As the subject implies, I, an American leftist, have two questions for Third-Worldists.
First, if quality of life is too good here for your average American to be driven to revolution, and said quality of life is dependent on exploitation of the Third-World, shouldn't it follow that, as the American Empire's power falters, our quality of life will worsen, thus creating revolutionary conditions here?
Second, if our current quality of life is only achievable by exploiting the Third World, how is it that China is able to meet and in many cases surpass us in that regard without resorting to imperialism? Unless I'm missing additional context, the only conclusions that could be drawn are either that China is actually imperalist, or the claim that Western-level quality of life can only come from exploitation is bunk, and neither of those sits well with Third-Worldism as an ideology.
I'm specifically looking for answers from people born and living in the Third-World, since Western born Third-Worldists tend to be self-loathing academic types, although I will accept answers from Western Third-Worldists that aren't mentally cucked.
>>2452552There are types of third-worldists.
- ACP. Pro-US Pro-Russian
- Sakaists. Anti-US
- Maoists. Anti-US Anti-China
>>24523741. Maybe, you will more likely just become nazis though
2. Socialism
>>2452374Okay, on Empire Faltering and Revolution
Your logic implies Empire falls -> Standard of living drops -> Revolution happens.
But crisis doesn't automatically make people socialist. It makes them desperate. Without a strong left movement to point the finger at the real cause (capitalism/imperialism), that despair gets channeled into fascism, racism, and scapegoating. See the 1930s. A falling empire is more likely to bring barbarism than revolution unless we're organized.
About China "Disproving" Imperialism:
You are presenting a false dilema, either China is imperialist, or the theory is bunk.
The key is history. The West built its wealth over centuries via slavery, genocide, and direct colonial plunder. Their system is built on external exploitation.
And China developed in 40 years primarily through the inherently superior science of social development which is communism and Marxist theory. It used its massive population for labor, while understanding the worker's standard of living IS the economy, and had the state capture and reinvest the surplus itself instead of letting a foreign power siphon it off, thus ending poverty for billions
China’s path shows a high standard of living isn't technologically impossible without invading others. It shows that a state can use its own people for capital accumulation instead of relying solely on extractivist neo-colonial exploitation. It’s a different, model of development with its own huge costs.
Before you quote Empire of Dust, that's pure Belgian colonialist and neoliberal-scientifically racist propaganda cope. The DRC had a bloody colonial history and genocidal exploitation under Leopold, then a fascist western backed regime when the country was named Zaire, and just now gives steps towards betters among intense distortions caused by its past with a corrupt and neocolonial extractivist ruling class as is endemic in much of the so called Third world
The bottom line is the theory isn't that wealth is magic. It's that the West's specific path to wealth was built on and requires external theft. China took a different scientifically advised path. And the goal is to erradicate all exploitation, foreign and domestic.
>>24523741. Lack of proper socialist movement + complete mental saturation of false consciousness means the West will likely double down and go full fash.
2. China largely exploits itself, a still developing economy, and a massive population, still means there is a Rural-Urban "imperialism" stage.
>>2452573I always forget to factor fascism into the equation because it's so transient. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a fascist state that even hit the 50 year mark, and that's highballing it.
>>2452613>Before you quote Empire of DustI think you have me misunderstood. I don't think China's imperialist. Honestly, I think their foreign policy is the most impressive thing about them.
A claim I frequently see from Third-Worldists, at least online, is that the US will never have a revolution because it would only decrease our quality of life. The existence of China seems to contradict this, since they don't practice imperialism at all, and yet their quality of life is as good as any Western state. Yes, the US's development model is based on exploitation, but the whole point of a revolution is to change that development model, isn't it? If we were to adopt a development model similar to China's would we not be able to achieve a similar standard of living?
>>2452374>as the American Empire's power falters, our quality of life will worsen, thus creating revolutionary conditions here?True
>Second, if our current quality of life is only achievable by exploiting the Third World, how is it that China is able to meet and in many cases surpass us in that regard without resorting to imperialism?Through socialism. Socialism is more efficient thna capitalism, that's why socialism is DESTINED to win eventually, and why imperialism isn't forever.
Not third-worldist btw
>>2452374>First, if quality of life is too good here for your average American to be driven to revolution, and said quality of life is dependent on exploitation of the Third-World, shouldn't it follow that, as the American Empire's power falters, our quality of life will worsen, thus creating revolutionary conditions here?Correct. The USA will get there eventually. It's the natural tendency of capitalism. Third world countries are farther along.
