On it's worst day, the German Democratic Republic was a better country than the United States will ever fucking be.
Greenleaf
joined 2 years ago
Volume 2 of Capital often gets overlooked, but one of the topics I have a tremendous amount of appreciation for is Marx’s discussion of how it is only in the sphere of production where value is created; everything else must be “paid for” out of surplus value. Nearly all commodity production for goods consumed in the US is produced offshore. That means the value is created offshore, but the surplus value is appropriated by US capital. Take Apple, for example. Some of the R&D work is done in the US and that would add to the value of a phone, as well as the transportation costs… but all the labor used to create the phone is in China. So that is where the value is created but all that surplus value is appropriated by Apple and used to pay shareholders, executives, tech support in the US, etc. The entire US industrial economy now more closely resembles a merchant capitalist economy - we do not produce surplus value, we simply appropriate it. And from a societal standpoint, so much of the US standard of living is based on the appropriation of this surplus value.
So (and this is where I get into very speculative ideas and could very well be wrong) to me, you can almost view the current situation in the US is that ALL Americans are “capitalists” now in that we benefit from the surplus value extracted from labor in the Global South. Of course it’s disproportionate - a typical warehouse worker benefits far less from this arrangement than an Amazon shareholder, for example - but it means that nearly everyone in the US benefits from the current system. Which means it’s hard to see how there can be any revolutionary class in the US as things stand.
That is why my theory is that the revolutionary potential of the US worker is moot until we can break the current system of exploiting labor outside of the US. Eliminate US hegemony and you will break the extraction of surplus value from the Global South, which will break the ability to pay off the working class with a cut of the surplus value. Where we go from there… I don’t know. That’s truly terra incognita. Maybe the US goes back to the beginning and has to rebuild domestic production, and then a re-emergence of an actual proletariat.
Note that I am only talking about the sphere of industrial capital and not finance capital - which of course makes this analysis incomplete but I am fully admitting that it’s not supposed to be a complete analysis. I also struggle with correctly incorporating both finance and industrial capital simultaneously, but that’s an area I’m trying to educate myself better in (hoping to get through Volume 3 before the end of the year).
Right but saying “Assad must stay!” brings blessings, just ask Evo.
Even before the electoral cycle started, they’ve been going after Bush hard on some trumped up accusations of misuse of campaign funds or something like that. Not unlike what AOC had to deal with briefly - I’m guessing she made some sort of deal with the DNC that Bush didn’t.
The reality is that the DNC is not omnipotent, and they had no ability to pull Biden out unless he agreed to it. Like, there isn’t a mechanism for them to do that. If they tried to run a separate candidate that would just split the party. That debate was the perfect gift, because it galvanized the party against Biden. And Biden only left the race when he saw he had no support at all in the party (outside of AOC, lol)
wow the dems actually manouvered
As someone who is saying this, I should point out I am not voting for Harris. But it is objectively true that the DNC recently has been making decisions that will boost their chances of winning, which is abnormal for them to say the least. Putting Biden out to pasture was smart - and you saw it immediately in poll results. Picking Walz was smart, because as well all know a lot of these populist policies like free school lunches are popular. It’s just surprising to see is all.
The DNC has to constantly balance the interests of their donors with the interests of their voting base, which are totally at odds. I do not believe that democrats “want to lose”. Dem politicians of course prioritize donors over their voters but only to the extent they can still win. Or at least that’s what they do when they want to win. I think they saw how bad the odds were against Trump, and also they know the party is on track to do pretty well in state and local races, but Biden was so unpopular that he was fucking that up. So get rid of Biden and make a nominal, not really all that impactful nod to your base with a guy like Walz and now look at where polling is, I think Harris is now the favorite over Trump.
2020 was different. They dems had a pretty good sense that they’d win no matter who they put up there, so of course they went with the most reactionary and donor-friendly choice out of a field of 20+ candidates.
I have more than one person in my life who are single issue voters, and their issue is “taxes”. They see the government spending money and they think that is money being stolen out of their pocket. They will feign a bit of anger of how much the government spends on the military but when you talk about infrastructure or anything else that helps people, that’s what gets their blood boiling. It’s ultimately rooted in hatred of the poor, who they see as “freeloading” off “their” money. It’s not rational but it’s how a lot of Americans see the world.
You will be hard pressed to find anyone here now or through November who is voting for Harris. Four years ago, there were very very few people here who were going to vote for Biden (this is a hill I will die on - people remember a couple random libs who might of waltzed in here but since day one at a minimum >95% of our users are anti-electoralism. We should always practice self-crit but supporting electoralism has never been a problem here).
But whatever, the presidential election is a big deal objectively and I have never been able to shake my interest in politics as a sport. Right now I’m genuinely a little surprised that the DNC has actually displayed a modicum of competence over the last 6 weeks or so. Interesting to see is all, doesn’t mean I’m voting for them. Equally surprised at how awful the Trump campaign has been in that same timeframe.
Not quite. They are going after him for putting tampons in men’s restrooms. I assume this would be for trans men if it’s even true, which is cool and good ofc but they’re not attacking it as a “government handout”, they’re attacking it as a transphobia thing.
Yeah I think I’m remembering the meme more than the actual show
What was that TV show Chavez had? Where he would like, appropriate capitalists’ property live on TV? Just like that, baby.
I have been enjoying just talking to people I know (all Americans) about how shit Teslas are compared to BYD and other Chinese EVs. They write me off as a CPC fanboy (ok, guilty as charged) not only because they consider Teslas to be a “premium” brand, but also because Americans’ egos can’t let them accept that China is doing something better than them.
I’d like to think that one day I’ll get to see their brains break when they realize that the little that Americans do make is dogshit compared to what China can do. But then again, there’s still way too many Americans who think universal health care is less efficient and leads to worse health outcomes than our current system, so they may all just cope until they die.