Surplus capital is not a “libertarian thing”, it’s a Lenin thing, it’s the reason why capital is exported.
Sorry, we're miscommunicating I think. Are you conflating "dollars" with "capital" here?
My reading tells me the export of surplus capital refers to the export of productive machines, not the literal national currency. But I am, in fact, talking about the demand for the literal national currency i.e. not surplus capital specifically. Yes, US productive capacity is still high and there's still a lot of unequal exchange happening between the US and its imperialized holdings as it forces them to use its machines and proprietary software etc etc, but notably interest rates have needed to remain high (so no more historically low interest rates) and this has put incredible downward pressure on the value of loans in USD.
At the same time, the sanctions regime has bifurcated the global economy. There's now a parallel economy that exists outside of USD and this is adding additional downward pressure. Nations can now get loans from elsewhere (notably China), trade with national currencies for commodities and even resources like oil, and avoid unequal exchange with the declining hegemon because of the large and growing non-USD economy. The value of US dollar and demand for dollars can still decline despite US exports.
So, between nations not wanting loans from the US and being able to trade without USD, literal demand for dollars has fallen. This is, in part, where the inflation is coming from.
Where is the money going? Police, judicial, and carceral costs are increasing year over year.
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Did I mention that over half of the money spent on incarceration and policing (reaching a quarter trillion dollars every year, chart ends in 04, $261B spent in 2018) is wages for cops, guards, and judicial staff?
Is this not a sign of the debourgeoisification of the rest of the working class? The empire needs to spend more and more on policing and incarceration of exploited and superexploited workers at home, to the point that those high costs of control are now eating into quality of life of the rest of the working class due to inflation. At the same time it needs to keep elevating the lifestyles of pigs higher and higher to keep them showing up to work, as the act of policing itself becomes more reviled and more mentally taxing (I'm reminded of Fanon talking about how colonialism dehumanizes the colonizer). This is the other side of where the inflation is coming from.
As the cops, guards, judicial staff, and all the other carceral employees demand more wages they're acquiring investments and housing and special legally protected status. They're being further bourgeoisified, developing into their own special class and totally separate from the rest of workers who are beginning to be debourgeoisified (they can't acquire housing, they can't build savings, they don't have investments, they certainly can't seclude and segregate themselves away from the rest of the working class into white enclaves).
This special class of carceral workers is being elevated at their expense. They're being turned from national police to colonial police, many white workers are being turned from settlers into... not natives, but something adjacent?
These aren’t conditions to wait around for! Don’t wait for shit to get worse! There is revolutionary potential now! You have hundreds of national liberation struggles and 100 million oppressed nationals across Black/Indigenous people and Chicanos/Latinos. These struggles could have been turned into revolution in the 60s but revisionist Communists at that time said “wait we need white workers!”.
When did I give this impression? I merely contend that shit is getting worse, not that we need to wait for anything!
Yes, the internally colonized people of the US are the most revolutionary force within it. I work in a factory and I can see how all the positions of management are only given to white English speakers, while the production floor is dominated by nonwhite people whose first languages are French, Arabic, or Spanish. I can see what you're talking about every day.
I guess I'm just optimistic that the white working class has finally entered its own decline, but as you say, the embodied and generational wealth that they've accumulated will take quite some time to disappear. This is not a call to wait around, merely an observation that the time those misguided white communists were waiting for might be happening.
All of this is to say that the recent labor upsurge and rise in class consciousness has a material basis and isn't just a fad.
Am I to understand that your point is nothing has fundamentally changed?
Nothing has fundamentally changed from the 60s, assimilation (which is paid for by Imperial value transfers) of oppressed nations is dual education and incarceration, both have increased over time, in dialectic. Women have been participating in wage labor more and more but that looks to have reached a relative peak.
You seem to think inflation is anything other than more wages than can be spent or reinvested (if in savings banks and credit unions). Inflation in the US is due to super-profits added to wages. An exploited Proletariat literally cannot save money, and globally luxury spending does not mean they are exploited!
My reading tells me the export of surplus capital refers to the export of productive machines, not the literal national currency.
Example: Sterling system. Britain exported capital to its own settlements in Canada and Australia. Britain was practicing "unequal exchange" (violent trade monopoly) with India, paying off their domestic workers with it, and then sending settlers to collect more resources in the colonies. Also, Lenin called French Imperialism "usury Imperialism" because France was exporting literal currency in loans to Russia and other European states. Capital exports of "real machines" are mostly to other Imperialist states or military allies, or Socialist states brought into circumstantial trade deals (same as Lenin's time with NEP), and not "backward" economic systems of semi-colonial, semi-feudal character as seen in former Spanish colonies, India, and Africa. France still performs "usury Imperialism" (coupon clipping) with French and Euro currencies.
Cops are petty booj, more cops means more petty booj.
The US is a more advanced British Empire + French Empire in one. It's not a surprise since the US inherited every Imperial relationship the former great powers had!
I guess I’m just optimistic that the white working class has finally entered its own decling.
This is copium and you're universalizing your position within the Settler economy. In my other post there's a Polemic Against Settler "Maoism" that criticizes your line (this does not mean you are 100% wrong! It means you have some fundamental misunderstandings but you are in the right direction!). New class consciousness is due to the eugenic nature of settler society where productive, but unexploited economically due to Imperialism, workers were put into the disease gauntlet serving fascistic semi-proles and petty boojies who did not care for their well being.
Outside of Economistic practices focusing on wages and prices, the great thing this new wave has brought through the pandemic is organizing around workers' health and wellness, as well as property abuses such as AI likenesses for performers. These are still material problems and the pandemic exposed them, but still this unions are hitting Economistic dead ends in organizing energy, still many workers are were permanently injured by the pandemic conditions and many are still getting sick with no protections. Union activity isn't the end all be all of class consciousness, as seen in AFL's history of making the bombs that kill people so they can have houses and cushy retirements.
And don't pray for white conditions to worsen. Lenin railed against German comrades who were preoccupied with wages in Imperialist states. No strong party was developed during and after WW1 and when the "crunch" actually happened to workers obsessed with wages and inflation, they suited up to herd the "undesirables" into camps. My worry is that when whites start feeling real class struggle they'll turn my people in prison into actual slaves if we don't have the readiness for a violent opposition ala AIM and the BPP.
You seem to think inflation is anything other than more wages than can be spent or reinvested (if in savings banks and credit unions).
Yes? Inflation, as experienced by the worker, is the cost of goods and services and housing rising faster than wages. Which is happening. Inflation does not automatically equal higher wages. Inflation, again as experienced by the worker, means higher prices. If that comes with higher wages then the worker can keep up with inflation and no one notices much other than the fact that their savings literally lose value over time, but debourgeoisification has disrupted this process. We are now seeing inflation actually outpace workers, they are not just making more to pay their higher bills and it's lead to the recent labor upsurge.
This is not universal, obviously. The wages of managers, cops, so-called skilled laborers, bureaucrats, etc have risen in pace with inflation. We have seen some workers keep up and other workers fall behind, splitting off those workers and debourgeoisifying them as they fail to save and fail to attain property and fail to get "ahead." I'm not sure why you're insisting this isn't happening.
Do you think there isn't a labor upsurge and that class consciousness isn't rising?
An exploited Proletariat literally cannot save money, and globally luxury spending does not mean they are exploited!
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You're right! And would you look at that, the savings rate in the US has been declining since the 60s, supposedly the period when things stopped changing. The savings rate briefly went up after the financial crash and bucked the trend of decline (i.e. when capital destruction created new avenues for investment) and obviously spiked during the period when people cared about COVID, but on the whole there has been a steady decline that coincides with the way real wages have stagnated.
Inflation is not in "luxury spending" it's in fucking groceries and rent and housing.
The US is a more advanced British Empire + French Empire in one. It’s not a surprise since the US inherited every Imperial relationship the former great powers had!
Okay, so you are speaking literally of currency being exported. But you're contradicting yourself and I'm confused.
You say "capital exports bring down the prices of goods" yet we are also talking about conditions of strong inflation. Is this not a contradiction? Does this not indicate that capital exports are falling, and that demand for USD is falling? You say nothing has changed, but despite the harshest sanctions regime in history we have seen Russia's economy continue to grow! We are seeing nations make deals with each other in national currencies, totally bypassing USD. We are seeing alternatives to the World Bank and IMF, which offer loans in currencies other than USD.
