it's because they haven't read it
:matt-jokerfied:
no seriously, on the recent chapo episode with brace they went on this 10 minute rant about the book and then every admitted they had never read it
good stuff
Imagine if they were to read third worldist theory lmao, they'd self combust
Imagine your average American leftist podcaster reading this:
Unequal exchange means, rather, that the problem of the class struggle needs to be looked at on the world scale, and that national problems cannot be treated as mere epiphenomena accompanying the essential problem of the "pure" class struggle. It means that the bourgeoisie of the center, the only one that exists on the scale of the world system, exploits the proletariat everywhere, at the center and at the periphery, but that it exploits the proletariat of the periphery even more brutally, and that this is possible because the objective mechanism upon which is based the unity that links it to its own proletariat, in an autocentric economy, and which restricts the degree of exploitation it carries out at the center, does not function at the extraverted periphery.
The constitution of a world system, with the characteristics that this possesses, has not only made possible the development of socialist trends at the periphery, but has also shifted the principal nucleus of the forces of socialism, from the center to the periphery. It is a fact that transformations in a socialist direction have broken through only at the periphery of the system. To deny this is to deny the changes that have occurred in the world system, ultimately to deny the existence of a world system, and to forget that the periphery, integrated into the world system, has been very largely poletarianized.
- Samir Amin, Unequal Development
Chapo guys famously went on a liberal podcast and argued in favor Iran having nukes.
I don't think they'd self combust.
This quote is almost just restating Trotskys theory of Permanent Revolution. This might go into more detail, but these ideas have existed in left wing thought since the very beginning. It’s workers of the world unite of course.
I read the other day that the USSR failed to rally the working class of other countries to join in the revolution. That’s a Trotskyite idea, yes? It’s never been super clear to me whether Trotsky’s ideas were flawed or if people’s issues with him were more based in his personality and actions
Part of the issue with Trotsky is that he was so petty and resentful that it seemed to dictate everything he did after a certain point. I hold that he is probably the most significant single figure in the compatible left's history, which is to say he was an immense anti-communist actor in consequence. He had not half as much interest in building communism as he did in attacking Stalin specifically.
"No!" The doctrinaire Trot cries, "Haven't you heard of his theory on campism? We must be a third camp, neither the imperial core nor stalinism, and oppose both!"
Oh yeah? Go fuck yourself. When your boy was in Mexico and the US Government, which was prosecuting the heads of America's communist party, asked him to testify, he agreed.
Why? Was it to protect the leftist movement in America however he could? Or at all? No! It was to use the trial as a platform to denounce stalinism. You can see there that even in private correspondence with his "fellow" leftists in Latin America, not a single word is spared for helping the organization that is being beheaded or otherwise helping advance socialism in any way except for decrying stalinism.
This guy was an absolute crank in the end and the only bad thing about his assassination is that it didn't happen sooner.
The Great Famine was just a single famine, and the other two famines were in the decades before and after.
I hate Trotsky and think he's a hack, but it's worth considering if his method would have prevented the creation of the pseudo-petite-bourgeois kulaks who made the famine so much worse.
The kulaks were a historical class of peasants/small time lords, but their position was slightly transformed prior to the famine by earlier collectivization efforts that made the heads of local collectives essentially national bourgeois. At least, that was what I remember being told of it.
They also killed an insane amount of livestock along in with destroying grain and farming tools.
The idea of permanent revolution isn’t about exporting revolution, though that’s the common misconception. The basic idea he came up with in 1905, during the first revolution. It basically states that the strength of the western bourgeoisie makes revolution in Western Europe unlikely initially.
Because the western bourgeoisie is so powerful, they also end up controlling capitalist development outside the imperial core. This led to a situation in Russia where you had the development of capitalism, and a corresponding Russian proletariat, but with no development of a Russian national bourgeoisie. Therefore, it’s easier for socialist and communist movements to gain traction in the periphery, as they have no national bourgeoisie to confront.
But this also means that national liberation movements cannot be led by the bourgeoisie in these peripheral countries, as they are kept impoverished by western capital. Only the working class has this ability, and because the working class will have to lead the movement, it behooves them to go beyond overthrowing the Tsar, Qing Emperor, etc. Instead they have to continue the revolution, which is where the term “permanent revolution” comes from and create socialism.
