Maoist Third-Worldist Propaganda

[ZrianKobani]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS43ur1RI7M

I've been meditating on this and while I disagree that there's nothing to be done about America's working class, part of me is scared they might be right.

Thoughts?

[Hebrew Hammer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS43ur1RI7M

I've been meditating on this and while I disagree that there's nothing to be done about America's working class, part of me is scared they might be right.

Thoughts?

I don't really agree with all of it, just bits but I also don't understand why you're so entranced with this 'Third-World' LinBaoist thought.

[ZrianKobani]

I guess it's because I'm afraid of it; since I was 14, I've been dedicated to the idea of alleviating human suffering and the idea that my country, the United States, is beyond help and the only way to liberate the oppressed is to destroy America scares the hell of me.

[RedSunRising]

I think its stupid to say that US proletarians arent exploited...However the fact is that the white nation has been bribed into siding with its exploiters against the black and first nations. Most of the white working class of the USA are firmly within the enemy camp but that doesnt that they not exploited. Infact they should be a lot better off than they are.

[Thug Lessons]

There's really very little to dispute in that video beyond the particulars of third worldism and some of the Maoist elements. I'm not sure why people here are so hostile to it.

[ZrianKobani]

I think it's because of how hostile it is to everyone else; read their platform on Monkey Smashes Hammer and see what I mean, they're very sectarian.

[RedSunRising]

There's really very little to dispute in that video beyond the particulars of third worldism and some of the Maoist elements. I'm not sure why people here are so hostile to it.

Calling the Naxalites and the Shining Path revisionists may have just a wee bit to do with the hostility. Also LLCO are more ultra-leftist than MIM in that they dismiss the oppressed nations within the United States. MIM at least remained open to the bottom 20 per cent.

[ZrianKobani]

I think there's an amount of truth to MTWism but I think it's advocators might be whitewashing a bit in it's attitude toward Americans. Hostility to a government is one thing but to actively call for people to hate "Amerikkka", "the United Snakes", "the Great Satan" (just a few of the names I've seen used) is extremist.

[Thug Lessons]

Again, I was talking about that video, not the LLCO's entire platform. Whatever you think of their particular points, method of presentation, organizational style, etc., they're clearly right on the basics.

[Hebrew Hammer]

Granted the aristocracy of labor is very real, 'third-world' nations are being plundered by imperialist 'first-world' nations and workers in developed 'first-world' nations do have it objectively better than 'third-world' workers this doesn't totally negate their revolutionary potential nor does it mean that a proletarian revolution within developed Western imperialist countries is impossible, just that it's more unlikely to happen than say in other nations were class differences are much more pronounced and brutal. The reason being because of the concessions won by working class struggles, the reform of total free market capitalism and the aristocracy of labor. 'Third-Worldism' or Linbaoism or whatever you wish to call it, is inaccurate and wrong.

I also think it's funny how the production value of this 'propaganda' is very good, he sounds white and American but yet he's talking about the people's war waged by third-world workers and "our," struggle and all this shit when the narrator, is obviously, based upon his own theory, not apart of.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

There's social peace in America? That's why angry young boys and girls are shooting each other dead in the street trying to get a slice of the pie.

[Thug Lessons]

Granted the aristocracy of labor is very real, 'third-world' nations are being plundered by imperialist 'first-world' nations and workers in developed 'first-world' nations do have it objectively better than 'third-world' workers this doesn't totally negate their revolutionary potential nor does it mean that a proletarian revolution within developed Western imperialist countries is impossible, just that it's more unlikely to happen than say in other nations were class differences are much more pronounced and brutal. The reason being because of the concessions won by working class struggles, the reform of total free market capitalism and the aristocracy of labor. 'Third-Worldism' or Linbaoism or whatever you wish to call it, is inaccurate and wrong.
That's essentially what third worldism is, so to conclude it's wrong from those premises is rather strange.

[Revolutionair]

It is wrong to see it as a socialist tendency. They are bourgeois nationalists.

They also seem to not use any Marxist analysis. The only thing they use that is Marxist is the word class. But they base your class on your nationality, unlike Marxism: "The workingmen have no country." I realize that there is more opportunism in the first world, you must be stupid if you don't see it. But I analyze it through Marxism not through bourgeois nationalism. If these people are even remotely Maoist, then I will be on the barricades against any Maoist revolution.

[L.A.P.]

Maoism-Third Worldism is such a god awful ideology. It is revisionism at its worst.

[Thug Lessons]

It is wrong to see it as a socialist tendency. They are bourgeois nationalists.

They also seem to not use any Marxist analysis. The only thing they use that is Marxist is the word class. But they base your class on your nationality, unlike Marxism

No they don't. Have you read anything they have written or watched the video in the OP?

[Hebrew Hammer]

That's essentially what third worldism is, so to conclude it's wrong from those premises is rather strange.

How? I am just speaking from (what I have read) standard Maoist theory. I am not saying the revolution should start in the 'third-world', that 'third-world' workers should rise up and take over the 'first world' or any of that nonsense. Nor am I saying that revolutions in 'first-world' nations can't happen, that the proletariat in these nations aren't being expolited, alienated or oppressed or any of the lines said by 'Third-Worldists.'

[Obs]

That's essentially what third worldism is, so to conclude it's wrong from those premises is rather strange.

No, Maoist Third-Worldists deride workers in the First World and side with the bourgeoisie of the First World in labour struggles, etc., under some strange idea that lowering the standard of living for workers in the First World will make things better for the Third World. Beyond this, they also conduct nothing that even resembles class analysis in deciding what is and what is not a "Third World" country, since they divide between the First and Third World based on national borders rather than actual class relations - for instance, they place China in the Third World, as an 'exploited' country (we're talking ALL of China here), ignoring that the Chinese bourgeoisie are currently running mines etc. in Africa. Also, if you look at the video, skip to 1:07, right after the text that (laughably) reads "Global Class Analysis". You'll see a map, with all the countries that these LLCO-clowns call 'exploited' in red. Notice that Greenland, an honest-to-god colony where the native population is wracked with poverty and the natural resources are divided between imperialist countries (Denmark, the US, Russia, Canada), as an 'exploiter' country.

What's even more ridiculous in this video is how they will show bourgie types in suits drinking champagne and shit as being representative of the population of the first world, instead of, say, unemployed Spanish youths (that is, 40% of youths in Spain) living in tiny apartments with their parents way into their 20s, or Russian workers who have to starve themselves for days just to afford rent.

Of course, the good people at the LLCO know nothing of this aspect of the first world, as they all come from well-off families and as such have no connection to the working poor in their own countries, whom they are eager to think of as greedy leeches, just like their petty bourgeois friends and families, only with a third-worldist streak so they can feel better about themselves without actually doing jack shit to change anything, except make stupid videos like this one where they might as well have filmed themselves jacking off to a photo of themselves jacking off to... (repeat ad infinitum) while chanting that they're gonna be leading the great proletarian third world revolution.

Fucking dumbasses.

[Thug Lessons]

No, Maoist Third-Worldists deride workers in the First World and side with the bourgeoisie of the First World in labour struggles, etc., under some strange idea that lowering the standard of living for workers in the First World will make things better for the Third World. Beyond this, they also conduct nothing that even resembles class analysis in deciding what is and what is not a "Third World" country, since they divide between the First and Third World based on national borders rather than actual class relations - for instance, they place China in the Third World, as an 'exploited' country (we're talking ALL of China here), ignoring that the Chinese bourgeoisie are currently running mines etc. in Africa. Also, if you look at the video, skip to 1:07, right after the text that (laughably) reads "Global Class Analysis". You'll see a map, with all the countries that these LLCO-clowns call 'exploited' in red. Notice that Greenland, an honest-to-god colony where the native population is wracked with poverty and the natural resources are divided between imperialist countries (Denmark, the US, Russia, Canada), as an 'exploiter' country.

What's even more ridiculous in this video is how they will show bourgie types in suits drinking champagne and shit as being representative of the population of the first world, instead of, say, unemployed Spanish youths (that is, 40% of youths in Spain) living in tiny apartments with their parents way into their 20s, or Russian workers who have to starve themselves for days just to afford rent.

Of course, the good people at the LLCO know nothing of this aspect of the first world, as they all come from well-off families and as such have no connection to the working poor in their own countries, whom they are eager to think of as greedy leeches, just like their petty bourgeois friends and families, only with a third-worldist streak so they can feel better about themselves without actually doing jack shit to change anything, except make stupid videos like this one where they might as well have filmed themselves jacking off to a photo of themselves jacking off to... (repeat ad infinitum) while chanting that they're gonna be leading the great proletarian third world revolution.

Fucking dumbasses.

The LLCO doesn't side with the first world bourgeoisie in labor disputes. You made that up. They're perfectly correct in determining first world and third world on the basis of national borders, because that's what first world and third world nations are - nations. They don't deny the existence of different classes within these nations. They're also correct in labeling colonial nations as exploiters, I can't understand why you'd disagree with that. The rest is just whining and crying about how they're all filthy rich and don't understand the real poor, and on that you're welcome to rage all you want.

