@Third-worldists: how do you feel about austerity cuts?

[Questionable]

I'm not trying to start a sectarian shitstorm or lure third-worldists into a trap where I then attack them, I am genuinely curious as to what their position is and I know we have at least two of them here.

Third-worldists deny that any kind of class struggle occurs in the Western industrialized nations, correct? That the class interests of the predominately white labor aristocracy have become synonymous with the bourgeoisie, and now the entire nation is for the most part consisting of exploiters?

If I'm right about that and this is what third-worldists believe, what are your stances on austerity budget cuts that have been pushing down workers' power and standards of living for millions, or even putting them out of jobs?

If we look at abstract models of imperialism and standards-of-living, I think one could interpret third-worldists as being correct, but when we see the inner-contradictions of capitalism unfolding even in the most industrialized oppressor nations, it seems far-fetched to me. The mechanisms of capital are still inflicting damage on the value-producing class. There are still very many unemployed people, there is still a conflict between the interests of corporations and the "public sector" (Just look at the attempt by corporations to use standardized testing as a way to slowly private education to better suit their needs), and of course austerity budgets that are completely tearing apart the social safety net. Are all these things really in the interest of the white labor aristocracy? I'm sure there are many people in the West who sincerely believe that deregulation is in their interests, but objectively speaking, it clearly isn't.

If class struggle wasn't occuring in the West, surely things would be more peaceful and prosperous than they are. I've seen many third-worldists either accidentally or deliberately misinterpret statistics to support their own viewpoint. For instance, one told me that the square footage of houses was increasing and that was proof of super-privilege in the first-world, but even if that statistic is true, it doesn't make sense when we realize that the rate of homelessness has been rising with the economic crisis. I can think of other instances where this misreading of statistics to support their particular viewpoint has happened to me when debating, but I'll give individuals a chance to speak for themselves

Again, let's keep this civil. I'm really interested in what third-worldists have to say about this.

[Let's Get Free]

I'm not a "third worldist" but I think a third worldist would say that in times when imperialist plunder and booty are plentiful the bourgeoisie is more than happy to share the wealth around a bit in order to placate the imperialist labor aristocracy and thereby establish social peace. But in times of imperialist crisis the bourgeois revokes some, but definitely not all, of the benefits of imperialist plunder for the labor aristocracy, which is what is known as austerity. I've heard some say that the crisis in the imperialist nations is due to the growing resistance of people in the oppressed colonized nations. Some of them may believe that if pushed far enough it could possibly re-ignite class struggle within the imperialist nation (and this is why the bourgeoisie pulls back some, not all, of the benefits).

[TheRedAnarchist23]

WTF is a third worldist?

I'm serious! What the fuck is a third worldist!?

[dodger]

Winston churchill’s instructions to police about the tonypandy striking miners ….’DRIVE THE RATS BACK DOWN THEIR HOLES’1911. and in 2011 after the LONDON RIOTS ....BORIS JOHNSON(London Mayor) ‘THEY MAY HAVE GONE TO THEIR EARTHS BUT THE HOUNDS ARE PERSUING THEM DOWN’
Is it evidence of a subtle change in the ruling class mindset?

Not on your bleeding Nelly...................

[Questionable]

I'm not a "third worldist" but I think a third worldist would say that in times when imperialist plunder and booty are plentiful the bourgeoisie is more than happy to share the wealth around a bit in order to placate the imperialist labor aristocracy and thereby establish social peace. But in times of imperialist crisis the bourgeois revokes some, but definitely not all, of the benefits of imperialist plunder for the labor aristocracy, which is what is known as austerity. I've heard some say that the crisis in the imperialist nations is due to the growing resistance of people in the oppressed colonized nations. Some of them may believe that if pushed far enough it could possibly re-ignite class struggle within the imperialist nation (and this is why the bourgeoisie pulls back some, not all, of the benefits).

This seems like a very generalized approach, though. US imperialism is stronger than it ever has been and more spending is getting diverted away from public welfare and into the defense budget, yet the status of workers is still declining.

As for as imperialist plunder, it once again seems clear to me that the profits derived from national exploitation do not go to benefit the whole of these first-world nations. Billions of dollars are still being funneled to the richest percantile of Americans, yet the living standards of many still seem to be crashing.

The economic recession we're facing was not brought about by some outside force. It was not as easy as the bourgeoisie snapping their fingers and destroying the welfare system because guerrilla attacks were hampering their operations. It was a much more complex, much more protracted crisis.

[PigmerikanMao]

This seems like a very generalized approach, though. US imperialism is stronger than it ever has been and more spending is getting diverted away from public welfare and into the defense budget, yet the status of workers is still declining.

While the status of many first world workers may be in decline (many have put this decline at the end of the 1980s when the socialist block was beginning to crumble and the seemingly only established alternative to capitalism was no longer a protracted threat to the intl bourgeoisie), it is not to a comparable level of the proletarian class during or immediately following the industrial revolution (before unionization and the rise of the mainstream socialist movement), nor are they comparable to the status of living for third world workers in the global south.

While it is an incredibly generalized method to explain a phenomenon, the issue itself if more or less a general and international one. The value of what is paid to first world workers relies on a plethora of influences, but the chief reason for the standard of living as it is now is to ensure that those being ruled domestically by the bourgeois class do not unseat them. If standards of living are allowed to go into decline, it should be apparent that at least in some level, the current power structure does not foresee any form of revolt coming from their base populace. Though this is certainly not the only influence to be had on a bourgeois investment of social welfare.

As for as imperialist plunder, it once again seems clear to me that the profits derived from national exploitation do not go to benefit the whole of these first-world nations. Billions of dollars are still being funneled to the richest percantile of Americans, yet the living standards of many still seem to be crashing.

While its true that the figureheads of the bourgeois system turn more of a profit than the rest of the first world workers, this is an attribute of any kind of hierarchical structure. Americans don't get a check in the mail every week from the Department of Plundered Resources, their kickback is a little more subtle. Gas and Oil in the United States this time last year for example, was hovering under $4 a gallon while in many other countries that didn't directly participate in the conquests of Iraq and Afghanistan were paying upwards of $6 or $7 a gallon depending on their given countries taxes and laws. Third world nations (in this example Turkey's average price of gas was $9.96/gallon) were paying high prices unless either their government worked to subsidize gas purchases or they produced high quantities of oil or natural gas domestically (forgive my not using the metric system). Analysts have pointed to this lower cost in gas to the contracts the interim governments of Iraq and Afghanistan were forced to sign while still under occupation by the US military.

While the direct correlation between military action and citizen benefit is difficult to pin, because as you have suggested it is a complex and interwoven system, benefits from economic and cultural imperialism are more easy to spot. Labour exploitation (sweatshop labour) in the third world for cheap consumer goods in the first world, while not directly enforced by the US or other first world militaries, is still protected, violently, by states who have a vested interest in maintaining trade contracts with first world companies. The domestic affairs of many third world states are influenced heavily by the first world and this means that maintaining national stability can require enforcing exploitative labour policies, the likes of which are unheard of in the first world.

The economic recession we're facing was not brought about by some outside force. It was not as easy as the bourgeoisie snapping their fingers and destroying the welfare system because guerrilla attacks were hampering their operations. It was a much more complex, much more protracted crisis.

Yes, it was complex, but the economic recession was not a total collapse, nor was it something that the bourgeois meticulously calculated in tandem with how much less they could pay the first world labour aristocracy without provoking a revolutionary situation. I think you're answering your own questions with this last statement here. Third worldists do not conceive of a room full of fat businessmen who are slowly cranking down (or up) some "First World Worker's Pay" lever, but that through international events and historical pasts, there has emerged a collective bourgeois mindset concerning how to maximize profits without sacrificing productivity, and that letting the base of your operations (first world labour aristocracy) in on a cut of the profits means a more dependable defense against attack or even the emergence of any revolutionary situation at all.

The common misconception is that thirdworldists do not believe there is exploitation in the first world- this is largely false. There are certainly proletarians in the first world that are exploited, but more are unexploited and (for example in the case of the 2008 Housing Crash) are not so much victims of direct exploitation as they are victims of the systemic inadequacies of the capitalist enterprise (i.e. they borrowed too much or bought what they couldn't reasonably afford). Those that do face genuine exploitation by the bourgeoisie are simply "less exploited" than the third world. While there exists an exploited proletarian class within the first world, their relationship with the imperialist line is still cooperative, and their relationship with the third world still parasitic insomuch as they are cooperative with the first world imperialist line.

[Art Vandelay]

Who the heck are the 3rd worldists that we have here? Minus, I'm assuming, the one who posted above me.

[Questionable]

I said I didn't start this topic for sectarianism and I meant that, however there are questions I want to ask. I guess I am looking for something of a discussion, but I want to keep it civil because third-worldism usually gets blood boiling on both sides of the argument.

While the status of many first world workers may be in decline (many have put this decline at the end of the 1980s when the socialist block was beginning to crumble and the seemingly only established alternative to capitalism was no longer a protracted threat to the intl bourgeoisie), it is not to a comparable level of the proletarian class during or immediately following the industrial revolution (before unionization and the rise of the mainstream socialist movement), nor are they comparable to the status of living for third world workers in the global south.

I'm aware of that, but can we see that changes the productive relations to the point where first-world workers are no longer proletarians?

While it is an incredibly generalized method to explain a phenomenon, the issue itself if more or less a general and international one. The value of what is paid to first world workers relies on a plethora of influences, but the chief reason for the standard of living as it is now is to ensure that those being ruled domestically by the bourgeois class do not unseat them. If standards of living are allowed to go into decline, it should be apparent that at least in some level, the current power structure does not foresee any form of revolt coming from their base populace. Though this is certainly not the only influence to be had on a bourgeois investment of social welfare.

So if I'm to understand this correctly, you're saying that the bourgeoisie are cutting away social welfare because they feel that they can do so without the working class rebelling?

If I haven't misunderstood you, then I fear once again that, although there can definitely be some truth in this, it may also be another simplified view. Economists, both Marxist and otherwise, have been predicting that the Keynesian regulation methods would become insufficient since even the 70s.