And that I think is basically what the author of the above quote is saying as well, though with different vocabulary to what Trotsky would use.
It means going beyond a political revolution, and beginning to construct a socialist society. So, in Russia you had the overthrow of the Tsarist regime in the February revolution. But the liberals in Russia were extremely weak, so they couldn’t hold political power. So in order to sustain the revolution, the Bolsheviks had to take power in the October Revolution. From there, you see the beginning of an attempt to build a communist society.
So the basic concept is that in peripheral states, the national bourgeoisie are either weak or compradors. Therefore it has to be the masses who overthrow the colonial or semi-colonial regime. And then there interests are still ultimately still proletarian so they have to continue the revolution and seek the establishment of socialism. They can’t (or maybe rather shouldn’t) construct a new capitalist state.
Trotsky says in essence yes, Stalin says no. I don’t think Lenin was trying to copy Trotskys specific program or anything, but I think Trotsky’s analysis on how revolutions develop is sound.
The problem is that it’s not just analysis, but also a prospective political program. Stalin’s grievance is somewhat technical and has to do with the relationship of the peasantry to the new state. They both wrote a bunch of polemics. Stalin wrote ‘Trotskyism or Leninism’, and then Trotsky wrote ‘Results and Prospects’ in 1905 which is where he lays out the basic theory, and then ‘The Permanent Revolution’ which is a defense of the theory from Stalin’s criticism.
It means that the bourgeoisie of the center, the only one that exists on the scale of the world system, exploits the proletariat everywhere, at the center and at the periphery, but that it exploits the proletariat of the periphery even more brutally, and that this is possible because the objective mechanism upon which is based the unity that links it to its own proletariat, in an autocentric economy, and which restricts the degree of exploitation it carries out at the center, does not function at the extraverted periphery.
Talk about a garden path sentence. Am I understanding this right?
[The center’s owners exist across the whole world. They’re the only class that this is true for. They exploit both the center’s workers and the periphery’s workers. However, they exploit the periphery’s workers more brutally. This is possible because the center’s economy is more self-centered, so it’s easier for the center’s workers to push back on brutality. The periphery’s economy, however, is focused on exports.]
It’s very possible I’m misreading the sentence or misunderstanding the meaning of the words “autocentric” and “extraverted” in context or in practice
Yeah the original work is in French, this is a translation. Which is why some sentences don't go over well. But you understood it right as far as I can understand
IIRC their argument is the most annoying people on the left frequently reference Settlers therefore it's not worthwhile without considering that those left-wing clout chasers haven't read Settlers either.
I think Matt had read it and didn't want to get into it. Sounded like his criticism might be that the thesis is probably right, but for organizing within the US you have to operate like it isn't.
The thesis, as they state it, is that Americans can't organize a leftist front because they are Settlers.
So the book becomes a tool for self-recrimination without any real call to action.
That's certainly one interpretation. But the whole conversation is a meta-narrative about effective (or, in this case, ineffective) organizing and how "Read Settlers" seems to be a call that shuts down productive efforts and breeds naval gazing.
Sounded like his criticism might be that the thesis is probably right, but for organizing within the US you have to operate like it isn’t.
Isn't this basically what :bernie: did with leftistism as whole in the USA, and while he succeeded at first, he ultimately failed because he wasn't prepared to take the conclusions any further. At some point, you have to explain further.
I wouldn't say that was Sander's problem because he smacked head-first into the fact the democratic primary system is almost exclusively for the affluent and college educated.
Not saying he wouldn't have run into more obstacles, just saying he didn't even get far enough to draw such conclusions.
operate like it isn't
Yeah I've read parts of Settlers and that's where I'm at. I live in America, so organizing here is going to invovle white working class folk. That's unavoidable. I'm probably not going to sucessfully organize them initially on an innate mutual cause of ending oppression of the global south, rather I'm going to hope we can be guided in a way of ending imperialism while also advancing the working class everywhere. Sounds really difficult because it is. White folk here get distracted and pick up fascism like a toy.
the most annoying people on the left frequently reference Settlers
:marx-angry:
The “Read Settlers” people on Twitter are both the best and worst thing to happen to Settlers
Honestly by biggest problem with the “read settlers” crowd is they seem to want people to ONLY read settlers.
very real person who absolutely exists lol
Settlers covers all those topics in a really fun, humourous way, at least humourous to me. "Theirstory", "Amerika", "white surprise", random bolding, italics, and air quotes, it feels like a big forum effortpost with some neat history.
Don't just read Settlers read Fanon's Wretched of the Earth as well.
I would warn people in regards to Black Skin, White Masks about 2 things:
-
It's extremely hard to read without an understanding of Freudian psychoanalysis and is generally a bit of a slog to get through, highly recommend using a supplemental analysis of the book to better understand.
-
It contains some real bad :brainworms: about women and gender roles in general
-
I've read Wretched of the Earth and started Black Skin, White Masks today. I feel like I'm missing something, and maybe you can point out what that is.
Wretched of the Earth details the destruction of indigenous culture, the resulting colonised mindset alienating both the coloniser and colonised - making a way out of colonial relations seem even more inconceivable, the incomprehensible scale of violence the coloniser uses, and the necessity of transforming economic relations with the coloniser to be truly independent (requiring socialism).
So far (first 3 chapters) Black Skin, White Masks shows this colonised mindset/the effects of colonisation on black people's psyche in greater detail, though not necessarily explaining why but moreso observing (and observing from a very male perspective).
Does that seem accurate? What are some key points I missed?
Settlers is a 400,000 word Harry Potter fanfic written by Maoists.
Settlers is a city-building video game with real-time strategy elements, developed and published by Blue Byte Software.
In the end, they are podcasters and not revolutionaries or organizers. Saying that, Brace put his life on the line for a global south liberationary cause (Rojava) with socialistic tendencies so hopefully he's allowed a pass on this one, maybe he didn't read Sakai but he was also willing to die - and not in just a "cool" or "honorable" way by getting shot but also dehydration or cholera.
So, I guess anyone who disagrees with Sakai or refuses to read it can ship out to a socialist international legion next time lol.
I'm so down for this as a program, read Settlers or fight in a liberatory struggle in the global south lol
In the end, they are podcasters and not revolutionaries or organizers
They seem like organizers to me. If nothing else, they're broadcasting information to a large audience - a role which is necessary and useful to any mass organization.
If the Chapos fundraise - like Felix did to raise money for Palestinians a year or so back - they raise money. If they host events, lots of people show up. If they put out a call to action, people act.
That's organizing, baby!
So, I guess anyone who disagrees with Sakai or refuses to read it can ship out to a socialist international legion next time lol.
Doing the Progressive Stack, but with Challenge Coins.
Oh yeah. He did that Craft Beer unionizing thing, didn't he?
Underappreciated piece of Brace Lore.
According to him he was lightly involved but mostly it was other people doing to unionization work.
When he's not in character, Brace tends to be very modest. But I'm sure he pulled his weight in any effort.
Organizing and fundraising are two different things. They are clearly not organizers.
I didn’t realize being a US imperialist proxy and looting oil from Syrians was a “global south liberationary [not a word] cause”
Hint: if you are allied with the US you are wrong, with the singular exception of WW2
Once you compare the Kurd territory with the oil fields, things get a lot more interesting
http://www.energy-cg.com/MiddleEast/Syria/Syria%20Oil%20and%20Gas%20Overview.html
http://www.energy-cg.com/MiddleEast/Syria/Syria_Turkey_Kurds_USBasesLocationsReportedKurdArea_Image1x1_Oct19_EnergyConsutlingGroup_web.png
http://www.energy-cg.com/MiddleEast/Syria/Syria_Turkey_Kurds_ProposedSafeZone_Image1x1_Oct19_EnergyConsutlingGroup_web.png
There's been a times the US has stumbled into being on the right side, like the Portuguese Colonial Wars, but yea 99% of the time the Evil Empire is evil
They didn’t do that in Syria, the civil war they started, with jihadists they trained. It was a purposeful imperialist action to split the nation along ethnic lines and promote different factions and bleed the country white
Nah, the attack on Pearl Harbor was done 6 months after Operation Barbarossa started. The US did the absolute bare minimum and only did it at the last minute, so it's not the case of other countries being allied with the US but the US being allied with them.
Well it’s also that one of the main causes for WW1 and WW2 was Germany wanting to have what Britain had. I don’t mean the islands of the UK, I mean their globespanning empire of colonial domination. So necessarily, both world wars would orbit around the conflict of UK vs. Germany. Interimperialist fighting in both cases.