The world is changing, and the conditions for white workers will change with it. Maybe it's too early to say
Cops are petty booj, more cops means more petty booj.
What productive assets do they own? I think they're a special protected class created by the State, and while their class interests align with business owners and independent farmers they are still distinct and it's worth recognizing it.
This is copium and you’re universalizing your position within the Settler economy.
Maybe. Some of the trends I'm noticing have only been around for a few years, it could just be a blip and the white working class will go back to feasting on the superprofits of the global South soon enough. But-
Outside of Economistic practices focusing on wages and prices, the great thing this new wave has brought through the pandemic is organizing around workers’ health and wellness, as well as property abuses such as AI likenesses for performers. These are still material problems and the pandemic exposed them, but still this unions are hitting Economistic dead ends in organizing energy.
We've also seen the contract fights have not focused on wages. While the companies have been throwing record wages at workers the contracts still get rejected because what they actually want is time away from work and time where they can't be scheduled and an end to understaffing, or like you say, workers' health and wellness.
But we are also seeing union locals organizing against the Zionist genocide. That's huge! The labor upsurge might be gaining a political character and you seem to be ignoring it in favor of pessimism. The union leadership is still in lockstep with the Democrats, and as long as that is the case they will hit those dead ends, but if I'm right and the rank-and-file are being debourgeoisified then we are going to either see the leadership change or we'll see the NLRB declared unconstitutional and unions will have to go back to illegal strikes.
If that comes with higher wages then the worker can keep up with inflation and no one notices much other than the fact that their savings literally lose value over time
Inflation is mostly due to higher wages, and savings. Savings are reinvested by banks and turned into new constant and variable capital (hiring more workers). It can be turned into new consumption (like video games, social media, more advertising). It can be turned into student loans, and mortgages (if there is a surplus of money-capital all of these things will get more expensive relative the the unit of money), and "gentrification" re-developments or new suburban developments. Your savings become a smaller share of the MOP because they got invested elsewhere and more things were made or labor paid because of it! Simultaneously capital will be exported, mostly to China, where it is used to decrease the prices of expensive goods like video game consoles and microwaves (which is why they have gotten cheaper since the 80s/90s). The increase in the prices of other goods are due to the increases of incomes whether directly or indirectly through cheaper living and therefore savings, this causes the propertied classes to raise prices to capture these excess monies in savings so they can maintain their relative share of ownership. The bourgeoisie does not want dollars sitting around, they want them put into motion so they can be accumulated. This means increased consumption, and consumption remains high. USians consume way more than the global south citizens do.
Though again, buying lots of things and not saving money doesn't mean your life is actually getting worse! The "60 percent of USians are paycheck to paycheck" talking point in media obfuscates that the median US worker makes hundreds of thousands a year, that 60% must include people doing better than the median worker.
All that said, family incomes have not changed beyond historical levels for the bottom 20%, all other brackets are growing, and there are more families.
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We are now seeing inflation actually outpace workers, they are not just making more to pay their higher bills and it’s lead to the recent labor upsurge.
The recent "labor upsurge" was pandemic related, just as inflation was largely pandemic related due to transportation delays and more spending per-worker on minimal safety precautions (with some level of "greed-flation" but again that's just opportunism on behalf of the bourgs).
You say “capital exports bring down the prices of goods” yet we are also talking about conditions of strong inflation. Is this not a contradiction? Does this not indicate that capital exports are falling, and that demand for USD is falling? You say nothing has changed, but despite the harshest sanctions regime in history we have seen Russia’s economy continue to grow! We are seeing nations make deals with each other in national currencies, totally bypassing USD. We are seeing alternatives to the World Bank and IMF, which offer loans in currencies other than USD.
None of this really effects US workers, besides the tech sector and the housing bubble (this means less workers able to speculate on land) which was being supplied by Counter-revolutionary Russian Bourgs who parked their money in the US for these "industries". This does explain some of the attention TikTok is getting as US-based companies are losing their technology monopolies. However, conditions for Imperialism are still better than when the USSR existed. Capital exports of specific commodities are decreased when that specific commodity making capital is exported, but it need not be existing machines. GM mostly built new machines in their transition to Mexico and the US factories make largely high end cars and trucks now, while Mexicans make the lower end vehicles which are sold to US GM workers lol. Surplus-Capital either finds new industries or expands elsewhere, but this could easily be to an underdeveloped sector in an Imperialist ally (such as Germany, South Korea). You're right that if not enough surplus-capital finds a home, that the value of dollars goes down, this is effected by dollar demand but also capital exports can take the form of bombs, ultimately the destruction of capital, which allows for demand to be re-established. New sources of consumption counter-balance inflation, essentially, which is why the US is the least susceptible state to inflation.
This is not universal, obviously. The wages of managers, cops, so-called skilled laborers, bureaucrats, etc have risen in pace with inflation. We have seen some workers keep up and other workers fall behind, splitting off those workers and debourgeoisifying them as they fail to save and fail to attain property and fail to get “ahead.” I’m not sure why you’re insisting this isn’t happening.
This is due to what I said above, that people are saving money, so loans get more expensive because there is a surplus of capital to be turned into loans (they make bigger loans because they can find people to take them). This makes college and housing more expensive. Local landlord regimes (city-government "deep states") subsidize development to attract higher wage sectors like tech so they can realize more real-estate capital in the form of land-values and rents. So you're right that wage differentiation has something to do with cost increases, but again 4/5th of USian incomes are increasing yoy, overall the bulk is on the upswing. You must be reading too much Hudson to think that the dollar system itself is the source of inflation, no, it's actually "unequal exchange" and the increased wages it brings.
What productive assets do they own? I think they’re a special protected class created by the State, and while their class interests align with business owners and independent farmers they are still distinct and it’s worth recognizing it.
The petty-bourgeoisie need not actually own productive assets, this is an overly mechanical analysis of petty bourg classes. Lenin and Mao referred to academics, teachers, doctors, and nurses to be petty-bourgeoisie, see the source in my other comment on the Middle Classes in Britain. The petty-bourgeoisie is simply non-capitalists and non-proletarians converging into a "middle strata".
We’ve also seen the contract fights have not focused on wages. While the companies have been throwing record wages at workers the contracts still get rejected because what they actually want is time away from work and time where they can’t be scheduled and an end to understaffing, or like you say, workers’ health and wellness.
To a certain extent, working hours struggles are progressive, to another extent, they are simply wage struggles hidden behind math. In an Imperial economy where wages are already built from stolen labor of the global proletariat, cutting hours in Imperialist states comes at the expense of the global proletariat, it's ultimately reactionary organizing unless it doubles with demands of a shorter working day globally for all workers, i.e. proletarian internationalism.
But we are also seeing union locals organizing against the Zionist genocide. That’s huge! The labor upsurge might be gaining a political character and you seem to be ignoring it in favor of pessimism. The union leadership is still in lockstep with the Democrats, and as long as that is the case they will hit those dead ends, but if I’m right and the rank-and-file are being debourgeoisified then we are going to either see the leadership change or we’ll see the NLRB declared unconstitutional and unions will have to go back to illegal strikes.
Where? Outside of the walk-outs of academics who some happened to be in the UAW, there hasn't been any anti-Imperialist actions by US unions. They make statements but my dog could make just as valuable of a statement if she could write. Opportunist gonna opportunist, this isn't a sign of anything lasting, if it was they'd be seizing land and handing them over to the Indigenous peoples as we speak. UAW would divest from weapons manufacturing and Israeli settlements. The academic protesters only jumped in when their students were getting beat up by pigs, again a valiant action, but ultimately has not progressed the struggle. The youth are always worth agitating but it's important they can't be lead by Opportunists in the union movement and academic circles. As seen Liberals also protest, doesn't mean Liberals or union-locals have developed more class consciousness beyond white guilt for being in-Empire.
