does not mean american workers exploit mexican workers. The average salary in some mexican cities is almost 500 pesos, while the average wage in some municipalities in chiapas is 42 pesos. Fucking Tepic is not exploiting Chiapas.

[Dimentio]

Proof please.

http://www.wupperinst.org/FactorFour/

If you manage the resources intelligently, you could cut production with 75% and yet retain the same living standards as today. If we say that we in the same time distribute access to resources equally, the vast majority will see their living standard and life quality rise.

http://en.technocracynet.eu

[AvanteRedGarde]

Let's look at two textile factories, factory A in America, factory B in Indonesia. Worker A receives 10 times the wages of worker B, for creating the same textile.

Third Worldists conclude, that worker A recieves more than the value of the product of his labour, so, worker A is not exploited and is moreover exploiting B.

Cummannach, The reason I keep blowing you off is because you keep raising the same vulgarization of my arguments, essentially raising strawmen. I can only repeat myself and direct your attention to key particularities so many times. Either you are unprincipled or dense.

Just for clarity, in my hypothetical situation, the fact that one worker makes ten times more is merely one factor, another being the full value of one hours labor- as expressed by what the capitalist sold the wigdet for. If the widget (a product of one hours labor) was sold at above what the second worker makes in an hour, in this situation, the fact that the second worker makes more than worker A (whom made the product) would be irrlevant.

Your example of different countries negates the very idea of capitalism and capitalists, something which I have never done throughout my evidences, and reads like you are paraphrasing neo-liberal arguments about "competitive advantage." It's just silly to compare and relate my hypothetical situation and the various ones you keep raising.

There are more examples of your grasping at straws (no pun intended), but unless you want to prod me, I'm not going to waste another hour explaining how exactly you're building up strawmen and arguing outside of the context I'm specifically talking about.

[AvanteRedGarde]

http://www.wupperinst.org/FactorFour/

If you manage the resources intelligently, you could cut production with 75% and yet retain the same living standards as today. If we say that we in the same time distribute access to resources equally, the vast majority will see their living standard and life quality rise.

http://en.technocracynet.eu

Technocracy seeks to enforce hierarchy and division towards the end of "producing more." It's no different than current neo-liberal apologies for capitalist-imperialism.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Again, you don't understand. I am not implying Mexico and the US are in the same boat. My original argument was that huge variances in wages does not mean american workers exploit mexican workers. The average salary in some mexican cities is almost 500 pesos, while the average wage in some municipalities in chiapas is 42 pesos. Fucking Tepic is not exploiting Chiapas.

Well, if you consider the fact that mexico is a country exploited by imperialism, and that this requires the facilitation of local compradors whom receive a portion of exploitation, then yes, some people in Mexico City are obviously exploiters of Chiapis and Mexico as a whole. The fact this exploitation-driven wealth might create better common living standards in some areas is to be expected. But as capital circulation and production are arranged gloablly, it is a vast error to consider the conditions in a single country alone.

[Cumannach]

The reason I keep blowing you off is because you keep raising the same vulgarization of my arguments, essentially raising strawmen.
They're not vulgarizations they're just logical implications of what you're putting forward. And they are vulgar.



Your example of different countries negates the very idea of capitalism and capitalists, something which I have never done throughout my evidences, and reads like you are paraphrasing neo-liberal arguments about "competitive advantage." It's just silly to compare and relate my hypothetical situation and the various ones you keep raising.It's not silly you just don't want to hear it.


There are more examples of your grasping at straws (no pun intended), but unless you want to prod me, I'm not going to waste another hour explaining how exactly you're building up strawmen and arguing outside of the context I'm specifically talking about.Well so far you haven't wasted 1 minute explaining it. It's only a couple of lines. Why don't you just address the points?

It's a pity you buy into this Third Worldist crap. It's just a load of silly reactionary rubbish (it would be reactionary if anyone took it seriously). I mean honestly what is your interest in it? Why do you want to say that western workers aren't exploited and have no reason to fight? Whats the point in it even if it were true, which it's not? How exactly would that help anyone or anything? How would it have any positive effect on the Third World anyway? So the Third World realizes they're being screwed over by a larger group of people rather than a smaller one? Great. I don't get what you see in it.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Ok, Cumaanch.

If it takes a Vulcan one hour to make one krul of Kryptonite whereas it takes a Jedi only half and hour. Then if they each trade one krul of Kryptonite, then yes, the Jedi is exploiting the Vulcan insofar as the Jedi received one hours of labor at a cost of half an hour's labor.

However, in this situation there is no capitalist. That is why it is not part of the "logical implications" of the hypothetical situation the I presented. This is the disparity between the situation I raised and the one you keep arguing against. This is the textbook definition of a "strawman fallacy."

[PeaderO'Donnell]

It's a pity you buy into this Third Worldist crap. It's just a load of silly reactionary rubbish (it would be reactionary if anyone took it seriously). I mean honestly what is your interest in it? Why do you want to say that western workers aren't exploited and have no reason to fight? Whats the point in it even if it were true, which it's not? How exactly would that help anyone or anything? How would it have any positive effect on the Third World anyway? So the Third World realizes they're being screwed over by a larger group of people rather than a smaller one? Great. I don't get what you see in it.

The fact does seem to be though that in the first world we enjoy a lavish life style (and that includes the vast majiority of the working class) that is paid for by the exploitation and gross oppression of the proletariat whether urban or rural in the so-called third world.

Look how British leftists on this forum regard the struggle of the Irish proletariat or how the Internationalist Communist Current regard the struggle of the proletariat in Chiapas...Things like that make you begin to ask serious questions.

However the openly class collaborationist nature of Maoist Third Worldism means that revolutionaries must reject its idealogy.

[AvanteRedGarde]

I think Maoism Third Worldism advocates class struggle, not class collaboration. Following the example of Mao, in cases where the imperialism is the main enemy, it makes sense to line up the broadest array of forces for national liberation without necessarily selling out.

Moreover, often is the case that the only way to build up the strength of the independent working class is through limited unity (under separate leadership) with non-working class forces as part of the resolution of a primary contradiction (i.e. imperialism). Once this contradiction is reasonable resolved and because the proletarian forces have been independently built up as a part of the more immediate struggle, their next struggle can be better prepared for.

I think the idea that their isn't a "patriotic bourgeoisie" within oppressed nations is far from reality. Look at the "Bolivarian Revolution" for example. We must conclude that either Chavez and the Venezuelan ruling elite are either proletarian forces or part of a patriotic bourgeiosie. The latter is most likely.

Will the "Bolivarian Revolution" sell out the masses of venezuela? Eventually, absolutely. But this will only be a disaster if the proletarian forces do not retain independence and abandon class struggle.

[AvanteRedGarde]

And yes Peader, the treasonous attitude of the imperial masses and its 'left' sections towards the proletariat of its mother country's modern colonies is absolutely indicative of imperialism and it's ability to "buy off" it's own. Lenin made these observations nearly a hundred years ago and others before him, yet somehow it's still a taboo and controversial notion here.

[PeaderO'Donnell]

I think Maoism Third Worldism advocates class struggle, not class collaboration. Following the example of Mao, in cases where the imperialism is the main enemy, it makes sense to line up the broadest array of forces for national liberation without necessarily selling out.


I think in our world as it is national liberation in any meaningful sense can only be achieved by the proletariat as part its struggle to abolish wage-labour under its own dictatorship. Again and again the popular fronts have lead to the disarming of the proletariat and the destruction of its political independence.

This does not mean that so-called "national liberation" struggles dont have a proletarian character and that the first world chauvanists who label them as completely reactionary and nationalist are not in effect showing their own first world nationalism.

[AvanteRedGarde]

I agree. The only truly successful national liberation movement can be only with the proletarian forces at the forefront, whom are ready and prepared to continue class struggle as part of the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggle.

Otherwise the two option are returning back the imperialist flunkeyism and exploitation or setting up an independent country such as the DPRK with its own internal rigid hierarchies. In any case, class struggle must continue.

[Revy]

The fact does seem to be though that in the first world we enjoy a lavish life style (and that includes the vast majiority of the working class) that is paid for by the exploitation and gross oppression of the proletariat whether urban or rural in the so-called third world.

Look how British leftists on this forum regard the struggle of the Irish proletariat or how the Internationalist Communist Current regard the struggle of the proletariat in Chiapas...Things like that make you begin to ask serious questions.

However the openly class collaborationist nature of Maoist Third Worldism means that revolutionaries must reject its idealogy.

Who is "we"? Why are you projecting your distorted reality onto the entire First World working class?

Of course, because we are not starving, we have to be wealthy in comparison. It's basically "everybody in the First World is filthy rich because they're not dirt poor". What a dumb view, honestly.

[PeaderO'Donnell]

Who is "we"? Why are you projecting your distorted reality onto the entire First World working class?

Of course, because we are not starving, we have to be wealthy in comparison. It's basically "everybody in the First World is filthy rich because they're not dirt poor". What a dumb view, honestly.

Okay most people here including myself probably have a personal computer, a mobile phone, a television...How many people here actually own a car? How many people in here have central heating? Electricity?

Most of us are in the world's richest 15 per cent or so.

If we are being truelly internationalist that is something to think about.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

This is rather old, but if the UK is anything like the US, wages have been faling since the 1970s:

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/7998/exploitation.png

Also, you can't say that the US economy is entirely based on circulatory and not productive work, as the US is still by far the biggest manufacturer in the world. Besides China no one even comes close:
The US has maintained relatively the same share of global manufacturing for the past 20 years.

:thumbup1:


Technocracy seeks to enforce hierarchy and division towards the end of "producing more." It's no different than current neo-liberal apologies for capitalist-imperialism.

I like how you completely ignore the argument and just attack technocracy.


Ok, Cumaanch.

If it takes a Vulcan one hour to make one krul of Kryptonite whereas it takes a Jedi only half and hour. Then if they each trade one krul of Kryptonite, then yes, the Jedi is exploiting the Vulcan insofar as the Jedi received one hours of labor at a cost of half an hour's labor.

However, in this situation there is no capitalist. That is why it is not part of the "logical implications" of the hypothetical situation the I presented. This is the disparity between the situation I raised and the one you keep arguing against. This is the textbook definition of a "strawman fallacy."

We've found the problem. You don't even know what exploitation is.


The fact does seem to be though that in the first world we enjoy a lavish life style (and that includes the vast majiority of the working class) that is paid for by the exploitation and gross oppression of the proletariat whether urban or rural in the so-called third world.

Couldn't it be that...the third world is just exploited more?! :O Shocking, I know.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Socialism or barbarianism,

I was responding to a situation that another poster raised. If you would read through the thread, you would see where I had repeated called this type of situation a complete fabrication of my own stance.

Despite you're convinced stance that I have know clue what exploitation is, no-one here has been able to provide any evidence that a majority of people in the First World are exploited without completely ignoring the real economic ties between the First and Third World.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Socialism or barbarianism,

I was responding to a situation that another poster raised. If you would read through the thread, you would see where I had repeated called this type of situation a complete fabrication of my own stance.

Despite you're convinced stance that I have know clue what exploitation is, no-one here has been able to provide any evidence that a majority of people in the First World are exploited without completely ignoring the real economic ties between the First and Third World.

At the very least I showed that workers in the UK were exploited in 1982, and if the UK is like the US, wages have been stagnating for 30 years. You keep telling people to provide evidence that workers in the west aren't exploited, but as far as I know, you've provided no evidence that they aren't.

[Dimentio]

Technocracy seeks to enforce hierarchy and division towards the end of "producing more." It's no different than current neo-liberal apologies for capitalist-imperialism.

Producing more?

Rather producing more efficiently, after what people need.

Since we also intend to abolish money and exchange, we would be great neo-liberals. Yeah... sorta.

[AvanteRedGarde]

No, you pasted a piece of paper that said UK workers were exploited. This isn't evidence in the least bit.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

No, you pasted a piece of paper that said UK workers were exploited. This isn't evidence in the least bit.

It's from "National Income and Expenditure, 1983 edition, Central Statistical Office." Anyway, I'll search for more recent statistics. What evidence for your position do you have?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

I really don't see how someone can deny the exploitation of workers anywhere, but anyway, check these out:

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/09s0651.pdf
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/09s0651.pdf

While the rate of exploitation isn't very high, it's idiotic to say it doesn't exist. Corporations still get 11.5% of the value produced in the US, and we have just as high income inequality as some third world countries:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Gini_Coefficient_World_Human_Development_Report_20 07-2008.png

[AvanteRedGarde]

Can you relate this information in a way that takes into account that a vast amount of products counted within these figures contained embodied labor of the Third World. A pair of socks sold at the dollar general store will add to the value realized within the First World, even though it's productive phase occurred elsewhere.

My question is, how do you account for this as expressed through these numbers. Currently the stats you presented completely ignore this question.

I'm not going to restate myself, read through my posts to see the various examples and evidences that I've given.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Can you relate this information in a way that takes into account that a vast amount of products counted within these figures contained embodied labor of the Third World. A pair of socks sold at the dollar general store will add to the value realized within the First World, even though it's productive phase occurred elsewhere.

My question is, how do you account for this as expressed through these numbers. Currently the stats you presented completely ignore this question.

I'm not going to restate myself, read through my posts to see the various examples and evidences that I've given.

You haven't given any evidence.

[Devrim]

This does not mean that so-called "national liberation" struggles dont have a proletarian character and that the first world chauvanists who label them as completely reactionary and nationalist are not in effect showing their own first world nationalism.

So what you are saying here is that I am a reactionary nationalist chauvinist because I don't support Irish nationalism. I don't know how you come to that conclusion, but flinging insults sure beats a discussion.

Devrim

[Hiero]

But exploitation is not about who works the most hours or how much money they earn. It is about the extraction of surplus value.

I would imagine that the rate of exploitation is higher in a German car factory than in a Mexican sweat shop.

The fact that VW workers, for example, may have better terms, wages, and conditions does not mean that they are less exploited.

Devrim

This all hinges on our arguement we had in the CC about parastic (in an economic sense, not a metaphysical sense so please no emotional resposes) labour. You would need to prove that workers in 1st world car factories add value to the products.

In the third wordlist view value is first created in the third world, when products arive in the 1st world what next occurs is unproductive labour, no value is added in the assemblage of the final product.

Not to say this is how ever single feature of production in the whole capitalisti world occurs. But from the late Leninist perspective this is the majority of how production occurs in late capitalism and such is the defining nature of the class struggle. Infact then 1st world and 3rd world is just division of labour where the centre of productive labour is in the periphery and the unproductive labour is concentrated in the centre.

What people constantly do on this forum is to prove the contrary by simply showing that first world workers work. Which is not the same as proving they are a proleteriat who 1) create value 2) are expliotated in this creation.

There are contradictions in this labour in the 1st world, however they are not revolutionary, nor are they reactionary (mostly) they appear to me to be stagnant, a protection of the continutuin of current living standards and workers rights but with a little more each time. There is rarely anything about qualitative change in their demands. Social Democracy with focus on the rights of individuals is the current ideaology of the militant working class in the first world.

There is also conflict between the unproductive labour in the centre and the productive labour in the periphery. I think the manifestation is clear, that is racism or national chauvinism. When first world workers don't want their conditions being extended to migrant workers, they want to maintain their labour aristocracy.

This idea of unproductive labour is purely economic and Marxist. I can provide evidence from Marx to back this up.

[Devrim]

This all hinges on our arguement we had in the CC about parastic (in an economic sense, not a metaphysical sense so please no emotional resposes) labour. You would need to prove that workers in 1st world car factories add value to the products.

I think it is quite clear. Does a car have more value than the raw materials that make its component parts?

Devrim

[Invariance]

In the third wordlist view value is first created in the third world, when products arive in the 1st world what next occurs is unproductive labour, no value is added in the assemblage of the final product.

Completely wrong.


This idea of unproductive labour is purely economic and Marxist. I can provide evidence from Marx to back this up.

No, your concept of unproductive labour is entirely wrong and contrary to what Marx said.
Since the direct purpose and the actual product of capitalist production is surplus value, only such labour is productive, and only such an exerter of labour capacity is a productive worker, as directly produces surplus value. Hence only such labour is productive as is consumed directly in the production process for the purpose of valorising capital.

Labour remains productive as long as it objectifes itself in commodities, as the unity of exhange-value and use-value.

If one considers the total worker constituting the workshop, his combined activity is directly realised materialiter in a total product which is at the same time a total quantity of commodities and in this connection it is a matter of complete indifference whether the function of the individual worker, who is only a constituent element of this total worker, stands close to direct manual labour or is far away from it. But then: The activity of this total labour capacity is its direct productive consumption by capital, i.e. it is capital’s process of self-valorisation, the direct production of surplus value, and therefore — a point we shall develop further later on — the direct conversion of surplus value into capital.

Productive labour is only an abbreviated expression for the whole relation, and the manner in which labour capacity and labour figure in the capitalist production process. Hence if we speak of productive labour, we speak of socially determined labour, labour which implies a very definite relation between its buyer and its seller. Productive labour is exchanged directly for money as capital, i.e. for money which is in itself capital, has the quality of functioning as capital, and confronts labour capacity as capital. Productive labour is therefore labour which for the worker only reproduces the previously posited value of his labour capacity; but as value-creating activity it valorises capital, and counterposes the values created by labour to the worker himself as capital. The specific relation between objectified and living labour, which makes the former capital, makes the latter productive labour.

Labour with the same content can therefore be both productive and unproductive.

Milton, for example, who did Paradise Lost, was an unproductive worker. In contrast to this, the writer who delivers hackwork for his publisher is a productive worker. Milton produced Paradise Lost in the way that a silkworm produces silk, as the expression of his own nature. Later on he sold the product for £5 and to that extent became a dealer in a commodity. But the Leipzig literary proletarian who produces books, e.g. compendia on political economy, at the instructions of his publisher is roughly speaking a productive worker, in so far as his production is subsumed under capital and only takes place for the purpose of the latter’s valorisation. A singer who sings like a bird is an unproductive worker. If she sells her singing for money, she is to that extent a wage labourer or a commodity dealer. But the same singer, when engaged by an entrepreneur who has her sing in order to make money, is a productive worker, for she directly produces capital. A schoolmaster who educates others is not a productive worker. But a schoolmaster who is engaged as a wage labourer in an institution along with others, in order through his labour to valorise the money of the entrepreneur of the knowledge-mongering institution, is a productive worker. Yet most of these kinds of work, from the formal point of view, are hardly subsumed formally under capital. They belong rather among the transitional forms.

On the whole, the kinds of work which are only enjoyed as services, and yet are capable of being exploited directly in the capitalist way, even though they cannot be converted into products separable from the workers themselves and therefore existing outside them as independent commodities, only constitute infinitesimal magnitudes in comparison with the mass of products under capitalist production. They should therefore be left out of account entirely, and treated only under wage labour, under the category of wage labour which is not at the same time productive labour.

The same kind of labour (e.g. gardening, tailoring, etc.) can be performed by the same working man in the service of an industrial capitalist, or of the immediate consumer. In both cases the worker is a wage labourer or a day labourer, but in the first case he is a productive worker, in the second an unproductive one, because in the first case he produces capital, in the second case he does not; because in the first case his labour forms a moment in capital’s process of self-valorisation, in the second case it does not.

The productive (and therefore also its opposite, the unproductive) character of labour therefore depends on this, that the production of capital is the production of surplus value, and the labour employed by capital is labour that produces surplus value.
and

This phenomenon, that with the development of capitalist production all services are converted into wage labour, and all those who perform these services are converted into wage labourers hence that they have this characteristic in common with productive workers, gives even more grounds for confusing the two in that it is a phenomenon which characterises, and is created by, capitalist production itself. On the other hand, it gives the apologists [of capitalism] an opportunity to convert the productive worker, because he is a wage labourer, into a worker who merely exchanges his services (i.e. his labour as a use value) for money. This makes it easy to pass over in silence the differentia specifica of this “productive worker”, and of capitalist production — as the production of surplus value, as the process of the self-valorisation of capital, which incorporates living labour as merely its AGENCY. A soldier is a wage labourer, a mercenary, but he is not for that reason a productive worker.

[Invariance]

This all hinges on our arguement we had in the CC about parastic labour. Explain how Western labour is 'parasitic' upon non-Western labour, and what you mean by this.


You would need to prove that workers in 1st world car factories add value to the products.The fact that some of the largest car factories in the world are in the 'West' (the USA, Japan) seems to show otherwise; they would not employ workers to build cars if they did not extract surplus value. Although it is changing (with China just reaching the same production of cars as Germany in 2006), 'Western nations' really only used to have the required capital to allow for the mass production of cars - the constant capital required in car production being high, with the large amount of machines etc required in that production process. Japan counts for 20% of world output of cars, the EU 30%, North America 14%, India 3%, China 10%, the rest of Asia 4% (in 2006).


In the third wordlist view value is first created in the third world, when products arive in the 1st world what next occurs is unproductive labour, no value is added in the assemblage of the final product.So, for example, when the metal which was produced in China is later employed in the production process in America, it is a case of only Chinese workers adding value to the commodity capital and not American workers? So if the Chinese worker produces value worth $100, then that value is not further increased later in the production process? The corollary of this is that if the metal used came from America, then would any value be added or created at all? According to you, no! Why do you differentiate the assemblage stage from other stages in the production process?


Infact then 1st world and 3rd world is just division of labour where the centre of productive labour is in the periphery and the unproductive labour is concentrated in the centre.No, it is not an 'in fact.' You have an incorrect concept of productie and unproductive worker - just because someone is not involved in mining coal does not make an unproductive worker of them.


