| Theory |
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Mickey-Maoism May 6, 2004 by RedStar2000 |
I've referred before to the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) as "comic book Maoists"...but I've not had occasion to critique their views in depth up until now.
You won't believe how bad they really are...at least until you read what follows.
***Oh, and by the way, today is the first anniversary of The Redstar2000 Papers...my thanks to all of you who've read and enjoyed this site.***
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This will have to be something of a preliminary reply to the appropriately entitled "A March of 1000 li to understand Marx" (it suggests that MIM still has a long way to go).
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Redstar2000 and most social-democrats think that all workers produce surplus-value.
I can't recall saying that...and I rather doubt that contemporary social democrats talk about surplus-value at all.
My definition: if you sell your labor-power to an employer and that labor-power is used to produce a product or service (commodity) that is sold in the marketplace...the profit that your employer makes on your labor-power can only originate from surplus value...assuming the labor theory of value is accurate.
There are people who know a good deal more than I do about Marxist economics who admit that the labor theory of value "has problems"...so I think the sensible response is to consider it once more a hypothesis rather than a scientific fact.
It may yet be proven true...but not by the efforts made thus far.
Nor do the problems of the labor theory of value mean that workers are "not exploited"...there is still the yawning gulf between the value of what workers produce and what they are actually paid for their labor.
Likewise, even were the labor theory of value to "crash and burn", that does not mean that capitalism will avoid crises, wars, and revolutions.
One of the "oddest" historical events of the last century was the May 1968 General Strike in France...something that happened "out of the blue". There was no economic crisis, no imperialist or colonial war taking place, nothing happening in any nearby countries to provoke it...and no one predicted it.
I don't think anyone has ever offered a coherent explanation of why it happened.
Perhaps there are "hidden" difficulties with capitalism that we are not yet aware of but that will play a huge role in future proletarian revolutions.
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Redstar2000 is taking RCP=U$A's side in the struggle over whether the majority of the U.$. population is exploiter or not. The RCP=U$A pretends it has some distance from Redstar2000's position, but in principle they are both ignoring exploitation and choosing to advocate the interests of the labor aristocracy.
That's quite an "alliance". My position is that there's no such thing as a "labor aristocracy"--except for the small number of craftsmen who move randomly between wage-labor and petty-bourgeois independent contracting.
But yes, the RCP and I do agree that MIM's thesis of "a nation of labor aristocrats" (or "parasites") is absurd.
It's occurred to me that MIM's problem on this issue is that you folks can't tell the difference between the petty bourgeoisie and the mythical "labor aristocracy".
The petty bourgeoisie is, after all, a significant class in the U.S. and other imperialist countries...and they have all the "bad ideas" (and are quite vocal in expressing them) that everyone on the left condemns.
In addition, there are a large and growing number of unproductive workers in late monopoly capitalism...whole armies of functionaries, cops, prison guards, private security guards, prosecutors and judges and lawyers, financial "advisors" and "deal makers", landlords/real estate speculators, businesses launched to cater to the whims of the wealthy, etc. And their ideas reflect their role in capitalism...reactionary to the core.
(One hypothesis for future capitalist crises suggests that the unproductive sectors will increase to the point of imposing an intolerable burden on the capitalist economy as a whole.)
A superficial look at American society taken from the bourgeois media and official statistics would serve to convince the hasty that "America is parasitic"...because what is emphasized in such sources is the petty-bourgeoisie and the large sector of unproductive workers--how they live, what they think about things, etc.
The real working class and the large "reserve army of the unemployed" are virtually ignored...how they live and what they think is "not important".
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This criticism MIM made regarding the proportions of productive and unproductive sector workers in majority-exploiter countries does not bother Redstar2000 at all, because Redstar2000 does not uphold a labor theory of value or Marxism's theory of economic crisis.
Actually, it hasn't bothered me because I was unaware of your suggested ratio: 3 to 1? 4 to 1?
I will look into the matter.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on April 29, 2004
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quote:
...you count "service" as something the capitalist obtains surplus-value (s-v) from and hence profit. Marx did not agree.
Perhaps because the "service industry" was "too small to notice" in his time.
Using England as an example (where Marx did most of his research), millions of people were employed as private servants to the wealthy and even the upper middle class. In fact, Marx's wife had a servant (a personal retainer that came along with her from her family when she and Marx married).
These people labored but did not produce any commodities...and thus no surplus value.
There are still a small number of servants now; but, for the most part, all the services that were once produced outside the sphere of commodity circulation are now produced inside that sphere.
I frankly don't see how MIM can deny this obvious fact.
If you obstinately maintain that some unknown proportion of the proletariat does not produce surplus value even though they produce commodities (services) for sale in the marketplace, then as far as I am concerned, the credibility of your "3 to 1" or "4 to 1" ratio of "unproductive workers (or "parasites") to "real workers" is already questionable.
I gather that your view limits "commodity production" to physical entities...corn and iron, in Marx's example.
But you should really know better than that. Are railroad workers "real proletarians"? After all, they don't produce "anything"...they just move stuff around.
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In effect you take the social-d/RCP/Trot line that 90% of Amerikans are exploited, because they produce s-v--a view which kills off the potential for profit crises Marx described.
Why does that position "kill off the potential for profit crises"? If the labor theory of value turns out to be true after all, then the tendency of the rate of profit to fall over time remains in force...regardless of the composition of the proletariat.
And I can't help but notice your reference to a "grand alliance" -- that is, the RCP, the social democrats, the Trotskyists, and me all "agree" that "90% of Americans are exploited".
How is it that people who disagree on so much else "agree" about that?
I would note that the bourgeoisie gather and publish statistics for their own purposes, not ours. The assumptions that are "built in" to their numbers make it...awkward to use them for our purposes.
I sense that you folks have been less than cautious in making use of those numbers.
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Redstar2000, you are so far removed from an accountable "Marxist" practice, MIM has to flush out the implications of your views from a Marxist point of view.
What does that mean? That I'm not "accountable" to you? Should I "run my posts" past you for vetting before I actually post them?