[Thug Lessons]

All this is really weird because there's more than enough to criticize about the LLCO without exaggerating and outright making shit up. I guess people just don't want to read?

[Obs]

The LLCO doesn't side with the first world bourgeoisie in labor disputes. You made that up.
Did not. Although I'll admit that I can't remember if it was the LLCO or Monkey Smashes Heaven (aren't they the same thing?), I do remember distinctly reading an article of theirs about the unrest in Europe some months back over European governments making austerity cuts on welfare, wherein they specified that they sided with the European bourgeoisie on this matter.

EDIT: I did some digging and found out it was a YouTube video, luckily Kléber, that handsome devil, had a transcript of the video handy, which goes:


The first worldist crypto-Trotskyists of and the Swiss Party of Labour have sided with the Greek and French reformists in fighting for their little wage cuts. Do these "proletarians" realize that the struggles of Third World workers? When you compare the two, the Greeks are fucking laughable. The French cry because their retirements are cut back two years. Boo goddamn hoo. Third world workers don't have pensions. They work until they die. These Greek and French crybabies have cars and food and homes while most of the worlds population live in huts and starves to death. Their "fight backs" aren't something to glamourize or to take seriously. I am appalled when I hear these petite bourgeois "Communist" or "Socialist" parties side with the idiot workers in Greece and France. So what is the alternative? I say, more austerity. More cutbacks. More attacks on the Greek and French complacent, lazy, and privileged "workers". Maybe then they will become radicalized. I pick the side of the French and Greek bourgeoise and their decisions for the austerity cuts. I support them because if more cuts occur, if there is more unemployment, if there is more homelessness, if the Greek and French workers are reduced to Third World conditions, then THAT is why they will become revolutionary. Until then, these "worker movements" are not revolutionary. They are not insurrectionary. They are a fucking farce and a spit in the face of workers worldwide. First Worldist little Eichmanns have trouble understanding but until they are reduced to rubble, they will realize. Once again, Maoism Third-Worldism proves to be the dominant ideology and the actual next step to worldwide Communism.


They're perfectly correct in determining first world and third world on the basis of national borders, because that's what first world and third world nations are - nations. They don't deny the existence of different classes within these nations. They're also correct in labeling colonial nations as exploiters, I can't understand why you'd disagree with that.
I disagree with labeling the working class inside imperialist states as exploiters. You also seem to share some confusion that the LLCO also has in regards to the difference between a nation and a state/country/whatever. While workers may be a member of a nation, they do not truly have a country that is theirs, and as such, all workers are exploited no matter what borders they happen to be living within. To imply that workers in the first world are receiving wages that are higher than the value of their labour, as the LLCO would gladly claim, is demonstrably false.


The rest is just whining and crying about how they're all filthy rich and don't understand the real poor, and on that you're welcome to rage all you want.
Amusingly, this is exactly what Third-Worldists do when talking about workers in the First World. The difference is that they're wrong and I'm right. (Two statements that are always true.)

[Thug Lessons]

Did not. Although I'll admit that I can't remember if it was the LLCO or Monkey Smashes Heaven (aren't they the same thing?), I do remember distinctly reading an article of theirs about the unrest in Europe some months back over European governments making austerity cuts on welfare, wherein they specified that they sided with the European bourgeoisie on this matter.
What article would that be?


I disagree with labeling the working class inside imperialist states as exploiters. You also seem to share some confusion that the LLCO also has in regards to the difference between a nation and a state/country/whatever. While workers may be a member of a nation, they do not truly have a country that is theirs, and as such, all workers are exploited no matter what borders they happen to be living within. To imply that workers in the first world are receiving wages that are higher than the value of their labour, as the LLCO would gladly claim, is demonstrably false.


Amusingly, this is exactly what Third-Worldists do when talking about workers in the First World. The difference is that they're wrong and I'm right. (Two statements that are always true.)This is all semantic drivel. It does mean something to be a US citizen, or a British citizen, or a French citizen. Citizens of those countries have access to employment, education, and social services that citizens of poorer countries do not, and as a result they also have greater access to material wealth. These facts can't be swept under the rug by simply labeling them as exploited. Capitalist exploitation is a real thing, but so is imperialist exploitation, and trying to ignore either doesn't help the situation at all.

[Obs]

What article would that be?
See my edited post.


This is all semantic drivel. It does mean something to be a US citizen, or a British citizen, or a French citizen. Citizens of those countries have access to employment, education, and social services that citizens of poorer countries do not, and as a result they also have greater access to material wealth. These facts can't be swept under the rug by simply labeling them as exploited. Capitalist exploitation is a real thing, but so is imperialist exploitation, and trying to ignore either doesn't help the situation at all.
Oh, imperialism is a real thing alright. This is why I and other Marxists-Leninists (Maoist and otherwise) support communist, anti-imperialist movements in the third world like the Naxalites or the Nepali maoists... which the LLCO deride as revisionist.

[Thug Lessons]

See my edited post.
I'm still not seeing a source there.


Oh, imperialism is a real thing alright. This is why I and other Marxists-Leninists (Maoist and otherwise) support communist, anti-imperialist movements in the third world like the Naxalites or the Nepali maoists... which the LLCO deride as revisionist.
I'm fairly sure they support the Naxalites, though they (rightly) disagree with the Prachandists and Chavistas that regulated capitalist development is the best path for their countries to take. I'm not really concerned who they call revisionist though, since that word is used too liberally to begin with.

[Obs]

I'm still not seeing a source there.
Here's the thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/maoist-third-worldists-t143773/index.html?t=143773) where the video was posted on Revleft. Just scroll down to Kléber's post. I guess since the video has been taken down since, you could argue that it's an elaborate ploy to defame MTWs and everyone in that thread was in on it, and the rest of us will simply snicker at you when you're not looking.


I'm fairly sure they support the Naxalites, though they (rightly) disagree with the Prachandists and Chavistas that regulated capitalist development is the best path for their countries to take. I'm no Chavist, but I'll admit I'm not up-to-date with the Nepali situation, though I'm fairly sure the Nepali maoists do not uniformly support Prachanda. I'm no expert, though.


I'm not really concerned who they call revisionist though, since that word is used too liberally to begin with.
Finally, something we can agree on.

[Thug Lessons]

Here's the thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/maoist-third-worldists-t143773/index.html?t=143773) where the video was posted on Revleft. Just scroll down to Kléber's post. I guess since the video has been taken down since, you could argue that it's an elaborate ploy to defame MTWs and everyone in that thread was in on it, and the rest of us will simply snicker at you when you're not looking.
Oh. It's not a video from the LLCO, but rather some guy on Youtube that has sympathies tending towards MTW. That doesn't really tell you anything about the LLCO's position. My guess would be they don't have a position on European austerity cuts at all. They certainly aren't above pointlessly inflammatory rhetoric and attacks on first world socialist movements, but I've never seen an official statement supporting the first world bourgeoisie either.


I'm no Chavist, but I'll admit I'm not up-to-date with the Nepali situation, though I'm fairly sure the Nepali maoists do not uniformly support Prachanda. I'm no expert, though.
Well, he is the chairman of the CPN (M), but that aside, just about all the criticism coming from the LLCO/MSH towards to Nepalese Maoists has been directed at him and his supporters.

[jake williams]

"Third worldism" has nothing whatsoever to offer the left other than disruption and reaction. Since the Russian Revolution it's been abundantly clear to all (virtually, except the ultra-ultra-left) Marxists that there were signficant advantages to workers organizing outside of the most advanced capitalist countries and that those workers in the most advanced capitalist countries would not be the first to overthrow capitalist relations in any substantive sense - because they weren't, and everyone could see it, and so pointing it out is of no political value. All the "third worldists" do is defend bourgeois nationalists in colonial or sub-imperialist countries, some of them quite reactionary, and attack or disrupt progressive organizing in advanced capitalist countries. Advanced capitalist countries, by the way, are the only place you'll find it, because no workers in the "third world" see any value in crushing the "first world" working class. If anything "third worldists" are the best example of the decadence and reaction of the first world.


I also think it's funny how the production value of this 'propaganda' is very good, he sounds white and American but yet he's talking about the people's war waged by third-world workers and "our," struggle and all this shit when the narrator, is obviously, based upon his own theory, not apart of.
I think Canadian and American "maoists", and "third worldists" in particular, are regularly just guilty petty-bourgeois and bourgeois students (or trolls). I'm not intending this as a slight against Mao or maoism in general, whatever criticisms I might have, but that's the tendency.

That said, I wouldn't rule out state funding for the express purpose of disrupting working class organizing in advanced capitalist countries that would threaten capitalism in those countries. It's happened before.

