Like, if tomorrow there was magically communism in all fucking USA+Europe+Australia, how would they de-imperialize their economies?
More importantly, would they? Is the desire for treats and living off other countries stronger than socialism?
Is Europe at least self-food-sufficient?
I'm pretty sure Europe is already a net exporter of food for market control reasons, but luxury goods might be different.
The EU dumps a ton of subsidies into agriculture, both to ensure self-sufficience and to dump excess produce into markets in Africa and Asia so they don't become competition for the agribusinesses here. The best-known example is poultry - Euros prefer chicken breast fillet over all other parts of the animal, and the market caters to that demand by killing enough birds to meet it, which creates a ton of excess drumsticks, wings and other chicken parts. A lot of that is put on refrigerated ships and hauled over to West African countries like Nigeria, where chicken is the most popular meat. Even with the cost of transport, it's still easier than throwing all the excess chicken corpse parts out. And this gets dumped on the market there at prices local farmers can't compete with, meaning that they go out of business, creating dependency on the chicken ships from the EU.
Europe is integrated with One Belt One Road, so no treat issues there.
The US will be fine foodwise since almost all of the food is domestic or from Mexico/Latin America.
The bigger issue is reorienting the economy. The treats are there, but a lot of people's jobs are dependent on the Empire is some respect (anything from the Military industrial complex to the finance and insurance industry) and they'll have to do something else. It's tricky to imagine what a "de imperialized" economy would even look like at this point , especially in the US.
Europe is integrated with One Belt One Road, so no treat issues there.
Eeh they can keep buying cloth made by cheap labor, but should they? More important, what happen with all the minerals they get dirt cheap (or ultimately free) from IMF indebted countries? The factories processing those minerals should move closer to wherever is extracted, and be controlled by the locals from there, not just a fucking multinational moving factories to places with cheap labor.
I'm talking about cutting all financial leeching. That has to fucking destroy Europe, or change it beyond any recognition.
Eh, it'll go to looking like Russia does today imo. Not great, not completely back to the Stone Age either. Europeans are all old as hell and dying out any way, so it's not like they need factories around.
The desire for treats is a plug in the hole that people feel from alienation and as a prophylaxis against hearing the cries of the oppressed and the very earth itself. Treats is just a mask for oblivion. It's not a coincidence that mass consumer culture and modern marketing starts in the 70s with the birth of neoliberalism and the crackdown on labour (capitalists won the last phase of the class war).
In a socialist economy we satisfy needs and not every possible want - acknowledging that "a need is a need, whether it's of the stomach or the fancy." Not every single person will get a 50 feet luxury yacht. The treat train will stop and imperial core workers will have to get used to having access to much less disposable consumer goods.
In exchange they will have true power over their workplaces, their politics, their own lives. They will be able to contribute meaningfully to the world revolution and aid comrades from all corners of the globe. They will be able to help solve climate change, meaningfully. They will be empowered, they will be unalienated, they will be liberated and so treats will no longer be necessary to mask over their own pain.
Yeah but the advertising of the 20s through 50s was like, "buy our cigarettes!" or "use borax!" The advertising where it's a personal identity didnt hit overdrive until the 70s and brands started to focus on social liscense or whatever the fuck. Listen to some of those old ads, it's kinda funny to see the difference.
imperial core workers will have to get used to having access to much less disposable consumer goods
That's the useless shitstiring hypotetical question I'm asking: "Would they tho?"
They wont have a choice either way, that shit is ending. Either on our terms as workers or because the planet is cooked.
I think the lotus-eater treat apathy can be broken out of but you need to give people a party or a movement or something to work towards. Otherwise, yeah, they have no rational reason to choose to give stuff up.
How de-imperialised are we talking about, cause I'll miss bananas or most other fruit being available year round up here in Northern Europe
Given the particular history of bananas and imperialism, I would prohibit any anglo from eating them, forever.
Unless a revolutionary organization suddenly starts gaining support and recognition soon, I think we're narrowing in on a slow collapse and ironic isolation of the US economy, likely degrading into balkanization and just general small scale chaos - a slow motion train wreck.
Of course, this was always potentially in the cards, marxists have long wondered how bad things would need to get in the US for its populace to awaken from its ignorance of history and reality. That "bad" may very well be supply chain collapse timed perfectly with climate change turning the difficulty up 10 fold on maintaining a stable food supply and the myriad of other worsening needed-for-life resources and services.
Not to be a doomer, but I think we(speaking for myself as a white westerner) have long been coddled with the end of history and suffering. And so it is impossible to imagine that things will get painful here before it can get better. People are waking up, because people are feeling this time period more and more. That's good, but it's just getting started.
There is no more guessing, no more "will the next generation of leftists finally do it?", we are out of time, and the extinction crisis is coming within the next two decades. China, IMO, is probably the one shining hope out of all of this, and perhaps the US populace can be in a decade or two, but we will see.
That will never happen so you can forget about de-imperializing their economies. Also, we are already seeing "patriotic socialist" and "socialism with American characteristics" being thrown around and seeing as how they lap up radlib imperialists like the squad, I doubt they would want a free world.
Reminds me of that "social democracy is the moderate wing of fascism" quote
