I do generally think that the Maoist Third Worldist position, that Revolution in the Imperial core is impossible, and that imperial core workers constitute an imperial bourgeoisie unto themselves, is wrong.
It gives whitey in the global north an excuse to not do anything, and I think it applies a kind of static, metaphysical quality to the imperial core that is undialectical.
That said, swinging the other way, and wholesale rejecting the concept of a labor aristocracy, imperial super profits, and unequal exchange, is…fucking stupid.
Workers in the global north do, in fact, benefit from imperialism, and those benefits have served to buy their loyalty. Acknowledging that fact doesn’t preclude us from international solidarity, nor does it mean that organizing the working class in the global north is impossible.
We literally had AFL-CIO training workers to stage coups in Latin American countries and these fuckass trots go around rejecting the existence of Labor Aristocracy.
There is serious criticism of unequal exchange theory from a Marxian economics standpoint, see Paul Cockshott’s “the so-called Unequal Exchange” and “Once more on Unequal Exchange”.
Whatever these two in the video are doing is not that, and it’s laughable and should be discarded.
I have had boomers say to my face “I don’t care how many Guatemalans die, I just want cheap bananas” without any sense of shame.
I have watched them sadly shake their head and lament that even though the Hispanic guy who works at a local store is “a good one” he still needs to be arrested and deported.
I have watched them smile and shake hands with gay people and the next day nod in agreement when their pastor says sodomy should get the death penalty.
Yes, I believe that international working class solidarity is possible. But the average American is going to have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into that world.
Fanon failed to consider “nuh uh”
