| Theory |
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The Sakai-Gilbert Hypothesis: "White Settler Mentality" February 20, 2004 by RedStar2000 |
In a way, this is kind of the ultimate end of Maoism in the "west"...the search for oppressed "nations" that can conduct "people's war" within the advanced capitalist countries.
Prior to these posts, I was not even aware of the hypothesis put forward...so you may find that this collection is somewhat "rambling" (even by my standards!) as the details slowly emerge. There's quite a bit about basic Marxist economics, how capitalism works, the nature of the working class, etc.
It may seem a harsh verdict, but I'm getting the impression that Maoism is becoming "senile" in the "west"...more or less completely losing touch with current political and economic realities in a haze of nostalgia for past triumphs.
Well, you decide.
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Let's assume that David Gilbert's analysis is fundamentally accurate (it's certainly plausible).
Since many and perhaps even most "lefties" in the U.S. are white males from the "labor aristocracy" or even higher on the food chain, what conclusions regarding their political activity should they draw from Gilbert's analysis?
Should they form "support groups" for black and brown revolutionary groups?
Should they "go to" the black and brown proletariat...work at "those kinds" of jobs, adopt at least the veneer of black and brown "culture", "proletarianize" themselves, etc.?
Would the deliberate creation of a "mythology" of anti-racist white working class struggle be a "useful tool" in winning white workers to communism? How "mythological" would it have to be?
Are there other possible responses?
And then there's this: even if Gilbert's analysis is accurate, will it remain so as capitalism ages?
Does the "settler proletariat" ever become a true proletariat? Or does it "always" retreat into fascism (defense of white male privilege) as conditions deteriorate?
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Sakai’s general view of the history is that the masses of whites have advanced themselves primarily by oppressing Third World people - not by any means of class struggle.
This is confusing. Does Sakai suggest that white workers consciously decided that oppressing Third World people was "the way to get ahead in life"? Or is he simply reporting an economic "fact": the higher standards-of-living in the imperialist countries result from the oppression of Third World peoples and not as a consequence of class struggle?
It strikes me that, although plausible, there "has" to be a mistake in this analysis...because it leads into a "blind alley".
To the question "what is to be done?", it answers "nothing, really"...not if you are a while male leftist. If proletarian revolution takes place in the U.S., it "will be made" by "true" proletarians--black people and brown people.
In general, a theory that leads to an "absurd" conclusion should generate redoubled skepticism, should makes us especially cautious of accepting it. More and weightier evidence should be demanded.
But it's an interesting hypothesis...and could be right.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on January 22, 2004
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I think Gilbert is almost entirely correct. There isn’t a white working class in any revolutionary-politically meaningful sense. Does this mean that there will be no white resistance and solidarity with the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle? Of course not. It just means that class isn’t going to be the main basis of that solidarity.
If we dismiss class as the significant factor among white workers, what's left?
Why should "Jimmie the plumber" give a rat's ass for "the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle" (unless they try to draft his kid)?
As long as there's "cheap gas" for his truck, why should he care about Iraq?
Or take "Dilbert" (the Scott Adams cartoon character). He's got a pretty decent job in silicon valley...full of daily frustrations and humiliations, but he never worries about making his rent. I've actually known "Dilberts", a few of whom do express revolutionary sentiments. Oddly enough, they do talk almost entirely in terms of class...their own. They see "technical workers" as a class that ought to be "for itself".
Then there are the very "lowest" parts of the white working class--or "white underclass" as the bourgeois media refers to them. At this point they seem to be almost entirely motivated by religious, ethnic, and patriotic sentiments of the most reactionary character.
Will that always be the case?
And if class has no relevance to them, what will?
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There are all kinds of contradictions within the oppressor nation that exceptional whites can use to the advantage of the imperialized and captive nations. And, it is their duty to carry out tasks to aid the oppressed nations - if possible, under the leadership of vanguard organizations (I don’t necessarily mean Leninist vanguard). The specifics of "what to do" is going to vary greatly depending on where you are.
This sounds suspiciously like "support groups"...consisting, of course, of groupies.
Please correct me if I am mistaken.
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Like a labor aristocracy, it is a dead end to try to mobilize the so called white working class to the revolution on the basis of class - "bread and butter" issues. Why? Because the oppressor nation working class benefits as imperialism benefits.
