[The following is from pro-"RCP-USA" "amol" on www.2changetheworld,
titled "on some faulty class analysis," August 12, 2002
MIM comments will be interspersed below in brackets.
Aftersorrowcomesjoy refers to a persyn 
unofficially defending the MIM line at www.2changetheworld.info/home-en.php]

I just wanted to throw a few points out there...

The quotes of aftersorrow (in bold) are taken from 
different posts.

CONFUSING THE CLASS QUESTION AND NATIONAL 
QUESTION...

"At the same time, the oppressed peoples are to a 
large extent part of the single multinational 
proletariat in the U.S.... They suffer dual 
oppression —national oppression and oppression as 
part of the multinational proletariat. This is a 
potentially explosive combination which puts 
proletarians from the op­pressed nationalities in 
a crucial position in the process of proletarian 
revolution...The oppressed peoples in the U.S. are 
a tremendously powerful force for revolution. 
Their fight for equality and emancipation is bound 
by a “thousand links” with the struggle of the 
proletariat for socialism and lends great strength 
to the revolutionary cause of the proletariat." 
(Draft Programm UFuLP, Pt 1)

It seems as if aftersorrow consistently tries to 
merge class exploitation and national oppression 
into one thing. This leads to misunderstanding the 
class question and national question both. This 
can be seen clearly in how aftersorrow twists the 
concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat 
into something unrecognizable: "MIM’s position 
(and mine) is that a dictatorship of the oppressed 
nations OVER the white nation will be necessary." 

I guess aftersorrow's vision of socialism is some 
nations dictating over others--a vision that would 
make Khruschev proud. (Does this mean that MIM 
thinks its white members need to be dictated over 
once a successful revolution has taken place?) 

[mim3@mim.org replies: See how they can only think
of the party members, the relative minority of society.
The combined population of MIM and RCP-USA would be
less than a tenth of a tenth of a percent; yet they
want to use that to attack a group level generalization.
It's very typical of how Liberalism and identity politics
throw out class and national analysis. It's rooted
in the Anglo-Saxon individualism of settler life
that these "RCP-USA" people are simply unable to
think at a group level. We see it in their inability
to find any statistics about 140+ million people to back
their views. They'd much rather deal with patches of people
or one identity at a time. As we said before, they better
go look at what Lenin said in "Statistics and Sociology,"
because their whole www.2changetheworld.info website is
a dispute with Lenin's ghost, not MIM. It's as if they 
consciously set out to destroy what Lenin stood for,
the scientific method itself.

BTW, when you see people talk about the party members
in this context as some kind of proof of anything for
class and national questions, look out: sectarianism
is next. It's clear that in their minds their organization
comes before the class and national questions themselves.
If you are not able to step back from your own individual
circumstances, it goes without saying you are not going
to be a scientist, because a scientist has to take into
account the various interconnections, not just the
individual's existence.]

amol continues:

aftersorrow's understanding of the "self-
determination" has nothing in common with Lenin's. 
Lenin was a great proletarian internationalist who 
upheld the right of oppressed nations to self 
determination so that a truly voluntary union 
could be formed. Unlike Lenin's communist vision, 
aftersorrow sees the fight for nation as the most 
politically advanced expression: "the biggest 
reason why there may not be a drive for black 
independence right now is the increased amount of 
blacks in the labor aristocracy." 

In other words if there were more "Black 
proletarians" then there would be a stronger 
desire for Black independence, for a Black nation. 
I don't know if this is some inside-out, upside-
down version of Mao's new democratic revolution or 
what but this certainly isn't MLM (remember Marx's 
point that the proletariat has no nation, that 
it's an international class?)

[mim3@mim.org: Pure Trotskyist drivel. Mao said
that "nationalism of the oppressed is applied internationalism."]

amol continues: 

It is often the case--in imperialist countries as 
well as oppressed countries that--that oppressed 
nationalities, in large numbers, compose the lower 
rungs of the proletariat. That's part of how 
national oppression and class exploitation 
interpenetrate (but they aren't the same thing). 

[mim3@mim.org replies: It's the "RCP-USA" saying they
are the same thing by denying the existence of Aztlan
and First Nations. It's the "RCP-USA" mushing together
the "multi-national proletariat" when their comrades
in their fraternal organization in Kanada do not include
themselves as part of the same multi-national proletariat!
In other words, the "RCP-USA" respects Kanada's national
identity, but not the First Nations's identity. Is it 
a coincidence that the "RCP-USA" recognizes oppressor
nations and subsumes the oppressed nations within? ]

amol continues:

EXPLOITATION AND SUPER-EXPLOITATION...

