Most of the people I know, even if they have some issues with American capitalism, think is seems to work pretty great at "creating wealth" (these are all middle-class white folks, fwiw). They look at their relatively spacious houses, abundance of cheap consumer goods, two cars, etc and think yeah, this is all pretty great, thank you capitalism.

What I've tried to impress on them is a.) this wealth is due in no small part to exploiting workers in the global south, and b.) this wealth is also do to unsustainable exploitation of the environment.

So assume that this data is accurate - that we are using up the equivalent of 5 times the resources of earth. Current US annual GDP per capita is about $65k. Does this data mean that about 80% of this GDP or $52k is based on unsustainable exploitation of the environment? That what they attribute to the miracle of capitalism is really just ripping everything we can out of the planet? I get that GDP /= consumption, but I feel on a national level is near enough to make no difference. And even if 5X is high... say it's only 2X after making various adjustments. That still means HALF of what we attribute to capitalist wealth creation isn't about capitalism at all, just unsustainable greed (which is, of course, definitely capitalism)?

  • Bedandsofa [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    What I’ve tried to impress on them is a.) this wealth is due in no small part to exploiting workers in the global south, and b.) this wealth is also do to unsustainable exploitation of the environment.

    I don’t know what your social circle is, but basically everyone I know is a working class person, a person who depends on selling their labor for their livelihood. 60% of Americans can’t afford a $1000 expense without going into debt— the majority of Americans are not living the “middle class” ideal. I’d venture to guess that the people you describe as “middle class” are workers who earn a high enough wage to buy a house or car (like you point out), but it’s unlikely the house or cars are functioning to generate their livelihood (like owning substantial capital would).

    Why do I mention this? Because you’re making a moral appeal for these workers to have solidarity with workers in the underdeveloped nations and workers around the world who want their grandchildren to have a habitable planet. The implication of your appeal is that American workers have to give up comfort to do so.

    Consumption patterns will probably have to change, but it is not the greed of American workers that drives imperialism or the exploitation of natural resources. Those are inevitable features of capitalist development from which capitalists reap a material benefit that is much more enormous than a house and a car. Even if the table scraps are better eating in the USA than in Bangladesh, workers are still dividing scraps while the capitalists take the vast majority of the pie.

    I can’t even imagine a scenario where American workers would not benefit materially from an international proletarian movement that wins socialism.