In a message dated 7/22/2010 8:49:59 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, _cb31...@gmail.com_ (mailto:cb31...@gmail.com) : > In Marxist theory, those workers (proletarians) in developed countries who benefit from the superprofits extracted from the impoverished workers of underdeveloped countries form an "aristocracy of labor." <
Comment A careful reading of Lenin reveals he makes distinction between the "labor aristocracy" and "labor lieutenants of the capitalist class." Lenin refers to the latter as the "upper strata of the labor aristocracy." There is the labor aristocracy and also "labor lieutenants of the capitalist class." The first refers to a historically evolved privileged status of the peoples - all classes, in the imperial centers in relationship to the colonials or rather former colonial world. When these oppressed peoples venture into the imperial centers they are confronted with a social system that trapped them into a political status of second class citizens. The plight of the Korean in Japan, the Irish in England, the Algerian in France, Eastern versus Western Europe and of course the actual history of blacks, browns and Indians in America. There has always been a persistent anti-Chinese political and social policy in America that expresses the evolution of the color factor during the era of bourgeois rule. Two political categories describe the historical evolution of imperial privilege as a lived experience of the colonials and former colonials. Those colonials venturing to the imperial center that is their colonizer are dubbed "national minorities." The Algerian in France is a national minority. In England he is a minority. The Irish in England is a national minority and in America a minority. The Korean in Japan is a national minority and in America a minority. It is the status of the majority of citizens of the earth in the imperial centers that prove imperial bribery and privilege. II. The evolution of the old "great industrial middle class" in America, formed on the basis of automotive production is a thing of our past. This great industrial middle class was not formed on the basis of colonial subjugation. This middle class was formed based on the advance of the technological revolution in the imperial centers under the domination of the capital relation. The imperial centers were historically formed based on conquest, wars of genocide, colonial exploitation and slavery. Like most inquiry, the more one studies the issue the more complex it becomes. What is incontestable is historic privilege and the second class citizenship status of the former colonials in the imperial centers. If one view capital as a world wide unified system of accumulation it is fairly obvious that the proletarian masses in the former colonies and dependent countries receive a much smaller wage for similar and identical work as compared with the workers in the imperial centers. The issue is a systemic relations rather than isolating one part of the workers wage in the imperial centers are a direct result of colonial plunder. II. Jesse Jackson Sr. is a "labor lieutenants of the capitalist class." In Europe these "labor lieutenants of the capitalist class" arose and consolidated based on the social democratic movement. In America there never was a movement of social democracy whose origins are in the overthrow of the feudal order. WL. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
