Three Worlds Theory upside down? On Saudi Arabia and Dubai

[Die Neue Zeit]

The typical Three Worlds Theory is just nationalist justification for dismissing worker struggles in developed countries. However, here are some interesting cases that turn the Three Worlds Theory upside down:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/trotskyists-afghanistan-t120616/index.html



Do the Saudis even have a native working class? Or is it all guest workers?


The Saudis do indeed have a native worker class. To be sure, they have a lot of guest workers, but they are a country of millions of people. Not everyone can be a jet setting playboy.


The Saudi working class did not exist before the kingdom. These days there is not much of an indigenous working class, although there has been a lot of militancy among imported South Asian workers in oil.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dubai-ultimate-manifestion-t122790/index.html


....and the epicenter of all we have been talking about.

The biggest and most prestigious firms have all set up a shop in the area.

The lavish luxury of the appropriating class is to the extreme of what's usually seen in the West.

The marketing campaign is replete with hollow advertisements about the greatness of the city.

The state is in full swing, operating as an enforcer of business interests.

The city represents the culmination of the neo-liberal experiment gone wild. The beacon of modernization for the new century.

I implore you to read Johann Hari article:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html
And this is a liberal commentator in Dubai!

In both cases, the vast majority of the working population is comprised of guest workers with no political rights.

The native population, on the other hand, is divided between the bourgeois plutocrats on the one hand, and the lumpen majority on the other. By "lumpen," I explicitly mean that class which exists outside of the legal wage labour system but who don't perform illegal labour (grunt gangster work and other proper lumpenproletarian work) or criminal exploitation (loan sharks and human traffickers). I'm talking about beggars, chronic drug addicts on the streets, other homeless people, unemployables, etc.

The typical Three Worlds Theory bypasses Lenin's labour aristocracy stuff and says that workers in developed countries are just plain bourgeoisie or petit-bourgeoisie, being more than just "bought off" by surplus values from elsewhere. However, with an upside-down take on the Three Worlds Theory, it can be said that the native bourgeoisie in these two countries (and similar countries) have more than just "bought off" the native lumpen with welfare benefits derived from oil, guest worker exploitation, etc.

Meanwhile, in times of war, the guest workers would most likely return to their home countries, having no obligation whatsoever to serve in the armed forces of these bourgeois-lumpen countries (they can, of course, try to topple the regimes, and should be supported in this). Assuming this departure, and assuming that both indigenous classes wish to maintain the current class structure, does Marxist national liberation apply for these countries, especially if the potential proletarianization of the indigenous population upon defeat is at stake?

[blake 3:17]

This has taken me awhile to get to -- thanks for putting these bits together.

A few thoughts and queries--

Can we call the Saudis fascist?

I'm not totally following the class schematic here of bourgeois-lumpen. I have some issues with the label "lumpen".


Meanwhile, in times of war, the guest workers would most likely return to their home countries, having no obligation whatsoever to serve in the armed forces of these bourgeois-lumpen countries (they can, of course, try to topple the regimes, and should be supported in this). Assuming this departure, and assuming that both indigenous classes wish to maintain the current class structure, does Marxist national liberation apply for these countries, especially if the potential proletarianization of the indigenous population upon defeat is at stake?

Hmmmmmmmmmmm. There's a lot going on here. I'm not sure I'm getting your question. Is proletarianization always a good thing?

I'm skeptical that an imperial power would attack Saudi Arabia or Dubai. But major changes can come so quickly, let's not rule it out.

Would guest workers be allowed to leave? Probably not. Would they try? Yes.

Here's a link to an SW article on Italian invasion of Ethiopia: http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=8713

[Die Neue Zeit]

This has taken me awhile to get to -- thanks for putting these bits together.

A few thoughts and queries--

Can we call the Saudis fascist?

I don't think so, since Saudi Arabia hasn't undergone capitalist development in the M-C-M form, and since the bourgeoisie are firmly in charge (they just happen to be in the House of Saud).


I'm not totally following the class schematic here of bourgeois-lumpen. I have some issues with the label "lumpen".

What's your question here?


Hmmmmmmmmmmm. There's a lot going on here. I'm not sure I'm getting your question. Is proletarianization always a good thing?

If the Saudi and Dubai rulers wish to advance their country by means other than exploiting guest workers, they'll have to resort to this.


I'm skeptical that an imperial power would attack Saudi Arabia or Dubai. But major changes can come so quickly, let's not rule it out.

Right now the US gives squat about the apolitical aspects of the economic policy of the House of Saud. Their state has a complete monopoly over the oil fields. Ditto with Dubai, but less on oil and much more on tourism.

However, some imperialist power down the road might beat the US and require proletarianization of these countries for various reasons.