>if our current quality of life is only achievable by exploiting the Third WorldIt is not only achievable by exploiting the third world. But it's current existence is dependent on the exploitation of the third world because the infrastructure and logistics necessary for self sufficiency in the first world have not been built and building them would take decades. First world bourgeois and their third world collaborators have built up a system whereby natural resources (minerals, crops, fuels) and labor can be extracted by private companies (whether it be directly by a company like Shell or BP or by a series of subsidiaries and puppets that obfuscate the connection), and they and the companies they spawn to manage them can be speculated on which in turn gives them access and control over a global financial system that they largely control.
>how is it that China is able to meet and in many cases surpass us in that regard without resorting to imperialism?Because china developed the infrastructure and logistics to be self sufficient. This was possible because china has nuclear weapons and is separated by the pacific ocean from the USA. The nukes allowed the PRC true sovereignty and the freedom to pursue development without fear of military or subversive intervention.
>>2452374>if quality of life is too good here for your average American to be driven to revolutionthats debatable and highly stratified
>and said quality of life is dependent on exploitation of the Third-World,not necessarily depends what you mean
>shouldn't it follow that, as the American Empire's power falters, our quality of life will worsen, thus creating revolutionary conditions here?it is, thats whats happening for like 50 years. even without the recent failures the rate of profit declines and social services get clawed back to make up
>if our current quality of life is only achievable by exploiting the Third Worldsee if by dependent you mean "only achievable" then thats wrong. people dont think that and its not true. the claim that some third-worldists hold is that thats the way it is, not that its the only way to achieve that quality of life.
>how is it that China is able to meet and in many cases surpass us in that regard without resorting to imperialismimperialism isn't a policy that you "resort" to, its a stage of capitalism determined by market consolidation into monopoly and falling rate of profit driving extra territorial expansion
>how is it that China is able to meet and in many cases surpass us in that regardby being communist. instead of appropriation of surplus value by individuals for profit strategic industries are controlled by the state under the direction of a communist party and from the value produced a portion is deducted by the state to cover for replacement of the means of production used up and a second additional portion for expansion of production, as marx explains in critique of gotha, for the primary stage of communism as the productive forces are increased by a democratic plan to fulfill the needs of the population.
>>2452565the first are not third worldists and the second two are the same.
>>2452770>A claim I frequently see from Third-Worldists, at least online, is that the US will never have a revolution because it would only decrease our quality of life. the claim that such people would probably be referencing is labor aristocracy. engels and lenin both talked about how the british working class at the hieght of the british maritime empire were almost entirely composed of labor aristocrats, but then later they said that this was no longer the case, that labor aristocrats were only a small section representative of which would be corrupt union bosses.
thirdworldists today might believe revolution in the us is impossible because they think the whole or majority of the population is paid off. consider the low union membership and the historic ties to organized crime. there is a hint of this in well off sectors like employees of defense contractors or big tech who may openly recognize and identify with imperialism but see it as a sort of liberal civilizing mission. its debatable. i think even in the highest estimates its only 30-40%. most dont even vote and are destitute/disengaged
>If we were to adopt a development model similar to China's would we not be able to achieve a similar standard of living?yeah basically, but you dont really need much of the development. a bit sure but mostly just reorganizing things. the reason the west is imperialist is because they have to appear to be helping everyone by building and inventing stuff or whatever while also lining their pockets. again it goes back to the monopoly. lenin calls it the highest stage because of its high level of development in capitalism. as capitalism develops market competition leads to consolidation into monopoly. monopoly impliments the newest technology across its domain. this increases ratio of constant capital in machines to variable capital in labor which suppresses the rate of profit so you have to pay people less or expand into more territory. thats why they do both and switch back and forth when they lose war adventures. if you didn't have that then you wouldn't have to have the imperialismo.
>I always forget to factor fascism into the equation the fascisms when you lose wars and have a strong labor movement but not strong enough for revolution. so they try to suppress wages after getting denied territory and the workers fight it, state brings out the death squads and you lose. its the next step after imperialism. thats why they say socialism or barbarism
>>2452374>shouldn't it follow that, as the American Empire's power falters, our quality of life will worsen, thus creating revolutionary conditions here?The opposite is the case because imperialist living standard is actually going up because the treats keep flowing. Socialist Syria fell (imperialists dont care because they get more treats)
>Second, if our current quality of life is only achievable by exploiting the Third World, how is it that China is able to meet and in many cases surpass us in that regard without resorting to imperialism? Unless I'm missing additional context, the only conclusions that could be drawn are either that China is actually imperalist, or the claim that Western-level quality of life can only come from exploitation is bunk, and neither of those sits well with Third-Worldism as an ideology.This is because you are a stupid fat ameriKKKan that projects your problems because you cannot grasp true nature of your evil imperialist ways
>>24523741. Yes, and this is why communists in the imperial core should primarily work to isolate their countries internationally. Bribery of our working class is only one facet of the issue. They can also ship radicals off to camps in colonies, they can have military supply chains that are not subject to domestic order or disorder, they can draw soldiers from colonies in exchange for an imperial lifestyle, they have foreign capitalists and countries that are financially invested in our currency and therefore will support our state's stability, and so on. We can't do revolution for many reasons, not just the bribery. In the US for example there has always been a bribed segment and an super-exploited segment of the working class. So there are people here who would rise up, but the critical mass isn't there. With bribed workers on the side of the ruling capitalist class, we can't win. The goal should be to methodically organize and for now primarily only mobilize on the basis of hurting our state's foreign and imperial ties, until we bring about a situation where revolution is possible.