"National oppression is profitable for the 
imperialists. The people of the oppressed 
nationalities are in their majority members of the 
U.S. proletariat, and are super-exploited due to 
the national oppression they suffer—that is, the 
capitalists use the systematic segregation, lack 
of opportunity, and discrimination against these 
workers to pay them extra-low wages and thereby 
get extra-high profits. The capitalists also use 
the existence of this superexploited section of 
workers to drive down the conditions of the 
working masses overall." (UFuLP, Pt 2)

The minimum wage in Manila in the Philippines is 
about $5 per day; in the U.S., it is over $5 per 
hour. To a certain degree everyone living in an 
imperialist country has it "better." The majority 
of proletarians in the US have more or less 
consistent access to electricity and "clean" 
water. 

Does this mean there isn't a proletariat in the 
US? No. 

aftersorrow points to the superexploitation of 
some proletarians to negate the exploitation of 
other proletarians. Especially when aftersorrow 
says things like: "over one hundred dollars a 
week. maybe that isnt [sic] riches galore but it 
is enough to get by." 

There's shitty, run down housing in major US 
cities (and I'm talking real deal proletarian 
housing) that costs over $400 a month. Enough to 
get by? Maybe undocumented workers that can scrape 
enough cash together to send back home should be 
put in the category of labor aristocrats as well, 
since I suppose they "get by."

[mim3@mim.org replies: It is the "RCP-USA" using
vague standards throughout www.2changetheworld.info
like "living paycheck to paycheck."  That's not
an analysis of surplus-value. Capitalists go out
of business when they cannot "pay the bills." That
does not make them proletarians while they are
struggling to survive as a company.]

amol continues quoting from aftersorrowcomesjoy:

"In 1971, 31.8% of all households had air-
conditioners. In 1994, 49.6% of households below 
the poverty-line had air-conditioners." This 
example of air conditioning isn't quite the 
smoking gun aftersorrow thinks it is. There's a 
very simple (Marxist) reason why a product that is 
produced in greater quantity over a period of time 
should become cheaper over time (socially 
necessary labor time, the tendency of the rate of 
profit to fall, and other stuff like that)...but 
that's not really the point here. 


[mim3@mim.org replies: This is a very revealing
statement indicating that amol thinks that 
things like "socially necessary labor time" and
the "profit rate" are class neutral. It's echoing
perfectly Liu Shaoqi and the "theory of the 
productive forces." It's as if the world became
more productive by magic--by the wonder of capital.
However, that is not what Marxism says. In particular,
socially necessary labor time for Amerikkkans declines
simply because other countries are doing work for them!
That's right in Das Kapital, a basic point of Marxism.
For that matter, technology improves because someone
pays for it--namely the productive sector workers who
feed, clothe and shelter the mental workers. Not
surprisingly, amol is trying to say that the poor
in the united $tates are entitled to luxury goods that
raise them above the exploitation level and key to that
is making things Marx talked about class neutral.

So yes, aftersorrowcomesjoy showed "RCP-USA" the
"smoking gun" which directly refuted their point
and all they can come up with is the theory of the
productive forces in defense. Notice how MIM has the
facts at hand to precisely address what the "RCP-USA"
attempts to talk about--namely the very definition of 
exploitation--but the "RCP-USA" can't find any that
precisely address the question of 140+ million people
who constitute the majority of the u.$. population.]

amol continues:

aftersorrow's point is that poor people have too 
many things. They got VCRs, they got TVs, they got 
washing machines and microwaves (I guess the woman 
question doesn't exist in this realm anymore!), 
they got so much stuff they can't even make 
revolution. 

[mim3@mim.org replies: Individuals of any class can make revolution, but
that does not invalidate class analysis.
As Marx pointed out in the "Communist Manifesto,"
even the bourgeoisie could make socialist
revolution.]

amol continues:

If only the US imperialists knew that they could 
smother the flames of revolution in other parts of 
the world by installing air conditioning! This is 
the same kind of contempt for basic people that 
drips out of the mouths of bourgeois 
spokespersons. This misses the whole essence of 
the exploitation of the proletariat, of the dirty 
little secret of capitalism as Marx called it: 
stolen, unpaid labor time of the proletariat by 
the bourgeoisie. 

