https://twitter.com/jacobin/status/1649729770635051008?s=20
I agree with the second half of the tweet.
Preaching at people that they're privileged isn't good praxis. It doesn't appeal to their material conditions.
It becomes toxic when you're in this race to the bottom over who "deserves" civil rights.
Once we liquidated the Midwest, busted up all the unions, and turned half the people under 30 into gig economy peons, we ended any serious pretense of labor aristocracy.
This is a critique of Blue Collar Boomers in Levittowns, not GenZ Houston food service workers.
Preaching at people that they’re privileged isn’t good praxis. It doesn’t appeal to their material conditions.
Yeah, it's not really wrong, but it's extremely counterproductive.
A socialist telling the average working westerner living paycheck to paycheck about how they're part of the labor aristocracy isn't going to sound any different to them than a chud doing the "you have a smartphone and a refrigerator so ackshully you're better off than historical monarchs" thing.
people struggling to get by and suffering every day aren't really getting anything out of their privilege. when things are bad enough it doesn't matter that they could be worse.
I mean, yes but no? Americans have it rough but their living standards have not plummeted to anything near those of countries which had revolutions, save segments of extreme poverty (particularly run-down parts of cities, poor rural communities in Appalachia, etc). They still have the "privilege" to be able to just barely scrape by with maybe a treat or two as a benefit of the US's continued exploitation of the rest of the world, even if it's not apparent to them.
Which is why I'm opposed to framing it as "privilege" or "aristocracy", since it provokes an unnecessary moralistic "debates" which go nowhere.
The floor of human misery experienced right now in imperialized countries is so much lower than typical American poverty.
Yeah, but it feels good to the person doing the denouncing. That's the part I think you're missing.
Material conditions? No, emotional conditions.
Depends on your audience. Preaching the basic logic of imperialism is required inside of a lefty org and is fundamental to building anti-imperialist coalition that can have solidarity with the global working class. And without this understanding, your org will fail to acknowledge and work around a populace who will perceive anti-imperialism as being against their own material interest, just like they see climate justice as "unfair" and against their own interests.
There is a point where you must be direct rather than manipulating indirectly and we should be finding ways to move it earlier and earlier in a person's introduction to socialism. I've seen a lot of groups try the indirect, manipulative approach and fail because they just plain aren't good liars, and that's what you need to succeed at it.
The thing one needs to take care in doing is to communicate effectively. Leading with, "you are privileged" without clarification gives a false impression that having housing security, healthcare, decent time off, etc are all unreasonable spoils that aren't deserved, and leaves the conversation at that. That's just bad communication and you see advocates of climate justice fuck up a similar line all the time, falling for a discoursd on degrowth that casts it as a decreased quality of life for those in the core rather than a seizure of power and resources away from the polluting ruling class and the capitalist system itself. But if you pepper it into a larger context of anti-war, solidarity with immigrants, or a maoist line on internal colonization, with examples, it can work great.
This is also why we should prioritize building within marginalized communities and worker struggles.
I’ve seen a lot of groups try the indirect, manipulative approach and fail because they just plain aren’t good liars
So what the movement needs is more liars and sociopaths
:fedposting:
Also, I take the attack against Lenin personally.
Aren't Jacobin self-described Kautskyites? :lenin-rage:
They have more than a few articles like this so I'm inclined to believe that they do have one as a whole, even if not outright stated.
Yeah but Jacobin publishes articles from all over the place. They also have a ton of articles that are pro the October Revolution; Kautskyists wouldn’t do that. https://jacobin.com/2017/11/the-russian-revolution-at-100
Yeah, fair enough. But it seems they lean more one way than the other, in practice.
“We must first fight imperialism, then we’ll settle the national question.” But you can’t — you always have to fight both fights simultaneously
tell me you've never understood mao without telling me you've never understood mao
“We must first fight imperialism, then we’ll settle the national question.” But you can’t — you always have to fight both fights simultaneously
Libs making it obvious they have no clue what third worldism is, while simultaneously minimizing the threat of US imperialism
Same old shit
What a lazy argument. Nobody argues that every worker (or organized worker) in the imperial core is a labor aristocrat. Nobody argues they are the enemy. A segment of the working class will be labor aristocrats and they will be less inclined to radical politics. In my state one of the largest employers is a shipyard that builds ships for the Navy. They have one of the strongest unions in the state and amazing benefits. They are textbook labor aristocrats. Who could blame them for supporting the war machine?
