[Marxism] "My" theses [was RE:Imperialism and the USworkingclass(Was YADL)]

[Marv Gandall]

Joaquin writes:

> In the second period, since WWII, what we've seen and most extremely in
> the
> United States, but my impression is that the same tendencies or pressures
> are at work in the other main imperialist countries, is a dissipation of
> the
> class movement as the post WWII prosperity allowed the bourgeoisie to
> extend
> and re-enforce its hegemony and the development of technology and media
> allowed an intensification that today has become a saturation bombing of
> consumerist and chauvinist messages. This latter period is more like the
> quote from Engels I recalled about England wanting a bourgeois proletariat
> and how, for a country that exploits the whole world, this was to some
> extent justifiable.
===============================
This is interesting and true as a description of postwar economic growth in
the advanced capitalist countries, embodied in the culture of consumerism
and the political triumph of reformism in the European socialist and labour
movement. But it still doesn't establish a connection to imperialism - that
the "bourgeoisification" of the working class in the West was solely or
primarily due to the intensified exploitation and impoverishment of the
masses in the colonial and semi-colonial world.

If anything, I think it could be more persuasively argued that the
relationship of forces in the postwar period shifted more in favour of the
colonial masses than imperialism through a succession of anti-imperialist
struggles which destroyed the old European empires and checked the new
American hegemon, most notably in China, Cuba, and Vietnam. Though these
former colonies and "protectorates" have struggled to overcome the economic
and political burdens of the past and the continuing pressure of a
capitalist world economy dominated by US imperialism, the measure of
political independence which they did win laid the basis for subsequent
economic reforms and advance which could not have been accomplished under
empire, formal or informal. This became apparent during the past decade,
most spectacularly in the case of China, whose leap was prepared by it's
1949 revolution.

If capitalism is able to recover from its latest and most severe postwar
crisis, it wouldn't surprise me to see a continuing shift in favour of China
and the other faster-growing economies on the periphery of the older
capitalist core, pursuing in a combined and uneven way the path of
capitalist development marked out by the latter, including booms and busts,
unequal class relations, class struggles, and the conflict between
revolutionary and reformist currents - the outcome of which is never
certain.

As against the above, my understanding of your position is that there has
been no essential change in the relationship between imperialism and the
colonial and semi-colonial world. The same same unequal exchange relations
and other forms of exploitation prevail, and the relatively privileged
position of the Western working class is not in decline.