Well, if a high-paid manufacturing worker loses his job because the factory moved to the Philippines and has to take a shitty job at Wal-Mart, is he still "benefiting" from the successes of imperialism?
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Well, on this, I’d say that the white working class is basically a labor aristocracy that isn’t going to be won to communism no matter what mythology you put out. However, I do think that revolutionary mythology can help win exceptional whites over. I think this is happening all the time in many ways. But, why does the revolutionary mythology have to be about a mythological working class? The mythology does have to take the form of some revolutionary imagined community that can inspire loyalty, dedication, no compromise, sacrifice. But this imagined community need not be the white working class. If it does take the form of mythologizing about some none existent white working class, then that is only a hold over from past.
I see your point. The thing is...I detest mythologies of any kind.
Since you agree with Gilbert--the white working class is "not going to be won to communism" no matter what--then I'm glad I'm not faced with the problem of the "noble lie".
I'll tell them the truth and they will ignore me...but, at least I get to tell them the truth.
As to "new mythologies" that will attract "exceptional whites"...I can only shake my head in despair. I can't see anything good resulting from such an approach.
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The myth of the revolutionary white working class is openly rejected in significant parts of the anarchist and radical environmental movement. I think this is exactly what you would expect [if] Gilbert was right.
Or perhaps it's a transient expression of despair typical in periods of reaction.
And there are some anarchists--the "platformists"--who take the white working class very seriously.
See, I'm willing to concede that Gilbert could be right. But if he is right, then guys like me (white workers) may as well just throw in the towel. I can't see myself cheer-leading other folks' revolutions and then begging for favors after they win.
It would be a "better the devil I know" kind of choice...one that I really don't want to be faced with.
If it happens that way, then it happens and I will have to deal with that. But the option of "helping" to make it happen that way is very unappealing.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on January 24, 2004
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...they think white workers are just a bunch of stupid, racist, beer-guzzling, philistine shit-bags. They hate and fear white working people -- and paint them all as if they were "one thing."
Put it one way: They think the Springsteen types are all fascist assholes.
I wonder how much of this image is directly due to the ruling class media? Are they likely to show white workers marching in solidarity with people of color against globalization, for example?
If they can find some "rednecks" willing to scream "nuke Baghdad" in front of a camera...aren't those the guys you'll see on the evening news?
I recall the major coverage of an incident back in the 1960s when some construction workers attacked and beat up some anti-war protesters. This unique incident was publicized and re-publicized to show how "far apart" the "workers" and the "hippies" were.
The facts were quite different. I recall going to a local meeting of the Communications Workers of America--looking around the large room, I could have been at an SDS convention--a mostly young white crowd, very casually dressed, quite a few beards and long hair, etc. (it was like an SDS convention in another way as well: the membership was most upset at the last minute cancellation of a planned strike and the leadership was relentlessly heckled throughout the meeting).
Many leftists in America, from an academic background, have little or no direct contact with ordinary working people. Naturally, they unconsciously accept a media stereo-type.
I'm reasonably certain it is probably the same for people of color; the only white "workers" they are likely to come into contact with are cops...the most overtly racist element in society.
One curious thing I've noticed about some white working people. They will repeat the stupid clichés about people of color...and yet try to be courteous and even helpful to people of color when they interact with them.
It is as if they somehow sense that racist behavior toward people of color is "wrong"...though racist "ideas" and mindless clichés are "ok". It's possible they might be reacting to the media's portrayal of their class: "I'm not a dumb Joe Six-Pack and I refuse to act like one".
My experience is that white workers are far more "multi-dimensional" (for want of a better word) in their thinking than they are given credit for. Like all of us, they have a mixture of progressive and reactionary ideas in their heads...but the contradictions are much sharper. Some of them can be very progressive and very reactionary at the same time.
For white revolutionaries, of course, there is little choice in the matter. "Giving up" on white workers means the end, pretty much, of any constructive political activity. You may as well move to Europe...or take up "theory-spinning". If you stay in America, all there is for you to do is start "fan clubs" for foreign revolutionaries.
Not very inviting.
Is there some way, that no one has yet discovered, to attack racist/nationalist/religious ideology among white workers? That is, some way that will really work?
Or is it a matter of "plugging away" at what we've always done? Doing our best to organize whites in protest of racism, imperialism, religious fundamentalism, etc.
Or perhaps objective conditions will change in such a way as to sharply reduce the appeal of these reactionary ideologies in an unexpectedly rapid fashion.