While its true that the figureheads of the bourgeois system turn more of a profit than the rest of the first world workers, this is an attribute of any kind of hierarchical structure. Americans don't get a check in the mail every week from the Department of Plundered Resources, their kickback is a little more subtle. Gas and Oil in the United States this time last year for example, was hovering under $4 a gallon while in many other countries that didn't directly participate in the conquests of Iraq and Afghanistan were paying upwards of $6 or $7 a gallon depending on their given countries taxes and laws. Third world nations (in this example Turkey's average price of gas was $9.96/gallon) were paying high prices unless either their government worked to subsidize gas purchases or they produced high quantities of oil or natural gas domestically (forgive my not using the metric system). Analysts have pointed to this lower cost in gas to the contracts the interim governments of Iraq and Afghanistan were forced to sign while still under occupation by the US military.

True. But, is this enough to say that the workers in the first-world are qualitatively different from their third-world counterparts? Even when gas prices were relatively low (And I assume this viewpoint also takes wages into account?), the fluctuations of the market were still being inflicted upon workers.

Yes, it was complex, but the economic recession was not a total collapse, nor was it something that the bourgeois meticulously calculated in tandem with how much less they could pay the first world labour aristocracy without provoking a revolutionary situation. I think you're answering your own questions with this last statement here. Third worldists do not conceive of a room full of fat businessmen who are slowly cranking down (or up) some "First World Worker's Pay" lever, but that through international events and historical pasts, there has emerged a collective bourgeois mindset concerning how to maximize profits without sacrificing productivity, and that letting the base of your operations (first world labour aristocracy) in on a cut of the profits means a more dependable defense against attack or even the emergence of any revolutionary situation at all.

But this is what I'm saying. If we look at recent trends in Western capitalism, it would appear that for many decades, the living standards and actual power of the working class has been sinking for a while now. We have the era of neoliberalism that continues to dismantle working-class organizations such as unions to this very day. Then there's the austerity cuts which, while they have not brought down Western living standards to that of the third-world, are still wreaking havoc on millions of workers and making them very discontent with the current state of affairs.

I know that it was an exaggeration to speak of fat businessman trying to figure out how to keep first-world workers blind, but for instance, earlier you said that the bourgeoisie cutting the social safety net indicated that they didn't foresee any revolutionary threat, which does imply seem kind of grand plan (Unless I totally misinterpreted you, which I'm not trying to do so please don't be offended).

The common misconception is that thirdworldists do not believe there is exploitation in the first world- this is largely false.

Is it? I've encountered quite a few third-worldists who have told me that exploitation simply does not happen in the West.

There are certainly proletarians in the first world that are exploited, but more are unexploited and (for example in the case of the 2008 Housing Crash) are not so much victims of direct exploitation as they are victims of the systemic inadequacies of the capitalist enterprise (i.e. they borrowed too much or bought what they couldn't reasonably afford). Those that do face genuine exploitation by the bourgeoisie are simply "less exploited" than the third world

Could you define what you view "genuine exploitation" as being?

While there exists an exploited proletarian class within the first world, their relationship with the imperialist line is still cooperative, and their relationship with the third world still parasitic insomuch as they are cooperative with the first world imperialist line.

First-world proletarians can follow the imperialist line to their heart's content, but as long as the bourgeoisie are using things like austerity cuts, mass unemployment, falling rate of profit, and an increased rate of exploitation (By use of machinery), their interests are not intertwined.

I'm not really sure if there's a lot for us to disagree over besides a few things. When I made this topic, I had in mind the LLCO-style third-worldists who think that all first-world workers are paid above the value of their labor somehow, thus they're simply not exploited and have everything to gain from capitalism. If I'm understanding you correctly (And please correct me if I'm not), your position is basically that the bourgeoisie are bribing first-world workers to be on their side, but their class interests are still not one-in-the-same, the first-world workers just foolishly think they are while they're getting stabbed in the back. Am I on the right track here?

[PigmerikanMao]

Can we see that changes the productive relations to the point where first-world workers are no longer proletarians?

Could you define what you view "genuine exploitation" as being?

I suppose it depends largely on the context of the discussion and the definition of "proletariat" being used, as well as how you define "exploitation." While this may seem semantic, if you define a proletarian as simply lacking ownership of the means of production, then first world workers will always be proletarians regardless of their compensation for their labour (unless they own the military through the representative democratic process of their nation and are collectively utilizing it to raise their standard of living... though I don't think anyone is arguing this point).

In the thirdworldist context, a proletarian is not only one who lacks ownership of the means of production, but is also paid less for their labour than what their labour is actually worth. For example, if someone in the PR department for BP Oil comes up with an advertising campaign for the company that draws customers/investors into purchasing their product and is paid a hefty salary of 100k that year, was the labour she put into the product more than the field worker of a BP oil platform in Nigeria who made $500 that year? Hard to say, but she definitely did not do 200 times the work of the Nigerian worker.

In this traditional context, the BP PR agent is a member of the proletarian class because she is selling only her labour to BP and because she is contributing to a system without collective ownership in the means of production, it is also exploitation. This does not carry over to the MTW definition, however, as she is quite obviously being overcompensated by the company for her work. This overcompensation is inherently derived from the profits brought in by BP as a result of not paying the Nigerian worker his fair share, who is being "genuinely exploited." So I would say this is where the line is drawn.

So if I'm to understand this correctly, you're saying that the bourgeoisie are cutting away social welfare because they feel that they can do so without the working class rebelling?[...]Economists, both Marxist and otherwise, have been predicting that the Keynesian regulation methods would become insufficient since even the 70s.

To a degree, yes. It is important, like you've said, not to oversimplify the trend. This isn't so much an issue of conscious class antagonism as it is a byproduct of the systemic nature built into capitalist enterprise. If your workers can't go on strike, you're more likely to lower their wages. This doesn't mean that you're waiting in the board room for the new Right to Work legislation to pass to start hammering at unions- it just means that your business is more fluid, so to speak. More likely to fill in the cracks.. or create new ones.

As for Keynesian economics, while both capitalists and marxists have come to criticize the theory, this doesn't necessarily mean that they were for the same reason. In the capitalist view (what we are principally dealing with today) the move away from Keynesian economics to a more neoclassical structure was seen as a good trend because free markets were more likely to placate the system of supply and demand than through public intervention. What this only means is that imperialism has fallen from a public sphere to a more privatized sector. The perpetrators of imperialism, as well as those who pass on the benefits of an imperialistic relationship to a base populace does not matter so much. A federal government or an international business can be just as efficient in placating a population with cheap goods even if their salaries are lowered slightly due to a variety of possible explanations.

Is this enough to say that the workers in the first-world are qualitatively different from their third-world counterparts? Even when gas prices were relatively low (And I assume this viewpoint also takes wages into account?), the fluctuations of the market were still being inflicted upon workers.

Not qualitatively different, no. Just in different economic circumstances. Workers were internationally being impacted by gas prices, but the wages of certain workers (certainly not all first world and not all members of the first world were provided this) made the fluctuations in gas much easier to handle than one who is genuinely exploited. By definition, even members of the international bourgeoisie were impacted by gas prices as they had to pay for their jets to be refueled- nobody really gets oil for free- its an issue of wiggle room, however. Is getting gas for a car (that you are literally fortunate enough to own) inconvenient or strenuous and even dangerous?

If we look at recent trends in Western capitalism, it would appear that for many decades, the living standards and actual power of the working class has been sinking for a while now. We have the era of neoliberalism that continues to dismantle working-class organizations such as unions to this very day. Then there's the austerity cuts which, while they have not brought down Western living standards to that of the third-world, are still wreaking havoc on millions of workers and making them very discontent with the current state of affairs.

What does this tell you about workers in the first world then? If the value of the entire productive output of the world were divided evenly among its people, then each individual person would earn near $4200 per year in wages (this is incredibly generalized and there are a great host of exceptions to this concept, but for the sake of argument...) and this puts the broad majority of first world workers well above the international standard of income. Even with the decline in public programs and wages, first world workers per person output are receiving more pay than their supposed productive force. People will be upset with any cut in income or public programs- this is the nature of society, it doesn't inherently mean that these angry workers in the first world are being genuinely exploited.

I know that it was an exaggeration to speak of fat businessman trying to figure out how to keep first-world workers blind, but for instance, earlier you said that the bourgeoisie cutting the social safety net indicated that they didn't foresee any revolutionary threat, which does imply some kind of grand plan (Unless I totally misinterpreted you, which I'm not trying to do so please don't be offended).

I'm not offended
I was remarking at the fat businessman archetype for both of us though, as we both seem to be utilizing the character. What we're both getting at (I believe) is the general trend of the bourgeoisie in relation to both workers and members of the supposed labour aristocracy. As in any discussion of macroeconomics, generalizing terms have to be used. I was simply reminding anyone reading that when we say "the bourgeoisie do this or that," it does not imply any actual conscious decision but can be more systemic. Perhaps this was unnecessary though.

Is it? I've encountered quite a few third-worldists who have told me that exploitation simply does not happen in the West.

This once again depends on your definition of exploitation, but without hearing their verbatim arguments I can't condemn them. I would, however, say that migrant workers and aboriginal farmers are certainly exploited. Geographical location does not inherently make a person a member of the first world labour aristocracy, nor one a member of the exploited third world proletariat. We use first and third world both as a marker of economic status in relation to the labour aristocracy as well as a geographical indicator (though only because of considerable overlap). If they were seriously suggesting this, however, then I would say they are wrong.

First-world proletarians can follow the imperialist line to their heart's content, but as long as the bourgeoisie are using things like austerity cuts, mass unemployment, falling rate of profit, and an increased rate of exploitation (By use of machinery), their interests are not intertwined.

Depends on their interests. If a first world worker is legitimately better under the capitalist system (even with its austerity cuts and minimal exploitation) then their interests could be very much intertwined. Again this is dependent off of definitions like "exploitation," "worker," etc. MTW members of Leading Light would have more strict definitions of third world and more broad definitions regarding the labour aristocracy, but the general argument is the same.

Workers in the labour aristocracy, if not unexploited and an integral part of the imperialist system, are at the very least exploited on a scale far less than that of the third world, and therefore adhere to this system because they come out above the international income average (general terms but think White southern farmers in the US civil war who endorsed slavery while not having slaves of their own).