[Thug Lessons]

"Third worldism" has nothing whatsoever to offer the left other than disruption and reaction. Since the Russian Revolution it's been abundantly clear to all (virtually, except the ultra-ultra-left) Marxists that there were signficant advantages to workers organizing outside of the most advanced capitalist countries and that those workers in the most advanced capitalist countries would not be the first to overthrow capitalist relations in any substantive sense - because they weren't, and everyone could see it, and so pointing it out is of no political value.
The point is to explain it, which third worldists have attempted to do with theories of labor aristocracy, unequal exchange, and so on. These are things that need to be addressed and analyzed in any progress is to be made. This tendency isn't limited to marginal post-Maoist sects in the United States and never was, it's much larger and more diverse than you probably realize.


I think Canadian and American "maoists", and "third worldists" in particular, are regularly just guilty petty-bourgeois and bourgeois students (or trolls).
It's weird of the criticisms of third worldists from within the socialist movement tend to mirror the criticisms that liberals and rightists level at the communist movement as a whole almost exactly.

[jake williams]

The point is to explain it, which third worldists have attempted to do with theories of labor aristocracy, unequal exchange, and so on. These are things that need to be addressed and analyzed in any progress is to be made. This tendency isn't limited to marginal post-Maoist sects in the United States and never was, it's much larger and more diverse than you probably realize.
The "third worldists" don't provide viable explanations though.


It's weird of the criticisms of third worldists from within the socialist movement tend to mirror the criticisms that liberals and rightists level at the communist movement as a whole almost exactly.
No, they're the opposite. The main problems liberals and rightists (ie. the bourgeoisie) have with communists is that they strengthen the working class. The problem communists have with the "third worldists" is that they weaken the working class in the first world, and don't do anything else. The demographic fact that petty-bourgeois students are also overrepresented in parts of communist movement is incidental. Historically the communist movement in imperialist countries has been predominated by workers, because it has been a mass movement, and communism as a mass movement is never going to be brought forward by the bourgeoisie, whatever individuals might be drawn to it for sincere reasons. The bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries, however, have a lot of reason to support "third worldism", because it attacks their main enemies, the first world working class. If struggle by the working class in Vietnam against the American bourgeoisie gets too sharp, the Americans can leave and go somewhere else. If struggle by the American working class becomes to intense, the American bourgeoisie's very existence is threatened.

[Thug Lessons]

The "third worldists" don't provide viable explanations though.
I haven't really heard any other explanations at all, let alone good ones. I'm also not at all convinced you really know that much about third worldist theory. A good primer as far as the United States goes is J Sakai's Settlers, available for free download here (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/10/28/17790131.php). There are also some good primers on unequal exchange such as this (http://www.amazon.com/Unequal-Exchange-Imperialism-Modern-Reader/dp/0853451885/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307684413&sr=8-1) that I can point you to. I'm not aware of anywhere that it's available for free, but you can probably find it on aaaarg or something.


No, they're the opposite. The main problems liberals and rightists (ie. the bourgeoisie) have with communists is that they strengthen the working class. The problem communists have with the "third worldists" is that they weaken the working class in the first world, and don't do anything else. The demographic fact that petty-bourgeois students are also overrepresented in parts of communist movement is incidental. Historically the communist movement in imperialist countries has been predominated by workers, because it has been a mass movement, and communism as a mass movement is never going to be brought forward by the bourgeoisie, whatever individuals might be drawn to it for sincere reasons. The bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries, however, have a lot of reason to support "third worldism", because it attacks their main enemies, the first world working class. If struggle by the working class in Vietnam against the American bourgeoisie gets too sharp, the Americans can leave and go somewhere else. If struggle by the American working class becomes to intense, the American bourgeoisie's very existence is threatened.I can't imagine how the LLCO could be said to be 'weakening the working class', because they're essentially a non-entity. The only time they've ever made the news is once when Michelle Malkin got mad at them for counter-protesting the Tea Party and calling them racists. In any case, if the working class in the United States is weakened by something as trifling as weirdos calling them mean names on the internet, then they probably weren't all that strong to begin with. I'm guessing this has much more to do with bruised socialist egos than any sort of appreciable harm to working-class struggles.

That aside, you're talking historically for a moment here. What has actually happened, historically, as far as socialist movements in the first world go? By and large, class struggle in the first world hasn't threatened the bourgeoisie's existence at all, but rather has taken the form of a reformist, social democratic compromise. The third worldist position, most fundamentally, is that this trend has a material basis, and I can't see any reason not to pursue analyses along this line.

[jake williams]

I can't imagine how the LLCO could be said to be 'weakening the working class', because they're essentially a non-entity. The only time they've ever made the news is once when Michelle Malkin got mad at them for counter-protesting the Tea Party and calling them racists. In any case, if the working class in the United States is weakened by something as trifling as weirdos calling them mean names on the internet, then they probably weren't all that strong to begin with. I'm guessing this has much more to do with bruised socialist egos than any sort of appreciable harm to working-class struggles.
I'll grant you that, thank god, it's not a substantive political force. Yes, all they do is aggravate and distrupt, but it mostly happens on a pretty minor and insignificant level (though I have seen some with similar ideologies do considerable damage to the left in the Quebec student movement's alliance with labour, a fact not insignificant). If, however, the best you can say of an ideology is that its attempts to thwart progressive organizing is that it's ineffective at it, you're not exactly handing it a complement.


That aside, you're talking historically for a moment here. What has actually happened, historically, as far as socialist movements in the first world go?
Until a few decades ago, they led struggles that acquired the highest living standards for workers at any point in history. The fact that reaction and revisionism has led to retreats is as much evidence that first world workers are incapable of socialist revolution as reaction and revisionism in India and China over a similar period are evidence that Indian and Chinese workers are equally incapable. What have socialist movements accomplished in India? In the Congo? In Brazil? In Somalia? In Cambodia?


By and large, class struggle in the first world hasn't threatened the bourgeoisie's existence at all, but rather has taken the form of a reformist, social democratic compromise.
Class struggle in the "third world" has regularly taken the form of an analogous compromise with the national bourgeoisie. Again, reformism, revisionism and reaction are political dangers for the working class everywhere in the world. Also, bourgeois engineers of pro-worker reforms have regularly articulated a sincere fear that working class organizing would threaten their class power. Socialist revolution in Germany was basically crushed by war and fascism, as it was in Spain and Greece. You have no historical argument that's intelligible at all for the same reason you have no theoretical argument: you're an anti-marxist who has an idealist, if reactionary, view of history, one more founded out of contempt than science, whatever your pretensions.


The third worldist position, most fundamentally, is that this trend has a material basis, and I can't see any reason not to pursue analyses along this line.
Of course right-wing trends in the labour movement have a material basis. Again, people who are actually Marxists are more than capable of clearly articulating this, in ways that are neither reactionary nor nonsensical.

[Chimurenga.]

The LLCO doesn't side with the first world bourgeoisie in labor disputes.

Surely you're joking?

http://allpowertothepositive.blogspot.com/2011/04/wisconsin-workers-are-cheeziest.html

From LLCO/RAIM's own.

[Thug Lessons]

I'll grant you that, thank god, it's not a substantive political force. Yes, all they do is aggravate and distrupt, but it mostly happens on a pretty minor and insignificant level (though I have seen some with similar ideologies do considerable damage to the left in the Quebec student movement's alliance with labour, a fact not insignificant). If, however, the best you can say of an ideology is that its attempts to thwart progressive organizing is that it's ineffective at it, you're not exactly handing it a complement.
I don't see any thwarting going on, and I'm not even sure you imagine what form this would take. What I do see is a massive degree of pissing and moaning from first world socialists every time the issue comes up, contradictory cries of 'reaction!' and "ultra-leftism!', endless accusations that this is all the work of spoiled brat students who don't understand the real workers, (as though Marx scribbled Capital on the back of a barroom napkin in between shifts at the coal mine and Engels was an illiterate peasant), all coupled with a serious ignorance of the issues involved and an critical failure to engage, let alone substantively refute, third worldist arguments.

If you're actually losing ground to the LLCO or something similar, then that's what's to blame, not the third worldists. I don't agree with their stance on first world socialist organizing, but that also doesn't incline me to stick my head in the sand and become a first worldist, any more than the inane rantings of Louis Farrakhan lead me to deny the existence of white privilege.


Until a few decades ago, they led struggles that acquired the highest living standards for workers at any point in history. The fact that reaction and revisionism has led to retreats is as much evidence that first world workers are incapable of socialist revolution as reaction and revisionism in India and China over a similar period are evidence that Indian and Chinese workers are equally incapable. What have socialist movements accomplished in India? In the Congo? In Brazil? In Somalia? In Cambodia?That's absurdly reductionist. If you think that communist movements in Russia, China, Germany and the United States all failed to achieve permanent state power for the same reasons, you're ignoring most of the actual history so that what's left fits into a convenient narrative. Not that convenient though, considering that it does nothing to explain why communist movements in the first world, at least since WWII, have had even less success.


