Dear Maoist-Third Worldist, Here’s what some people have to say..

 

(source: monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

“Dear Maoist-Third Worldist,

Here’s what some people say.

Today, I was accused of being unable to understand the very basics of Marxism. I was also characterized as an economist crypto- Kautskyist and crypto-Trotskyist fed with pro-imperialist propaganda.

Here are the arguments:

I said that there may be no proletariat in the West, in the sense that there is not a class living by reproducing its working power,  in the sense of having nothing to lose but its chains. And, instead, there is a bourgeoisifed labor aristocracy. When I said this, I was characterized as an economist because: “In order to determine if a class is proletariat we do not examine its standard of living, but its role in the production process.”

When I said that we should examine if productive labor today is concentrated in the Third World, the answer was: “There is no need because the production of most products may begin in the TW but is finished in FW.” How much surplus value is created in the TW versus the FW didn’t seem to be an important question.

When I said that the same way a local capitalist system can buy-off a portion of the working class, raising it to a labor aristocracy, the imperialists can buy-off entire nations.  I was told that this is Kautskyism because this leads to the conclusion that there is a unified imperialist center that denies the existence of inter-imperialist contradictions.

During the ’80s there was a crisis in the communist movement in Greece. Generally, the movement lost much of its support from the masses. Many organizations came close to extinction. When I said that, of course, capitalist restoration in China played a role in this, but we should also consider that the Greek standard of living was rising. This fact  may have removed the material conditions to fuel a communist movement. Instead of saying that “the x organization made that mistake” or “the x comrade believed the wrong thing,” I was told that this was economism again. During the ’70s and the ‘8os Greece was stripped of her remaining productive skeleton. However, people, in general, got richer. Greeks consumed without producing. This didn’t seem to ring a bell towards parasitism. “You are an economist.” The masses are the wheel of history. Shouldn’t we consider more important what they believe and how they live than what comrade x wrote back then in order to explain historical processes?

“When the Russians made their revolution in 1917 they were richer than the Africans. Economic conditions arent everything.” Well, they may not be everything, but aren’t they necessary? In order for a communist revolution to happen, there must be a problem that can be solved only through revolution. Is there an economic problem like that in Norway or Iceland for example? “You are an economist buying imperialist lies that life in those countries is idyllic.”

When I said that we should think whether it is possible for the imperialist class to provide its working class more value than it actually produces due to the superexploitation of the Third World, the answer was that this is impossible because imperialism seeks maximum profits. Well, it may seek to maximize profits, but what matters is what it can get.

When I said that the standard of living in the West is the result of superexploitation of the East, the answer was: “the standard of living in the West is dropping since the ’80s.” But, what if it is rising in relation with the standard of living in the East? They may both drop, but the gap widens nonetheless. I suggested that as the East is de-linked from imperialist exploitation the standard of living may drop in the West. For example, Europe after WW2. Although eastern Europe, and much of the East was lost to the West, the standard of living raised. The opposite happened after 1989. And why should the East care about how the West distributes its spoils among its classes? “You are talking nonsense”

When I said that the whole world cannot live like the West, and an equation infinitely upwards is not possible, I was told that the communist movement is not fighting for redistribution of global wealth. Its fighting to change the production relations in each country, as if stolen wealth does not exist.

They disagreed with dividing the world to First World and Third World on a bipolar parasitism-exploited basis. “This is a bourgeois economist view of the world.”

“Dont believe these imperialist lies. They will disarm you as a communist. Don’t listen to ghosts that hide behind the internet and have not applied these things anywhere to test their validity.” That’s how the conversation ended.

As if imperialism is based on the greed of a few super rich families and the ignorance of the masses. Such an approach is idealistic. I am not a super-wise Marxist. But,  I cannot accept such an approach. The wheel of history is the masses — I agree with that. I think that what fuels imperialism is the desire of the Western masses to lead the life they lead. The Western masses tend to turn the wheel backwards. On the other hand, there are the exploited masses in the East. They tend to turn the wheel forward.

Allow me two questions though:

I believe that not all countries with parasitic populations are imperialist countries. However, I believe that all imperialist countries have parasitic populations. Imperialism and parasitism are not the same thing.What’s your opinion on that?

Won’t Maoism-Third Worldism lose its meaning if there is a reproletarization process in the West?”

*

Dear Here’s What Some People Say,

Reading the message above, we say that our comrade is 100% right. We’ll address the more substantive arguments offered by her local “communists” and ignore those that amount to nothing but labeling (“economism,” “Kautskyism,” etc.).

The phony “communists” said that a class’s “role in the production process,” not its “standard of living,” is what makes it a proletariat. We say that standard of living and relationship to production are intimately related. But let’s just consider the role of First World “workers” in the production process. Very little production takes place in the First World. As our comrades at IRTR proved, not even 20% of Amerikkkan “workers” are involved in value production at all. Well over 80% of employed Amerikkkan adults–and an even higher percentage of all Amerikkkan adults–are in the unproductive sector; they are merely parasites with no role in the production process. Furthermore, even those few Amerikkkan “workers” who are arguably in the productive sector have a parasitic role in production, for their grossly inflated “wages” are paid in large part by superprofits stolen from the real proletariat in the Third World. First World “workers” are not proletarian; they are a labor aristocracy that lives off the backs of Third World workers superexploited by imperialism.