What people constantly do on this forum is to prove the contrary by simply showing that first world workers work. Which is not the same as proving they are a proleteriat who 1) create value 2) are expliotated in this creation. No, we show that they are engaged in the production process, and add more value to the product then they receive in wages. This necessarily means they are exploited - the definition of exploitation being s/v, surplus labour over variable capital. I'm afraid the onus is on you to prove that Western workers create no surplus value in the industries which you claim they do not.


There are contradictions in this labour in the 1st world, however they are not revolutionary, nor are they reactionary (mostly) they appear to me to be stagnant, a protection of the continutuin of current living standards and workers rights but with a little more each time. There is rarely anything about qualitative change in their demands. Social Democracy with focus on the rights of individuals is the current ideaology of the militant working class in the first world. No, they aren't revolutionary at the moment. Yet, trying to extrapolate present conditions to...forever is poor form. Capitalism necessarily has ebbs and flows. Berstein saw the rise of the 'aristocratic' worker and rising wages and abandonded revolutionary socialism (only to see a fall in real wages for German workers); being unable to see the dynamic nature of capitalism, with its crises (especially today!), has lead you to some sort of rejection of the revolutionary potential of Western workers.


There is also conflict between the unproductive labour in the centre and the productive labour in the periphery. I think the manifestation is clear, that is racism or national chauvinism. When first world workers don't want their conditions being extended to migrant workers, they want to maintain their labour aristocracy. You are right on their being an ideological conflict between some 'Western' workers and non-Western workers - the former often supporting the nationalist stances of the capitalist class to protect what limited privileges they have. You, on the other hand, invent another conflict, that non-Western workers are in direct conflict with Western workers. This wholly plays into the hand of non-Western bourgeoisie in arguing for a common interest between the bourgeoisie and their workers in non-Western nations. Workers have a common enemy, the capitalist class. I am quite happy to agree on the different standards of living in different countries, as well as comment on the social effect that has on workers. You don't have to abandon the potentially revolutionary role of workers to recognise the discrepancies in living standards.


This idea of unproductive labour is purely economic and Marxist. I can provide evidence from Marx to back this up. By all means.

[turquino]

I think it is quite clear. Does a car have more value than the raw materials that make its component parts?

Devrim
Of course it does, but I reckon that the living labour of the auto worker is only a tiny portion of that car's value. Constant capital investment in the auto industry is huge. Human labour is the only value forming substance; one hour at average productivity in the car industry is worth the same as one hour in any other industry.

If it was the case that workers in factories in high wage countries were more exploited, wouldn't we have seen production move to these countries instead of the other way around?

[AvanteRedGarde]

No, they aren't revolutionary at the moment. Yet, trying to extrapolate present conditions to...forever is poor form. Capitalism necessarily has ebbs and flows. Berstein saw the rise of the 'aristocratic' worker and rising wages and abandonded revolutionary socialism (only to see a fall in real wages for German workers); being unable to see the dynamic nature of capitalism, with its crises (especially today!), has lead you to some sort of rejection of the revolutionary potential of Western workers.Ok, give me an example from the last century when the Western (i.e. imperialist) working class was revolutionary.

Given the historical trend, i think we can reasonably make the conclusion that, yes, the Western working class is currently bought-off and should be written off as a vehicle for revolution. The stands contrasted to Mexico, where the number of active, armed "revolutionary" groups numbers in the teens or higher, or India where vast swaths of land are under the de facto control of the Naxalites. Again, where is the history of armed resistance and rebellion in the west (or in the case that armed struggle is not appropriate where are the prominent legalistic radical groups)?

So I have to ask once more, can anyone provide any real world evidence that the American so-called working class is a vehicle for revolution?

[black magick hustla]

This all hinges on our arguement we had in the CC about parastic (in an economic sense, not a metaphysical sense so please no emotional resposes) labour. You would need to prove that workers in 1st world car factories add value to the products.{/quote]

I think your arguments have been refuted convincingly a bunch of times.

[quote]In the third wordlist view value is first created in the third world, when products arive in the 1st world what next occurs is unproductive labour, no value is added in the assemblage of the final product.

This is of course, completely a subjective opinion. You cannot just claim just like that what aspects of the assemblage are unproductive or not.


Not to say this is how ever single feature of production in the whole capitalisti world occurs. But from the late Leninist perspective this is the majority of how production occurs in late capitalism and such is the defining nature of the class struggle. Infact then 1st world and 3rd world is just division of labour where the centre of productive labour is in the periphery and the unproductive labour is concentrated in the centre.

I dont feel like digging up again statistics on first and tertiary sector because in the past threads this have been done. Lets just say that the tertiary sector is about the same size in Mexico than in the US.




There are contradictions in this labour in the 1st world, however they are not revolutionary, nor are they reactionary (mostly) they appear to me to be stagnant, a protection of the continutuin of current living standards and workers rights but with a little more each time.

:shrugs: this is right now everywhere. I don't think violent maoist groups necessarily entail a "qualitative demand". All maoist groups (like Nepal) that have gotten into power have the same policies than any social democratic party- albeit Maoists are more bent for violence.





There is also conflict between the unproductive labour in the centre and the productive labour in the periphery. I think the manifestation is clear, that is racism or national chauvinism. When first world workers don't want their conditions being extended to migrant workers, they want to maintain their labour aristocracy.

Mexico had a long history of racism against chinese migrants. This just proves how extensive is the power of ruling class ideology.

[AvanteRedGarde]

[quote]

Were the many anti-chinese lynchings or is public killings of oppressed nationers more of an American thing? How about anti-Chinese riots? Does Mexico have a history of anti-Chinese or other race riots such as almost all American cities?

[Dimentio]

[quote]

Were the many anti-chinese lynchings or is public killings of oppressed nationers more of an American thing? How about anti-Chinese riots? Does Mexico have a history of anti-Chinese or other race riots such as almost all American cities?

There has been anti-chinese riots in Malaysia, Indonesia and other south-east Asian nations. The Chinese shop-owners are accused for exploiting these countries.

In East Africa, there is a lot of racism against the Indian minorities.

Racism is not only a western phenomenon.

[AvanteRedGarde]

In never said that "racism" is a western phenomenon. Heiro rightly pointed out that instead on extending solidarity with oppressed peoples, the labor aristocracy tries to exclude them in one way or another. Marmot said that Mexico has a history of anti-chinese "racism," so i asked him give some examples of Mexican anti-chinese sentiments reaching the heights they did in the U.S.

I also asked, numerous times, for some sort convincing evidence that American are a revolutionary vehicle. This has yet to be provided.

(Again, don't get me wrong. I'm all for revolution. However, to me it seems that most Americans and the First World is against revolution in one way or another. Therefore, and combined with the fact that Americans are amongst the richest 20% in the world, I see no reason why we should recognize the American masses as a vehicle for revolution. )

[black magick hustla]

[quote]

Were the many anti-chinese lynchings or is public killings of oppressed nationers more of an American thing? How about anti-Chinese riots? Does Mexico have a history of anti-Chinese or other race riots such as almost all American cities?

Considering chinese folks hung from the lamposts like some nice christmas ornaments in my original hometown I assume that there where public killings. We also were quite good at mowing down indigenous people.

Its kindof unfair to compair american history of racism to Mexican one though. The US is the most racist country in the first world. The issue of race here is impregnated into the social fiber much more than even in countries where they have an opressed muslim sector.

[black magick hustla]

In never said that "racism" is a western phenomenon. Heiro rightly pointed out that instead on extending solidarity with oppressed peoples, the labor aristocracy tries to exclude them in one way or another. Marmot said that Mexico has a history of anti-chinese "racism," so i asked him give some examples of Mexican anti-chinese sentiments reaching the heights they did in the U.S.

I also asked, numerous times, for some sort convincing evidence that American are a revolutionary vehicle. This has yet to be provided.

(Again, don't get me wrong. I'm all for revolution. However, to me it seems that most Americans and the First World is against revolution in one way or another. Therefore, and combined with the fact that Americans are amongst the richest 20% in the world, I see no reason why we should recognize the American masses as a vehicle for revolution. )

The issue with maoists is that they think that the willingless to violence implies some sort of revolutionary potential. I think this is the biggest flaw in Maoism. Armed change is not synonimous to revolutionary change. I already proved how armed maoist gangs generally end up at most like social democrats, like in Nepal. I think the most miserable sectors of society are not the most revolutionary - they tend to tail sectarian conflicts.

The US is the worst example of first world militancy though. There are other countries with quite interesting labor traditions, like France for example.

[AvanteRedGarde]

No offense, but I don't think excessive violence and militancy is a major deviation occurring within the much of the "revolutionary" left. Even within Maoism this isn't the case. The PCP (Peru) , CPI-Maoist (Indian naxalites), and CPI-Nepal (now the Unified Comprador Party of Nepal) are best known as more modern Maoist parties which have carried out "people's war" which i assume your comments of violence are all about. Other nominally Maoist parties from any number of places are not engaged in violence. I've seen you elsewhere throw up blanket references to Maoists as some sort of tight package. In reality, such reasoning does not help you understand various specific groups.

Back onto the topic of violence.

Now I'm not going to tail the Nepali Maoists as i consider them sold-out or on the brink of being sold out, but the monarchy didn't collapse because of sidewalk demonstrations, nifty chants, letter writing and internet discussions. Rather, the collapse of the Nepali monarchy, which was backed by the U.S. and India, was the direct result of ten years of armed conflict.

As much as it would be nice if we could all sing kumbuya and destroy capitalism, actual revolutions involve force if not outright violence.
I didn't ask about "interesting" labor histories. I asked about revolutionary ones. Again, what would possibly lead one to believe that the American working class is a mass base for revolution?

[PeaderO'Donnell]

So what you are saying here is that I am a reactionary nationalist chauvinist because I don't support Irish nationalism. I don't know how you come to that conclusion, but flinging insults sure beats a discussion.

Devrim

Well if you actually did support Irish nationalism whether the Fianna Fail or Coabh na Gael varieties you would be a reactionary nationalist chauvanist.

However you Devrim were not the one who spoke of British imperialism being so much more civilized than German imperialism, and how it would be alright to join the British army waging its brutal war against German civilians but its not alright for people to have joined mostly working class militias to defend themselves from the English state and its Orange fascism.

Again another group of the Communist Left (the Internationalist Communist Group) has accused the ICC of racism. Not something I think I would do but still it makes us pause for thought.

The fact that the ICC doesnt lend support the working class in Chiapas who have taken back the land and formed their own state structures in defense of their communities and yet supports strikes by labour aristocrats in the first world which call on Unions not to give support for forgein workers is disturbing.

I am not saying that you Devrim are a national chauvanist though I did see you refering to Kurdistan as if it was a part of Turkey and you do refer to the 6 counties as "Northern Ireland"...However these things would suggest that there is something seriously wrong with ICC.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

. "...There are no significant exploited social groups in the First World..."

Totally wrong already...

[followthemoney]

"1. "...There are no significant exploited social groups in the First World...""

If that were true, the struggle would already be won. It implies a lack of exploiters. If we accept that the source of third world exploitation is first world capitalists, then victory in the third world would swiftly follow this claim of victory in the first were it true.

It would be more accurate to say that the effects of exploitation in the first world are dampened by the ability to scavenge the waste products of an inefficient model ("dumpster diving"). Or to put it less mildly, there are no significant unprivileged social groups in the First World.

Extraction of surplus value of labor by the owners of the means of production is still going on, and the owners are a tiny minority while the laborers are a vast majority, therefore there are significant exploited social groups in the First World.



"2. . . . The principle contradiction [...] is between the West and the East, the First World and the Third World"

Oversimplification, yet useful propaganda. 'The West' does not have a monopoly on imperialism, and The South West (Africa and South America) is not even in the game. Russia is kind of half-way-ish and has an imperial agenda. China seems to have an imperial agenda as well. Perhaps at the time and place #2 was written, North American, European, and Russian encroachment was the most pressing concern of the author.



"3. "At the core of revolutionary science today is the global people's war model... The world revolution can be represented as a torrential flood of people's wars that advance wave upon wave from the [Third World] to encircle and crush the [First World].""

Countering this scenario also happens to be the core of American military doctrine. It sounds like a recipe for global depopulation with the outcome favoring the group of survivors with the most guns. I would not bet against either side being in that position after The Bombs have been dropped.


"4. . . . payment of massive reparations . . ."

Is what kicked off WWII. Sending "wave upon wave" of cannon fodder to capture territory is only effective when you can permanently change the culture of that territory. The only way to do that militarily is to kill the very same people that would pay these reparations. Anything short of genocide is a temporary fix (and IMO this makes a quick and bloody revolution a non-starter).




"5. . . . Cultural revolutions are needed to continue the forward momentum under the dictatorship of the proletariat , thus preventing counter-revolution. . . ."

I'd go even farther and claim that successful cultural revolutions are a perquisite for the establishment of a viable dictatorship of the proletariat. Unfortunately, such proletarian rule seems to correlate with the ability to successfully wage a cultural revolution. IMO this need for co-creation is one more argument against a quick revolution led by a vanguard.



"6. "...The rejection of both the Theory of Productive Forces and the associated idea that socialism is the mere extension and democratization of bourgeois privilege...""

As has been stated before in this thread, there is good reason that humans decided to give up the Primitivist lifestyle. But this is a decent propaganda piece if the intended audience is still stuck in that rut.



"7. "...The reaffirmation of the doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Class neutrality does not exist. There are no class-neutral institutions nor class neutral cultural spheres that can serve as a path for the proletariat to gain power... "

Right on. But this does not follow:

"...The old world must be destroyed with all-around dual institutional and cultural power.""

The formation of "dual institutional and cultural power" is inexticably linked to old world conditions from which it springs. While it is more fun to think about destroying thigs, building new things that make the old obsolete and allowing the old to decay on its own seems more likely to succeed.




#8 comes down to arguing semantics - what is the definition of "people's war" and "people's army". Define your terms properly and almost anyone can be made to agree with the #8 statement.

[Cumannach]

Ok, Cumaanch.

If it takes a Vulcan one hour to make one krul of Kryptonite whereas it takes a Jedi only half and hour. Then if they each trade one krul of Kryptonite, then yes, the Jedi is exploiting the Vulcan insofar as the Jedi received one hours of labor at a cost of half an hour's labor.

However, in this situation there is no capitalist. That is why it is not part of the "logical implications" of the hypothetical situation the I presented. This is the disparity between the situation I raised and the one you keep arguing against. This is the textbook definition of a "strawman fallacy."

No, nowhere in any example did I give a situation without any capitalist. The English or Irish workers work on land owned by a capitalist using tools owned by a capitalist, so do the Syrians and Ethiopians, not to mention the Saudi oil refinery workers in that other example. It's you who are leaving out the capitalist by comparing the exchange of two workers labour-time without noticing this exchange occurs through the exploitation of capital. Your little theory just doesn't hold up. Exploitation of one worker by another simply does not follow from variable labour value in capitalist countries at different levels of class struggle.




Look how British leftists on this forum regard the struggle of the Irish proletariat or how the Internationalist Communist Current regard the struggle of the proletariat in Chiapas...Things like that make you begin to ask serious questions.There are as many British leftists on here that support Irish National Liberation as don't, I would imagine. So a couple of anarkiddies and ultra left nihilists mouth off about the IRA, big deal. I see plenty of revolutionary potential in the working class in Britain and elsewhere, even if the standard were this forum.

[black magick hustla]

Well if you actually did support Irish nationalism whether the Fianna Fail or Coabh na Gael varieties you would be a reactionary nationalist chauvanist.

However you Devrim were not the one who spoke of British imperialism being so much more civilized than German imperialism, and how it would be alright to join the British army waging its brutal war against German civilians but its not alright for people to have joined mostly working class militias to defend themselves from the English state and its Orange fascism.

Again another group of the Communist Left (the Internationalist Communist Group) has accused the ICC of racism. Not something I think I would do but still it makes us pause for thought.

The fact that the ICC doesnt lend support the working class in Chiapas who have taken back the land and formed their own state structures in defense of their communities and yet supports strikes by labour aristocrats in the first world which call on Unions not to give support for forgein workers is disturbing.

I am not saying that you Devrim are a national chauvanist though I did see you refering to Kurdistan as if it was a part of Turkey and you do refer to the 6 counties as "Northern Ireland"...However these things would suggest that there is something seriously wrong with ICC.

Dude the ICG are a bunch of nutters. They think AIDS is a virus engineered by the bourgeosie. They also think 911 was ok. who gives a shit about their opinion.

some fun stuff:

http://libcom.org/library/so-as-not-to-die-stupid-aids-communism-8

[black magick hustla]

No offense, but I don't think excessive violence and militancy is a major deviation occurring within the much of the "revolutionary" left. Even within Maoism this isn't the case. The PCP (Peru) , CPI-Maoist (Indian naxalites), and CPI-Nepal (now the Unified Comprador Party of Nepal) are best known as more modern Maoist parties which have carried out "people's war" which i assume your comments of violence are all about. Other nominally Maoist parties from any number of places are not engaged in violence. I've seen you elsewhere throw up blanket references to Maoists as some sort of tight package. In reality, such reasoning does not help you understand various specific groups.

Back onto the topic of violence.

Now I'm not going to tail the Nepali Maoists as i consider them sold-out or on the brink of being sold out, but the monarchy didn't collapse because of sidewalk demonstrations, nifty chants, letter writing and internet discussions. Rather, the collapse of the Nepali monarchy, which was backed by the U.S. and India, was the direct result of ten years of armed conflict.

As much as it would be nice if we could all sing kumbuya and destroy capitalism, actual revolutions involve force if not outright violence.
I didn't ask about "interesting" labor histories. I asked about revolutionary ones. Again, what would possibly lead one to believe that the American working class is a mass base for revolution?

I think you are mistaken my critique on Maoist fetish of violence for a total rejection of it. I am simply stating that a group's willingness to be violent is not the same way as a group willingness to be revolutionary.

The collapse of the Nepali monarchy had very little to do with socialism. Liberals have overthrown monarchies throughout history,

Honestly, I dont think we can discuss much because your ideas of revolution are very different from mine. In my opinion the revolutionary situation is going to come after a mass strike. So yes, May 1968 and the shit that happened in france in 2006 where closes to a *revolutionary situation* than a maoist murder gang killing peasants in Peru.

[Devrim]

I am not saying that you Devrim are a national chauvanist though I did see you refering to Kurdistan as if it was a part of Turkey and you do refer to the 6 counties as "Northern Ireland"...However these things would suggest that there is something seriously wrong with ICC.

Well actually there is no country called Kurdistan, and the six counties of Ulster that are that are currently under British rule are generally refered to Northern Ireland.

Does acknowledging geographical reality make me a national chauvinist?

Devrim

[AvanteRedGarde]

No, nowhere in any example did I give a situation without any capitalist. The English or Irish workers work on land owned by a capitalist using tools owned by a capitalist, so do the Syrians and Ethiopians, not to mention the Saudi oil refinery workers in that other example. It's you who are leaving out the capitalist by comparing the exchange of two workers labour-time without noticing this exchange occurs through the exploitation of capital. Your little theory just doesn't hold up. Exploitation of one worker by another simply does not follow from variable labour value in capitalist countries at different levels of class struggle.


Oh... So you did include the capitalist explicitly in your situation. I'm sorry, but you are a fucking liar. Here let me show you.

Here, again, was my original hypothesis, which no-one has address except Cumannach and only through a strawman.

Here is my original post, in this thread, dealing with the hypothetical situation in question:


In order to for capitalism to work, you can't just have people making stuff. Afterall, capitalism wouldn't work if it just made things that collected dust in warehouses. They have to be bought also.

In a hypothetic case, lets say a we have two workers. Each makes widgets for 1 dollar an hour. Worker A makes one widget in an hour for one dollar. The capitalist takes this widget and sells it to worker B for 2 dollars. Worker B, essentially worked 2 hours to buy the product of 1 hours labor. The capitalist keeps the remaining dollar, the product of one hours labor, as his own.

now lets modify this situation. Lets say Worker A makes 1 dollar an hour and Worker B makes 10 dollars an hour (this is roughly comparable to the difference between minimum wage in Amerika and the average manufacturing wage in China). Now, Worker A makes one widget for 1 dollar in an hour. The capitalist, raises his price and sells the widget for 5 dollars to Worker B. In this case, Worker B purchases, through a half hour of work, the product of 1 hours work. This would represent a value transfer; with Worker B receiving more than the value of their labor.