Would guest workers be allowed to leave? Probably not. Would they try? Yes.

Why wouldn't they be allowed to leave? I don't think there would be much in the way of enthusiastic enlistments into the Saudi or Dubai military forces.

[Dave B]

Jacob Richter has now come in with;


I don't think so, since Saudi Arabia hasn't undergone capitalist development in the M-C-M form, and since the bourgeoisie are firmly in charge (they just happen to be in the House of Saud).


The problem is that although it is acceptable to think of modern capitalism as a two class system there are in fact three, when it is defined as sources or the manner in which it is possible to obtain income .

The working class, the (industrial) capitalists class, and the land owning class.



In fact there is a joke that you have to read to the end of volume III to find out how many classes there are in capitalism; in reference to the trinity formula at the end


Actually it is first mentioned about 2/3 of the way through.


Capital Vol. III, Part VI. Transformation of Surplus-Profit into Ground-Rent

Chapter 37. Introduction




Here, then, we have all three classes — wage-labourers, industrial capitalists, and landowners constituting together, and in their mutual opposition, the framework of modern society.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch37.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch37.htm)



Although the fact that the landowning class in capitalism often have come from and still retain a feudal cultural heritage and ideology, is a separate and admittedly confusing issue.


And;

The ruling class or the "capitalist class", informally described, often obtain their income both from owning land and industrial capital and are thus fused together and inseparable.



However because of the two different ways income is derived from industrial capital and owning land there can be conflicts particularly when one social group are exclusively landowners and another exclusively industrial capitalists.

Or when as in Saudi Arabia you have an economy that is dominated by the income stream that comes from land owning or the ‘surplus profits’ from ‘differential ground rent’.



Or in other words the huge pile of cash you can pull in by dint of merely owning land that so happens yield ‘use values’ eg oil by the application of much less labour power than ‘elsewhere’.



In theory if these three classes were clearly delineated and separated which they rarely are; the capitalist class would act as parasites on the workers and extract surplus value from them and the land owning class would feed on the capitalist class and part of their ill-gotten gains.

The land owning class act a little bit like the Mafia extracting and extorting excess or above average profits from the bourgeoisie, ‘justified’ by their ownership of the land.


The economic interests of the pure land owning class, or its base if you like, tends to effect its outlook and ideology, or its superstructure. That can be at odds with the pure industrial capitalists.



Just as the economic interests of the industrial capitalists, or its base if you like, tends to effect its outlook and ideology, or its superstructure.


And just as incidentally the material economic interests of the state capitalist class, or its base if you like, tends to effect or modify its outlook and ideology, or its superstructure. Irrespective of what its ideology was beforehand. Anything else about bad and wicked people getting in charge is ‘popular materialism’ and not historical materialism

Conveniently the outlook and ideology of the hangovers from feudalism fit in more neatly with that of the land-owning class in capitalism.


There are tensions I think in Saudi Arabia between ‘proper industrialist capitalists’ many of who admittedly are scions of the aristocracy, and the racketeering outlook of the pure land-owning ruling class.


There is a battle going on I believe for the hearts and minds of the ‘indigenous’ population; but whilst the landowning class have so much economic clout they can continue to afford to attempt to buy them off.


.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I know about the trinity formula, but Marx had varying definitions of "class" throughout his life, from the Communist Manifesto to Volume III to the finished Volume I (from which at least eight classes can be derived). The Volume III definition is a regression to the class analysis of classical political economy (David Ricardo, Henry George, and such).


The ruling class or the "capitalist class", informally described, often obtain their income both from owning land and industrial capital and are thus fused together and inseparable.

However because of the two different ways income is derived from industrial capital and owning land there can be conflicts particularly when one social group are exclusively landowners and another exclusively industrial capitalists.

Classical political economy's modern subscribers also distinguish between industrial capitalists and financial capitalists by calling the former "entrepreneurs" and the latter "financiers"/"bankers"/etc.

[black_tambourine]

The Saudi case is a "geological" exception to rules that normally apply in a given economy. Basically, it is an instance where factors from the natural world exert an unusually salient influence on the social world. Oil's high use-value, its relative scarcity, and the semi-cartelization of OPEC serve to insulate both rentiers of the land and capitalists operating in the extraction and refining industries from any erosion in the profit rate across the rest of the capitalist economy. Even when prices are driven downward, oil economies like Saudi Arabia have a figurative leg up in that they can nullify most symptoms with "standard" exploitation measures (paying guest workers even less; "rationalization" of production, etc.) that capitalists elsewhere in a recessionary economy are already having to move beyond in order to maintain solvency (i.e. by accepting a decreased rate of profit using marginal pricing). Conflicts between discrete rentier and capitalist classes can be papered over by the fact that the number of buyers and sellers of land-use rights is so limited thanks to oil's afforementioned scarcity on one hand and the huge capital outlays required for modern oil extraction on the other, and thus to a certain extent the classes "need" each other. When you have what is, in effect, a guarantee of a certain level of profitability, capitalist "development" can be fast-tracked via simple commodity exchange - just use the oil money to buy infrastructure and other cool shit from the most advanced sections of the global economy, and bam, there's your development.