I think a lot of working people were very skeptical of Bush's imperial adventure in Iraq...and as the occupation drags on, that skepticism seems to be growing.
So we'll see.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 8, 2004
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I liked your post a lot!
It speaks to the real complexity of social reality...and the falseness of the one-sided "racist white working class" generalizations that come so glibly to the lips of some leftists.
It reminded me of an on-the-job incident that took place a long time ago in the deep south...when I was younger and bolder than I am now. I stood up to a racist boss in front of half-a-dozen older white workers (and skilled craftsmen at that). Only one of the other workers sided with the boss...and one of them also vocally sided with me. (!) While the others were initially non-committal, there was no hostility directed against me afterwards--my co-workers were just as friendly as before (except for the asshole, of course). And, mind you, all of these guys dropped "n's" all the time.
The boss was not a popular guy and there may have been some class solidarity involved there that I was not really conscious of.
But I do remember being kind of pleasantly surprised at the way the whole thing went.
Those who disagree with us about the future of the "white proletariat" will, I'm sure, remind us that the plural of anecdote is not data.
Which is fair enough, I suppose. They will argue that white workers materially "benefit" from racism and imperialism and will therefore support those things...indefinitely.
What they overlook, in my opinion, is that racism and imperialism are not "permanent" and "unchanging" social relationships. "Successful" racism has a different impact on white workers than "unsuccessful racism". "Successful" imperialism has a different impact on white workers than "unsuccessful imperialism". When people of color in struggle defeat some particular manifestation of racism, like it or not, that weakens racism as an ideology; and the same is true whenever imperialism suffers a military or political defeat abroad.
I think when "Joe Six-Pack" finds that racism and imperialism no longer "pay off", he will look for alternatives and, hopefully, revolutionary communist alternatives...if such are present and accessible.
But we shall see.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 9, 2004
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We need to identify trends and underlying dynamics, not start from the surface of current events.
Very well, try this...
We know that U.S. imperialism will require an ever-growing number of combat troops both for invasions and for occupations.
As always, these troops will mostly come from the working class...people who feel compelled by economic necessity to join the imperialist armed forces.
Because a large number of these volunteers are and will be people of color, the imperialist armed forces are the least overtly racist institution in American capitalism...probably by a wide margin. (To be more precise, the racism of the American armed forces is always directed outwards...against the "savages" who have the temerity to resist American power.)
Accordingly, what will be the effects on workers of all colors as they pass through this institution?
The "good news" is that it should serve to weaken racism among white workers...they will form a mental picture of "racial equality" that is not only non-threatening but seen as vital to their personal safety.
The "bad news" is that some people of color will strongly identify with imperialism...it seemingly offers them a part of "the American dream" (upward class mobility) that is really "theirs".
In the long run, this should result in a greater willingness of white workers to unite with workers of color in common class interests. After all, they've seen it can work in armed combat...why shouldn't it work against the boss?
But we will also see more "General Powell's" and the like...people of color who identify their own "success" in life with the success of imperialism. It won't be very pleasant to look at...or listen to.
Linked to these things is also the potential of success or failure of U.S. imperialism itself. We may find consolation in the knowledge that "empires always fall", but that's of little practical use.
It took a very large number of body bags--they call them "transfer tubes" now--to corrode support for U.S. imperialism in Vietnam among white workers. The ruling class knows what happened then and will not willingly be trapped into a similar situation...hence their rather desperate attempts to find other countries willing to supply a few troops, even a token force.
The workers, of every color, who return home from an "unsuccessful occupation" are most unlikely to support the next one...and indeed might well become visibly active in the next anti-war movement. They should appreciate, from first-hand experience, that the only Americans who are "in danger" from the Middle East are the ones who are there.
A note on methodology: one difficulty in locating and evaluating "trends" occurs in periods of reaction...when developments that may ultimately have revolutionary impact are still "below the radar". All of us probably know something of tiny struggles here and there which may be quite promising in some ways...but which are still far too small to have a measurable social impact.
There's a kind of "background" of class struggle that's always taking place in capitalist societies...we "tune it out" because we know it's something that's just always "there" and doesn't really "mean" anything important.
Except on those rare occasions when it turns out to mean something very important indeed.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 9, 2004
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We must recall that "having nothing to lose but chains" is the definition of proletariat.