What was unique about WW2 was that there was a new wildcard, the USSR. The first proletarian non-imperialist superpower that created such fear and reaction in the bourgeois imperialists of Germany, UK and USA that the whole war went differently. Germany was allowed to metastasize by the other European powers in a hope it would collide with the USSR. Germany was overtaken by the blackest reaction and took on an anti-communist genocidal crusade, funded and backed by capitalists around the world to go Eastward.
The USA was dragged into WW2 on the side of the UK because of heavily shared capital interests between the two anglo nations. The USSR did whatever it needed to protect itself, stalling for as long as possible with ceasefires and then allying with whoever to repel the genocidal German invaders.
Fucking hell I really do need to read this theory shit everyone's always joking about
They literally did not say they hated it or really criticized it in any way. People are just getting mad because they made jokes about it.
From a certain perspective it's just high level shit-posting. A throw away aside about how the gist of a book's thesis doesn't appear to be a great primer to action for the american left but that the book itself is a good heuristic, among many others, for identifying tiresome pedantic online lefties. It drew out the people it was (half-heartedly, ironically) criticizing and they went for the bait like reply guys to shit posters.
I don't remember any of them saying they hate it, only that they think there are more important things to read, which is basically everybody's point of view of every book they haven't read
I haven't read Settlers, but here's my attempt at figuring out what its about from posts that have said "read Settlers":
Working class white people in the US are not the same as working class people of other races, especially those in third world countries. This is because white people benefit from the slavery, racism, and general destruction of other races and third world countries. Therefore it is almost futile trying to get white people to ally with a socialist movement since it will lead to them losing these privileges. It will also require white people having to acknowledge the reality that they have benefited from the subjugation of other countries and races. This is why socialist movements occur more often in third world countries while white people are more likely to turn towards fascism.
Anyway what's with the conspiracy theory that J Sakai doesn't actually exist?
It’s more an explanation to why white people keep falling for the carrot of petite bourgeois privilege and how they have historically sold out the poc in working class movements for that privilege than it is outright saying it’s futile for poc to organize with white Americans. That organization does require white Americans to take stock of that privilege and keep their eye on the prize of full liberation and not just jump ship for the first concession capital gives exclusively to them, which has historically been our stumbling block. being aware of and acknowledging that history and those conditions is the only way you’ll overcome them en masse. The problem is a lot of white leftists take that critique personally bc they don’t want to reckon with the implications of it.
It’s more an explanation to why white people keep falling for the carrot of petite bourgeois privilege and how they have historically sold out the poc in working class movements for that privilege than it is outright saying it’s futile for poc to organize with white Americans.
While this paragraph is from a completely different book and deals with the contradiction of the first and third world, the message is the same as what you're saying here.
To say that the theory of unequal exchange means that "'the workers at the center exploit those at the periphery" is meaningless, since only ownership of capital makes exploitation possible. (This also implies accepting a mechanistic relation between standard of living and political attitude, and so reducing the dialectic of the infrastructure and the superstructure to direct economistic determination.) To say, from a different standpoint, that it means that the bourgeoisie of the periphery is, like its proletariat, interested in shaking off the domination of the center, signifies that one has simply forgotten that this bourgeoisie has been formed from the outset in the wake of the bourgeoisie of the center.
Idk something about his listed address being a po box near FBI hq? Maybe langley? Don't remember
Here's a post that is against it. Love to start a book critique by relitigating beef https://thecharnelhouse.org/2017/05/15/dont-bother-reading-settlers-by-j-sakai/
So, I havent read Settlers. Is it worth putting on my list? I read the NATOpedia page on it and I'm definitely interested.
It's worth reading with a grain of salt. What it postulates is both explanatory and unhelpful.
I think Sakai's thesis that the US white working is irreedmably reactionary - or at least, will always be incentivized to betray non-white working class movements - was very true for the time he was writing it, but I'm not sure it completely holds up today.