I'm not really sure if there's a lot for us to disagree over besides a few things. When I made this topic, I had in mind the LLCO-style third-worldists who think that all first-world workers are paid above the value of their labor somehow, thus they're simply not exploited and have everything to gain from capitalism. If I'm understanding you correctly (And please correct me if I'm not), your position is basically that the bourgeoisie are bribing first-world workers to be on their side, but their class interests are still not one-in-the-same, the first-world workers just foolishly think they are while they're getting stabbed in the back. Am I on the right track here?

I do think that many workers are paid above the value of their labour- though certainly not all. This is where I break with organizations like LLCO or MSH. That being said, it seems like you've got the gist of what I'm getting at. Not all members of the labour aristocracy are even on the same level here. There are some that are members of the proletariat and are paid over or at their value of labour they produce and while still members of the proletariat, are not exploited in the MTW sense of the word. There are still others that are exploited less and are, in a sense, bought off by the bourgeoisie, and enjoy a greater standard of living than other workers in exchange for their complacent support (general terms). This heightened standard of living is made possible by the byproducts of imperialism, exploitation, and other economic relationships with the third world allowing for the bourgeoisie to pay first world workers more while not cutting into their initial profits.

[Questionable]

I suppose it depends largely on the context of the discussion and the definition of "proletariat" being used, as well as how you define "exploitation." While this may seem semantic, if you define a proletarian as simply lacking ownership of the means of production, then first world workers will always be proletarians regardless of their compensation for their labour (unless they own the military through the representative democratic process of their nation and are collectively utilizing it to raise their standard of living... though I don't think anyone is arguing this point).

In the thirdworldist context, a proletarian is not only one who lacks ownership of the means of production, but is also paid less for their labour than what their labour is actually worth. For example, if someone in the PR department for BP Oil comes up with an advertising campaign for the company that draws customers/investors into purchasing their product and is paid a hefty salary of 100k that year, was the labour she put into the product more than the field worker of a BP oil platform in Nigeria who made $500 that year? Hard to say, but she definitely did not do 200 times the work of the Nigerian worker.

In this traditional context, the BP PR agent is a member of the proletarian class because she is selling only her labour to BP and because she is contributing to a system without collective ownership in the means of production, it is also exploitation. This does not carry over to the MTW definition, however, as she is quite obviously being overcompensated by the company for her work. This overcompensation is inherently derived from the profits brought in by BP as a result of not paying the Nigerian worker his fair share, who is being "genuinely exploited." So I would say this is where the line is drawn.

I'm familiar with what the third-worldist definition of proletariat is. However, I think there are some fundamental errors from a Marxist standpoint.

Firstly, this discussion of wages implies that exchange-value is static. Monetary representation is not absolute representation.

Secondly, the difference in wages does not imply a parasitic relationship between the two workers. Just because I make more money than another guy at the same workplace does not mean I'm exploiting him. If this were the case, we could draw possibly millions of dividing lines between workers on much smaller levels. For instance, my father spent about 20 years of his life sitting behind the steering wheel of a semi-truck delivering automobile parts, and its almost certain that he didn't earn as much as the salesman who sold the finished vehicles, but does that mean the salesman was leeching off of my father somehow? What about a blue-collar steel mill worker in Texas versus a waiter in California? Are they enemies because of their income differences?

We can create more complex situations using this thesis as well. For instance in Scotland, large numbers of Polish workers are regularly brought in to do menial work for low wages, on the grounds that they were cheap labor. But in Poland, Chinese laborr is imported on the same grounds. In China, cheap laborr from the countryside is brought in to the cities. Which of these is 'Third World'? Poland? China? The Chinese countryside? It raises more questions than answers.

Thirdly, and possibly my most biggest issue with the MTW definition of a proletariat, is...why? If capitalist-imperialism doesn't need to exploit these first-world workers anymore, then why are they there? The capitalists are losing money on hiring these people.

As for Keynesian economics, while both capitalists and marxists have come to criticize the theory, this doesn't necessarily mean that they were for the same reason. In the capitalist view (what we are principally dealing with today) the move away from Keynesian economics to a more neoclassical structure was seen as a good trend because free markets were more likely to placate the system of supply and demand than through public intervention. What this only means is that imperialism has fallen from a public sphere to a more privatized sector. The perpetrators of imperialism, as well as those who pass on the benefits of an imperialistic relationship to a base populace does not matter so much. A federal government or an international business can be just as efficient in placating a population with cheap goods even if their salaries are lowered slightly due to a variety of possible explanations.

I think a concrete correlation needs to be more firmly established here. As I said before, most Western nations are pouring more money into their defense budgets than ever before in history, yet we're seeing a decline in living standards that is devastating for many.

I'm not denying that a surplus is being reaped by imperialist nations, that is pretty much what imperialism is after all, but we must look at where that surplus goes. For example, a lot of it ends up in the hands of America's richest percentage of people while the rest don't see any of it at all.

Not qualitatively different, no. Just in different economic circumstances. Workers were internationally being impacted by gas prices, but the wages of certain workers (certainly not all first world and not all members of the first world were provided this) made the fluctuations in gas much easier to handle than one who is genuinely exploited. By definition, even members of the international bourgeoisie were impacted by gas prices as they had to pay for their jets to be refueled- nobody really gets oil for free- its an issue of wiggle room, however. Is getting gas for a car (that you are literally fortunate enough to own) inconvenient or strenuous and even dangerous?

But it's not as if the failures of capitalism just kind of bounce off the first-world workers, it hurts them quite badly. Unemployment, education privatization, social net shrinkage - these are all very real things that affect a broad range of workers. It's true that the faults of capitalism may not impact them to the same degree of third-world workers, but that does not mean these contradictions present in capitalism-imperialism will not bite them in the ass, especially when the crises are getting progressively worse. All the contradictions that exist between capital and labor are still present to a greater or lesser degree.

Nor does this revoke their productive relationship as proletarians, or does it establish a parasitic relationship between first and third-world workers.

What does this tell you about workers in the first world then? If the value of the entire productive output of the world were divided evenly among its people, then each individual person would earn near $4200 per year in wages (this is incredibly generalized and there are a great host of exceptions to this concept, but for the sake of argument...) and this puts the broad majority of first world workers well above the international standard of income.

I'm not sure of the formula of dividing productive output evenly among people provides a corresponding picture of reality. Although this could be due to my unfamiliarity with it. Is this something that is common amongst economists, or is it something third-worldists engineered? I've encountered it before when debating third-worldists but I'm unsure of its practical implications, nor am I sure if a measurement of income is suffice to establish the existence of parasitism. It appears to be glancing on the surface.

I'm also skeptical of it because it defines and confines socialism within capitalist terms. I've seen third-worldists use this formula to propose that first-world workers must undergo a severe decrease in living standards until the amount of money they consume is outweighed by the third-world. I'm sure you can see how this is problematic in a socialist context where profit will not exist.

Now, if we approach this formula using hard statistics, it also shows a problematic nature. We need not merely look at wage income in the United States, but the overall wealth distribution. Here we'll see:

The wealthiest 1% of all households controls 38% of national wealth, while the bottom 80% of households holds only 17%, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Around 85% of stockmarket wealth is held by a lucky 20%. If the rich have been doing much better than other Americans in relative terms, the poor have failed to improve their lot as they did in the 1950s and 1960s. The wage incomes of the bottom 20% of households have barely grown in real terms since the mid-1970s. As for wealth, the bottom fifth has debts that exceed its assets, making its wealth a negative number. The bottom fifth's percentage of national wealth worsened from -0.3% in 1983 to -0.6% in 1998." (From 'The Economist', in 2003, on the US)

We must also take the cost of living into account whenever talking about wages, and, to be frank, until the factuality of this method of measuring exploitation is proven to me, I'm not sure if income has any relevancy at all. I'll keep my ears open, though.

Even with the decline in public programs and wages, first world workers per person output are receiving more pay than their supposed productive force. People will be upset with any cut in income or public programs- this is the nature of society, it doesn't inherently mean that these angry workers in the first world are being genuinely exploited.

Well if they weren't being exploited, it would seem like a waste of resources for the bourgeoisie to even bother hiring them in the first place. They'd be losing money for every first-world worker they have, if this theory were proved to be true.

Depends on their interests. If a first world worker is legitimately better under the capitalist system (even with its austerity cuts and minimal exploitation) then their interests could be very much intertwined. Again this is dependent off of definitions like "exploitation," "worker," etc. MTW members of Leading Light would have more strict definitions of third world and more broad definitions regarding the labour aristocracy, but the general argument is the same.

I suppose that would depend on what your view of how "well off" a worker is under capitalism.

[Thug Lessons]

Who the heck are the 3rd worldists that we have here? Minus, I'm assuming, the one who posted above me.

As far as I know, it's just me and him. There used to be a few more but they've all been banned or stopped posting.

[Thug Lessons]

I'm familiar with what the third-worldist definition of proletariat is. However, I think there are some fundamental errors from a Marxist standpoint.

Firstly, this discussion of wages implies that exchange-value is static. Monetary representation is not absolute representation.

Marx didn't waste much time calculating the real-value statistics for commodities, labor, etc., and he didn't balk at performing the sort of reduction you're criticizing here. The whole first volume of Capital assumes an equilibrium between value and exchange value, (that is, commodities are exchanged at their real-value), and you see it done sometimes in his later works as well. Sometimes it's necessary to rely on bourgeois statistics and make a few abstractions, assume some counterfactuals, to make a point, and if you're not going to permit people to do that you'll have to throw most of Marx in the dustbin as well.

But more to the point, while you're entirely correct that bourgeois wage statistics don't "prove" first world workers earn more than their third world counterparts, is that claim even in dispute? Or are you trying to claim that the labor of first world workers really is ten, fifty, a hundred times more productive than that of third world workers? Both of these claims seem just fantastical to me.

Secondly, the difference in wages does not imply a parasitic relationship between the two workers. Just because I make more money than another guy at the same workplace does not mean I'm exploiting him. If this were the case, we could draw possibly millions of dividing lines between workers on much smaller levels. For instance, my father spent about 20 years of his life sitting behind the steering wheel of a semi-truck delivering automobile parts, and its almost certain that he didn't earn as much as the salesman who sold the finished vehicles, but does that mean the salesman was leeching off of my father somehow? What about a blue-collar steel mill worker in Texas versus a waiter in California? Are they enemies because of their income differences?