Nothing novel has occurred between this moment and the anti-Vietnam days besides much less whites caring because they successfully got the draft paused indefinitely. When union workers start destroying weapons manufacturing equipment I'll have to change my mind, but that seems to be far from where we are, and the "toughest actions" have been climbing (office, not factory) buildings and tagging them with paint.
Inflation is mostly due to higher wages, and savings. Savings are reinvested by banks and turned into new constant and variable capital (hiring more workers). It can be turned into new consumption (like video games, social media, more advertising). It can be turned into student loans, and mortgages (if there is a surplus of money-capital all of these things will get more expensive relative the the unit of money), and “gentrification” re-developments or new suburban developments. Your savings become a smaller share of the MOP because they got invested elsewhere and more things were made or labor paid because of it!
"Savings savings savings" you say, and yet the rate of savings has been declining since the 60s and right now is on par with the period just before the 2008 financial crash. Savings are not an explanation for the inflation we are seeing and this is another contradiction to your claims: if savings are a source of inflation, and savings are down, where is the inflation coming from? Is it only coming from wage increases like is being claimed by bourgeois economists? I'm skeptical, and so I'm hypothesizing that the inflation is geopolitical.
You’re right that if not enough surplus-capital finds a home, that the value of dollars goes down, this is effected by dollar demand but also capital exports can take the form of bombs, ultimately the destruction of capital, which allows for demand to be re-established. New sources of consumption counter-balance inflation, essentially, which is why the US is the least susceptible state to inflation.
And yet, the state is grappling with inflation despite being the least susceptible state to inflation. Does this not indicate a change?
Do you think the bourgeois want a high interest rate environment? Do you think they want the global South to turn to other countries for loans?
In an Imperial economy where wages are already built from stolen labor of the global proletariat, cutting hours in Imperialist states comes at the expense of the global proletariat, it’s ultimately reactionary organizing unless it doubles with demands of a shorter working day globally for all workers, i.e. proletarian internationalism.
One thing that stood out to me was the demands for an end to understaffing, which necessarily means hiring more people. It's not quite internationalism, no, but it does benefit the internally colonized people who could gain employment instead of being forced to fill the ranks of the gig economy and reserve army of unemployed workers.
I will acknowledge the labor upsurge lacks enough international character. I'll be watching for who starts to organize migrant temp workers first.
Where? Outside of the walk-outs of academics who some happened to be in the UAW, there hasn’t been any anti-Imperialist actions by US unions.
UAW International is calling for a ceasefire, a full list of unions who have signed on can be found here. I'm not overly impressed by their calls, they only call for Israelis to be released when they should be calling for a hostage exchange and acknowledge that the Zionists have been taking Palestinians hostage by the thousands into detention centers, but they aren't just silently supporting Israel either.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union recently shut down the Port of Oakland to prevent ships carrying weapons bound for Israel from leaving the docks. In fact, the ILWU has a long history of being interested in and supportive of Palestinian liberation going back decades because of their internationalist character that was cultivated during the anti-apartheid struggle against South Africa.
It's not just academics. The labor upsurge is gaining a political character. Something is happening.
When union workers start destroying weapons manufacturing equipment I’ll have to change my mind, but that seems to be far from where we are, and the “toughest actions” have been climbing (office, not factory) buildings and tagging them with paint.
I'll cheer when that happens, and you're right to point out the lacking radicalism in US unions. Yet, you're underestimating the importance of public demonstration and should recognize that even non-destructive acts still act as propaganda for further radical action. Tagging a building with paint can be a precursor to tagging it with... something else.
I don't share your pessimism for the white US working class. I think we're on the brink of a change and these are all signs.
“Savings savings savings” you say, and yet the rate of savings has been declining since the 60s and right now is on par with the period just before the 2008 financial crash. Savings are not an explanation for the inflation we are seeing and this is another contradiction to your claims: if savings are a source of inflation, and savings are down, where is the inflation coming from? Is it only coming from wage increases like is being claimed by bourgeois economists? I’m skeptical, and so I’m hypothesizing that the inflation is geopolitical.
I already pointed out that inflation, the value of the dollar, compared to 2019 is due to pandemics slowing shipping down, you literally had to pay for more labor for the same amount of goods shipped --> increased costs of goods. Sanctions also increase shipping costs --> increased costs of goods. The bulk of American workers are getting wealthier, thus inflation for even things like apples and watermelon, because there are more people who will spend that money. The struggle between US workers and US petty bourgs over who gets a bigger share of Imperialism does nothing to advance Communism. Savings rate propaganda induced by bourgeois media promotes Economistic organizing, again 6 figure workers spending their full monthly paycheck, whether to rents, social security and retirement funds (savings but not called savings), student/mortgage/consumer loans (others' savings), gambling/gatcha/collecting, "investing" in bubbles (housing, crypto, Tesla stock, "retail" investment has been growing ala "roaring 20s"), or doordash for every meal does not mean these workers are going to be any more interested in proletarian revolution.
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And yet, the state is grappling with inflation despite being the least susceptible state to inflation. Does this not indicate a change?
Inflation rates in the US have never been more stable than the last 3 decades.
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Do you think the bourgeois want a high interest rate environment? Do you think they want the global South to turn to other countries for loans?
Interest rates are still historically low. Many loans were forgiven so the recent rise in interest rates seeks to slow down borrowing that the pandemic induced to absorb stimmy checks. It's all about inducing circulation or slowing it down when the bourgs want to.
One thing that stood out to me was the demands for an end to understaffing, which necessarily means hiring more people. It’s not quite internationalism, no, but it does benefit the internally colonized people who could gain employment instead of being forced to fill the ranks of the gig economy and reserve army of unemployed workers.
This is not a new demand, it's consistent with Imperialist union activity historically. This type of reform still works on behalf of Imperialism to delay national liberation, it's certainly a contradiction we intend to exploit where available to us, though this requires we have an even stronger anti-Colonial line since making more oppressed nation bourgs adds troubling revisionisms to the movement.
they only call for Israelis to be released when they should be calling for a hostage exchange and acknowledge that the Zionists have been taking Palestinians hostage by the thousands into detention centers, but they aren’t just silently supporting Israel either.
So it's a bourgeois humanist position, without a hint of Marxism, and covering the true nature of Zionism and US labor's role in occupation and genocide? Color me surprised, this is nothing to celebrate, we've seen it before:
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In fact, the ILWU has a long history of being interested in and supportive of Palestinian liberation going back decades because of their internationalist character that was cultivated during the anti-apartheid struggle against South Africa.
Don't downplay the role of conditional solidarity in shaping the demands of a Decolonization struggle. The form of the ANC now can't be separated from the way in which Apartheid "ended" (who owns the land and bread?). The same goes for these "anti-Zionist"-but-nowhere-anti-Zionist gestures that push blame on the Resistance and deny the reality of settler-Colonialism in Palestine.
Yet, you’re underestimating the importance of public demonstration and should recognize that even non-destructive acts still act as propaganda for further radical action.
This must have been said during every US involved war ever. I think such acts result because such bloodshed exists, before the bloodshed, none of them cared. After the bloodshed, they'll return to not caring. Until white workers are climbing over each other to commit class-suicide on behalf of revolution, I'll have little reason to value their solidarity.
I already pointed out that inflation, the value of the dollar, compared to 2019 is due to pandemics slowing shipping down, you literally had to pay for more labor for the same amount of goods shipped --> increased costs of goods.
And this explains the persistence of inflation?
Sanctions also increase shipping costs --> increased costs of goods.
We'll come back to this!
The bulk of American workers are getting wealthier, thus inflation for even things like apples and watermelon, because there are more people who will spend that money
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The bulk? Real wages have been flat for quite some time, but you handwaved this away by everyone having dual incomes because women entered the labor force (and women now have to have two jobs in the nuclear family). Yet, that doesn't actually resolve the problem! All you have done is doubled the flat wages, you haven't actually shown anyone getting "wealthier".
So. We aren't seeing higher wages and savings are at near record lows. Where is inflation coming from?
Savings rate propaganda induced by bourgeois media promotes Economistic organizing, again 6 figure workers spending their full monthly paycheck, whether to rents, social security and retirement funds (savings but not called savings), student/mortgage/consumer loans (others’ savings), gambling/gatcha/collecting, “investing” in bubbles (housing, crypto, Tesla stock, “retail” investment has been growing ala “roaring 20s”), or doordash for every meal does not mean these workers are going to be any more interested in proletarian revolution.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 15.5% of households earn between $100,000 and $150,000 annually.