Also in this latter situation, the capitalist appropriates 4 dollars as opposed to the 1 of the previous situation. Hypothetically, we can clearly see how First World workers and capitalists have a mutual interest vis a vis imperialist super exploitation.For a second I'll ignore all the other strawmen Cummaanch keeps throwing out and highlight his own hypothetical situation, which he swears up and down is exactly the same and seemly shows the "logical implications" of my arguments:


If for instance, let's say that Ireland and the Middle East trade one ton of wheat for an identical one ton of wheat. If there is 100 hours of labor embodied in the Irish wheat and 110 hours of labor in the Mid East wheat (and even if the wheat is otherwise identical), this would be exploitation. If the Middle East instead decided to trade 110 hours embodied in oil for 100 hours of wheat, the would represent the exact same amount of exploitation.and again,


say Irish farm labour is worth less in Spain than Spanish auto factory labour is worth in Ireland because farming conditions, while not as good as in Ireland, are not as poor relative to Ireland, as automobile manufacturing conditions in Ireland are poor relative to Spain. So a Galway farm hand that buys a SEAT to drive to work in is being exploited by Spanish auto workers.
and again


In your example above, you claim that because worker B exchanges 1/2 hours labour for 1 hours labour, worker B is thereby exploiting worker A. Well, going back to the obvious analogy again, 1/2 hours labour produces a kilo of food in England, but 1 hours labour is needed to produce it in Ethiopia, because it rarely rains and you have to put more labour-time into irrigation. The amount of socially neccesary labour needed to produce food in Ethiopia is twice that needed in England. Are the Ethiopians exploiting the English because the value of their labour is greater? If an Ethiopian capitalist buys up some English farm land and uses cheaper English labour to produce a kilo of food, then sells it back in Ethiopia to an Ethiopian worker is that Ethiopian exploiting England?The only time that Cummach even mentions capitalism or capitalists is in this last example he gives, where talks about and Ethiopian capitalist buying a farm in england (I know, I was just as dumbfounded). For all we know, and this would be implied since there is no third mediating force skimming off the top, the factories and feilds that he keeps on rambling about are worker-owned.

If you look in my example, right from the beginning I included a capitalists as a variable actor, which my result would be partially based on. This included the appropriation of surplus value.

I tryed to point this out to Cumanaach a number of times. Here was one of the early times:



Just for clarity, in my hypothetical situation, the fact that one worker makes ten times more is merely one factor, another being the full value of one hours labor- as expressed by what the capitalist sold the wigdet for. If the widget (a product of one hours labor) was sold at above what the second worker makes in an hour, in this situation, the fact that the second worker makes more than worker A (whom made the product) would be irrlevant.I continued in the same post with this:


Your example of different countries negates the very idea of capitalism and capitalists, something which I have never done throughout my evidences, and reads like you are paraphrasing neo-liberal arguments about "competitive advantage." It's just silly to compare and relate my hypothetical situation and the various ones you keep raising.Here is Cumanaaches orginal responce. Notice that he does not even challenge the fact that he complete left out capitalist accumulation from his own situation:


It's not silly you just don't want to hear it. So I restate his own hypothetical situation and point out again the it completely ignores the question of capitalist accumulation:


Ok, Cumaanch.

If it takes a Vulcan one hour to make one krul of Kryptonite whereas it takes a Jedi only half and hour. Then if they each trade one krul of Kryptonite, then yes, the Jedi is exploiting the Vulcan insofar as the Jedi received one hours of labor at a cost of half an hour's labor.

However, in this situation there is no capitalist. That is why it is not part of the "logical implications" of the hypothetical situation the I presented. This is the disparity between the situation I raised and the one you keep arguing against. This is the textbook definition of a "strawman fallacy."And finally Comanaach responds with this:


No, nowhere in any example did I give a situation without any capitalist. The English or Irish workers work on land owned by a capitalist using tools owned by a capitalist, so do the Syrians and Ethiopians, not to mention the Saudi oil refinery workers in that other example. It's you who are leaving out the capitalist by comparing the exchange of two workers labour-time without noticing this exchange occurs through the exploitation of capital. Your little theory just doesn't hold up. Exploitation of one worker by another simply does not follow from variable labour value in capitalist countries at different levels of class struggle.Ohhhh. I get it, regarding your situation we were supposed to be using our imagination: the capitalism was implied the whole time. So was the surplus value they were collecting. How could I have missed it?

Commannach. Like i said earlier, either you are an outright liar or an idiot.

Try this. Use my hypothetical situation and switch around the numbers. Like I said, the fact that workers have a disparity of wages was not the only variable. You could pretty easily use my situation, changing only the numbers, and come up with different outcomes.

And once more for the record, I was simply stating a hypothetical situation to show how a worker could also be an exploiter. In responce, Cummanach has only been able to throw up a different hypothetical situation which purportedly shows the "logical implications" of my own situation. This is the definition of a strawman fallacy. Commannach, liar or idiot- you decide.

[Commanche, you are simply digging yourself deeper. Just admit you were wrong.]

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Cumannach Cummaanch Cummach Cumanaach Cumanaache Cumaanch Comanaach Commannach Cummanach Commanche

I'm sorry, but.. :laugh::laugh::laugh:

Also, why don't you point out how workers in Brazil are exploiting workers in Uganda? Or how workers in China are exploiting workers in Burundi? Or how workers in Gabon are exploiting workers in Georgia?

[AvanteRedGarde]

Because imperialist exploitation does not soley imply that the workers of imperialist countries are paid over the value of labor. Moreover, it's pretty ridiculous to compare Chinese and Brazil imperialist ventures with the American-led imperialist system.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Because imperialist exploitation does not soley imply that the workers of imperialist countries are paid over the value of labor. Moreover, it's pretty ridiculous to compare Chinese and Brazil imperialist ventures with the American-led imperialist system.

Your argument seems to rest on workers in the US making 10 times more than workers in China. Well, workers in China make 10 times more than workers in Uganda. Workers in Gabon make 10 times more than workers in Georgia. Workers in Brazil make 10 times more than workers in Burundi. How far do you want to reduce this? Isn't it a bit arbitrary to say the top 20% exploit the bottom 80%? Why not the top 30% exploiting the bottom 70%? The top 40% exploiting the bottom 60%?

[AvanteRedGarde]

SoB, if you notice, I mention many times that the fact that a worker earns 10x what another worker makes, does not necessarily mean that the first workers is an exploiter. Please refer to the thread for clarity.

The second question is excellent. While I wish I had time to write out a detailed, clear response, I simply don't have time. I did find this though:

"Milanovic found that the richest 25% of the world's population receives 75% of the world's income, even when adjusting for Purchasing Power Parity. The poorest 75% of the population share just 25%."

...

"The greatest contributors to world income inequality are the large countries at either end of the spectrum, the "Twin Peaks," as defined by Quah, 1997 (http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/WoPEc/data/Papers/cepcepdps0324.html). One pole represents the 2.4 billion people whose mean income is less than $1000 year and includes people living in India, Indonesia and rural China. With 42% of the world's population, this group received just 9% of the world PPP income. The other pole is the group of 500 million people whose income exceeds $11,500. This group includes the US, Japan, Germany, France and the UK. Combined, they account for 13% of the world's population yet garner 45% of the world PPP income."

http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/income.php

While does doesn't answer your question, I think it provides some clues.

[Cumannach]

Oh... So you did include the capitalist explicitly in your situation. I'm sorry, but you are a fucking liar. Here let me show you.
...
Ohhhh. I get it, regarding your situation we were supposed to be using our imagination: the capitalism was implied the whole time. So was the surplus value they were collecting. How could I have missed it?
I have no idea how. Were we discussing the Stone Age or Ancient Egypt or something? Of course capitalism is implied. Wtf?

Commannach. Like i said earlier, either you are an outright liar or an idiot.Right I lied hoping nobody would figure to scroll up and read the post.


And once more for the record, I was simply stating a hypothetical situation to show how a worker could also be an exploiter. In responce, Cummanach has only been able to throw up a different hypothetical situation which purportedly shows the "logical implications" of my own situation. This is the definition of a strawman fallacy. Commannach, liar or idiot- you decide.No, a strawman argument is when you misrepresent an opponent's argument and attack that misrepresentation (which is actually what you're doing, by saying I never mentioned capital). It's not when you expand an argument to it's logical conclusion and thereby show how it must be wrong- which is only one thing I did. You really don't think an analogy is a valid part of an argument? This is getting pretty lame, I think I'll have to call it a day soon. But just one last time for the hell of it:


Try this. Use my hypothetical situation and switch around the numbers. Like I said, the fact that workers have a disparity of wages was not the only variable. You could pretty easily use my situation, changing only the numbers, and come up with different outcomes.

In a hypothetic case, lets say a we have two workers. Each makes widgets for 1 dollar an hour. Worker A makes one widget in an hour for one dollar. The capitalist takes this widget and sells it to worker B for 2 dollars. Worker B, essentially worked 2 hours to buy the product of 1 hours labor. The capitalist keeps the remaining dollar, the product of one hours labor, as his own.

now lets modify this situation. Lets say Worker A makes 1 dollar an hour and Worker B makes 10 dollars an hour (this is roughly comparable to the difference between minimum wage in Amerika and the average manufacturing wage in China). Now, Worker A makes one widget for 1 dollar in an hour. The capitalist, raises his price and sells the widget for 5 dollars to Worker B. In this case, Worker B purchases, through a half hour of work, the product of 1 hours work. This would represent a value transfer; with Worker B receiving more than the value of their labor.Yet again, worker B's labour costs more than worker A's. This means worker B's labour has a higher value than worker A's, this makes the exchange equal in terms of value, despite the inequality in labour-time. The labour of worker B is of higher value (it costs more) because in the society in which he lives, the class struggle of the working class is at a more advanced stage.

This does not mean it's 'fair', but it's not a matter of worker B exploiting worker A through a theft or transfer of abstract labour value. The unfairness is a result of the capitalist exploiting the worker A more than worker B, something which he is able to do, because of the different social conditions. (And political and legal conditions are as valid as climatic and agricultural conditions, when calculating the amount of labour socially neccesary for production- the point of the examples I made)

Worker B has an interest in seizing the means of production from the capitalist, because he would then receive the whole value of the product of his labour rather than only a part of it, no matter how high or low the value is.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Apparently I'm blind. Highlight in your examples exactly where you factor in capitalist accumulation. Here. I'll even show you what I want you to do.

Here's my example one more time:



In a hypothetic case, lets say a we have two workers. Each makes widgets for 1 dollar an hour. Worker A makes one widget in an hour for one dollar. The capitalist takes this widget and sells it to worker B for 2 dollars. Worker B, essentially worked 2 hours to buy the product of 1 hours labor. The capitalist keeps the remaining dollar, the product of one hours labor, as his own.

now lets modify this situation. Lets say Worker A makes 1 dollar an hour and Worker B makes 10 dollars an hour (this is roughly comparable to the difference between minimum wage in Amerika and the average manufacturing wage in China). Now, Worker A makes one widget for 1 dollar in an hour. The capitalist, raises his price and sells the widget for 5 dollars to Worker B. In this case, Worker B purchases, through a half hour of work, the product of 1 hours work. This would represent a value transfer; with Worker B receiving more than the value of their labor.

Also in this latter situation, the capitalist appropriates 4 dollars as opposed to the 1 of the previous situation. Hypothetically, we can clearly see how First World workers and capitalists have a mutual interest vis a vis imperialist super exploitation.
Like I said, show me where you factored in capitalism. (You can't because you didn't. You've been raising one long drawn out strawman and you look foolish. You should take notice to how noone here is supporting you on this specific point, even though they agree with your conclusions, i.e. that First Worlders are exploited.)

Actually though, the example you keep on raising does (oddly enough) relate somewhat to a separate trend- one that I haven't argued yet. That would be the disparity between exchange rates and purchasing power. Bur I wanted to talk about something else....

You said this.


The labour of worker B is of higher value (it costs more) because in the society in which he lives, the class struggle of the working class is at a more advanced stage.Does this mean that those who have low wages have a history of rudimentary, as opposed to "advanced," class struggle? Can you give me some examples of "advanced class struggle" on the part of American and Britains and relate it to its converse in places like Indonesia, Algeria, or India? Your comments almost seem to border on national chauvinism.

[Cumannach]

Apparently I'm blind. Highlight in your examples exactly where you factor in capitalist accumulation. Here. I'll even show you what I want you to do.

Wow this is getting ridiculous. So, we start a discussion about whether third world workers in CAPITALIST countries are being exploited by first world workers in CAPITALIST countries. The First World is CAPITALIST. You say, because the the two workers, each working in CAPITALIST countries exchange unequal labour-time values, through CAPITALIST exchange using their wages paid by the CAPITALIST, the one worker is exploiting the other. I give these examples to show that just because labour-time is exchanged unequally between workers in different countries it does not follow that one worker is exploiting another, as it does not follow that labour value is being unequally exchanged:


Here in Ireland it occasionally rains. There is much less labour required to produce a tonne of wheat here than in the Middle East say, with all the labour they must put into irrigation. Irish agricultural labour is less valuable, but there's no exploitation between workers going on, when Irish wheat is exported to the Middle East.



say Irish farm labour is worth less in Spain than Spanish auto factory labour is worth in Ireland because farming conditions, while not as good as in Ireland, are not as poor relative to Ireland, as automobile manufacturing conditions in Ireland are poor relative to Spain. So a Galway farm hand that buys a SEAT to drive to work in is being exploited by Spanish auto workers.


Could it possibly be, that I might have considered it unneccesary and even superfluous to the point, to repeatedly state the obvious, that the land, farm and tool implements of the Irish workers and Middle Eastern workers and the Spanish auto factory workers are all owned by CAPITALISTS, who pay the workers a fixed portion of the value of their product of their labour, which these workers then use to exchange labour-time? Could I possibly have presumed only an idiot could fail to understand that? So now that I've spelt it out for you abc, address the point, 10 posts later and counting.


Does this mean that those who have low wages have a history of rudimentary, as opposed to "advanced," class struggle? Can you give me some examples of "advanced class struggle" on the part of American and Britains and relate it to its converse in places like Indonesia, Algeria, or India? Your comments almost seem to border on national chauvinism.It's not national chauvinism to say that class struggle has been more successful in some countries than in other countries. They actually achieved socialism in Russia- is it chauvinist to recognise this fact, that the class struggle advanced further in Russia than in Germany? If you want a bit of history, try starting with chapter 10 of Volume 1 of Marx's 'Capital', "The working day" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm), here's a little preview:

"The history of the regulation of the working-day in certain branches of production, and the struggle still going on in others in regard to this regulation, prove conclusively that the isolated labourer, the labourer as “free” vendor of his labour-power, when capitalist production has once attained a certain stage, succumbs without any power of resistance. The creation of a normal working-day is, therefore, the product of a protracted civil war, more or less dissembled, between the capitalist class and the working-class. As the contest takes place in the arena of modern industry, it first breaks out in the home of that industry — England. "
Chapter 10, Volume 1, 'Capital'
Marx

And no,I'm not implying that the history of the achievement of the first labour laws in England explain everything about modern imperialism, so keep that straw man in your closet.

[dez]

http://www.wupperinst.org/FactorFour/

If you manage the resources intelligently, you could cut production with 75% and yet retain the same living standards as today. If we say that we in the same time distribute access to resources equally, the vast majority will see their living standard and life quality rise.

http://en.technocracynet.eu

We have sociopolitical issues left unsolved concerning centralized production, though.
I do not think we would solve them right away, but rather gradually.
And that would mean a severe decrease of production in some places and a severe increase of production in others.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Ok Cumannach. I'm going to go real slow and explain this one more time because quite honestly I have better things I could be doing [rather than repeating myself with increasing clarity]. Nevertheless, I'm feel I should post once more, again with increasing clarity, if not for your benefit then maybe for Organ or Peader, or anyone else who is still on this fence.

In anycase, here is my situation once more highlighting specifically where i deal with capitalist accumulation. And keep in mind, I posted this as a hypothetical situation in which a worker could be an exploiter.


In a hypothetic case, lets say a we have two workers. Each makes widgets for 1 dollar an hour. Worker A makes one widget in an hour for one dollar. The capitalist takes this widget and sells it to worker B for 2 dollars. Worker B, essentially worked 2 hours to buy the product of 1 hours labor. The capitalist keeps the remaining dollar, the product of one hours labor, as his own.

now lets modify this situation. Lets say Worker A makes 1 dollar an hour and Worker B makes 10 dollars an hour (this is roughly comparable to the difference between minimum wage in Amerika and the average manufacturing wage in China). Now, Worker A makes one widget for 1 dollar in an hour. The capitalist, raises his price and sells the widget for 5 dollars to Worker B. In this case, Worker B purchases, through a half hour of work, the product of 1 hours work. This would represent a value transfer; with Worker B receiving more than the value of their labor.

Also in this latter situation, the capitalist appropriates 4 dollars as opposed to the 1 of the previous situation. Hypothetically, we can clearly see how First World workers and capitalists have a mutual interest vis a vis imperialist super exploitation.

As you can see, the capitalist in my situation can not be implied. Rather, he represents a variable in the equation which affects the outcome.

Now you have falsely extrapolated this to mean that any disparity in wages implies a transfer of wage between. I have denied this multiple times, but you keep insisting that this is the "logical conclusion" of my argument. In order to prove it you keep raises an argument along these lines:


say Irish farm labour is worth less in Spain than Spanish auto factory labour is worth in Ireland because farming conditions, while not as good as in Ireland, are not as poor relative to Ireland, as automobile manufacturing conditions in Ireland are poor relative to Spain. So a Galway farm hand that buys a SEAT to drive to work in is being exploited by Spanish auto workers.As you can clearly see, the capitalist in your situation is implied. In your situation, capitalist accumulation can't even be a variable because you didn't even mention it.

Now, I have encouraged you multiple time you use my situation and simply change around the numbers. I told you you could easily find a situation where there was a disparity between workers' yet nether was an exploiter. I'm assuming that you've never received a formal education in basic algebra, because you've yet to do it.

Ok so here Cummanach, here is my situation again(in which the pay disparity between workers of a factor of 10- same as last time), yet the higher paid worker is clearly not an exploiter:

[I'll even highlight what I changed from the original situation so that people can more easily see what I'm doing here]


In a hypothetical case, lets say a we have two workers. Each makes widgets for 1 dollar an hour. Worker A makes one widget in an hour for one dollar. The capitalist takes this widget and sells it to worker B for 2 dollars. Worker B, essentially worked 2 hours to buy the product of 1 hours labor. The capitalist keeps the remaining dollar, the product of one hours labor, as his own.

now lets modify this situation. Lets say Worker A makes 1 dollar an hour and Worker B makes 10 dollars an hour (this is roughly comparable to the difference between minimum wage in Amerika and the average manufacturing wage in China). Now, Worker A makes one widget for 1 dollar in an hour. The capitalist, raises his price and sells the widget for 11 dollars to Worker B....
Ok. So all I changed was one variable. Let's see how the outcome is different....


In this case, Worker B, through one hour of work, can only purchase the product of 54 minutes

Also in this latter situation, the capitalist appropriates 10 dollars. Hypothetically, we can clearly see how just because two workers have a vast disparty of wages, this does not neccesarily mean that the higher paid worker is an exploiter of the low paid worker.
Do you know see how that specific variable was rather important for the example I was raising? In your situation on the other hand, even the slightest disparity of wages would imply a transfer of value. That wasn't what i was talking about. Is it clearer now?

[Pogue]

I know I'm late in but this seems like a work of fantasy more than anything. It treats 'first world' workers with contempt that I can't understand and would seem to suggest that they have it all fine and need to be attacked or led by third world workers. If anything I'd have thought history would have taught us that less developed countries and more devleoped countries need to revolt as one international proletariat for a revolution to succeed.

Even if you beleive in the ideas of labour aristocracy, which I don't, (a quick examination of the minimum wage and living conditions and a bit of maths disproves that), theres really apparent faults with capitalism in the first world too. What about job losses, redundancies, evictions, police brutality, etc? Environmental destruction, political corruption, the general injustice of the wealth of the few and the poverty of the many?

No, I'd agree with the line that the people who wrote this are clearly out of touch with the realities of being a proletarian in the 'first world'. Rich kids, anyone?

[AvanteRedGarde]

Now that I've as clearly as possible demonstrated how you've been arguing from a strawman and wasting my time for the past several days, I'd like to address a few things you said in your last post.



So, we start a discussion about whether third world workers in CAPITALIST countries are being exploited by first world workers in CAPITALIST countries. The First World is CAPITALIST.The First World is Capitalist-Imperialist. A Stalinist, supposedly the firmest adherents of Leninism, would never renounce or negate one of the more fundamental teachings of Lenin. Seriously though, the First World is capitalist-imperialist, not simply capitalist. This isn't 1840. Like i said, seriously though...


It's not national chauvinism to say that class struggle has been more successful in some countries than in other countries. No. It's not national chauvinism to say that class struggle has unevenly developed or been more successful in some countries than in others. What is chauvinist is implying that today's disparate conditions are the result of "the historical level of class struggle on the part of those workers in the 'First World' " Rather than an accurate description, this is merely a cover up for the fact that the First World is imperialist.


They actually achieved socialism in Russia- is it chauvinist to recognise this fact, that the class struggle advanced further in Russia than in Germany? Umm. The average salary in Russia is $545 dollars a month. I'm pretty sure that this is higher than Germany or the U.S.

http://www.kommersant.com/p816959/r_500/Average_Salary/

However, i did ask you a question:

Can you give me some examples of "advanced class struggle" on the part of American and Britains and relate it to its converse in places like Indonesia, Algeria, or India?:confused:

Is the high wages of those in the First World the primarily the result of imperialism or "class struggle" on their part??


"The history of the regulation of the working-day in certain branches of production, and the struggle still going on in others in regard to this regulation, prove conclusively that the isolated labourer, the labourer as “free” vendor of his labour-power, when capitalist production has once attained a certain stage, succumbs without any power of resistance. The creation of a normal working-day is, therefore, the product of a protracted civil war, more or less dissembled, between the capitalist class and the working-class. As the contest takes place in the arena of modern industry, it first breaks out in the home of that industry — England. "
Chapter 10, Volume 1, 'Capital'
Marx


A Marx quote? The last resort of those whom fail based on the merits of their own arguments. The most ironic part is that even though you've been unable to concretely apply yourself you a simple equation throughout this tread, you are now referring me to Capital.