In your dreams!
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At bottom, the real issue is not Redstar anyway: it's the Avakian fans saying they are "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist" while tossing the labor theory of value.
Oh, I see. But why then drag me into your "trademark squabble" with the RCP? I lay no claim to being either a Leninist or a Maoist...though I am pretty sure that for all my shortcomings, I am a much better Marxist than you guys.
I mean, I still think that proletarian revolution will take place first in the imperialist countries...a perspective that you guys abandoned long ago.
Leaving you with nothing more to do than cheerlead bourgeois revolutions in the "third world".
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on April 29, 2004
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I owe a bit of explanation here, I see.
The practice of modern imperialism involves "hiring" a local ruling class to administer local affairs in the "neo-colony" -- these can be merchants, technocrats trained in the "mother country", or even parts of the old landed aristocracy. Their job is to "keep things under control" for the imperialist exploitation to proceed peacefully; their reward is a share (small) of the plunder and the all-important appearance of sovereignty.
As time passes, the neo-colony develops the material conditions for a bourgeois revolution and the emergence of a modern capitalist economy...but there is no true bourgeois class (or if there is one, it is small, weak, and indecisive).
The real genius of Mao was to understand that the peasantry could function as a genuinely revolutionary class...could both expel the imperialists and disperse their "native servants".
He (understandably) at the time thought this would lead to socialism and communism, bypassing the capitalist epoch of production.
But, as we know, material reality prevails. The revolutionary party that succeeds in the third world and develops the economy, creates both a modern and vigorous native bourgeoisie within the party itself and also calls into existence a modern proletariat.
Beneath all the red flags and "Marxist" rhetoric is exactly the same process that Marx observed in England 150 years ago...the old order (pre-feudal, feudal, and primitive capitalist) is replaced by a modern capitalist economy complete with an imperialist state apparatus of its own.
I've seen some modern Chinese political rhetoric that, allowing for cultural differences, could have been written in the United States around 1900 -- talk of building a "great and powerful nation", etc.
It's a new capitalist ruling class, ready to step into a "leading role" on the "world stage".
And it makes all the older imperialist countries very nervous. New ruling classes are "unpredictable" -- Germany and Japan being the outstanding examples from the last century.
As to the proletariat, it hasn't been a significant factor in Maoist revolutions up to now; though it apparently did play a role in the overthrow of the Shah of Iran.
There seem to be a number of countries which lie between modern capitalism and the real hellholes of imperialist dominion; Iran is certainly one of those countries -- others might include India, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, South Africa, Turkey, etc.
These countries certainly have at least the rudiments of a modern bourgeoisie and a modern proletariat...combined with a large number of peasants; they resemble rather strongly the Russia of 1900 in many ways.
These are countries where the "classical" Leninist strategy (reliance on the working class to make the revolution rather than the peasantry) might work...though any successful revolution there would still result in the emergence of modern capitalism.
See, I just don't think there's any way to get "around" the capitalist epoch...you have to suffer "through" that in order to create a class conscious proletariat that is capable of communist revolution.
I know that sounds "harsh" to some (and "Menshevik" to others).
But it seems to me (and Marx) to be just the way things are.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on April 29, 2004
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quote:
It's clear enough when we talk about corporate managers operating in U.$. imperialist headquarters, but the same logic applies to everyone living in the U$A with legal working rights. They are all staff in the imperialist headquarters.
Emphasis added.
So, if you are "serious communists", when are you leaving?
You know, going off to join the "real proletariat" in the "third world".
"Unity of theory and practice", remember?
Of course that may be a presumptuous question on my part; all Leninists agree that I'm just an "armchair theory-spinner". That is my practice.
But what are the practical consequences of your line?
This is a question you constantly avoid...even though you have time and energy for massive postings of economic "analysis".
What is the practice that logically follows from your theory?
What, to coin a phrase, is to be done?
Surely you don't plan to just sit in the U$A and constantly remind us that we're all a bunch of fucking "parasites", do you?
Do you?
Or "Imperialist headquarters staff of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your pets!"?
I'm starting to get a feel for you guys; I think you exhibit a real..."distaste" for the working class. I wonder if you are all not really academics in universities...playing at "revolutionary" politics. I wonder if there's some kind of "middle class guilt" that really motivates you...and, after all, cheerleading distant peasant revolutions doesn't cost anything, does it? It's "risk-free".
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It's not surprising that open Menshevik [sic] Redstar2000 ends up doing the bulk of defending the RCP=U$A line...
Yeah, right, and they're late with my check again!
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on April 29, 2004
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Sorry Redstar. I don't have to prove my prole cred to anyone on this forum, especially you.
No, you certainly do not...nor have I asked you to.
I'm talking about the consequences of your theory.
(Well, actually I was talking about the consequences of MIM's theory, but, to the degree you associate yourself with their views...)
It's pretty straightforward: (1) You're not in prison; (2) You're not "lumpen" or an illegal immigrant; (3) therefore, you are indeed a parasite.
At least that's how MIM would "analyze" your "class situation".
Any other details would be superfluous...all they need to know is that you're not a prisoner, not "lumpen", and not an illegal immigrant. (If you were any of those three things, you wouldn't have access to the internet, of course.)
If you have air conditioning, that really puts you in the shithole. You're "practically a bourgeois"!
I raise these points not in terms of an "ad hominem" attack but rather as a "real world" check on some rather "other-worldly" rhetoric.
If you take a particular "line" on a particular question, then, like it or not, you are "stuck" with the full package of implications of that line.
You can't slide by saying "nation of parasites blah blah blah" and then come back and add "but that doesn't include me."
Guy, it does include you!
Here are some more implications of MIM's line to chew on...
1. According to MIM, prisoners, at least, are "not parasites". Yet I have read that poor people in Colombia and other Latin and Central American countries eagerly compete for "jobs" as "mules" -- smugglers of illegal drugs into the U.S. -- because, should the worst happen and they get caught, even life in a federal prison is "better" than life in their "third world" countries.