You are not describing the white workers I interact with in my factory, except maybe people in management.
Inflation rates in the US have never been more stable than the last 3 decades.
Okay, and then inflation spiked in the last few years.
Yes, pandemic supply chain disruptions which I don't dispute, but like you already acknowledged it's also because of the sanctions regime now backfiring onto the imperial core. That's not a small thing! In previous decades the US could impose sanctions on its foes without paying any price, but now those sanctions are hurting the value of USD because trade in dollars is becoming more expensive and because the sanctions regime is literally forcing the global economy to shift away! And the sanctions, which once weakened US enemies, are now unable to slow Russia's economy down. This only accelerates the shift away from dollars.
The higher interest rates (I'll grant, they could be higher!) are an attempt to claw back the money supply, but all it is doing is putting even more pressure on the global South as they are forced to pay those higher interest rates on their loans. As a result we've seen coups and massive protest movements in Africa, a pink tide in Latin America, and the high interest rate environment is itself pushing countries away from USD lending and creating fertile ground for lending from other banks in other currencies.
The low inflation was geopolitical when it was stable over the last three decades, and the higher inflation is geopolitical now.
Interest rates are still historically low.
Actually, the last time they were this high was right before the '08 financial crash. Makes you go hmm...
Yes, they used to be much higher before 2000, but I think you're underestimating how bad even these modest rates are for USD.
I still contend that these interest rates are going to force countries to move away from taking loans in USD and is already putting incredible political pressure on countries with existing loans in USD (most recently, see what's going on in Kenya). This, in turn, will push the global economy ever further away from exchange in dollars and towards economic alliances like BRICS.
So it’s a bourgeois humanist position, without a hint of Marxism, and covering the true nature of Zionism and US labor’s role in occupation and genocide? Color me surprised, this is nothing to celebrate, we’ve seen it before:
Fair. It's only the locals that are actually calling this genocide and calling Zionism a settler-colonial project and calling for BDS.
They're great and should be recognized! The AFL-CIA remains embedded with the State Department, though.
This must have been said during every US involved war ever.
Has a US service-member ever lit themselves on fire before?
Until white workers are climbing over each other to commit class-suicide on behalf of revolution, I’ll have little reason to value their solidarity.
I understand and sympathize with your pessimism.
I, for one, don't need the streets to already be running red to have at least a little revolutionary optimism.
Wages have not significantly dropped. Staying in the $23 dollar range since the 70s including the tens of millions of immigrants since then + women working more and more (and men working less) and wages are still the same? What does that mean overall? As the white male workforce aged and retired, more white men were given high wage jobs that are nearly equivalent to 2 median incomes (like missile engineering) and women and POC took the old jobs (productive factory, shipping, teaching, nursing). Incomes for Americans overall stayed consistent. On a global level $20 dollars an hour is humongous! Cost of living is actually not the cause of these wages, as most Proletarian global South cities are just as expensive as American ones and some are more expensive than NYC. Mexico, Canada, and the US have a merged market due to NAFTA, but only dead labor can travel freely, living labor is blocked by the border. What does this create? A free trade zone where workers doing the same work make $3 one one side of a deadly border, and $20 on the other. Why should we expect that US workers should be getting $25 by the 90s, $35 by now? Maintaining wealth while costs of much of personal consumption is actually dropping in real dollars (compare Nintendo consoles or appliances to the 90s). In the graph you show wages were the lowest in the 90s, where was this debourging then? The fact is that if white men were able to continue segregating women and POC, average wages still would have climbed.
But there is also the factor that average wage is being held down by immigrants, POC, and women (particularly immigrant women POC). Median white male wages have stagnated since the 70s, but the stratification is predominantly above the median, as in the rich got richer while the poor stayed the same.
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The problem with centering on wages like this is that US wages have maintained global dominance while even more are getting absurd incomes. Just because tech workers are so rich does not mean GM workers have suddenly become exploited.
Again CoL is fairly comparable globally, US wages are rich everywhere, and US minimum wage is wealthier than most petty boojies in the global south, which is why they are willing to pack up and move here.
The position of US workers is high, them getting knocked off their pedestal will look a lot more drastic than this, like for instance minimum wage getting outlawed or the border blowing wide open (good tbh), or perhaps anti-peonage laws getting ripped away. Then I'd be concerned with them, but likely more concerned of them if the movement is not already approaching statehood ala (Independent Oglala Nation, Neo-Zapatistas, Panther Oakland).
The median wage of white men dropping because white women are working now does not upset me, and I would not run to white men and tell them they should be angry their monopoly on strong wages is ending. This however doesn't solve that USians in aggregate have a monopoly on high wages (as is the case of Imperialism). And if we look at that chart, let's say it dropped from 50k to 40k, this is not total compensation and benefits have increased since the 70s as the government props up housing speculation as a rule, retirement funds are growing in the stock market, and healthcare benefits are high. The real total compensation position of white men has not drastically changed since the 70s.
This also ignores that over half of US labor is genuinely unproductive white-collar work. 16% of jobs are factory work, then there is shipping work, and food producing work. I would consider people going from overpaid factory workers to white-collar work a bourgeois-ifying transition (have you seen the noise of this so-called intelligentsia on online?). Graph ends in 2000 but apparently it is up to 62% in 2022.
Wages have not significantly dropped. Staying in the $23 dollar range since the 70s including the tens of millions of immigrants since then + women working more and more (and men working less) and wages are still the same? What does that mean overall?
Wages haven't really gone up either, which means it doesn't explain inflation.
Wages only ever lag inflation. Wages rise in response to inflation, as workers are confronted by rising prices demand higher wages. Even bourgeoisified workers do this, because they've grown accustomed to their comfortable bourgeois lifestyle and demand wages that can sustain it. Blaming the inflation on wages is an obfuscation being pushed by bourgeois economists to hide the inflation caused by price gouging and monopolization and speculative bubbles and the geopolitics of dedollarization.
Maintaining wealth while costs of much of personal consumption is actually dropping in real dollars (compare Nintendo consoles or appliances to the 90s). In the graph you show wages were the lowest in the 90s, where was this debourging then? The fact is that if white men were able to continue segregating women and POC, average wages still would have climbed.
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From 2005 to 2021, nominal wages went from $20/hr to $30/hr - a 50% increase.
From 2006 to 2021, nominal rents went from $694/mo to $1,191/mo - a 72% increase.
Wage inflation has fallen behind rent inflation. While the costs of Nintendos have fallen, the costs of having a roof over your head has risen. This bourgeois economist obfuscation creates an accounting trick that hides inflation as it is experienced by the worker, because bourgeois economists can hide unaffordable rent by telling workers "let them eat Nintendos!"
Inflation in other categories (food, home prices, etc) mostly matches wage inflation, but we see that renters specifically are falling behind. This actually creates a useful cleave to separate beourgeoisified workers from American proletarians, those who own property are bourgeoisified by their property investments and those who rent it are debourgeoisified by tenant exploitation.
Bourgeoisification does not come from personal consumption, it's an economic relationship that comes from property.
And if we look at that chart, let’s say it dropped from 50k to 40k, this is not total compensation and benefits have increased since the 70s as the government props up housing speculation as a rule, retirement funds are growing in the stock market, and healthcare benefits are high. The real total compensation position of white men has not drastically changed since the 70s.
Healthcare costs in the US are outrageous, including them will just skew your data set. You have a good point, though, that bourgeoisified workers in the US benefit from their retirement funds and property speculation, and that's another useful cleave between who has revolutionary potential and who is prone to reaction. If someone has a 401K or owns land, they're not to be relied upon for revolutionary action.
And would you look at that, in 2022 about 42% of American households had $10K or less in retirement accounts.
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I think it's useful to pay attention to debourgeoisification and I think this process is only going to accelerate as the geopolitical situation worsens for the empire. Yes, white US workers are paid very highly compared to the rest of the world and compared to non-white workers. Yes, "standard of living" is a cruel obfuscation of the fact that white US workers live better livesbecause they have been bourgeoisified. Yet even still, while being paid highly and having cheap Nintendos they're also being charged highly for the essentials of life, rendering their higher wages just another source of profit for businesses and investors to reap.