Arguing that wages stagnating disproves imperialism is lazy too. It's obvious that our pay in relation to our cost and quality of living is much higher than in the global periphery. Even if you'll be wracked with debt for the next decade you probably have a hospital that you can go to. We have universal K-12 education. You probably own a car that you can drive on tar roads. If you're hungry you can probably get food. If you can work and you want to work you can get a job. Is this because of our unique American industriousness and ingenuity? Or is it because we rob the Third World every second and our bourgeoisie is nice enough to fund some amenities to keep us quiet? That the capitalists are letting these institutions collapse as the American Empire withdraws is, if anything, proof that the last 70 years have been funded by American Imperialism and the rightward shift has been because of our labor aristocracy abandoning class struggle for imperial class collaboration.
the rightward shift has been because of our labor aristocracy abandoning class struggle for imperial class collaboration.
This right here. The global north loses its privilege and immediately we see a sharp increase in naziism. The skinheads are chanting "weimar conditions, weimar solution" but this time we don't have a Rosa Luxembourg.
The skinheads are chanting “weimar conditions, weimar solution”
Really?
How do they even know who weimar is? They're very stupid people and certainly don't study history.
Tangent but, who is Weimar then? I thought the Weimar Republic was named because of a place, not a person.
They wouldn't know that. Becuase they're so stupid
thats-the-joke.jpg
Some of them are very enthusiastic about WW2 German military history.
Nobody argues that every worker (or organized worker) in the imperial core is a labor aristocrat. Nobody argues they are the enemy.
I don't think this is too far from Settlers' thesis. There's also an abundance of half-joking comments directed at the people of the imperial core ("angloid") that some folks always take seriously. The sentiment is out there even if it's not super common.
Why is everyone in this thread arguing "yes/no US workers are labor aristocracy"
instead of discussing WHICH SECTORS of the US economy fall under that umbrella. Isn't it like, finance, insurance, real estate, tech, the military, cops?
Oh yea I keep coming back to it mainly because people are really butchering quotes from it in a way that could be used to condemn picking a side against Hitler in WWII.
that sounds like entryism.
Run for school board or city council in a small town i guess... if you can even get out of bed.
How is this wrong lol. The US working class has no power to resist the imperialism committed by its national bourgeoisie. It needs to first get some class consciousness and second get some class power to do that.
It's wrong because it ignores the dynamic race and the home ownership rate plays in the American conception of class consciousness
Compared to those two social phenomenon wages comes in a distant third
Wages have been stagnant half a century, but low income workers still make up 28 percent of the home ownership rate, that's alot of people with something to lose and it ties a huge amount of workers to the financial sector which is directly kept aflot by US imperialism
Folks hear labor aristocrat and imagine some union boss wearing pantaloons sipping tea making 100,000 plus
Reality whether leftists want to accept it or not is usually a disgruntled office or retail worker who for twenty years has been using his stagnant wages to pay a mortgage and goddammit one day he's gonna flip that broken down shitty house for a quarter million and retire and then buy a boat and maybe pay off those credit card bills
That's not a class of people you can radicalize without first destroying the economic imperialism that sustains that kind of captured consciousness
This is why the US sponsors land reform. Get people in debt and protecting what little they have and they won't have a revolution.
I will always be skeptical of third worldism because it’s an extremely convenient excuse for Western leftists to sit on their ass and do nothing.