Established majority-white trade unions don't have the same power that they used to, and a lot of white millenials and zoomers are downwardly mobile and working at Amazon or in gig work. Plus since deindustrialization US capital doesn't have the same need for a specifically white working class to act as a buffer against indigenous /PoC movements.
eh i think its more about their privileges that lead them to have a reactionary character. I do think conditions have changed of course since then but i think its still pretty relative and worth engaging in, if not just as a historical account. I'm white trash and have definitely benefited from being white and living majority of my life as a cis man in countless, imperceptible ways while being somehow downardly mobile from my shitty start. My friend is making 100k+ with just a high school diploma from nepotism after a couple years of roughing it alongside me. I still see tons of reactionary ass takes that come from privilege and the ignorance that can bring on the internet, including hexbear. I mean stupidpol exist lol. Also think theres a cultural element of feeling like white people are entitled to petite bourgeois privilege that persists in a lot of white working class people even while their material conditions are shit. We have to remember how strong propaganda is america, americans arent making policy decisions rationally based on their bank account otherwise we wouldnt have managers at retail stores making 45k thinking its horrible taxing elon musk and stuff like that
Oh of course, didn't mean to imply that white privilege doesn't exist or that people shouldn't read Settlers. I just meant that I think the broad swathe of white working class people under 40 are more open to socialist ideas, and more willing to support liberatory PoC movements, than they were in the 70s and 80s.
I thought this book was new. It's from 83. Id say it's premise from what i under stand having not read it, is probably very outdated at this point
Also think theres a cultural element of feeling like white people are entitled to petite bourgeois privilege that persists in a lot of white working class people even while their material conditions are shit.
I think this is an interesting point. I do think conditions have changed since Sakai wrote the book that Bluegrass_Buddhist points out. But it seems like the "echo" of past privileges still resonates with the white working class, as well as plenty of explicit privileges that still exist.
The thing is you can’t really hand wave in whole or in part what settlers is talking bc it’s like 50 years old. That’s like libs saying Marx isn’t relevant bc computers or whatever, the analysis In the book is through broad periods of America, and those histories will continue to shape the present and future. Also it’s not like white people being downwardly mobile and being into socialism is a new thing. Before the red scare a lot of white workers were socialist and a large part of the book is dedicated to this period which honestly mirrors current events in a lot of ways. I’d be suspicious of saying conditions have changed so this isn’t relevant now when I continue to see privileged people fall into similar pitfalls, how often poc still have to point out how their voices are marginalized over white comrades in purportedly leftist spaces.
Sorry, to clarify I'm all on board with Settlers, I just think there's value in adding to it based on current conditions vs 50 years ago.
Before the red scare a lot of white workers were socialist and a large part of the book is dedicated to this period which honestly mirrors current events in a lot of ways.
That's a very good point. My assumption was that in a post-1992, post-2014, post-2020 world, where US demographics are becoming much less white, that young white workers would be more aware of and want to guard against racism in their workplaces and orgs. But maybe that was wishful thinking on my part.
Well we’re having these discussions now so that’s definitely a good thing and probably something you wouldn’t have seen as much in the time periods settler was talking about. I think things are improving for sure I just think it’s good to be cautious about saying everything is equal and coming into leftist spaces saying that bc we still have a lot of work to do to get there and it definitely privileges white people for that to bc widespread if I’m making sense.
Sorry I’m writing these between editing at work so if I’m being inarticulate that’s why lol
No worries! I get what you're saying, and I agree. Sorry if it seems like I was saying that white supremacy doesn't exist in left spaces or that whiteness isn't still a major hurdle, maybe the biggest, to broad working class solidarity. I just meant that, as conditions in the US continue to spiral, perhaps the barriers that separate white workers from a lasting class conciousness (one that includes their privileged relationship to PoC workers) aren't as concrete as they were in Sakai's day, or in the eras he examined.
I will attest that I’m a white person raising white kids in the core and that my child, through no signaling of mine, has it in their head that we ought to own nice cars, own designer clothes, and go on several vacations a year. I know some of this is just children wanting to do fun stuff and have cool things, but the specifics of what things are absolutely reek of white nostalgia for the 50’s and a general romanticization of bourgeois culture.
I swear I’m not trying to drag my kid for not being sufficiently proletarian. Just pointing out that through media consumption and talking to their peers they’ve seeped up the same propaganda as everyone else, no matter how much I’ve made sure my parenting doesn’t reflect or encourage that
For anyone interested, @dessalines, one of the two creators of Lemmy, has recorded an audiobook of Settlers, which you can find here:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0-IkmzWbjoZEICtu8cocz_3oRFS6L7wN
