You bullshit your way into the idea of a 150 million person “labor aristocracy,” obscuring class divisions during what is probably the most intense period of class differentiation in US history: the period after the postwar boom where living standards for the US working class is declining, while the capitalists hoard wealth in historic quantities.
Your argument here is not an answer both things are true from a Marxist perspective.
There is a labor aristocracy in the west compared to the rest of the world, while simultaneously it doesn't mean the person lining up to get their food stamps are part of the PMC or aren't exploited workers.
Yes America is a heavily class divided country, but on a relative analysis America is also the imperial core profiting heavily from it. Nobody is "obscuring" anything by pointing out exactly who and where the imperial core is. At the same time nobody(at least nobody arguing in good faith) is "blaming" the American worker for simply being born there and benefiting from it. Yet it seems pointing this out is an incredible offense...
In general Americans do enjoy benefits from imperialism and this is a very important part to understanding their material interests, Sanders voters want healthcare but you aren't going to convince them we should be building hospitals in Africa first, Sanders himself is a disgraced imperialist and that is the farthest left you got for over 50 years or whatever, the most you'll get is some non-answer like "we can do both(just don't ask with what money and who is going there). In general the American "left" just wants to redistribute the share of the spoils of imperialism, which to them is just reduced to something something big corporations and billionaires blah blah. There is no understanding that the majority of these profits come from direct foreign operations or rely heavily upon it.
You on the other hand, hold American workers responsible for the crimes of their ruling class in a way that 1) is bullshit, not grounded in conditions or consciousness as they actually exist, and 2) isn’t going to win anyone to your position. So I can see how you might struggle to build a connection.
The thing is people on this community don't always want to hear the hard truths about what a revolution means, I am not American so my view is certainly biased, however from a global perspective we shouldn't blame ourselves or our ideology for the results of the absolute destructive mentality of capitalism.
The harsh response to his point of view is proof of this. Everyone here memes about revolution and change and death to Amerikka and all that but the moment someone seriously defends civil war or balkanization regardless of the consequences then he is being petty or cruel.
Alas just arguing that there will be innocents who suffer is a meaningless construct, who is innocent, from what perspective and based on what metric? A revolution is an explicit statement of the end justify the means and if you don't accept this premise then you are not realy ready to fight for it, or any sort of meaningful change realy. You'll always be at the mercy of the fascists who threaten you with killing innocent children or woman or worse, "Capitalism/America is too big to fail".
Ultimately if there is Balkanization or anything like it will be because at every single step of the way, both the American population and the capitalist ruling class have taken steps(sometimes very wrong steps) towards it. It is not the socialists/communists fault for realizing this and planning for this and ultimately unironically supporting it.
Our task is to use the opportunity towards our own goals not to be a nanny of the fascist capitalist state trying to stop it from destroying itself. Our duty is to the masses and ensuring we can make the least amount of people suffer while working towards our goal. If at some point you replace the goal with just being scared of the consequences then you already lost.
New account, first post halfway down a thread--forget to sign out of your alt?
Nobody is “obscuring” anything by pointing out exactly who and where the imperial core is
In general Americans do enjoy benefits from imperialism and this is a very important part to understanding their material interests
^^ This is obscuring class divisions in a blatant and obvious way. Obviously there is no "in general" with respect to the spoils of imperialism. The profits of capital investment go to the capitalists doing the investing, everything else is just table scraps.
Sure, many american workers enjoy a relatively higher quality of life than they would if they lived on the receiving end of imperialism, by virtue of higher levels of development and higher profits for american capitalists. Turns out that's not actually enough of a lift to provide an adequate quality of life for a large percentage of the US working class, especially as wages have been stagnant for 40 years while the costs of housing, transportation, education, and other fundamentals, continue to rise. It is not an exaggeration that more than 25% of US households with children have faced food insecurity in the past year.
(And since you lot always bring up healthcare paid by the spoils of imperialism--did those voters actually get health care? Or any other meaningful reform? Or is there still austerity for US workers and unfathomable wealth for US capitalists? )
On the flip side, because the level of development of the productive forces is relatively higher in the US, American workers stand to gain considerably more in the event of working class ownership and control of production. This is the class interest of the US working class, and just like in every other nation, the class interest of the working class is fundamentally opposed to that of the exploiting class. The workers of the US objectively stand to gain in overthrowing US capitalism, and to pretend that the material interest of american workers is aligned with continued imperialism, is to pretend that our class interest is identical to the capitalists who draw profits from the exploitation of workers domestically and abroad.