We can create more complex situations using this thesis as well. For instance in Scotland, large numbers of Polish workers are regularly brought in to do menial work for low wages, on the grounds that they were cheap labor. But in Poland, Chinese laborr is imported on the same grounds. In China, cheap laborr from the countryside is brought in to the cities. Which of these is 'Third World'? Poland? China? The Chinese countryside? It raises more questions than answers.

World-systems theory uses the terms 'core', 'periphery' and 'semi-periphery' to account for the intra-national disparities you're talking about, which is fine by me. The terms 'third world' and 'first world' are again something of a reduction, used because national borders are the clearest and most important division between the imperialists and their victims. That's not to say that third worldists have completely ignored intra-national conflicts though, and the situation of black Americans in particular has received a great deal of attention by theorists like J Sakai and organizations like MIM.

Thirdly, and possibly my most biggest issue with the MTW definition of a proletariat, is...why? If capitalist-imperialism doesn't need to exploit these first-world workers anymore, then why are they there? The capitalists are losing money on hiring these people.

The bourgeoisie does everything they can to get rid of the labor aristocracy. They've spent the last several decades furiously offshoring every job they can and, as you've pointed out, imported foreign labor that they can (either legally or illegally) underpay by first world standards. Where that's impossible, they've instead undercut the power of organized labor, slashed wages and benefits, burdened them with crushing debts, basically an all-out campaign of emiseration. I'm sure if they had their way first worlders would be as exploited and oppressed as third worlders, and I'm also pretty sure they will get their way eventually, but at the moment life is still pretty good in the imperialist nations, the efforts to change that notwithstanding.

Third worldism doesn't posit some conspiracy where the bourgeoisie keeps unproductive, overpaid workers on out of the goodness of their heart. Rather, it's that social democracy, (the natural ideology of the labor aristocracy just as liberalism is to the bourgeoisie and socialism is to the proletariat), has been able to extract from them some modest benefits, and that the nature of imperialism allows this extraction to occur without actually undermining the bourgeoisie. First world workers are by and large a deadweight on capital, but they're a sustainable one. The fact that labor aristocracy exist isn't a contradiction of the laws of value any more than the fact that the financial sector - a completely unproductive industry, pure parasites - exists. It's simply a sign of strength, and an indicator that the system has so much value coming in (mainly through imperialism) that it can tolerate an extraordinary level of parasitism.

[Questionable]

Marx didn't waste much time calculating the real-value statistics for commodities, labor, etc., and he didn't balk at performing the sort of reduction you're criticizing here. The whole first volume of Capital assumes an equilibrium between value and exchange value, (that is, commodities are exchanged at their real-value), and you see it done sometimes in his later works as well. Sometimes it's necessary to rely on bourgeois statistics and make a few abstractions, assume some counterfactuals, to make a point, and if you're not going to permit people to do that you'll have to throw most of Marx in the dustbin as well.

Marx did this so he could understand the underlying relationships that take place in capitalism. He discussed it in the abstract not because he was trying to find out how much workers' wages were worth, by why they were getting paid wages. He assumed that capitalism worked more perfectly than it actually did in order to be able to understand the logic behind the system. If I'm not mistaken, Marx admitted that an equilibrium between exchange-value and price hardly ever happened in multiple works of his.

While we're on the subject of Marx, I'm not even sure how to handle him when discussing third-worldism because it seems like all the parts of his that contradict third-worldism are rejected. If I bring up a quote from Marx or Engels that contradicts TWism, I'm told that I'm being "too dogmatic" and that I need to "realize we're not in the 19th century anymore," but TWists (Not just you) seem to have no problem bringing up Marx whenever it benefits their argument. I can't help but think that "Don't be dogmatic" really means "Ignore the parts of Marx that contradict third-worldism and accept the rest."

But more to the point, while you're entirely correct that bourgeois wage statistics don't "prove" first world workers earn more than their third world counterparts, is that claim even in dispute? Or are you trying to claim that the labor of first world workers really is ten, fifty, a hundred times more productive than that of third world workers? Both of these claims seem just fantastical to me.

I'm saying that using income statistics to establish the kind of parasitic class relationship that third-worldism wants to produce is a flawed method because it does not necessarily correspond with actual value.

World-systems theory uses the terms 'core', 'periphery' and 'semi-periphery' to account for the intra-national disparities you're talking about, which is fine by me. The terms 'third world' and 'first world' are again something of a reduction, used because national borders are the clearest and most important division between the imperialists and their victims. That's not to say that third worldists have completely ignored intra-national conflicts though, and the situation of black Americans in particular has received a great deal of attention by theorists like J Sakai and organizations like MIM.

You're trying to turn this into a virtue, but it seems more like a vice. Third-worldism suggests that the parasitic relationship between geographic proletarian groups has lead the Western groups to take on different class interests than the third-world ones, yes? In that case, where does it end? Are the truck drivers of America going to need to lead their own special revolution to dispose of car salesman parasitism?

The bourgeoisie does everything they can to get rid of the labor aristocracy. They've spent the last several decades furiously offshoring every job they can and, as you've pointed out, imported foreign labor that they can (either legally or illegally) underpay by first world standards. Where that's impossible, they've instead undercut the power of organized labor, slashed wages and benefits, burdened them with crushing debts, basically an all-out campaign of emiseration. I'm sure if they had their way first worlders would be as exploited and oppressed as third worlders, and I'm also pretty sure they will get their way eventually, but at the moment life is still pretty good in the imperialist nations, the efforts to change that notwithstanding.

Third worldism doesn't posit some conspiracy where the bourgeoisie keeps unproductive, overpaid workers on out of the goodness of their heart. Rather, it's that social democracy, (the natural ideology of the labor aristocracy just as liberalism is to the bourgeoisie and socialism is to the proletariat), has been able to extract from them some modest benefits, and that the nature of imperialism allows this extraction to occur without actually undermining the bourgeoisie. First world workers are by and large a deadweight on capital, but they're a sustainable one. The fact that labor aristocracy exist isn't a contradiction of the laws of value any more than the fact that the financial sector - a completely unproductive industry, pure parasites - exists. It's simply a sign of strength, and an indicator that the system has so much value coming in (mainly through imperialism) that it can tolerate an extraordinary level of parasitism.

An interesting explanation of things, except surplus from the third-world does not go to workers in the West, it goes into investment in the West which makes those countries more "artificially" advanced. As I've said earlier in the thread, this generalized method of following imperialist plunder to the gates of the West and then no further leads to these kinds of problematic results. We need look at its actual distribution as well.

What we have seen is a rise in the service sector in the West with a simultaneous fall in the productive sector (Which will have bad consequences for Western capitalism eventually but we need not get into that here). I'm going to guess that third-worldists would try to use this fact as proof of their ideology by suggesting that Western workers get non-exploitative jobs in the service industry while their third-world counterparts do the exploitative factory jobs, but this does not seem to correspond with the facts we're given. As of 1979, actual labor productivity has increased 85% while real workers' wages have stagnated, and the median income has decreased by 20% since 2008. These numbers would indicate that we're now operating at over 100% rate of exploitation, which is pretty impressive. The lack of refinement of the MoP in the service industry would also bring high profitability back to the capitalists.

Lastly, a cursory glance at the US Bureau of Labor seems to bring up an objection to third-worldism. I don't have the statistics with me right now, but I remember that for a part of the 2000s the amount of profits reaped by business owners numbered in the billions, while the amount of wages paid to the overall workforce came up to much smaller millions. This was true everywhere but especially in the industrial sector of America. If the third-worldist claim that no surplus-value is extracted from the majority of the West, on the other hand it is sometimes taken by the workers themselves, then what is going on with these numbers? Surely the amount of wages paid would be equal to or even outnumber profits made.

EDIT: Okay, I now have the book "Democracy for the Few" by Michael Parenti with me, which contains the information about wages paid versus profits made, along with some other important tidbits that are relevant to the discussion. I'll type out the whole paragraph.

Workers' wages represent only a portion of the wealth created by their labor. The average private-sector employee works two hours for herself or himself and six or more hours for the boss. The portion that goes to the owner is called "surplus value," the source of the owner's wealth. Capitalists themselves have a similar concept: "value added in manufacture." In 2000, workers employed in manufacturing alone produced at least $1.64 trillion in value added, as reported by the US Census Bureau, for which they were paid $363 billion in wages, or less than one-fourth of the market value created by their labor. Workers employed by Intel and Exxon received only about one-ninth of the value added, and in industries such as cigarettes and pharmaceuticals, the worker's share was a mere one-twentieth. In the last half century, the overall average rate of value added (the portion going to the owner) in the United States more than doubled, far above the exploitation rate in other industrialized countries.

Additionally, earlier I said we needed to take a look at actual wealth distribution in the West and not just make assumptions. Now that I'm back home and have this book, I'll post the information contained in it as well so we'll have something close to that.

Contrary to a widely propagated myth, this country is not composed mostly of a broad affluent middle class. The top 1 percent own between 40 and 50 percent of the nation's total wealth (stocks, bonds, investment funds, land, natural resources, business assets, etc), more than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent. True, about 40 percent of families own some stocks or bonds, but almost all of them have investments of less than $2,00. Taking into account their debts and mortgages, 90 percent of America families have little or no net assets.

[...]

The level of inequality in the United States is higher than in any other industrialized nation, and it continues to grow. In recent times, corporate profits have more than doubled. Income from investments has been growing two to three times faster than income from work. In 2005 ExxonMobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil corporation, enjoyed a 75 percent jump in quarterly profits, almost $10 billion. Shell, Chevron, and other companies did nearly as well. In the last twenty years, the 500 largest US industrial corporations more than doubled their assets, while eliminating over 5 million jobs. And the years that followed brought the highest level of corporate profits in the post-war era.

Finally, in the section of the book that covered imperialism called "The Us Global Military Empire," on page 83, there is a tidbit of particular value to our discussion.

The savings that big business reaps from cheap labor abroad are not passed on in lower prices to their customers. Corporations do not outsource to far-off regions in order to save money for US consumers but to increase their margin of profit. In 1990, shoes made by Indonesian children working twelve-hour days for 13 cents an hour cost only $2.60 but still sold for $80 or more in the United States

I'm sure I don't need to explain the relevancy that passage has.