Not exactly; that's the rhetorical definition from the pages of the Communist Manifesto.
The technical definition of proletariat in Marxist economics is any person who produces surplus value that is appropriated by capital.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 13, 2004
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First the definition of proletariat involves the defining of a CLASS, not establishing a label for "any person."
My, you're in a picky mood today.
Very well, I will rephrase:
The technical definition of proletariat in Marxist economics is that class of persons who produce surplus value that is appropriated by capital.
And that is the technical definition in Marxist economics.
All those folks that you want to "add in" to the proletariat--unemployed workers, housewives, children, retired workers, public workers, etc.--are fine with me. That would be a "Marxist sociological" definition of the proletariat.
You might use one definition or the other, depending on what kind of problem you wanted to analyze.
But your draft programme (RCP) clearly gets carried away with its own rhetoric...
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Their labor, collectively, is the foundation of society and produces tremendous wealth. But this wealth is stolen by a small number of capitalist exploiters who turn it into their "private property" and into a means of further exploitation.
Contrary to Proudhon, property is not "theft" and the capitalist class does not "steal" surplus value.
Surplus value is appropriated by capital without regard to the "moral character" of the capitalist -- who may or may not also be literally a thief.
It's an "impersonal" function of the capitalist economy that happens in every viable business enterprise, small or large.
Of course, it "feels like theft" to you and me and presumably to those who will give a sympathetic reading to your draft programme.
But technically it's not.
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There is a proletariat in the U.S. that is part of this international class. The U.S. working class is large and diverse. Within it, in its most exploited and nothing-to-lose sections, is a hard-core proletariat of many millions who can be the backbone of the revolutionary struggle. -- RCP Draft Programme
That phrase "nothing to lose" suggests a focus on unskilled workers and those, as you mentioned, who will probably never work at all.
A number of arguments, for and against this perspective, occur to me...but perhaps it would be better to save them for a separate thread.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 16, 2004
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I am amused by Redstar's invention of "technical marxism."...Obviously Marxism has some technical manual that I don't know about.
Yes, its name is Capital...and it is a most difficult work.
That's why I always recommend Wage Labor and Capital and Value, Price and Profit to those who want to read Marx for themselves instead of Lenin's or Mao's gloss on "what Marx said".
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It is kind of the wrong way to think about it, to say "here is the simplified technical model economic definition of proletarian.. therefore all this other stuff is an add on". What Redstar calls the "sociological definition" is obviously the more useful.
Almost always...but not always. And here's a good example of why we have to remember the "technical definitions"...
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Actually there are increasing numbers of skilled workers in the "real proletariat" (that hardcore within the working class) -- especially among immigrants who come work in factories here and are not paid anything like their native-born skilled counterparts.
In Marxist economics, skilled workers -- whether 10th generation Americans or "fresh off the boat" -- sell their labor power for the socially-necessary price of its reproduction. Any economic discrimination against immigrants can only be a temporary aberration -- other capitalists will hire away the under-paid skilled worker...and her/his wages will converge on that of native-born Americans with comparable skills.
If Marx was right, it has to work like that.
This is not to deny the "sociological" aspects of the question; mainly the survival of pre-capitalist superstitions of all kinds. They have been dying for a long time...but their death is a protracted one. And, on occasion, they are partially revived -- at least ideologically -- for capitalist political purposes.
Nevertheless, material reality prevails over ideological considerations.
Some guy may think he's "really getting away with something" by paying new immigrants less than the real market value of their labor power.
But, if Marx was right about how capitalist economics really works, that guy won't get away with it for very long.
Note 1: Actually, I don't consider "Marxist sociology" an "add-on" to Marxist economics...but rather a logical consequence. People don't exist, for the most part, as "social isolates"...they have siblings, spouses, children, etc., all of whom absorb the class outlook (to one degree or another) of each real proletarian.
Note 2: The question of "who" is a proletarian can be a thorny one...even when using a correct technical definition.
Consider a public school teacher. She sells her labor-power to the state at a price sufficient to reproduce another school teacher in the next generation. But the service she provides -- "education" -- is not "for sale" to an individual consumer by her employer...so there's no source of "surplus value".
Or is there? The state provides this service -- "education" -- to the community at large and charges for it in the form of taxation. If the charge exceeds the actual cost of the service, then surplus value is present after all...it's just "spread out" in a form where no one can be seen to individually appropriate it. It's appropriated collectively by the "education" bureaucracy.
