It illustrates how imperialism benefits the poor in the imperial core, but that doesn’t seem novel or controversial, and the use I see most frequently – writing off basically everyone in the imperial core in terms of socialist potential – seems way off base.
I don’t think the main reason socialism isn’t widely popular among the poor of the U.S. is that they’re relatively better off than the poor in the global south. This country had bigger leftist currents a century ago when it was openly imperialistic, after all, to say nothing of the decades following WWII. I think the reason is more along the lines of the intervening century of state repression and propaganda.
Going to copy this here because it’s spot on.
I think the “labor aristocracy” is very real, but the usual reasoning it’s used to defend is (incorrectly) fatalistic. If you read into history you’ll see many, many examples of militant socialist movements inside the US. Actual violence in the name of organized labor was much more common than it is today in the US. Something else happened other than the United States’ imperializing of other countries, because it’s been doing that for ages. It should be our goal to figure out what exactly that is
Something else happened other than the United States’ imperializing of other countries, because it’s been doing that for ages.
Besides repression and propaganda, the U.S. has historically had the easiest road from precarity to a comfortable living (at least for white people), even among imperial powers. So you have a carrot to go with the stick.
First you had the for white settlers, then a generation after the closing of the frontier you had the New Deal, then the postwar economic boom, then the tech boom. People in any capitalist country can dream of striking it truly rich, but for most of U.S. history (again, at least for white folks) it was pretty easy to dream of landing in a spot where you’re worried more about retirement and passing wealth along to your kids than you are about putting food on the table this week.
That situation can reasonably be described as a labor aristocracy, but of course a ton of U.S. workers never make it there, or get bounced out.
Going to copy this here because it’s spot on.
I think the “labor aristocracy” is very real, but the usual reasoning it’s used to defend is (incorrectly) fatalistic. If you read into history you’ll see many, many examples of militant socialist movements inside the US. Actual violence in the name of organized labor was much more common than it is today in the US. Something else happened other than the United States’ imperializing of other countries, because it’s been doing that for ages. It should be our goal to figure out what exactly that is
Besides repression and propaganda, the U.S. has historically had the easiest road from precarity to a comfortable living (at least for white people), even among imperial powers. So you have a carrot to go with the stick.
First you had the
for white settlers, then a generation after the closing of the frontier you had the New Deal, then the postwar economic boom, then the tech boom. People in any capitalist country can dream of striking it truly rich, but for most of U.S. history (again, at least for white folks) it was pretty easy to dream of landing in a spot where you’re worried more about retirement and passing wealth along to your kids than you are about putting food on the table this week.
That situation can reasonably be described as a labor aristocracy, but of course a ton of U.S. workers never make it there, or get bounced out.