Does that mean that even prisoners "benefit" from imperialism?
2. According to MIM, illegal immigrants are not "parasites". But "illegals" continue to come here in substantial numbers; even though they are poorly paid by American standards, the money is still well above what they'd earn if they stayed home.
Aren't illegal immigrants also "benefiting" from imperialism?
3. And the "lumpen"? Same thing. Even his "homeless shelter" is far superior to its counterpart in the "third world" (if those countries even have homeless shelters).
Obviously, yet another "beneficiary" of imperialism.
Following MIM's road will lead you to some very strange destinations.
It's really "another world"...although it's not "possible", of course.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on April 30, 2004
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Here is another, and very disturbing implication of MIM's line.
We all remember, at least vaguely, the political approach of Pol Pot and his Khymer Rouge.
His theory was that all city-dwellers were class enemies of the revolutionary peasantry.
Now, combine that with Lin Piao's idea that the imperialist countries are the "cities" and the colonial and neo-colonial world is the "countryside" and with Mao's idea that the revolution conquers first in the countryside and last in the cities.
The cities are "parasites" on the countryside...and what is the proper fate of parasites after the revolution has conquered?
Does MIM aspire to the status of Khymer Rouge v.2.0?
Think about it.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on April 30, 2004
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I have stated elsewhere that I think there is a small proletariat in North America and it is mostly composed of captive nation peoples and the lumpen.
Ok. I did not mean to give the impression that you were personally responsible for every morsel of nonsense from MIM.
I merely wished you to consider the implications.
As I do on this quote in which you do make your own view explicit.
What is the revolutionary significance of a "small" proletariat? What can it do and what can't it do?
Perhaps it is just large enough to catapult a "vanguard party" into power...but the result would be a dictatorship over the vast majority of "parasites" and even over the proletariat itself.
And it may be too small to even manage that. So what's left?
Not much, it seems to me.
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It is amazing to me that people who claim to be communists can't even provide basic economic data of any substantive kind to back up their case. Marx and Lenin weren't afraid of math at all.
I cannot speak for others, but I've freely admitted on many occasions that I'm not a trained Marxist economist.
My "expertise" (meager as it is) is looking at the political consequences of economic hypotheses. I can't tell you if the labor theory of value is right or partially right or completely wrong. MIM says they can...and you evidently find their arguments convincing.
But I can tell you what the political consequences of their arguments are...and you dismiss them as "fantasies" at your peril.
Their "economic analysis", however formidable it may appear, has a real world consequence...the end of any possibility of proletarian revolution in the "west".
I conclude that there must be something wrong with their math...they've reached an absurd conclusion.
In fact, I think they are the "Marxist" equivalent of those highly-respected late 19th century physicists who "proved" that heavier-than-air aircraft were "mathematically impossible".
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on April 30, 2004
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In point of fact, because of the DECADENCE of imperialism, a company's purchase of technology is usually connected with consumption, not surplus-value extraction. When the company buys a gym for the workers to use, technology goes into that. Likewise, coffee & water machines and company cars with all the gadgets. Yet it is the same purchasing agents of the company and procedures that go into buying cars with air conditioners and CD changers as buys technology for a company. Although economists in Japan are trained in what surplus-value is, it is far from evident that Japanese economists working for companies are directing the company toward surplus-value extraction for the country as a whole rather than profits. We can be sure no such thing goes on in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Decadence, eh?
A most curious concept to introduce into what purports to be an economic analysis.
It sounds as if MIM is accusing the bourgeoisie of a "moral failing" to properly maximize profit.
Perhaps the author of this document is writing from Silicon Valley...where it was once the case that many white-collar workers were not only very highly paid but did have "gyms" at work, "free beer Fridays", etc. Those perks disappeared with the dot.com bust, of course...but it must have been fun while it lasted.
Dot.com capitalists provided those perks because they thought -- rightly or wrongly -- that they "enhanced productivity"...increased the amount of surplus value that could be extracted from white-collar labor. (Note that the people, mostly women, who actually worked "on the line" building/assembling computers, received none of those "decadent" perks.)
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Even in those cases where advanced technology really is applied to the production process in imperialist countries, the majority of the technology expenses goes to pleasing the petty-bourgeoisie and labor aristocracy using the technology.
Pleasing? This sounds more like courtship than it does capitalism.
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Unfortunately for them, it is next-to-impossible for the imperialists to determine themselves directly what aspects of technology application are really consumption going on in the workplace and entertainment for the thrill of technology itself--a kind of fetishism-- and what is really necessary for surplus-value extraction or realization.
Entertainment? Thrill?
This gets "curiouser and curiouser".
True, I've been retired from the workplace for some years now...but it sounds like things are "a lot different" than they were when I was a wage-slave.
At least as seen through the strange prism of MIM.
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Hence, the imperialists are poorly equipped in actuality to face the class struggle of the labor aristocracy and traditional petty-bourgeoisie.
Wow! Who would have ever thought that the rather stolid "labor aristocracy" and the vacillating and poorly organized petty-bourgeoisie would have the imperialists "on the defensive"?
Here is a certainly "unique" appreciation of "class struggle" hitherto unsuspected. Will the "labor aristocracy"/petty bourgeoisie alliance someday become the new ruling class?
Does this stuff "ring a bell" with anyone? I'm thinking that perhaps it's a distant descendant of James Burnham's "managerial revolution" (c.1940).
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Again, because MIM heeded Lenin on the "seal of parasitism" on whole countries, MIM had no choice but to break the question down to WHERE the capital and necessities of life come from.
Following Lenin certainly leads one to some "interesting" destinations, doesn't it?
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In addition, surplus-value extraction can appear to increase in the imperialist countries because the necessities of life have been cheapened by extraction of surplus-value ORIGINATING in the Third World, especially at a super-exploitative level.
Well, I guess we're back to economics again. This strikes me as a reasonably plausible hypothesis...what's the evidence for it?
How would you go about proving that it was true?