Bye, Comanache

[PeaderO'Donnell]

A Marx quote? The last resort of those whom fail based on the merits of their own arguments.


“The English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable.”

Karl Marx quoted by Lenin in "Imperialism, the highest stage of Capitalism".

[Leo]

That is not a Marx quote but an Engels quote, and he of course is talking about the trade union bureaucracy of the day.

[Cumannach]

As you can see, the capitalist in my situation can not be implied. Rather, he represents a variable in the equation which affects the outcome.

Now you have falsely extrapolated this to mean that any disparity in wages implies a transfer of wage between. I have denied this multiple times, but you keep insisting that this is the "logical conclusion" of my argument. In order to prove it you keep raises an argument along these lines:

This reasoning does indeed imply that any disparity in wages implies a 'transfer of wage' between. If the workers are paid different wages, the price of the product of their labour will be different, the one higher, the one lower, in concurrence, just as in your example. When they exchange these products through purchase and sale via the capitalist(s), we have your example. You repeatedly fail to understand that the reason the wages are different is because the effective value of the labour is different , one being higher because it lives a society with a more successful class struggle.



As you can clearly see, the capitalist in your situation is implied. In your situation, capitalist accumulation can't even be a variable because you didn't even mention it.Capital accumulation is expropriation of surplus value,which takes place wherever workers are paid a wage.


Do you know see how that specific variable was rather important for the example I was raising? In your situation on the other hand, even the slightest disparity of wages would imply a transfer of value. That wasn't what i was talking about. Is it clearer now?The variable is not important unless you change it to a value where capitalism is not even taking place, which is irrelevant. Let me spell it out again;

Worker A works for 1 dollar an hour, worker B for 10.

In country B the product of 1 hour's labour is worth 10 + S(B), S(B) being the surplus value taken by the capitalist.

In country A the product of 1 hour's labour is worth 1 + S(A), S(A) being the surplus value taken in this case.

If a capitalist sells the product of worker A in country B, which only cost him (1+S(A)) to produce, he can sell it at any price (P) between what it's worth in country A and what it's worth in country B. That is,

(1+S(A)) ≤ P ≤ (10+S(B))

If P takes a value outside these limits, the capitalist is intentionally making a loss, by selling a product for less than it's worth anywhere, or by trying to sell a product for more than it's worth on the local market, in which case no one will buy it and he makes nothing. So, like I said, as long as we're discussing capitalism, the value of P is irrelevant. It doesn't matter by how much the capitalist undercuts the local market in country B. In all my examples, the capitalist always sold the product in country B at it's 'country B'-value, (1+S(B)). Even if the capitalist sells it there at (1+S(A)), the capitalist still benefits from this by stealing the local market, even if he doesn't make an extra buck from the price difference. So again, the value of your variable doesn't matter if we're talking about capitalism, with any relevant value of it, including the ones I used in my examples, the labour-time of two workers is unequally exchanged, which is what you described to mean was a 'value transfer', an exploitation.

As I've demonstrated, the capitalist is only relevant in these examples, in so far as he has an interest in this unequal exchange, which he does by (as long as his acting in his self-interest ie. capitalism), raising his price above the usual foreign one but below or equal to the local one and/or undercutting and grabbing local markets by selling at the price of the original super-exploited country or selling at somehthing less than the local market price. The whole point of your arguments was this ;



In this case, Worker B purchases, through a half hour of work, the product of 1 hours work. This would represent a value transfer; with Worker B receiving more than the value of their labor.
...
Hypothetically, we can clearly see how First World workers and capitalists have a mutual interest vis a vis imperialist super exploitation.

I pointed out that the second sentence doesn't follow from the first. I pointed out, (1) purchasing a greater amount of labour-time than you sold does not imply an abstract value transfer, (2) If it did, patently absurd conclusions would follow, such as Middle Eastern workers exploiting European farm labourers.

[AvanteRedGarde]

{I really do try to keep these things short. In any case, I’m going to address a few slightly random things in this post. In the next post, I’ve dive further into the question of the value of labor power relative to the value of labor and further highlight how a worker could be exploited. In the third and last post, I will restate simply what exploitation is, just to see if we are on the same page.}

First we need to clarify what exactly exploitation is. No matter the economic system (feudalism capitalism, state-capitalism, capitalist-imperialism, etc) the basic definition of exploitation is when the value your receive is less than what you create. In capitalism this would mean the value of labor power (i.e a wage) being less than value of labor (i.e. the total value which was created through labor power). If the value of labor-power is greater than the value of labor, then one is not exploited. The difference must in fact come from another source of exploitation. In this case [in which the V of Labor Power is greater than the Value of Labor], one would in fact be an exploiter.

This is what I was getting at in my hypothetical situation. I was showing a case in which a worker could still be an exploiter. In your hypothetical case, you in fact did the same thing in a somewhat different way. In each, as they were described, one set of workers received more in wages ( i.e. the value of labor power) than the actual value of labor.


You repeatedly fail to understand that the reason the wages are different is because the effective value of the labour is different , one being higher because it lives a society with a more successful class struggle. Again, I have to ask, can you relate this to the real world? Please give some examples of “advanced class struggle,” which has led the working class of some countries, to the it’s logical inverse: rudimentary class struggle which has led to or maintained the low wages of workers in most countries.

A more logical explanation states that the higher value of labor power of the workers of some countries is directly tied to the development of imperialism and other manners of pillaging foreign societies. Clearly the genocide of Native Americans, which materially benefitted early settlers whom took their land, preceded class struggle. Furthermore, any raise in the wages of one set of workers will naturally be met with deepening and/or widening of exploitation of another set, lest the capitalist looses profit.

(Marx considered the abolition of slavery to be a crucial step in the development of class struggle in America, yet prior to this he also recognized that Americans had a wage many time that of European workers. If you are indeed upholding Marx’s thought to a tee, Marx obviously had some logical holes in his own thinking.

Moreover, if Marx’s though is completely adequate in analyzing today’s world, then why call yourself a Marxist-Leninist or a Stalinist?)

But I digress. an you prove or provide evidence that the value of labor power and labor, both high or low, is the result of the history and level of advancement of class struggle in a given country or society?


Capital accumulation is expropriation of surplus value, which takes place wherever workers are paid a wage. Again, can you point out the surplus value which was appropriated by the capitalist, as opposed to another worker, in your original situation? Do you want me to quote my situation, this time with capitalist exploitation in bold and Worker B exploitation in italics, and compare it to yours.

Trust me, it was different situation, though the underlying argument was basically the same. In mine, the wages (labor power) of each worker were two factor which directly related what the capitalist sold the product for (which represented total value created through the labor process, or the value of labor). The total value of labor was then divided between Worker A, Worker B and the Capitalist.

In your situation, value of labor power and value of labor were treated as equal except in the case of one set of workers, in which specific conditions such as climate or “class struggle,” off set the 1 to 1 ratio. This allowed to you deal directly with the disparity between purchasing power (the value of labor power) and what one created (the value of labor) without having factor in capitalist exploitation. {The easiest way to see the difference to refer to both our situations. Look to see what Worker A could have purchased. In my situation, because there was capitalist exploitation, Worker A wouldn’t be able to purchase the product of an hours worth of labor through one hour of work. In your situation, since Worker A is trading with another Worker A and not Worker B, Worker A would be able to trade even in the given product}

Like I said, the underlying argument was the same: that if the value of labor power is more than the value of labor, then a worker is an exploiter. The examples were different though. Mine deal specifically with a capitalist mode of production, while yours was based on an uneven trade between two entities- these two entities could be states, collectives, individuals, etc.

In fact, if we are simply to consider trade between two nations, then we could roughly proceed by this model. However, rather than the disparity of the value of labor power and the value of labor being the result of climate or “class struggle,” a more relevant cause would be the disparity between exchange rates and purchasing power. This is an artificial and institutional disparity which favors rich countries. This specific phenomenon is called Unequal Exchange.

[AvanteRedGarde]

{Ok, I’m going to start with your equation and further explain how a worker could be exploited, while clearing up exactly what exploitation is and how is happens}



($1+S(A)) ≤ P ≤ ($10+S(B)) I’m going to take this at face value. In this situation, a product is produced in country A. It can’t be sold at less than its value ($1+SA) in country A or B, because that would result in a lower profit. Likewise, it won’t be sold in country B for more than it could be effectively produced there. Remember the price (P) is merely the value of the labor embodied in a given commodity expressed in a monetary form. In this situation, since there is no depreciation of fixed capital and since there are no commodities consumed in the labor process, we assume that the value of labor is created entirely through the labor power of the workers we are talking about.

Let us assume that the product is produced in country A. Even though the product might sell for a different price between country A and B, it is reasonable to assume that there is a production-distribution pattern in which the product is produced in country A and sold in country B. In any case, we are going to assume that the price, whatever it be, is the socially average value of labor for its production.

Ok, now lets break this equation into pieces and do some math.

Let’s say that Worker A produces a 3-pack of tube socks in an hour at a wage of $1. This product is sold in the First World at a price of 6, representing the socially average value of labor.

Now the situation looks like this: $1+(5)=6

In the case, the value of the labor power for worker B ($10) is greater than the actual value of labor.

We can look at it like this also:

Worker B works for an hour at NikeTown for $10. He then takes this his wage (i.e. the value of one hour of labor power) and purchases the value of an hour of labor, a 3 pack of tube socks, for 6 dollars. In this case, the situation would look like this.

6{P}=10+(-4)

This looks odd because the surplus value is negative. However, if we consider that we are dealing with the same capitalist, then it makes sense. In this case the negative surplus value due to employing Worker B is weighed against the positive surplus value from Worker A, giving a net total surplus value of 1. ( I supposed in this situation you could say that during the first hour the capitalist appropriates $5 from Worker A, over the next hour he hands over 4 dollars to Worker B, and so on. In any case, every two hours of social necessary labor time of this situation, the capitalist makes $1 in surplus profit. This could be expressed in different ways to come up with the same conclusion.)

It is important to note that worker B is paid above the value of labor. From our equation, it seems that this is paid for by the capitalist, but this is not the case. Originally, all surplus value was created through the work of Worker A. In paying Worker B above the value of labor, he simply subtracts the difference from that which he appropriated from Worker A. Through this manner, we can again clearly see how Worker B is a, albeit indirect, exploiter of Worker B.

-----------------------

Let’s look at it a different way and see what happens. Instead of assigning a fixed average value of labor, let’s assume that profit is even on both sides and that we are dealing with two different capitalists. In order to make the math easy, let’s say the rate of surplus value starts out evenly.

Let’s break the equation down again. This time let’s assume that both worker A and worker B are producing a 3-pack of tube socks every hour for a wage of $1 and $10 respectively.

Worker/Country A Worker/Country B
$1-$1=Value Value=$10+$10

Ok so in this situation, the price (i.e. value) of a 3-pack of tube socks (and hence the value of labor) is $2 when produced by Worker A and $20 by Worker B.

Now, it is natural to assume that Country A is going to begin flooding Country B with cheap 3-packs of tube socks. If in both countries the value of labor power and the rate of surplus value stay the same, the tube sock industry of Country B will be put out of business since in order to match the price of socks produced by Country B, Country A would have to produce socks at below the B value of labor power (which for the moment is fixed due to “class struggle.”)

Let’s say that’s not the case however. Let’s say that the capitalist of country B raises his prices $9 in order to increase the amount of surplus value that is extracted. In this case, we have this equation: $1+$8=$9{A}. This is still below the value of B labor power and the B capitalists are still going out of business.

He raises the prices once more, and hence the value of labor, to $20, the maximum he can raise his prices while still remaining competitive in Country B.

So now this situation looks like this:
Worker/Country A Worker/Country B
$1+$19=$20 $20=$10+$10

In this case, we have achieved the same value of labor, though not labor power, in both countries as well has the ability for both capitalists to make a profit. (It’s inconsequential to where I’m going but at this point Worker B is exploited, FYI) However for every dollar invested into wages, Capitalist A makes a return of $19 whereas Capitalist B only makes $1. Obviously this is no good for capitalist B.

A few things could happen here. Capitalist B could try to lower their price in order to capture more of a market. Assuming that labor laws prevent the value of B labor power from dropping below $10, the only way prices can be lowered is through cutting the rate of surplus value. However, even if capitalist B lowered surplus value to zero, he still wouldn’t be able to compete because disparity between the A and B value of labor power it great enough to compensate for any profit cut that Capitalist B could take. Really, the only thing that capitalist B could do is move production to country A and begin employing Worker A’s as opposed to Worker Bs.

All of these situations point to a strong conclusion: that most and in some cases all profit or surplus value is created in Country A (i.e. the Third world). Under normal circumstances, because capitalists are always searching to maximize profits, things such as the value of labor power and rate of exploitation would eventually even out (“even out” as in absence of differences of a factor of ten or so).

The major thing that has prevented capital from being primarily concentrated in the Third World (i.e. country A’s where the value of labor power is low) and a consequential is imperialism: monopoly capitalism on a global scale. If all or most of the surplus value is created in Country A and then transferred to in Country B via monopoly capital (such is the case when Indonesia sweatshop workers produce Nike shoes), then a portion of the surplus value could be used to raise the value of labor power in Country B, possibly to the point where it is above the average value of labor.

In case you have questions about this, here again is the example I raised earlier in this post restated in a way that shows this more clearly:


Let’s say that Worker A produces a 3-pack of tube socks in an hour at a wage of $1. Also in an hour Worker B, a salesperson at Nike Town, sells a three pack of socks for 6 dollars. Over the course of the two hours of labor power, $12 dollars in value is created (three socks were sold for $6+ three socks worth $6 were added to the stockroom)

The situation looks like this:

[$1+S]+[$10+S]=12

Looking at where this value came from we could also state this as

[$1+($5)]+[$10+(-$4])=12

Notice that after we account for we’re value is coming from and where it is going, we see that each worker produced a value of six. This would be the average value of labor, what 1 hours worth of labor costs. If a worker’s value of labor power is above the value of labor, that worker is an exploiter. This is also indicated by that fact that the worker seemingly produces negative surplus value.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Simply put, being exploited under capitalism is expressed as:

Value of Labor Power+ Surplus Value= Labor Value

This logically follows:

When one does in receive in pay (i.e. labor pay) the full value of one’s labor, the remainder is appropriated by someone else as surplus value. Likewise, if the value of labor power is above the value of labor, the remainder came from surplus value created by someone else.
Simply put, someone who can work for an hour and through their wage purchase the product of more than an average hour of work, is an exploiter—albeit not through the direct ownership of capital.

[michelle_c]

I am new to revolutionary ideology. This is my first post here. I began looking at revolutionary beliefs only two years ago. I have looked at most of the main trends within the left and Maoism-Third Worldism is the only analysis that makes sense of the world as it actually is, not as we wish it was. It is obvious that First World workers aren’t making revolution nor are they going to. If there were an even distribution of wealth worldwide, First Worlders, even the workers would lose out. Of course they don’t support socialism and the global equality that socialism entails.

It is refreshing to hear someone cut through the leftist bullshit and tell it how it actually is.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

When are you going to realize that the fact that you can create a hypothetical situation where a worker in one country gets more than the value of his labor doesn't come near to proving anything? A slight modification of your imagined scenario can be used to "prove" just as easily that workers in the first world are just exploited less, though still exploited:


Lets say Worker A makes 1 dollar an hour and Worker B makes 10 dollars an hour (this is roughly comparable to the difference between minimum wage in Amerika and the average manufacturing wage in China). Now, Worker A makes one widget for 1 dollar in an hour. The capitalist, raises his price and sells the widget for 15 dollars. Worker B makes one widget for 10 dollars an hour. The capitalist, raises his price and sells the widget for 15 dollars. In both cases, the worker is exploited, but the rate of exploitation varies.Maybe this has been pointed out. Maybe I'm too lazy to read the latest posts. Either way, the idea that a hypothetical situation counts as evidence is ridiculous.

[AvanteRedGarde]

But hypothetically, it is possible for a worker to be an exploiter of another worker's labor.

Correct?

[Lenin II]

Hoxha objected to a class system among nations and believed that developed and developing countries were equally exploited and that they both required revolutions. He saw the Three Worlds approach as an opportunity for China to create its own social-imperialist bloc

WRONG. Hoxha never said this. It liquidates class analysis.

Workers in colonized nations and workers in imperialist nations are not "equally" exploited. They ARE exploited, but not to the extent that people in poorer countries are. It's not really a matter of "equal," since Marxism-Leninism recognizes extraordinary oppression under capitalism. It is not Third-Worldist to do so.

For example, it is fully Marxist-Leninist to say that black people are usually more oppressed or at least face struggles that whites do not under capitalism. This is simplifying it, but hey.

It is only Third-Worldist to say shit like "there ARE no exploited workers in the First World."

[Hoxhaist]

We shouldnt divide the international working class along national lines. This is the goal of the enemy, to divide us agsint ourselves. Maoism-Third Worldism undermines the internationalist struggle by dividing the working class by nation

[AvanteRedGarde]

If class is largely divided between the First and Third World, then wouldn't it make sense that we would recognize this and incorporate it into a revolutionary analysis.

Saying that Maoism-Third Worldism undermines internationalist struggle is ridiculous. Maoism-Third Worldism is a relatively new phenomenon (though it obviously didn't spring from thin air). Internationalist struggle is hardly at it's peak. How could this be the result of Maoism-Third Worldism?

It would, in fact, be more reasonable to say that not properly identifying the primary contradiction- as so many groups have failed to consistently do- has set back and undermined revolutionary internationalist struggle.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Lenin II,

You are welcome at any time to provide evidence for your claims that even a majority of Americans are exploited.

[Cumannach]

Again, I have to ask, can you relate this to the real world? Please give some examples of “advanced class struggle,” which has led the working class of some countries, to the it’s logical inverse: rudimentary class struggle which has led to or maintained the low wages of workers in most countries.

You mean like militant unions, large working class parties, mass political involvement and agitation, newspapers, large and general strikes, that kind of thing?

Again, just because the proletariat of one country have been or are currently more succesful in the class struggle, does not mean or imply that workers in another country are ignorant or primitive or naturally weak and inferior and thus unable to wage class war.

It means that the conditions in the former country, which depend on a myriad of factors were and/or are more favourable than in the latter. The factors include the historically constituted political system, the size and age of industry, the course of it's development, and a crucial one, the effect of a foreign imperialist power on the affairs of the state (the first capitalist countries by virtue of being the first, had no foreign imperialist powers bearing down on them) etc and who knows how many more.
Looking at the obvious historical example again- the workers in Russia, through whatever set of circumstances, managed to wage a far more succesful class war than the French or German proletariat back in the early 20th century, but there's no implication of the French or German workers being rudimentary or primitive.


A more logical explanation states that the higher value of labor power of the workers of some countries is directly tied to the development of imperialism and other manners of pillaging foreign societies. Clearly the genocide of Native Americans, which materially benefitted early settlers whom took their land, preceded class struggle. Furthermore, any raise in the wages of one set of workers will naturally be met with deepening and/or widening of exploitation of another set, lest the capitalist looses profit.
No, it's the desire of Capital not to lose any proft, not the inevitable outcome.

In any case, Capital will wish to expand no matter how much or how little it exploits it's own proletariat- even if it exploits them to the maximum actual possible limit, it will seek to export the surplus value from this and use it as capital to exploit the foreign workers to boot.


But I digress. an you prove or provide evidence that the value of labor power and labor, both high or low, is the result of the history and level of advancement of class struggle in a given country or society?
The evidence is the labour history of the imperialist countries.



Again, can you point out the surplus value which was appropriated by the capitalist, as opposed to another worker, in your original situation? Do you want me to quote my situation, this time with capitalist exploitation in bold and Worker B exploitation in italics, and compare it to yours.


Ok, say we had the European agricultural workers and the Middle Eastern agricultural workers;

The amount of labour socially neccesary to produce food is higher in the Middle East than in Europe, for climatic reasons. So the value of labour is higher is the Middle East than in Europe.

To repeat, for a tonne of food, there's less labour socially neccesary to produce it in Europe, the value of labour in Europe is lower. The value of the product of labour in Europe is lower.

Worker A (European) is paid 0.80 dollars, Worker B (Middle Eastern) is paid 8 dollars.

Say worker A is paid 8/10 the European value of a tonne of food for producing it. Worker B is paid 8/10 the Middle Eastern value of a tonne of food for producing it. (The Capitalist is exploiting at the same rate)

The European Capitalist sells the tonne of food to the Middle Eastern worker (B) at the price it would fetch in Europe, which is 1/10 the local one, since it only requires 1/10 the labour to produce in Europe. The Middle Eastern (B) can buy it at 1/10 the usual value. Worker B was paid 8 dollars for producing the same, but can now buy it with 1 dollar. Worker B has thus benefited from the low wages paid to the worker A.

The Capitalist has benefited by undercutting the local market. In addition, the capitalist could sell his food for a bit more, and make the Middle Eastern worker (B) pay 6 dollars for it. Now the capitalist gets more surplus value by both undercutting the market and selling at a higher price than usual in Europe, and the worker B benefits by paying a lower price.

In this case, Worker B purchases, through producing 600 kg (6/10 of a tonne) of food, 1000 kilos of food produced by worker A.

Also in this latter situation, the capitalist appropriates 5.20 dollars as opposed to 0.20 dollars, which he would get if there was no disparity in the values of labour between the two, and all food sold at 1 dollar a tonne.

The Middle Eastern worker according to you is exploiting the European workers, because it rains more often in Europe.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Well that situation is a bit more complicated than you previous ones.:laugh:

Like I said, exploitation is when the value of labor power is greater than the value of labor.