This also ignores that over half of US labor is genuinely unproductive white-collar work. 16% of jobs are factory work, then there is shipping work, and food producing work. I would consider people going from overpaid factory workers to white-collar work a bourgeois-ifying transition. Graph ends in 2000 but apparently it is up to 62% in 2022.
I think it's more useful to look at who owns property and who owns investments, rather than specific job type. I doubt you'd say a factory worker that becomes a call center worker is in a particularly bourgeoisifying position.
The bourgeoisified workforce would, in my estimation, be somewhere between that 42% that have enough in retirement savings to the 65% that owns their own home. Either a very large minority or a solid majority. It will be important to watch these trends going forward, because if we have another housing crash or stock crash those numbers could plummet again like they did after 2008.
That's not necessarily good, bourgeoisified workers are prone to reaction when they're hurting, but it's something to keep an eye on.
[2.10] Combating Common Wishful Thinking on the White Working Class
It is tempting to look for the slightest tinge of proletarian class interest
among that section of the Amerikan nation (the white working class) that
participates in production and in the circulation of commodities, as well
as in the realization of the social surplus value through the purchasing of
commodities for their own consumption.
It is tempting to look for the possibilities of an irreversible, precipitous
decline in the economic status of certain strata in the vast Amerikan settler
formation. The beleaguered, exploited proletariat residing in the internal
colonies of Amerika could benefit from a little help, or at least neutrality, from the middle classes—the petty bourgeoisie and the labor aristocracy—during the insurrection/civil war and the preparatory years.
Settler radicals (meaning radicals descended from Europeans settling North
Amerika)—from the Trots to some Maoists—have long refused to face the
fact that the labor aristocracy is not only not a neutral force, but, if class interests rest on economic interests, not even mildly exploited. To paraphrase
Lenin: the petty-bourgeois revolutionaries take the conditions for their own
liberation to be the universal demands of mankind.
In terms of party-building this kind of thinking sometimes boils down to
promoting left-economist notions of immediate gratification, such as, “Nuke
war tomorrow? Oh shit, where do I sign up?” Such an understanding avoids
the international class analysis necessary to best promote revolution.
To truly take the stand of the international proletariat means to put our
analysis in the spot where the oppressed exist: with no choices available
but further oppression—or rebellion. We can strive to do this even during the periods when the masses actually standing in that spot have not yet realized their strength. For a revolutionary hanging by his/her thumbs in a cold Peruvian prison waiting for the flames to hit, Amerika must look like one huge, undifferentiated mass of class enemies.
That’s from the outside of this toilet. Inside it, we must make the differentiation and coldly separate friend from foe. The friends will throw themselves
into the flames to annihilate the flame-throwers. The foes will stand a little
distance apart at the last moment. As groups, this will be decided, in the
final analysis, by the historical group interest.
In the beginning, we decide what groups are worth our efforts building for
those decisive moments. If there is even a faint hope that the Amerikan
“working class” is waiting in the wings for revolution, then it would make
sense to organize for the demands of this group. (MIM seeks to organize
amongst all groups at all times, but it only organizes for the demands of the
oppressed, not the oppressors.)
MIM holds that, at the present, the majority of white workers in
this country—skilled workers, trade unionists, paper-pushers,
etc.—do not represent a revolutionary class. They do not create
surplus value as much as reapportion the surplus which results
from superexploitation of the Third World and oppressed internal nations. They are not prepared to abandon bourgeois
aspirations and mainly high-paying jobs to drop everything for
the good of the international proletariat.(1)
“Ah ha!” exclaims the desperately vacillating nature of the petty-bourgeois
revolutionary. “Just wait until they lose those high-paying jobs and become
prepared to abandon their bourgeois aspirations! Then they shall be friends!”
The cold-hearted Maoist replies, “Dream on, by that point what’s left of
them shall still be white-collar fascists defending a starving fortress Amerika
and firing bullets at Third World Maoist armies, while eating old Spam and
lining up to perish for the ‘right’ of their toxic-mutated children to ‘live free
or die!’”
These settlers are perfectly willing to fight and die for the continued ability
of their group to experience the taste of that rich and famous, completely
corrupted, seemingly immortal lifestyle.
An article by Lenin, who died before neocolonialism really pumped up the
imperialist alliances of the labor aristocracy and expanded the “shift in class
relations,” still says it well:
The greater part of Western Europe might then assume the
appearance and character already exhibited by tracts of country
in the South of England, in the Riviera, and in the tourist-ridden
or residential parts of Italy and Switzerland, little clusters of
wealthy aristocrats drawing dividends and pensions from the
Far East, with a somewhat larger group of professional retainers and tradesmen and a larger body of personal servants and
workers in the transport trade and in the final stages of production of the more perishable goods: all the main arterial
industries would have disappeared, the staple foods and semimanufactures flowing in as tribute from Asia and Africa... We
have foreshadowed the possibility of even a larger alliance of
Western states, a European federation of Great Powers which,
so far from forwarding the cause of world civilization, might
introduce the gigantic peril of a Western parasitism, a group of
advanced industrial nations, whose upper classes drew vast tribute from Asia and Africa, with which they supported great tame masses of retainers, no longer engaged in the staple industries
of agriculture and manufacture but kept in the performance of
personal or minor industrial services under the control of a new
financial aristocracy.(2)
The above quote was from Hobson, a “social-liberal" whom Lenin found
useful to quote, lest he be disbelieved. To would-be communist organizers
of the labor aristocracy, Lenin exclaimed: “At the present time, you are
fawning on the opportunists, who are alien to the proletariat as a class,
who are the servants, the agents of the bourgeoisie and the vehicles of its
influence, and unless the labor movement rids itself of them, it will remain
a bourgeois labor movement."(3)
Most white workers in this country are not prepared to ditch bourgeois aspirations and high-paying jobs to drop everything for the
good of the international proletariat.
Notes:
What is MIM pamphlet p. 8.
I.V. Lenin, Imperialism and the Split in Socialism, Moscow Progress Publishers, 1979, p. 9.
The cold-hearted Maoist replies, “Dream on, by that point what’s left of them shall still be white-collar fascists defending a starving fortress Amerika and firing bullets at Third World Maoist armies, while eating old Spam and lining up to perish for the ‘right’ of their toxic-mutated children to ‘live free or die!’”
The formerly high-paid worker or small business owner will certainly become reactionary, and in fact I think they already have.
What of the children of those bourgeoisified white workers who came into adulthood and found out they can't afford education, can't afford property, can barely afford rent, and have to live paycheck to paycheck paying off debts their parents never had?
I don't think they're responding to debourgeoisification the way their parents are, and that makes all the difference.
Sorry, we're miscommunicating I think. Are you conflating "dollars" with "capital" here?
My reading tells me the export of surplus capital refers to the export of productive machines, not the literal national currency. But I am, in fact, talking about the demand for the literal national currency i.e. not surplus capital specifically. Yes, US productive capacity is still high and there's still a lot of unequal exchange happening between the US and its imperialized holdings as it forces them to use its machines and proprietary software etc etc, but notably interest rates have needed to remain high (so no more historically low interest rates) and this has put incredible downward pressure on the value of loans in USD.
At the same time, the sanctions regime has bifurcated the global economy. There's now a parallel economy that exists outside of USD and this is adding additional downward pressure. Nations can now get loans from elsewhere (notably China), trade with national currencies for commodities and even resources like oil, and avoid unequal exchange with the declining hegemon because of the large and growing non-USD economy. The value of US dollar and demand for dollars can still decline despite US exports.
So, between nations not wanting loans from the US and being able to trade without USD, literal demand for dollars has fallen. This is, in part, where the inflation is coming from.
Is this not a sign of the debourgeoisification of the rest of the working class? The empire needs to spend more and more on policing and incarceration of exploited and superexploited workers at home, to the point that those high costs of control are now eating into quality of life of the rest of the working class due to inflation. At the same time it needs to keep elevating the lifestyles of pigs higher and higher to keep them showing up to work, as the act of policing itself becomes more reviled and more mentally taxing (I'm reminded of Fanon talking about how colonialism dehumanizes the colonizer). This is the other side of where the inflation is coming from.