Supposedly, state-owned enterprises are run to "break even"...but that almost never happens. Sometimes they run at a loss and sometimes they run at a profit, and, most interestingly of all, we never have any way of knowing which is the case for any particular enterprise. If corporate finance is a labyrinth of disinformation, public finance is a black hole of ignorance and lies.
So, a good Marxist "plays it safe" and says that public employees are probably proletarians. The "indirect" proof of that is that public employees frequently act "as if" they were proletarians.
It used to be said that workers did not go out on strike in the USSR because that would be "striking against themselves" as the collective "owners" of all public property.
But there actually were some strikes in the USSR...and the workers knew exactly what they were striking against: the appropriation of their surplus value by the state/party apparatus.
Those "technical definitions" can be very useful.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 17, 2004
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But, I think Sakai’s work is important, because it documents the history of white working class as a settler proletariat.
Emphasis added.
I went to Google(c) this morning and looked up some things by and about Sakai. While I was reading, it suddenly hit me.
All the "settlers" are dead.
The "great wave" of European immigration ended in 1921 or thereabout. So every white worker who came here with a "settler mentality" is either approaching the century mark or is dead.
Of course, cultural artifacts outlive their creators...sometimes for a considerable period of time. But the material basis for a "settler mentality" ended some time ago.
Even if Sakai/Gilbert were "indisputably" right about American history...their analysis would be increasingly irrelevant as time passed and the "settler mentality" faded from public consciousness.
I have no doubt that there are and will be capitalist ideologues who will try to revive, from time to time, the "settler mythology" for political purposes...but it seems to me that such attempts would fail -- "it doesn't make sense any more".
Anti-immigrant ideology can, perhaps, be seen as the "senile" form of the "settler mentality"...the "last hurrah" of what was once an important part of the "American civil religion".
But who watches "westerns" any more?
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 17, 2004
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Who watches westerns? Probably the same people who want to build a wall and use the military to keep Mexicans out.
But are those people significant?
I don't really think they are and whatever significance they do have will decline even further.
Most people, I think, have at least a "crude" understanding that it's not the immigrant who took your job; the boss took your job to another country where he could pay lower wages and have union organizers disappeared.
And I think that "crude" understanding will grow...because it's much closer to the real truth of the situation.
(What seems to be actually happening is that the job disappears altogether. The capitalist that shuts down his domestic plant and builds a new one abroad often uses the latest labor-saving devices, automated production lines, etc. He hires a much smaller number of workers, trains them extensively, and puts them to work.)
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As interesting as this is, this really isn’t what Sakai means by Settlerism. Sakai reserves the term for concrete kinds of national formations that have their origins in garrisoned colonies: USA, South Africa, Zionist Israel, N. Ireland, etc.
Yes, I gathered that. But the "settler mentality" that he claims displaces class consciousness has to be reinforced by real material conditions.
Will the Protestant "settler mentality" endure in Northern Ireland after it is reunited with the rest of that country?
Is there still a "settler mentality" in Australia or New Zealand?
What of Central and South America? Are the Hispanics in those countries still "settlers" as opposed to the indigenous populations? Or the descendants of African slaves?
Whites in South Africa are moving to Australia -- so I've read. And some young Israelis are moving to the EU...though Israel remains very much a "garrison state" -- probably the closest thing to ancient Sparta in the modern world.
My impression -- and I could certainly be wrong about this -- is that most people who are born and grow up in the United States today regard themselves as "native-born" in the same sense as someone born in England or France or wherever.
Time "legitimizes" conquest -- when enough time has passed, it no longer seems relevant to discuss "how it happened".
Is there anyone in England who still wishes to expel the Norman "settlers"?
Of course, the United States is a much younger "nation" and many memories are still relatively "fresh". Historically speaking, for example, the use of the phrase "occupied Mexico" to describe the territories conquered in the war with Mexico is fully justified.
But there's a difference and I think a crucial one. When we speak of "occupied Iraq" or "occupied Afghanistan", we are speaking of places where there are actual resistance movements to the occupations. American domination means something to those people and they find that meaning so distasteful that they're willing to fight and die to expel the invaders.
There's no resistance in "occupied Mexico"...at least at this point. There hasn't been any to speak of since the brief career of Pancho Villa.
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One version of this view says that racism is somehow a pre-capitalist hang up. So, as time goes on, racism will go away and capitalism will oppress all workers equally.