Of course right-wing trends in the labour movement have a material basis. Again, people who are actually Marxists are more than capable of clearly articulating this, in ways that are neither reactionary nor nonsensical.I haven't really seen this outside of third worldism, labor aristocracy theory and so on, just empty-headed denialism like the kind you have to offer.

[Thug Lessons]

Surely you're joking?

http://allpowertothepositive.blogspot.com/2011/04/wisconsin-workers-are-cheeziest.html

From LLCO/RAIM's own.
I don't see anything in there about supporting the bourgeoisie, just a refusal to support pro-union protesters in Wisconsin on the grounds that doing so doesn't solve the problems the author thinks are more important. There's a meaningful difference there. I don't agree with that, but it shouldn't be misrepresented as the RAIM guy cheering capital on in its quest to crush first world labor.

edit: Also, this appears to be a RAIM blog, and the responses the blogger is giving to Nick Brown tend to reject much of what he's saying.

[Hebrew Hammer]

I think Canadian and American "maoists", and "third worldists" in particular, are regularly just guilty petty-bourgeois and bourgeois students (or trolls). I'm not intending this as a slight against Mao or maoism in general, whatever criticisms I might have, but that's the tendency.

In all do fairness, this could be said of any other tendency: Trotskyists, Anarchists (of any sort), etc. but I do get what you're saying. I would be willing to wager that this is particularly true with these "Third-Worldists." I mean, I personally don't have the technology, resources and shit necessary (I assume) to make such propaganda and regardless of it being representative of a certain party and it's viewpoints/line, it seems like the work of some college art major.


That said, I wouldn't rule out state funding for the express purpose of disrupting working class organizing in advanced capitalist countries that would threaten capitalism in those countries. It's happened before.

I don't think I would necessarily rule this out as a possibility either.

[jake williams]

I'll use the term "first world" (and related) without quotes because I can't be arsed to do it every time, but I still don't think it's an intelligible way to organize the world.


...
I don't see any thwarting going on, and I'm not even sure you imagine what form this would take. What I do see is a massive degree of pissing and moaning from first world socialists every time the issue comes up
The "issue comes up" mostly because losers harass us online, at demonstrations, and at meetings. They're being irritating at best and destructive at worst. They don't offer any meaningful suggestions about how to overcome the challenges of socialist organizing in first world countries, particular challenges which do exist for material reasons. They consistently have nothing to offer and mostly to stick around to annoy people. That people would by and large react with unsophisticated annoyance is unsurprising.


contradictory cries of 'reaction!' and "ultra-leftism!'
It's a perfect case though of how ultra-leftism becomes reaction though. There's no contradiction. If your politics lead you to oppose progressive movements and organizations, even if it's "left" politics, then you become a de facto reactionary. That your politics would become explicitly reactionary, explicitly calling for a reduction in living standards for the working class, is unsurprising. There's no contradiction, and you apparently are utterly unfamiliar with the Marxist use of the term "ultra-leftism".


endless accusations that this is all the work of spoiled brat students who don't understand the real workers
It's just an observation. I know many, many first world workers who support socialist organizing by the first world working class, and third world workers who support the same. Of the people who advocate reactionary positions regarding first world workers, exactly one is anything other than a petty bourgeois student, and he has, though I don't want to go any details because the internet isn't anonymous and he's the father of a friend of mine, his own issues that would not exactly clarify his judgment.


(as though Marx scribbled Capital on the back of a barroom napkin in between shifts at the coal mine and Engels was an illiterate peasant)
I never said that a bourgeois or petty bourgeois background was an immutable barrier to the scientific understanding of society, and in fact, haven't denied that the prototypical "petty bourgeois students" have indeed participated, with varying degrees of productiveness, in first world socialist movements.

In fact, I haven't even argued the contrary, that workers would be unable to believe the horseshit that third-worldists come up with. I could though, at least on the strength of the absence of counterexamples.


both coupled with a serious ignorance of the issues involved and an critical failure to engage, let alone substantively refute, third worldist arguments.
We just get tired of it. I've done it before and so have all my friends. You don't have anything valuable to say. I think this basically expresses the tone:

Third World-ism is Not a Challenge but Rather is “Challenged”

A Toronto Comrade writes that Third Worldism, the idea that the world can be divided into three income brackets and wealth is produced by those who are in the poorest countries, has some facts to offer us and explains why there is less of a fight-back in imperialist countries like Canada. Actually Third Worldism is not based on facts at all and does not challenge us into recognizing realities but instead tries to confuse us to accept the boss’s lies about ourselves. The outcome of believing the boss’s lies that many Canadian workers have it too good already is to give up any hope of fighting Canadian capitalists, perversely in the name of helping people exploited by our capitalists in other countries when what they need most is for us to bring Canadian capitalists to their knees, something Third Worldism says we can’t do because we are bought off.


The lowest paid Canadian does not make $36,000 a year, but $0 a year. The fact is most Canadians are not comfortably well off, many are either starving and homeless or one cheque away from it. It’s not scientific to take the average income and say this represents the bottom income. The 2004 Stats Can Survey of Household Spending shows that the bottom 20% of Ontarians by income spend about 140% of their income on basic necessities.


But there is a bigger fact Third Worldism gets wrong, which is that even though it is on a small scale, the Canadian working class and youth ARE fighting back. We are going on strikes, supporting picket lines, protesting the G20, organizing solidarity campaigns despite not even having the right to use the word “Apartheid”. Third Worldism is blind to this reality and tries to make us ignore the real fight-back as it is and the potential for growing it, by telling us we are all bought off by the labour of workers in neo-colonies, which itself shows a completely muddled interpretation of Marx.


Third Worldism mixes up income, which is how much physical money we get, with the social relationship we are in. Capitalism is not defined by income but by the social relationship of producing wealth. As far as understanding capitalism goes it’s not so important whether your income is high or low, but whether you are producing wealth for the capitalists or if someone else is producing wealth for you. Often relatively higher-income auto and steel workers are producing much more wealth and are much more exploited (in the Marxist sense of producing wealth for capitalists) than low income workers who might not be producing as much wealth for capitalists. Third Worldism tries to make us forget capitalism is about social relationships by telling us it is about income, which robs us of the revolutionary analysis needed to change Canada.


Instead of income tiers, the world should be looked at as consisting of imperialist countries like Canada, socialist countries like Cuba or Democratic Korea, and what I will call neo-colonies which are countries targeted by capitalists in imperialist countries for making money off of them. Looking at the world through imperialist relations directly, rather than income brackets, shows that wealth is produced by workers in imperialist countries too and this has nothing to do with the size of your paycheck.


Third Worldism as presented by the Toronto Comrade, and I think this is a distortion in the presentation, confuses retail with service. A “mall economy” is a retail economy, and according to Marx’s analysis in Capital II retail workers do not produce wealth but instead circulate it. However, not all service workers are retail workers, and service workers such as those in outsourced call centres like myself do produce wealth for capitalists, in fact a lot of it. Marx’s analysis of capitalism is about looking at wealth production, not the production of physical stuff. The fallacy that those who do not produce physical goods are not producing wealth was smashed by people who came long before Marx, like Adam Smith. What’s important about capitalist exploitation is whether the capitalists as a class makes a profit off of the work, which they do for outsourced services, and to focus on income alone is to turn back the clock on Economics over 200 years.
Stats Can’s Labour Force Survey released August 6 2010 shows manufacturing workers increased by 26,000 in July and make up 1.7 million workers (productive and non-productive of capital e.g. in administration and maintenance). The goods-producing industries have 3.7 million workers vs 13.5 million for the service industries, but only 2.7 million of those are in trade. Most of the other service workers are not in retail and produce capital and so are “productive” of capital and exploited in the same way as workers in manufacturing industries or workers in neo-colonies. These are the facts that Third Worldism wants to confuse us about by mixing up retail and service work, and mixing up paycheck sizes with the social relationships of capitalism.


All of these workers in manufacturing and non-retail services produce wealth for capitalists, and their paychecks are not from the third world or neo-colonial countries but from their own labour. So it’s wrong to say that we make gains from the exploitation of workers in neo-colonies, we make gains from the struggle against our own capitalists, who workers in neo-colonies are also struggling against. In fact we can only beat the Canadian capitalists if we work together with workers in neo-colonies to take them on, something Third Worldism will never let us do because it wants us to close our eyes to the realities of the struggle in Canada in the name of confusing income disparity as a short-hand for imperialist social relations. To say workers in imperialist countries are collaborators is to ignore the fight back as it is, and to ignore the reality of our responsibility in Canada to increase the resistance and win the leadership of the working class here as a means of overthrowing capitalism.


Nothing to lose but your chains does not mean you literally have nothing other than chains, but rather that socially we are nothing under capitalism even if we have good food or a good apartment because we don’t control the means of production, and so “we have been naught but we shall be all” as in the song Internationale not because we have naught but because despite what material things we might have we are still naught. This is the difference between physical income vs our social relationship. Capitalism is not about how much stuff you have but about the social relationship of making the stuff.


