Letters Scottish revolutionary nationalists write to MIM Dear MIM Notes: Enclosed find the text of "Marxist-Leninism and Self-Determination For Scotland," a theoretical position paper of the William Wallace Society (WWS). The WWS is the North American support arm of the Socttish Separatist Group, a revolutionary socialist organization which seeks to establish a democratic, socialist, workers' republic in Scotland. The WWS is at present a small organisation, nevertheless, we play a significant role in dispersing information and propagandizing throughout North America for the cause of Scottish freedom. Please peruse the text and let us know your feelings. We welcome your comments and criticisms. We certainly feel the goals of the MIM and our's are the same. You strive for the liberation of the proletariat on an interenational scale and while our aims are more inclusive; we strive for the liberation of the proletariat in a small nation which has been the object of imperialist exploitation for a number of centuries. We too seek to further the ideology of Marxism-Leninism although, to be perfectly frank, our knowledge of the Maoist tradition is scant. At any rate, having examined several issues of your newsletter we have concluded that your's is a forthright journal and we wish you continued journalistic success. --Chairperson William Wallace Society, April 23, 2000. International Minister of MIM replies: Thank you for the pamphlet. I did indeed read it. It's not so much that we disagree with it as we yearned for much more. We add to your observation on Puerto Rico that when the Superbowl happens in the United $tates--one of the largest media events of the year for the United $tates--the Puerto Rican sports pages of newspapers cover their own local sports on the front page, not the Superbowl; even though the papers so doing do not consider themselves nationalist. Nonetheless, we do not agree that a people's considering itself a nation is what makes a nation. Saying "I am a Puerto Rican" instead of "I am an American" is not enough to constitute a nation. Along these lines we yearned for more economic details in your pamphlet, starting with the material factors described by Stalin in his piece on the national question. Although you do mention in passing English buying of Scottish land, we wanted more factual details. In addition, we do not believe it is possible to understand any national question in the world without reference to the flow of super-profits to the imperialist countries. What we found lacking in particular was a sense of the dynamics of the situation: 1) if England has been buying land for centuries, how can Scotland not be totally assimilated? What are the details of ownership? Has there been ebb and flow? 2) On what basis can Scotland claim not to be partaking in the British empire's super-exploitation of the Third World? It is MIM's position that Scotland, Ireland(1) and even a majority of the Six Counties is bourgeoisified--with the seal of parasitism. It is very important to trace all of the flows of surplus labor from the Third World into the imperialist countries including their internal semi-colonies. Our calculations have shown that a majority of the Black nation is bought off, and indeed, legal citizens and residents of the United $tates are generally bought off. In situations where there is obviously some national element to a people's history, it is important to identify the dynamic material elements underlying people's beliefs. On this score, the prospects for Puerto Rican nationalism, nationalism in the Six Counties, Black nationalism, the nationalism of other internal semi-colonies within the United $tates and even more so the nationalism of the Scots is bleak in the short run. It is only within the overall picture of Third World Maoist revolution that we can see a prospect for internal semi-colonies freeing themselves from imperialism. For this reason, proletarian nationalism of oppressed nations is separated from bourgeois nationalism above all by its stance on super-profits. Without a serious analysis of the flow of surplus labor, a place like Scotland or Ireland is merely positioning itself for a greater share of super-profits whenever it decks itself out in "faux-historical costumes" as you say in your pamphlet. We must take exception then to your statement in the letter that Scotland is currently exploited. It may be in a relatively poorer position than England, but on the whole it benefits more from super-exploitation than it loses from relative losses to England. As we have detailed in our articles on the Six Counties and Puerto Rico for instance, super-profits flow in to ally the peoples there substantively with imperialism. More and more, Ireland for instance looks to the European Union and its collective offer of super-profit sharing. While welfare checks are flowing to Puerto Rico(2) and the Black nation(3), while the European Union subsidizes development in Ireland and while EU and U.$. investors move in and bribe out the Six Counties, the prospects for revolutionary nationalism are weak. In the 1990s, the Canadian and U.$. imperialists made moves on Mohawk land, and that provoked a revolutionary nationalist struggle that reached armed struggle. Meanwhile, in the Six Counties, there is an historical split in the working-class behind the civil war there. On the one side is the labor aristocracy backed by England and the other is the discriminated against section of Catholic workers, beat down into the proletariat. Yet, even that historical situation is disintegrating as the German, English and U.$. imperialists consciously set about to arrange some flow of super-profits into the area. If all the internal semi-colonies of Britain and the United $tates were completely bought-off and forgot their national histories, the prospects for the liberation of the international proletariat would still be bright. The simple truth is that super-profits cannot flow to a place without someone being super-exploited and resisting. Currently the vast majority of workers in the world-- three quarters--reside in the Third World. Perhaps 20% of the world's workers are bought off and now constitute a petty- bourgeoisie, a majority white-collar in the United $tates for example. In the Third World, the workers average 50 cents an hour.