What the Saudi ruling class would thus have to be worried about is not a terminal decrease in profits, but a decrease in the scope of the vast system of patronage with which the House of Saud props itself up. (This is the same phenomenon that screwed over Venezuela's pre-Chavez governments.) Welfare measures to buy off the "lumpen" would naturally be first on the chopping block, but there would presumably still be ample funds to finance any state repression of discontent. Proletarianization (I think this is a more or less obsolete concept, by the way) would probably be precluded by the fact that even in a bad scenario, there is still such a huge disparity between Saudi economic conditions and those of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, etc that the supply of guest workers would be unlikely to run dry.

[blake 3:17]

What's your question here?


Are unemployed Saudis given massive state provisions? A friend late last night said that was the case. From the figures I was able to find quickly unemployment is pretty high. 25% of men? Whoah!


Why wouldn't they be allowed to leave? I don't think there would be much in the way of enthusiastic enlistments into the Saudi or Dubai military forces.

They'd be conscripted and might well receive inflated wages. The guest workers would be better soldiers than unemployed Saudis.

[Hiero]

The typical Three Worlds Theory bypasses Lenin's labour aristocracy stuff and says that workers in developed countries are just plain bourgeoisie or petit-bourgeoisie, being more than just "bought off" by surplus values from elsewhere. However, with an upside-down take on the Three Worlds Theory, it can be said that the native bourgeoisie in these two countries (and similar countries) have more than just "bought off" the native lumpen with welfare benefits derived from oil, guest worker exploitation, etc.



In Lenin's labour aristocracy they are workers who have been bought off through creation of surplus value else where, contributing to higher wages in the 1st world. Traditionally Lenin was looking at the high ranks of unionised labour and working class leaders. They are still working class people, but not the traditional exploited proleteriat. So they have no interest in revolution, because they receive something close to their real labour time, but they can still support progressive reform in the centre (medicare, anti-privatisation, anti-war) as this benifits them. While at the same time they can support reatonary governments and policies, especially immigration. So we can see the changing face of Labor/Labour (Social democrat) parties in the first world.

In regards to Saudi Arabia they just have a firmly set up comprador bourgeiosie. A missing link in your analysis. A class that owns, in place of a bourgeiosie elsewhere.

[Dave B]

Hi Jacob

As I am sure you know, Karl also theoretically split the capitalist class up into two sections; the so called profiteers of enterprise and interest bearing capitalists.


So from the opening line of the Trinity Formula;

Capital Vol. III
Part VII. Revenues and their Sources

Chapter 48. The Trinity Formula



Capital — profit (profit of enterprise plus interest), land — ground-rent, labour — wages, this is the trinity formula which comprises all the secrets of the social production process.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch48.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch48.htm)


Although these two sections, profiteers of enterprise and interest bearing capitalists. are fused together but it is an interesting example of a dialectical analysis, that does have its uses sometimes.


An example of a profiteer of enterprise would be a CEO of a company or corporation and the interest bearing capitalist would be the share holders. An example of potential ‘conflicts’ or differing interests might be the Enron scandal thing.

Where the CEO’s were attempting to loot the company that they didn’t own and rob the shareholders and run.


Profit of Enterprise also was a ‘classical’ idea taken from Ramsay;


Capital Vol. III Part V
Division of Profit into Interest and Profit of Enterprise. Interest-Bearing Capital
Chapter 22. Division of Profit. Rate of Interest. Natural Rate of Interest.





With reference to the determination of the rate of interest, Ramsay says that it;

"depends partly upon the rate of gross profits, partly on the proportion in which these are separated into profits of capital and those of enterprise. This proportion again depends upon the competition between the lenders of capital and the borrowers; which competition is influenced, though by no means entirely regulated, by the rate of gross profit expected to be realised.[6] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1610972#n6) And the reason why competition is not exclusively regulated by this cause, is, because on the one hand many borrow without any view to productive employment; and, on the other, because the proportion of the whole capital to be lent, varies with the riches of the country independently of any change in gross profits." (Ramsay, 1. c., pp. 206-07.)





http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch22.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch22.htm)

I think these kind of ideas span out of his deeper analysis of the rate of profit stuff that he hadn’t really sorted out or addressed in volume I. So I hardly think it is reasonable to call it a regression.