The Right is successful because it uses demagoguery backed up by its wealth, and we have limited success because we need to improve in our leadership of the struggle and our work and not because Canadian workers are living large. Third Worldism buys into the ignorant stereotypes of capitalist demagoguery that tries to convince us Canadian workers have it good and so should accept pay cuts and layoffs, and plays into the hands of the capitalists to make us forget the potential around us of rebellion by having us focus only on what is happening in neo-colonies.
We don’t need theories of fetishism to tell us a fight-back is happening in Canada, we just need to open our eyes (at least a couple of millimeters). The reason capitalism is strong in Canada is not because workers are weak through living off the workers in neo-colonies, but because capitalists are strong through living off the workers in neo-colonies as well as Canada. “Third worldism” has this backwards and does not offer a scientific solution forward, and tries to confuse us about the basics of Marxism by playing tricks with the idea that your income determines your social relationship in the economy.

If you're actually losing ground to the LLCO or something similar, then that's what's to blame, not the third worldists. I don't agree with their stance on first world socialist organizing, but that also doesn't incline me to stick my head in the sand and become a first worldist, any more than the inane rantings of Louis Farrakhan lead me to deny the existence of white privilege.
What is a "first worldist"? There used to be North American or European supremacists tolerated on the Marxist left - and they were mostly old news in the 60s.


That's absurdly reductionist. If you think that communist movements in Russia, China, Germany and the United States all failed to achieve permanent state power for the same reasons, you're ignoring most of the actual history
Of course it would be, and those who make such simplistic and reductionist arguments are being absurd. I'm not making any such argument at all. You implied that first world workers universally suffer from revisionism and reformism, while third world workers do not. You implied, reductively, that the lack of a sustained socialist revolution in an advanced capitalist country is the consequence of this tendency to revisionism and reformism. But you provided no explanation for the absence of a sustained socialist revolution outside of China (now a capitalist country), the Soviet Union (now several right wing capitalist republics), and Vietnam (now effectively a capitalist country), an absence which in the case of first world countries - a limited number of test cases, effectively limited to three "units" in North America, Japan and the "Asian tigers, and Western Europe - you argue is somehow illustrative.

I never at all argued or implied that revisionism and reformism don't have complex histories, or the same causes in all cases.


Not that convenient though, considering that it does nothing to explain why communist movements in the first world, at least since WWII, have had even less success.
Not in and of itself, but again, I never denied that there are material reasons which would lead to it being more difficult for workers in the most advanced imperialist centres to overthrow capitalism. In fact, I explicitly stated as much, so arguing othewise requires conscious distortion of what I'm saying.


I haven't really seen this outside of third worldism, labor aristocracy theory and so on, just empty-headed denialism like the kind you have to offer.
"Labor aristocracy theory", as you put it, is problematic, but conflating it with "third worldism" is like saying that elephants and feathers are both large animals.

If you really insist, to put it most basically: The bourgeoisie in the most advanced countries has extensive resources for putting down revolutions. Occasionally this takes the form of making concessions in the form of social-democratic reforms - but this basically only ever happened once in history, over a twenty year period between the early 40s and the early 50s. It significantly takes the form, perhaps most importantly, in an almost incomprehensibly sophisticated network of propaganda and indoctrination that can't be accomplished in the third world. At the end of the day, though, they do it by force, as they did in Germany.

It's also clearly true that first world workers are less likely to be offended by their living conditions than those of third world workers, because the former are clearly better than the latter, and so there is less immediate inducement to resist. This has demonstrable material effects and absolutely every organizer recognizes as much.

But it's also true that first world workers, when they organize, and they do, have stronger material and social means to fight back. First world workers are more literate and have technical skills which the most oppressed workers in the third world do not. First world workers have significant material means to use in the course of political organizing - they can afford to take time off work in some cases, to feed their kids while on strike, to fund political and media campaigns, and so on. They relatively rarely face murder from the state. They have cell phones, e-mail and Facebook, all of which can be exceptionally useful if used responsibly, and which are of limited availability or utility to "the most oppressed". They have a whole lot of resources that make their organizing objectively easier, more powerful, and more likely to be successful. If you actually look at history materialistically, you'll see this.

[Thug Lessons]

I'm not going to address everything in that massive, line-by-line response. That style of debate only serves to bury people in extended responses rather than push the discussion forward, and makes the whole thing less accessible to people who aren't directly engaged themselves. I'll try to pick the most relevant point and prune the tangents as best I can.


The "issue comes up" mostly because losers harass us online, at demonstrations, and at meetings. They're being irritating at best and destructive at worst. They don't offer any meaningful suggestions about how to overcome the challenges of socialist organizing in first world countries, particular challenges which do exist for material reasons. They consistently have nothing to offer and mostly to stick around to annoy people. That people would by and large react with unsophisticated annoyance is unsurprising.
I've also heard bad things about the organizational style of the LLCO and similar groups, (MIM, RAIM, etc.) And I'd agree that they tend to be absolutely braindead when it comes to offering meaningful advice to contemporary socialists in the first world - partly because what they're saying doesn't really change much in terms of what first world socialists should do on a day to day basis, and partly because they tend to subscribe to a Manichean view of the world that's profoundly unhelpful. None of this, however, really presents a challenge to the core ideas they're advocating, which I've yet to see a good refutation of.

If you're really looking for some relevant, valuable advice from third worldists though, J Sakai offers some insights in his 'Race Burns Class':
JS: We need to talk about how people unthinkingly objectify the working classes.It never occurs to anyone to believe that the metropolitan middle classes are going to overthrow the system that privileges them. No one says, "The white doctors and professors and managers are the revolutionary class." Yet, without any big fuss or posturing, middle-class radicals just organize in those classes when and where they can, all around themselves. Students just form issue groups in even the most elite universities. Teachers try to open minds to social justice, while even some doctors volunteer to serve in refugee camps or argue with the majority of their criminal profession about being healers not rip-offs or stock market addicts. For better or worse, success or defeat. No big political deal, it's just living the life, the meal that's set before us.

But when it comes to the working classes, whoa, then it's all this ideological ca-ca. To believe what we're told, no one should want to organize or educate workers unless they can be sure that the entire class is "bound for glory" as the main force for revolution! (which you won't see here in this lifetime, trust me). So the white workers as a whole are either the revolutionary answer – which they aren't unless your cause is snowmobiles and lawn tractors – or they're like ignorant scum you wouldn't waste your time on. Small wonder rebellious poor whites almost always seek out the Right rather than the left.

There's an underlying assumption that revolutionary movements worldwide share, that's always there for us, that we are part of the working classes. That we live our lives in these communities, hold those jobs, try to live productive lives not just do capitalist bullshit, struggle within these class situations. We're talking in a wide arc here, maybe, but to a point: to how we need to build movements that have the learned skill of the recognition of reality. That understand revolutionary politics as more than abstract ideology, in more than an academic or reform movement way.

If radicalism can build small counter-currents of liberation in the overwhelmingly corrupt middle classes, why should similar work be questioned in the white working class communities? What i am fighting is the slick "Marxist" or "anarchist" opportunism, which sees aligning with the white settler majority and reform politics as the absolute necessity.

Malcolm X and Women's Liberation, ACT-UP and Wounded Knee II, Anti-Vietnam War draft card burning and radical ecology, were all shocking to the majority of North Americans. Radical threats to "the American Way of Life" – and loudly condemned not only by the majority but more specifically by the white working class – these political offensives by the few turned everything upside down. Because in the metropolis, radical and democratic change can only come against the wishes of the bribed majority. That may be tough to swallow for white folks, but reality is just reality.

This obsession with needing a social majority has nothing to do with being "practical". What it has to do with is bourgeois and defeatist thinking.This is like the left thinking that could not build a practical anti-fascist movement in Weimar Republic Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, although millions hated Nazism and wanted to do something, because that German left was too preoccupied with fantasies of either seizing or getting elected into state power for itself.

That left was too lost in delusions of success almost within their hands, delusions of maneuvering together a majority, to bother even really understanding fascism coming up fast in their rear view mirror. The urgent need was to organize a working minority to counter fascism in a much more radical way. Not by trying to defend liberal bourgeois rule. All the real things that had to be done by scattered German anti-fascists later after the Nazis were put into power – such as to survive politically, to significantly sabotage the war effort, to rescue Jews and Romany and gays, to build an underground against the madness of the Third Reich – all these things were attempted bravely but largely unsuccessfully, because they had to be done too late from scratch. This is a much larger subject, too large to dive into now, but it is on the horizon, like the smoke of a distant forest fire.