VLP+SV=VL

There is no way that the value of labor power could be more than the value of labor, without a transfer of surplus value.

[Nosotros]

Well I can't say I agree with point 1, immigrants, the unemployed, the working class and others are certainly exploited there can't be any doubt about that.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Well I can't say I agree with point 1, immigrants, the unemployed, the working class and others are certainly exploited there can't be any doubt about that.

Can you provide any evidence of this?

Obviously the unemployed aren't exploited. They, like others on this list, receive a large share of the social product than they produced or than what would be allowed under a roughly egalitarian model.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

Can you provide any evidence of this?

The working class including immigrant members of it are clearly exploited since they get paid less then the amount of money they earn there bosses (unless there boss is really , really stupid)


Obviously the unemployed aren't exploited. They, like others on this list, receive a large share of the social product than they produced or than what would be allowed under a roughly egalitarian model.


This is revleft not the daily mail comments section. Quite clearly the unemployed are vulnerable due to there lack of power , politicaly and finaicaly (40 quid a week if your lucky) and serve as a scapegoat so everyone blame the guy living in a bedsit not the mansion.

[AvanteRedGarde]

The working class including immigrant members of it are clearly exploited since they get paid less then the amount of money they earn there bosses (unless there boss is really , really stupid)

But as is often the case, production and commodity circulation is not something that occurs in a single company. We should judge it as capital and look to look to see how the actual system is arranged and how various classes relate to each other through this system.

Also, obviously workers are not going to earn as much of their bosses. The bosses salary is based on exploitation. If the workers earned as much as bosses (which can happen for FW skilled workers relative to FW bosses in different industries), then they would obviously themselves be exploiters.

It's like saying water isn't hot because it's not boiling. I'm proposing that the vast majority of the First World, around 15% of the world's population, is a class of net-exploiters via their relation to via capital and its imperialist character.

[Cumannach]

Well that situation is a bit more complicated than you previous ones.:laugh:

Like I said, exploitation is when the value of labor power is greater than the value of labor.

VLP+SV=VL

There is no way that the value of labor power could be more than the value of labor, without a transfer of surplus value.

It's actually not, but in any case, where does it go wrong?

Do you now admit that First World workers are not exploiting Third World workers by getting paid higher wages?

Also, what you say latterly is just stating the obvious and doesn't bear on this argument. The whole point is that the value of labour is higher in First World countries.

[AvanteRedGarde]

How so? The economy is largely globalized and controlled by the same corporations. Monopoly capital simply allows the First World and First World workers to be subsidized through the exploitation of the Third World.

If a pair of socks in made in Indonesia and sold the US, the object contains a certain amount of labor value. In the case that the labor power by sweatshop workers and cashiers is equal, which is not the case since the sweatshop worker will work with greater intensity, the fact that the value of their labor power is set at different levels does not imply that the value of labor correlates with this.

If we were to say that the value of labor is different, as opposed to the value of labor power, then this would imply that if each were making the full value of labor, the First World cashier would still be paid multiple times more for the same amount of labor power.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

How so? The economy is largely globalized and controlled by the same corporations. Monopoly capital simply allows the First World and First World workers to be subsidized through the exploitation of the Third World.

If you say that businesses in the first world knowingly pay there workers more or the same amount that the worker makes for the profit - then your taking the piss.

[AvanteRedGarde]

If you say that businesses in the first world knowingly pay there workers more or the same amount that the worker makes for the profit - then your taking the piss.

Grammatically correct and logically constructed sentences as well as clarifying statements might help me better address your criticisms.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

But hypothetically, it is possible for a worker to be an exploiter of another worker's labor.

Correct?

We aren't concerned with whether it is hypothetically possible, we're concerned with whether or not it is actually happening. You aren't going around saying "I don't have any evidence to prove it, but it's possible that first world workers are being payed more than the value of their labor," you're going around and saying "ZOMG FIRST WORLD WORKERS ARE EXPLOITERS."


Lenin II,

You are welcome at any time to provide evidence for your claims that even a majority of Americans are exploited.

You are welcome at any time to provide evidence for your claims that even a majority of Americans are not exploited.

[Hoxhaist]

The workers of the 1st world and the 3rd world are both exploited but the 3rd world is exploited more. That doesnt matter!! the 3rd worlder shouldnt ally against the 1st world worker, they should ally together against their bosses and both should fight to work for the same wage!

[FreeFocus]

The workers of the 1st world and the 3rd world are both exploited but the 3rd world is exploited more. That doesnt matter!! the 3rd worlder shouldnt ally against the 1st world worker, they should ally together against their bosses and both should fight to work for the same wage!

While I still am not convinced (and will not be, because I've seen otherwise in my experience and with my own eyes) that workers in the First World suffer "no exploitation," Avante brings up some good points in this thread that I hadn't previously considered. However, I always agreed with what I believe to be his sentiment, that the nexus of revolutionary activity is in the Third World, and that workers in the Third World should not be surprised if they received limited First World support. That is his point in this thread from what I understand. I agree with Hoxhaist's point of worker solidarity as well, obviously (since we're all socialists).

I don't think it can be denied that First World workers do have incentives to be reactionary, whether it is material or ideological (both influence the other). That isn't to say that an effort shouldn't be made, of course, but fighting the evils of imperialism for example should not be comprised by the reactionary tendencies of workers in exploiting countries. Additionally, I'd like to add that this criticism is much more true of American workers than European workers.

[KurtFF8]

I also stopped reading at the first point. The idea that because the working class of the first world has a higher standard of living than the working class of the third world makes the working class of the first world "liberated" somehow is just absurd and is severely lacking in class analysis. The author of this program might as well buy into the whole idea that "everyone in America is middle class!" which is of course absurd. Not only does this lack of class analysis probably assume that just because Western workers own homes and live a certain lifestyle that they are no longer exploited (which again is just lacking in a thoughtful class analysis) but this also forgets about the socially oppressed working/non-working poor who are just as much victims of the capitalist mode of production as workers in the third world. (I suggest the author look at what tomato pickers who are undocumented have to put up with: literally modern day slavery)

[FreeFocus]

I also stopped reading at the first point. The idea that because the working class of the first world has a higher standard of living than the working class of the third world makes the working class of the first world "liberated" somehow is just absurd and is severely lacking in class analysis. The author of this program might as well buy into the whole idea that "everyone in America is middle class!" which is of course absurd. Not only does this lack of class analysis probably assume that just because Western workers own homes and live a certain lifestyle that they are no longer exploited (which again is just lacking in a thoughtful class analysis) but this also forgets about the socially oppressed working/non-working poor who are just as much victims of the capitalist mode of production as workers in the third world. (I suggest the author look at what tomato pickers who are undocumented have to put up with: literally modern day slavery)

I agree with this, and this is my major gripe with Maoism and its form of Third Worldism. It is simply too parochial.

[benhur]

To those who say 1st and 3rd world workers are in the same boat:

Why then has a revolution never taken place in the west? Isn't it because workers, though exploited, are better off, so much so they don't even feel the need to revolt, or even think along those lines?

It's similar to a master owning two slaves. Technically, both slaves are being exploited. But if one of the slaves, despite being exploited, is still able to own houses, cars etc. etc., then he's not only better off as compared to the other slave, but he has no reason to join hands with him and revolt against the master. He'd rather defend the master and attack the fellow slave, hoping to achieve 'more' success, 'more' wealth by sucking up to the master.

[AvanteRedGarde]

You are welcome at any time to provide evidence for your claims that even a majority of Americans are not exploited.

Umm... Almost all Americans are part of the richest 15% of the world.

They consume more than an egalitarian share of the current global product. If you divided the world's income by all people, Americans would get poorer.

The minimum wage in America is something around $6.75/hour. 3.5 billion people (around half of the world) survive on less that $2.50 a day. 80% live on less than $10 a day.

Americans have a daily caloric intake of over 3000 and as a collective throw away over a third of the edible food available to them. Malnutrition and starvation kills a child every 5 seconds. Diarrhea and other water born diseases are one of the biggest causes of preventable deaths world wide. Americans use 5.8 billion gallons of potable water just for toilets every day.

Less than a fifth of workers in the U.S. are employed as productive labor, whereas nearly 70% of the world is.

Americans historically and consistently support genocide, wars of aggression, attacks against the oppressed, police measures, etc. Last week there were over 700 rallies against 'socialism.' As others have observed, American are generally reactionary.

Has there ever been a revolutionary workers movement in America since the 1930's? Has there really even been much social unrest? Why not?

Read the Communist Manifesto. Does the vast majority of American workers outwardly resemble, in any way, the proletarian of 1848? What about Third World workers?

[AvanteRedGarde]

We aren't concerned with whether it is hypothetically possible, we're concerned with whether or not it is actually happening. You aren't going around saying "I don't have any evidence to prove it, but it's possible that first world workers are being payed more than the value of their labor," ...

It's quite important. If we can demonstrate that it is possible for a worker to also be an exploiter under various configurations (such as monopoly capitalism and imperialism), then the idea that someone is exploited by virtue of being a worker flies out the window.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Umm... Almost all Americans are part of the richest 15% of the world.

They consume more than an egalitarian share of the current global product. If you divided the world's income by all people, Americans would get poorer.

The minimum wage in America is something around $6.75/hour. 3.5 billion people (around half of the world) survive on less that $2.50 a day. 80% live on less than $10 a day.

Americans have a daily caloric intake of over 3000 and as a collective throw away over a third of the edible food available to them. Malnutrition and starvation kills a child every 5 seconds. Diarrhea and other water born diseases are one of the biggest causes of preventable deaths world wide. Americans use 5.8 billion gallons of potable water just for toilets every day.

Less than a fifth of workers in the U.S. are employed as productive labor, whereas nearly 70% of the world is.

Americans historically and consistently support genocide, wars of aggression, attacks against the oppressed, police measures, etc. Last week there were over 700 rallies against 'socialism.' As others have observed, American are generally reactionary.

Has there ever been a revolutionary workers movement in America since the 1930's? Has there really even been much social unrest? Why not?

Read the Communist Manifesto. Does the vast majority of American workers outwardly resemble, in any way, the proletarian of 1848? What about Third World workers?

How does any of that prove that they aren't exploited as opposed to being exploited less than people in the third world?

You act like workers didn't fight for any of this stuff and that it was just handed down to them. I suggest you read a little bit about the labor history of the united states.

[ZeroNowhere]

Value of Labor Power+ Surplus Value= Labor Value
Again, no, because labour value = 0.


How does any of that prove that they aren't exploited as opposed to being exploited less than people in the third world?
Well, technically, it doesn't prove that they're exploited less either. More wages don't mean less exploitation.


Americans have a daily caloric intake of over 3000 and as a collective throw away over a third of the edible food available to them.
To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen a statistic on throwing out food that doesn't include what supermarkets throw away.


Americans historically and consistently support genocide, wars of aggression, attacks against the oppressed, police measures, etc. Last week there were over 700 rallies against 'socialism.' As others have observed, American are generally reactionary.
One would think that most people outside the US were socialist...


Why then has a revolution never taken place in the west?
Um, bourgeois revolutions most certainly have happened in the West, proletarian revolution hasn't happened anywhere.

[Louis Pio]

Americans have a daily caloric intake of over 3000

Well a large part of that can't be called food, it's just cheap calories that actually means that a good part of americans suffer malnutrion. Not as hunger but as obesity and lack of basic vitamins etc. So it's not really an argument.

Poverty is a big issue in USA, even goverment agencies have to aknowlegde that http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p60-235.pdf Some interesting numbers in this one.


Americans historically and consistently support genocide, wars of aggression, attacks against the oppressed, police measures, etc. Last week there were over 700 rallies against 'socialism.' As others have observed, American are generally reactionary.


I thought maoists claimed to be materialists. However you seemed to have scrapped that for some kind of idealism or what?

[AvanteRedGarde]

If you divide the global annual social product by the world's people, Americans would be poorer. The whole idea behind capitalism is that you work, but receive less than the product you created. How can Americans be exploited when they receive more than what they produced??

Healthy or not, food costs money which is in turn consumed. It's not like there is a great lack of choices in the First World.

There is absolutely no reason to believe Americans are exploited outside of so called leftist dogma. Anyone who thinks that the world could be pulled up the level of Americans, without even greater environmental catastrophe nor finding aliens or robots to exploit, is an idiot.

[AvanteRedGarde]

You act like workers didn't fight for any of this stuff and that it was just handed down to them. I suggest you read a little bit about the labor history of the united states.

Read my posts again. Anyone who thinks that concessions were one primarily because of struggle is a chauvinist. Point to lack of struggle which result in the conditions in places like India, Algeria, Russia.

The history of genocide of North American peoples and the theft of their land began way before so-called labor history. I suggest you start there to find the origins of the American labor aristocracy and exploiter masses.

[AvanteRedGarde]

In 1995, economist Gernot Köhler estimated that 1.8 trillion dollars was transferred to the First World simply from unequal exchange. If we extrapolate this as staying at the same level over the past decade or so, we will see that it covers the entirety of U.S. corporate profits from 2007 with money left over.

Keep in mind that unequal exchange is merely one mechanism by which value is transfered from the Third World to the First.

http://wsarch.ucr.edu/archive/papers/kohler/UnemploymentPaper.htm
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123807065934647327.html

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

If you divide the global annual social product by the world's people, Americans would be poorer. The whole idea behind capitalism is that you work, but receive less than the product you created.

If the majority of the world was made up of wage slaves, then that would make sense. Until then, it proves absolutely nothing.


How can Americans be exploited when they receive more than what they produced?? You've yet to prove this.


Healthy or not, food costs money which is in turn consumed. It's not like there is a great lack of choices in the First World. I think you missed the point. He's saying the reason Americans have such high calorie intake is because the cheapest food is just unnutritional high calorie crap. There are choices, sure, but if you're trying to save money that doesnt' really mean much. Why do you think McDonalds sales went up as the crisis got worse?


There is absolutely no reason to believe Americans are exploited outside of so called leftist dogma. Anyone who thinks that the world could be pulled up the level of Americans, without even greater environmental catastrophe nor finding aliens or robots to exploit, is an idiot.And there is absolutely no reason to believe that they aren't exploited outside of so called Third-Worldist dogma.


Read my posts again. Anyone who thinks that concessions were one primarily because of struggle is a chauvinist. Point to lack of struggle which result in the conditions in places like India, Algeria, Russia.

That's chauvinist? It's a damn fact. Do you honestly think India is going to have managed to be at such an advanced stage of class struggle when 60% of the population are still peasants?



The history of genocide of North American peoples and the theft of their land began way before so-called labor history. I suggest you start there to find the origins of the American labor aristocracy and exploiter masses.Cool. What the hell does that have to do with anything? I don't see you pointing out how the same damn thing happened in third world South American countries.


Well, technically, it doesn't prove that they're exploited less either. More wages don't mean less exploitation.

Well yeah, because labor productivity is most likely higher in the first world. I'm pretty sure this is something Avante has failed to address.

[Cumannach]

How so? The economy is largely globalized and controlled by the same corporations. Monopoly capital simply allows the First World and First World workers to be subsidized through the exploitation of the Third World.


So you've conceded that the higher wages of the First World do not imply that the workers in the First World exploit the Third World workers?

The economy is not globalized. As long as there are vastly different labour laws around the globe, the economy is not a fully global one. You might have heard of the term 'globalization'. If the world is a global economy already what exactly is the whole globalization controversy?


If you divide the global annual social product by the world's people, Americans would be poorer. The whole idea behind capitalism is that you work, but receive less than the product you created. How can Americans be exploited when they receive more than what they produced??


Socialism has nothing to do with 'dividing the global social product equally', it's about abolishing bourgeois production relations and organizing socialist production which vastly surpasses bourgeois production.


Anyone who thinks that concessions were one primarily because of struggle is a chauvinist. Point to lack of struggle which result in the conditions in places like India, Algeria, Russia.

The history of genocide of North American peoples and the theft of their land began way before so-called labor history. I suggest you start there to find the origins of the American labor aristocracy and exploiter masses.

Marx was a chauvinist then. Same quote as before;

"The history of the regulation of the working-day in certain branches of production, and the struggle still going on in others in regard to this regulation, prove conclusively that the isolated labourer, the labourer as “free” vendor of his labour-power, when capitalist production has once attained a certain stage, succumbs without any power of resistance. The creation of a normal working-day is, therefore, the product of a protracted civil war, more or less dissembled, between the capitalist class and the working-class."
Marx

Even if accept the absurd claim that the First World workers have no interest in the Third World working class overthrowing capitalism because it would prevent them from exploiting the Third World, you have to deal with this other interest of the First World workers: The majority of wealth in the First World is owned by a small minority. Therefore the working class majority would gain by overthrowing the ruling class minority and expropriating the wealth. (This is the kind of stupidity inherent in Third Worldist 'analysis'.

One question for everyone who believes us First World workers have no interest in revolution:

What are you wasting your time talking to us for? Are you about to try and persuade us to move to the Third World and agitate for revolution in the only place it's possible?

[FreeFocus]

Even if accept the absurd claim that the First World workers have no interest in the Third World working class overthrowing capitalism because it would prevent them from exploiting the Third World, you have to deal with this other interest of the First World workers: The majority of wealth in the First World is owned by a small minority. Therefore the working class majority would gain by overthrowing the ruling class minority and expropriating the wealth. (This is the kind of stupidity inherent in Third Worldist 'analysis'.

Then you can have a form of national socialism, equitably distributing the profits reaped from exploiting the Third World. More or less, this is the direction I see things moving in.

[Black Dagger]

Moved to Theory.

[Hoxhaist]

the workers of the first world are not the recipients of third world wealth!! the bosses of all the workers are the recipients of the wealth. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the international ruling class are the enemy of the working class all over the world!!!

[AvanteRedGarde]

Do you mean at the risk of sounding dogmatic and stale... I've provided a number of evidences to counter your claim, you nor anyone else have provided anything to back up your dogmatic, subjectivist clinging to the worker vs bosses paradigm.

Comanache,

I thought socialism was about equality. Turns out its about maintaining global inequality. Who who have thought. (sarcasm)

Are you uphold the theory of productive forces as opposed to class struggle and the importance of social relation?

And just so you know, the most effective and reasonable argument for capitalism states this: inequalities allow more to be produces more efficiently, thus allowing for a greater total social product. Were you not inserting the word socialism, your upholding of the Theory of Productive Forces would made you sound like the sternest apologist for capitalism and inequality. How convenient for you.

[Louis Pio]

I've provided a number of evidences to counter your claim, you nor anyone else have provided anything to back up your dogmatic, subjectivist clinging to the worker vs bosses paradigm.


You really haven't. I fail to see how you have shown that workers in the "first world" exploit workers in the "third world".

In my oppinion the problem with the theory you put forward, which is gennerally known as the "parasite theory" since it's premise is that workers in the "first world" are parasites on workers in the "third world". Is that it comes from the same background as modern reformism, in the sense that it's base is the unprecedented upswing that happened after WW2. This lead certain intellectuals to believe that this situation with economic growth would never change.
Some drew reformist conclusions thinking we could reach socialism by reform and other drew the conclusion you have drawn, that workers in the "first world" leeches on workers in the "third world". Both positions are quite flawed and in my oppinion comes from an extremely flawed analysis of capitalism.

One thing is a flawed theory, but the implications are much worse. In the case of the reformists they are quite known. Haven't meet many maoists but I would presume that the implications is at best a total indifference over workers struggles in the "first world" and at worst actually fighting against those workers if they feel it somehow helps workers in the "third world"?

[Bilan]

Maoism Third Worldism suggests that certainly. I was specifically implying that Q looks like a brat: someone who can't bear to sit and read something for 2 minutes, insofar as it challenges their established view of the world, and would rather chase after something more is either more fun or otherwise reinforces their previously established world-view.

That's only because this is total bullshit. To even suggest that there are no 'exploited peoples' in the "First World" is of no substantial basis, and is a blatant denial of reality. Your defence of it confirms your inane understanding of economic theory, marxist or otherwise, in which you negate relationships to production.
The analysis is bullshit and has been smashed so many times. Monkey smashes heaven can smash their heads into moving train.

[Cumannach]

Then you can have a form of national socialism, equitably distributing the profits reaped from exploiting the Third World. More or less, this is the direction I see things moving in.

Right, so if workers have an interest in the continuing exploitation by Capital of the Third World, the workers have as much 'interest' in overthrowing the First World Capitalists and reaping all the profits from this exploitation themselves. Conclusion, if the central tenet of Third Worldism is true, then the other central tenet is false.


Do you mean at the risk of sounding dogmatic and stale... I've provided a number of evidences to counter your claim, you nor anyone else have provided anything to back up your dogmatic, subjectivist clinging to the worker vs bosses paradigm.

Em, no you haven't. You have yet to either answer the simple proof I gave that different wage levels and commodity exchange between the First and Third Worlds does not imply exploitation by First World workers, which is the example you gave of how First World workers might be exploiters. If you can't answer it, admit it, and find some other argument as to what makes the workers exploiters.



I thought socialism was about equality. Turns out its about maintaining global inequality. Who who have thought. (sarcasm)
Are you uphold the theory of productive forces as opposed to class struggle and the importance of social relation?You might want to take a another look at Marx's works.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Em, no you haven't. You have yet to either answer the simple proof I gave that different wage levels and commodity exchange between the First and Third Worlds does not imply exploitation by First World workers, which is the example you gave of how First World workers might be exploiters. If you can't answer it, admit it, and find some other argument as to what makes the workers exploiters.