The thing is people on this community don’t always want to hear the hard truths about what a revolution means
From your analysis, I'd say you know basically nothing about revolution is, and even less about the material conditions for workers in the United States. If you think balkanization of the US, along the lines of sectionalism pushed by the ruling class, is progressive, you don't have a Marxist understanding of historical development, much less revolution. That process, which is not even likely to happen, is not revolutionary; there is no change to the productive or social relations.
Your argument here is not an answer both things are true from a Marxist perspective.
There is a labor aristocracy in the west compared to the rest of the world, while simultaneously it doesn't mean the person lining up to get their food stamps are part of the PMC or aren't exploited workers. Yes America is a heavily class divided country, but on a relative analysis America is also the imperial core profiting heavily from it. Nobody is "obscuring" anything by pointing out exactly who and where the imperial core is. At the same time nobody(at least nobody arguing in good faith) is "blaming" the American worker for simply being born there and benefiting from it. Yet it seems pointing this out is an incredible offense...
In general Americans do enjoy benefits from imperialism and this is a very important part to understanding their material interests, Sanders voters want healthcare but you aren't going to convince them we should be building hospitals in Africa first, Sanders himself is a disgraced imperialist and that is the farthest left you got for over 50 years or whatever, the most you'll get is some non-answer like "we can do both(just don't ask with what money and who is going there). In general the American "left" just wants to redistribute the share of the spoils of imperialism, which to them is just reduced to something something big corporations and billionaires blah blah. There is no understanding that the majority of these profits come from direct foreign operations or rely heavily upon it.
The thing is people on this community don't always want to hear the hard truths about what a revolution means, I am not American so my view is certainly biased, however from a global perspective we shouldn't blame ourselves or our ideology for the results of the absolute destructive mentality of capitalism. The harsh response to his point of view is proof of this. Everyone here memes about revolution and change and death to Amerikka and all that but the moment someone seriously defends civil war or balkanization regardless of the consequences then he is being petty or cruel.
Alas just arguing that there will be innocents who suffer is a meaningless construct, who is innocent, from what perspective and based on what metric? A revolution is an explicit statement of the end justify the means and if you don't accept this premise then you are not realy ready to fight for it, or any sort of meaningful change realy. You'll always be at the mercy of the fascists who threaten you with killing innocent children or woman or worse, "Capitalism/America is too big to fail".
Ultimately if there is Balkanization or anything like it will be because at every single step of the way, both the American population and the capitalist ruling class have taken steps(sometimes very wrong steps) towards it. It is not the socialists/communists fault for realizing this and planning for this and ultimately unironically supporting it.
Our task is to use the opportunity towards our own goals not to be a nanny of the fascist capitalist state trying to stop it from destroying itself. Our duty is to the masses and ensuring we can make the least amount of people suffer while working towards our goal. If at some point you replace the goal with just being scared of the consequences then you already lost.
New account, first post halfway down a thread--forget to sign out of your alt?
^^ This is obscuring class divisions in a blatant and obvious way. Obviously there is no "in general" with respect to the spoils of imperialism. The profits of capital investment go to the capitalists doing the investing, everything else is just table scraps.
Sure, many american workers enjoy a relatively higher quality of life than they would if they lived on the receiving end of imperialism, by virtue of higher levels of development and higher profits for american capitalists. Turns out that's not actually enough of a lift to provide an adequate quality of life for a large percentage of the US working class, especially as wages have been stagnant for 40 years while the costs of housing, transportation, education, and other fundamentals, continue to rise. It is not an exaggeration that more than 25% of US households with children have faced food insecurity in the past year.
(And since you lot always bring up healthcare paid by the spoils of imperialism--did those voters actually get health care? Or any other meaningful reform? Or is there still austerity for US workers and unfathomable wealth for US capitalists? )
On the flip side, because the level of development of the productive forces is relatively higher in the US, American workers stand to gain considerably more in the event of working class ownership and control of production. This is the class interest of the US working class, and just like in every other nation, the class interest of the working class is fundamentally opposed to that of the exploiting class. The workers of the US objectively stand to gain in overthrowing US capitalism, and to pretend that the material interest of american workers is aligned with continued imperialism, is to pretend that our class interest is identical to the capitalists who draw profits from the exploitation of workers domestically and abroad.
From your analysis, I'd say you know basically nothing about revolution is, and even less about the material conditions for workers in the United States. If you think balkanization of the US, along the lines of sectionalism pushed by the ruling class, is progressive, you don't have a Marxist understanding of historical development, much less revolution. That process, which is not even likely to happen, is not revolutionary; there is no change to the productive or social relations.