All of the information Parenti used in his book is sourced, and if anyone is curious as to the legitimacy of them, ask me and I'll post the original sources.

[PigmerikanMao]

Marx did this so he could understand the underlying relationships that take place in capitalism. He discussed it in the abstract not because he was trying to find out how much workers' wages were worth, by why they were getting paid wages. [...] I can't help but think that "Don't be dogmatic" really means "Ignore the parts of Marx that contradict third-worldism and accept the rest."

I find it kind of humorous how much Marxism has become a kind of religion. There are those that will embrace static claims established by Marx in the 19th century as well as those who will discard much of what he has written due to the relevancy of their times. There are also camps in-between the two extremes. It's not a matter of dogmatism, or even the concept of TWists manipulating Marx's theory to suit their own agenda. TWists are simply analyzing the circumstances of a new century and scrapping Marxist concepts that no longer further class struggle or apply to the world.

This being said, viewing the capitalist system through various abstract methods to clarify underlying themes inherent in capitalism's nature (ie wage slavery, exploitation, class antagonism) has had great theoretical value and continues to do so today, but these are dated concepts and abandoning some that no longer hold true and replacing them with other abstractions regarding income disparities from a globalizing era is something TWists ultimately view as necessary- I guess one could dismiss it as our own dogmatism, of a sort.

I'm saying that using income statistics to establish the kind of parasitic class relationship that third-worldism wants to produce is a flawed method because it does not necessarily correspond with actual value.

While this is an incredibly valid criticism, income statistics are not the only thing we're talking about here. Income does not necessarily correspond with actual value, but the inherent material wealth of first and third world communities is a good indicator of the overall purchasing power of these incomes regardless of their "actual value." We are using income here as a general means to establish some form of numerical indicator, even if it is vaguely flawed, it is not beyond its merits. Whether or not first world income is representative of the welfare of a worker is irrelevant when the disparity between first and third world standards of living is so obvious. Certainly, the monetary representation of a workers compensation is not static, but in the world today, 2.5 billion people lack adequate sources of sanitation, 2 billion people are without electricity, 1 billion are at least without reasonable access to clean water and adequate shelter. These are not problems felt by first world workers in any large capacity

You're trying to turn this into a virtue, but it seems more like a vice. Third-worldism suggests that the parasitic relationship between geographic proletarian groups has lead the Western groups to take on different class interests than the third-world ones, yes? In that case, where does it end? Are the truck drivers of America going to need to lead their own special revolution to dispose of car salesman parasitism?

This seems a little unnecessary, but who actually knows? I don't think the truck drivers are in the same predicament as migrant farm workers, which may have been a more reasonable example to pull, but intranational conflicts regarding class are highly sensitive to their own national contexts. These issues are more in the realm of traditional MLM theory- TWists (as a distinct group separate from mainstream socialists anyhow) are primarily concerned with an overarching global theme, not intranational affairs. This being said, both the truck driver and the car salesman are contributing to and benefiting from a first/third world system in an indirect capacity through first world consumerism due to their pay and (usually) reasonable standards of living- the migrant worker is not. Don't know if that helped at all.

An interesting explanation of things, except surplus from the third-world does not go to workers in the West, it goes into investment in the West which makes those countries more "artificially" advanced. [...] If the third-worldist claim that no surplus-value is extracted from the majority of the West, on the other hand it is sometimes taken by the workers themselves, then what is going on with these numbers? Surely the amount of wages paid would be equal to or even outnumber profits made.

The only issue I would raise from these numbers is how they are acquired. How does the US Department of Labor measure productivity, especially with such a heightened rise in the service sector, as you've mentioned? We don't have to get into the service influx here, as this is an entirely different can of worms, but is the work being produced by service sector employees being counted as productivity? If so, what is the ratio established? How productive IS an insurance agent?

As for companies bringing in greater profits, it really depends on what the company is along with its given context. Companies involved in the exploitation of raw natural resources are increasingly becoming internationally oriented, so it is entirely possible that the productivity of a company's workers and profits of a company increase while wages in the first world remain stagnant depending on where the company is based and who works for them and in what locations.

Additionally, earlier I said we needed to take a look at actual wealth distribution in the West and not just make assumptions. Now that I'm back home and have this book, I'll post the information contained in it as well so we'll have something close to that.

I've never actually heard of this one, so I'll have to take a look at it sometime but I'm in the middle of another book by Zak Cope at the moment. The only thing I can say off the bat right now would be that (in the case of shoe companies) third world workers are paid remarkably low, while I imagine those working for, say, Nike in the first world are paid much more, and perhaps unreasonably so. Could a shoe be produced for less than $80 dollars? Yes. Paying someone 13 cents an hour is certainly immoral, but where the inherent contradiction lies in-between the first and third worlds is that this pair of shoes which supposedly costs only $2 to make is only a fraction of what a first world worker is paid per hour if working for Nike (or Adidas, etc) in the first world.

I may be completely inept at expressing these ideas online- writing has never been one of my strong suits so I apologize for any inconsistencies/confusion.

[Questionable]

I find it kind of humorous how much Marxism has become a kind of religion. There are those that will embrace static claims established by Marx in the 19th century as well as those who will discard much of what he has written due to the relevancy of their times. There are also camps in-between the two extremes. It's not a matter of dogmatism, or even the concept of TWists manipulating Marx's theory to suit their own agenda. TWists are simply analyzing the circumstances of a new century and scrapping Marxist concepts that no longer further class struggle or apply to the world.

Perhaps TWists sincerely view their methods as an updated version of Marx's without the old 19th century baggage, but a lot of the times it comes off, as I said before, as ignoring the parts that contradict them and embracing the parts that don't. It just seems a little too convenient at times.

I also have a problem with this because it carries its own sort of dogmatism with it. So far neither you nor Thug Lessons have demonstrated this mentality, but I've encountered a few third-worldists who act as if they're the only Marxists in the universe who are aware of imperialism in the third-world, and everyone else is just too busy masturbating over the pages of Das Kapital to open their eyes. Maybe I just ran into the rotten apples of the bunch, but I can't stand that type of anti-learning attitude (Which, like I said, you haven't shown, so please don't take this as an insult directed towards you).

This being said, viewing the capitalist system through various abstract methods to clarify underlying themes inherent in capitalism's nature (ie wage slavery, exploitation, class antagonism) has had great theoretical value and continues to do so today, but these are dated concepts and abandoning some that no longer hold true and replacing them with other abstractions regarding income disparities from a globalizing era is something TWists ultimately view as necessary- I guess one could dismiss it as our own dogmatism, of a sort.

I fear that the consequences derived from trying to prove a concrete, specific relationship (Working class parasitism) with an abstract, general method will yield poor results. I think a lot of the confusion we've had regarding wage income and the whole discussion in general can be seen as a result from this. As I said before, I have no problem with the method of abstraction that Marx used in Capital (Assuming that capital was functioning perfectly when it reality it hardly ever does), but in the case of TWism, they're trying to prove a very exact economic relationship to be true, and it appears to result in many problems to me. Marx was using an abstract method to analyze an abstract system. This is why I keep bringing up the example of imperialist surplus; if we look at the problem in an abstract way, third-worldists are correct in saying that lots of surplus is being taken to the first-world countries from the third-world. However, once we begin analyzing the stratification of those countries, looking at where that wealth actually lands, then we begin to see the cracks in the theory.

While this is an incredibly valid criticism, income statistics are not the only thing we're talking about here. Income does not necessarily correspond with actual value, but the inherent material wealth of first and third world communities is a good indicator of the overall purchasing power of these incomes regardless of their "actual value." We are using income here as a general means to establish some form of numerical indicator, even if it is vaguely flawed, it is not beyond its merits. Whether or not first world income is representative of the welfare of a worker is irrelevant when the disparity between first and third world standards of living is so obvious. Certainly, the monetary representation of a workers compensation is not static, but in the world today, 2.5 billion people lack adequate sources of sanitation, 2 billion people are without electricity, 1 billion are at least without reasonable access to clean water and adequate shelter. These are not problems felt by first world workers in any large capacity

No one is denying the difference in living standards between oppressor and oppressed nations, certainly not me, nor can I think of any significant Marxist who does. The issue that most take with TWism is that claim that the Western working class (I'm aware that third-world isn't strictly in the East but "Western" is shorter to type, haha) is somehow directly responsible for this state of affairs by some kind of parasitic relationship, that is has evolved to possess different class interests from its third-world counterparts and in fact runs in opposition to them.

Which is what I was saying when I wrote that sentence. I'd be a fool to ignore the affect that income levels have on quality of life, but the part I have trouble following is the claim that these income levels represent parasitism on the part of the Western working class, and aren't just part of the mechanisms of capital. Or that exploitation is now non-existent in industrialized nations.

However, although it has clearly not reached third-world levels yet, the standard of living is indeed declining in the West. A recent study showed that the average life expectancy for white Americans has fallen by five years. That's quite a bit. Let me be absolutely clear that I'm not trying to deny the conditions of the third-world, I just want to show that things are worsening in the first-world as well, albeit slowly.

This seems a little unnecessary, but who actually knows? I don't think the truck drivers are in the same predicament as migrant farm workers, which may have been a more reasonable example to pull, but intranational conflicts regarding class are highly sensitive to their own national contexts. These issues are more in the realm of traditional MLM theory- TWists (as a distinct group separate from mainstream socialists anyhow) are primarily concerned with an overarching global theme, not intranational affairs. This being said, both the truck driver and the car salesman are contributing to and benefiting from a first/third world system in an indirect capacity through first world consumerism due to their pay and (usually) reasonable standards of living- the migrant worker is not. Don't know if that helped at all.

When we talk about specific occupations waging war against each other on the basis that their incomes are different, it comes across as misinterpreting the division of labor for actual class differences to me.

The only issue I would raise from these numbers is how they are acquired. How does the US Department of Labor measure productivity, especially with such a heightened rise in the service sector, as you've mentioned? We don't have to get into the service influx here, as this is an entirely different can of worms, but is the work being produced by service sector employees being counted as productivity? If so, what is the ratio established? How productive IS an insurance agent?