Um, point out that proof again. In case you are interested, here was some of my evidence again.


Umm... Almost all Americans are part of the richest 15% of the world.

They consume more than an egalitarian share of the current global product. If you divided the world's income by all people, Americans would get poorer.

The minimum wage in America is something around $6.75/hour. 3.5 billion people (around half of the world) survive on less that $2.50 a day. 80% live on less than $10 a day.

Less than a fifth of workers in the U.S. are employed as productive labor, whereas nearly 70% of the world is.

Americans historically and consistently support genocide, wars of aggression, attacks against the oppressed, police measures, etc. Last week there were over 700 rallies against 'socialism.' As others have observed, American are generally reactionary.

[Lenin II]

This is one of the places where Hoxha was wrong. The USA is "equally exploited" as Zambia, imperialism doesn't exist? For all his talk of "pure Marxism-Leninism" this goes straight up against Lenin's theory on imperialism. There is no labor aristocracy in the First World? Or is there one in the Third World too that is at the same level of "desperation" as First World unionized skilled factory workers making $70,000 a year? (Not to say there isn't a deeper and more oppressed section of the proletariat in every imperialist country, numbering in the tens of millions in the USA.)

To say that "it's all the same" is just not in line with reality -- kinda reminds me of the Trot ISO's article where they critiqued the RCP for writing that First World workers have better living conditions than in the Third World, having things like potable water and vaccines...

(This has nothing to do with the bullshit "Three Worlds Theory" put forward by Deng Xiaopeng, this is simply the communist analysis of imperialism from Lenin and Mao)

What an opportunist line! Have you ever even READ Hoxha? No, you simply heard someone say something on a forum and believed it for your own factional ends. I already dispproved that Hoxha said this.

Offer up some quotes or he never said it.

Seriously, you know better than this.

[Bilan]

Forgive me, oh Avantwhitegarde for my exploitation of the Third World through working at a check out. I can't believe you've discovered by undercover exploitation of the 3rd World through have to sell my labour!
I think the most peculiar, and distorted part of your analysis comes from your total ignorance of relationships to production, and the fact that the actions of the bourgeoisie in imperialist states correspond to their desire to accumulate capital. One might think the MIMite block is stupid enough to actually spout the Trickle-Down theory of capitalism.

Really, the lot of you are just lunatics with a very flimsy, weak analysis of capitalism, and disturbing view of what socialism is.

[Hiero]

I forgot I posted in this thread. I really can't be bothered going over the thread and posting to more points, and secondly I don't think I will learn another from this thread. I will slightly change my position.

I think capitalism in this era is global and the distinction between 1st world and 3rd world is a division of labour. The third world participates by far in the most worst conditions of labour and are paid the least, and this is the centre of the creation of surplus value. In the first world this is where workers participate in the better side of labour and receive the higher wages and thus live in better conditions. Immigration controls, social democracy and nations maintian this aparthiad of labour.

If we think of global capitalism as one big structure, then we have in the first world the labour aristocracy and in the third world the lower revolutionary proleteriat. This is no more then a extension of Leninism into the current era.

Now really to prove or disprove this we need to be economist or at least have a strictly economic view of Marxism, which none of us have. So I am not quick to suddenly take aboad other peoples interpretations of Marx based on a 1800s perspective of class. Marxism isn't just "you work, you're explioted, you are revolutonary". Rather it is a science that is much more deeper than that and is susceptible to the changing material conditions. It looks for the revolutionary class that is the impetuse for (real) revoltutionary change.

Now this is the best I have I can come up with, and I think it is a hell lot better then other people's explanations why first world revolution has never even been on the picture. Which amounts to the usual 1) Just wait it is around the corner still 2) You watch to much tv 3) Stalinism made a picture that makes workers not want communism, which are all idealist in nature.

Secondly it purposefully aviods the question about expliotation of 1st world workers, this is an economical question none of us are equiped to answer.

And seriously I don't know why people are so attached to a mythical dogmatic view about Marxism that leads to some belief that revolution is going to happen in their life time. I just can't believing 160s of consistant repetition with no imaginative adaptation.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Forgive me, oh Avantwhitegarde for my exploitation of the Third World through working at a check out. I can't believe you've discovered by undercover exploitation of the 3rd World through have to sell my labour!
I think the most peculiar, and distorted part of your analysis comes from your total ignorance of relationships to production....

They don't grow food or sew clothes in some back room at stores. Insofar as food is grown in the U.S., 1) it's done so on one of the largest tracts of stolen land, 2) it likely employs child labor or 'undocumented workers,' and 3) it is likely subsidized through the U.S. government and trade protection.

You are in fact not producing a thing but involved in the realization of surplus value.

[AvanteRedGarde]

I forgot I posted in this thread. I really can't be bothered going over the thread and posting to more points, and secondly I don't think I will learn another from this thread. I will slightly change my position.

I think capitalism in this era is global and the distinction between 1st world and 3rd world is a division of labour. The third world participates by far in the most worst conditions of labour and are paid the least, and this is the centre of the creation of surplus value. In the first world this is where workers participate in the better side of labour and receive the higher wages and thus live in better conditions. Immigration controls, social democracy and nations maintian this aparthiad of labour.

If we think of global capitalism as one big structure, then we have in the first world the labour aristocracy and in the third world the lower revolutionary proleteriat. This is no more then a extension of Leninism into the current era.

Now really to prove or disprove this we need to be economist or at least have a strictly economic view of Marxism, which none of us have. So I am not quick to suddenly take aboad other peoples interpretations of Marx based on a 1800s perspective of class. Marxism isn't just "you work, you're explioted, you are revolutonary". Rather it is a science that is much more deeper than that and is susceptible to the changing material conditions. It looks for the revolutionary class that is the impetuse for (real) revoltutionary change.

Now this is the best I have I can come up with, and I think it is a hell lot better then other people's explanations why first world revolution has never even been on the picture. Which amounts to the usual 1) Just wait it is around the corner still 2) You watch to much tv 3) Stalinism made a picture that makes workers not want communism, which are all idealist in nature.

Secondly it purposefully aviods the question about expliotation of 1st world workers, this is an economical question none of us are equiped to answer.

And seriously I don't know why people are so attached to a mythical dogmatic view about Marxism that leads to some belief that revolution is going to happen in their life time. I just can't believing 160s of consistant repetition with no imaginative adaptation.

While you are largely incisive (a breath of fresh air really), I don't understand the agnosticism regarding if First World workers are a) exploited and b) a vehicle for revolution. While these things, or rather their conjunction, might not come intuitively (i.e. most people would probably think that First World workers are exploited but revolution is out of the question), it is not above us to look into research that has already been done.

It's almost like saying that just because one isn't a physicist, one can't understand or uphold correct principles of physics. In reality, a basic college level physics course can teach one a whole like about thermal dynamics, gravity, force, projectile motion, etc.

While it's fairly obvious that Americans are by in large reactionary respective to the struggle of the global proletariat, the question of economics is harder to grasp. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to grasp it and apply it. What is really the alternative, upholding an ideal of socialism while claiming to not know for sure who is an exploiter and who is exploited currently, i.e. not understanding how to achieve overthrow capitalist imperialism through class struggle?

[Bilan]

They don't grow food or sew clothes in some back room at stores. Insofar as food is grown in the U.S., 1) it's done so on one of the largest tracts of stolen land, 2) it likely employs child labor or 'undocumented workers,' and 3) it is likely subsidized through the U.S. government and trade protection.

You are in fact not producing a thing but involved in the realization of surplus value.

You're infact full of absolute shit, with no solid economic grasp beyond total lunacy. You might well join the Physiocrats in terms of modern irrelevance.
Furthermore, Child Labour is part of the history of capitalism - why are you surprised its still practiced? All Land is stolen, what is your point?
You are not in fact a communist, but a lunatic.

[AvanteRedGarde]

You're infact full of absolute shit, with no solid economic grasp beyond total lunacy. You might well join the Physiocrats in terms of modern irrelevance.
Furthermore, Child Labour is part of the history of capitalism - why are you surprised its still practiced? All Land is stolen, what is your point?
You are not in fact a communist, but a lunatic.

More emotionalism than actual arguments on your part. You're reduced to claiming I have a mental disorder. How un-PC of you. You can't actually address the points I've posted, because you are, in fact, "full of shit",- or useless dogma and subjectivism rather.

[scarletghoul]

Mao supported the struggles of oppressed people in first world countries. You can call this third worldism or whatever but its not maoism IMO and definately not communism


I call on the workers, peasants, revolutionary intellectuals, enlightened elements of the bourgeoisie and other enlightened persons of all colours in the world, whether white, black, yellow or brown, to unite to oppose the racial discrimination practised by U.S. imperialism and support the American Negroes in their struggle against racial discrimination. In the final analysis, national struggle is a matter of class struggle. Among the whites in the United States, it is only the reactionary ruling circles who oppress the Negro people. They can in no way represent the workers, farmers, revolutionary intellectuals and other enlightened persons who comprise the overwhelming majority of the white people. At present, it is the handful of imperialists headed by the United Slates, and their supporters, the reactionaries in different countries, who are oppressing, committing aggression against and menacing the overwhelming majority of the nations and peoples of the world. We are in the majority and they are in the minority. At most, they make up less than 10 per cent of the 3,000 million population of the world. I am firmly convinced that, with the support of more than 90 per cent of the people of the world, the American Negroes will be victorious in their just struggle. The evil system of colonialism and imperialism arose and throve with the enslavement of Negroes and the trade in Negroes, and it will surely come to its end with the complete emancipation of the black people.
- Mao Zedong, 1963

[scarletghoul]

edit- double post woops

[Bud Struggle]

Moved to Theory.

Would appreciate the same when you move to OI.

Thanks.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Why was this moved to opposing ideologies. Maoism-Third Worldism doesn't advocate for capitalism or religion. It advocates for revolution. The move was subjective as fuck, a de facto censorship on the part of a few 'leading' members of RevLeft, who've thus far been unable to actually argue the validity of their own 'revolutionary' viewpoints.

[edit: thanks for moving it back. ]

[AvanteRedGarde]

Mao supported the struggles of oppressed people in first world countries. You can call this third worldism or whatever but its not maoism IMO and definately not communism.

First, I never claimed that Maoism-Third Worldism is some sort of Maoist orthodoxy.

Second, MTWism supports the struggle of oppressed people in the U.S. insofar as it is part of the struggle of the global proletariat against capitalist imperialism.

[Bilan]

Why was this moved to opposing ideologies. Maoism-Third Worldism doesn't advocate for capitalism or religion. It advocates for revolution. The move was subjective as fuck, a de facto censorship on the part of a few 'leading' members of RevLeft, who've thus far been unable to actually argue the validity of their own 'revolutionary' viewpoints.

[edit: thanks for moving it back. ]


Don't make stupid claims you can't substantiate.

[Bilan]

More emotionalism than actual arguments on your part. You're reduced to claiming I have a mental disorder. How un-PC of you.

Do you think I care if it's PC or not?



You can't actually address the points I've posted, because you are, in fact, "full of shit",- or useless dogma and subjectivism rather.

No, your points are just utterly false, baseless and come from an extremely elementary understanding of class structures, and an even more elementary understanding of marxism and communism - primarily one which has a tendency toward despotism.
I'm not going to take your argument seriously because you're not serious yourself - and the 'movement' your a part of, i.e. 3rd Worldist muppets who live in the West, are absolutely mental, and absolutely isolated, not to mention dead.

You make a series of tedious claims about the entirety of the west, claiming workers are not exploited (Which makes no sense in the first place - Workers = A class of people who must sell their labour in order to survive; this labour is bought by another class, capitalists) and all sorts of inane crap of this nature, and then expect anyone to take you seriously?
Please.

Maybe you should spend less time reading MIMs inane crap - you know, before you completely lose it - and try some Marx instead.

[Hiero]

You make a series of tedious claims about the entirety of the west, claiming workers are not exploited (Which makes no sense in the first place - Workers = A class of people who must sell their labour in order to survive; this labour is bought by another class, capitalists) and all sorts of inane crap of this nature, and then expect anyone to take you seriously?
Please.

If you read Wage Labour and Capital (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm) I think it shows what expliotation is. It is not just working and selling you labour. Sure that is the basic premises of it, but what if someone is paid their labour time? What about if someone performs some task that is neccassary, but doesn't add to the creation of surplus value? Surely they are not exploited.

I think is is theoritical possible that people can work and sell their labour but are paid their labour time, or least very close to it as long as the main focus of surplus value is subtracted else where in the line of production. It is rather dogmatic the approach you are taking.

[benhur]

You make a series of tedious claims about the entirety of the west, claiming workers are not exploited (Which makes no sense in the first place - Workers = A class of people who must sell their labour in order to survive; this labour is bought by another class, capitalists) and all sorts of inane crap of this nature, and then expect anyone to take you seriously?
Please.

Maybe you should spend less time reading MIMs inane crap - you know, before you completely lose it - and try some Marx instead.

Workers are exploited if they aren't paid the full value of their labor. In this context, let's consider A and B. If A is paid the full value, we're forced to conclude that B isn't. Because if both of them are paid the full value of their labor, there would be no such thing as surplus value and therefore no capital/capitalism as we know it.

Hence, it's reasonable to assume that if western workers are paid the full value of their labor (which is why they live comfortably, even the poorest is richer compared to third-world workers, which is why first-world workers aren't interested in revolution etc. etc.), then the surplus value must be created elsewhere by exploiting more number of people for more labor time to compensate for it. Which means third-world workers are, in effect, responsible for the relatively comfortable lifestyle of the western workers, because the latter's wage comes NOT only from his labor, but from the labor of third-world workers.

In short, without exploitation of third-world workers and extracting huge surplus value out of them, it'd be impossible for the cappie to provide the luxurious lifestyle that most western workers demand.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Workers are exploited if they aren't paid the full value of their labor. In this context, let's consider A and B. If A is paid the full value, we're forced to conclude that B isn't. Because if both of them are paid the full value of their labor, there would be no such thing as surplus value and therefore no capital/capitalism as we know it.

Hence, it's reasonable to assume that if western workers are paid the full value of their labor (which is why they live comfortably, even the poorest is richer compared to third-world workers, which is why first-world workers aren't interested in revolution etc. etc.), then the surplus value must be created elsewhere by exploiting more number of people for more labor time to compensate for it. Which means third-world workers are, in effect, responsible for the relatively comfortable lifestyle of the western workers, because the latter's wage comes NOT only from his labor, but from the labor of third-world workers.

In short, without exploitation of third-world workers and extracting huge surplus value out of them, it'd be impossible for the cappie to provide the luxurious lifestyle that most western workers demand.

You make the same error that AvanteRedGarde does. Mainly, thinking that something is true merely because you asserted it to be true.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Again, this isn't an actual argument, you are not presenting evidence, etc. Something is true regardless of if its even asserted or thought about or not.

[JimmyJazz]

Also, you can't say that the US economy is entirely based on circulatory and not productive work, as the US is still by far the biggest manufacturer in the world. Besides China no one even comes close:

-table snipped-

The US has maintained relatively the same share of global manufacturing for the past 20 years.

Can you provide a link for where you got this? I've actually been looking for this info. Thanks.

[AvanteRedGarde]

If the products produced in the U.S. are sold at greater than their value, then its share of global manufacturing would be exaggerated.

A better way of judging this would be to track on many people are employed in various occupations types and compare them between countries over time.

I don't have stats on this, but it would seem intuitive that the U.S'. actual share of global manufacturing has gone down.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Can you provide a link for where you got this? I've actually been looking for this info. Thanks.

http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/2008/09/23/top-manufacturing-countries-in-2007/


If the products produced in the U.S. are sold at greater than their value, then its share of global manufacturing would be exaggerated.

A better way of judging this would be to track on many people are employed in various occupations types and compare them between countries over time.

I don't have stats on this, but it would seem intuitive that the U.S'. actual share of global manufacturing has gone down.

Yes, it would seem intuitive, just like every other assertion that you make, which you also do not have evidence for. It doesn't matter if a country has more employed in manufacturing because they could have lower productivity.

[Bilan]

Workers are exploited if they aren't paid the full value of their labor. In this context, let's consider A and B. If A is paid the full value, we're forced to conclude that B isn't. Because if both of them are paid the full value of their labor, there would be no such thing as surplus value and therefore no capital/capitalism as we know it.

This is presuming that A and B have are relative to reality. Which, Benhur, they're not.
Furthermore, the diversity of industry in the 'First World' makes this claim completely baseless. In Australia, for example, the two primary industries which keep the economy afloat are Mining and agriculture, with a heavy lean on the former. The other dominant sectors are, obviously, tertiary industries.
Furthermore, in these industries - i.e. tertiary - to presume, or even imply that workers are paid the full value of their labour has no empirical basis. Infact, you claim was made up as you wrote it - and you know it.
On shares:



Furthermore, there is evidence that while stock values have risen in recent years, overall family wealth has grown very little for the middle class. For one thing, families continue to accumulate debt. And the rise in value of stocks and retirement accounts has been offset by a decline in other kinds of savings, such as the old-fashioned bank account. It is entirely possible for an American family to have both a growing stock portfolio and falling economic security at the same time.
Every three years, the Federal Reserve Board issues a Survey of Consumer Finances. Scouring the latest (1998) survey, New York University economist Edward Wolff concluded that stock market gains have not propelled the American middle class into the money club. To the contrary, he writes, ``the only segment of the population that experienced large gains in wealth since 1983 is the richest 20 percent of households.'' And since 1989, ``non-elderly middle income families actually experienced the largest losses in wealth.''
More families now live on the edge of disaster. From 1983 to 1998, the proportion of American families with zero or even negative net worth actually grew from under 16 percent to 18 percent. This should not be a great surprise to anyone who watches television. Observe all those advertisements for home-equity loans worth more than the value of your house. Note also the ads for Internet stockbrokers offering low commissions and margin accounts (whereby the broker will lend you money to buy stocks).


source. (http://www.commondreams.org/views/072600-101.htm)


Shares in retirement funds do not equate to "owning the means of production", nor do they equate to "being proponents of imperialism" nor do they equate to a disinterest in socialism, or negate the necessity of it. The only type of "socialist" who would argue such tripe are the type, like yourself and ARG, are the despotic socialist types, who think that socialism will remain at the current point in production, and all that will change is distrubition - the same type who think "equal pay for all" is socialism (hint: its not).
The fact is that these shares, presumably owned by half (though, to be honest I doubt it) of households in America (Which I should remind you is not the West, but part of it) does not fundamentally alter the dominant relationship to production. Further, the changes in the type of industry in the West (i.e. the movement of manfucturing to poorer nations) is not something which is in the interests of the working class in the West. If you weren't so detatched from the world, you would realize that this is the origin of the term "outsourcing" and the rise in unemployment and poverty in the West - Take a look, for example, at the statistics which display the rise in unemployment during the Thatcher era in Britain.



The working class in the West is something which still exists, as anyone with a non-vulgar grasp of economics would realize, as no country, no capitalist economy can exist without a labouring class.




Hence, it's reasonable to assume that if western workers are paid the full value of their labor (which is why they live comfortably, even the poorest is richer compared to third-world workers, which is why first-world workers aren't interested in revolution etc. etc.), then the surplus value must be created elsewhere by exploiting more number of people for more labor time to compensate for it.

Do you even know what that means? The full value of their labour, that is. Further, living comfortably? No one is denying the outsourcing of industries to the "undeveloped" parts of the world, and no one is denying the exploitation en masse of the labouring populations in these countries - something which has distinct similarties to the early development of capitalism in Britain (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm#S5a). But the 'comfortable life' of workers in the West (heh, Come to Australia, and come out into the Western Suburbs of Sydney, we'll see how 'comfortable' life is for you) is through a three fold degradation of conditions: one, its through the outsourcing of primary and secondary industries, which results in the hyper-exploitation of the poor in countries such as India and China, and in the loss of jobs and income for workers in the West; two from the casualisation of labour, resulting in less security, higher wages, irregular work, disappearance of jobs, less rights in the workplace; and three from the psychotic opening up of markets - i.e. free trade - which has forced wages down and prices down (so everything is cheap, but we've got no money to buy it). Which results, in the West, in the booming of credit. And I hope I don't have to explain that to you.
Nothing is really owned in the West by the working class. Most of it, like houses, cars, etc. is bought on credit - it's bought on fictitious capital. It is the image of wealth which façades the reality of poverty. Credit has saved the spectacle, and it is the backbone of the spectacle (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm).



Which means third-world workers are, in effect, responsible for the relatively comfortable lifestyle of the western workers, because the latter's wage comes NOT only from his labor, but from the labor of third-world workers.

That is the case with all labour. Labour creates the wealth of the world, all labourers live on the labour of others and purchase the labour of others in commodities. Your economic analysis is beyond vulgar.



In short, without exploitation of third-world workers and extracting huge surplus value out of them, it'd be impossible for the cappie to provide the luxurious lifestyle that most western workers demand.

Oh piss off. For someone who lives in the West, you surely have no fucking idea of whats going on around you.

[ZeroNowhere]

Workers are exploited if they aren't paid the full value of their labor.
Cut the crap. The 'full value of their labour' does not exist.


Which makes no sense in the first place - Workers = A class of people who must sell their labour in order to survive; this labour is bought by another class, capitalists
Workers don't 'sell their labour'. They sell their labour power. Though at least you're not being as annoying as the people yapping on about the 'value of labour' or some crap.


