Re: [Marxism] Imperialism and the US working class (Was YADL)

[D OC <donaloc@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think that this issue is hugely significant.
 
However, there is not a simple, direct relationship, any more than there is a 
simply direct relationship in any other concrete socio-historical process or 
reality. That is the nature of the dialectic. But despite this limitation, some 
seem to remain in denial about the nature of this exploitative relationship.
 
Advanced capitalist societies are now broadly characterised as post-industrial. 
That is not without good reason. They simply do not produce the volume or 
breadth of commodities that they consume. There would appear, therefore, on a 
simple but materialist basis to be an ‘a priori’ case for concepts whereby the 
broad base of the imperialist core nations ‘live on’ (like parasites) the 
producer nations.
This has been increasingly the case since the onset of globalisation and the 
large scale haemorrhaging of industrial working class jobs to the third world. 
 
These trends are simply beyond denial, however, in order to discern how these 
factors impact on the concrete cultural superstructure of imperialist nations 
it is necessary to resort back to a class-based analysis which I can only skirt 
on in this post.
 
The division of the working class into productive and unproductive workers is 
important from a political economy perspective but culture is not defined 
simply by one’s position relative to productive economy rather it is influenced 
by a wide variety of factors. Only in the ‘final instance’ as Engels says, does 
the base define the superstructure but that does not mean that it defines it 
entirely at all points in time. To adopt such a simplistic approach is to 
advance a conception of history based on idealism not materialism.
 
Net Economic surplus is acquired by imperialist nations through a variety of 
sources, not just the standard, if superexploitative, profits derived from 
production overseas owned by imperialist finance capital. In addition to this, 
the fundamental imbalance between the imperialist core and the third world 
results in exchange relations that replicate the system of exploitation – the 
theory of economic dependency. In particular, third world countries are often 
forced to buy goods at inflated prices and are forced to sell labour intensive 
goods at discounted prices. This is only one such example of exploitation but 
many simply do not find expression in the (money-based) standards of accounting 
yielding GDP figures. Furthermore, the exploitation of overseas colonies (or 
neo-colonies) may be replicated inside countries through internal colonies or 
centres of lower cost labour. 
 
Overall, the immense increase in the productive power associated with modern 
capitalism has allowed much more (displaced consumption) to be done with much 
less (imperialist exploitation). At its root this is easily discernible by the 
very difference in the cost of living (in value terms – how much one average 
day’s labour will buy) in the west compared to the global south. 
 
Such a system of widespread privilege can only be sustained by large scale 
transfers to the broad masses of imperialist countries provided under ‘social 
democratic’ type measures or else in concessions to the working class to keep 
them tranquillised. These are financed in taxes collected (at root) from the 
surplus value obtained by native imperialists and circulated (reified) by the 
financial services sector. The sheer volume of these profits (in inflated 
western denominated currencies) is reflected by the preponderance of the 
financial services over the productive industrial sectors of the imperialist 
economies. Although it should be noted that much of these values are fictitious 
and do not necessarily correspond to any underlying value.
 
All the same and despite the obvious bribery element, this does not necessarily 
mean that the imperialist working class are a ‘write-off’. For a start, as WL 
correctly notes, there are non-exploited but nationally oppressed sectors of 
the western working class who despite of the relative privilege over those 
living in the third world, are relatively disadvantaged (either culturally, 
politically or socially) to those from other local substrata within the 
imperialist core. In terms of the impact of these factors on the consciousness 
of these groups, it is clear that local relative disadvantage will have a 
greater immediate impact than global relative advantage. Indeed, this just 
highlights the difficulty in drawing simplistic conclusions from underlying 
economic factors – or of simplistic base-superstructure theory.
 
Notwithstanding the impact of relative privilege, which is undeniable, there 
are other key factors which I believe have been instrumental in defining the 
success or otherwise of the socialist revolution in Western countries. Not 
least of these are the cultural factors identified by Gramsci and the hegemony 
of the bourgeoisie in imperialist centres. However, these factors have, at 
root, a materialist foundation and that is principally the relative privilege 
of imperialist working classes. No other factor can explain why it is that 
there has not been a successful socialist revolution in any leading imperialist 
country following 1917 (and that is best explained by Lenin’s weakest link 
theory where Russia was at one and the same time both imperial and colonial). 
No other factor can explain that virtually every colonial country has had 
something close to a successful socialist revolution at some stage. In those 
few imperialist centres where there have been upturns, it can quickly be 
discerned that they occurred at the juncture between loss of empire and 
reconstitution of post-colonial exploitative relations.
 
There are outliers in the imperialist core countries, like Germany, which for 
one reason or another, e.g. being denuded of their external empire, have been 
forced to develop an inherent productive capacity which can enable a 
social-democratic type society. Primarily, these countries base their wealth on 
productive competitive advantage through massive levels of capital 
accumulation. While these countries benefit from trade in the other imperialist 
centres – themselves net beneficiaries of imperialist profits – they also 
benefit fundamentally from exploitation mediated by trade to the third world on 
an unequal basis. Such countries would enjoy a smoother transition to a form of 
socialism than those without an adequate productive base e.g. the UK.
 
Having said all that, however, I think it is far too simplistic to conclude 
negatively on the possibility of socialist revolution in imperialist centres on 
that basis (although perhaps it is taking other factors into account). For a 
start, the success of capitalism for the last one hundred years has been 
grounded in the huge productive powers accumulated capital has been able to 
unleash. This has created the situation which others have analysed where only a 
fraction of the working class actually need to work all the time to meet all of 
societies needs. Even without imperialist superprofits, production is now so 
concentrated that society can afford many to work unproductively.  There is 
nothing, therefore, inherently imperialist as opposed to advanced capitalist 
about that. However, whilst this may be true, the problem of consumption 
becomes an even more pressing issue in such a situation. So too, does the 
falling rate of profit.
 
It is against this backdrop that imperialist businesses have sought to take 
advantage of, or is it that they have been forced into taking advantage of, 
lower living standards in the global south. This globalisation of capital has 
not been counteracted by a globalisation of labour. This has resulted in the 
growth of an imbalance financed through debt in the relatively unproductive 
‘Anglo-Saxon’ economies. 
The implosion of this system of expansion will result in a generalised lowering 
of living standards in imperialist centres. Whether this results in an 
awakening of socialist consciousness or a rise in populist or xenophobic 
fascism is dependent on contingent and historically-defined factors. It is 
likely that there will be a broad division of these trends across relatively 
advantaged or disadvantaged groups in society.
 
This has implications for revolutionary strategy in imperialist centres (and in 
associated semi-detached fellow travellers of imperialism such as Ireland, 
Ukraine, etc which have come as recent converts to modern, bourgeois ideology 
and full integration into the imperialist system of exploitation).  This 
analysis would stand against the inanities of many trends of Trotskyism which 
views the workers in imperialist centres as innately revolutionary, blames 
‘stalinism’ for all failures and fails to comprehend the importance of 
imperialism or the role of social democracy in the context of 
super-exploitation.  But at the same time, it would also stand against the 
idealised conceptions of maoist-third-worldism (theories which Mao never 
stated) which raise the issue of relative privilege above that of class 
analysis, idealised the base-superstructure interrelationship and which ends up 
justifying a course of inaction and passivity in the imperialist core. Both 
approaches are characterised by acute voluntarism and a disconnection from 
organic struggle.
 
 
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