You've got me there; I'm unsure of the methods used to gather these statistics. However, I wouldn't be afraid of assuming a certain level of credibility due to the simple fact that the capitalist world uses these statistics in conducting business, so they have to contain a certain level of accuracy if nothing else than for the sake of the bourgeoisie. Furthermore, if we use the Marxian method when analyzing the service industry, it must be clear that the rate of profit is higher from those workers because the means of production are not so refined.

Are you trying to suggest that the service sector is merely tacked on to the actual production process of capitalism so that the labor aristocracy has a way to be a part of things? If that's what you're saying and I'm not horribly mincing your point, I would respond by saying that service may not produce surplus-value in the traditional sense, but it is still an essential part of capitalist production. Someone has to spend their hours standing there working the cash register, after all. Like I said, they're not value-creators in the same sense that a third-world sweatshop worker might be, but then again, neither are teachers, doctors, etc - yet they're still an essential part of the capitalist system.

As a matter of fact, I would ask you the same question in order for us to clear this up; what do you define as productive? Does it relate to the accumulative cycle of capital?

As for companies bringing in greater profits, it really depends on what the company is along with its given context. Companies involved in the exploitation of raw natural resources are increasingly becoming internationally oriented, so it is entirely possible that the productivity of a company's workers and profits of a company increase while wages in the first world remain stagnant depending on where the company is based and who works for them and in what locations.

I have to admit I'm a bit confused by what you're suggesting here. Are you trying to say that the different between profits made and wages paid is solely due to companies reaping profits from the third-world and not because of exploitation in the West? If that's the case, I'll write a response to that, but I just want to make sure we're on the same page.

I've never actually heard of this one, so I'll have to take a look at it sometime but I'm in the middle of another book by Zak Cope at the moment. The only thing I can say off the bat right now would be that (in the case of shoe companies) third world workers are paid remarkably low, while I imagine those working for, say, Nike in the first world are paid much more, and perhaps unreasonably so. Could a shoe be produced for less than $80 dollars? Yes. Paying someone 13 cents an hour is certainly immoral, but where the inherent contradiction lies in-between the first and third worlds is that this pair of shoes which supposedly costs only $2 to make is only a fraction of what a first world worker is paid per hour if working for Nike (or Adidas, etc) in the first world.

Perhaps if the only thing we had to worry about was buying shoes, but compared to all their other costly necessities - bills, food, taxes, etc - most working people I know balk at the idea of spending $80 on a simple pair of shoes. Obviously I can't substantiate that with statistics, but based on my own experiences I've seen it to be the truth, for whatever that's worth. That said, I'm still not certain of this income difference is what establishes the parasitic relationship that TWists claim exists. Also, I'm not sure if this refutes Parenti's claim that imperialist exploitation is linked to low prices and not merely the bourgeoisie extracting even more profit from both sides of the ocean.

To expand upon the point about imperialism and your above comments about the productivity of labor; I'm not sure of the level of productivity has as much to do with imperialist expansion as you're suggesting it does. Rather, it is the weakness of third-world markets and states that make them vulnerable to foreign capitalist interests. What the capitalists really take away from centering production to the third-world is increased cooperation between foreign capital, national capital, and the state in the form of tax breaks, monopoly licenses, etc. The movement of capital is not a mere reflection of economic conditions; there is a whole host of political, economic, and social factors that need to be taken into account as well.

I may be completely inept at expressing these ideas online- writing has never been one of my strong suits so I apologize for any inconsistencies/confusion.

Well this is probably the most pleasant conversation I've had with a third-worldist thus far so that counts for something.

One more thing; I've been assuming this entire time that third-worldists take cost-of-living differences into account when discussing income differences. So to clarify...you do, don't you? Because if cost-of-living isn't considered when discussing income differences, then TWism has left out a pretty massive part of the argument.

[PigmerikanMao]

Perhaps TWists sincerely view their methods as an updated version of Marx's without the old 19th century baggage, but a lot of the times it comes off, as I said before, as ignoring the parts that contradict them and embracing the parts that don't. [...] Maybe I just ran into the rotten apples of the bunch, but I can't stand that type of anti-learning attitude (Which, like I said, you haven't shown, so please don't take this as an insult directed towards you).

Well I'm not insulted in any capacity- I sincerely view TWism as a proper adaptation of Marxism to suit late 20th and 21st century circumstances, perhaps the latter even more so. This being said, perhaps discarding Marxist concepts from the 19th century has been done a little too inconsequentially and without intense study needed by our camp, but the concept of TWism (at least from the MLM perspective) is still incredibly new in comparison to other leftist theory and hasn't been properly consolidated yet. This is perhaps one of the reasons why one discussion with a Third Worldist may illicit entirely different responses to the Labour Aristocracy than from another. We have no core ideology beyond a few key concepts. What I would caution other Third Worldist comrades about these kinds of debates is this:

Communists must listen to the views of people [...] and let them have their say. If what they say is right, we ought to welcome it, and we should learn from their strong points; if it is wrong, we should let them finish what they are saying and then [...] explain things to them.

I don't know the positions or points of argument you've taken with past Third worldists, but regardless of who was right and who was wrong, it is unbefitting of a third worldist, or communist in general, to act in an attitude as though they are superior or without shortcomings, or to dismiss any view without decent consideration of the points made. I would conjure that their faults inherent in their style of argument demonstrate their understanding of the thirdworldist movement.

I fear that the consequences derived from trying to prove a concrete, specific relationship (Working class parasitism) with an abstract, general method will yield poor results. I think a lot of the confusion we've had regarding wage income and the whole discussion in general can be seen as a result from this. [...] This is why I keep bringing up the example of imperialist surplus; if we look at the problem in an abstract way, third-worldists are correct in saying that lots of surplus is being taken to the first-world countries from the third-world. However, once we begin analyzing the stratification of those countries, looking at where that wealth actually lands, then we begin to see the cracks in the theory.

And there very may well be a considerable amount of cracks in the thirdworldist theory. No theory is perfect because a theory's inherent nature relies on it's abstraction and inability to apply to all facets of its subject. Thirdworldists are not claiming that all proletarians in the first world are receiving more value in exchange for their labour, or even that all members are even a member of this labour aristocracy, just that there is enough of a considerable overlap in the benefits first world workers and of the imperialist system to draw a conclusion.

You earlier made the analogy of a difference in intranational class between the truck driver and the car salesman. While it may be amusing to actually adopt, there is some truth to it. The truck driver certainly isn't invested in imperialist action in Mexico or sweatshop labour in Southeast Asia- politically, even the member of a union, he may oppose it. Contrary to the car salesman whose product may largely assembled in the third world (before being put together in the first) would hold a different view of this relationship. This being said, both of their jobs and incomes depend on the system. If the parasitic nature of imperialism is allowed to crumble, the living standards in the west would unavoidably go down- while some degree of this is justly attributed to class antagonisms within the US social structure, a hefty segment of it rests on the economy of the US itself and its own imperialist nature. This ultimately makes the political viewpoints of both the driver and the salesman irrelevant if their underlying class interests, their material compensation for labour, rests on this economic structure.

While thirdworldists do not deny that there is some capacity of exploitation in the first world, and that the bourgeoisie would ideally have workers globally at the same standards of the third, the first world proletariat is at a precarious position wherein they still do not own their means of production, but benefit off of the system implemented by those who do. History has simply shown us that this position makes their short term interests usually fall in with the bourgeoisie who exploit (depending on the definition) them as well.

No one is denying the difference in living standards between oppressor and oppressed nations, certainly not me, nor can I think of any significant Marxist who does. The issue that most take with TWism is that claim that the Western working class [...] is somehow directly responsible for this state of affairs by some kind of parasitic relationship, that is has evolved to possess different class interests from its third-world counterparts and in fact runs in opposition to them. [...] I have trouble following is the claim that these income levels represent parasitism on the part of the Western working class, and aren't just part of the mechanisms of capital.

I wouldn't go so far as to say the first world proletariat are directly responsible for this system- that's more of a stance made by people at IRTR/LLCO than most other thirdworldists- but they are certainly complicit in it, and buy into the system on some grounds of knowing that they benefit from it (not capitalism as a whole but imperialism under the guise of various actions specifically). What most thirdworldists claim isn't that the FW proletariat themselves are parasites, but that the system they have served to protect in lieu of any revolutionary action or situation has created differing short term class interests than those of the third world, and is what is parasitic.

The theory of the productive forces, while worth consideration here, isn't so relevant as it used to be when the broad majority of jobs in the first world are in the service sector whereas most manufacturing/agriculture is done in the third world (with those in the first world participating in agriculture being heavily underpaid- they do count as exploited). If the theory of productive forces held true, then it is the first world that would hold the majority of manufacturing jobs to account for its wealth, but this is not the case.

However, although it has clearly not reached third-world levels yet, the standard of living is indeed declining in the West. A recent study showed that the average life expectancy for white Americans has fallen by five years. That's quite a bit. Let me be absolutely clear that I'm not trying to deny the conditions of the third-world, I just want to show that things are worsening in the first-world as well, albeit slowly.

And this warrants some consideration. But I would refer to "Thug Lessons" earlier post about this decline in living conditions- the concept that it is the creation of social democracy (in contrast to economic liberalism and socialism) that allow for first world workers to extract wealth from the bourgeoisie without undermining their system. The bourgeoisie will work every day to eliminate first world worker living standards, but until they do, the first world stands detached from the TW proletariat in their own class interests. I hesitate to call them a class separate from both the bourgeoisie and proletariat, as I may be tarred and feathered for heresy (lol), but perhaps that's a method that helps us view their situation for the moment.

Are you trying to suggest that the service sector is merely tacked on to the actual production process of capitalism so that the labor aristocracy has a way to be a part of things? If that's what you're saying and I'm not horribly mincing your point, I would respond by saying that service may not produce surplus-value in the traditional sense, but it is still an essential part of capitalist production. Someone has to spend their hours standing there working the cash register, after all. Like I said, they're not value-creators in the same sense that a third-world sweatshop worker might be, but then again, neither are teachers, doctors, etc - yet they're still an essential part of the capitalist system.

As a matter of fact, I would ask you the same question in order for us to clear this up; what do you define as productive? Does it relate to the accumulative cycle of capital?