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/books/raceburn.html


What is a "first worldist"? There used to be North American or European supremacists tolerated on the Marxist left - and they were mostly old news in the 60s.That's quite true, but then again open chauvinism isn't really tolerated at all in modern society at large, let alone the left, so these things are left to seep through in other ways. I've yet to meet anyone in a socialist organization who voiced opposition to gender equality, but I've met more than a few that thought the whole thing was a distraction, would dispute the fundamentals and premises of feminist theory to no end, and just tended to have shitty attitudes towards women both within the organization and outside it. Similarly, I haven't met any white supremacists either, but there's more than enough tokenization, claims that race is "just a class issue", and general ignorance of the importance of race (outside of its usefulness in rhetorical grandstanding) to go around. I'd call these attitudes sexist and racist respectively.

First worldism follows a similar vein. Where the misogynists and racists in the socialist movement deny male privilege and white privilege, first worldists want to deny that there's any privilege associated with living in the first world. The article you posted is a great example of that - as though we could use Marx's critique of political economy to sweep these issues under the rug. In fact, you could use these exact same arguments to dismiss feminist and anti-racist arguments about income differentials between their groups and white males as irrelevant, but yet they're still there, and socialists aren't doing anyone any favors by ignoring them, least of all themselves.


I never at all argued or implied that revisionism and reformism don't have complex histories, or the same causes in all cases.There's probably no reason to continue on this line, because from what I'm reading any disagreements we have are likely to be more pedantic than relevant. I'm going to drop it unless you think it's particularly important.


"Labor aristocracy theory", as you put it, is problematic, but conflating it with "third worldism" is like saying that elephants and feathers are both large animals. I'm not sure how you'd define third worldism then. Is it essentially the ideology of MIM, the LLCO, etc. to you? I'd look at it as a larger current but this may, in the end, be a more semantic distinction than a practical one.


If you really insist, to put it most basically: The bourgeoisie in the most advanced countries has extensive resources for putting down revolutions. Occasionally this takes the form of making concessions in the form of social-democratic reforms - but this basically only ever happened once in history, over a twenty year period between the early 40s and the early 50s. It significantly takes the form, perhaps most importantly, in an almost incomprehensibly sophisticated network of propaganda and indoctrination that can't be accomplished in the third world. At the end of the day, though, they do it by force, as they did in Germany.I'm well aware of the use of violence in maintaining state power, and of the massive capacity for violence that states in modern advanced nations hold. You have to admit, though, that this violence, while sometimes applied, is almost never applied as broadly or as brutally as it was before the Second World War, (when, coincidentally, worker's movements were both larger and more radical). It's not even close to enough to explain the current destitute state of the left.

Now, if you want to turn to propaganda to fill that gap, there's two problems. Firstly you're decidedly turning away from any sort of materialist analysis. I'm not going to deny there's any effect here, since there surely is, but it has to be fundamentally tied to the economics or it's pure idealism. Secondly, there is a zero chance that the left will ever be able to win the propaganda war. They should certainly try to the extent that it's useful, but the way media and information systems generally are structured precludes any sort of mass struggle, and if they're really holding back the floodgates they'll likely do so forever.


It's also clearly true that first world workers are less likely to be offended by their living conditions than those of third world workers, because the former are clearly better than the latter, and so there is less immediate inducement to resist. This has demonstrable material effects and absolutely every organizer recognizes as much.

But it's also true that first world workers, when they organize, and they do, have stronger material and social means to fight back. First world workers are more literate and have technical skills which the most oppressed workers in the third world do not. First world workers have significant material means to use in the course of political organizing - they can afford to take time off work in some cases, to feed their kids while on strike, to fund political and media campaigns, and so on. They relatively rarely face murder from the state. They have cell phones, e-mail and Facebook, all of which can be exceptionally useful if used responsibly, and which are of limited availability or utility to "the most oppressed". They have a whole lot of resources that make their organizing objectively easier, more powerful, and more likely to be successful. If you actually look at history materialistically, you'll see this.This is largely correct. You're mistaken on a few minor points, (for example cell phones are actually quite common the world over these days), but they're just that, minor. There are larger issues here too though, besides the day-to-day operations of socialist organization.

[ZrianKobani]

Kudos to Thug Lessons for standing her ground. I've been told MTWism is a fraudulent ideology but if it can attract women of her caliber, there must be something to it.

[jake williams]

...
I'm not going to address everything in that massive, line-by-line response.
You started off by saying that you were offended that we don't actually address what you and yours say. I'd actually prefer not to do that though because I think it's probably a waste of time. I hope it's a waste of time, actually.


None of this, however, really presents a challenge to the core ideas they're advocating, which I've yet to see a good refutation of.
They don't offer any useful ideas. On the rare occasions they actually offer ideas, if people feel like it, they'll point out that they're a combination of blatant falsity, and pseudorevolutionism as a cover for reactionary politics.


If you're really looking for some relevant, valuable advice from third worldists though, J Sakai offers some insights in his 'Race Burns Class'
Yeah, he's full of shit too. But I can't explain why because you don't want me to go "line by line", and he doesn't offer intelligible, uncontradictory theses that can be dealt with in a short space.


That's quite true, but then again open chauvinism isn't really tolerated at all in modern society at large, let alone the left, so these things are left to seep through in other ways. I've yet to meet anyone in a socialist organization who voiced opposition to gender equality, but I've met more than a few that thought the whole thing was a distraction, would dispute the fundamentals and premises of feminist theory to no end, and just tended to have shitty attitudes towards women both within the organization and outside it.
There are some rare misogynists, but there are a lot of "feminists" who are outright fucking reactionaries and they more than deserve political attack. I'll certainly grant that there are cases where Marxists actually act to repress, say, feminism, because they're opposed to gender equality, and when it happens it's reprehensible. But in a lot of cases, it gets called that, but what they're actually doing is defending legitimate political points. Not everything a "feminist" or an "anti-racist" says is right, and if we pretend otherwise we're going to lose, because getting politics right matters.


claims that race is "just a class issue"
Except that I think this is basically the thesis of your Sakai fellow, not that it's clear because he regularly and casually contradicts himself.


First worldism follows a similar vein. Where the misogynists and racists in the socialist movement deny male privilege and white privilege, first worldists want to deny that there's any privilege associated with living in the first world.
I'm increasingly believing that "privilege" is almost never a useful category in analyzing the world politically, but absolutely no one could think that there isn't relative privilege involved with living in the most advanced capitalist countries (or parts of them. There are cities in South Africa where the living standards of a working class black person are substantially higher than that of others.)

I'm not sure how you'd define third worldism then. Is it essentially the ideology of MIM, the LLCO, etc. to you? I'd look at it as a larger current but this may, in the end, be a more semantic distinction than a practical one.
The basic point is that the fundamental axis of struggle is geographic (or sometimes national) rather than class. This is anti-marxist.


I'm well aware of the use of violence in maintaining state power, and of the massive capacity for violence that states in modern advanced nations hold. You have to admit, though, that this violence, while sometimes applied, is almost never applied as broadly or as brutally as it was before the Second World War, (when, coincidentally, worker's movements were both larger and more radical). It's not even close to enough to explain the current destitute state of the left.
I made it quite clear that this is mostly only true historically.


Firstly you're decidedly turning away from any sort of materialist analysis.
I don't think you know what "materialist" means. Hint: it doesn't mean that it doesn't matter what people think.


I'm not going to deny there's any effect here, since there surely is, but it has to be fundamentally tied to the economics or it's pure idealism. Secondly, there is a zero chance that the left will ever be able to win the propaganda war. They should certainly try to the extent that it's useful, but the way media and information systems generally are structured precludes any sort of mass struggle, and if they're really holding back the floodgates they'll likely do so forever.
If you're suggesting that we're not ever going to win the ideological struggle, then you're suggesting we're never going to win the class struggle, a fatalism utterly useless for anyone and one which I'm not at all interested in.

[Thug Lessons]

You started off by saying that you were offended that we don't actually address what you and yours say. I'd actually prefer not to do that though because I think it's probably a waste of time. I hope it's a waste of time, actually.
Yeah, he's full of shit too. But I can't explain why because you don't want me to go "line by line", and he doesn't offer intelligible, uncontradictory theses that can be dealt with in a short space.
You're going out of your way not to get what I'm saying. You're welcome to address whatever you please, but there's no need to pick apart every sentence someone writes unless your aim is specifically to be pedantic and stifle debate. That method has nothing to do with how a face-to-face debate works, let alone how intellectual discourse is carried out, and is really only useful when you're dealing with someone who is massively uniformed or just an idiot and you have no interest in convincing them but just proving them wrong by brute force. You've apparently already decided that's the situation here, but you might find I'm not so unreasonable as you might think. I'd love to have a discussion of Sakai's writings, or third worldist theory, or whatever, but if you're going to seize on any sign of rhetorical weakness and nitpick it to death then don't bother. That is a waste of time.


They don't offer any useful ideas. On the rare occasions they actually offer ideas, if people feel like it, they'll point out that they're a combination of blatant falsity, and pseudorevolutionism as a cover for reactionary politics.