As the cops, guards, judicial staff, and all the other carceral employees demand more wages they're acquiring investments and housing and special legally protected status. They're being further bourgeoisified, developing into their own special class and totally separate from the rest of workers who are beginning to be debourgeoisified (they can't acquire housing, they can't build savings, they don't have investments, they certainly can't seclude and segregate themselves away from the rest of the working class into white enclaves).
This special class of carceral workers is being elevated at their expense. They're being turned from national police to colonial police, many white workers are being turned from settlers into... not natives, but something adjacent?
When did I give this impression? I merely contend that shit is getting worse, not that we need to wait for anything!
Yes, the internally colonized people of the US are the most revolutionary force within it. I work in a factory and I can see how all the positions of management are only given to white English speakers, while the production floor is dominated by nonwhite people whose first languages are French, Arabic, or Spanish. I can see what you're talking about every day.
I guess I'm just optimistic that the white working class has finally entered its own decline, but as you say, the embodied and generational wealth that they've accumulated will take quite some time to disappear. This is not a call to wait around, merely an observation that the time those misguided white communists were waiting for might be happening.
All of this is to say that the recent labor upsurge and rise in class consciousness has a material basis and isn't just a fad.
Am I to understand that your point is nothing has fundamentally changed?
Nothing has fundamentally changed from the 60s, assimilation (which is paid for by Imperial value transfers) of oppressed nations is dual education and incarceration, both have increased over time, in dialectic. Women have been participating in wage labor more and more but that looks to have reached a relative peak.
You seem to think inflation is anything other than more wages than can be spent or reinvested (if in savings banks and credit unions). Inflation in the US is due to super-profits added to wages. An exploited Proletariat literally cannot save money, and globally luxury spending does not mean they are exploited!
Example: Sterling system. Britain exported capital to its own settlements in Canada and Australia. Britain was practicing "unequal exchange" (violent trade monopoly) with India, paying off their domestic workers with it, and then sending settlers to collect more resources in the colonies. Also, Lenin called French Imperialism "usury Imperialism" because France was exporting literal currency in loans to Russia and other European states. Capital exports of "real machines" are mostly to other Imperialist states or military allies, or Socialist states brought into circumstantial trade deals (same as Lenin's time with NEP), and not "backward" economic systems of semi-colonial, semi-feudal character as seen in former Spanish colonies, India, and Africa. France still performs "usury Imperialism" (coupon clipping) with French and Euro currencies.
Cops are petty booj, more cops means more petty booj.
The US is a more advanced British Empire + French Empire in one. It's not a surprise since the US inherited every Imperial relationship the former great powers had!
This is copium and you're universalizing your position within the Settler economy. In my other post there's a Polemic Against Settler "Maoism" that criticizes your line (this does not mean you are 100% wrong! It means you have some fundamental misunderstandings but you are in the right direction!). New class consciousness is due to the eugenic nature of settler society where productive, but unexploited economically due to Imperialism, workers were put into the disease gauntlet serving fascistic semi-proles and petty boojies who did not care for their well being.
Outside of Economistic practices focusing on wages and prices, the great thing this new wave has brought through the pandemic is organizing around workers' health and wellness, as well as property abuses such as AI likenesses for performers. These are still material problems and the pandemic exposed them, but still this unions are hitting Economistic dead ends in organizing energy, still many workers are were permanently injured by the pandemic conditions and many are still getting sick with no protections. Union activity isn't the end all be all of class consciousness, as seen in AFL's history of making the bombs that kill people so they can have houses and cushy retirements.
And don't pray for white conditions to worsen. Lenin railed against German comrades who were preoccupied with wages in Imperialist states. No strong party was developed during and after WW1 and when the "crunch" actually happened to workers obsessed with wages and inflation, they suited up to herd the "undesirables" into camps. My worry is that when whites start feeling real class struggle they'll turn my people in prison into actual slaves if we don't have the readiness for a violent opposition ala AIM and the BPP.
Bold statement!
Yes? Inflation, as experienced by the worker, is the cost of goods and services and housing rising faster than wages. Which is happening. Inflation does not automatically equal higher wages. Inflation, again as experienced by the worker, means higher prices. If that comes with higher wages then the worker can keep up with inflation and no one notices much other than the fact that their savings literally lose value over time, but debourgeoisification has disrupted this process. We are now seeing inflation actually outpace workers, they are not just making more to pay their higher bills and it's lead to the recent labor upsurge.
This is not universal, obviously. The wages of managers, cops, so-called skilled laborers, bureaucrats, etc have risen in pace with inflation. We have seen some workers keep up and other workers fall behind, splitting off those workers and debourgeoisifying them as they fail to save and fail to attain property and fail to get "ahead." I'm not sure why you're insisting this isn't happening.
Do you think there isn't a labor upsurge and that class consciousness isn't rising?
You're right! And would you look at that, the savings rate in the US has been declining since the 60s, supposedly the period when things stopped changing. The savings rate briefly went up after the financial crash and bucked the trend of decline (i.e. when capital destruction created new avenues for investment) and obviously spiked during the period when people cared about COVID, but on the whole there has been a steady decline that coincides with the way real wages have stagnated.
Inflation is not in "luxury spending" it's in fucking groceries and rent and housing.
Okay, so you are speaking literally of currency being exported. But you're contradicting yourself and I'm confused.
You say "capital exports bring down the prices of goods" yet we are also talking about conditions of strong inflation. Is this not a contradiction? Does this not indicate that capital exports are falling, and that demand for USD is falling? You say nothing has changed, but despite the harshest sanctions regime in history we have seen Russia's economy continue to grow! We are seeing nations make deals with each other in national currencies, totally bypassing USD. We are seeing alternatives to the World Bank and IMF, which offer loans in currencies other than USD.
The world is changing, and the conditions for white workers will change with it. Maybe it's too early to say
What productive assets do they own? I think they're a special protected class created by the State, and while their class interests align with business owners and independent farmers they are still distinct and it's worth recognizing it.
Maybe. Some of the trends I'm noticing have only been around for a few years, it could just be a blip and the white working class will go back to feasting on the superprofits of the global South soon enough. But-
We've also seen the contract fights have not focused on wages. While the companies have been throwing record wages at workers the contracts still get rejected because what they actually want is time away from work and time where they can't be scheduled and an end to understaffing, or like you say, workers' health and wellness.
But we are also seeing union locals organizing against the Zionist genocide. That's huge! The labor upsurge might be gaining a political character and you seem to be ignoring it in favor of pessimism. The union leadership is still in lockstep with the Democrats, and as long as that is the case they will hit those dead ends, but if I'm right and the rank-and-file are being debourgeoisified then we are going to either see the leadership change or we'll see the NLRB declared unconstitutional and unions will have to go back to illegal strikes.
Inflation is mostly due to higher wages, and savings. Savings are reinvested by banks and turned into new constant and variable capital (hiring more workers). It can be turned into new consumption (like video games, social media, more advertising). It can be turned into student loans, and mortgages (if there is a surplus of money-capital all of these things will get more expensive relative the the unit of money), and "gentrification" re-developments or new suburban developments. Your savings become a smaller share of the MOP because they got invested elsewhere and more things were made or labor paid because of it! Simultaneously capital will be exported, mostly to China, where it is used to decrease the prices of expensive goods like video game consoles and microwaves (which is why they have gotten cheaper since the 80s/90s). The increase in the prices of other goods are due to the increases of incomes whether directly or indirectly through cheaper living and therefore savings, this causes the propertied classes to raise prices to capture these excess monies in savings so they can maintain their relative share of ownership. The bourgeoisie does not want dollars sitting around, they want them put into motion so they can be accumulated. This means increased consumption, and consumption remains high. USians consume way more than the global south citizens do.
Though again, buying lots of things and not saving money doesn't mean your life is actually getting worse! The "60 percent of USians are paycheck to paycheck" talking point in media obfuscates that the median US worker makes hundreds of thousands a year, that 60% must include people doing better than the median worker.