As I pointed out in an earlier post this evening, the bourgeoisie do not generate statistics for our purposes but rather for their own. If we try to use them for our purposes anyway, problems arise.
In particular, how do we overcome the built-in assumptions that rest beneath their numbers? Do we even know what those assumptions are?
In any particular number, what are they including that we would exclude, and vice versa?
Of course it would be a marvelous thing if we could really derive empirical proof of our hypotheses from bourgeois statistics...and, on occasion, this may be possible in a limited way.
But caution is advised, in my opinion. They don't always tell the truth...even to each other.
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There is nothing in Marxism that says technology, capital or even education is class neutral and not produced with a supply of labor...There is nothing in Marxism that says under socialism, we will nationalize the capital in each country and declare it to be the sole property of the workers who happen to be there.
I don't think that Marx and Engels ever specifically asserted that technology (for example) was "class neutral"...but if they thought it was not, one wonders why they didn't say that.
Certain kinds of modern technology, some have argued, are very definitely not "class neutral" -- their conscious purpose was to reduce the skills and limit the autonomy of workers.
Other kinds of technology may be, in effect, pro-worker (though not necessarily pro-working class). Replacing heavy manual labor by machine labor makes the job "easier" but reduces the number of workers needed.
As to how matters are to be handled after a proletarian revolution, that's a matter to be decided by the working class in each particular country.
Certainly no one is going to hand over that job to you!
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Quite the contrary, after World War II, Stalin saw to reparations from Germany.
Yes, an extraordinarily stupid blunder, wasn't it? Not only did it lead to the workers' uprisings of 1953 but permanently wrecked the image of socialism in East Germany...nor did the USSR actually benefit to any significant degree from those reparations.
The fact that you appear to admire this act of gross stupidity suggests that you are totally unqualified to oversee the distribution of resources following proletarian revolution.
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If technology infinitely increases surplus-value, then there is no possibility of a profit crisis.
We don't know if it's "infinite".
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...open Menshevik [sic] "Redstar2000" argued that all workers produce surplus-value...
I argued no such thing, of course.
And labeling me a "Menshevik" is just a gratuitous attempt to discredit me in the eyes of Bolshevik-wannabes.
In their eyes I am "already discredited".
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on April 30, 2004
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We have to begin with as precise and full a definition of imperialism as possible. Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is threefold: imperialism is monopoly capitalism; parasitic, or decaying capitalism; moribund capitalism. -- V.I. Lenin
Imperialism and the Split in Socialism
Granted that it seemed like an accurate perception in 1916, it's pretty clear that it was wrong.
I do not know if monopoly (actually oligopoly) is more or less prevalent now than it was in 1916.
But it's clear that modern capitalism has not yet begun "decaying", much less become "moribund".
Well, ok, you could make an argument that some time in the last three decades it has begun to decay...but it certainly was not decaying in 1916 (even if it "looked" that way).
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The fact that imperialism is parasitic or decaying capitalism is manifested first of all in the tendency to decay, which is characteristic of every monopoly under the system of private ownership of the means of production. -- V.I. Lenin
This is an especially curious assertion...though perhaps the situation in 1916 made it seem plausible.
As a rule, an effective monopoly on some highly desirable commodity is a "license to print money". Monopolies can be broken up and sometimes they crash because some technological innovation as robbed the monopoly of its value.
But they rarely "decay".
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Secondly, the decay of capitalism is manifested in the creation of a huge stratum of rentiers, capitalists who live by "clipping coupons" -- V.I. Lenin
That "stratum" is probably substantially larger now than it was in 1916...but as a "symptom" of "decay", I don't see its utility.
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Fifthly, the exploitation of oppressed nations-which is inseparably connected with annexations-and especially the exploitation of colonies by a handful of "Great" Powers, increasingly transforms the "civilised" world into a parasite on the body of hundreds of millions in the uncivilised nations. -- V.I. Lenin
Here is the heart of MIM's assertion that they are the "true heirs" of Lenin...and I don't see how one could avoid conceding that they have a powerful point.
The problem that Lenin is trying to answer here is in his opening paragraph...
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Is there any connection between imperialism and the monstrous and disgusting victory opportunism (in the form of social-chauvinism) has gained over the labour movement in Europe? -- V.I. Lenin
Lenin is attempting to offer a materialist explanation for the collapse of the 2nd International...Europe, including the most conscious and developed part of its working classes (Social Democracy), have become "parasitic" on the "uncivilized world" -- they are supporting imperialism because it's in their material interests for "their own" bourgeoisie to triumph over rival capitalist classes in other imperialist countries and win a larger share of the plunder stolen from the "uncivilized world".
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It is clear why imperialism is moribund capitalism, capitalism in transition to socialism: monopoly, which grows out of capitalism, is already dying capitalism, the beginning of its transition to socialism. -- V.I. Lenin
No it isn't clear at all...and turned out to be wrong.
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...objectively the opportunists are a section of the petty bourgeoisie and of a certain strata of the working class who have been bribed out of imperialist superprofits and converted to watchdogs of capitalism and corruptors of the labour movement. -- V.I. Lenin
That makes two assumptions: (1) That there actually is such a thing as "imperialist superprofits" (as opposed to just profit); and (2) That a portion of these "superprofits" has been used to "bribe" a "certain strata" of the working class into supporting imperialism.
MIM, of course, not only embraces these assumptions but "runs with them...hard!" Lenin's "certain strata" has, in their view, ballooned to embrace nearly all of the working classes in the imperialist countries.
We have no way of knowing, of course, what Lenin himself would have thought of this "natural extension" of his views.
But time does not "stand still". If Lenin's views of "partial bribery" were accurate in 1916, there's little reason to doubt that the process would continue.
I've already discussed why I think Lenin's assertions were wrong in other threads. I don't think that there's any such thing as "superprofits" (except as a transient phenomenon resulting from temporary monopolies); I don't think "imperialism" is a "special stage" of capitalism (imperialism is just a special case of capitalism's restless search for new profit opportunities and has always been present); and I don't think workers are ever "bribed" by capitalists at all.
