Saw this comment on the commie side of TikTok. My gut tells me this is ultraleft bs, but perhaps my fellow hexbears can educate me on this discussion which I’m sure is not new.
I don’t see how a poor American on food stamps is responsible, even though a systematic analysis reveals that international superexploitation is a thing.
The American proletariat can and should organize in any case. I don’t see how Americans can build any sort of socialist movement if any organization at all is accused of being hypocritical.
This is interesting but I’m extremely skeptical. If all workers are paid more than the value they produce, why do business hire anyone? And if all business in the core are inherently unprofitable, what is the mechanism that keeps them afloat?
I agree with the skepticism but it’s a little more complicated than that, I think. It could still benefit the bourgeoisie to keep the US labor force in a system of debt peonage. The workers are paid a wage that exceeds the value of labor power, but that money eventually returns in the form of interest. The main point of Hudson is that the West is highly financialized and receives value primarily through economic rent (value transfer) rather than surplus value (value creation through industry).
One of the reasons shit is so expensive in the US is precisely because of the artificially high price of land which allows landowners to extract rent from individuals and businesses. This shows up in high cost of goods and in very large mortgages.
Cope argues superprofits from imperialism
This could make some sense in aggregate, but doesn’t make any sense on a micro level. How does, say, a fast food franchise receive the super-profits? And why is the restaurant hiring people that lose them money? If it’s motivated by a need for sales, and the sales are “worth it” economically, meaning enough to cover labor and other costs plus profit, isn’t that just describing surplus value?
If you’re rly interested I’d suggest reading Cope’s book, as he lays out the figures and even the movement of the money better than I can with more citations than I can. As you suggest, it’s about the aggregate motion of capital. Take your restaurant example:
The restaurant isn’t losing money so long as imperialism persists, because they’re selling e.g. burgers for inflated prices. The burgers can be sold for inflated prices because e.g. construction worker is paid inflated wages. Construction company can afford to pay inflated wages because it’s buying artificially cheap materials and because it’s being paid inflated fees by e.g. a bakery. Bakery can pay the inflated fees because it’s buying artificially cheap materials and because it’s selling e.g. cakes at inflated prices. The cakes can be sold for inflated prices because e.g. tech employees are paid inflated wages. Tech companies can afford to pay employees inflated wages because e.g. government buys new windows hardware at inflated prices. Government can afford those inflated prices because a. the global south governments pay them yearly debt repayments or b. because they tax superprofit made in the global south.
Ok, that’s starting to make sense. Still not sure about it, but I feel like I’m understanding it at least a little better. Definitely interested to read the book now, thanks for all the info
Same here. I don’t understand economics well enough to have an opinion I trust enough to criticize it, but all of this seems like it flies in the face of what I do understand of Marxist economics. There was another information dense comment about these things in this thread by u/Droplet but that one at least seemed to be in line with my poor understanding. @[email protected] could you respond to what u/ComradeRat is saying? Are you more or less in agreement? For that matter, do you know if Zak Cope is more or less in agreement with Michael Hudson?