There are some rare misogynists, but there are a lot of "feminists" who are outright fucking reactionaries and they more than deserve political attack. I'll certainly grant that there are cases where Marxists actually act to repress, say, feminism, because they're opposed to gender equality, and when it happens it's reprehensible. But in a lot of cases, it gets called that, but what they're actually doing is defending legitimate political points. Not everything a "feminist" or an "anti-racist" says is right, and if we pretend otherwise we're going to lose, because getting politics right matters.This is just a shitty attitude towards the left generally, but let's not even bother with that tangent.


I'm increasingly believing that "privilege" is almost never a useful category in analyzing the world politically, but absolutely no one could think that there isn't relative privilege involved with living in the most advanced capitalist countries (or parts of them. There are cities in South Africa where the living standards of a working class black person are substantially higher than that of others.)There's usually a much steeper gradient of privilege on average between relatively rich and poor nations than between relatively rich and poor cities within a nation, but overall that's correct. The relevant issues here would be why that privilege exists, what effect it has on the dynamics of class struggle in each situation, and to what extent it can be maintained.


The basic point is that the fundamental axis of struggle is geographic (or sometimes national) rather than class. This is anti-marxist.That doesn't exclusively describe third worldists, nor does it describe all third worldists. It's essentially indistinguishable from, say, Mao's ideas on the united front (http://marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_23.htm) during the Japanese invasion, or even the foreign policy of any communist state working as a (largely) isolated actor. It's not really anti-Marxist unless you're a strict internationalist, which I'm guessing you aren't. It could also describe the support for black nationalism sporadically advocated in the Comintern line and its CPUSA organs fairly well, so really this definition isn't working.

On the other end, it wouldn't really be adequate to describe the theories of Tony Cliff, Michel Pablo, or even Sakai, (who as you've probably noticed is my primary influence, while those others aren't much of an influence at all), all of whom could arguably be described as third worldists. Honestly, a much better definition here would be to described reformism and the weakness of labor movements in the advanced nations generally as being a result of economic forces above all others, though perhaps that would fit in better with an idea of 'labor aristocracy'.

I don't think you know what "materialist" means. Hint: it doesn't mean that it doesn't matter what people think.A materialist analysis would certainly preclude any explanation of history where propaganda rather than economics was the driving force, I would think.

If you're suggesting that we're not ever going to win the ideological struggle, then you're suggesting we're never going to win the class struggle, a fatalism utterly useless for anyone and one which I'm not at all interested in.What you aren't going to do is out-propagandize the established order by using a system designed by said order to ensure they have a monopoly on the public discourse. That's a quixotic quest to beat capital at its own game, akin to Nikita Khrushchev claiming they Soviet Union was going to out-develop the West, (or, for that matter, a MTWist who claims the third world should colonize the United States in an effort to end imperialism).

[Hebrew Hammer]

Kudos to Thug Lessons for standing her ground. I've been told MTWism is a fraudulent ideology but if it can attract women of her caliber, there must be something to it.

Why can't you just get down with Kasama or fuck even the RCP like a normal person?

[Thug Lessons]

I honestly wouldn't join the LLCO myself because they're, like, crazy, but they also happen to have a decent analysis that makes all the right people go ballistic.

[Chimurenga.]

I don't see anything in there about supporting the bourgeoisie, just a refusal to support pro-union protesters in Wisconsin on the grounds that doing so doesn't solve the problems the author thinks are more important.

Railing on public sector workers as "parasites" isn't, in turn, politically siding with people like Rupert Murdoch and his news network who are in alliance with the bourgeoisie? Seriously?

[Thug Lessons]

Railing on public sector workers as "parasites" isn't, in turn, politically siding with people like Rupert Murdoch and his news network who are in alliance with the bourgeoisie? Seriously?
No, it isn't, just like being against the NATO intervention in Libya doesn't necessarily mean siding with Gaddafi.

[RedSunRising]

I honestly wouldn't join the LLCO myself because they're, like, crazy, but they also happen to have a decent analysis that makes all the right people go ballistic.

Why do you say they are crazy?

[Chimurenga.]

No, it isn't, just like being against the NATO intervention in Libya doesn't necessarily mean siding with Gaddafi.

You might as well join them because you are as idiotic and anti-working class as they are.

[ZrianKobani]

You might as well join them because you are as idiotic and anti-working class as they are.
Flaming >.>

[ZrianKobani]

Why can't you just get down with Kasama or fuck even the RCP like a normal person?
Never said I was a MTWist, I just respect that she's able to debate her point. I know nothing about Kasama and RCP is just Avakian worship so I'll pass.

[Thug Lessons]

Why do you say they are crazy?
Basically what jammoe said about their organizational methods. They're hyper-aggressive evangelists with one of the worst cases of sectarianism I've ever seen. There are good people there and probably most of them aren't crazy individually, but it's fair to describe the LLCO institutionally as such. Also, the Manichean view of the world isn't helping things.


You might as well join them because you are as idiotic and anti-working class as they are.
What on earth are you talking about?

[Chimurenga.]

Flaming >.>

Trolling. <.<

[Hebrew Hammer]

g9x-b8V-PSE

[Drosophila]

That was almost as bad as the Grady Warren tea party propaganda.

[ZombieRothbard]

There's social peace in America? That's why angry young boys and girls are shooting each other dead in the street trying to get a slice of the pie.

I think that might have more to do with the war on drugs than capitalism.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

While I disagree with the LLCO and other 'Third-Worldist' organizations in several key areas, especially relating to the Revolutionary Potential of First World Workers at emancipating themselves from the yoke of Bourgeois Control... Their views relating to encirclement of the First World are rather solid as they allow for a potential uniting of Third World Worker's Revolutionary Federation in order to push forward Proletarian Objectives in the same manner that the First World had previously used in order to force Neo-Liberalism, Capitalism and Imperialism upon the Third World.

[ZombieRothbard]

While I disagree with the LLCO and other 'Third-Worldist' organizations in several key areas, especially relating to the Revolutionary Potential of First World Workers at emancipating themselves from the yoke of Bourgeois Control... Their views relating to encirclement of the First World are rather solid as they allow for a potential uniting of Third World Worker's Revolutionary Federation in order to push forward Proletarian Objectives in the same manner that the First World had previously used in order to force Neo-Liberalism, Capitalism and Imperialism upon the Third World.

Isn't that imperialism also?

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

Isn't that imperialism also?

Its simply a response to counter-act Imperialism and to completely and utterly erase Imperialism through the same methods that it had previously used, in order to push forward the Proletariat and ensure the foundation of Socialism. More or less, it is simply aiding to Human Liberation.

[ZombieRothbard]

Its simply a response to counter-act Imperialism and to completely and utterly erase Imperialism through the same methods that it had previously used, in order to push forward the Proletariat and ensure the foundation of Socialism. More or less, it is simply aiding to Human Liberation.

Isn't that roughly the same argument neoconservatives use when they talk about democratizing the world? Isn't Maoist Third Worldism basically "imperialism is ok, as long as it is communist". Instead of saying they oppose imperialism, they should say they oppose capitalism, because they seem to support imperialism.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

Isn't that roughly the same argument neoconservatives use when they talk about democratizing the world? Isn't Maoist Third Worldism basically "imperialism is ok, as long as it is communist". Instead of saying they oppose imperialism, they should say they oppose capitalism, because they seem to support imperialism.

'Isn't that roughly the same argument neoconservatives use when they talk about democratizing the world? '
And while Imperialism and Capitalism continue to exist, this will continue and remain a static situation in human existence unless corrected through the same means that Imperialism and Capitalism operate.
'Isn't Maoist Third Worldism basically "imperialism is ok, as long as it is communist". Instead'
I can't speak for Maoist-Third Worldists as I'm not one.
'they should say they oppose capitalism, because they seem to support imperialism.'
Proletarian Internationalism through the means of Militarism in order to simply crush Capitalism and Imperialism and afterward to build new with the foundations of a International Proletarian Society is not Imperialism, as unlike Imperialism, it allows for Self-Determination to come about and the foundations of a New World to be formed.

[ZombieRothbard]

'Isn't that roughly the same argument neoconservatives use when they talk about democratizing the world? '
And while Imperialism and Capitalism continue to exist, this will continue and remain a static situation in human existence unless corrected through the same means that Imperialism and Capitalism operate.
'Isn't Maoist Third Worldism basically "imperialism is ok, as long as it is communist". Instead'
I can't speak for Maoist-Third Worldists as I'm not one.
'they should say they oppose capitalism, because they seem to support imperialism.'
Proletarian Internationalism through the means of Militarism in order to simply crush Capitalism and Imperialism and afterward to build new with the foundations of a International Proletarian Society is not Imperialism, as unlike Imperialism, it allows for Self-Determination to come about and the foundations of a New World to be formed.