[mim3@mim.org replies: Giving luxury goods to people
to buy them out is exactly what the imperialists have
been doing to smother revolution and this has been
pointed out by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
It's still going on; though, as a labor bureaucrat,
amol is speaking for the labor aristocracy and seeks
to represent that class by denying that any buying off
is going on.]

amol continues:

As I understood it modern history was the history 
of class struggle, apparently aftersorrow thinks 
Playstation has changed all that. 

[mim3@mim.org replies: No it's still class struggle,
class struggle of the imperialists and their comprador
and labor aristocracy allies against the international
proletariat and exploited peasants. Amol just thinks 
there is no such thing as a petty-bourgeoisie
allied with imperialists, contrary to Lenin and Mao.]

amol  continues:

I think it's illustrative to look at the Draft 
Programme again: "There is a lower section of 
workers, numbering some 30 to 40 million, whose 
conditions of life and work are those of a 
downpressed proletariat...In the words of the 
Communist Manifesto, they are: 'a class of 
laborers, who live only so long as they find work, 
and who find work only so long as their labor 
increases capital'." (UFuLP, Pt 2)

[mim3@mim.org replies: Snore, zzzzz. Again,
30 to 40 million is a small fraction of the United
$tates. The oppressed nations alone are more than
that. In fact, MIM has said it is mobilizing the
bottom 20%, which is more than 30 to 40 million!
These "RCP-USA" people are not too good with math
or statistics, but instead of doing something about
it or following their leaders who can handle them
or making their leaders get on the ball, these
"RCP-USA" people are proud of their ignorance
of Lenin's statistical approach
and the basic overall conditions in the u$A.]

amol continues:

Does this not describe a section of the 
proletariat, the multinational proletariat? Now 
someone could say "hey white folks are so racist 
that they can't be won over to revolution" or 
something like that. And while I would strongly 
disagree with them ( since that view doesn't look 
at classes) I could see a certain (incorrect) 
"logic" to that. 

However to say that the above description from the 
Communist Manifesto doesn't apply to any white 
people (except maybe a few here or there) is just 
dogmatic, and is clearly cutting the toes to fit 
the shoe.

Especially when aftersorrow seems to imply that 
there's never really been white proletarians:

"I am saying that the white working class 
throughout history has been a thouroughly 
reactionary class- because of its allegiance to 
capital. It has constantly aided capital in the 
oppression of internally colonized people such as 
indigenous, New Afrikan, and Mexican people in 
order to obtain a piece of the imperialist pie-
expressed most clearly in the surplus value 
extracted from the third world finding its way 
into the wages of white workers etc." 

This seems to imply that white workers are part of 
the labor aristocracy because of traditionally 
backwards political views they've always held (so 
much for "data!"). 

[mim3@mim.org replies: This goes back to the 
"RCP-USA" view of the white working-class as a thing.
Instead of seeing that their political actions
contributed to the formation of the class structure,
the "RCP-USA" sees these white workers as passive
products of the imperialists alone, as if
the imperialists created them out of cookie
dough and cookie-cutters. (And some of us in the proletarian
camp think it's crackers not cookies, but that's another story.)

Let's try to see all this amol's/the "RCP-USA"'s way:
It's as if the imperialists took out some major cans of "whup ass" and
killed off the indigenous peoples by themselves and
took the benefits of land TO THIS DAY for themselves,
just  their imperialist selves. Then these
imperialists brainwashed the white workers to stand aside
while the imperialists whupped ass in country after country to
ensure the flow of cheap labor and raw materials. You did not
know it, but it was not the petty-bourgeoisie that has been
throwing those Arabs (including Bush's own secret service)
off the planes. No, amol assures us that the white petty-bourgeoisie
he calls a multi-national working class is too passive (a thing) 
for that to be going on. It must have
been one of those "Men in Black" "flashy-things" when the imperialists
came into the plane, took out the Arabs (Indians
or whoever was looking dark at the moment), flashed everybody and 
then got off the plane to make it look like the white petty-bourgeoisie
(mistakenly referred to as "workers") kicked the poor hapless travelers
off the plane for appearing Arab. Oh yeah, it was not the thousands
of war-mongering petty-bourgeoisie suing the Saudis for over $1 trillion for their
relatives' lives in the World Trade Center, when those same Amerikkkans
have never supported paying one one hundredth of that in reparations for any lives
lost in any other country thanks to Amerikkkan actions. Hey, did you see that
Vincent Chin guy get killed by the white workers complaining about losing 
their jobs? That was actually an alien job, yeah, an imperialist from another
planet. The white workers would not do that. Nah, the white workers?
Contribute to chauvinism? Contribute to war-mongering? Contribute to the
very political situation that creates the flow of super-profits?
They can't. They're just a thing. Oh sure, they have some residues of chauvinism
in their brain, but they don't take any action affecting their own
material circumstances. Not at all, they have no part in forming the class
structure. It's the imperialists who do all the action.