But then, you may ask, what's my "materialist explanation" for the collapse of the 2nd International? Or, in general, the "conservatism" of the "western" working classes in the 20th century?
It's my view that revolutionary class consciousness arises only from the failures of capitalism -- usually lost imperialist wars and/or economic crises.
When you look back at the last century, the twin peaks of revolutionary class consciousness in the west were the post-World War I period (also involving an economic downturn) and the Great Depression of the 1930s. And the peaks were not very high...the failures of capitalism were serious but not fatal.
Today's bourgeoisie say that they've put all that behind them now; there will be "no more" catastrophic wars or great depressions.
I don't believe them.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on April 30, 2004
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Why do you think that the Soviet Union, China, or Cuba were merely capitalist revolutions? These revolutions abolished private ownership of most production, they carried out land reform, collectivized agriculture, eliminated markets, positions of power were occupied by people from worker and peasant background, they revolutionized culture, democratized the military, etc. Did the law of value operate in a serious way on a large scale in these countries in their revolutionary phases? These nations usually embraced internationalism. What kind of capitalism is this? - you can’t be serious. Just because some of these revolutions were defeated doesn’t mean that they failed or weren’t socialist. There is no a priori rule that says a socialist society can’t be overturned or invaded. Counter-revolution is always a possibility.
It's precisely because they didn't fall to invasion or counter-revolution that I think they were, beneath the rhetoric and even the nominally socialist policies, really bourgeois revolutions.
"Peaceful transitions" from one form of class society to another are quite rare in history. If the working class had really had power in Russia, China, Yugoslavia, etc., the transition "back" to capitalism should have been accompanied by massive strikes, pitched battles and even civil war...those things didn't happen. They were all "velvet revolutions"...that is, not revolutions at all.
The leaders of all the vanguards divided up "the people's property" among themselves, donated their party cards and red flags to a museum, and set themselves up openly as what they had been for a very long time covertly...a new capitalist ruling class.
The workers didn't see much difference at all...except a further sharp decline in an already wretched standard-of-living.
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I think we need to support captive nation land struggles - especially those lead by vanguard organizations, we need to support campaigns like the demilitarization of the police, demilitarization of the boarder, land struggles, fight against police brutality, cop-monitoring groups, fight to free political prisoners, fight against supermaxs and SHUS, etc. I also think we need to organize and educate the lumpen element - as the Panthers did. Organize our communities. I think that promoting Sakai’s work is also important. I would also think it is good to take a look at MIM’s literature. Use your privileged position to help movements, especially captive nations, that desperately need resources. I am not sure why you think there is nothing to do. There is lots to do.
Yes, there are a lot of choices here...but none of them are communist.
Specifically, none of them hold out any future prospect of proletarian revolution and classless society.
They are "good things" (most of them...you know my opinion of "vanguards") but the world is full of "good things".
What I notice the marked absence of is any significant movement for the abolition of wage-slavery.
That doesn't seem to be on your agenda...or, for that matter, MIM's.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on April 30, 2004
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The Mickey-Maoists at MIM are becoming well-known, at least in left circles, as the main defender of secular neo-puritanism...the view that says we must give up our vices" to "make revolution".
What follows comes from here...
Preparing for the all-round dictatorship of the proletariat: Combating subjectivism in all arenas, from cigarettes & drugs to sectarianism and white chauvinism
quote:
subjectivism--the belief that what one feels or likes is true or supreme.
The word can mean those things, of course. But it's misleading usage.
Our feelings or likings have little to do with "truth" or "supremacy"...in most cases, they are "just" feelings/likings.
What we find pleasurable or distasteful personally is, of course, distantly related to the material reality of the class society in which we live...but the connections, in my view, are usually rather tenuous.
Of course, there are exceptions to this. A "distaste" for people of color is not simply a "subjective opinion" -- it's a direct reflection of racist ideology.
But a preference for one kind of recreation over another, for example, hardly falls into such a category.
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We Maoist scientists are interested in the underlying causes of behavior.
Keep this assertion in mind as you read what follows.
quote:
Anyone who thinks s/he does not have something that s/he likes that is tainted by oppression is just wrong.
Yes, that's true. Oppression permeates class society and there's no escape from it.
The server for the MIM website, for example, was probably fabricated by young women in Asia working very long hours for very little pay.
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A persyn could not like a whole list of bad things that most other people have as vices, but even then there would have to be something. Everyone has a vice. No one is a 100% pure.
Sound familiar?
"All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."
quote:
We've all seen the teenager lash into parents saying: "what do you mean I can't smoke? You smoke, you hypocrite!" So the truth is some parents smoke and forbid their children from smoking. Yet, this is an example of a pseudo-rebellion by the teenager, a rebellion on behalf of the right to make profits for the multinational tobacco companies.
No, it's an act of genuine rebellion. The teenager does not see why s/he should not enjoy the pleasure of tobacco because of the hypocritical caprice of parental authority.
The profits of tobacco companies have nothing to do with the matter; profit is everywhere in capitalist society. You cannot live without some corporation making money from you.
quote:
The smoking parent who cracks down on his or her children is right.
Parental despotism is "good for you".
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I know I have had my subjective feelings, my very emotions and psychology conditioned by the cigarette companies and I know I am addicted. However, I know that in a better world it would not be that way.
This suggests that tobacco will be added to the "war on drugs" in MIM's version of a post-capitalist society.
quote:
When the all-round dictatorship of the proletariat led by us Maoists gets to power, the cigarette company executives who put those toxic chemicals in cigarettes and resisted medical science in the court system will be lined up and shot as a small repayment of their blood debt to millions killed by smoking. Those cigarette company executives who conquer subjectivism will know they should be shot to set a good example for the future.
"Blood debt"? That's a curious concept.
In any event, I would expect many of the most infamous members of the capitalist class to be shot...but only MIM could anticipate that even a single one of them "will know they should be shot to set a good example for the future".
quote:
The same is true of drug addiction. How many times have we seen established bourgeois people look down on heroin addicts. Oh how terrible to be in such a state of control by the drug, we hear. Yet most of these same people turn around and say that life is a short experience to enjoy as it is. They get their jollies from something else short-term and damaging to society in many cases.