I’m not suggesting this by any means, no. Members of the service industry play an integral role in national and international economies and businesses, but the value of their labour is also something that can be hotly debated, and, as many jobs (overwhelmingly most in some nations) in the first world center around the service industry, this is something that should be considered. I’m not entirely sure myself as to how productive a service sector employee is, and not to raise the issue of occupations again, but with the service industry it probably does involve what it is they actually do. A doctor or teacher is, I believe logically, far more productive than an insurance claims agent or gas station attendant.

While janitorial jobs and customer service jobs are necessary in a capitalist/or socialist economy, there are certainly many positions that are either unnecessary or have been created as a means to “create jobs” in the first world. This is an incredibly dense topic and one that cannot be met with sweeping theory or generalized claims. All I can say is that someone needs clothing, they need a house, and they also need someone to pick up the garbage- but we don’t need banks or insurance agencies, or even waiters.

I have to admit I'm a bit confused by what you're suggesting here. Are you trying to say that the different between profits made and wages paid is solely due to companies reaping profits from the third-world and not because of exploitation in the West?

Not solely, no, but these wages are made possible due to profits a company makes, and by far the largest source of profit comes from upselling product that was made by an underpaid worker.

Perhaps if the only thing we had to worry about was buying shoes, but compared to all their other costly necessities - bills, food, taxes, etc - most working people I know balk at the idea of spending $80 on a simple pair of shoes. Obviously I can't substantiate that with statistics, but based on my own experiences I've seen it to be the truth, for whatever that's worth. That said, I'm still not certain of this income difference is what establishes the parasitic relationship that TWists claim exists. Also, I'm not sure if this refutes Parenti's claim that imperialist exploitation is linked to low prices and not merely the bourgeoisie extracting even more profit from both sides of the ocean.

I know where you’re coming from. I buy my shoes from Goodwill and balk at spending even $30 on a pair, let alone $80, but the attitudes of us or even those around us do not necessarily mirror the entire country- we ARE communists, after all. That being said, in regards to food and bills, we still pay a high amount through our wages to purchase product made by third world workers (or first world exploited workers) who themselves could probably not reasonably afford. Food grown in the third world and shipped to the first world can be charged at a rate that yields considerable profits for an agricultural company while still paying their workers less than 2 dollars a day (more in the US but with wages still laughably low) by working at a job which pays considerably more in wages but requires much less work.

Well this is probably the most pleasant conversation I've had with a third-worldist thus far so that counts for something.

Likewise- people usually get offended and start flaming quicker than I do out of personal offense. What do you mean I’m not exploited? I’m more exploited than you, at least! Etc.

One more thing; I've been assuming this entire time that third-worldists take cost-of-living differences into account when discussing income differences. So to clarify...you do, don't you? Because if cost-of-living isn't considered when discussing income differences, then TWism has left out a pretty massive part of the argument.

While the cost of living hasn’t been discussed here, this is also worth noting. Thirdworldists recognize the lower cost of living in the third world, but ultimately say that it does not consist nearly enough to make up for the lower wages they are paid. I had read some more concrete numbers about this a while back but I have not been able to find them. I would like to point out Thug Lesson’s earlier post about peripheries, however. While the standard cost of living may be lower and people within the third world may certainly live comfortably within its boundaries, this is certainly not the majority, or even sizeable minority, of third world workers, but is a periphery of the larger third world class as a whole.

[Questionable]

Well I'm not insulted in any capacity- I sincerely view TWism as a proper adaptation of Marxism to suit late 20th and 21st century circumstances, perhaps the latter even more so. This being said, perhaps discarding Marxist concepts from the 19th century has been done a little too inconsequentially and without intense study needed by our camp, but the concept of TWism (at least from the MLM perspective) is still incredibly new in comparison to other leftist theory and hasn't been properly consolidated yet. This is perhaps one of the reasons why one discussion with a Third Worldist may illicit entirely different responses to the Labour Aristocracy than from another. We have no core ideology beyond a few key concepts. What I would caution other Third Worldist comrades about these kinds of debates is this:

I don't know the positions or points of argument you've taken with past Third worldists, but regardless of who was right and who was wrong, it is unbefitting of a third worldist, or communist in general, to act in an attitude as though they are superior or without shortcomings, or to dismiss any view without decent consideration of the points made. I would conjure that their faults inherent in their style of argument demonstrate their understanding of the thirdworldist movement.

I get what you're saying.

And there very may well be a considerable amount of cracks in the thirdworldist theory. No theory is perfect because a theory's inherent nature relies on it's abstraction and inability to apply to all facets of its subject. Thirdworldists are not claiming that all proletarians in the first world are receiving more value in exchange for their labour, or even that all members are even a member of this labour aristocracy, just that there is enough of a considerable overlap in the benefits first world workers and of the imperialist system to draw a conclusion.

That's true, but we must not make the mistake that we're stumbling around in complete darkness. Theoretical abstracts can be useful, but at the same time there's a wealth of concrete information available nowadays that can also be used in drawing conclusions about the issues of capitalism. When approaching these topics, I try to take what I think is the Marxist position by accepting my opponent's argument, but then seeing what is missing from it. For instance, your claim that the interests of the labor aristocracy and imperialism match in the short-term could be challenged by the massive decline in living power and working class power that we're seeing unfolding in the West.

Abstracting must take place to a certain degree, it is definitely true, but in the end we must use existing information to determine whether our abstractions truly correspond with reality. Which is why I continually bring up the point about wealth distribution in America, which, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll repeat: in the abstract we can see lots of surplus-value flowing to the West because of imperialism, yet if we look at where that surplus actually lands, it's not in the hands of the workers. This separation between the abstract and the concrete is that I perceive is one of my greatest complaints about third-worldism, but like you said, the theory is relatively new, and perhaps given time we'll see that gap closed and new conclusions drawn.

You earlier made the analogy of a difference in intranational class between the truck driver and the car salesman. While it may be amusing to actually adopt, there is some truth to it. The truck driver certainly isn't invested in imperialist action in Mexico or sweatshop labour in Southeast Asia- politically, even the member of a union, he may oppose it. Contrary to the car salesman whose product may largely assembled in the third world (before being put together in the first) would hold a different view of this relationship. This being said, both of their jobs and incomes depend on the system. If the parasitic nature of imperialism is allowed to crumble, the living standards in the west would unavoidably go down- while some degree of this is justly attributed to class antagonisms within the US social structure, a hefty segment of it rests on the economy of the US itself and its own imperialist nature. This ultimately makes the political viewpoints of both the driver and the salesman irrelevant if their underlying class interests, their material compensation for labour, rests on this economic structure.

I suppose this part of the argument really depends on your interpretation of class interests. For me, I'm not really sure if it is correct to say that material compensation (By which I assume you mean wages?) is enough to totally change the chemistry of a class because, at the end of the day, they're still a proletariat, no matter how pampered. I'm sure you would accuse me of holding an orthodox view here, but to elaborate on point, if we look at reality and see that the contradictions of capitalism are still unfolding, which I believe they are judging by recent events, then it doesn't make much sense to say that any worker has any class interests with imperialists. As I've said before, the United States possesses a greater military budget than ever before, yet we're facing a devastating economic recession. Things are even worse in European countries as well. Individual workers like car salesman can certainly feel like they may have something to gain by cheerleading their national bourgeoisie on, but at the end of the day we can still see the class struggle happening. The salesman is still subject to all the ebb and flow of capital accumulation, increasing division of labor, overproduction, etc.

While thirdworldists do not deny that there is some capacity of exploitation in the first world, and that the bourgeoisie would ideally have workers globally at the same standards of the third, the first world proletariat is at a precarious position wherein they still do not own their means of production, but benefit off of the system implemented by those who do. History has simply shown us that this position makes their short term interests usually fall in with the bourgeoisie who exploit (depending on the definition) them as well.

Again, I think this depends a lot on perspective. Some would say that the benefits the working class of the first-world receive are not from their interests becoming intertwined by new developments in capital, but by the relative strength of those working classes forcing the bourgeoisie to make certain concessions. This also goes into what I was saying about why imperialists choose to go over seas; not because third-world workers are more productive than first-world ones, but because the weakness of the foreign state and the forces of labor allow corporate interests to sow their seeds more easily in their developing economies.

I wouldn't go so far as to say the first world proletariat are directly responsible for this system- that's more of a stance made by people at IRTR/LLCO than most other thirdworldists- but they are certainly complicit in it, and buy into the system on some grounds of knowing that they benefit from it (not capitalism as a whole but imperialism under the guise of various actions specifically). What most thirdworldists claim isn't that the FW proletariat themselves are parasites, but that the system they have served to protect in lieu of any revolutionary action or situation has created differing short term class interests than those of the third world, and is what is parasitic.

I think this is a misinterpretation of the consciousness of Western workers. At the bottom line, everyone wants a better life for themselves. We can expect workers to fight for improved conditions when they feel they are needed, it is their very class nature. But, we cannot necessarily expect revolutionary consciousness to grow from the same place. I don't think Marx or Lenin would have thought so, otherwise they would have never stressed the need for a Communist Party to teach the proletariat these concepts.

I think it's a pretty big assumption to say that most Western workers are complicitly buying into imperialism. I think if it was possible to do some kind of survey, the majority of people would not realize that their "participation" in capitalism-imperialism leads to so much harm. However, there's multiple ways we can approach this argument. One could argue that it is the imperialist bourgeoisie, not the workers, who are constructing the system of global oppression and making things the way they are.

More than that, I personally think it is important to draw distinction between objective economic realities and subjective consciousness. I'm sure there are many American workers who feel like they have something to gain by supporting imperialist wars, but when their schools and social benefits are getting chewed apart so Obama will have more funding with which to build tanks, they cannot be said to be on the same side.

And this warrants some consideration. But I would refer to "Thug Lessons" earlier post about this decline in living conditions- the concept that it is the creation of social democracy (in contrast to economic liberalism and socialism) that allow for first world workers to extract wealth from the bourgeoisie without undermining their system. The bourgeoisie will work every day to eliminate first world worker living standards, but until they do, the first world stands detached from the TW proletariat in their own class interests. I hesitate to call them a class separate from both the bourgeoisie and proletariat, as I may be tarred and feathered for heresy (lol), but perhaps that's a method that helps us view their situation for the moment.