2. socialism, or at the very least hardcore keyenesianism
>>2452613AI?
>>2452714True bro
This is “price scissors” brought up by Trotsky.
>>2453578Funny.
>>2453571>The opposite is the case because imperialist living standard is actually going up because the treats keep flowing.Is that actually true though? I live in the US, and I can tell you confidently that, on my own end, things have only gotten worse, not better. There's a lot of things that I could reasonable afford to buy or do five years ago that I simply can't now.
>Socialist Syria fell (imperialists dont care because they get more treats)Is this the general trajectory of things though?
>This is because you are a stupid fat ameriKKKan that projects your problems because you cannot grasp true nature of your evil imperialist waysI'm not really confident what you're trying to say here, I'm afraid. I don't think imperialism is a good thing. Quite the contrary, I'm calling into question the notion that it's necessary for the kind of quality of life we see in the West.
>>2453578Lol, get a job.
>>2453620>the bloated labor aristocracy of the imperial core just makes it pretty much impossible.And my question is, how long do you think the labor aristocracy has? The bourgeois have been on a steady trend of undoing FDR's work since the 1970s, which was before most of us were born.
>>2453567> why does it need to be pointed out?So you shut yo cracker ass up asking why socialists maintain wage slavery and alienation and mostly “discipline” proles in their own country and not capitalists, stormtroopers, or whatever the fuck
If you weren’t a fucking honky you’d know moldy bread, an extra railroad, and red flags everywhere is enough for an African worker!
>>2454053>>reducing imperialism to when specific bourgeois policyWhat mean is that China is able to have a high standard of living and isn't imperialist. Please don't get caught up on my possibly questionable word choice.
>>2454059Get a job.
>>2454637>>2454067There are still forms of welfare that redistribute wealth, and there are subsidies, grants, small business and home buyer loans, etc. Also suburbs. There are many ways that tax dollars extract from the working class as a whole, and then preferentially redistribute it to mainly white, rural, and suburban, relatively wealthier, members of the working class. And compared to cobalt mining children in the Congo we're all better off. The price hikes/inflation, IMF style city takeovers, gentrification, that's all just part of re-proletarianizing a previously paid-off workforce. So we've been losing it, but there's more to lose still.
And at the same time we should prepare for increased, not decreased, exploitation of the previously super-exploited, because it's all driven by the need for more and more profits in a system where competition produces less and less profits. The one reliable way to squeeze out more is from the workers. Also means they
need a labor aristocracy more than ever. It's shrinking, so that means it needs to grow qualitatively, in it's mobilization supporting the super-exploitation. We're in fascism times, where everything gets worse and the minority who it's not getting worse for all use violence to maintain their middle class illusion. If we can beat this, next stop is proletarian democracy
>>2454052>China isn't imperialistLol
Lmao, even
>>2452374>our current quality of life is only achievable by exploiting the Third World, how is it that China is able to meet and in many cases surpass us in that regard without resorting to imperialism? Unless I'm missing additional context, the only conclusions that could be drawn are either that China is actually imperalistlmao, this lil passage is one of the most revealing. I am glad you added that little qualifier there or I may have got a tad hot under the collar.
You are missing, I dunno, a whole lot.
>>2452613>You are presenting a false dilema, either China is imperialist, or the theory is bunk.Basically, I could bring out all the old bangers but I will just leave you with our friend, here.
I will just jot down some notes/suggestions that you may or may not be able to take on board.
First, game's already over. Your empire is in the process of crumbling. There is not gonna be a Deus ex Machina that revitalizes and brings NATO+ back to immense, overpowering strength. You can accept that or not but that time has past. And the world breaths a sigh of relief.
There is of course in this little dilemma of a dichotomy you have presented us, a secret third option. I won't even try to get into that old "discussion".
