A brilliant Marxist and anti-imperialist author who went full lib after October 7th and disavowed all his previous works, calling it “false” and “one sided”. Has he responded after Israel committed an undeniable genocide and most if not all of their claims against Palestinian Resistance turned out to be projections?
His turn has made me question whether unequal exchange is sufficient to explain imperialism. There’s something in unequal exchange which gives me the sense of robbing the global south proleteriat of their agency. Don’t get me wrong; to libs this is how I primarily explain imperialism. But I feel personally it does not account enough for imperialism - maybe. And it may be the root of that deficiency is the same one that allowed Cope to be a zionist.
I have more reading to do.
I have a feeling that some proponents of unequal exchange focus too much on the exchange part. In this way, it can look like global north workers are appropriating the labor of global south workers, making them not just labor aristocrats but effectively capitalists.
And the crudest criticism of it is just a white guilt complex: the northern workers are bad for doing that, and the southern workers are passive victims.
Instead, we should follow Samir Amin, who, while “insisting that workers in the Global North benefited from the imperialist exploitation in unequal exchange, [also] indicated that this was invariably mediated by the reigning monopoly capital, which took by far the lion’s share of the appropriated surplus, worsening its own problems of surplus absorption as a result.”
The problem, as always, is capitalism, not (simply) a relatively privileged set of workers in it.
Samir Amin mentioned, my beloved
o7
The problem, as always, is capitalism, not (simply) a relatively privileged set of workers in it.
Which is something you are going to run into and deal with on a street level. This privileged set of workers would also, mostly, rather die than give up these benefits. History of racism in union organizing in the Western nations proves this, e.g Australia and Chinese workers.
Yep. Trying to organize such workers is hard enough. Getting them to learn and act on international solidarity often seems impossible. I wonder if that’s because many, especially in the US, can more easily imagine the end of humanity than the end of capitalism. The “it’s human nature” propaganda is nearly bone deep.
I should have said Cope’s unequal exchange instead of simply saying unequal exchange without qualification. I suspect his technicalities are correct but his conclusions of political action is rubbish.
I also feel labour aristocracy is an underexamined phenomenon by the likes of the PSL - they have no real answer yet on the question of labour aristocracy and more pragmiatically what they will offer settlers that is not bested by the imperialist state ie a materialist approach. White guilt is not a sustainable political movement though may be part of self-examination and class betrayal but it needs to have a real stake that the emamcipation of the global south worker is in his interest too materially.
I like the New Afrikan takes especially fellow lemmygrader ProbablyKaffe - awesome twitter feed - that imperial core workers are being pulled into one of two directions ie either lumpenproleteriat or labour aristocracy.
I am currently reading:
(Fogarasi - Lenin’s Teaching on Labour Aristocracy)
I found Edward’s Labour Aristocracy Mass Base for Social Democracy quite insightful (Amin is of course a goldmine, especially The Law of Worldwide Value).
As 6-6-6 mentioned, the monopoly capital class appropriates the lions share of extracted surplus value within the western system, leaving paltry pennies for the proletariat. Therein, even following the elimination of unequal exchange between the previous core and periphery following any revolutionary movement, exchange itself will still remain, and even with the core taking in less, with the absence of the capitalist class, the remaining profits could readily serve a number of public goods.
Especially in the United States, the proletariat hardly feel pampered as the class’ capitalist masters force the worker to dance for the chance of extreme medical debt, starving to desperately feed their children, and crumbling prospects. In turn, the PSL offering comprehensive universal healthcare, access to cheap, healthy food, improved working conditions, and improvements to civil infrastructure are all prospects leagues better than the laughable concession of cheap TVs the capitalists currently offer.
PSL offering comprehensive universal healthcare, access to cheap, healthy food, improved working conditions, and improvements to civil infrastructure are all prospects leagues better than the laughable concessions of cheap TVs the capitalists currently offer.
If that’s the case, to manage without touching the settler or LA question, then the DSA could get there quicker. Furthermore, the imperial state offered all these concessions before so if the PSL were ever a real threat why won’t the imperial state with ample more resources turn the tap on again.
Potentially, but the DSA is far more likely to devolve into a mere electoral drive to secure concessions from the capital class, rather than displacing the entirety of the rotten system. Are securing concessions bad? No. But the concessions should not be the end goal.
A social democrat approach also fails to eliminate the unequal exchange that fuels the system, which is a nonnegotiable prerequisite.
Concessions are only gained if you can mount a sizeable threat. What leverage does the PSL have that is similar to western workers leverage over the turn of last century using the USSR.
I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand your last sentence.
But if you’re trying to say that the PSL is an ineffectual non-threat, then I could readily point to the Bolsheviks themselves who began as a laughable organization in comparison to even the Menshiviks and were hardly able to threaten the system before growing into a meaningful political threat.
If your assertion is that the PSL is currently weak in your eyes and therefore utterly incapable of growing, expanding, evolving, or ever becoming a threat akin to the Bolsheviks, then why bother at all? Why shouldn’t the American worker sit on their hands or remain complicit to the system if any alternative is forever incapable of ever mounting a meaningful challenge? What choice is left beyond desperately hedging the hegemon to ensure the system does not collapse? Any structure is better than no structure, and without hope for a better future you might as well give up or give in.
I should have said Cope’s unequal exchange instead of simply saying unequal exchange without qualification. I suspect his technicalities are correct but his conclusions of political action is rubbish.
Gotcha. It’s always strange and disappointing when a correct analysis is coupled with bad praxis. But I suppose that shows that the analysis wasn’t situated in a wider Marxist or ML framework.
White guilt is not a sustainable political movement though may be part of self-examination and class betrayal but it needs to have a real stake that the emamcipation of the global south worker is in his interest too materially.
Agreed. Even worse, white guilt can lead to no action whatsoever, if the analysis is just “northern workers should give up their treats but they won’t”. As you say, it’s not until northern workers see their own liberation from capitalism as requiring (their support for the self-)liberation of southern workers that real progress can begin in the north.
nomen est omen, eh?
As far as I know, he hasn’t unborked his brain.
Its a real shame, because a few of his books, especially Divided World Divided Class are bangers, and should be required reading, and labor aristocracy theory and unequal exchange in general should be getting a lot more attention and scholarship than they are currently.
