Re: [Marxism] looking for general guidance: class analysis of today's society...

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 5/21/2004 5:54:47 PM Central Standard Time,
DLVinvest@xxxxxx writes:
> This rise in the standard of living of much of the proletariat in the
> industrialized world is made possible by the brutal exploitation of third
world
> workers by the first world bourgeoisie.

reply

<This proposition, stated as fact, arose to explain the lack of class
consciousness of the proletariat in the US after World War II. It is often
repeated,
but ignores the role of class struggle in the more developed capitalist
countries in raising wages at certain times, in certain sectors, and how
higher wages
induce technification that alters the composition of capital -- a key element
in the labor theory of value as refined and developed by Marx in Capital. If
true, the statement should be supported by data that shows how and how much
surplus value expropriated in e.g., Haiti or Malaysia at a higher rate of
exploitation finds its way into the pockets of "much" of the proletariat.>

Comment

Marx himself has written on colonial policy and its impact on the proletariat
in the imperial centers. Actually, Lenin has written a wealth of material on
the division of the world amongst imperial powers and the fact of the brutal
exploitation of the non-sovereign peoples. Lenin long ago proved the
distinction between not simply exploited and exploiting classes, but oppressing 
and
oppressed people.

The demand to prove the imperial bribery of the Anglo American peoples on the
one hand and the peoples of America on the other, as they exist within the
world market, surfaces on Marxmail from time to time . . . and is generally
ignored. The American Union was formed based on the slaughter of the Indians and
slavery. Here is the actual curve of history in which the Leninist conception
of imperialism is to be understood and with this the distinction between
oppressing and oppressed people . . . or material bribery.

The state of the United States of North America is a multinational state. One
does not have to go to the other side of the world to understand imperial
bribery, which in our history made it possible and profitable to burn the
churches of blacks, slaughter their men, women and children and meet appeals for
justice with indescribable bloody violence. The purpose of this violence as with
the case of the Indian is to take wealth and enforce an inferior social
position on a people or institutionalize a position of privilege. This position 
of
privilege is called material bribery because the exploited sections of the
population - the workers, consciously block with imperialism to ensure their
position of privilege.

Imperialist bribery of the American people in general and the Anglo American
people in particular has been good to them. This bribery is coming to an end.
The history of American imperialism in South Africa and its imposition of what
is called unequal treaties and trade is imperial bribery.

There are a complex of reasons for the inability of our working class to form
political or class consciousness concerning its relationship in the world
market and its social position in society. This is a separate question.

The Anglo American people exist in a position of privilege or bribery in
relationship to the African American people, the Mexican National or the 
children
of Azlan for that matter. This would seem to be clear as noon day at this late
stage in the evolution of bourgeois property.

Melvin P.

_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism