As children raised in the United States of America, we were expected every morning to recite the pledge of allegiance to our country. In grade school, we were taught that our first president,...
Link to the article it's responding to: https://www.patreon.com/posts/on-american-58299798
This article was not convincing. What Popuchet seems to be missing is that unlike Russia or Vietnam or even Peru, the United States was founded by the bourgeoisie and slave holding class, and only exists through that lens. Russia existed as an empire and a society and ethnicity for a long time, and even states in Latin America like Peru were not founded with the explicit purpose of genociding natives and acquiring more wealth, as those crimes mostly predate the founding of Latin American states. Not so for the United States, which was an explicit imperial project that engaged in these crimes wholesale. The people of the United States have a gloriously militant working class history that absolutely should be leveraged, but to be patriotic over a state whose entire history is dripping with blood the world over? Nah fam, not me. We can build something more inclusive and powerful than American patriotism by appealing to the past and working class heroes like John Brown, Nat Turner, Huey Newton without having to become patriots for a state and a culture whose entire existence is predicated on death.
I mean, it's just bad on every level. It ignores the tensions created in the USSR by needing to implement socialism in one country (a problem that no revolutionary movement within the US should be concerned with, because revolution in the United States would be cognate to revolution in Germany, not Russia) and completely disregards the harms that came from mixing Russian nationalism with Marxism-Leninism (namely that Russian nationalism survived. ML government, not so much), regardless of the necessity. Moreover, it makes no answer to the question of socialist internationalism or the artificiality of the nation-state. Instead, it presumes that to care for one's neighbor means one must care for the construct of their nationality, instead of caring for their humanity. Nothing could be less Marxist than the embrace of national identity over humanism. Worse, it embraces the liberal delusion that "patriotism" is different from nationalism.
There is no such thing as patriotism. Patriotism is nationalism with better PR. It is the thin film of "but not like those guys!" on top of the same philosophy that makes a nation-state identity into the earliest and most toxic form of fandom. It comes in no form that is not a reinforcement of nationhood over class. It substitutes national-chauvinism for international solidarity.
Likewise I think this is mostly arguing about labels and I'm sure Popuchet would agree with what I just said above and just say that what I'm describing is patriotism which uh ok but I disagree. Per this:
To be a patriot does not need to be realized through caricatures, but simply a devotion to your people and building a progressive future for them.
Personally I'd argue that the historical context of the American Revolution was that of a bougeoise revolution against late-stage feudalism, which is an overall positive step in the progression of Humanity. This revolution resulted in the expansion of suffrage from the British mixed-monarchy system where the dominant power of the State was in the hands of the aristocracy whom inherited the right to vote through their inbred blood whereas the bougeoise could only fume at their powerlessness - to that where the bougeoise wielded full power of the state for the first time.
Of course what they did with that power is pretty dogshit to say the least, but hey, every successive system of production is born with the birthmarks of the old system.
So first, I'd like to wholeheartedly reject this Hegelian progressive historical view of "human development" as Marx did later in life and argue that the American revolution was not by any means a "positive step in the progression of Humanity." Under what circumstance is the total destruction of millions of lives and countless cultures at all positive or progressive? How can we possibly claim the foundation of the United States, which has kept millions in bondage around the globe something that has progressed humanity on iota? We will spend centuries, millennia even, undoing the damage that the American revolution and its consequences have done to this planet. The potlatch cultures of the Pacific Northwest, the tribal democratic confederacy of the Iroquois, the waterworks of the Pueblo Indians, these are far more progressive than anything the United States has produced and are examples of systems we can hope once again to emulate, all of which were stamped out.
Second, the bourgeoisie in the United Kingdom by and large were the aristocracy, and therefore were already in control of the British state long before the American Revolution. This is partially why capitalism in the modern sense came from the United Kingdom. All the American Revolution is change the hands of control from the British bourgeoisie to a local American one. And the expansion of American democracy in 1830 came part and parcel with the expansion of slavery and the genocide of native peoples.
Finally, the bourgeoisie have been in control of states for some time before the American Revolution. Venice and other Italian city states were bourgeoisie-controlled polities. The United States of the Netherlands was a bourgeoisie controlled state as well, with only a nominal alliance with the House of Orange. In fact, the "secret sauce" of the West's success and why capitalism was able to expand all across the globe, indeed the part of the definition of capitalism itself (according to some historians like Braudel) is when the state becomes identified with and amenable only to the needs of capital. It is only when the state falls into the hands of the bourgeoisie that capital is unleashed to spread unchecked across the globe, and that had been going on for long before the American Revolution.
All these people trying to retroactively rescue the conceptions of America as progressive from the 19th century all ignore the fact that what made America actually exceptional was not democracy, plenty of societies around the world had as much or more, it was free land. The USA and Canada were the one place you could go from being a serf or tenant farmer to actually owning land* and become something like an aristocrat. That is GONE, and the replacement for it, a suburban lifestyle and the job to support it*, is also GONE. America is not fucking good or special or more progressive today even on its own terms. As a trans person I can say that the only way it is more 'progressive' for us is in it's sheer incompetence of construction and inefficiency that lets some of us slip through the cracks of oppression that you see in other countries. America is a fucking shithole, that were it not for the giant pile of imperial lucre that it accidneted its way into after the second world war, would be a complete poverty riven basket case; not just a partially poverty riven basket case.
Racial and ethnic restrictions may apply, actual freedom and rights sold separately. Please see small print for further conditions, no refunds.*
This article was not convincing. What Popuchet seems to be missing is that unlike Russia or Vietnam or even Peru, the United States was founded by the bourgeoisie and slave holding class, and only exists through that lens. Russia existed as an empire and a society and ethnicity for a long time, and even states in Latin America like Peru were not founded with the explicit purpose of genociding natives and acquiring more wealth, as those crimes mostly predate the founding of Latin American states. Not so for the United States, which was an explicit imperial project that engaged in these crimes wholesale. The people of the United States have a gloriously militant working class history that absolutely should be leveraged, but to be patriotic over a state whose entire history is dripping with blood the world over? Nah fam, not me. We can build something more inclusive and powerful than American patriotism by appealing to the past and working class heroes like John Brown, Nat Turner, Huey Newton without having to become patriots for a state and a culture whose entire existence is predicated on death.
I mean, it's just bad on every level. It ignores the tensions created in the USSR by needing to implement socialism in one country (a problem that no revolutionary movement within the US should be concerned with, because revolution in the United States would be cognate to revolution in Germany, not Russia) and completely disregards the harms that came from mixing Russian nationalism with Marxism-Leninism (namely that Russian nationalism survived. ML government, not so much), regardless of the necessity. Moreover, it makes no answer to the question of socialist internationalism or the artificiality of the nation-state. Instead, it presumes that to care for one's neighbor means one must care for the construct of their nationality, instead of caring for their humanity. Nothing could be less Marxist than the embrace of national identity over humanism. Worse, it embraces the liberal delusion that "patriotism" is different from nationalism.
There is no such thing as patriotism. Patriotism is nationalism with better PR. It is the thin film of "but not like those guys!" on top of the same philosophy that makes a nation-state identity into the earliest and most toxic form of fandom. It comes in no form that is not a reinforcement of nationhood over class. It substitutes national-chauvinism for international solidarity.
Likewise I think this is mostly arguing about labels and I'm sure Popuchet would agree with what I just said above and just say that what I'm describing is patriotism which uh ok but I disagree. Per this:
Personally I'd argue that the historical context of the American Revolution was that of a bougeoise revolution against late-stage feudalism, which is an overall positive step in the progression of Humanity. This revolution resulted in the expansion of suffrage from the British mixed-monarchy system where the dominant power of the State was in the hands of the aristocracy whom inherited the right to vote through their inbred blood whereas the bougeoise could only fume at their powerlessness - to that where the bougeoise wielded full power of the state for the first time.
Of course what they did with that power is pretty dogshit to say the least, but hey, every successive system of production is born with the birthmarks of the old system.
So first, I'd like to wholeheartedly reject this Hegelian progressive historical view of "human development" as Marx did later in life and argue that the American revolution was not by any means a "positive step in the progression of Humanity." Under what circumstance is the total destruction of millions of lives and countless cultures at all positive or progressive? How can we possibly claim the foundation of the United States, which has kept millions in bondage around the globe something that has progressed humanity on iota? We will spend centuries, millennia even, undoing the damage that the American revolution and its consequences have done to this planet. The potlatch cultures of the Pacific Northwest, the tribal democratic confederacy of the Iroquois, the waterworks of the Pueblo Indians, these are far more progressive than anything the United States has produced and are examples of systems we can hope once again to emulate, all of which were stamped out.
Second, the bourgeoisie in the United Kingdom by and large were the aristocracy, and therefore were already in control of the British state long before the American Revolution. This is partially why capitalism in the modern sense came from the United Kingdom. All the American Revolution is change the hands of control from the British bourgeoisie to a local American one. And the expansion of American democracy in 1830 came part and parcel with the expansion of slavery and the genocide of native peoples.
Finally, the bourgeoisie have been in control of states for some time before the American Revolution. Venice and other Italian city states were bourgeoisie-controlled polities. The United States of the Netherlands was a bourgeoisie controlled state as well, with only a nominal alliance with the House of Orange. In fact, the "secret sauce" of the West's success and why capitalism was able to expand all across the globe, indeed the part of the definition of capitalism itself (according to some historians like Braudel) is when the state becomes identified with and amenable only to the needs of capital. It is only when the state falls into the hands of the bourgeoisie that capital is unleashed to spread unchecked across the globe, and that had been going on for long before the American Revolution.
All these people trying to retroactively rescue the conceptions of America as progressive from the 19th century all ignore the fact that what made America actually exceptional was not democracy, plenty of societies around the world had as much or more, it was free land. The USA and Canada were the one place you could go from being a serf or tenant farmer to actually owning land* and become something like an aristocrat. That is GONE, and the replacement for it, a suburban lifestyle and the job to support it*, is also GONE. America is not fucking good or special or more progressive today even on its own terms. As a trans person I can say that the only way it is more 'progressive' for us is in it's sheer incompetence of construction and inefficiency that lets some of us slip through the cracks of oppression that you see in other countries. America is a fucking shithole, that were it not for the giant pile of imperial lucre that it accidneted its way into after the second world war, would be a complete poverty riven basket case; not just a partially poverty riven basket case.
Racial and ethnic restrictions may apply, actual freedom and rights sold separately. Please see small print for further conditions, no refunds.*
Late to the party on this post but I agree with and appreciate the succinctness in which you’ve made the point.