Labour creates the wealth of the world, all labourers live on the labour of others and purchase the labour of others in commodities.
Well, not solely, but I'll let it pass (it's amazing how many people still use the whole 'labour is the sole creator of wealth' slogan). As for purchasing the 'labour of others', that's rather misleading, they purchase use-values. Them 'purchasing the products of the labour of others' would make more sense.

Also, the whole 'USians own most of the world's wealth' or whatever thing is a rather silly argument in general. "The wealthiest 1% of all households controls 38% of national wealth, while the bottom 80% of households holds only 17%, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Around 85% of stockmarket wealth is held by a lucky 20%. If the rich have been doing much better than other Americans in relative terms, the poor have failed to improve their lot as they did in the 1950s and 1960s. The wage incomes of the bottom 20% of households have barely grown in real terms since the mid-1970s. As for wealth, the bottom fifth has debts that exceed its assets, making its wealth a negative number. The bottom fifth's percentage of national wealth worsened from -0.3% in 1983 to -0.6% in 1998." (On the US)
One in six New Yorkers, surely not a totally insignificant mass, don't exactly seem (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7106726.stm) to be sharing in this whole 'luxurious lifestyle with loads of super-exploited wages' thing whatsoever. One out of 17 white homeowners owns a luxury home (less than the percentage of 'murkins in poverty), and one of 33 minority homeowners (still exploiters living the high life, apparently) has one. And, quite honestly, that 'murkins receive higher wages (though one needs to take higher cost of living into account here before just spitting out numbers, which the 'TW'ists are opposed to on principle, one would think) has no relevance to whether they are exploited or not.


Do you even know what that means? The full value of their labour, that is.
I'd say he thinks that he does, which is the problem.

I would've elongated this into a rather long rant, but I'm off now for a few days. Bye Revleft, and please read Rubin (http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/index.htm) sometime, goddamnit.

[KurtFF8]

I suggest that the maoists here who believe that somehow America's workers "aren't really workers" read this book, it may help end your confusion:

The Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret (http://www.amazon.com/Working-Class-Majority-Americas-Secret/dp/0801487277)

[Demogorgon]

Whiole I did read the whole thing and spotted perhaps more problems in it than any other single post on this board (which is saying something) it really does fall down almost immediately here.


1. "...There are no significant exploited social groups in the First World..."

Leaving aside the existence of all the obvious oppressed groups (many of which have been mentioned), the simple fact is that this statement explicitly rejects the existence of surplus value by claiming that all(!) workers in the first world are either receiving the full value of their work or even being given more of it (from the goodness of the capitalists' hearts no doubt). Not only is this blatantly reactionary statement it also utterly rejects Marxism and as Maoism is supposedly derived from Marx, the text cannot even claim to be Maoist in nature.

Really though, this sort of stuff is perilously close to spoilt brat Libertarianism, despite looking different at first site. Both come predominantly from middle class teenagers who have had it easy and presume life is like that for everyone. The only difference is that this crap only extends that notion to the first world.

[JimmyJazz]

I guess I am just not understanding why "Third-Worldists" see anti-imperialism and classical Marxism/class struggle in the developed nations as somehow incompatible.

It's like some weird inversion of the ICC position.

No Marxist anti-imperialist is suggesting that the two struggles are identical. But you can't just assert that they incompatible without demonstrating that it is so. If they're not incompatible, then I'll just continue being a Marxist and an anti-imperialist like I was, thank you very much.

[JimmyJazz]

http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/2008/09/23/top-manufacturing-countries-in-2007/

Thanks. At one point I looked really hard to find this. I wonder why I couldn't.

This info is key to a debate like this one, imo.

Whether the U.S. working class lives off its exploitation of the third world, and to what extent it does, is pretty much an empirical question. You could in theory calculate (not that it wouldn't be a pain in the ass to do so) the money that has come into the U.S. through foreign investments and unequal trade agreements over the last x number of years. You could look at the rise in living standards of the U.S. working class over the same period, along with the rise (or maintenance, or decline) of the actual productive output of the U.S. economy. If there was a much bigger rise in working class living standards than there was in American productivity, I think you could safely assume that some of the foreign investment profits had made their way down to the working class.

Of course, I don't really see any strong mechanisms for this trickle-down to take place. We have paltry social programs (an indirect trickle-down mechanism), and unions are incredibly weak (which would, if they were strong, serve as a direct trickle-down method). And as the link above shows, the U.S. still leads in production, so the U.S. working class does still seem to be significantly living off of its own labor and no one else's. Not entirely, perhaps, but significantly for sure.

The mere existence of poverty does not equal exploitation. That's basic. But it's a fact that the Third-Worldists seem to overlook continually. Dependence and impoverishment do of course occur in first world-third world interactions, and we can point to several of the ways that this happens. But a sophisticated socialist approach (following in Marx's steps) would be to identify and trace the mechanisms of exploitation, not simply to say "some rich, some poor - exploitation." Third-Worldism seems a bit like a form of indignant intellectual laziness in this regard.

[benhur]

I guess I am just not understanding why "Third-Worldists" see anti-imperialism and classical Marxism/class struggle in the developed nations as somehow incompatible.


Isn't that self-evident? Consider Israel, for instance. Why would Israeli citizens fight imperialism, when imperialism places them in a privileged category, gives them power over Arabs, gives them a chance to control oil and other wealth in the region, improves standards of living at the expense of the 'enemy' and so forth?

[JimmyJazz]

Isn't that self-evident? Consider Israel, for instance. Why would Israeli citizens fight imperialism, when imperialism places them in a privileged category, gives them power over Arabs, gives them a chance to control oil and other wealth in the region, improves standards of living at the expense of the 'enemy' and so forth?

They wouldn't. They would fight their bosses.

[Bilan]

Isn't that self-evident? Consider Israel, for instance. Why would Israeli citizens fight imperialism, when imperialism places them in a privileged category, gives them power over Arabs, gives them a chance to control oil and other wealth in the region, improves standards of living at the expense of the 'enemy' and so forth?

You have no idea. The painfully ignorant vile that spills from your mouth (or rather, fingers) is disturbing. Do some history.

[KurtFF8]

Isn't that self-evident? Consider Israel, for instance. Why would Israeli citizens fight imperialism, when imperialism places them in a privileged category, gives them power over Arabs, gives them a chance to control oil and other wealth in the region, improves standards of living at the expense of the 'enemy' and so forth?

Again lacking in class analysis here. While it's certainly the case that the average Israeli worker is likely better of than the average Arab worker in Palestine, that doesn't mean that they will automatically fall in line with the dominant ideology that tells them that they deserve to be better.

Take whites and blacks in the US. The average white worker in prior to the late 1960s was better off than the average black worker, but they came together to overcome things like segregation.

Yes there were significant problems with racism in the union movement in the north and such, but there were also many cases of white and black workers coming together despite the privileged position of white workers: they came to understand their situation.

So yes there are problems when the state ideology tries to divide workers in this way, but to assume that this ought to throw a thoughtful class analysis that tries to demonstrate how they can overcome this seems to be quite defeatist and false in the first place. (And yes, I understand that social oppression isn't just reduced to class exploitation, hence my post in Discrimination. But we need to fight both of them together, and to throw our hands up and say things like "Well these people aren't really workers because of some social or lifestyle privileged they gain from Capital's exploitation of people in another place is just false.)

[Hiero]

In Australia, for example, the two primary industries which keep the economy afloat are Mining and agriculture, with a heavy lean on the former. The other dominant sectors are, obviously, tertiary industries.

Man, minners are so overpaid. Alot of minners can receive anywhere from $40 an hour to over $100, and they can work flexible hours. I seriously doubt that surpluss value is created in the process of removing unprocessed earth from the ground, it probally happens else where where it is refined and made into a product.

I think minning in an Australia is a perfect example of how labor aristocracy works. Workers are bought off in these industries, because of the dangerous nature and the other social/cutlural nature of this environment they have be paid off with the highest wages in Australia to actually do the job. It's just a problem the bourgousie have to deal with the fact that resources are found all over the world, some in democratic liberal society with legal unions.

So they literally pay off this section of workers (many I imagine who are paid many times more then their living wages) so as the bourgieosie have the raw product to be created into a usable product else where.

The interesting contradiction is in these industries there maintians a higher a cultural identification as being workers then any other field, apart from the wharfies ( I don't know anything about what they are paid, perhaps they are truely explioted in this industry). I think this is because these industries are highly politicised, especially now with climate change on the agenda.

[Devrim]

Man, minners are so overpaid. Alot of minners can receive anywhere from $40 an hour to over $100, and they can work flexible hours...

Where have we heard this line before?

Devrim

[AvanteRedGarde]

Again lacking in class analysis here. While it's certainly the case that the average Israeli worker is likely better of than the average Arab worker in Palestine, that doesn't mean that they will automatically fall in line with the dominant ideology that tells them that they deserve to be better.

But they do. Israelis support the Israeli state. (I'm just going to premptively tell you that are are probably getting ready to argue the exception against the rule.)


Take whites and blacks in the US. The average white worker in prior to the late 1960s was better off than the average black worker, but they came together to overcome things like segregation.

Please don't talk to me about Black history as your liberal cumbya accounting makes me want to puke. Ya, in between race riots, lynching, armed resistance, cointepro, mass arrests, assassinations, and top down federal programs, there was so much 'coming together.'


So yes there are problems when the state ideology tries to divide workers in this way, but to assume that this ought to throw a thoughtful class analysis that tries to demonstrate how they can overcome this seems to be quite defeatist and false in the first place. (And yes, I understand that social oppression isn't just reduced to class exploitation, hence my post in Discrimination. But we need to fight both of them together, and to throw our hands up and say things like "Well these people aren't really workers because of some social or lifestyle privileged they gain from Capital's exploitation of people in another place is just false.)

Like i've said so many times before, if you think it's possible, then go out and try to prove it. What is science but being able to prove something one way or another? The reality of the situation is that generations of radicals have tried to agitation the First World masses and all of them failed. The cause was structural, not some errors on the part of people's efforts. Like I said, have fun banging your head on the brick wall that is First Worlders.

Along the same lines, my heads hurts going back and forth with most of you. In any case, I just posted a new blog that links a bunch of economics and political economy articles. Check it out.

[Bilan]

I love how you used examples of the bourgeois state and the most reactionary elements of society - funnily enough, which exist everywhere - as examples of "coming together".
Do. Some. History.

[Louis Pio]

Dear Abby/Monkeysmashesheaven/avanteredgarde

Are the exploitation by "firstworlders" dependent on how much they work? So let's say someone working two jobs are exploiting more than someone working only one?
Is there a procentual exploitation difference in various jobs? And if so can you give examples?
As a "firstworlder" can we cease to exploit if we move into the wilderness and live of the land? Or do we need to move to the "third world"? Or is it enough to raise money for third world movements to be revolutionary?

[Hiero]

Where have we heard this line before?

Devrim
What do you mean?

[Devrim]

What do you mean?

I mean that this sort of talk; "Man, minners are so overpaid. Alot of minners can receive anywhere from $40 an hour to over $100, and they can work flexible hours." reminds me of the right wing press complaining about overpaid workers.

Devrim

[AvanteRedGarde]

Dear Abby/Monkeysmashesheaven/avanteredgarde

Are the exploitation by "firstworlders" dependent on how much they work? So let's say someone working two jobs are exploiting more than someone working only one?
Is there a procentual exploitation difference in various jobs? And if so can you give examples?
As a "firstworlder" can we cease to exploit if we move into the wilderness and live of the land? Or do we need to move to the "third world"? Or is it enough to raise money for third world movements to be revolutionary?

I think the answers to these questions can be surmised from my postings. I'm not going to needless repeat myself for people who have just entered the debate and are too lazy to see what has already been discussed.

[AvanteRedGarde]

I mean that this sort of talk; "Man, minners are so overpaid. Alot of minners can receive anywhere from $40 an hour to over $100, and they can work flexible hours." reminds me of the right wing press complaining about overpaid workers.

Devrim

Devrim, I'd like to see you tell someone who makes a dollar an hour that someone who makes 40-100 an hour are their class brothers. I'm sure you'de be taken really seriously.

[skki]

The entire argument is fallacious. It rests mostly upon a total revision of the term "exploitation", and some other silly stuff.

Devrim, I'd like to see you tell someone who makes a dollar an hour that someone who makes 40-100 an hour are their class brothers. I'm sure you'de be taken really seriously.
And I'd like to see you tell a slave that people who make a dollar an hour are their class brothers.

This is the same line of reasoning that tells people with no clothes that they have no right to complain because there are people out there with no limbs. And people with HIV they are just fortunate that they don't have AIDS.

I don't think you've ever had a job, certainly not a full time job, or you wouldn't talk such rubbish.

Here is the Marxist definition of exploitation:
The ownership of the means of production by a small minority in society, the capitalists;
The inability of non-property-owners (the workers, proletarians) to survive without selling their labor-power to the capitalists (in other words, without being employed as wage laborers);
The state, which uses its strength to protect the unequal distribution of power and property in society.

Please explain how this doesnt apply in the first world.

[Devrim]

Devrim, I'd like to see you tell someone who makes a dollar an hour that someone who makes 40-100 an hour are their class brothers. I'm sure you'de be taken really seriously.

ARG, actually I am pretty sure that they don't earn that much money. I remember personally being involved in a national strike once, and reading about how much we supposedly earned when actually we earned less than half of what I read in the paper.

Workers being overpaid is the argument of the bosses. It is certainly not the argument of socialists.

Devrim

[KurtFF8]

But they do. Israelis support the Israeli state. (I'm just going to premptively tell you that are are probably getting ready to argue the exception against the rule.)

This blanket statement certainly does ignore the fact that there are various organizations that oppose Israeli imperialism within Israel. You, and some others on this board, have failed to make a real argument that Israeli workers are for the most part reactionary no matter what. There also seems to be this implicit argument that Israeli workers couldn't be allies of the left for some reason.




Please don't talk to me about Black history as your liberal cumbya accounting makes me want to puke. Ya, in between race riots, lynching, armed resistance, cointepro, mass arrests, assassinations, and top down federal programs, there was so much 'coming together.'

Don't mistake your ignorance of the black movement for me singing a liberal cumbya. All of the things you mentioned, maybe take lynching, have nothing to do with what I was talking about. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure you read my comment. It was about how the black movement included many white workers and unions. Maybe you ought to reread it.



Like i've said so many times before, if you think it's possible, then go out and try to prove it. What is science but being able to prove something one way or another? The reality of the situation is that generations of radicals have tried to agitation the First World masses and all of them failed. The cause was structural, not some errors on the part of people's efforts. Like I said, have fun banging your head on the brick wall that is First Worlders.

Are you really arguging: prove a workers revolution is possible in the first world by going out and doing it yourself?

I don't even think I need to address the absurdity of this sentiment, it should be quite obvious.

If failure of workers uprisings in the First World is evidence that FW workers can't succede, then does that mean that the failures of workers in the Third World also mean that it's impossible, and structurley so, in the Third World as well?

Your arguments are quite lacking here.


Along the same lines, my heads hurts going back and forth with most of you. In any case, I just posted a new blog that links a bunch of economics and political economy articles. Check it out.

Great way to end an argument: go look at a bunch of links.

How about addressing the issues we're brining up to you that you can't quite seem to account for.

[FreeFocus]

This blanket statement certainly does ignore the fact that there are various organizations that oppose Israeli imperialism within Israel. You, and some others on this board, have failed to make a real argument that Israeli workers are for the most part reactionary no matter what. There also seems to be this implicit argument that Israeli workers couldn't be allies of the left for some reason.

If failure of workers uprisings in the First World is evidence that FW workers can't succede, then does that mean that the failures of workers in the Third World also mean that it's impossible, and structurley so, in the Third World as well?

Yes, and we should commend and work with those organizations that oppose Israeli imperialism from home. However, that would entail the dissolution of the state. It is a settler state. Not many Israeli organizations support self-dissolution. Moreover, Israeli citizens consistently side with the actions of their governments against Arabs, for example the 94% who supported Operation Cast Lead (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230733116715&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull). Large majorities supported the war against Lebanon in 2006.

The fact is that once one identifies as an Israeli, they lay claim to a legacy of settler imperialism and racist ideas of entitlement. After all, their existence, their identity is predicated upon the dispossession of another peoples. This is true of all settler states. Ever wonder why every settler state has reactionary tendencies, dating back to their founding?

Moreover, comparing failed revolutions in the Third World to those in the First World is illogical. The Third World has never been free from imperialists breathing down its neck; they have the worry about their national bourgeoisie selling them out as well as foreign imperialists. Every attempt has been crushed directly militarily, economically or by providing reactionary forces with arms.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Like i've said so many times before, if you think it's possible, then go out and try to prove it. What is science but being able to prove something one way or another? The reality of the situation is that generations of radicals have tried to agitation the First World masses and all of them failed. The cause was structural, not some errors on the part of people's efforts. Like I said, have fun banging your head on the brick wall that is First Worlders.

I really don't think you belong on this site if all you are going to do is try to discourage people from trying to convince first world workers of the necessity of socialism.


Along the same lines, my heads hurts going back and forth with most of you. In any case, I just posted a new blog that links a bunch of economics and political economy articles. Check it out.

I only looked at "Simple Question by the Numbers, the majority in the U.S. revolutionary or not?" but I love how MSH tells me I'm not a Marxist if I don't base my definition of class on differences in wealth instead of relation to the means of production. Awesome stuff.

[Bilan]

Devrim, I'd like to see you tell someone who makes a dollar an hour that someone who makes 40-100 an hour are their class brothers. I'm sure you'de be taken really seriously.

Class is not an income bracket. Simple as that. You're still wrong.

[benhur]

Class is not an income bracket. Simple as that. You're still wrong.

But it plays a huge role in shaping one's perspective.

Two guys are exploited, and one of them earns $100 an hour. The other makes $1 an hour. Will this guy take you seriously if you tell him, "Since both of you sell your labor power to survive, don't own the means of production, you and the $100 guy have so much in common, except that he's rich, can afford a home and car, whereas you can't! These differences aside, you guys are brothers in this struggle."

Try this, and see how it goes. Then come back to revleft, and share your experiences.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Technically though, if two people are exploited and one earns $1 while the other 100$, they still have a common cause in ending exploitation- even if the gains aren't has great for the latter worker. If however, the latter worker is not exploited or in fact an exploiter then s/he would have no interest in overthrowing capitalism.

[Cumannach]

And you still haven't shown how an average FW worker could be an exploiter.

[bcbm]

But it plays a huge role in shaping one's perspective.

Two guys are exploited, and one of them earns $100 an hour. The other makes $1 an hour. Will this guy take you seriously if you tell him, "Since both of you sell your labor power to survive, don't own the means of production, you and the $100 guy have so much in common, except that he's rich, can afford a home and car, whereas you can't! These differences aside, you guys are brothers in this struggle."

Try this, and see how it goes. Then come back to revleft, and share your experiences.

Most autoworkers make a fuckload more than I do and they're one of the most threatened sections of my class right now. You better believe I'd be on the front line of their strike or defending an occupation they undertook. Or people getting fucked on their mortgages? There's no way I could own a house right now, but I'd sure defend those who are trying to.

[Louis Pio]

There's no way I could own a house right now, but I'd sure defend those who are trying to.

Most of the time people don't own houses, the bank does.

[Bilan]

But it plays a huge role in shaping one's perspective.

Shaping yours, perhaps. Nevertheless, ideology is what shapes it.



Two guys are exploited, and one of them earns $100 an hour. The other makes $1 an hour. Will this guy take you seriously if you tell him, "Since both of you sell your labor power to survive, don't own the means of production, you and the $100 guy have so much in common, except that he's rich, can afford a home and car, whereas you can't! These differences aside, you guys are brothers in this struggle."Your stupid example is just that: stupid.
If, in a general strike, I was to talk to workers on the wharf about it, I think you'd discover I was in a much lower income bracket than they are, considering I earn 12.90 an hour and they would earn well above that. Despite my wage being extremely low, I don't negate that these people who earn higher wages and remain part of the proletariat, are part of my class. But I'm not cringe-y enough to call someone my 'brother'.
Perhaps when you get a job and actually join the ranks of the proletariat, and are no longer an ignorant, verbose high school student, you will come to realize this.
Furthermore, historically speaking, workers have over looked this fact: our wages are different, but our class and our interests remain the same.



Try this, and see how it goes. Then come back to revleft, and share your experiences.Try getting a job, and then getting some perspective, and then I might listen to your stupid shit.

edit: It's becoming increasinly clear how far Benhur and ARG have abandoned basic Marxist positions on class, substituting them with bourgeois analysis of class - an analysis with very little correlation to what class actually is.
Again, pick up the Marx, start again.

[Bilan]

Technically though, if two people are exploited and one earns $1 while the other 100$, they still have a common cause in ending exploitation- even if the gains aren't has great for the latter worker. If however, the latter worker is not exploited or in fact an exploiter then s/he would have no interest in overthrowing capitalism.

Yes, but you've been unable to prove how they're not being exploited. You and Benhur have illustrated your own ignorance by giving fake statistics and analysis, and then tried to pass it off as "proof". This, more than anything, demonstrates your class rather than ours.
Most of us here are proletarians, and do know. I don't think you can say the same.
Tell me, do you have a job, AvantRedGarde? Are you from the West?

[PeaderO'Donnell]

Workers being overpaid is the argument of the bosses. It is certainly not the argument of socialists.

Devrim

Devrim the fact is that global revolution would mean a drop in the "living standards" of most first world workers. Whether they are exploited is another issue.

