Some time ago I supported Third Worldism and consumed various media explaining it’s theories, but at this point it just seems like one of many copes for a lack of revolutionary energy that place blame outside the self-proclaimed “vanguard” groups and displace the need for actual self-criticism. “Westerners are labor aristocrats” is just a form of complaining that “the proles have it too good” which is a subset of the classic Marxist dogma that "conditions determine consciousness and poeple will spontaneously become revolutionary when things get bad enough.” This is something that many accept, even when rejecting the particular claim that there is no white working class. This position seemingly grants the liberal assumption that regular capitalism is fine and it’s only crises and such that are bad; failing to account for the way in which people in poor conditions often follow false explanations for their problems and pursue actions that do not lead to liberation.
“The proles have it too good" is often a claim evidenced by the expanded set of goods that people have access to. As though capitalism didn’t continually manufacture new needs. As though access to cars and microwaves weren’t mandatory for a modern alienated worker with no time not dedicated to either the reproduction of capital or the reproduction of their own labor capacity.
“The proles have it too good” resembles the sentence “kids have it too good these days.” That is not an accident, but it’s not surprising that Marxists would have an aversion to that association. Each judgement’s purpose is to serve as explanation for something one does not like to see. The boomer sees kids with “poor manners” and explains that they have not faced enough hardship to adopt proper virtuous behavior. The marxist sees people going on with the everyday slog of capitalism and “failing” to revolt and explains “only with worse material conditions would they become revolutionary and pursure their historic mission.” It’s the same moralist logic.
Alas, the worker (however “aristocratic”) does not face the decision everyday of whether to contribute to the existing hegemony or do away with it. One works because one must feed oneself – regardless of how tasty the food is. The third worldist supposes that people are bribed into going down a certain path when in fact there was no decision before them. When the conditions finally worsen, there is no guarantee of revolution. If there is revolution, there is no guarantee of socialism. Why would people attempt to establish socialism if they don’t understand what’s wrong with capitalism? When things get bad people have often gone “our rulers are no longer treating us well. Let us change things so that we may have more benevolent rulers once more.” People have indeed been driven by poor conditions to revolt but their was no necessity binding them to the pursuit of revolution.
The third worldist claims that people have it better in the west because prices have dropped.
Of course, the price of commodities have dropped. This is the natural result of competition as well as particular aspects of capitalist competition such as the development of technology. This is elementary marxism. By no means does a decrease in profits imply a decrease in exploitation. Capitalists still seek an increase in absolute profit even as relative profits drop, and all profits come from the exploitation of workers. I’m not sure how imperialist super-profits are special or imply a widespread lack of exploitation.
The third worldist cites the New Deal and such as evidence of westerners coming to benefit from capitalism. Yes, workers fought hard and were ultimately placated or met with a compromise of certain reforms. This somewhat improved the conditions of certain people for some time. I have certainly not seen enough evidence to conclude that a significant amount of people, a whole “nation” had their interests shifted in favor of their former exploiters.
There have been “leftist movements” in the west since that time, and yes, they have not accomplished revolution. Why would they have when the dominant rhetoric and explanations are about states that don’t benefit the nation enough and immoral elites who are so much worse than the petty bourgeois, or even more abstract idealist complaints like many leaders of May 68. Most people did not have a marxist critique of capitalism and their critiques only reinforced the status quo.
Everyone’s “material quality of life is dependent” on the current system. We’re still exploited. We go to our jobs because we receive money in exchange for our labor. People would fight to destroy this system if they understood exactly how capitalism exploits them. People don’t rise up in many places right now despite the fact that they are “exploited more.” Paul Cockshott has shown that baristas, for example, are still very much exploited. https://youtu.be/dEsuQyyv5hc
White people in revolutionary america were not proletarian insofar as they were homesteaders and slave owners. I don’t see why proletarians couldn’t also be reactionary based on reactionary ideas. The fact that people have acted in a counterrevolutionary manner does not make them less proletarian – an argument Sakai used time and time again (yes, I have read Settlers). An argument presupposing the classic dogma of a revolutionary “historical mission” for the proletariat. Any complaint that there is a lack of revolutionary activity can be easily rationalized by the explanation “there aren’t enough (inherently virtous) proles.”