A rather murky statement. Is it saying that bourgeois critics of heroin addiction are being hypocritical? Is it saying that life is not short or to be enjoyed? Or that "all short-term pleasures" are "damaging to society"?
All of the above?
quote:
The fact is that many heroin, cocaine and crack addicts will say that they have a profound experience of pleasure from their drugs...we at MIM say, "sure that feels good to you, but where did that desire for that kind of pleasure or pain-killing come from?" The answer is a combination of profiteering drug dealers and a corrupt government defending the profit-system leaving people alienated from their own lives.
Not a very "scientific" answer. The pleasure of drugs comes from material (electro-chemical) reactions in the human brain. It would happen regardless of the class system in existence; it would even happen in a communist society.
It's an objective phenomenon.
Whether and to what extent people would actively seek out chemical pleasures of various kinds does, at least in part, depend on the nature of the society in which they find themselves.
Extremely oppressive and/or alienating societies do promote an "escapist" mind-set.
But it's a matter of historical record that humans have been intoxicating themselves as long as they have been making pots. Some residues of wine and beer have been discovered in pots that have been dated back to 7,000BCE...far older than the oldest examples of writing and probably at the very dawn of class society.
The usage of various drugs (existing and/or yet to be invented) to gain or enhance pleasure in classless society is impossible to forecast.
But any kind of "war on drugs" will always fail.
quote:
When we tell the Liberals there has to be a party or body of scientists deciding what is good or bad for society in terms of art and music, they say, "who are you to decide?"
A good question. If it could be "scientifically ascertained" that certain kinds of art or music were "good" or "bad" for "society", then MIM would have a point.
However, I know of no "science" that can do that. The consequence is that MIM's "policy" on art and music would, after a while, reduce itself to the subjective preferences of the party leadership. As was the case under Stalin, of course.
It's easy enough to ban the overtly reactionary...but then matters become very, very difficult.
Is "abstract art" reactionary? Why?
quote:
Our critics' approach denies that in science, someone always does decide. For that matter, Einstein's theory of relativity is not up for a vote based on what people "like." In economics, these same subjectivist people are apt to believe that they are really making individual decisions under capitalism, when in reality it's the boardrooms of corporations, the Pentagon and the White House making the major decisions and letting individuals pick within their boundaries. -- emphasis added.
Yes, that's undeniably true. Most "individual choice" under capitalism is fake.
But in the absence of corporate boardrooms, the Pentagon, and the White House -- that is, in classless society -- will individual choices become real?
Or does MIM wish to impose its own subjective preferences as a new set of "boundaries"?
That's not to say MIM's preferences may not be "better" than the existing ones...in some cases, they might well be.
But they set no limits on themselves. They think a new edition of the "war on drugs" (now including tobacco) is "good for society"...so they'll do it.
And they have other prohibitions in mind as well...
quote:
Too many wimmin are looking for love only from lone individuals instead of the international proletariat.
No one has yet manufactured a bed large enough to hold "the international proletariat".
And how, exactly, would a woman "know" that she was "loved" by "the international proletariat" anyway? Would they send her flowers and candy?
quote:
The sources of problems in love come from society.
True, they often do. In particular, "money problems" are horrendously destructive of "romance".
Nonetheless, I don't think it's likely that people are going to "give it up".
quote:
While some people say it is music, some say the rush they got from a particular drug --probably even more men would say that there is nothing more subjectively profound than the experience of seeing naked wimmin and then having sex.
I'm told that women also have a rather high opinion of the experience.
quote:
MIM would ask in whatever case whether it is good for wimmin and do we wish we lived in a society in which pornography was not such an overwhelming subjective experience for many men.
This is written in a confusing manner. MIM began by talking about sex and ended by talking about pornography.
There's a difference.
quote:
What heroin does to people is also "natural." It takes advantage of something in the humyn being's biological wiring. That does not mean it is necessary and good. We can conquer heroin and we should.
Does this mean that sex is "like heroin"? Or that pornography is "like heroin"?
And what would it mean to "conquer" these things and why "should" we seek to do so?
quote:
Just as "art for its own sake" is poison so too is "sex for its own sake" when raised against the party and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The meaning of this seems to be that if the party tells you not to have sex, then you "shouldn't do it".
Please don't ask me why MIM's party would want to do such a thing...I have no idea!
quote:
In the communist future they may be able to have both [art & sex] or maybe the very thought of both will disappear, but right now and for a foreseeable stage of time, the subjectivism of art or sex for its own sake is a weapon in the arsenal of the enemy.
If sex is indeed "a weapon in the arsenal of the enemy", we lose!
At this point, you may wish to return to the beginning of this post and recall that MIM refers to itself as "Maoist scientists".
After you've stopped laughing, we'll continue.
quote:
We had a womyn quit the party's circles solely on the basis of the line that monogamy is second-best to asexuality. She claimed to agree with every other single line of the party, but wanted multiple partners. She asked us to change the line. The womyn recruiting her came back with this sad news to the party and pointed out, yeah, but if she would break with us "just for that," she could not have been serious about the rest. Indeed, that's how we look at it: the stands on persynal subjective matters relative to the party often tell us a lot about ourselves and our overall line. -- emphasis added.
Or, as "St. Paul" put it, "It's better to marry than to burn."
He also, as I recall, strongly preferred "asexuality".
quote:
Supposing that for this womyn, the most profound subjective experience in life was having multiple sexual partners and that that was more profound than the subjective thrill of everything else MIM stood for, we might think that what MIM was doing to her with this monogamy line was "depressing."
Depressing? How about idiotic?
quote:
Since the 1980s, we've had multiple comrades disappear out of embarrassment over sex questions. We even had one comrade disappear for something no one was opposed to! In most cases, MIM does not cast people out of our circles for sexual practice out of synch with our line.
