Re: Social Imperialism [DMS] and bribery/privilege

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 9/30/03 6:36:53 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
dmschanoes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:


The question is simply whether the wages, working conditions, living
standards, of the US workers is the product of their sharing in the spoils of US
super-exploitation of the less developed world.

I think the answer is NO.

What's your answer?

DMS


My answer is yes.

The answer resides in the curve of industrial development and not Lenin's
imperialism, which advance the political doctrine that became "Leninism." On the
other hand the answer resides in the history of the evolution of the American
Union and the multinational state of the USNA.

My position on New World slavery and the development of capitalism are fairly
well known on Marxline. I reject the proposition called "the development of
capitalism" and advance another theoretical conception called the evolution of
the bourgeois property relations and the advance of the industrial system.  I
reject this proposition because capitalism as such did not begin development
in "the countryside" as such without qualification. What emerges from the
countryside and in the earlier "city structures" is manufacture in the form of
scattered producers. Even Sumerian society had an early manufacturing capacity, 
in
the form of artisans and generational-produced craftsmen. A number of other
factors - objective and subjective, combine to produce the bourgeois property
relations.

Unraveling the question has taken generations of Marxists in America and no
one on earth - this is not meant in jest, has a more advance conception of this
process, than the former slaves of the most imperial of all imperial powers.

Everything is involved in this question of privilege and bribery - no quotes,
on a planetary scale and as it is manifest in American society. The question
is not posed as "what portion of the value extracted from the less developed
countries and former colonies of imperialism appear in the pay envelop of the
workers in America." To begin with there is no such thing as a concept of "U.S.
workers."

America developed as a southern country in its genesis and political
structures up to the Civil War. A new nation evolved in the North on the basis 
of the
transition from manufacture to agriculture.  The meaning of the word "the
American Union" is the recognition of "two different economic, social and
political entities."  One must distinguish between the working class that rose 
in the
North on the basis of successive waves of European immigration and the
laboring class of the plantation South composed of primarily Africans, 
producing the
value that gave the South its primary wealth.

We are not allowed to turn a blind eye to the theft of Mexico's territory,
that makes up the region we generally call the "Southwest." What we have within
the multinational state of the USNA are two distinct historically evolved
working class, and a class of laborers replenished in history on the basis of
immigration from Mexico. The economic unity of the USNA State - on a continental
basis, leads us to speak of a "U.S. working class" in short speak - slang.

The North developed as an economic, social and political appendage to the
South. The wealth of the American Union - as colonies, was based in the
exploitation of the class of slaves as American society passed from manufacture 
on the
one hand and patriarchal slavery to a value producing system on the other
hand. This does not describe all of American history. The other aspects deal 
with
the slaughter of the Native bands and the concrete specific conditions that
faced the English and Europeans upon their arrival in America.

These peoples came from relatively developed nations, especially the English,
but they were met in North American with a relatively low level of
development of the productive forces and vast open land. These relatively more 
developed
nations evolved as value producing countries on the basis of the African
slave trade. It was the slave trade that gave impetus to the development of
industry. It was the historic transition in the form of wealth from landed 
property
relations to movable wealth - gold, that set the emergence for the universal
exchange of products.

Nevertheless in their struggle against the Native Bands of people and in the
harshness and isolation of frontier life, a specific people began emergence on
the basis of an Anglo-European matrix, and would become the Anglo-American
peoples. Much of the land that was initially cleared and the homes that were
built were at the hands of these Anglo-European peoples, as was the murder of 
the
Native peoples.  Frontier life was no bowl of cherries for the victims of
imperial aggression or the victimizers.

There is a need to back up and define imperialism as the inescapable curve of
historical development on earth. Imperialism in all eras and time in human
history means the export of a more advanced mode of production, instruments and
implements to a less developed area. In history this appears as military
conquest in many instances. Imperialism is always the export of something.
Generally, those in possession of more advance implements conquer those with 
less
advanced means of defense against intrusion. In cases where a less developed
peoples conquer over a more technologically advanced peoples, the less developed
peoples are bent by the logic of history to conform to the culture, customs and
bureaucratic structures of the more culturally developed peoples.