That seems to be the trend...which is not to deny, of course, the enormous weight of racism that still exists. But I expect things to look quite different in that regard by 2104...even if there has not yet been a proletarian revolution.
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The suggestion here is that Capitalism has a two faced nature. It is rational, scientific, anti-religious, etc. Yet, when it needs to it can bring all kinds of "pre-capitalist" barbarity to suffer on the oppressed classes.
Yes it can and at times it does. But as time passes, the "barbarity" becomes more obvious -- the measures taken clash more sharply with bourgeois ideology itself.
The more a capitalist ruling class resorts to "pre-capitalist" ideologies or methods or both, the more it discredits itself...even by its own standards.
To act in such a manner may well serve to "save their asses" in the short run...but it is a deadly risk. They know from their own history that "a simple little massacre" can blow up in their faces with disastrous consequences.
(And from an economic standpoint, of course, the more they depart from the "cold rational search to increase profit", they more they undermine the material foundation of their power and wealth.)
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Then there is the even more likely view, that genocide and racism are pretty much business as usual for an capitalist oppressor nations. Racism is not a hold over from pre-capitalism or whatever. It is an integral part of the system to justify its predatory and parasitic nature.
It's probably fair to say that the rise and fall of the "modern" slave economy (say 1500 to 1900, roughly) more or less took place simultaneously with the rise of modern capitalism...and the two forms were deeply involved with each other. Thus racist ideologies were constructed to "justify" slave economy...and, in a much diluted form, still survive.
But the material foundation of racist ideology (slavery) has been gone for quite a while; John C. Calhoun (d.1856) would be shocked and appalled by what passes for "racism" now -- he would consider it hopelessly weak and incoherent.
It's a dying ideology. Which should not be understood to mean that it would not be a "good thing" to help it die faster.
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Pat Buchanan has nightmares about barbarians at the gates, the re-conquering of occupied Mexico, and the downfall of the white civilization.
I daresay he probably does. And there are probably many millions of white Christian Americans (including many white workers) who share his nightmares.
But you understand that they are nightmares...those people "sense" that their most precious beliefs (racist, theological, imperialist) are not only "under siege", but losing the war.
Their worst fears are justified; they are losing the war.
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I think Sakai would say that Settlerism is very alive today and is perpetuated by imperialism, higher standards of living for white labor aristocratic workers, identity with the oppressor nation, etc. It’s alive in the fascist behavior of the white working class...
He could say it, but it would ignore the trend.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 18, 2004
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To answer your question in a simple way: Marx was wrong, or at least very incomplete...Pure evenly developed capitalism is not the historic trend.
Well, that's an empirical question where we can examine evidence and see where the balance of accuracy lies.
It's obvious that the development of capitalism over time is not "even" -- no argument there.
But what I would argue is that it's persistent...no place, however "backward" or empty of useful resources or even completely unpopulated is left to "rest in peace".
Right now, someone is designing Antarctica's first 5-star hotel...believe it!
Right now the Moscow-Vladivostok freeway is under construction...straight through the heart of the Siberian wilderness and the largest untouched old-growth forests in the world.
Right now (on another message board) there are some kids from India -- both Hindu and Muslim -- who are learning the painful lesson that not only is religion not worth killing for, it is intellectually contemptible. (Incidentally, they don't like hearing it at all...as if that ever mattered.)
Just as in Marx's day, capitalism continues to confront pre-capitalist economic forms, ideologies, religions, cultural traditions, etc....and eats away at them like a powerful acid or simply blows them up.
It's not necessarily a "pretty" thing to watch...you won't see much of it on the History Channel, much less CNN.
But as long as capitalism remains viable, this will continue to happen. And if capitalism were to last long enough...the whole world would be essentially the same.
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However, it’s not like you can just look at productivity and profit of *this* production cycle and really get a sense of how much real exploitation is going on. You need to look at things historically.
This would seem to imply that past cycles have to be "taken into account". But to what purpose?
We can't "change" the past; history has no "undo" button. We can act in the present to have some influence on the future -- but there's no way to "make things just like they would be if such-and-such had never happened".
You could say to American white workers, and be speaking truthfully, that "your present prosperity, such as it is, would not exist had it not been for generations of black slavery".
And s/he would reply, "so what?"
