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

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

S Artesian: "My argument is not that "privilege" does NOT exist in sectors
of the working class, but rather that privilege is not based on the transfer
of wealth from poorer to less poor, from more exploited to less exploited BY
the bourgeoisie as either an intentional or unintentional product of the
expansion of capital beyond, or within, national boundaries."

This is something that is really striking to me about this discussion. A lot
of the argument is that white workers don't exploit or benefit from the
exploitation of Black workers, or U.S. workers don't benefit from that of
the third world. It is almost a moralistic thing.

For the record, and so there is no ambiguity, I believe the US working
class, and most of all its white component, are fools for failing to
understand that they would be much better off acting as part of their class.
Like duh...

The question that needs to be answered is WHY they don't do that. All this
stuff about ideological hegemony is nice but it needs a MATERIAL BASIS for
it to work. For example, "racism" --white supremacist ideas and ideology--
is not based on propaganda so clever that it convinces people of the LIE
that white people are superior to Blacks. It is based on the TRUTH that in
this society whites historically have been and continue to be in a socially,
politically and economically superior position in relation to Blacks.

The marked increase in hate crimes against Latinos is a reflection of the
increasing racism against Latinos based on the increasing social and
political degradation of a substantial part of the community, the
undocumented immigrants. 

As for all the folderol about different historical developments and all the
rest of it accounting for different wage levels between whites and Blacks
and between imperialist countries and the third world, give me an effing
break. 

The wealth of the imperialist countries is based historically, has its
origins in, the looting of the Third World and slavery. It's not that
complicated really. 

Capitalist exploitation is NOT about class and class only. 

Marx says as much in writing about primitive accumulation, but his forward
looking projection in the Manifesto and elsewhere that it was becoming about
class and class only, that conditions in different countries were becoming
roughly equalized as they got drawn into capitalist production, that the
family --cornerstone of women's oppression-- was disappearing and so on
proved to be completely and totally WRONG.

In fact, in relation to the national question, PRECISELY THE OPPOSITE of
what Marx anticipated actually happened: not an amelioration of
contradictions between nations, but their exacerbation to the utmost as
developing (mainly) European and European colonial-settler capitalist powers
preyed on the Third World, then turned on each other, and then finally
organized themselves into a cartel for the joint exploitation of the Third
World (as well as some other purposes), in which the U.S. imperialists bear
the major part of the responsibility for military and political domination
and thus undoubtedly also get a very disproportionate share of the loot.

How much does the U.S. benefit from its domination of the world as the top
dog imperialist power? Consider this: The U.S. is spending three quarters of
a trillion dollars a year on its military establishment, which is
EXCLUSIVELY dedicated to projecting force to dominate other countries, since
the U.S. "homeland" is in absolutely no military danger from anybody. "In
2007, US military spending was above 1/4 of combined industrial and
agricultural production in the USA," says Wikipedia.

To this already substantial figure we need to add the budgets for debt
service, currently running at more that $400 billion, as well as various
other government expenses, for example the department of "energy" is really
about making and maintaining nuclear bombs, the veterans, the hidden CIA,
NSA and similar budgets, a lot of the "trade promotion" and all of the
"foreign aid" because these really seek to re-enforce domination.

This gives us the figure of certainly not less than $1.3 trillion dollars as
a first approximation of a lower bound of the yearly economic input to the
U.S. attributable to its world position. To this we would have to add a
"profit," a net benefit over and above all the costs of the world empire,
because the U.S. is not engaged in the business of world domination at a
loss. 

To get a handle on this magnitude, that is the equivalent of 10% of the US
GDP, and is roughly comparable to the magnitude of total corporate profits
-- in a good year. 

I realize this is in no way reflected in any government or private
accounting, IMF statistics nor anything else like that. 

But it MUST BE the case that the US realizes this benefit, otherwise the
drain on its economic resources would have led the United States to become
decapitalized and bankrupt decades ago. 

Joaquin


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