Real wages for U.S. workers, both union and nonunion, have fallen to about 11% below their 1973 level, despite strong growth beginning in the late 1980s. (26) Higher than average profits have accrued, first and foremost, to capital, allowing increased investment; and to the professional-managerial middle class in the form of higher salaries.
Nor are the “benefits” of increased profitability and growth due to imperialist investment distributed equally to all portions of the working class. As we will see below, the racial-national and gender structuring of the labor market result in women and workers of color being concentrated in the labor-intensive and low-wage sectors of the economy.
Whatever benefits all workers in the global North reap from imperialist investment in the global South are clearly outweighed by the deleterious effects of the expansion of capitalist production on a world scale. This is especially clear today, in the era of neoliberal “globalization.”
Although industry is clearly not “footloose and fancy free” as some theorists of globalization claim – moving from one country to another in search for the cheapest labor (27) – the removal of various legal and judicial obstacles to the free movement of capital has sharpened competition among workers internationally, to the detriment of workers in both the global North and South.
The mere threat of moving production “off-shore,” even if the vast majority of industrial investment remains within the advanced capitalist societies, is often sufficient to force cuts in wages and benefits, the dismantling of work rules and the creation of multi-tiered workforces in the United States and other industrialized countries. Neoliberalism’s deepening of the process of primitive accumulation of capital – the forcible expropriation of peasants from the land in Africa, Asia and Latin America – has created a growing global reserve army of labor competing for dwindling numbers of fulltime, secure and relatively well paid jobs across the world.
Put simply, the sharpening competition among workers internationally more than offsets the “benefits” of imperialism for workers in the global North.
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/atc/128.html>>2454812It's a distinction without difference (where the profit is ultimately "realized"). Or actually, to be precise, "exploiting" (see what I did there) the counter-intuitiveness of the term exploitation (marxist) by collapsing it with the folk, regular definition.
Simple question, are we, the fat, stupid and happily resource gobbling westerners, hopefully put to the sword in the medium term, more or less exploited than a factory worker around 1900? What is the exploitation grade or rate of the avg CEO (or a guy with >1mill dollars yearly salary). I could of course go on.
So, you may pretend at something else, but you are basically playing a semantic game. What would Fred Hampton think?
>>2454819>Simple question, are we, the fat, stupid and happily resource gobbling westerners, hopefully put to the sword in the medium term, more or less exploited than a factory worker around 1900?more. across industries, workers in more industrialized countries are always more exploited than those in less industrialized ones. western porkies exploit western workers primarily
>What is the exploitation grade or rate of the avg CEOthe rate of exploitation tends to sit around 100% no matter when or where you look. sometimes there are more or fewer porkies sharing that pie, but for workers it tends to be the case that they spend half the week working for their wages and half the week generating profit
>>2454832for most people "exploitation" means "poor working conditions". but in the Marxist sense higher exploitation often goes with better working conditions, not worse ones
>we work far lesshttps://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-work-week-by-countryseems it's a bit more complicated. you have countries like Yemen, Mozambique, Chad, Ethiopia, Somalia, Syria, Iraq etc that have working weeks on par with western Europe and Scandinavia. USA is worse than Congo(!)
>consume far morethis is true
>>2454775>There are still forms of welfare that redistribute wealth, and there are subsidies, grants, small business and home buyer loans, etc.What are you a Republican? America's welfare state is worse than some third world countries.
>And compared to cobalt mining children in the Congo we're all better off.That's also true of much of the third world, which is also another major problem with third worldism. Blaming higher living standards for worker passivity is blaming something that's entirely subjective and relative. The average Brazillian or Southeast Asian lives much better than most of sub-saharan Africa, and coincidentally those countries (minus Vietnam and Laos) themselves have no serious communist movement to speak of. So where is the cutoff point? How low can living standards be and still have the same effect? Moreover because these things are relative and highly contextual, its impossible to create a universal principle. The slightest cuts to welfare or labour rights will provoke months of riots in France, even if what is being proposed is still light years ahead of what American workers can expect. Meanwhile people in Brazil live in conditions that few Americans would accept, and yet they fail to produce a revolutionary movement. Third worldists can never explain these discrepancies.
>>2454902Point is that is beside the point, that is precisely the point.
Disconnected to the point of autism.
https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/far-right-neoliberalism/>these discrepancies>people in Brazil live in conditions that few Americans would acceptWhat precise discrepancy? Oh I don't care it's that nonsense. I get it, this is economism in addition to some particularly whiny form of chauvinism.
We will, after all, just wait and see.
Have a nice terminal decline, buddy.
Brazilians, by and large, even with the evangelical yoke (or is it joke) etc. are still far more politically advanced than the common westoid.
