I like a lot of roderic day’s writing but I do think this is a fair assessment at least in the context of the working class in the us and describes only a relatively privileged section of the proletariat here
Yeah obviously there’s a substantial section of the US “working class” who genuinely fits the description and material interest of labor aristocracy. But conditions for the working class in the US are genuinely quite bad in most instances. Propaganda instead of education, unhealthy food, the horror wrought by car culture, a massive internally colonized racial underclass, huge homelessness, medical and student debt, terrible housing quality for a terrible cost. There’s no widespread redistribution of imperial plunder except in the form of pure quantity. Americans - even most poor ones - are flooded with mountains of cheap garbage that actively worsens their quality of life. They are propagandized to being quantity of stuff = quality of life, but we know that’s bullshit, and so does a growing number of people.
Things suck ass here. Most Americans will be better off under post-imperial socialism in large part because they will have less stuff. And then they get all the benefits of international solidarity, actual democratic systems, and a halfway decent sense of social responsibility towards each other.
agreed, if I wasn’t clear I meant your assessment of that excerpt, we’re on the same page. I definitely consider myself part of that working class considering I’m a minority in a non computer non credentialed retail job in my late 30s.
I think even people who are part of the US “underclass” in a lot of cases have a quality of life better than most non-labor-aristocrats in the Global South. Hence why people migrate here. People go through hell even to work undocumented in the US.
You’re not going to convince anyone to “support socialism” by saying “your quality of life will increase”. Spoiler: it won’t. People won’t care about “all the benefits of international solidarity” because equal distribution of wealth would make them poorer.
You don’t grow a radical left-wing movement in the US by trying to sell people on their personal quality of life increasing. We already have organizations like the AFL-CIO who’s goal is trading quality of life in the global south for quality of life for people in the imperial core. All it takes is right-wing spokespeople to say “hey we’ll get you a bigger paycheck if we just screw these Venezuelans” and workers in the imperial core are like “oh sweet lets help them bring democracy to Venezuela and make ourselves richer too this is great there’s no downsides and no I don’t need the details!”
We have like 100-500 years of history to show us that people in white supremacist countries will drop any kind of radical politics or international solidarity in a heartbeat in exchange for quality of life increases.
The only way you’re getting the support of a majority of Americans for socialism is to continue to sell out the global south at the same time.
I think even people who are part of the US “underclass” in a lot of cases have a quality of life better than most non-labor-aristocrats in the Global South.
And yet it’s still extremely fucking bad. Maybe you aren’t American, I don’t know, but conditions here are not good. When the US destroys another country, it benefits American capitalists and a substantial slice of the proletariat (I think that’s a big group - probably like half of white people). The rest of us don’t get shit but plastic.
As to your overall point: again, you’re just obviously not someone who actually organizes with real working class Americans. You’re assuming that everyone is on the propaganda game - so who is it for? Why do we do this enormous, elaborate system of propagandistic education and the world’s largest media apparatus if everyone is consciously on board? It doesn’t make any sense. Why on earth would capitalists poor massive resources into convincing everyone of a complicated series of lies if everyone as a unit agrees with and consciously supports the truth of imperialism? Why fund the propaganda campaign this post is about? Very unserious world view to think this is a coincidence.
It also kinda looks like you think the US is a democracy, which is extremely strange.
People (who benefit from imperialism) want a casus belli for their hatred and “authoriarian foreign rulers” and every other piece of propaganda gives them that.
I remember an article around when the Bolivia coup happened that mentioned that some indigenous people who had supported MAS and were beneficiaries of its economic policies to the point that they increased their financial class, had actually started supporting the right-wingers against MAS, who were using the usual talking points about unearned handouts or whatever.
I think there are lots of people who won’t visibly support awful politics until they’re given encouragement by the ruling class and shown in a “wink-wink” way that they should. A lot of anti-China or anti-anything propaganda does mention how imperialism benefits Americans (our “way of life” under attack, “taking American jobs”, violent criminals, “welfare handouts” to immigrants, other fascist type stuff). I think the propaganda that doesn’t tie in to people’s selfishness may actually be less effective. Really the propaganda seems to try to emphasize the worst in people.
People who imperialism doesn’t benefit may parrot those talking points but maybe they’re also the least attached to them, and them believing them has the least effect. Someone working in the service industry doesn’t affect whether imperialism or anything else goes as planned, someone working for a weapon manufacturer does.