What is clear is that the conquering peoples are compelled to "capture,"
create and fill the bureaucratic structures of the society it gains dominance 
over
and this is called "material privileges." The material privilege arises as a
product of the development of the division of labor in society in general and
wealth accumulation. No one can administer and distribute "nothing." Something
must exist or becomes possible to accumulate for distribution. Hence, ancient
wars of conquest and domination had as their purpose the amalgamation of
peoples and extension of the "gene pool" as opposed to what we call 
exploitation.

The material privileges arise on the basis of the administration of
"something" a conquered society possesses or is capable of attaining. The 
bureaucratic
structures of a society tend to clarify who is privileged. In modern terms the
question in America is who becomes foreman, pay scales, and career
opportunity, who goes to college, who becomes incarcerated at a greater rate 
for the
identical crime? This aspect of privilege is the form that the historical 
bribery
of the Anglo-American people takes, that prevents the unity of the working
class. This historical form of bribery is being obliterated in front of our
noses. The Patriot Act 2 is meant for the Anglo-American people and to contain
their rebellion.  "I" am already on lockdown!

The incarceration rates and criminalization of the African American people is
not racial discrimination, although this is the form and ideological
expression of super exploitation. The criminalization of the black is an aspect 
of the
demand of capital to use "extra economic coercion" - fascism, to keep the
slave and their descendant in an inferior position at the bottom of the economic
and social ladder. Those not subject to this rule have a "privilege" over
those subject to this rule, even while the privileged people are worked to 
death.
This is called the form that the bribery takes to the Anglo-American people to
solidify their unity with imperial rule. In the last instance we are taking
about class stratification.

You asked a valid question of the "rentier state" that has not been answered.
At times like this I wish Henry Liu were present because he could more
adequately explain the relationship based on monetary exchange and trade. On 
the one
hand their are relations that exist between peoples and relations between
states. The "rentier state" is a state structure.

The current unequal exchange between China and American and America and the
world is enforced by the military might of the USNA State whose authority is
buttressed by the support of the working class and peoples of America. Bush Jr.
has a narrow base of support in our country but it is a base.

None of this means that a huge section of the working class in America is not
being driven into poverty at a remarkable pace. To speak of a bourgeoisfied
proletariat still means it is a proletariat. "Bourgeoisfied" refers to its
ideological state and thinking or social awareness. "Privilege" is the 
historical
standard of living in industrial society as it arose on the basis of slavery,
not simply the direct colonial relationship. Although for the USNA State the
direct colonial relationship meant the plantation South - the most prized
colony in the USNA multinational state system.

The USNA multinational state structure is not a "rentier state," - but then
it is, its dominant sector of capital is speculators. They are called
speculators and they collect "rent" - interest, from money. The speculator 
writes the
agenda for the world total social capital. Speculation has existed for a very
long time and its roots are ancient, but speculation - speculators, have never
until recently wrote the agenda for the world total social capital.

Does the result of this speculation appear in the pay envelop of the workers?
I think not - no.

The question of the labor aristocracy is somewhat different and refers to the
"labor politicians" of the bourgeois social order. In our history this means
the Democratic Party and a segment of the trade union leaders, along with a
segment of the Black Elite. What is a professor Cornel West other than a member
of the labor aristocracy, through the Black Elite? His various thesis's on
Marxism and the working class - infinitely higher than the petty bourgeois left,
is an affront to the communist workers.

What is unraveling the historical privilege position of the Anglo American
people and the Anglo American section of the working class is the law of value.
Without question the entire working class is taking a huge hit, which is not
understood by the left as politics. Yes, this process has been unfolding with
ruthless logic for thirty years. The ideological problem is white chauvinism
and national chauvinism. This is the meaning of a lack of class-consciousness.

More later.

Melvin P.



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