Anyway, I can't even tell what is argued here. One time everything is relative (whoa man), then there are concrete discrepancies. The refrain of the liberal is "nothing matters". One day I will be on that side, then on the other of such and such issue. What remains, is "we" are superior, no matter how retarded we are collectively. Scourge of humanity, innit?
>>2454839>Literally just seething that pale people conquered the world instead of brown people<Can’t even be arsed to pretend he wants anything more than to commit genocide in the name of capitalThe limp wristed spineless hitlerism of turd worldists is so tiring
Don’t even bother pretending like they wouldn’t slaughter proles and destroy every forest in the world in the name of race and capital, but it’s ok because they worship the noble savages rather than the western barbarians
Yes, yes, every day I pray to a higher power (Superman) to wipe you off this planet.
Then the world will once again be free.
You are so deep in your chauvinistic, relativizing mindset you are unable to see the first thing about real relations in the real world.
At least the right-wing of the western political class (etc.) isn't trying to win (or present themselves as some super special savior of humanity, one way or another) with retarded word games.
>You are with us or you are the enemy
>That's it
>no the genocides, rapes, murders, assassinations, stealing, coups, Etc.
etc.
>will not stop
Now, we are on the same page? Good.
I just cannot (cannot! even if I try) see anymore too much difference between them and you besides cosmetic (what is it, lipstick on a pig).
You know where you can put your democratic socialism. "ultra"/liberal-trash. No, you are not even democratic in the first place, never-fucking-mind anything more.
Peace through strength. I think the message will be received by the "other side" (exploited world majority, call it whatever you like).
Ok let's pretend. All we do here is pretend.
Pretend either you and/or me are still a party to this conversation that can be reasoned with.
Give me an out here. I will, in all honesty (brutal, I know) tell you what I see. I look at you and all I see is the old-school face of fascism. The true face and "endpoint" (but now we learn, it is in fact cyclical) of liberalism. A new mask, slightly updated but that is all. A thin veneer it is.
After The Don, the JDPON? No.
Ok what do you intend to propose as alternative?
I'm fucking all ears here, I'm fucking Andrew Marr here.
Give me your poor, your oppressed, your huddled masses. But what good are they if they are politically less than useless (to put it in neutral terms)? Violence must be answered. Fascism, exterminism (etc.) will be answered, one way or another. Who is doing practically all the violence, historically and currently? Is it the West or the enemies (victims) of the israel and genocide-loving w*stern bloc?
>>2454905>are still far more politically advanced than the common westoidBy what metric? Because they elected a social democrat like Lula? Dude won't even let Venezuela into BRICS.
>Anyway, I can't even tell what is argued here. It's pretty straightforward actually. I'm making two points here. First, rather than there being a clear dividing line between the first and third world, countries can be placed on a rough spectrum depending on their wealth and living standards. Many countries that are considered "third world" are closer in living standards to the first world than they are to the bottom of the barrel third world countries (e.g. Iran's HDI is cloder to Western Europe levels than it is to sub-Saharan Africa). If the relative prosperity of the imperial core is enough to placate the workers there, then why does the relative prosperity of the near periphery not have the same effect? Second, we can see through the example of France that simply having high living standards or a robust welfare state doesn't always equal a lack of militancy. High living standards also creates a lower tolerance for hardship, meaning that third world workers regularly endure conditions that would cause first worlders to riot. In other words the conditions that would cause unrest in the first world are still often much better than the everyday conditions in much of the third world. This means that first worlders do not necessarily need to reach third world conditions before they revolt. This is borne out by the fact that there is really no communist revolutionary movement to speak of in most of the third world either.
>>2454938Yes everything is on a spectrum. As are you.
Or graded on a curve.
That's all from my side to this point.
It's not about liberal placating or whatever. I think you have missed the bus. The west is going fast into fascist exterminism. The mask of modern liberal "western-type democracy (tm) falls and reveals the same old fascist impulse. It's all pretty banal.
You are really concerned with shit that is either outdated or simply doesn't matter. This too is political mis- or uneducatedness. A different form of ideological confusion.
>>2455002Sure, if that makes you feel better. That is after all what really counts.
protagonist etc.
>>2455185But they would never say what I said was wrong, so I don't give a shit.
>>2455181>the argument that fascism is always a Western phenomenon imposed on the third worldI don't think anybody is making that argument, except the windmill in your head. But in the name of stopping communism, fascists and other dictators always relied on Western support for stability. And when, not if, the topic of communism will, once again, become a global one, it will be, once again, true.
>>2455220That is the standard position of 90% of MLs, at least in the West
Nta
>>2455213You take over for me now, Mr Tankman, MD.
You are the captain now.