Economicism in the first world leads straight to fascism as witnessed by the anti-Irish chauvanism of many of the "anarchists" here. However socialism is much more than raising "living standards" which is where I think the Third Worldists go a little wrong.

[Bilan]

Devrim the fact is that global revolution would mean a drop in the "living standards" of most first world workers. Whether they are exploited is another issue.

Substantiate that claim.



Economicism in the first world leads straight to fascism as witnessed by the anti-Irish chauvanism of many of the "anarchists" here.

Do you realize how contradictory that sentence is?
Anarchism is turned into fascism by refusing to support National Liberation in Ireland? Do you know what fascism is, or why internationalists reject National Liberation?
Solid logic there. No hint of nationalism in your post. :rolleyes:

[PeaderO'Donnell]

Anarchism is turned into fascism by refusing to support National Liberation in Ireland? Do you know what fascism is, or why internationalists reject National Liberation?
Solid logic there. No hint of nationalism in your post. :rolleyes:

Have you never heard of national anarchism?

I think that it is obvious that here in the first world we enjoy a decadent standard of living that comes from the super exploitation of the third world. Lenin showed this back at the beginning of the last century and things have only gotten worse since than.

Do you realise that nearly everyone in the first world is part of the world's richest 15 per cent?

Do you deny that there is a causal relation between the wealth of that richest 15 per cent and the miserable poverty of the vast majiority of people on this planet?

Economnicism in the first world leads to fascism as it only follows that it is in the economnic interests of the first world's working class to protect their wealth from the world's oppressed majiority aswell as to try and get a bigger share of the spoils from their own bosses.

Look at Jack London...A proto-fascist if ever there was one who was also an IWW militant.

[Louis Pio]

Devrim the fact is that global revolution would mean a drop in the "living standards" of most first world workers. Whether they are exploited is another issue.


Well or one could argue that the superiority of a planned economy would lead to a rise of living standards all over the world. I heard your argument before and I don't buy it. I think that the base of your argument is a bourgios understanding of economics. Which of course is easy to get since it is the dominant trend in economics. However today there is a massive waste which could easily be stopped by a planned economy, this is also the reason why I don't think living standards would drop as a result.

[PeaderO'Donnell]

Well or one could argue that the superiority of a planned economy would lead to a rise of living standards all over the world. I heard your argument before and I don't buy it. I think that the base of your argument is a bourgios understanding of economics. Which of course is easy to get since it is the dominant trend in economics. However today there is a massive waste which could easily be stopped by a planned economy, this is also the reason why I don't think living standards would drop as a result.

At what envoirmental cost?

We have seen the damage that your way of thinking caused to the Russian and central european ecology.

[Louis Pio]

At what envoirmental cost?

We have seen the damage that your way of thinking caused to the Russian and central european ecology.

Flawed argument, there is no reason why this should have enviromental costs. Todays these arent taken because of profit. Of cause it need to be a focusarea, which there is no reason it shoudln't be in a democratic planned economy.
Large scale production is not necessarily evil or polluting. Moreover in a planned economy we can make sure that research is done in these important areas.

[Nosotros]

If you divide the global annual social product by the world's people, Americans would be poorer. The whole idea behind capitalism is that you work, but receive less than the product you created. How can Americans be exploited when they receive more than what they produced??

Healthy or not, food costs money which is in turn consumed. It's not like there is a great lack of choices in the First World.

There is absolutely no reason to believe Americans are exploited outside of so called leftist dogma. Anyone who thinks that the world could be pulled up the level of Americans, without even greater environmental catastrophe nor finding aliens or robots to exploit, is an idiot.Sorry if i'm back tracking here but c'mon. Are you seriously telling me that an unemployed american on a work for welfare program is not exploited? Or for that matter a poor latino or black citizen? just take a look at what happened to create the recession, it was racist capitalism, lending money to poor minorities who had noway of paying back the money.

[PeaderO'Donnell]

Are you seriously telling me that an unemployed american on a work for welfare program is not exploited? Or for that matter a poor latino or black citizen?

What are you saying?

Someone on social welfare maybe oppressed but they are not exploited.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Substantiate that claim.



I've only said it 15 times. If you take the global GNP (the total value of goods and services) and divided it by the global population, Americans end up with less.

I know this type of math problem is a bit more difficult than "worker=exploited", but you should really try running the numbers some time.

[AvanteRedGarde]

At what envoirmental cost?

We have seen the damage that your way of thinking caused to the Russian and central european ecology.

Peader raises a good point. Americans already have over 3,000 calorie a day diets and use nearly a quarter of the world's resources. Any sound planning would cut that down real quick. Any planning which tries to pull up the masses to the lyfestyle of Americans would be an ecological catastrophy.

Socialisl, Anarchism and Communism are about equality, not living in concrete jungles or somkestack utopias.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Sorry if i'm back tracking here but c'mon. Are you seriously telling me that an unemployed american on a work for welfare program is not exploited? Or for that matter a poor latino or black citizen? just take a look at what happened to create the recession, it was racist capitalism, lending money to poor minorities who had noway of paying back the money.

Wow. This comment sounds like it came from stormfront.

"...capitalism, lending money to poor minorities who had no way of paying it back...create[d] the recession."

Social welfare programs don't create value. They money they hand out was created by labor. In effect, someone who receive social welfare is having value, surplus value, handed to them.

But moreover, a small minority of Americans are on welfare. You can't raise an exception to argue a rule. It's a fallacy.

[KurtFF8]

Yes, and we should commend and work with those organizations that oppose Israeli imperialism from home. However, that would entail the dissolution of the state. It is a settler state. Not many Israeli organizations support self-dissolution. Moreover, Israeli citizens consistently side with the actions of their governments against Arabs, for example the 94% who supported Operation Cast Lead (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230733116715&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull). Large majorities supported the war against Lebanon in 2006.

The fact is that once one identifies as an Israeli, they lay claim to a legacy of settler imperialism and racist ideas of entitlement. After all, their existence, their identity is predicated upon the dispossession of another peoples. This is true of all settler states. Ever wonder why every settler state has reactionary tendencies, dating back to their founding?

Moreover, comparing failed revolutions in the Third World to those in the First World is illogical. The Third World has never been free from imperialists breathing down its neck; they have the worry about their national bourgeoisie selling them out as well as foreign imperialists. Every attempt has been crushed directly militarily, economically or by providing reactionary forces with arms.

Well it seems there is a difference between supporting new settlement and the current existing Israeli state. Obviously the current state is based on repression and exploitation, but it seems a little to much to say "well just give it back to Palestine" when we can all likely agree that a joint state would be more plausible, as there are just too many Israelis living there who were born there for an alternative option.

I don't know of many imperialist states that aren't founded on repression for their current existence and Israel is no different, this is why I think a Palestinian/Israeli joint socialist state would be the preferable option. (This of course raises many questions that the scope of this thread just ought not deal with)

As for comparing failures in the Third World to the failures in the First World, you seem to have missed my point: I was just highlighting the weakness in his argument, not posing a counter.

[KurtFF8]

What are you saying?

Someone on social welfare maybe oppressed but they are not exploited.

Even if they are a worker?

[Louis Pio]

I've only said it 15 times. If you take the global GNP (the total value of goods and services) and divided it by the global population, Americans end up with less.


And this proves what? GNP is a simple average of output. You seem to think the term describes individual persons wealth.


Peader raises a good point. Americans already have over 3,000 calorie a day diets and use nearly a quarter of the world's resources. Any sound planning would cut that down real quick.

You could quickly cut of those calories by having healthy food be cheap, instead of now were the wast majority of calories consumed by many americans are cheap unhealthy ones. Calories are not just calories as any person just scratching a bit behind the surface would know.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Even if they are a worker?

I've already explained this (in more detail than I will, in this, the third or fourth time).

Because of the fundamental natural of capitalist imperialism, just because someone works and receives a wage, it does not necessarily mean this person is exploited.

Exploitation is when you create more value than you receive in compensation. If under imperialism, a given worker receives more in compensation than the value of labor, then the difference must be made up by exploitation elsewhere, i.e. such a worker would be an indirect exploiter of other workers (whose compensation is far less than the value of labor).

[AvanteRedGarde]

And this proves what? GNP is a simple average of output. You seem to think the term describes individual persons wealth.

That's my point. If the global GNP is the total value created in a given year, its equitable distribution (without things such as saving, reinvestment, etc) would in fact make most Americans receive a smaller salary.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

I've only said it 15 times. If you take the global GNP (the total value of goods and services) and divided it by the global population, Americans end up with less.

I know this type of math problem is a bit more difficult than "worker=exploited", but you should really try running the numbers some time.

I've only said it 15 times. If we take into account the fact that there are hundreds of millions of peasants and subsistence farmers, these figures seem irrelevant, because I would hope that socialism would change this.

[Bilan]

Have you never heard of national anarchism?

Is that all you've got?
That has nothing to do with Ireland, anyhow. National anarchist groups are a front for the White Nationalist movement. So you're claim is irrelevant.



I think that it is obvious that here in the first world we enjoy a decadent standard of living that comes from the super exploitation of the third world.

The bourgeoisie certainly does. The conditions of the working class are definitely better in the West, but you have a rather vulgar understanding of decadence.



Lenin showed this back at the beginning of the last century and things have only gotten worse since than.

Showed what? The Wests full exploitation of the poorer nations really took off after the Second World War, at which point, Lenin was dead. This occurred following the development of neoliberalism and the heavy outsourcing to places like China and India. The previous exploitation was heavily dominated by merely military control, not fully developed economic exploitation like it is now.
Luxemburg had a far more developed understanding of this in comparison.



Do you realise that nearly everyone in the first world is part of the world's richest 15 per cent?

In comparison, surely. There is a poor distribution of wealth, which is inherent in the capitalist system. Nothing has changed except for extremity of this wealth gap. Even so, if you bothered to look at the statistics highlighting the wealth gap in the West (there are many), you would see between the rich and the poor is growing wider, and wider.
This gap of rich and poor only highlights the intense accumulation of capital.
Furthermore, our struggle is not between rich and poor - the rich and the poor are only by products of the capitalist class structure: between the working class and the bourgeoisie.
If you stop fetishising the appearance, and look for the root, you will start to realize this.



Do you deny that there is a causal relation between the wealth of that richest 15 per cent and the miserable poverty of the vast majiority of people on this planet?

What? a casual relationship? What is that supposed to mean?
The relationship is binding and is rooted in economic imperialism.



Economnicism in the first world leads to fascism as it only follows that it is in the economnic interests of the first world's working class to protect their wealth from the world's oppressed majiority aswell as to try and get a bigger share of the spoils from their own bosses.

Yeah, see, this is how flawed your analysis is.
It is full of presumptions and little indepth understanding.
Economicism, if, presumably, you are refering to the likes of the Workerist movements, etc. and the centrality of the class over the nation state (i.e. Communist as opposed to National Liberation movements/parties), does not lead to fascism: it leads to the negation of Nationalist movements because they veil our struggle against capitalism in one which is about a particular bourgeoisie, instead of against capitalism itself, and instead link our struggle with that of the proletariat everywhere.
This, in no way, is similar to fascism, and illustrates that you have no grasp of what fascism is.




Look at Jack London...A proto-fascist if ever there was one who was also an IWW militant.

Never heard of them, nor is a single individual a strong illustration of your position. Considering that the flaw would then be his nationalist tendencies, and not his class politics.

[Bilan]

I've only said it 15 times. If you take the global GNP (the total value of goods and services) and divided it by the global population, Americans end up with less.

This works only under your despotic presumption that where the current productive output is now, is where it will remain following a socialist revolution.
This is a vulgar understanding of socialism, and illustrates how little you know about socialist politics.
Furthermore, socialists have no interest in having people suffer. You're not a socialist, you're a cretin.

[AvanteRedGarde]

Even so, if you bothered to look at the statistics highlighting the wealth gap in the West (there are many)...

That's funny. Someone whose little byline-thingy is "internationalist," is telling me I must look more closely at statistics solely regarding the West: statistics solely concerning a group which in its entirely falls within the richest 15-20% of the world. It's quite telling really.


This works only under your despotic presumption that where the current productive output is now, is where it will remain following a socialist revolution. This is a vulgar understanding of socialism, and illustrates how little you know about socialist politics.

Considering the fact that "revolution is not a dinner party," but instead a critical part of class warfare, I think it's pretty silly to assume that production will automatically jump up. Moreover, I don't know what your vision for socialism is and I don't see where your claims come from. Do you uphold the Soviet Union up to the 50's as a positive model for revolution? China up till the cultural revolution? China after the cultural revolution? You keep saying that I have no understanding of socialism, but these seem like words and nothing more.


Furthermore, socialists have no interest in having people suffer. You're not a socialist, you're a cretin.

And you a liberal. Surely socialists demands the expropriation and abolition of the imperialist bourgeiosie, even if they construe this as 'suffering.' They are people too afterall.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

And you a liberal.

So the follower of a movement that thinks class is based on income instead of relation to production is calling someone a liberal? :laugh::laugh:

[RHIZOMES]

The fact is that once one identifies as an Israeli, they lay claim to a legacy of settler imperialism and racist ideas of entitlement. After all, their existence, their identity is predicated upon the dispossession of another peoples. This is true of all settler states. Ever wonder why every settler state has reactionary tendencies, dating back to their founding?

The hell are leftist Israelis supposed to call themselves then? I identify as a New Zealander, not because I "lay claim to a legacy of settler imperialism and racist ideas of entitlement", but because I live in the fucking country.


But it plays a huge role in shaping one's perspective.

Two guys are exploited, and one of them earns $100 an hour. The other makes $1 an hour. Will this guy take you seriously if you tell him, "Since both of you sell your labor power to survive, don't own the means of production, you and the $100 guy have so much in common, except that he's rich, can afford a home and car, whereas you can't! These differences aside, you guys are brothers in this struggle."

Try this, and see how it goes. Then come back to revleft, and share your experiences.

Yeah find me a proletariat who makes $100 an hour please then I'd take that bullshit argument seriously.

[KurtFF8]

I've already explained this (in more detail than I will, in this, the third or fourth time).

Because of the fundamental natural of capitalist imperialism, just because someone works and receives a wage, it does not necessarily mean this person is exploited.

Exploitation is when you create more value than you receive in compensation. If under imperialism, a given worker receives more in compensation than the value of labor, then the difference must be made up by exploitation elsewhere, i.e. such a worker would be an indirect exploiter of other workers (whose compensation is far less than the value of labor).

So let me get this straight then: the workers in England that Karl Marx was writing about in Capital were not exploited as they received benefits from being part of an imperial power then, right?

[Nosotros]

Wow. This comment sounds like it came from stormfront.

"...capitalism, lending money to poor minorities who had no way of paying it back...create[d] the recession."

Social welfare programs don't create value. They money they hand out was created by labor. In effect, someone who receive social welfare is having value, surplus value, handed to them.

But moreover, a small minority of Americans are on welfare. You can't raise an exception to argue a rule. It's a fallacy.don't make insinuations like that, i'm nolonger interested in this bullshit debate if you are gonna compare me to a national socialist ,you can fuck off , that is pure opportunism in order to win a fucking internet debate.

[Pogue]

Have you never heard of national anarchism?

I think that it is obvious that here in the first world we enjoy a decadent standard of living that comes from the super exploitation of the third world. Lenin showed this back at the beginning of the last century and things have only gotten worse since than.

Do you realise that nearly everyone in the first world is part of the world's richest 15 per cent?

Do you deny that there is a causal relation between the wealth of that richest 15 per cent and the miserable poverty of the vast majiority of people on this planet?

Economnicism in the first world leads to fascism as it only follows that it is in the economnic interests of the first world's working class to protect their wealth from the world's oppressed majiority aswell as to try and get a bigger share of the spoils from their own bosses.

Look at Jack London...A proto-fascist if ever there was one who was also an IWW militant.

National anarchism is a contradiction in terms as well as an 'ideology' followed by literally one man.

Its like me saying Republicanism is discredited because there is someone who has pronounced the invention of Loyalist Republicanism. One person proclaiming a batshit theory doesn't mean it counts as a valid form of that theory. You know there is national socialism and national bolshevism/communism too? Its a load of shit.

[PeaderO'Donnell]

National anarchism is a contradiction in terms as well as an 'ideology' followed by literally one man.



What about Bakhauin's pan-slavic outbursts?

Not to mention Proudhon's influence on the working class elements of Action Francaise?

Mind you also I think that there are more National Anarchists than Troy Southgate in the world.

There seems to be quite a big group in Germany.

Interestingly enough the National Anarchist that I talked to in Cork believes in "Ulster nationalism"...a position not far removed from the AF.

[Bilan]

That's funny. Someone whose little byline-thingy is "internationalist," is telling me I must look more closely at statistics solely regarding the West: statistics solely concerning a group which in its entirely falls within the richest 15-20% of the world. It's quite telling really.

Oh, so looking at statistics which might pull your head out of your ass negates internationalism, and makes me chauvinistic? Are you even listening to yourself?
I'm not trying to prove that the West is poorer than the East, I'm pointing out how vulgar your analysis is. Pay attention.




Considering the fact that "revolution is not a dinner party," but instead a critical part of class warfare, I think it's pretty silly to assume that production will automatically jump up.

Do you think this changes anything, really? No one said anything about the immediate aftermath of the revolution, but the goal of the revolution.
Again, perhaps try reading Marx.



Moreover, I don't know what your vision for socialism is and I don't see where your claims come from.

Marx. Do you know who that is?



Do you uphold the Soviet Union up to the 50's as a positive model for revolution?

No.



China up till the cultural revolution?

No.



China after the cultural revolution?

No.



You keep saying that I have no understanding of socialism, but these seem like words and nothing more.

And you think anything you've said has demonstrated that?
You clearly don't have any understanding of socialism, for four key reasons.
1. You negate the role of class by having no understanding of what it is. You suggest class is based on income, which is purely a bourgeois analysis of class.
2. You think that the current productive output will remain as it is, and all that will change is an 'even' distribution of "wealth" across the globe - therefore, the West will be forced to suffer. Which negates everything ever written about by the most advanced communist theorists - such as Marx!
3. You have no grasp of the nature of the global economy, nor what exploitation is, nor any solid facts to back up your absurd claims.
4. You have no idea why the West has outsourced Manufacturing, and how the economies in the West have managed to stay afloat considering their removal of one of the primary means of the realization of capital. Nor do you understand the role of credit, and instead, assume (key word) that it because the entire Western working class has now assumed the role of the bourgeoisie (which is ludicrous) so that it may stay afloat. This claim in itself has no connection to reality.




And you a liberal.

Really, why's that? Because I reject your stupidity? That's not what a liberal is. A liberal is not someone who disagrees with the most ignorant and inane wing of the communist right.


Surely socialists demands the expropriation and abolition of the imperialist bourgeiosie, even if they construe this as 'suffering.' They are people too afterall.

That's not even a response. That's totally irrelevant shit. I'm talking about in regards to distribution and production. Pay attention.

[Bilan]

What about Bakhauin's pan-slavic outbursts?

Two things.
1/ Everyone knows Bakunin was a chauvinistic prick.
2/ Bakunin is not part of the National Anarchist movement, as he is dead, and was dead a long time before it started.



Not to mention Proudhon's influence on the working class elements of Action Francaise?

Again, well known Proudhon was a sexist, racist prat. These are people from...how long ago was it?
The National Anarchist movement is a recent phenomena, not a historical one.
Furthermore, neither of these are related to Ireland, which is what you brought up before.





Interestingly enough the National Anarchist that I talked to in Cork believes in "Ulster nationalism"...a position not far removed from the AF.

What the hell are you talking about?
Please prove how these two are similar. I'm sick of you third worldists just making shit up. Back up what you say, or shut the hell up.

[PeaderO'Donnell]

Two things.

The National Anarchist movement is a recent phenomena, not a historical one.
Furthermore, neither of these are related to Ireland, which is what you brought up before.

What the hell are you talking about?
Please prove how these two are similar. I'm sick of you third worldists just making shit up. Back up what you say, or shut the hell up.

The Irish section of the AF believes that there are two nations on the Island of Ireland effectively siding with the loyalist/unionist position.

If national anarchism can point to two of the founding fathers so to speak of anarchism are being forerunners of their position than obviously it isnt that much of an absurdity as HVLS was making out.

In order to defend and increase the living standards of the first world working class you will naturally come to see the third world proletariat as an enemny in time.

[Bilan]

The Irish section of the AF believes that there are two nations on the Island of Ireland effectively siding with the loyalist/unionist position.

Substantiate this with information from the AF. We've no reason to take your word for it. Nor does this make them like the Fascists. Wtf?
You're consistently disproving yourself.



If national anarchism can point to two of the founding fathers so to speak of anarchism are being forerunners of their position than obviously it isnt that much of an absurdity as HVLS was making out.

People can note that in the development of anarchism, reactionary elements were shaken off. This doesn't 'disprove' anarchism, or make anarchism nationalist (I find it ironic you use this accusation, considering you are a nationalist), but makes their links to the "founding fathers of it" be seen as archaic and reactionary.
Proudhons views (on just about everything) has been disproved, as has Bakunin's (Considering especially Bakunin's "secret dictatorship"). Really, they have very little link with the nature of modern anarchist politics, beyond a few stupid quotes.
Still, what relationship has this with Ireland?



In order to defend and increase the living standards of the first world working class you will naturally come to see the third world proletariat as an enemny in time.

Defend against who? You still don't understand the nature of socialist production and distrubition.