I'll bet it's not much fun for them though. You show up for a meeting and all your "comrades" greet you "Hey, the degenerate sex-fiend is here!"
quote:
And by the way, our challenge stands to any comrades who left in the midst of sexual embarrassment to come back to party circles.
Some challenge! "Repent, ye sinners, and we shall forgive."
quote:
Anybody with the "all sex is rape" line is not going to be elected president of the United $tates any time soon.
Or ever! You might do surprisingly well, however, at the Southern Baptist Convention. How do you feel about the "rapture"?
quote:
We're saying that for party members, we expect them to put aside their persynal feelings about social behavior and dig to their causes. Otherwise, they can't join and have a vote on scientific matters. If people think sex in society in general is above the dictatorship of the proletariat, because s/he thinks it's the most profound and best subjective experience as is, then we don't want them in our party. -- emphasis added
Tough choice, eh? Give up sex and you get to vote on "scientific matters". Have sex and you lose your vote.
Well, which did you choose?
quote:
The fact that pornography has completely taken over the last two generations of men in the United $tates...
Utterly unsubstantiated -- indeed, how could it be substantiated? -- and absurd on its face.
This is what MIM calls "science".
quote:
...because Marx said that when the species takes over its destiny, people will know not even to fall in love with the wrong persyn and thus avoid hurt feelings.
It seems quite unlikely to me that Marx was ever guilty of such a banal and stupid remark.
I think MIM deserves the "credit"...their vision of classless society is truly "wonderland".
And I wonder how anyone ever takes them seriously at all.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on May 1, 2004
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quote:
Of course MIM believes there is going to be a revolution here...
No you don't. What you "believe" (and that's the right word) is that "the international proletariat" will conquer the USA and impose "socialism" at gunpoint.
Why else would you keep bringing up Stalin's gross blunders in East Germany?
quote:
They disagree with MIM, because we...said, to the followers of Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s: you had your chance to see the light, but you kept on with your imperialist rampaging. Now the solution to your problem is going to come from both inside and OUTSIDE Germany. As we all know, Soviet troops in Germany itself were the MAIN force of the solution to the problem.
Some solution! Four decades later, the GDR reunified with imperialist West Germany amidst wide-spread celebrations.
Way to go, Joe!
quote:
MIM plans on ending super-exploitation.
Who doesn't? Is there anyone who has ever suggested that American capitalists should be "permitted" to retain their foreign properties? Or that a post-revolutionary U.S. should have the same economic relations with the rest of the world as the imperialist U.S. does now?
Do you think any revolutionary is going to "protest" the seizure of American capitalist wealth in other countries?
The fact is that you have something much more "drastic" in mind, don't you?
Your wish, following the conquest of the U.S. by "the international proletariat", is to extract reparations for imperialism.
This is "justified" by your theory of "super-exploitation" -- American workers are not proletarians, but rather "labor aristocrats" and "petty-bourgeoisie" who've prospered from the fruits of imperialist super-exploitation of the "real" (third world) "proletariat".
A "nation of parasites" can be treated any way you wish, right?
Very well...go for it! Who knows, perhaps that is the only way that Americans can grasp the folly of empire. More than once I have suggested that it is only when Americans huddle in the ruins of their cities hoping the occupation troops will give them something to eat that they will finally grasp the "lessons of history" regarding imperial ambition.
But it won't be a "revolution" and the occupation will not be "socialist".
And it will not be the "international proletariat" that does it; it will be a rival and stronger imperialist power or coalition of powers.
In the context of "reparations", by the way, you may wish to consult the lessons of the Treaty of Versailles...you know, that fellow Hitler and all that.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on May 1, 2004
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quote:
Let me suggest that you are social-democrat.
Let me suggest that you "are idiot".
quote:
Wink, wink, Redstar, you should win the "RCP" over to outright Redstarism.
I think that's rather unlikely, "wink, wink".
Whether you like it or not, their Leninist credentials are just as good as yours.
I note, however, that you did not reply to the substance of my post and its summary of your position.
I therefore assume that I "got it right"...that what I said is what you actually assert to be the "truth".
I conclude that you "are idiot".
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on May 5, 2004
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I think that when MIM says that it wants "a revolution" in the United States, that they really mean they want a "Stalin" to impose "socialism" at gunpoint.
Further, that this will involve a deliberate impoverishment of the working class in the U.S. in order to finance "reparations for imperialism".
I don't, in fact, think they would rule out slave labor...if they thought that was the best way to "extract surplus" from the working class here.
This is "Mickey-Maoism"...what happens to a political idea when it is totally disconnected from its material roots.
They are Khymer Rouge wannabes...hopelessly reactionary for all their "r-r-revolutionary" yap.
They will not prevail.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on May 5, 2004
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quote:
The reason the above argument is difficult for dogmatists to swallow is that they never conceived that surplus-value ever went to anyone but capitalists. The problem is that even in Marx's day, he believed that the unproductive sector appropriated surplus-value for itself, and not just capitalists, and that sector has grown tremendously in the imperialist countries in particular where it is not only large but rich. Appropriating surplus-value is the quintessence of the capitalist-class, but it is not empirically true that it appropriates all of it, so we have to revise our image of the class structure.
As a whole class and on average, just using this very conservative calculation, there is no net surplus-value extraction of the oppressor nation working-class by the oppressor nation capitalist-class.
A global calculation of surplus-value extracted from the Third World
Although the word "calculation" appears in both the title and the conclusion of this essay, there are no actual calculations (that I could find) in the entire document.
What there are are "estimates", piles and piles of "estimates". Many bourgeois economists are quoted -- sometimes favorably, sometimes critically.
A percentage (estimated) is multiplied by a figure (often estimated as well) and the result is "super-profit".
Insofar as an actual argument is put forward, it appears to run along the lines of "imperialist trade with the third world is not a 'free market'."
In other words, the neo-colonial regimes in the "third world" created and supported by imperialism force the workers and peasants to work for less than the socially-necessary value to reproduce themselves. They can "get away" with this because there is an enormous "reserve army of the unemployed" to draw from...someone who begins his/her working life at 15 (or even younger!) and dies childless at 30 can be easily replaced over and over again, as often as necessary.
