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by comrade Oz
May Day is the day that celebrates the unity of the working people. The demand for socialism expresses their common interest for a better non-capitalist world free from exploitation.
Traditionally the proletariat, who Marx defined as "those without property" interests have been seen as the force that will build socialism; they can be radical because they have no interest in preserving capitalism.
The term "proletariat" has often been considered in the past to be synonymous with all the industrial working class. These days the majority of the industrial proletariat lives and works and is exploited in the Third World. The Third World proletarians' struggles to improve their lives are necessarily connected to the struggle against imperialism.
The main problem facing the world's peoples is the economic system of imperialism, the capitalism of our day. Billions are forced to live in poverty because of the way the capitalist system is enforced on the Third World.
This Third World proletariat delivers the main profits for capitalism by being forced to sell labour- power cheap. In many ways the working class in the West are everyday beneficiaries of that imperialist exploitation. Many Western economies like the United $tates and Australia are being de-industrialised and converted to service based economies.
What physical values, what commodities, things with a use value and an exchange value do service based economies actually create? In Australia today for example many workers in marketing, selling and installation and maintenance sell or service commodities produced in the Third World--helping the capitalists get profits from the exploited cheap labour of Third World workers. These service workers mostly create no value but derive their high incomes from a cut in the surplus value of the Third World workers.
You can see the benefits of this system delivered to the people of the First World, every time a TV set or a car is purchased at a cheap price. It is made by cheap labour--cheap labour because their wages are forced down often by militarised regimes to below subsistence levels and its real market value by imperialism. Even your cheap six are made by cheap labour. High wages may be paid in Australia for assembly line workers assembling together cheap labour parts produced in the Third World. How much of the final price of that product assembled or packaged in Australia is derived from the surplus value extracted from the cheap labour of the Third World workers who made its components? Why is the wage of the Third World worker only one tenth or one twentieth of the value of the worker in the rich world when the products of their labour is often sold by high priced labour in the West.
Imperialism and its puppets force Third World wages down so imperialism can make high profits. That is the system. Western workers are told their labour is so much smarter and productive than a hard working Asian worker using similar or even more modern means of production. But 10 or 20 times as valuable? Wars for oil are dressed up as anti-terrorist wars. Wars to keep the poorer countries of the Third World locked in, for their cheap labour and to keep access to the cheap natural resources imperialism seeks are an ongoing process. Whenever the people of the Third World fight back, it's war. There is an ongoing World War III against the peoples of the Third World, This war is sometimes open, sometimes hidden but goes on, as we live our normal lives. Some Western workers have concluded that they have a material interest in imperialism, that as they are economic beneficiaries of imperialism that they should support "their" imperialism and the stability of that system. Who cheers on Bush and Howard? Who votes for this system and its wars against the Third World? Is it only the rich capitalists? Any unity for the common interests of the world's peoples, including the industrial working class most of whom are in the Third World, must be based on internationalist anti-imperialism. It should aim to build a fair trade system with fair incomes or wages for all peoples.