All that said, family incomes have not changed beyond historical levels for the bottom 20%, all other brackets are growing, and there are more families.
The recent "labor upsurge" was pandemic related, just as inflation was largely pandemic related due to transportation delays and more spending per-worker on minimal safety precautions (with some level of "greed-flation" but again that's just opportunism on behalf of the bourgs).
None of this really effects US workers, besides the tech sector and the housing bubble (this means less workers able to speculate on land) which was being supplied by Counter-revolutionary Russian Bourgs who parked their money in the US for these "industries". This does explain some of the attention TikTok is getting as US-based companies are losing their technology monopolies. However, conditions for Imperialism are still better than when the USSR existed. Capital exports of specific commodities are decreased when that specific commodity making capital is exported, but it need not be existing machines. GM mostly built new machines in their transition to Mexico and the US factories make largely high end cars and trucks now, while Mexicans make the lower end vehicles which are sold to US GM workers lol. Surplus-Capital either finds new industries or expands elsewhere, but this could easily be to an underdeveloped sector in an Imperialist ally (such as Germany, South Korea). You're right that if not enough surplus-capital finds a home, that the value of dollars goes down, this is effected by dollar demand but also capital exports can take the form of bombs, ultimately the destruction of capital, which allows for demand to be re-established. New sources of consumption counter-balance inflation, essentially, which is why the US is the least susceptible state to inflation.
This is due to what I said above, that people are saving money, so loans get more expensive because there is a surplus of capital to be turned into loans (they make bigger loans because they can find people to take them). This makes college and housing more expensive. Local landlord regimes (city-government "deep states") subsidize development to attract higher wage sectors like tech so they can realize more real-estate capital in the form of land-values and rents. So you're right that wage differentiation has something to do with cost increases, but again 4/5th of USian incomes are increasing yoy, overall the bulk is on the upswing. You must be reading too much Hudson to think that the dollar system itself is the source of inflation, no, it's actually "unequal exchange" and the increased wages it brings.
The petty-bourgeoisie need not actually own productive assets, this is an overly mechanical analysis of petty bourg classes. Lenin and Mao referred to academics, teachers, doctors, and nurses to be petty-bourgeoisie, see the source in my other comment on the Middle Classes in Britain. The petty-bourgeoisie is simply non-capitalists and non-proletarians converging into a "middle strata".
To a certain extent, working hours struggles are progressive, to another extent, they are simply wage struggles hidden behind math. In an Imperial economy where wages are already built from stolen labor of the global proletariat, cutting hours in Imperialist states comes at the expense of the global proletariat, it's ultimately reactionary organizing unless it doubles with demands of a shorter working day globally for all workers, i.e. proletarian internationalism.
We see this was not the case...
Where? Outside of the walk-outs of academics who some happened to be in the UAW, there hasn't been any anti-Imperialist actions by US unions. They make statements but my dog could make just as valuable of a statement if she could write. Opportunist gonna opportunist, this isn't a sign of anything lasting, if it was they'd be seizing land and handing them over to the Indigenous peoples as we speak. UAW would divest from weapons manufacturing and Israeli settlements. The academic protesters only jumped in when their students were getting beat up by pigs, again a valiant action, but ultimately has not progressed the struggle. The youth are always worth agitating but it's important they can't be lead by Opportunists in the union movement and academic circles. As seen Liberals also protest, doesn't mean Liberals or union-locals have developed more class consciousness beyond white guilt for being in-Empire.
Nothing novel has occurred between this moment and the anti-Vietnam days besides much less whites caring because they successfully got the draft paused indefinitely. When union workers start destroying weapons manufacturing equipment I'll have to change my mind, but that seems to be far from where we are, and the "toughest actions" have been climbing (office, not factory) buildings and tagging them with paint.
"Savings savings savings" you say, and yet the rate of savings has been declining since the 60s and right now is on par with the period just before the 2008 financial crash. Savings are not an explanation for the inflation we are seeing and this is another contradiction to your claims: if savings are a source of inflation, and savings are down, where is the inflation coming from? Is it only coming from wage increases like is being claimed by bourgeois economists? I'm skeptical, and so I'm hypothesizing that the inflation is geopolitical.
And yet, the state is grappling with inflation despite being the least susceptible state to inflation. Does this not indicate a change?
Do you think the bourgeois want a high interest rate environment? Do you think they want the global South to turn to other countries for loans?
One thing that stood out to me was the demands for an end to understaffing, which necessarily means hiring more people. It's not quite internationalism, no, but it does benefit the internally colonized people who could gain employment instead of being forced to fill the ranks of the gig economy and reserve army of unemployed workers.
I will acknowledge the labor upsurge lacks enough international character. I'll be watching for who starts to organize migrant temp workers first.
UAW International is calling for a ceasefire, a full list of unions who have signed on can be found here. I'm not overly impressed by their calls, they only call for Israelis to be released when they should be calling for a hostage exchange and acknowledge that the Zionists have been taking Palestinians hostage by the thousands into detention centers, but they aren't just silently supporting Israel either.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union recently shut down the Port of Oakland to prevent ships carrying weapons bound for Israel from leaving the docks. In fact, the ILWU has a long history of being interested in and supportive of Palestinian liberation going back decades because of their internationalist character that was cultivated during the anti-apartheid struggle against South Africa.
It's not just academics. The labor upsurge is gaining a political character. Something is happening.
I'll cheer when that happens, and you're right to point out the lacking radicalism in US unions. Yet, you're underestimating the importance of public demonstration and should recognize that even non-destructive acts still act as propaganda for further radical action. Tagging a building with paint can be a precursor to tagging it with... something else.
I don't share your pessimism for the white US working class. I think we're on the brink of a change and these are all signs.
We'll see.
I already pointed out that inflation, the value of the dollar, compared to 2019 is due to pandemics slowing shipping down, you literally had to pay for more labor for the same amount of goods shipped --> increased costs of goods. Sanctions also increase shipping costs --> increased costs of goods. The bulk of American workers are getting wealthier, thus inflation for even things like apples and watermelon, because there are more people who will spend that money. The struggle between US workers and US petty bourgs over who gets a bigger share of Imperialism does nothing to advance Communism. Savings rate propaganda induced by bourgeois media promotes Economistic organizing, again 6 figure workers spending their full monthly paycheck, whether to rents, social security and retirement funds (savings but not called savings), student/mortgage/consumer loans (others' savings), gambling/gatcha/collecting, "investing" in bubbles (housing, crypto, Tesla stock, "retail" investment has been growing ala "roaring 20s"), or doordash for every meal does not mean these workers are going to be any more interested in proletarian revolution.
Inflation rates in the US have never been more stable than the last 3 decades.
Interest rates are still historically low. Many loans were forgiven so the recent rise in interest rates seeks to slow down borrowing that the pandemic induced to absorb stimmy checks. It's all about inducing circulation or slowing it down when the bourgs want to.
This is not a new demand, it's consistent with Imperialist union activity historically. This type of reform still works on behalf of Imperialism to delay national liberation, it's certainly a contradiction we intend to exploit where available to us, though this requires we have an even stronger anti-Colonial line since making more oppressed nation bourgs adds troubling revisionisms to the movement.
So it's a bourgeois humanist position, without a hint of Marxism, and covering the true nature of Zionism and US labor's role in occupation and genocide? Color me surprised, this is nothing to celebrate, we've seen it before:
Don't downplay the role of conditional solidarity in shaping the demands of a Decolonization struggle. The form of the ANC now can't be separated from the way in which Apartheid "ended" (who owns the land and bread?). The same goes for these "anti-Zionist"-but-nowhere-anti-Zionist gestures that push blame on the Resistance and deny the reality of settler-Colonialism in Palestine.
This must have been said during every US involved war ever. I think such acts result because such bloodshed exists, before the bloodshed, none of them cared. After the bloodshed, they'll return to not caring. Until white workers are climbing over each other to commit class-suicide on behalf of revolution, I'll have little reason to value their solidarity.
And this explains the persistence of inflation?
We'll come back to this!
The bulk? Real wages have been flat for quite some time, but you handwaved this away by everyone having dual incomes because women entered the labor force (and women now have to have two jobs in the nuclear family). Yet, that doesn't actually resolve the problem! All you have done is doubled the flat wages, you haven't actually shown anyone getting "wealthier".
