Re: [Marxism] U.S. workers and imperialist domination

[bauerly@xxxxxxxx]

I am not sure if you wanted responses on your posting of your exchange, but I
don't know why you would post something that you did not want people to respond
to.

First of all my understanding of P & G' s overall point is not that US
imperialism suppresses US working class consciousness. In fact, it is almost
the opposite of this.  US bourgeoisie class power and the specific an unique
relationship it has with the US state in subordinating the US workers and rest
of the polity is the source of US global power.

The actions of the past few days bare this out quite well.  The passing of the
bailout represents the subordination of the working class far into the future
on the behalf of the financial sector.  No other bourgeois/state could have
pushed this through without a real democratic process like the US capitalist
class just did.  Following this we saw the almost instant rising of the US
dollar as it became a stable place for capital from all over the world to
invest.  If the US was weak, or no longer even hegemonic (in the Gramscian
sense) this would not have happened.  We have also see efforts by various
states across the globe working to implement their own bailouts to follow suit
with the US.  The notion that somehow the other economies would not be
effected, that they had delinked, is all but a fantasy now.

The capacity to unload capitalisms contradictions onto both domestic workers and
the rest of the globe is the US's strength.  The latter comes out of the former,
if we are Marxists than we are interested in class power and how it operates. 
The class power of US bourgeoisie's is were the confidence in the US dollar and
T-bills is constituted and the agent of US class power is the US state.

The simplistic notion that the US could not maintain the uneven and
contradictory nature of its balance of trade deficit, national budget deficits
and loss of industrial preeminence (which is far from true but still an
argument by some), simply misses the class nature of the system.  Think of the
US as the global bourgeoisie, as we all know the bourgeoisie has long been able
to maintain the asymmetrical relationship of power, with all of its
contradictions and irrationalities.  This is not to say that it will go on
forever or that it is omnipotent, but simply that it does not fall because it
contains contradictions.  In fact, it is the contradictions and the
asymmetrical power relations that sustains it by feeding a dynamism that is
unmatched.

The fact that wages have been stagnant in the US since the 1970's yet the
political climate has allowed an advance by capital over labor has been the
articulation of the strength of the US bourgeoisie.  This signaled all other
capitalists across the globe to follow suit and to trust the dollar as the
currency of the world.  The resent events have only reconfirmed this position,
not undermined it.  It also has show the strength of capital and the weakness
of an alternative.  This is not to say that one will not develop, only that we
have a lot of work to do.

Another insight coming from this type of orientation is to see the strength of
the US not in its imperial role to suppress the workers of the rest of the
globe, there are plenty of local bourgeoisie's for this, but in its ability to
suppress US workers firs and foremost.  Therefore, any break from the current
consciousness will have to come out of the struggles inside the US, not from
first breaking the US imperialist machine from the outside.  I know this put
the onerous of burden on us that are inside the US but that is how this thing
will go down.

Brad

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