Reality whether leftists want to accept it or not is usually a disgruntled office or retail worker who for twenty years has been using his stagnant wages to pay a mortgage and goddammit one day he’s gonna flip that broken down shitty house for a quarter million and retire and then buy a boat and maybe pay off those credit card bills
Literally the only people of my generation I know with a mortgage were helped out by their rich parents lol
I don't see it as convenient or much of an excuse at all, I see it as a call to arms for international solidarity, historically the most succrssful western labor movements were those who embedded themselves in international networks of support and advocacy, the civil rights movement being the most famous example
We see how successful the international networks of right-wing thought and power gave become, yet embracing myopic localism is supposed to be the best course for the left? Ok well western leftists are gonna get crushed doing that, at least in international movements organizational mobility becomes an option
Literally the only people of my generation I know with a mortgage were helped out by their rich parents lol
Doesn't change the fact a third of homeowners are low income workers, not every suburb is made up exclusively of mcmansions
I see it as a call to arms for international solidarity
embracing myopic localism
How is it mutually exclusive to establish international connections whilst also acting in local class struggle. That’s literally what being a communist is. Also I hate to break it to you but it’s rather to hard to build international networks if you’re an irrelevant soup kitchen with ten members. The Cubans aren’t gonna start sending weapons caches and briefcases full of cash to every Maoist book club that sends them an email. People have to start somewhere. Without a base of power the “international network” is just a mailing list
How is it mutually exclusive to establish international connections whilst also acting in local class struggle.
That's my question when lefties start trashing third worldism
Third worldists have always advanced the cause of community organizing while also putting the international struggle first and foremost
The same can not be said for the vast majority of western tendencies since at least 1917 and nothing like that has existed in the US since 1968
They’re not wrong?? People shouldn’t be conflating living standards with “labor aristocracy”. American’s artificially inflated living standards can be traced to the extraction of resources from the global south due to imperialism but the working class is still oppressed and worse off than the rest of the developed world. Wages are stagnant, unions have steadily been crushed, and there’s no safety net.
While there’s little revolutionary potential at the center of global capitalism. Organizing labor to divert capital from corporations, defunding the military industrial capital will weaken American hegemony while improving American’s lives. We’re already seeing our position decline, just without massive organizing.
I think one could say the labour aristocracy in the West is declining post WW2, but it still exists and plays a massive role in politics in those countries.
I'm talking to a lot of 18 year olds trying to find jobs for the first time. Many are not finding work or doing terrible gig economy stuff. I'm literally wondering if anyone thinks labour aristocracy ends with their generation.
I have to remind myself that articles like this are written as entertainment and to generate clicks rather than as serious analysis, because otherwise I will lose my mind
I still believe that most workers of the west don't give a shit about anyone outside of it given that the majority of the country supported bombing random people because they're darker and shared the same religion or ideology as their enemies. Regardless, it's mostly discourse that should be left to those of the global south. If you're organizing, you should be organizing to improve people's lives without exploiting the global south. It's not a "myth". It's just unproductive, but it's still insulting to act as if Joe Bro from New York will shed a tear if a Mexican kid gets beheaded for his avocado
Michael Moore managed to get a number of Americans on film agreeing America should invade France. The American media and political apparatus just primes people to be generally pro war
The thread showing why there will never be international solidarity from western nations. Everyone doing "but you can't just call everyone privileged or labor aristocracy(literally who was?)". Read the absolute libshit garbage article in the tweet. Glossing over the Anglo nations got rich. It's a straight up social democratic talking point. So much for calling yourselves Marxist Leninists.
I don’t think international solidarity was seen since 70s? And even then, natural link with anti-globalist movement was not established
Maybe I have wrong impression, but I think anti-global trade movement of the 90s-00s didn’t make an argument of “stop imports which are made with less X bucks an hour wage, cause this would offshore your job”
i don't remember that discourse having any class consciousness, it was just overt racists vs liberal racists who wanted cheap labor.
What? I don’t think seattle was lacking in class consciousness, I think either their messaging was meh or I was reality invented. Or they couldn’t break through with rhetoric :deeper-sadness:
Yup, it was always framed as if China, or Japan, or Korea was "stealing" the good jobs from the USA. Even though what really was happening was that the USA businesses were sending those jobs overseas all on their own.
That didn't happen on its own. It was US government policy to give preferential treatment to other countries, opening US markets wide, while letting those same countries close their markets to American made goods. This could only harm the American worker.
The nail in the coffin was NAFTA. Ross Perot was right about the "great sucking sound" of American working class jobs disappearing to Mexico.
lmao what is this https://twitter.com/FuknSlammer/status/1649783119103291394
tfw socialism is not pauperism but the middle class is the labor aristocracy :cat-confused:
