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On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 3:45 AM, Joaquín Bustelo <jbust...@bellsouth.net>wrote: > > More than 150 years ago, Engels was writing to Marx: " “...The English > proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this > most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the > possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat > alongside the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world > this is of course to a certain extent justifiable.” * [see footnote] > > * * * > > Of course, Britain is now not the only country in that position. A > handful of countries have organized themselves into a cartel that > "exploits the whole world" and where even the AVERAGE worker enjoys a > standard of living which most workers in the rest of the world could > barely imagine. ... the privileges that come with this exploitation > of other nations are not limited to ONE class in the exploiting nation. The embourgoisement thesis doesn't have much going for it, and the above suggests you're arguing for the weakest version of it. The primary reasons why the average worker enjoys a better standard of living in the advanced capitalist societies are: 1) the development of infrastructure etc means that *the rate of exploitation in the imperialist core is higher* even when living standards rise. The reason why the vast majority of firms in advanced capitalist states continue to invest chiefly in those self-same states is because there the rate of exploitation tends to be higher, and thus the rate of profit tends to be higher. 2) the *accumulated outcomes of past class struggles* has compelled ruling classes in imperialist countries to accept parliamentary democracy, welfare and trade unionism, which ensured that living standards would rise. Moreover, if you're trying to explain the low rate of trade union membership in the United States, it makes no sense to refer to imperial privileges. Imperialism does come into it, but rather in the sense that it consolidates the power and cohesiveness of the ruling class and divides and weakens the working class, thus reducing its bargaining power. That is how white supremacy works. The reality is that unionisation is low because the working class was defeated by a combination of imperialism, the domestic slaveocracy and the peculiar binding force of anticommunist nationalism. The major defeats for organised labour and the Left in the country as a whole in 1919-21, then in the South in 1934-6, then as a result of the anticommunist purges in the period from 1947-56, then from 1978 onward have all shared different combinations of these elements. Imperialism by itself is not necessarily incompatible with high levels of unionisation, but combined with racist paternalism on the part of employers, and with anticommunism in the form of state-sponsored countersubversive inquisitions, it is toxic for working class self-organisation. -- Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml <#> <#> <#> <#> ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