It wasn’t jews in Nazi Germany that anti-Jewish propaganda was directed at.
I like a lot of roderic day’s writing but I do think this is a fair assessment at least in the context of the working class in the us and describes only a relatively privileged section of the proletariat here
Yeah obviously there’s a substantial section of the US “working class” who genuinely fits the description and material interest of labor aristocracy. But conditions for the working class in the US are genuinely quite bad in most instances. Propaganda instead of education, unhealthy food, the horror wrought by car culture, a massive internally colonized racial underclass, huge homelessness, medical and student debt, terrible housing quality for a terrible cost. There’s no widespread redistribution of imperial plunder except in the form of pure quantity. Americans - even most poor ones - are flooded with mountains of cheap garbage that actively worsens their quality of life. They are propagandized to being quantity of stuff = quality of life, but we know that’s bullshit, and so does a growing number of people.
Things suck ass here. Most Americans will be better off under post-imperial socialism in large part because they will have less stuff. And then they get all the benefits of international solidarity, actual democratic systems, and a halfway decent sense of social responsibility towards each other.
agreed, if I wasn’t clear I meant your assessment of that excerpt, we’re on the same page. I definitely consider myself part of that working class considering I’m a minority in a non computer non credentialed retail job in my late 30s.
I think even people who are part of the US “underclass” in a lot of cases have a quality of life better than most non-labor-aristocrats in the Global South. Hence why people migrate here. People go through hell even to work undocumented in the US.
You’re not going to convince anyone to “support socialism” by saying “your quality of life will increase”. Spoiler: it won’t. People won’t care about “all the benefits of international solidarity” because equal distribution of wealth would make them poorer.
You don’t grow a radical left-wing movement in the US by trying to sell people on their personal quality of life increasing. We already have organizations like the AFL-CIO who’s goal is trading quality of life in the global south for quality of life for people in the imperial core. All it takes is right-wing spokespeople to say “hey we’ll get you a bigger paycheck if we just screw these Venezuelans” and workers in the imperial core are like “oh sweet lets help them bring democracy to Venezuela and make ourselves richer too this is great there’s no downsides and no I don’t need the details!”
We have like 100-500 years of history to show us that people in white supremacist countries will drop any kind of radical politics or international solidarity in a heartbeat in exchange for quality of life increases.
The only way you’re getting the support of a majority of Americans for socialism is to continue to sell out the global south at the same time.
And yet it’s still extremely fucking bad. Maybe you aren’t American, I don’t know, but conditions here are not good. When the US destroys another country, it benefits American capitalists and a substantial slice of the proletariat (I think that’s a big group - probably like half of white people). The rest of us don’t get shit but plastic.
As to your overall point: again, you’re just obviously not someone who actually organizes with real working class Americans. You’re assuming that everyone is on the propaganda game - so who is it for? Why do we do this enormous, elaborate system of propagandistic education and the world’s largest media apparatus if everyone is consciously on board? It doesn’t make any sense. Why on earth would capitalists poor massive resources into convincing everyone of a complicated series of lies if everyone as a unit agrees with and consciously supports the truth of imperialism? Why fund the propaganda campaign this post is about? Very unserious world view to think this is a coincidence.
It also kinda looks like you think the US is a democracy, which is extremely strange.
People (who benefit from imperialism) want a casus belli for their hatred and “authoriarian foreign rulers” and every other piece of propaganda gives them that.
I remember an article around when the Bolivia coup happened that mentioned that some indigenous people who had supported MAS and were beneficiaries of its economic policies to the point that they increased their financial class, had actually started supporting the right-wingers against MAS, who were using the usual talking points about unearned handouts or whatever.
I think there are lots of people who won’t visibly support awful politics until they’re given encouragement by the ruling class and shown in a “wink-wink” way that they should. A lot of anti-China or anti-anything propaganda does mention how imperialism benefits Americans (our “way of life” under attack, “taking American jobs”, violent criminals, “welfare handouts” to immigrants, other fascist type stuff). I think the propaganda that doesn’t tie in to people’s selfishness may actually be less effective. Really the propaganda seems to try to emphasize the worst in people.
People who imperialism doesn’t benefit may parrot those talking points but maybe they’re also the least attached to them, and them believing them has the least effect. Someone working in the service industry doesn’t affect whether imperialism or anything else goes as planned, someone working for a weapon manufacturer does.
It wasn’t jews in Nazi Germany that anti-Jewish propaganda was directed at.