America and Europe*
Labour Aristocracy
Chase Green
Josiah Martin
If you claimed, "First World development was only possible via imperialism" then no Marxist would disagree.
My disagreement is with this part:
See my post above.
I do not think that these superprofits are redistributed to First World workers in any significant way and the total loss of wages is greater than whatever gain could be had through redistribution of profits or through savings on cheap consumer goods. If someone can provide me with empirical evidence I'll change my mind.
It might not even be necessary since First World countries are rapidly approaching their economic breaking point.
Landon Richardson
Worsening economic conditions, climate change, and degenerating social conditions will eventually force re-proletarization in the FW one way or another. I don't disagree with the premise. That being said, I don't see things reaching breaking point for a while yet. As rapidly as things are going down, the worst days in America are still nowhere close to "business as usual" in most of the capitalist world. If in India 49% of children are malnourished, hundreds of dalits are beaten to death and raped by right wing death squads and thousands of people dropping dead from hunger daily is every day life in India, and they still aren't approaching a real revolutionary situation, things are going to need to get a lot worse in the west before even basic rev activity becomes viable. We're 60-80 years away from conditions being right for that.
If a large portion of the third world - Say, India, or a significant portion of Africa were to be cut off via revolution, within the coming decades, it is plausible, given how conditions are deteriorating, that we could see real revolutionary struggle beginning in the FW in half that amount of time.
Luis Wright
I've heard that the minimum wage in most western countries is only possible because of exploitation in the third world - also that even the worst paying jobs in the first world are still way over what they should be.
Most people in the first world are working unproductive jobs (literally nothing is produced, only managed and processed).
Bentley Bailey
Source?
William Lopez
According to who? The market? I think you'll find that attempting to live on an entry-level job is way less comfortable than MIM, RAIM and LLCO made it out to be.
Some of the jobs that are defined as "unproductive" by bourgeois economists actually are productive (fast food, restaurant work and entertainment are good examples of this). Also, while its true that traditional industrial/agricultural jobs have declined they haven't declined as much as you might think–even in the United States. Likewise, mid-20th century Germany is probably the only capitalist society I can think of where (slightly) more than half of the jobs available were in industry.
This is a difficult claim to prove, it could be claimed that literally everything in actually-existing capitalism is only possible because of the existence of the Third World. However, the "Third World" is not necessary from the standpoint of pure theory and TWists actually start from this fact, however, despite that their gripe with traditional Marxism stems from this fact–they don't do a better job of explaining its existence than the classic Marxists. They resort to mere historical chronology to explain its evolution and see the existence of the Third World-First World divide as a symptom of a capitalist system working imperfectly.
Oliver Flores
I find it funny how first worlders are still clinging to their rapidly disintegrating social welfare states all the while voting for parties and politicians who continuously chip away at it. It's poetic in a way. The worst thing for global communism would be if Bernie or Corbyn actually succeeded in reestablishing imperialist welfare systems. First world communists should be focusing their efforts on ending their wars and dis-empowering their militaries.
John Turner
Please get some new hot takes. I can almost reassure you it won't make any difference. The biggest gains that communism ever made in the West besides the commune was when the modern welfare state was being built up (30s) and when it was at its height. The fact that its decline has not caused first world populations to move to a higher stage of class struggle but actually to regress shows that the essential element of the class struggle was never the existence or non-existence of the welfare state in the public. The fact that the Third World is hyper-capitalist but we don't see socialist revolutions in the 21st century seems to be enough to show that mere misery on its own does not create class consciousness or revolution.
There was even a welfare state in Victorian Britain, which you would know if you'd read Marx instead of the Bible. I'm sure that the "accelerationists" would be telling Marx not to hope for revolution in Britain as long as there were poor-houses, work-houses, charity, and poor relief.
Charles Torres
Summary:
"Immiseration of the proletariat does not lead necessarily lead to communism or even class consciousness."
Easton Allen
Imperialism throws a wrench in the entire situation. Lenin is superior to Marx with respect to political-economy. This has been known for decades user.