So. We aren't seeing higher wages and savings are at near record lows. Where is inflation coming from?
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 15.5% of households earn between $100,000 and $150,000 annually.
You are not describing the white workers I interact with in my factory, except maybe people in management.
Okay, and then inflation spiked in the last few years.
Yes, pandemic supply chain disruptions which I don't dispute, but like you already acknowledged it's also because of the sanctions regime now backfiring onto the imperial core. That's not a small thing! In previous decades the US could impose sanctions on its foes without paying any price, but now those sanctions are hurting the value of USD because trade in dollars is becoming more expensive and because the sanctions regime is literally forcing the global economy to shift away! And the sanctions, which once weakened US enemies, are now unable to slow Russia's economy down. This only accelerates the shift away from dollars.
The higher interest rates (I'll grant, they could be higher!) are an attempt to claw back the money supply, but all it is doing is putting even more pressure on the global South as they are forced to pay those higher interest rates on their loans. As a result we've seen coups and massive protest movements in Africa, a pink tide in Latin America, and the high interest rate environment is itself pushing countries away from USD lending and creating fertile ground for lending from other banks in other currencies.
The low inflation was geopolitical when it was stable over the last three decades, and the higher inflation is geopolitical now.
Actually, the last time they were this high was right before the '08 financial crash. Makes you go hmm...
Yes, they used to be much higher before 2000, but I think you're underestimating how bad even these modest rates are for USD.
I still contend that these interest rates are going to force countries to move away from taking loans in USD and is already putting incredible political pressure on countries with existing loans in USD (most recently, see what's going on in Kenya). This, in turn, will push the global economy ever further away from exchange in dollars and towards economic alliances like BRICS.
Fair. It's only the locals that are actually calling this genocide and calling Zionism a settler-colonial project and calling for BDS.
They're great and should be recognized! The AFL-CIA remains embedded with the State Department, though.
Has a US service-member ever lit themselves on fire before?
I understand and sympathize with your pessimism.
I, for one, don't need the streets to already be running red to have at least a little revolutionary optimism.
Wages have not significantly dropped. Staying in the $23 dollar range since the 70s including the tens of millions of immigrants since then + women working more and more (and men working less) and wages are still the same? What does that mean overall? As the white male workforce aged and retired, more white men were given high wage jobs that are nearly equivalent to 2 median incomes (like missile engineering) and women and POC took the old jobs (productive factory, shipping, teaching, nursing). Incomes for Americans overall stayed consistent. On a global level $20 dollars an hour is humongous! Cost of living is actually not the cause of these wages, as most Proletarian global South cities are just as expensive as American ones and some are more expensive than NYC. Mexico, Canada, and the US have a merged market due to NAFTA, but only dead labor can travel freely, living labor is blocked by the border. What does this create? A free trade zone where workers doing the same work make $3 one one side of a deadly border, and $20 on the other. Why should we expect that US workers should be getting $25 by the 90s, $35 by now? Maintaining wealth while costs of much of personal consumption is actually dropping in real dollars (compare Nintendo consoles or appliances to the 90s). In the graph you show wages were the lowest in the 90s, where was this debourging then? The fact is that if white men were able to continue segregating women and POC, average wages still would have climbed.
But there is also the factor that average wage is being held down by immigrants, POC, and women (particularly immigrant women POC). Median white male wages have stagnated since the 70s, but the stratification is predominantly above the median, as in the rich got richer while the poor stayed the same.
The problem with centering on wages like this is that US wages have maintained global dominance while even more are getting absurd incomes. Just because tech workers are so rich does not mean GM workers have suddenly become exploited.
Again CoL is fairly comparable globally, US wages are rich everywhere, and US minimum wage is wealthier than most petty boojies in the global south, which is why they are willing to pack up and move here.
The position of US workers is high, them getting knocked off their pedestal will look a lot more drastic than this, like for instance minimum wage getting outlawed or the border blowing wide open (good tbh), or perhaps anti-peonage laws getting ripped away. Then I'd be concerned with them, but likely more concerned of them if the movement is not already approaching statehood ala (Independent Oglala Nation, Neo-Zapatistas, Panther Oakland).
The median wage of white men dropping because white women are working now does not upset me, and I would not run to white men and tell them they should be angry their monopoly on strong wages is ending. This however doesn't solve that USians in aggregate have a monopoly on high wages (as is the case of Imperialism). And if we look at that chart, let's say it dropped from 50k to 40k, this is not total compensation and benefits have increased since the 70s as the government props up housing speculation as a rule, retirement funds are growing in the stock market, and healthcare benefits are high. The real total compensation position of white men has not drastically changed since the 70s.
This also ignores that over half of US labor is genuinely unproductive white-collar work. 16% of jobs are factory work, then there is shipping work, and food producing work. I would consider people going from overpaid factory workers to white-collar work a bourgeois-ifying transition (have you seen the noise of this so-called intelligentsia on online?). Graph ends in 2000 but apparently it is up to 62% in 2022.
Wages haven't really gone up either, which means it doesn't explain inflation.
Wages only ever lag inflation. Wages rise in response to inflation, as workers are confronted by rising prices demand higher wages. Even bourgeoisified workers do this, because they've grown accustomed to their comfortable bourgeois lifestyle and demand wages that can sustain it. Blaming the inflation on wages is an obfuscation being pushed by bourgeois economists to hide the inflation caused by price gouging and monopolization and speculative bubbles and the geopolitics of dedollarization.
From 2005 to 2021, nominal wages went from $20/hr to $30/hr - a 50% increase.
From 2006 to 2021, nominal rents went from $694/mo to $1,191/mo - a 72% increase.
Wage inflation has fallen behind rent inflation. While the costs of Nintendos have fallen, the costs of having a roof over your head has risen. This bourgeois economist obfuscation creates an accounting trick that hides inflation as it is experienced by the worker, because bourgeois economists can hide unaffordable rent by telling workers "let them eat Nintendos!"
Inflation in other categories (food, home prices, etc) mostly matches wage inflation, but we see that renters specifically are falling behind. This actually creates a useful cleave to separate beourgeoisified workers from American proletarians, those who own property are bourgeoisified by their property investments and those who rent it are debourgeoisified by tenant exploitation.
Bourgeoisification does not come from personal consumption, it's an economic relationship that comes from property.
Healthcare costs in the US are outrageous, including them will just skew your data set. You have a good point, though, that bourgeoisified workers in the US benefit from their retirement funds and property speculation, and that's another useful cleave between who has revolutionary potential and who is prone to reaction. If someone has a 401K or owns land, they're not to be relied upon for revolutionary action.
And would you look at that, in 2022 about 42% of American households had $10K or less in retirement accounts.
I think it's useful to pay attention to debourgeoisification and I think this process is only going to accelerate as the geopolitical situation worsens for the empire. Yes, white US workers are paid very highly compared to the rest of the world and compared to non-white workers. Yes, "standard of living" is a cruel obfuscation of the fact that white US workers live better lives because they have been bourgeoisified. Yet even still, while being paid highly and having cheap Nintendos they're also being charged highly for the essentials of life, rendering their higher wages just another source of profit for businesses and investors to reap.
I think it's more useful to look at who owns property and who owns investments, rather than specific job type. I doubt you'd say a factory worker that becomes a call center worker is in a particularly bourgeoisifying position.
The bourgeoisified workforce would, in my estimation, be somewhere between that 42% that have enough in retirement savings to the 65% that owns their own home. Either a very large minority or a solid majority. It will be important to watch these trends going forward, because if we have another housing crash or stock crash those numbers could plummet again like they did after 2008.
That's not necessarily good, bourgeoisified workers are prone to reaction when they're hurting, but it's something to keep an eye on.
From MIM Theory 1:
The formerly high-paid worker or small business owner will certainly become reactionary, and in fact I think they already have.
What of the children of those bourgeoisified white workers who came into adulthood and found out they can't afford education, can't afford property, can barely afford rent, and have to live paycheck to paycheck paying off debts their parents never had?
I don't think they're responding to debourgeoisification the way their parents are, and that makes all the difference.