(4) In the imperialist countries and their bought-off semi-colonies the figure is more than 10 times that much. It must be understood that there is no way for the three quarters of the world to average 50 cents an hour while the imperialist countries average more than 10 times that much without a flow of superprofits to explain the difference. Our publications go over this question repeatedly and in detail. The chauvinist section of the petty-bourgeoisie brags of its superior "productivity" without so much as a serious analysis, because the aim of this section of ex-workers is to create mythology justifying its petty-bourgeois class position. As the People's Wars in the Third World succeed, the imperialists become cut off from their sources of super-profits. Conversely, when capitalist restoration occurs as in China in 1976, the super- profit spigots are thrown open and no single fact is more responsible for U.$. prosperity today. When the tide goes in socialism's favor, and/or when costly wars are fought by an imperialist country, whether internal colonies know it or not, imperialist and internal semi-colony sources of super-profits will dry up and the internal semi-colonies will feel more pressure from the imperialists. When the imperialists have fewer resources to cement alliances with internal semi-colonies, the internal semi- colonies will choose to ally with the Third World. The task of the communists is to prepare that alliance now in truly internationalist fashion. Notes: 1. For our review of how the Irish became assimilated, see MIM Notes 107 or http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/bookstore/whitenation.html 2. MIM's view of the Puerto Rican class structure is at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/5973/prclass.htm 3. MIM's view of the Black class structure and internal semi- colonies of the United $tates generally is at: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/5973/internalclass3.ht m 4. The average of 48 cents an hour for wages in the Third World is provided in Adrian Wood, North-South Trade, Employment and Inequality: Changing Fortuntes in a Skill-Driven World (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 400. Capitalism is never good for the people Dear MIM: I would like to ask you a question: Isn't Fair Trade "good capitalism"? In Denmark, Fair Trade bananas covered 50 % of the banana sales last year. In Switzerland, they covered 15 %. Doesn't that prove that even the Western bourgeoisie can support a good cause and act with pure motives? Wouldn't Fair Trade be a non-violent road to classless society? Doesn't capitalism give us a power, as consumers, to have our say about trade manners? --Finland reader May 2000 MIM replies: This is an unclear letter, but we will assume it refers to one of two things--"free trade" or "fair trade." There is a particular organized effort to land equitable trade terms for Third World countries that is called "fair trade."(1) The effort requires that consumers pay an appropriate price that could support appropriate wages in cases of materials like coffee or bananas. In 1998, the European Union caved in to U.$. pressure (after negotatiating some benefits for itself) and started importing U.$. traded bananas at a lower price. Partly in response, some organizations fought to buy only the higher-priced bananas. The Greens often argue the same thing as our reader--that the focus should be on educating consumers, not reorganizing production. Both the Greens and other petty-bourgeois activists fail to understand capitalism, and why incremental struggle is always necessary but never successful. Selective boycotts and buying campaigns never work, because investors simply switch to something else when their particular industry at the moment is under strong pressure. Investors have the added pressure that if they do not do so, they will be making less profit. Investment managers--whether as corporate executives or pure finance capital managers--will be fired if they do not obtain the highest profits. If bananas go up in price, then consumers will buy more grapes. That is the whole point of capitalism: it is organized to organize production to be the cheapest at the same quality or higher. The goal of higher wages in the Third World is not a necessity of capitalism. If the reader would like to see everyone sell goods and services at a fair wage, then the reader should be for planning of production, instead of making every consumer have to organize for every commodity and service, usually without resources or knowledge. In fact, bananas are a good example of the limitation of this sort of struggle, because the real conflict is not over the price but the U.$. ownership and shipping of banana companies. For this reason, Europe had adopted protectionist measures to prevent U.$. style banana trade. The only reason the Europeans do not succumb to U.$. pressures without negotiations is that they themselves make the profits from the sort of banana trade the United States does not undertake. According to organizers, "The principles behind Fair Trade are simple. By buying Fair Trade goods, you can ensure that the person who produces them gets a fair share of the price you pay."(2) Such is the classic outlook of the petty-bourgeoisie aligned against monopoly capital. For the same reason we are told to support small restaurants and stores (owned by the petty-bourgeoisie of course) and not Walmarts and McDonalds. In the case of solidarity with the Third World petty-bourgeoisie, the cause is indeed progressive. The reason is that even Third World peasants are super-exploited by imperialism. Even when they own their own land, the return for their economic efforts is dictated by imperialist domination--specifically death squad government against unions and activists who would change the country from being an exploited resource for imperialists. The "Fair Trade" struggle is a just struggle when focussed on purchases from the Third World and not protecting imperialist country jobs. It is simply not enough and begs the question of why capitalism is necessary at all if the principles of economic cooperation can be expressed without a "free market." The fact that the "Fair Trade" effort is nothing new in petty- bourgeois organizing is a question of cause and effect--a question for the science Marx developed to replace bourgeois political economy. Whether selective buying in one area is offset by a counteracting force in the capitalist system is something that has to be studied. In the meantime, we say that we share the goals of free trade but not their strategies, if those strategies are indeed undertaken with the belief that they are most effective in bringing about global economic cooperation, fair wages, sustainable living etc. We recognize the "Fair Trade" effort as part of a true proletarian class struggle--organized by white- collar bureaucrats at the Oxfam and other non-profit organizations no less. At the same time that we acknowledge the role of "Fair Trade" activists in class struggle between the international proletariat and the imperialists, we must categoricaly deny their helpfulness in the cause of peace. It is possible for multinational corporations to pay higher wages and still wage cut-throat competition amongst themselves. Marx called this competition the "anarchy of capitalist production." World War I and hence World War II arose because of competition amongst capitalists, particularly those who created alliances in politics for the purpose of winning business competitions. The European Union which originally protected the higher-priced banana trade is an example of such a political union of capitalist countries with a common interest in letting their businesses succeed at the expense of U.