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this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2024
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This is a better phrasing, but it's still not clear what the use of this is. 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.
Yeah, I agree the usefulness of the distinction isn't totally obvious, especially as regards domestic support for socialism. But its also reasonable to assume that people who currently are making more money than justified by their fair share of global production might be resistant to equalizing the distribution, or even spending disproportionate resources to get the periphery up to speed on development, and the US has a lot more such people than most places (maybe the upper 80% by income?)
I don't know what the answer is, I don't want to think the US is a total lost cause either, but I don't have the analysis to justify that, personally.
sorry to necro reply but still thinking about this...
I think where we get into trouble here is defining the labor aristocracy. I had been working off of @muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml's definition from elsewhere in the thread:
Which seems to be taken from Zak Cope. I don't know who that is so maybe he's great, maybe not, but on further reflection I don't know if we need to take it as pure mathematical gospel. Other writers don't seem to have defined it so specifically.
Under that definition, at least something like the upper 80% of the US population by income would be labor aristocracy (those over $18,000/yr in income), or more depending on how you define it (the other user was arguing for using average global PPP adjusted wages, I was arguing for something that encompassed more value not just wages, like global GDP per capita).
But honestly I don't know if any/many other theorists conceive of such a broad definition of labor aristocracy, it doesn't seem like it. It seems like the original use of the term was more observational than statistical. I'm coming around to the view that the extremely vague undefined way its used on this site is basically useless.
Frustrating to read this kind of discussion that skirts around the edges of what's actually going on