If this is the stance that you are taking, then it just seems like you're accepting a warped version of class struggle to me. Regarding Thug Lessons' post about the bourgeoisie trying constantly to remove the labor aristocracy; replace "labor aristocracy" with "working class" and remove the bits about economic parasitism, and you basically just have the standard class struggle.

The other third-worldists I encountered refused to believe that life in the West was anything but a paradise and that all workers class interests were 100% identical to the bourgeoisie. Your position is different in that you admit that there is an antagonism between the workers and the bourgeoisie, yet it seems like for some reason you're adding all this stuff about working-class parasitism and labor aristocracy that overcomplicates things and for that matter haven't really been substantiated.

I’m not suggesting this by any means, no. Members of the service industry play an integral role in national and international economies and businesses, but the value of their labour is also something that can be hotly debated, and, as many jobs (overwhelmingly most in some nations) in the first world center around the service industry, this is something that should be considered. I’m not entirely sure myself as to how productive a service sector employee is, and not to raise the issue of occupations again, but with the service industry it probably does involve what it is they actually do. A doctor or teacher is, I believe logically, far more productive than an insurance claims agent or gas station attendant.

While janitorial jobs and customer service jobs are necessary in a capitalist/or socialist economy, there are certainly many positions that are either unnecessary or have been created as a means to “create jobs” in the first world. This is an incredibly dense topic and one that cannot be met with sweeping theory or generalized claims. All I can say is that someone needs clothing, they need a house, and they also need someone to pick up the garbage- but we don’t need banks or insurance agencies, or even waiters.

But are those "unproductive" jobs not still created by the capital accumulation cycle? Even if they are illogical from a non-capitalist standpoint in that they don't necessarily add to the wealth of system, from the perspective of the accumulation, it does make sense. It is the nature of the beast to waste resources. I'd also want to look at more research to determine if these types of jobs are truly parasitic or non-exploitative, but as you said, it is a dense topic so I won't demand that from you, but it should be kept in mind. It's not as if the bourgeoisie waved their hands and these jobs appeared as a favor to the workers. There is an economic process behind them all the same.

Not solely, no, but these wages are made possible due to profits a company makes, and by far the largest source of profit comes from upselling product that was made by an underpaid worker.

Yes. Third-world manufacturers are underpaid severely, and then our own domestic service workers are underpaid as well in order to increase the profit margin.

I know where you’re coming from. I buy my shoes from Goodwill and balk at spending even $30 on a pair, let alone $80, but the attitudes of us or even those around us do not necessarily mirror the entire country- we ARE communists, after all. That being said, in regards to food and bills, we still pay a high amount through our wages to purchase product made by third world workers (or first world exploited workers) who themselves could probably not reasonably afford. Food grown in the third world and shipped to the first world can be charged at a rate that yields considerable profits for an agricultural company while still paying their workers less than 2 dollars a day (more in the US but with wages still laughably low) by working at a job which pays considerably more in wages but requires much less work.

That does happen. I just challenge the notion that it is because of a parasitic relationship, or because workers are non-exploited. It's a tragedy of capitalism that some are paid more for less work, but that doesn't tell us much about the actual rate of exploitation that a country is undergoing (Which, as I mentioned before, is quite high in the US).

Likewise- people usually get offended and start flaming quicker than I do out of personal offense. What do you mean I’m not exploited? I’m more exploited than you, at least! Etc.

Well to be fair you have to understand why the emotions of people would get stirred when discussing such a concept. If you tell someone that their struggles don't matter because they're white and live in America, it's probably going to piss them off and make them less likely to listen to you. Does that prove third-worldism wrong? No, but its the kind of reaction that happens. Even I get offended when some third-worldists imply that my family members who starved during the Great Depression were somehow parasites, but I'm pretty good at separating emotions from logic when arguing.

While the cost of living hasn’t been discussed here, this is also worth noting. Thirdworldists recognize the lower cost of living in the third world, but ultimately say that it does not consist nearly enough to make up for the lower wages they are paid. I had read some more concrete numbers about this a while back but I have not been able to find them. I would like to point out Thug Lesson’s earlier post about peripheries, however. While the standard cost of living may be lower and people within the third world may certainly live comfortably within its boundaries, this is certainly not the majority, or even sizeable minority, of third world workers, but is a periphery of the larger third world class as a whole.

Okay, just making sure that we're keeping it in the subject, because a yearly income of 30-40,000 can look quite huge if we're just staring at paper, but in reality it's not that much when living in America.

[Thug Lessons]

I'm not comfortable with the format of this debate because I hate this style where you go through and respond to every point line-by-line. You end up with these massive, unreadable posts, and besides, nobody does that outside of internet forums. I'm just going to give some general responses that touch on gist of what you're saying.


Okay, so, it's necessary to underline why third worldism exists as a tendency. For me, it's really the only way to make Marxism 'work' and to reconcile it with the events of the 20th century. Bourgeois critics are quite keen to point out that quite a few of Marxism's predictions haven't come to pass, most importantly that the global revolution he saw as imminent never happened, that the only countries that did have communist revolutions were 'backwards' semi-feudal nations rather than the 'advanced' capitalist nations with large proletariats, and that, far from pushing workers to the point of subsistence, capitalism has actually provided historically unprecedented levels of wealth and prosperity to the vast majority of Western citizens. Altogether this makes a very convincing case that Marx was wrong about capitalism, and that for all its flaws it can exist indefinitely while providing its workers with a decent standard of living.

I want to underline how critical this is: even if you kvetch about the rich getting richer, and wages declining slightly, and the lack of social services, the fact is that Europeans and Americans live better lives than any human beings in all of history. By any measure you take, whether it's income, net worth, access to goods, life expectancy, general health, education, or anything else, contemporary Europeans and Americans are in the top 0.1% of all people who have ever lived. It might have been slightly better in the 1970s, but on the whole these are really extraordinary results. You might want to disagree with me, but in fact you don't have to convince me, I'm already a communist, you have to convince the 90% of first world citizens who think that, for the most part, capitalism has delivered on its promise to create prosperity and at most needs more social-democratic reforms. And you aren't doing a very good job of that. Marxism, anarchism and all the rest are entirely marginal and have been for decades, and their programs are overwhelmingly viewed as either utopian fantasy or a bill of goods. They aren't buying it, because when a bourgeois critic says, "Marx might have been relevant to the 1800s, when people worked 12 hour days for penny wages, but he didn't realize how much things would change", that rings true for most people. Capitalism in the West hasn't shared its profits equally, and it hasn't given us fulfilling work, but it also hasn't made things so bad that revolution is the only viable alternative.

By and large, orthodox Marxists have completely ignored these criticisms. As far as I know, third worldism is the only substantive response that addresses this apparent contradiction between Marxist theory and historical reality. And I think it does a pretty good job. If we explain the relative prosperity of the West, (as well as the corresponding weakness of the left there and thereby the failure of global revolution), in terms of imperialism, then I think Marx stands the test of history. As to the suggestion that capital hasn't shared any of its imperial profits with its workers, there's a recent book out by Zak Cope, a third worldist author, that gives a strong case that relatively high first world wages can't be explained entirely in terms of productivity. They're being inflated somehow, and imperialism is the best answer as far as I'm concerned. The ball is in the first worldists' court now, and it's their responsibility to answer both the bourgeois objections they've ignored and the third worldist response they reject, not to endlessly quibble about trivialities like the OP is doing.

[Thug Lessons]

You said "surplus from the third-world does not go to workers in the West". Really? Really? This just blows my mind. Marxists are behind even the liberals here, because even the liberals will admit Westerners are benefiting for sweatshop labor, trade imbalances, and a whole host of other things. American is the richest nation in the world, gets massive commodity imports for pennies on the dollar, uses up more than 25% of the world's oil with less than 5% of its population, and you're going to tell me nobody except the super-rich benefit from this at all? Workers don't get a single dime? It's just an absurdity. Again even liberals get this, it's just Marxists who want to quibble.

This is like those people who say, "well, maybe black people have it bad, but I don't think white people are privileged" or "uhh, maybe some people are sexist against women, but I don't think men benefit from that". I'm so sick of these arguments where supposed leftists aren't going to grant even the most basic premises. People can't budge even an inch.

[Art Vandelay]

First off your understanding of Marx is quite clearly only superficial. While Marx may have been wrong on how soon capitalism would collapse, capitalism's collapse is a historical inevitability (what replaces it is not however). Let me break it down for ya: when you have a system which is based on constant expansion (capitalism) and you live in a world with finite resources, the system which relies on infinite resources cannot possibly be permanently sustainable. The reasons why revolutions were possible in somewhat backwards countries was due to the existence of 'permanent revolution.' Now I'll admit that my last point is somewhat debatable, however my first point is not.

Secondly your understanding of economics is also quite superficial at best, which is shown by the platitudes that you use. It isn't the 'rich getting richer' and 'wages declining a little bit' its the fact that since the 1960's the pay of the top 1% has skyrocketed and the pay of workers has stagnated. It literally has not increased what so ever. But yes you are correct in saying that workers in industrialized capitalist countries have the highest standard of living ever in human history; do you think this is some sort of revelation? Our point as Marxists isn't to criticize things for some moral perspective, but from a materialist one. Capitalism as a whole has provided the world with the highest standards of livings that humans have ever seen.

The idea that revolutionary movements not taking root in the 1st world due to the reasons outlined by the MTW's here, just shows how far they have abandoned not only Marxist class analysis, but also a materialist paradigm. History progresses in a dialectic, it is not linear, but moves in leaps in bounds; what is one tangible effect of this? The fact that history goes through periods of revolutionary as well as reactionary epochs. The last revolutionary epoch was from roughly (again this is debatable) 1905-1936 and since then we have been in one of the longest and darkest periods of reactions seen in capitalism. We are just now seeing the stirrings of a new revolutionary period in history (arab springs, occupy movement, etc.) while they are far from class conscious socialists, conscious is slowly developing, sorry it is not up to your speed but all the anti-Marxist analysis in the world won't speed this process up. The idea that we 'orthodox Marxists' have been ignoring these criticisms, just shows how far your head is up your ass, we've engaged with them and seen them for the pseudo-scientific and anti-Marxists ideas that they are.