Nick Cohen on Thomas Frank

[Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Where are these superprofits anyway? I keep asking for some evidence
that this category exists, and keep coming up empty? Is it the cheap
crap made in China sold at Wal-Mart? That lowers the cost of
reproduction of the working class some, but that's a thin reed to
support the whole global structure.

Doug

^^^^^
CB:  Yes, I don't mean to ignore that you have expressed this criticism of
this claim.  From my standpoint ,I have a certain quandry because I have
Victor Perlo claiming that he _is_ showing economic evidence that this
category exists in at least three books.  I would like to go there and
present the categories he discusses , and hear your criticism of them, but I
am not sure you want to go through such ,whatever.

I can say that one analysis I haven't seen your critique of is his claim of
superprofits from racist wage and income differential "inside" the U.S.  In
an other sense, the people in the cities, suburbs and out on the farms in
Kansas may feel a certain sense of material privilege and advantage relative
to East St. Louis, Southside of Chicago, or Detroit ,etc. And this would be
the material, Marxist underpinning by which shear fantasy is _not_ trumping
material fact , as Carl asked. That is, there is ( or has been for 40 years)
a material and economic explanation for some people in Kansas giving
fantastic "reasons" to support the U.S. bourgeoisie's political program.

 I very often hear Americans brag that this is the richest and most powerful
country in the world. I imagine there are a lot of people in Kansas who feel
this way. So, even if it is an illusion that they are materially advantaged
relative to workers in other countries, or that they got some of their
material wellbeing _from_ the surpluses of workers in other countries, many
Americans seem to have some sense that the contrast between their material
life conditions and those of workers in other countries ( and the inner
cities) are interdependent; and that seems to be a candidate reason that a
lot of people in Kansas go along with the rightwing program organized by the
bourgeois establishment.

That American's sense that they have a better material life than others is
some evidence that they do have a better material life. If that is the
result of Americans working harder and more productively then I suppose we
should say that the people in Kansas are right, and they are not
entertaining fantasies. America and white people are better workers and they
are just receiving their just reward for their labors.  In other words, the
answer to Carl's question would be that the Kansans are not entertaining
fantasies. The American conservative "way of life" is better, the proof
being that Americans are richer, and that way of life should be defended.

Another issue is that the political and social attitudes of adults in Kansas
today were formed 20 , 30 and 40 years ago. So, the figures from the late
90's and early 2000's are important, but I'd like to see what the figures
were for those categories you present from 1962, 1972 and those earlier
periods. There very well may be a backstabbing economic crisis in Kansas
today. The theory of superprofits does not say that the bourgeoisie
guarantee permanent subsidy to the favored sectors of the population from
earlier periods.

Another question I have from our last discussion of this is for a little
more discussion of hedge funds. I believe when we discussed this last you
said hedge funds were not included in the "income from foreign investments"
or whatever that category of profits from foreign countries is. Did I
misunderstand or misremember your reply on hedgefunds last time ? If in the
total calculus of finance capital, some hedge fund biggies make big money
through hedge funds which somehow suck up value from where ?...?...might
that free up other "funds" in other enterprises controlled by these
hedgefunders such that they are more willing to grant wage and benefit
demands in Kansas at a given time ?

In general, superprofits are any extra profits, not just those from foreign
investments.

"Bourgeoisification" is a term that Marx and Engels used, not Lenin. Lenin's
thesis was an extension of M and E's observations about British workers. In
M and E's period the superprofits were especially from Irish, and U.S. slave
labor (and Indian ?) Segmented and oppressed labor includes the colonial
labor Lenin referrenced, but is a more general category than just the
colonial labor Lenin discussed. Also, today's "colonies" are qualitatively
different than the colonies at the end of the 1900's and beginning of the
20th Century, the subject of _Imperialism_.  It will take economic detective
work to see whether and how extra profit is made today, if it is made today.
Even though Perlo's books are from the late eighties, his categories may be
suggestive for today on how to dig beyond the categories used by the
economic statisticians.

I am glad Jim D. brought in the distinction between profits and "surplus
value".  Perlo refers to "superprofits". Not superexploitation.  I believe
the rate of exploitation is a ratio between surplus value and variable
capital. The rate of profit is the ratio between surplus value and total
capital.

I think this results in the fact that workers in Kansas are exploited at a
higher rate than those in some other countries, but the rate of profit may
be higher even though non-Kansas workers are exploited at a lower rate.