Charles Brown wrote: > > From: "Gar Lipow" > > > the constant unleashing of > all four horsemen against the global south benefits only the rich of > the global north, not the global north as a whole. > > ^^^ > CB: Nicely put, and hope giving. However, the last sentence above seems > to contradict the rest some. Are the rich of the global north making > profits off of the global south or not ?
No contradiction. I never said the rich in the Global North did not profit. It is the Global North as a whole that does not profit, and the working class especially. Loot is easier to direct upwards than actual creation of goods and services. ^^^ CB: Yes, loot or "booty" as the old terminology had it. The idea was that profits from colonies may not have gone directly to the working class in the imperialist nations, but it could sort of subsidize the imperialist capitalists so that they might not fight as hard in the class struggle with the workers in the great power nations. So, the booty would indirectly allow higher wages of the Western workers. The super profits ( another reason they were super is that the _rate_ of profit was higher , I think) from the colonies allowed the capitalists to squeeze less profit out of the domestic workers, and pay higher wages thereby. But Marvin and others are saying that Western workers are losing ground in a fundamental shift. Certainly US auto workers are seeing their wages drop, and they were famously at the top of the working class wage scale. Also, Doug often produces data showing not much US transnational corporate profit from FDI in poor foreign countries. In other words, the Global North is not profiting from the Global South as much as it used to. Even the rich of the Global North are not profiting as much from the Global South, or at least not from the poor nations of the Global South. Perhaps what you say below about the military suggests that the US capitalists motivation for 100 plus military bases around the world is now, less to guard their economic looting of foreign poor countries than to keep the US working class distracted from confronting the US ruling class at home: to keep working class' bargaining power at home down as you say, and keep their attention off of domestic issues as you say, and keep the chauvinist indoctrination going as you say. So. the war on Iraq would be especially motivated to divert the US working class from confronting the US ruling class. Wouldn't it be grand if the current mass consciousness that the war on Iraq is a hoax became a permanent feature of US mass consciousness, and the American military roosters came home to roost , settle scores with their own capitalists ? Bring the troops whom from Iraq... Korea, Japan, Germany, NATO, every damn where. Lets have a party here at home, a party of a new type. Isn't it obvious that no nation would attack us since we are armed to the teeth with intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons ? Isn't it obvious that we are safe. Surely the hoax of spreading "democracy" won't work on the American people anymore. Surely the hoax that Islamicists are envious of us will not get over again. Just as the hoax that Communists want to invade us, that "the Russians are coming" is an absurd memory, the "terrorist threat" hoax is losing credibility. Even that myth was a step back from the idea that the Reds wanted to conquer us. Consider how stupid it was for Americans to believe that the Vietnamese wanted to conquer us ! We really should go back and rebroadcast those claims to show how absurd the rationale for that war was. Especially now that the majority opinion understands that the invasion of Iraq was based on fraud. The mass of Americans should be able to see that all rationale for war since Korea has been fraudulent. By the way, one definition of working class, all wage-laborers, makes it 85 plus% of the population. So most of the whole nation is working class. ^^^^ One example: the military budget, invested in the right domestic industries such as mass transit, housing and education could produce much greater returns than the Global North does from keeping the Global South down. But such investment would increase the bargaining power of the working class, encourage interest in details of government as you get direct easy-to-see connections between spending and peoples lives. Eliminating or greatly reducing military spending in the global north would eliminate an instrument of indoctrination. (The military puts a great deal of effort into indocrinating its members into reactionary ideology. It does not take for everybody, but it produces a lot of dedicated reactionaries.) Also there is the obvious that the military is a last resort instrument to be used against the working class when needed, though the working class is weak enough and the civilian police strong enough that this may not be as major a consideration today as it was in the past. So not really a contradiction. The foot on the Global South is also an economic foot the the neck of the working class of the Global North. The rich benefit, not the working class or even the whole nation on average. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