$. business. When the goal is to win, and gain the highest profit there is no reason not to form such political alliances and go to war. "Fair Trade" has nothing to say about this and cannot begin to even claim to be a solution to the militarism caused by capitalism. Notes: 1. E.g. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/fairtrad/bananas/banana.htm 2. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/fairtrad/bananas/future.htm 3. See also, http://www.oxfam.org.uk/fairtrad/criteria.htm 4. Other links at http://www.oxfam.org.uk/fairtrad/links.htm Ex-prisoner asks "why alienate whites?" Having been a reader of MIM Notes for a few years now I feel that I can bring up a point that has been troubling me for a while. You are in a position to gain a larger part of the prison population not to mention the free world population but you're not doing so. The problem seems to me so easy to fix by just explaining yourselves a little better. While I was in prison I tried to put whites up on MIM Notes but nine out of ten times I got the same response: "why do I want to read a black newspaper that has nothing to do with me, in fact they hate us whites." As you know the prison population is growing at an alarming rate. With the tougher sentencing laws that Michigan has adopted more whites are entering prison than ever before and you need to harness this power instead of driving it away. I will be the first to agree that the largest percentage of the prison population is non-white but the whites that are in prison have to deal with the same problems as everyone else. The lack of medical attention, food that isn't fit to eat, the lack of educational programs and the lack of -- and I use this term lightly -- "rehabilitation." We all know that there isn't any such thing as rehabilitation within the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC). I believe that if you took a little time in one of your issues of MIM Notes you would find that a group you haven't as of yet attracted would be more willing to at least listen to your views and maybe agree with what you have to say instead of refuse to even listen. As I'm sure you know the MDOC tries its best to keep a wall between whites and non-whites because they know that as long as we are fighting each other we're not fighting them with the full strength that we could be using to bring about some long overdue changes within the prison system. I'm not saying that if we come together as a whole that the corruption within the prison will just go away because we all know that as long as there are prisons and money to be made off the backs of prisoners there will always be corruption, but there is strength in numbers and we as prisoners and ex-prisoners need to set aside our differences and come together as one to fight a problem that effects everyone that has a number instead of a name. -- a released prisoner in the Midwest. MIM responds: While MIM counts white Amerikans as members of an oppressor nation, we are open to working with any individual regardless of national background (or gender or class). What one says and does is more important than national membership. What is true of a group on average is not true for every individual. Any member of an oppressor group can shun their privileges and ally with the oppressed. Because MIM Notes speaks in terms of facts and Maoist analysis of these facts, it is important to ask what an individual means when s/he refers to our paper as a "black newspaper". Does pointing out that there are more Blacks than whites in u.$. prisons while Blacks are a mere 12 percent of the population and whites are in the majority make MIM Notes a "black newspaper"? What about pointing out that Blacks are more likely to receive death sentences than whites convicted of the same crimes, and more likely to be executed? MIM seeks to clarify the situation of national oppression in Amerikan prisons -- oppression of the white settler nation over the oppressed internal semi-colonies -- because we must first understand this system to organize against it. We welcome all whites who wish to join in working against imperialism. But we cannot fight imperialism effectively without calling it what it is. When the reader says that whites are going to prison more than ever before this is true. During the 1990s, white male imprisonment increased by 54%. But during that same period, Black male imprisonment increased at a rate of 61%, bringing the total number of Black men in prison to more than the number of white men. Again what seems to be the simple fact that whites and Blacks in prisons deal with the same conditions is deceptive. That Blacks are disproportionately imprisoned means that compared to their numbers in the population more Blacks are experiencing the horror of prisons than whites to begin with. If whites were imprisoned in the same proportion as Blacks, many who now walk free would be behind bars. We cannot just abstract the individuals from their social groups and say that the conditions are "equal". Prisons in Amerika are an industry that warehouses some humyns while providing others with lifetime employment in construction, law, or so-called "corrections." We call on all prisoners and people on the outside to work against this prison system that runs on money rather than justice. To work effectively against prisons we must recognize their imperialist character and expose it. Lastly, the writer uses the term "non-white". MIM rejects this term or any other terms emphasizing skin color or race. When we talk about the white settler nation or the Black nation or First Nations, we are specifically referring to groups of people based on national membership. National interests involve history, culture, the nation's right to self-determination etc, it involves more than skin color. See MIM Theory #7, Proletarian Feminist Revolutionary Nationalism on the Communist Road for more in depth analysis.