After all, s/he owns no slaves. In fact, her/his ancestors may have emigrated to the U.S. long after the end of slavery. And even if they were here during the slave era, they may have owned no slaves themselves.
My ancestry, for example, does (according to family legend) go back to colonial times. But "we" were mountain folk (in what became West Virginia) who had no use for slavery or the Confederacy. Though unwilling to be shot at by angry strangers, we did sell corn liquor to both sides during the war. (Only silver coins accepted; no shitty paper currency.)
Put it this way: a historical argument that's regarded on its face as implausible will carry little or no weight...even if it's true.
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The whole damn technologically advanced productive oppressor nation is parasitic; the oppressor nation is based on keeping large segments of the rest of the world down.
But the whole point of capitalist economic development (if Marx was right!) is that you can't "keep on" keeping down large segments of the rest of the world. Sooner or later, they will have bourgeois revolutions...even a whole series of them. Sooner or later, they will acquire the knowledge and skills required to compete against the old capitalist empires. Sooner or later, their old pre-capitalist ideologies and traditions will become shoddy commodities for the tourist trade. Sooner or later, they will have a modern proletariat capable of the next step forward.
An old-fashioned imperial despotism could enjoy untroubled rule for many centuries. Modern capitalism does not permit this.
When it comes to creating its own gravediggers, capitalism is in a hurry.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 18, 2004
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quote:
Actually the material basis of "racism" (i.e. white chauvinism) is not just slavery, but a larger historical phenomenon of white supremacy and domination over the Black nation.
This was originally rooted in slavery, but after the abolition of slavery there remained a deeply rooted structure of white supremacy (built on sharecropper semifeudalism). And after the abolition of sharecropper semifeudalism (i.e. the emergence of mechanized capitalist agriculture in the south), white supremacy remained, but was now rooted in the highly profitable national oppression of largely proletarian black people.
(Emphasis added)
Every argument I make may be "fundamentally wrong" -- at least as seen through the prism of Maoist theology -- but this statement is simply incoherent.
How does a capitalist make a profit of any significance from "national oppression"? In particular, how does he do so within the boundaries of his own nation?
From the standpoint of Marxist economics, that simply makes no sense.
Nation A conquers Nation B. Nation A compels the inhabitants of Nation B to enter the capitalist marketplace (usually be destroying Nation B's subsistence economy); a marketplace already dominated by the capitalists of Nation A.
When that entry begins, the capitalist "law of value" begins to take effect in Nation B; labor power is purchased at its social cost of reproduction and surplus value is generated -- profits which are either repatriated to Nation A or reinvested in Nation B or elsewhere.
If Nation B is annexed by Nation A and ceases to exist, then Nation A can impose its cultural artifacts on ex-Nation B -- force the people in the ex-nation to learn the language and customs of the conquerers.
But there's no "profit" in that; in fact, it's an expense.
Many years ago, I ran across a work that suggested that while imperialism is enormously profitable for the leading capitalists in an imperialist country...it can be a "loss-maker" for the imperialist economy as a whole. The costs of conquest, occupation, repression, etc. can be greater than the repatriated profits.
Of course, the conquering power gains prestige and influence from its successes...but converting such things into hard cash is not as easy at it looks.
Returning to the specifics of American history, while African-Americans have developed a rich ethnically-based culture, the appeal of nationalism has always been marginal. No significant number of black people in North America have ever articulated specifically nationalist aspirations -- which is not to say it will never happen...but the material conditions are unpromising. First they were slaves and then they were quasi-serfs -- and racism was the ideological "justification" for those relations of production.
But now they are workers...and a great many of them live "just like white folks", while overt racism has "a bad image".
It is true that that African-Americans still suffer from the overt and explicit racism of the "criminal justice" system; but you know as well as I that "this too will pass". For one thing, capitalists don't "like" riots that result from police violence -- they are "bad for business".
Maoists have a marked tendency, it seems to me, to see "proto-nations" everywhere...even where they don't exist. "Nationhood", it must be remembered, is an ideological construct -- not some kind of "organic" phenomenon.
I really don't see it as the task of communists to get involved in "nation-building".
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 19, 2004
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quote:
But, since you seem to believe that the majority of American workers are revolutionary or potentially so at the moment, then it seems that there is a bit of a burden here for you to show why it is that the American workers have historically tended to support imperialism and fascism and not internationalism and communism.
Emphasis added.