Or are you kidding? The white workers are so revolutionary, just like
Marx said a proletariat HAD to be to be called a proletariat. Didn't you notice?

Nah, the white petty-bourgeoisie (a.k.a. "workers") are just a thing.
It couldn't be them doing that war stuff, building
bombers, supporting union officials who want to build more and who then
call on the president to go to war in Afghanistan
or fill in the blank country. You must have been "flashied." 

Well, sorry, "RCP-USA" we at MIM just did not realize how quick those imperialists are,
getting in and out of class struggle situations and leaving us at MIM with the
impression that the white "workers" were actually active in all those struggles
that CREATED the very class structure of the united $tates. Now that we have
seen "Men in Black," we will take "those flashy-things" into account in the future.]

amol continues:

Is aftersorrow claiming that there has been a 
labor (white) aristocracy since Europeans 
colonized America; a labor aristocracy older than 
Marx himself? So much for Lenin's analysis of the 
labor aristocracy! 

The RCP, in contrast, defines the labor 
aristocracy as such: "A minority, but still 
significant number, of workers make up what Lenin 
called an 'aristocracy of labor.'...These workers 
tend to be highly skilled craft and precision 
production and repair workers, employed in various 
industries from construction to 
telecommunications. They receive crumbs well 
beyond what has been passed along to the 
privileged sections of unskilled and semiskilled 
industrial workers in mass production industries. 
They have become a more or less permanently 
bourgeoisified group." (UFuLP, Pt 2)

aftersorrow easily ignores things like the fact 
that there were large groupings of white workers 
(especially younger workers) who actually did get 
inspired and politically involved in the 'late 
'60's and early '70's in the US (to point to one 
example). 

[mim3@mim.org replies: those whites did that work
and made progress in their thinking and not
in other circumstances, because the rest of the
world treated the Amerikkkans as ENEMY and sent
them back in body-bags. Check it out: there has
not been as successful a peace movement or anti-
imperialist movement since then. Part of the reason
is that the enemy is not being correctly targeted.

Even so, let's be clear that progressive forces never
got the upper hand in the United $tates in the
1960s. They were a factor but it was the Vietnamese
who put themselves in a position to win. If the situation
were up to the white workers alone, it would have been
a loss.]

amol continues:

Had aftersorrow been around before the Bolshevik 
revolution he or she probably would have said 
"they'll never make revolution in Russia, they're 
just interested in pogroms."

[mim3@mim.org replies: This was not Lenin's position.
He held that the Western imperialist countries were
in fact more chauvinist than Russians. According to
Lenin, the two situations
are not directly comparable, even taking what Lenin
said before the development of World War I. The Russian pogroms
against Jews did not create a flow of surplus-value.
The pogroms against the First Nations did clear the land
and create half the wealth of the modern united $tates
known as "real estate." The genocide of slavery did create
more wealth. What wealth do you think the Russian pogroms
against Jews created for a Russian labor aristocracy? How
much was it? Again, one should never argue by analogy,
only by concrete analysis.]

amol continues for the "RCP-USA":
"HARD DATA"...

aftersorrow has a very un-Marxist version of 
"class analysis." It exposes itself: "it is based 
on data and statistical evidence- in other words 
it is a scientific class analysis." 

MLM isn't accounting and figures.

[mim3@mim.org replies: This Anglo-Saxon individualism
springs from the settler political economy of the united
$tates, so that even though the U$A is rich enough to
make a lot of scientists, the population resists statistics
like the plague. See Lenin address this in "Statistics and
Sociology" and many other places. Please abandon Lenin
so as not to make him appear like the philistine that
you are. Leave his name out of your beliefs.]

amol continues:

aftersorrow also creates a mess out of these 
"average wages" and such. What it shows is that 
ultimately aftersorrow takes nationality as 
principal over class because aftersorrow goes on 
to average wages based on nationality. To which I 
say, average the wage of a manager and low-level 
employee of the same nationality and you won't 
learn a damn thing about either one or the 
relationship between them! 