This certainly sounds like a very plausible hypothesis, but it has a problem. As I understand it, multi-national corporations that build plants in "third world" countries actually pay slightly above average prevailing wages. They want to have "first pick" in the local labor market and that's an easy way to achieve that. The difference is small, of course, and the actual working conditions may be much harsher than otherwise prevail in the local economy.
But still...
It's when you get to how "super-profits" are distributed in the "first world" that the document becomes virtually incoherent.
"Numbers" and assertions are mixed, seemingly at random, to generate the impression that the capitalist class is "bribing" everyone that lives in the "first world".
Unlearned though I admittedly am in this field, I know enough to know that "impressions" are not calculations.
There's no fundamental reason in Marxist economics for capitalists to "bribe" workers...ever.
The author(s) concede this point in a backhanded way; note where they say "the unproductive sector appropriated surplus value for itself."
This suggests that the "unproductive sector" engaged in class struggle with the capitalist class and won a partial victory...a share of the plunder from the "third world".
But who engages in class struggle against the ruling class in a modern capitalist economy? Lawyers? Middle managers? Bureaucrats? Police?
No, in MIM's view, it's the "first world" working class who are the "unproductive sector" and their class struggle is for the purpose of securing a share in those "super-profits".
The more successful "first world" workers are in class struggle, the less they are workers at all and the more they become "parasites" on the "third world".
Consequently, it's the least organized, least conscious, and most backward parts of the working class who are or may be still "real workers".
When the janitors in Los Angeles organized to win a better wage, that was not a "step forward" but rather a "step backward into parasitism".
This yields an interesting, if unique, vision of how MIM's line might be implemented in practice.
Whenever "first world" workers go out on strike for more money or better conditions, the appropriate "Marxist" response is to scab!
"All those parasites ever want is more...fuck 'em!"
This is certainly a great "revision" of Marx's ideas about "class structure".
One which is worthy, in my opinion, of enthusiastic support in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on May 7, 2004
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quote:
OK, which of the following did you reject?
1) That there are foreign profits?
2) That there is "discrimination profits"? (Captive nation profits.)
3) That there is a transfer of surplus-value from the Third World productive sector to the imperialist countries' unproductive sector?
Points one and three seem reasonable; point two is very questionable in my view.
If an imperialist corporation operating in a neo-colony enjoyed an effective monopoly of that neo-colony's commodities and there was no other significant source for those commodities, that corporation could make a "super-profit"...for a limited time.
It would still be paying the socially necessary price for labor power in the neo-colony, but would be charging first-world consumers (and other capitalists) a "monopoly price".
As you know, rival capitalists dislike this sort of arrangement and will, in time, subvert and overthrow it.
They will seek to penetrate the neo-colony themselves, or seek comparable advantages in a different neo-colony, or develop technological substitutes, etc.
There are "super-profits" but they are always temporary.
And they are never used (in a conscious way) to pay workers "more" than the socially necessary amount for their subsistence and reproduction.
I think where MIM goes wrong in its version of "Marxism" is that you think "subsistence and reproduction" means something like what was described in Engels' The Condition of the English Working Class in 1844.
Anyone who lives any "better" than that "must be a parasite".
quote:
If you don't agree with what MIM said, what are you saying the "estimate" should be instead?
I have absolutely no idea...and neither do you! A compilation of estimates is not a "calculation". It's a series of guesses.
Of course, you can (and do) claim that your estimates are "informed" or even "scholarly"...with confidence that few will have the training and background to challenge your accuracy.
I'm perfectly willing to admit that I don't. If you challenged me to calculate the world distribution of surplus value, I'd freely decline on the sensible grounds that I don't know enough to handle that kind of problem...and would add that I don't think anyone does.
Going further, trying to calculate the answer to such a question and use statistics that were never gathered for that purpose in the first place involves a horde of specified and unspecified assumptions...any one of which could render your "answer" hopelessly inadequate.
And, "shameless pragmatist" that I am, I question the actual usefulness of an answer...even if it could be determined.
Suppose we actually knew the amount of surplus value produced by each and every worker in the world to the penny and who appropriated it? Updated on a weekly basis.
How would that help?
Don't we already know which parts of the working class are "at the bottom of the food chain" in any given capitalist country?
Isn't it obvious who is engaging in class struggle and who remains dormant (for the time being)?
What real purpose is served by hanging a (largely imaginary) number on these plainly visible social phenomena?
To make yourself "look more scientific"?
quote:
And since you are so utterly pragmatist, which of the above categories do you think can be ignored without damaging the future goal of the communist struggle?
Door No. 2, please.
quote:
Do you accept Marx's idea of productive versus unproductive labor and the connected theory of surplus-value, yes or no? And if "no," why should we be surprised you disagree with MIM?
Obviously there is such a thing as unproductive labor. The problem is defining that sector in a meaningful way...one that can actually predict who (in the short or long term) will be receptive to communism because it's in their class interest and who will not.
We know from history, for example (Petrograd, February 1917) that cops will actually fight to the bitter end against the proletariat...who would deny that cops are part of the unproductive sector who are paid from the capitalists' accumulated surplus value? Who would "expect" them to ever be receptive to communist ideas? As a matter of fact, fascism is their preferred ideology...it's in their class interests.
But when MIM blithely labels all white collar workers as "unproductive", "labor aristocrats", and "parasites"...you have just abandoned Marxism altogether.
You have to look at what people actually do in their labor and who they do it for. Your image of a "worker" seems to come from a Soviet poster from the 1920s or 1930s.
In the advanced capitalist countries, it's not like that any more.
quote:
Did you agree yes or no, with Marx that total profits (including things called other things in his day) should equal total surplus-value, but each individual capitalist's profits would not equal the surplus-value extracted by that capitalist except by fluke?
It ought to be "pretty damn close"...at least most of the time.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on May 9,2004
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