>Revolution (lol) in the first world will lead to worsening standards of living and worsening standards of living will turn them all fashOk point those takes out. Oh please give me a (you)
It's not like I did a close reading of the thread but that very much sounds like something you made up in your addled mind, persecution complex, classical.
A quick skim reveals that the argument, which should be obvious to anyone with half a brain, is the opposite. There is almost zero potential for you to "grow beyond yourself" and "do revolution". You are just plain shit.
>>2454797Communist China is not imperialist. Communist China is the world's factory, not the world's robber baron. To claim China is imperialist is to fundamentally misunderstand Lenin's definition of imperialism and ignore the material reality of China's foreign policy and economic relations.
Communist China cannot be imperialist.
1. There are no capitalist monopolies. There are proletarian monopolies.
2. Communist China has no parasitic financial oligarchy. Communist China has a proletarian finance sector that operates for People not profit.
3. Communist China promotes global peace and prosperity by sharing resources to develop infrastructure. Communist China does not export capital for superprofit but shares resources to develop infrastructure in win-win fashion.
4. Communist China is not controlled by trusts, monopolies, or cartels, but by proletarian.
5. Communist China does not hold colonies like imperialists.
>>2453571> The opposite is the case because imperialist living standard is actually going upWhat a way to tell on yourself.
Wages have been stagnating for almost a decade, in my country they even decreased in absolute terms since the 90's.
Shut up piggy.
>>2454859> Under the table work, far more prevalent in the South than the colonizer NorthLmao
You have no idea what you're talking about.
We gave entire sectors here which function with "black work" (without even a contract) and "grey work" (paid for part time but doing full time or more).
There's also been a few cases lately of seasonal italian workers working for 10 hours a day and getting paid 450€/month.
>>2455273>Barbados>Dominican RepublicCome on, you guys must know that these aren't the countries we're talking about. We mean the major powers of the near-periphery. Places like Brazil and India that are major economic and often military players, in some cases with nukes etc. Yeah no shit it wouldn't be a big deal if Barbados becomes fascist, just like it wouldn't be a big deal if Denmark became fascist. What point are you even trying to make?
>What, in a word, is the scourge of mankind? It's not the victims of the west I wouldn't hesitate to count plenty of non-Westerners among the scourge of mankind.
>>2455270Yeah, imagine the decline in SoL, if the US had to employ only American workers, pay them American wages, and priced their food accordingly.
>>2455263So far, it is.
>MTW literaturePass. I prefer reading the data directly.
>The notion that immiseration will turn the labour aristocracy fascist rather than socialist is the entire thesis of Sakai's work The Shock of Recognition, but this line of thinking is never applied to the third world.The Rest has actual communist movements that can offer an explanation to people's struggles. The West does not. It's that simple. The glowies won, and this is their reward. Destabilizations elsewhere always risk a fascist takeover, but with Western decline, or… something, it seems far less likely. Like Sri Lanka electing an open communist.
>>2455310>movements>partiesInsurrections.
>>2455318Who's currently pushing bigger military budgets to fight Russia, and demanding welfare cuts to pay for it? Their heads. Let me see them roll.
>>2455310>Oh yeah? Where? Which ones? CHINA, NK (etc.) excluded (we've been in this place before).
Let's just put that aside.
Let us concede India is essentially fascist. I don't know about India and I don't pretend to. But Vijay Prashad, I think, says it is basically just a non-western form of fascism. And he knows about that stuff.
What does that mean for you, for me, for the "west" (fascism or on its way to exterminist, naked genocidal fascism or whatever you wanna call it)?
Basically, I don't know how it connects to my or other arguments even.
I am btw in no way a "third worldist" (whatever the hell that means), in the same way I am not a "tankie". These are all things that get ascribed from the outside by, you guessed it, aggressively ignorant westernoids (scourge of humanity btw).
>>2454894My point wasn't that at some level of destitution we suddenly get a communist movement, it was just that we still have relative comfort. The issue of creating a movement is independent and yes relies on subjectivity. Bringing marxism to existing movements, and growing movements by working on the subjectivities of workers, to help them see that they can win more, can defend themselves, etc. I don't believe that the way immigrants, or inmates coerced into labor, or third world workers live is the outlier or equally balanced against the comfort of labor aristocracy (that there's a "real proletarian condition" in the middle), I see it as the default. The lowest conditions possible are where we should be ready to fall to. Not in that we should hope for it or bring it about, but it's coming for us (at least, many of us), and that's where any successful movement will come from. I'm from the US, but I'm sure it's similar in the EU if considered as a whole: here there are very conspicuous differences in standards of living for different workers. Free, white, citizen workers - especially if they have any degree of connections or family wealth, including an owned home - generally live comfortable enough lives and don't have to consider politics. Politics is what happens in DC. Things like homebuyer subsidies, (forgivable) small business loans, farm subsidies, medicaid, suburban subsidy to developers in the form of utilities and access (and sometimes cheap land), and all sorts of grants that funnel money back into the economy, into churches, etc. This is a subsidy to rural and suburban white America. This preserves a bifurcated working class. Until this is gone, and until every public utility is privatized and every free third space is closed off or dead, there's still farther to fall. Of course it won't be that this artificially propped up 'middle class' is all degraded, it's more likely that they'll face increasing pressure to either conform to fascist violence against everyone else or be cast out of the middle class bubble to live with the rabble. But that's besides the point.
