I know that Labor Aristocracy is somewhat controversial, but it seems pretty plain to me that bribing a large segment of the working class with crumbs from imperial extraction is the most successful strategy the bourgeoise have ever employed.
This is all true, though I would also say that there's an important point to be made about whether someone is net-exploited vs. their direct relation to exploitation wrt their personal employer.
Part of the problem of misaligned interests within the working class is that due to imperialism, the working class of the imperial core feels their exploitation to a lesser degree and the global south to a greater degree. It's true that the working class of the US is still not paid the full value of their labor as measured by the difference between what the products they create are sold for vs. what they're paid, the funny money math of financialized imperialism along with imperialistically-cheap imports means they get more from their labor than they seem to put into it.
Another way to think about it is in purchasing power vs. exploitation. Inflated purchasing power due to inflation is like giving everyone a raise but without it coming from the employers (it comes from the suffering of the global south). So every non-imprisoned person in the US feels their exploitation that much less, can recognize it that much less. The imperially-driven material conditions of the US have kept its working class floating above the exploitation they otherwise would've recognized.
That's changing, though. It's becoming more clearly proletarianized because wages, and employment, and labor rights are decreasing for younger generations. They see more poverty in their futures and they see that the promise of a certain standard of living was a lie. But they still aren't ready to be class conscious. More and more are, but the vast, vast majority are easily coopted into liberalism because they don't see their bosses picking their pockets, they think they are doing "pretty well" or that their trajectory is one of a "middle class" existence.
tl;dr: the contradictions of capitalism are vastly decreased in the imperial core for the majority of the population to the point that they fail to be class conscious. This makes the "middle class" a thing that is resistant to class consciousness and less well-aligned with class interests. This is due to imperialism itself, but it will also resolve itself because capitalism will inevitably attempt to hyperexploit the imperial core's working class as well.
Ah! The "it'll resolve itself" is about the better-off top-30% portion of the imperial core's working class realizing the material component of their exploitation and class. Not that they become coherent or socialist or anything like that. Unfortunately, class consciousness is a necessary but insufficient component of getting a strong socialist contingent in any country. Nascent class consciousness can be directed down reactionary paths and this is particularly easy in the imperial core given its powerful propaganda machines.
Sure would be neat to have a vanguard party. I at least know some coherent anti-imperialists and it seems like there are 100X as many of us as there were 15 years ago, so there's some medium-term (20 years let's say) hope of forming a coherent political bloc that doesn't get exterminated and can survive for the cool zone where recruitment can really pick up.
My assumption is that the US will fail to respond successfully to dedollarization and profitability crises in light of China stabilizing the global south, so attempts at social fascism will generally fail along with it.
The thing about maintaining a non-productive class like that (or at least a class that draws more from the social surplus than they provide) is that it can only be maintained by constant extraction and accelerating extraction at that.
The middle class of today is the imperial version of the "poor whites" who supported confederate slavocracy. They didn't directly benefit from slavery any more than they would a wage slavery system, but they were invested in it's perpetuation and expansion because they were receiving the tailings of the slave oligarchs.
Much like the confederate slave system, the modern imperial system is only sustainable as long as new markets of labor can be violently expropriated. What's happening in Ukraine is exactly that. A shoving down of an entire nation of workers into sub-poverty wages to maintain enoigh surplus to service both the Western "middle class" and the bourgeois profit. They will do the same with Taiwan and all of East Asia too. If at any point these republics are able to reform themselved either along revolutionary socialist lines or nationalist lines, it will pull the rug out from under the expropriation that is necessary to maintain the global "liberal order".
I've never even read maoist third worldist theory, but I'm feeling like I might need to soon.
I know that Labor Aristocracy is somewhat controversial, but it seems pretty plain to me that bribing a large segment of the working class with crumbs from imperial extraction is the most successful strategy the bourgeoise have ever employed.
deleted by creator
This is all true, though I would also say that there's an important point to be made about whether someone is net-exploited vs. their direct relation to exploitation wrt their personal employer.
Part of the problem of misaligned interests within the working class is that due to imperialism, the working class of the imperial core feels their exploitation to a lesser degree and the global south to a greater degree. It's true that the working class of the US is still not paid the full value of their labor as measured by the difference between what the products they create are sold for vs. what they're paid, the funny money math of financialized imperialism along with imperialistically-cheap imports means they get more from their labor than they seem to put into it.
Another way to think about it is in purchasing power vs. exploitation. Inflated purchasing power due to inflation is like giving everyone a raise but without it coming from the employers (it comes from the suffering of the global south). So every non-imprisoned person in the US feels their exploitation that much less, can recognize it that much less. The imperially-driven material conditions of the US have kept its working class floating above the exploitation they otherwise would've recognized.
That's changing, though. It's becoming more clearly proletarianized because wages, and employment, and labor rights are decreasing for younger generations. They see more poverty in their futures and they see that the promise of a certain standard of living was a lie. But they still aren't ready to be class conscious. More and more are, but the vast, vast majority are easily coopted into liberalism because they don't see their bosses picking their pockets, they think they are doing "pretty well" or that their trajectory is one of a "middle class" existence.
tl;dr: the contradictions of capitalism are vastly decreased in the imperial core for the majority of the population to the point that they fail to be class conscious. This makes the "middle class" a thing that is resistant to class consciousness and less well-aligned with class interests. This is due to imperialism itself, but it will also resolve itself because capitalism will inevitably attempt to hyperexploit the imperial core's working class as well.
deleted by creator
how does one consciously choose to not trust said propaganda?
:shrug-outta-hecks: you just do it
Ah! The "it'll resolve itself" is about the better-off top-30% portion of the imperial core's working class realizing the material component of their exploitation and class. Not that they become coherent or socialist or anything like that. Unfortunately, class consciousness is a necessary but insufficient component of getting a strong socialist contingent in any country. Nascent class consciousness can be directed down reactionary paths and this is particularly easy in the imperial core given its powerful propaganda machines.
Sure would be neat to have a vanguard party. I at least know some coherent anti-imperialists and it seems like there are 100X as many of us as there were 15 years ago, so there's some medium-term (20 years let's say) hope of forming a coherent political bloc that doesn't get exterminated and can survive for the cool zone where recruitment can really pick up.
My assumption is that the US will fail to respond successfully to dedollarization and profitability crises in light of China stabilizing the global south, so attempts at social fascism will generally fail along with it.
Well put.
deleted by creator
The thing about maintaining a non-productive class like that (or at least a class that draws more from the social surplus than they provide) is that it can only be maintained by constant extraction and accelerating extraction at that.
The middle class of today is the imperial version of the "poor whites" who supported confederate slavocracy. They didn't directly benefit from slavery any more than they would a wage slavery system, but they were invested in it's perpetuation and expansion because they were receiving the tailings of the slave oligarchs.
Much like the confederate slave system, the modern imperial system is only sustainable as long as new markets of labor can be violently expropriated. What's happening in Ukraine is exactly that. A shoving down of an entire nation of workers into sub-poverty wages to maintain enoigh surplus to service both the Western "middle class" and the bourgeois profit. They will do the same with Taiwan and all of East Asia too. If at any point these republics are able to reform themselved either along revolutionary socialist lines or nationalist lines, it will pull the rug out from under the expropriation that is necessary to maintain the global "liberal order".
I've never even read maoist third worldist theory, but I'm feeling like I might need to soon.