The usefulness of describing the labor aristocracy is that their exploitation is decreased relative to the same conditions in the periphery, and they are actually sometimes aware of why this is the case, so they are poor allies and will not be - and haven't been - where socialist revolution takes hold first. There has always been poverty and a highly exploited underclass in the imperial core, don't get me wrong, but it has been successfully marginalized. The group of people who recognize their exploitation is increasing as wages stagnate and inflation increases and homeownership becomes unattainable, but that process will take decades. And there continues to be a serious risk that they will be easily led into imperial endeavors to save their quality of life at the expense of others, as convincing Americans of war has never been easier.

It is also useful to understand why you can't just add unions to the equation and get good results. Unions have been kneecapped and turned into collaborative apparatuses by default in the United States, they have to be made radical and at least nascently class conscious. That will be very difficult to do because, in reality, the politics of class struggle is anemic in the imperial core, it was blacklisted and killed off in the red scares. We have to build both up from almost nothing and that will take a lot of time. It's also necessary to understand that we are still very few. Lots of people call themselves socialist but don't even know the basics of the term, they just want taxing the rich and social spending. This is all easier to understand in the context of a labor aristocracy that has an interest in imperialism. They don't need to be aware of it, they just need to exist where social structures reinforce it.

I don’t think this is necessarily true.

From the article: "The reason there’s no necessary link between the two is that workers’ wages always depend on two things: productivity and class struggle."

I was hoping we could just agree that productivity is largely bullshit because GDP is largely bullshit, particularly in imperial core economies based on the FIRE sector. And not only that, but funny enough they are also propped up by imperialism, as finance capital is extremely predatory on the periphery. If we do agree, then it's left up to class struggle, per this loser.

If capitalists understand that the imperialist system is dependent on a smoothly functioning imperial core, then they are more likely to try to cede ground to workers in said core.

Only until they bottom out on profits from imperialism, but yes. And this would actually be something that happens via negotiations with the federal government, which tries to keep capitalism functioning.

They are also going to do their best to purge class conscience workers and elevate class traitors (who can be found in leadership positions at many of the remaining US unions).

Hell they purge anyone that criticizes them in most environments. Little petty fiefdoms.

That prevents the development of an organized working class and therefore limits workers’ ability to fight imperialism from within the US.

It's not like firing the agitators is new, yet union membership is down down down. There's something else at work, and has been since the late 1940s: systemic purges of the left, blacklists, murders, kneecapping of unions, and offshoring of union jobs. The offshoring is, itself, a part of imperialism as well. But wages are high, even as class conflict decreased - or to be more accurate, as capitalists won over and over again. There is very little collective bargaining power in the US, labor rights are miniscule or actively hamper organizing (it's illegal to even form unions in many government sectors), and socialists are largely a bunch of kids that haven't read theory and don't know how to form unions - but they do often make up for it in enthusiasm.

As I see it, this system will remain of effect as long as profits are maintained. Once profits start to dry up, capitalists will squeeze workers both in the periphery as well as the imperial core. In the latter case this increases the level of class struggle and class consciousness and therefore the potential for anti imperialist organizing. I believe we’ve started to see this in recent years within the US.

Well yeah that's just imperialism turning inwards, the labor aristocracy will get a little taste of what they've been living off of and it will indeed stoke conflict. Though we are completely and utterly fucked if we don't grow our ranks ASAP, like wildfire. Because those conditions aren't an automatic win for socialists, they're great for various fashy reactions as well, and we - and people overseas - are the perfect scapegoats for them. A variant of The Jakarta Method can easily play out here.