>>2455406Yes, you can.
We seem to talk past each other to a large degree. I just believe, and I think with good reason, as solid as any prognosis can be, that fascism (or a continuation / intensification of the same) is way, way more likely.
I'm not seeing it for both material and superstructural reasons. But "give me an out".
>>2455431What's this garbage? Are you seriously angry I'm not hostile to other foreign proles?
How much of a porky cocksucker are you?
>>2456006It's that transparent, isn't it?
Those barbarians at it again with their Hitlerism (lol)
Deja vu, we've been in this place before. Accusation in a mirror.
You will just get your shit kicked in again.
Of this I am certain.
And allow me to reiterate. I would very much like to be "optimistic" here. It is just the simple fact that I cannot see it. You are just doing the same thing you did last time. And I am still fundamentally optimistic concerning world-history. You are simply not that important anymore. All empires must fall. It's historical materialism and all the rest. The die is cast. Just gotta see that the big, beautiful red "reset" button is not pushed.
>>2457576Absolutely rent free lmao.
I'm so sorry I'm not a fash promoting nationalism and class collaborationism like you.
>>2457576>20 white guys cant take down a 8 year old black kidClearly Moffin lacks BBC like the mayos in the video
No BBC = anger
>>2457761well how about you stop being a moralizing cunt?
>>2457760>le ultrasnothing of value was said in this post
>>2458567I very explicitly answered the question.
>if our current quality of life is only achievable by exploiting the Third World, how is it that China is able to meet and in many cases surpass us in that regard without resorting to imperialism? Unless I'm missing additional context, the only conclusions that could be drawn are either False dichotomy. This isn't even a cheap gotcha, it's a self-report. Just cause you, in your ignorance, cannot see anything past the present system, the imperialists as the pinnacle of human civilization etc.
does not make it so.
I of course, in dialectical manner, pose the counter-question (show me what good are you in the west), which of course has not been answered at all.
>>2458570Oh missed this right above my post, last post of the night.
lol sabo etc, the colonizers with a human face and so on are really just a meaningless drone noise to me at this point. Good
Anyway, don't mind it. One time fascism is some unique evil, the other it doesn't matter. The only coherent explanation for this is they want to "absolve" their society of being "different". Well, even if I grant that, it's a semantic game fundamentally. You are just like other people, only particularly shit. And just cause I find it funny right this minute, you are not getting welfare, healthcare etc. either. "oh we would rather have functioning health system than bringing death and destruction to the world". You aren't getting it either way, win or lose. You'd have to "organize" for it.
Which, at the risk of repetition, fat chance of that. Anyway, this small bean "I don't want my country to do this" is so stale, I won't get into it. Briefly thought about it. Nah.
And sabo (among others) shows just how much either I have outgrown this place or this place, with the people in it, has deteriorated (which direction be the movement?). He was in terms of identityfags, definitely one of the "high quality" ones. Alongside gay nazi, who also by all appearances is taking the death of empire hard, but I am not reading a lot of either at this point in the game. Of course anonymous is always better than identityfags (by sheer numbers alone, there is a number of users for any idfag, some of them have to have some grasp of reality). That is, in terms of people that do not already agree with me, there is no one to pull out here, to "turn". My propaganda effort is not going anywhere, I will be the first to admit.
Tl;dr: I repeat, get fucked. And hurry up with it, would you kindly?
To end my screed, then, on a positive note, have some Heraclitus. I have somewhat outgrown the habit of suggesting suicide to people, except when provoked beyond what I find to be a reasonable limit but I find it apropos at this point. It's just a meme, don't get your panties in a twist.
But in case you are capable of listening, hey.
Not like I am shy about it. For this persona, Grandeur basically is the best fit. I do admit with most of you on an "instinctual", emotional level, I marvel at how we are supposed to be the same species.
Grandeur (delusion) is a symptom, not a complex or disorder. Now, for narcissism, it is missing the avoidant element. I challenge you to put up a fight and so on. It's basically what I do here.