If products are really systematically sold to people in the imperial core at prices “below their labor value” that strongly implies that prices for consumer goods on the whole are much cheaper in the west than outside. Is that the case? Is there some purpose or explanation for this aside from “bribing the workers?” Obviously, there are professional-managerial workers who play a vital role in the circulation of capital and get payed more for it, but I do not see the labor-aristocratic side of that dominating. Anyway, people buy certain commodities that they did not used to based on manufactured needs, as I have already explained. https://en.gegenstandpunkt.com/article/ideologies-about-consumption-and-consumer-market-economy uses workers in the north and south for different purposes, requiring different things of them, and they are both exploited.
On the whole, it seems like Third Worldists largely repeat liberal talking points about how the modern liberal democratic citizen is liberated from the perils of so-called capitalism, except, twisting it with moral condemnation because we have forgotted about “the little guys” in the global south.
Is the explanation wrong?
If we want to talk about history, then let’s note that it was a different era when most socialist revolutions happened. People were rebelling against colonialism, and the national bourgeoisie was pursuing liberal independence and the establishment of a government more suitable for the interests. In some cases communist groups took the helm of the anti-colonial struggle and ultimately founded their own governments. In many cases, the new government allowed the new bourgeoisie to have some power for the sake of developing the productive forces. People didn’t have insight capitalism here. They didn’t blame capitalism or the commodity form. They blamed explicit colonial oppressors. And they succeeded in achieving nominal independence around the world regardless if it was done by communists.
There are no more bourgeois revolutions to ride off or take advantage of. Capitalism is a powerful and legally widespread force. We have to actually abolish it. Colonialism in its blatant form is mostly gone, although exploitation remains. In Engels’ words (the Principles) “The slave frees himself when, of all the relations of private property, he abolishes only the relation of slavery and thereby becomes a proletarian; the proletarian can free himself only by abolishing private property in general.” This task can only be achieved by the proletariat’s collective refusal to feed the machine, instead taking control of the means of production and pursuing the abolition of wage labor and commodity production.
This is the real “gap” between the east and west that used to exist. In countries under blatant colonial domination vanguard groups could ride the coattails of bourgeois revolution, whereas in the imperial core we had to do the work of organizing the proletariat. This gap doesn’t really exist any more. We are all exploited by the same international capital.
Insight into capitalism typically only works if one’s interests are violated capitalism, obviously. But it is everyday capitalism that oppresses us, not just the crises. We cannot rely on bad conditions to make class consciousness easier to spread, because people can just as easily take up racist explanations or the idealist complaint that “this couldn’t be real capitalism. If only we could return to the decent time when the economy didn’t go to shit. Maybe one day we could have a true free market again.”
Neocolonialism is alive and well.
Can you please explain what this means? How can the proletarian refuse to feed the machine without seizing the means of production, or where manufacturing is defacto non-existent, the apparatus of business, banking, agriculture, and commerce?
Jim Crow, the KKK, Pullman Car Company illustrated this, as well as the Palestinian genocide.
It’s not “without seizing the means of production.” It’s prior to doing so. The proletariat has a special place in capitalism in that its labor is essential to the system’s functioning. If people refuse to work like in a strike (see the USSR) the system stops functioning and people can take over.
Ah ok, I get you. Then we have to deal with scabs.
I mean both Engels and Marx would disagree that crises in the current mode of production aren’t the tinder that sets alight the fires of a revolution. You cannot hit a critical mass of people wanting to upend things if most people are, while exploited, broadly comfortable and willing to take their lumps thinking that things will probably continue to improve if they don’t rock the boat. Crises create flash points where people can’t see a moderate and easy way out, where the only safe bet is actually to overthrow the current rulers because they’ve used up whatever good will they had gained from their subjects. Consciousness building is simply the work that is done to ensure that, of that critical mass of revolutionary subjects, there is a sizable portion who can steer the masses, who understand why things are happening and can thoroughly explain it to the masses. Many of the rest of the masses may never actually become ardent communists, or have any great level of communist consciousness besides what the communists are currently telling them to get out of their shit situation they are currently in.
People can be driven towards extremes during crisis yes. We must take advantage of that. However we cannot count on inherently revolutionary conditions coming out of nowhere. We must spread class consciousness. Additionally, we must critique crises not as aberrations where capitalism went “too far,” but as one more horror in a long line. Capital harms the proletariat whether there’s a crisis or not.