It doesn't want self-determination. If they wanted self-determination, they wouldn't oppose capitalism, they would just oppose imperialism. And we know they don't oppose imperialism, because it appears that their strategy to toppling the first world is imperialistic.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

It doesn't want self-determination. If they wanted self-determination, they wouldn't oppose capitalism, they would just oppose imperialism. And we know they don't oppose imperialism, because it appears that their strategy to toppling the first world is imperialistic.

'It doesn't want self-determination'
Proletarian strangle hold of Imperialist Nations is simply used in order to achieve the destruction of Imperialism in order to ensure that Capitalist Imperialism is incapable of carrying on. Which afterward allows for Proletarian Self-Determination through the rising of the Working Class.
'they wouldn't oppose capitalism, they would just oppose imperialism.'
Capitalism is the basis for Imperialism.
'because it appears that their strategy to toppling the first world is imperialistic.'
It is not Imperialistic as it is used in order to topple Capitalism and Imperialism and to simply push forward the Working Class Revolution on a Global Basis. It is simply used as a form of justice in order to correctly correct the former Imperialism and Capitalism that has been allowed to occur.

[ZombieRothbard]

'It doesn't want self-determination'
Proletarian strangle hold of Imperialist Nations is simply used in order to achieve the destruction of Imperialism in order to ensure that Capitalist Imperialism is incapable of carrying on. Which afterward allows for Proletarian Self-Determination through the rising of the Working Class.
That isn't self determination or countering imperialism, that is imperializing the world and then instituting mandatory communist agenda's to prevent self-determination.


'they wouldn't oppose capitalism, they would just oppose imperialism.'
Capitalism is the basis for Imperialism.

Actually the Soviet Union was imperialist. Ironically, neoconservatism in America was birthed out of a rejection of Soviet imperialism in favor of Democratic imperialism. So this whole "fighting imperialism with imperialism" thing is actually what created this neoconservative revolution in the first world.


'because it appears that their strategy to toppling the first world is imperialistic.'
It is not Imperialistic as it is used in order to topple Capitalism and Imperialism and to simply push forward the Working Class Revolution on a Global Basis. It is simply used as a form of justice in order to correctly correct the former Imperialism and Capitalism that has been allowed to occur.

That doesn't make any sense. You are basically arguing that it isn't imperialistic because it is using imperialism to fight imperialism. It is still imperialistic.

I personally think the neoconservatives and the maoist third-worldists should go fight their imperialistic wars of aggression in another dimension, while the rest of us try to fight for peace. If you want to help the Third World, you will do it by opposing the neo-mercantilist economic policies of the First World. Not by creating an imperialistic war machine out of the impoverished Third World.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

That isn't self determination or countering imperialism, that is imperializing the world and then instituting mandatory communist agenda's to prevent self-determination.



Actually the Soviet Union was imperialist. Ironically, neoconservatism in America was birthed out of a rejection of Soviet imperialism in favor of Democratic imperialism. So this whole "fighting imperialism with imperialism" thing is actually what created this neoconservative revolution in the first world.



That doesn't make any sense. You are basically arguing that it isn't imperialistic because it is using imperialism to fight imperialism. It is still imperialistic.

I personally think the neoconservatives and the maoist third-worldists should go fight their imperialistic wars of aggression in another dimension, while the rest of us try to fight for peace. If you want to help the Third World, you will do it by opposing the neo-mercantilist economic policies of the First World. Not by creating an imperialistic war machine out of the impoverished Third World.

'That isn't self determination or countering imperialism, that is imperializing the world and then instituting mandatory communist agenda's to prevent self-determination.'
It isn't 'Imperializing' as it is a direct response to Imperialism.

An Outright Invasion against a Imperialist Nation by a Federation of Working Class Nations would in all fairness be not needed, as all it would take to completely bring an end to this would be an encirclement in which the First World Imperialist Nations would afterward fall due to them lacking the ability to expand capital through Imperialism, this would as well foster the conditions for a Revolutionary Situation in order to complete the World Wide Revolution.

'That doesn't make any sense. You are basically arguing that it isn't imperialistic because it is using imperialism to fight imperialism. It is still imperialistic. '

It is simply using the same tactics that Imperialism uses in order to dismantle Imperialism and Capitalism.

(Again however, I'm not a Maoist Third Worldist, nor am I a Third Worldist, this situation simply could come from any Workers Power strong enough to unite other Revolutionary Workers State in an alliance.)

[tbasherizer]

It doesn't want self-determination. If they wanted self-determination, they wouldn't oppose capitalism, they would just oppose imperialism. And we know they don't oppose imperialism, because it appears that their strategy to toppling the first world is imperialistic.

It's impossible to oppose only imperialism without opposing capitalism. Imperialism is defined by most people in this thread in terms of direction of net wealth transfer from country to country. It's in the best interest of a "First world capitalist" to get Chinese people to work in a lead plant rather than "First World" people, because of the precautions that he would have to pay for in the "First World" that he wouldn't have to in the "Third World". This best interest is directly dictated by the laws of the marketplace that you love so much. As a result, the capitalist uses whichever tools he has at his disposal to make the local "Third World" government okay with this, which could mean he sponsors it and makes it dependent on their cooperation, or it could mean that he uses his local state to exert pressure on it.

Maoist Third Worldists' strategy is nonsense, but it is not strictly imperialist by the above economic definition.

[ZombieRothbard]

It's impossible to oppose only imperialism without opposing capitalism.

I support capitalism (free markets), but not imperialism. In fact, imperialism is the enemy of free market capitalism. The third world has much to offer the international division of labor, but it is prevented from doing so by the bandit gangs known as states.



Imperialism is defined by most people in this thread in terms of direction of net wealth transfer from country to country. It's in the best interest of a "First world capitalist" to get Chinese people to work in a lead plant rather than "First World" people, because of the precautions that he would have to pay for in the "First World" that he wouldn't have to in the "Third World". This best interest is directly dictated by the laws of the marketplace that you love so much.

State mandated regulations on work environments is not a law of the marketplace, it is an unwarranted intervention. The outsourcing you are speaking of is caused by state intervention in the affairs of private industry.


As a result, the capitalist uses whichever tools he has at his disposal to make the local "Third World" government okay with this, which could mean he sponsors it and makes it dependent on their cooperation, or it could mean that he uses his local state to exert pressure on it.

I agree with this, but just because the capitalist uses the coercion of the state to get his way doesn't mean that capitalism is the cause of the problem. The state is clearly the problem.

[Struggle]

It is ironic Maoist-Third Worldists are being suppressed from Revleft based on misconceptions and misjudgements.

Although I am not a Maoist-Third Worldist, a lot of what they claim is certainly true. I disagree with some of the notions such as ‘exploiting countries’ verses ‘exploited countries’, but in actual fact, I think there is more reason to suppress the people who actually suppress the MTWists, than there is for suppressing the MTWists.

The fact Maoist-Third Worldists receive so much hostility based on misjudged or miss-guided views, shows how capable many people in the Communist are of ‘guiding the masses towards revolution’.

Check this video out for example. MTWists, fundamentally, are MTWists because they believe the most effective way to bring about Socialism, based on the material conditions of the world, is to struggle in those conditions which will help the global movement most for the establishment of Socialism.

http://vimeo.com/24752359

Unlike many others, I have taken the liberty of actually studying what I agree or disagree with. I critique MTWists, but no more than I critique many other branches of Communism.

I support an end to suppressing MTWists, and would sooner see the moderators who suppress them, suppressed themselves. Although, we all know that is not going to happen.

Forward with objective non-doctrine thought for the emancipation of the working class. Down with petty-squabbles and those in the Communist movement, who by their preaching of division; contribute to the continuation of the Capitalist system and therefore the deaths of billions.

[Drosophila]

The LLCO has "DONATE- PAYPAL/MASTERCARD/VISA"

Isn't that contributing more to capitalism than my calling their ideology retarded?

[Struggle]

The LLCO has "DONATE- PAYPAL/MASTERCARD/VISA"

Isn't that contributing more to capitalism than my calling their ideology retarded?

That does not help. The fact is, for the Communist movement to achieve anything; we need to compromise at something. It is impossible to avoid the Capitalist system, and sometimes, it is even helpful to exploit it to ones benefit.

[Tim Finnegan]

I agree with this, but just because the capitalist uses the coercion of the state to get his way doesn't mean that capitalism is the cause of the problem. The state is clearly the problem.
That's like saying "I don't mind hayfever, I just don't like sneezing"... :rolleyes:

[DiaMat86]

Referring to the video:

There is absolutely no explanation of why the socialist revolutions of the 20th century were reversed.

[ZrianKobani]

Referring to the video:

There is absolutely no explanation of why the socialist revolutions of the 20th century were reversed.
Single-party states are designed to fail, all that's needed is time.

[DiaMat86]

How much plurality is required for success?

[ZrianKobani]

How much plurality is required for success? Unlimited; if socialism is to be democratic, it has to act democratic. The majority of Marxist regimes have been one-party states and the ones that haven't have places severe limitations (see the DPRK) on the opposition parties.