No, I don't think they are revolutionary, actually or potentially, "at the moment".
My point all along is that they will become potentially revolutionary when imperialism runs into difficulties; the greater those difficulties, the more revolutionary they will become.
Your thesis appears to be, if I don't misunderstand you, that American workers will embrace fascism if imperialism runs into difficulties -- and the greater the difficulties, the "more fascist" they will become.
Obviously, there is evidence which supports both arguments...but it seems to me the greater evidence is "on my side". In periods of economic crisis, American workers have generally moved to the "left" while in periods of prosperity and imperialist "success", they have moved to the "right" or at least to the "center".
Indeed, this seems to be a pattern that has existed throughout the capitalist world generally...there may possibly be some occasional exceptions, but none spring to my mind at the moment.
quote:
I don’t know how you can think these are things of the past.
I don't think they are "of the past"...I think rather that their days are numbered, that they are (slowly) fading...at least to the extent that they are genuine pre-capitalist cultural artifacts.
Some of them may not be; prison slave-labor may well emerge as a prominent feature of late capitalism itself...I think it's too soon to tell, but it could be happening that way.
If so, this is a "loser" for the system as a whole, even if incredibly profitable for the corporations that "employ" prison-slave labor. The reason is that someone must pay the cost of repression and incarceration -- enslavement -- which is far higher than employing wage labor.
Shifting that cost onto the working class (probably in the form of increased consumption taxes) can only result in alienating workers even more.
quote:
You seem to think the average white member of the middle strata who has a house, car, TVs, pets, etc, is just captive to "bad ideas" or suffering from false consciousness or something. I think they are well off, they know it, and are very aware that their interests do not lay with mine. On the international level, they support war pretty consistently. So, YES, they are very significant facts that you have to explain.
They are, by your standards (and mine, for that matter), "well off". I think their feelings are "mixed" by their own standards; they often measure their "achievements" by what they see on television -- you could call that "being captive of bad ideas" if you like.
On the international level, they are pro-successful war. A ruling class so inept as to start losing imperialist wars is in deep trouble.
If you assume that U.S. imperialism will go from success to success indefinitely, then I think your view would prevail -- the American working class would never even remotely approach revolutionary class consciousness and a sizable proportion would probably end up with a quasi-fascist ideology.
But I ask you: is that going to happen? Will America someday "rule the whole world" and be "the eternal empire"?
Is there anything in history to suggest that as a realistic perspective?
I recall reading some time ago a book on the last days of the western Roman Empire. The point was made that many ordinary Romans were so totally disgusted with the Empire that they deliberately "opened the gates" to the barbarian invaders...even when they were pretty sure that they'd be (initially) worse off under barbarian rule than under the rule of the imperial aristocracy.
Any alternative was preferable to the continued rule of the crooks and incompetents that they had come to despise.
In the end, why should not American workers be at least as perceptive?
quote:
Revolution is about redistribution of wealth.
Not exactly. Communist revolution is about the abolition of wage-slavery and class society. It's not "just about the money".
Which leads to an interesting possibility. When your living standards are depressed to the point where daily survival has to be your highest and even only priority, revolution "is about the money"...you'll have a marked tendency to support any political cause that plausibly promises to get you some more of what you so desperately need.
On the other hand, what of a "well-off" working class in a fully "westernized" country that (1) sees it's living standards stagnate or even decline; and (2) has become at least vaguely aware that all the "stuff" doesn't really compensate for wage-slavery?
Or, how is it that whenever the "left" enters a period of growth, the initial impulses seem to come mostly from a lot of pretty well-off kids who seem to "have everything"? Why the hell should they care?
The only explanation that makes sense to me is that they can, by observing their parents' lives, develop a suspicion that a lifetime of wage-slavery, even at the "highest" levels, leaves...something to be desired.
"First comes the grub; then comes the morals" wrote Bertolt Brecht. Perhaps a communist consciousness can only develop among those who've already seen the bourgeois "road to suck-cess" and want no part of that.
quote:
I think it is important to remember we are talking about two things, although they are involved with each other: Settler parasitism and neo-colonialism. Both are kinds of parasitism.
I'm unclear on your meaning of "parasitism" in this context. It would seem you are suggesting something "above and beyond" the routine exploitation of wage labor that takes place wherever capitalism is the dominant economic system.
Or do you mean parasitism in a "moral" sense?
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on February 23, 2004
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