The phony communists also said, without providing evidence, that production is started in the Third World but “finished in FW.” It should be clear that this is not true: few FW “workers” are involved in production at all, and who hasn’t noticed the vast amounts of goods plainly marked “Made in China” or similar? The FW does finish some goods, but usually the portion of value contributed by FW labor is small. When the TW starts the job and the FW finishes it, Marxists know how to calculate how much of the value each party contributed. Usually the TW share is much larger than the FW share.

The phony communists complained that life is not “idyllic” in the First World. We never said otherwise. Even the First World has major contradictions of its own. (The united $nakes, for example, has for decades led the world in imprisonment, in both absolute and relative numbers.) But that doesn’t mean that anyone in the First World is exploited. Even the lumpen are bourgeoisified, thanks to the massive influx of imperialist superprofits stolen from the Third World.

The phony communists said that “imperialism seeks maximum profits.” There’s a limit to what imperialism can get. Buying off its domestic population happens to be a good way to suck as much profit as possible out of the rest of the world. Like any other oppressive system, imperialism needs to have some people on its side. By buying the domestic population off with a portion of its stolen superprofits, imperialism secures stability at home–and a large population of labor aristocrats willing to fight on behalf of imperialism. Comrade Lenin explained this a hundred years ago, yet many “communists” still don’t understand it.

The phony communists claimed that “the standard of living in the West is dropping.” Prove it! We have not seen much evidence of this. In any  event, as our comrade said, the First World labor aristocracy enjoys its decadent standard of living at the expense of the Third World. We want the First World’s standard of living to drop under capitalism. We intend to make that happen.

The phony communists said that “the communist movement is not fighting for redistribution of global wealth. Its fighting to change the production relations in each country, as if stolen wealth does not exist.” This is true of the First World’s phony “communist” movement, which is white-chauvinist in character. The First World labor aristocracy would stand to lose a lot materially if global wealth were redistributed equitably along socialist lines (“from each according to her ability, to each according to her work”). The First World labor aristocracy is the class enemy of the international proletariat and can be expected to fight the proletariat tooth and nail in order to maintain the flow of stolen superprofits into the First World. “Communists” who pander to the class interests of the First World labor aristocracy are objectively enemies of the international proletariat, whether they know that or not.

The phony communists claimed that we Maoist-Third Worldists “have not applied these things anywhere to test their validity.” The evidence is clear: First World people are squarely on the side of imperialism and do not want communism. They benefit enormously from imperialism. “Communists” who put the First World labor aristocracy into the proletariat give an incorrect answer to the questions “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?”

Now, on to our comrade’s questions.

We agree with our comrade “that not all countries with parasitic populations are imperialist countries.” Many of the small oil-rich countries, such as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, are examples of non-imperialist parasitic countries. A few tiny tourist paradises and tax havens also fall into this category; they get their money through unproductive-sector activity. But even these countries are part of imperialist formations.

We also agree “that all imperialist countries have parasitic populations,” with the important exception of Russia, the only imperialist country with a substantial proletariat. (Russia also has a sizable parasitic population.) So it is clear that “[i]mperialism and parasitism are not the same thing.” In this connection, note also that every country has a certain amount of parasitism, of course; but the U$, Japan, Western Europe, the Zioni$t entity, and other imperialist countries are overwhelmingly parasitic, almost 100% so.

We Maoist-Third Worldists believe that reproletarianization in the West will become a reality as the Third World shuts off the flow of superprofits into the First World, because the West will lose its ability to maintain a huge unproductive-sector labor aristocracy at grossly inflated wages. We hope that that will come about as a result of numerous successful socialist revolutions in the Third World, as the new socialist countries organize their economies around the needs of the people and stop selling to foreign countries (especially imperialist ones) for less than value; however, it could also happen as a result of a calamity, such as a nuclear war. We see reproletarianization as a fulfillment of Maoism-Third Worldism; it is also necessary to the development of socialism on a global scale. But M-TW will continue to be meaningful even after the reproletarianization of the West, because the new Western proletarians will be full of reactionary ideology that will take time and effort to defeat. Labor aristocrats who fairly quickly fall into the proletariat are likely to fight to regain their parasitic status. If the united $nakes becomes reproletarianized on the way to its defeat, we can expect most Amerikkkans to turn fascist rather than socialist. Already there are signs of this. Overcoming these relics of reactionary ideology will be an important task of Maoist-Third Worldists under socialism.

Well into the socialist future, once the First World has been definitively defeated, Maoism-Third Worldism will indeed become obsolete. Communists at that time will face other challenges and other contradictions that call for different ideological tools. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, M-TW is of vital importance to the success of socialism.