>>2459260I dunno, shitposting begets shitposting. I am reducing my consumption of this place. Most of you are so stale. it's not even proper fun to run circles around you. Just a habit, I suppose.
I won't say "if you weren't so stupid, I wouldn't act like that" but I'm thinking it.
>>2459410China is not >capitalist< (if you are uncomfortable talking in those terms call it a very unusual new form of special statecraft, unlike any previous). In any case it need not be imperialist. Socialist imperialism, not a thing.
Others told you the same thing in different terms.
>>2459430Thank you for simplifying.
>China is not >capitalist<I don't think it is.
>In any case it need not be imperialist.And I don't think it's imperialist either.
>>2453545Marxist settlers are like: "the fact that I spent the last ten years never once listening to my nonwhite slaves who live in the nazi ghetto segregated apartheid part of my city means I'm a true Marxist intellectual who is on the right side of history. My ignorant and reactionary non-Marxist slaves should be listening to ME!!! True revolution is found in my Jewist art and culture socialist podcast Doomscroll"
>>2454894>America's welfare state is worse than some third world countries.<relative and highly contextual, its impossible to create a universal principleif you were actual Leninists you would understand that the imperial core/periphery dialectic exists within countries as well between different countries. Obama's Wall Street finance imperialist friends destroyed Flint's water system for profit just like they destroy Palestinian water.
>>2457769>"neoliberal and not a fascist" That's a meaningless distinction IMF neocolonialism vs WWII era war colonialism
>why we dont call the roman empire imperialist.<the Latin word imperium signifies "supreme power," "sovereignty," or "to rule"lol
>States can also be incredibly reactionary without being fascist.as Fanon said, fascism is when the violence which Europeans cheered in Africa return home to harm them
>>2456017>degrowth is a radlib position not communist>>2455235>Communist China is the world's factorySocialism is the ideology of microplastics and they define any opposition to this catastrophe as reactionary and unscientific and on the wrong side of history
Its so funny how these PMC larpers are like:
<"The proletariat will solve all our problems with their heroic working class science!…well no, of course I am a worthless parasite, but I'm sure someone else has new innovative ideas!…wait no stop, your 21st century Chinese proletarian ideas like 'stop wasting limited resources to produce Walmart consumer product slop' are scary to a neoliberal Dengists like me. You workers are not allowed to a world within microplastics, why do you hate the working class you fucking fascist???" >>2452374Oh boy, another "I'm just asking questions" post from someone who has done less than zero research about what "third worldists" actually believe.
>if quality of life is too good here for your average American to be driven to revolution, and said quality of life is dependent on exploitation of the Third-World, shouldn't it follow that, as the American Empire's power falters, our quality of life will worsen, thus creating revolutionary conditions here?This is a basic concept in Third-Worldism, yes. Glad you could connect the dots.
>if our current quality of life is only achievable by exploiting the Third World, how is it that China is able to meet and in many cases surpass us in that regard without resorting to imperialism?Regardless of whether you consider China socialist or not, it is objectively deeply tied into global systems of imperialism and does take advantage of that extraction to remain dominant in domestic and export production.
>Unless I'm missing additional context, the only conclusions that could be drawn are either that China is actually imperialist… and neither of those sits well with Third-Worldism as an ideology.This is the biggest tell that you've never actually read anything coming out of this tendency. China as a modern social-imperialist power is a very widespread belief within Third-Worldism, and is very much internally consistent within their theory. I don't understand how you came to the conclusion that this doesn't "sit well" with Third-Worldism.
>>2459653i find maoists calling modern china "social imperialist" incredible (in the literal sense), when late mao was doing actual international adventurism, and modern china just trades
the idea that modern china does "economic imperialism" is also questionable, as the numbers show that their output roughly matches their productivity, vs the west that overconsumes and the rest of the world that is overexploited.
just never seen a credible argument for china's "imperialism"
>>2460458Actually it returns to kill the nonwhites at home. And communists, for being in the way.
You're falling for the "citizen" sleight of hand where who counts as part of the body of the empire is selectively applied for each circumstance.
>>2460478You are right, to a degree.
"and that's a good thing" is too reductive, naive. I had just woken up and wanted to make some basic shitpost, I suppose.
However, the argument that violence hits "the wrong people" is, to me, impermissible. People (fundamentally, us, the workers) that are already worse off, get more shit thrown their way. It's been true and it remains true in all the history of history. Of course, communists and so on are targeted (that too, is the nature of the beast), I have my own thought on that, essentially I do not believe in an american/western left as a real entity. I can be convinced otherwise, if someone were to show it to me.
So, sorry but it is time for the egg to meet the omelet and stop terrorizing everyone.
Unique IPs: 48