It seems as if taking nationality first and then 
classes aftersorrow's saying that there are a few, 
at best, proletarians in the "white nation." Even 
if this were true that would still make them 
proletarians. But where aftersorrow seems to get 
confused is that he or she looks at that as a 
phenomena within the "white nation" (cut off from 
the rest of the world) and says white people 
overall are reactionary--always have been, always 
will be. Once again, the proletariat is an 
international class. Looking at the "Black 
proletariat," "Chicano proletariat," gets it all 
wrong.

Now this is not to discount the racism and 
chauvinism that exists. As the Draft Programme 
says:

"In addition, the imperialists use the whole 
structure of white supremacy and the corresponding 
mentality that it breeds among whites—including 
even those who are poor, powerless, and 
exploited—as an important part of the 'social 
glue' that keeps the whole system together. Many 
white proletarians are seduced into thinking that 
they have a stake in maintaining privileges that 
result from white supremacy and thus in defending 
the status quo against their true class brothers 
and sisters. In this way, white supremacy sows 
deep divisions within the working class itself and 
seriously weakens its struggle." (UFuLP, Pt 2)

Combined with this it's true that oppressed 
peoples are "represented" in the proletariat in 
higher percentages than white people...but does 
all this add up to there being no white 
proletarians? No. aftersorrow still hasn't 
answered one question in particular: if someone 
white and someone from a different nationality do 
the exact same job and get the exact same pay in 
the exact same work environment do they belong to 
different sections of the working class? 

[mim3@mim.org replies: This is white hysteria plain
and simple. MIM has said over and over again and
aftersorrowcomesjoy has said over and over again that
there is a Black labor aristocracy. Our position
on this has been posted on the web for years. 
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/contemp/internalclass3.htm

The "RCP-USA" keeps raising this point as if MIM said there was no Black
labor aristocracy. No, the relevant issue at hand is why
the "RCP-USA" eclectically mushes together whites, Blacks,
First Nations, Aztlan people and Asian-descended people
into a multinational proletariat in the u$A while it
DOES acknowledge a SEPARATE Kanadian nation
and SEPARATE Kanadian proletariat. Is it their
social-patriotic worship of existing U.S. borders?
Or is it a plan for white supremacy with regionalized centers,
with one white nation dominating in each regional center?]

amol continues:

aftersorrow has pointed out things like the higher 
you go up (into the better-off sections off 
workers and beyond that the labor aristocracy) the 
"whiter" and more priveleged it gets. This is true 
but it dodges the question. 

You can't average the wages of white people who 
belong to all three sections of the working class 
and then declare there are no white proletarians.

Continuing in this vein aftersorrow says: "Their 
relationship to the means of production may 
indicate that they are proletarians- but their 
economic conditions- (which is the most important 
piece of class analysis in Marxism) tell us that 
they are not." 

To which I ask what do you mean by "economic 
conditions?" The title of labor aristocracy is not 
principally an ideological description. Going back 
to the RCP's definition again: "They receive 
crumbs well beyond what has been passed along to 
the privileged sections of unskilled and 
semiskilled industrial workers in mass production 
industries. They have become a more or less 
permanently bourgeoisified group." (UFuLP, Pt 2)

It should be pointed out that the labor 
aristocracy is actually paid well above their 
"value." How can this be? 

Check out Marx's "Wage Labour and Capital": 
"Wages, as we have seen, are the price of a 
definite commodity, of labour power...What, then, 
is the cost of production of labour power?...It is 
the cost required for maintaining the worker as a 
worker and of developing him into a worker...The 
price of his labour will, therefore, be determined 
by the price of the neccssary [sic] means of 
subsistence" http://marx2mao.org/M&E/WLC47.html 
(quotes taken from p.21-27)

Add to this the fact that labor power is a unique 
commodity because it is the one commodity that 
actually creates value and here's how workers can 
be paid above their "value" (i.e., above "the 
necessary means of subsistence") and still have 
surplus value extracted. 

[mim3@mim.org replies: Of course, this is a theoretically
possible situation to be in. It is possible that a class
of people would exist at such a level. Once again,
you won't find any concrete calculations 
regarding surplus-value PROVING it for the Amerikkkan "working class"
in any of this long post from amol. They have no data on 
surplus-value and therefore they are not Marxist at the "RCP-USA."
They argue strictly from quotations from books of other times
and places and without concrete reference to the class structure 
of the imperialist countries today.]