A Reply to CPC-ML

Recently we got a letter from a CPC-ML member, putting forward some questions and objections typically put forward from the 1st worldist camp. We will call this writer "D.".

D. wrote:

So the material interests of the "first world" proletariat are in line with out sourcing? They are in line with dismantling the productive forces of the country in favour of an economy based on finance capital, which then implodes in on them (ie, Iceland,Ireland,etc)?

Well, in fact yes. "Outsourcing" has taken manufacturing jobs to where there is cheaper labour and an abundance of cheap resources for the 1st worlders to feast upon. "Outsourcing" has not simply created more surplus value for capitalists but for whole nations and this part of the imperialist mode of production trinkles down and benefits 1st world "workers" via an abundance of wealth and cheap goods, and in various other ways. It's the reason why 1st worlders own more TVs, DVD players, Microwaves and other appliances, cars, stereos, cell phones, computers, etc. etc. than ever before. Contrary to the idea that people are getting poorer since the "union days", in fact people have been steadily getting wealthier in the 1st world. We realize that this is a bit out of date, but here is an example from the '90s (just remember back in the '90s and can think empirically -- but unscientifically -- from memory that in general kanadian people are a lot wealthier since back then. Almost every single "poor neighborhood" has gentrified and become hip, and even those still left living in projects have cars and big screen TVs and the A/C blasting in the summer. Such is "1st world poverty"):

MIM wrote:

"Contrary to the myth that most Amerikans are getting poorer, in fact, most are living in ever greater luxury obtained from pillaging the Third World.

Let's quote some facts about U.$. conditions and those in official poverty: "For example, the average persyn in 1970 had 478 square feet of house space. In the mid-1990s the figure was 814. Color TV went from 34% ownership to 97.9% ownership.(p. 7) Going to college went from 25.4% of high school graduates in 1970 to 60% in 1996.(p. 56)

"In 1971, 31.8% of all households had air- conditioners. In 1994, 49.6% of households below the poverty-line had air-conditioners.(pp. 14-5) The poor also do better than 1971 U.S. households in clothes dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators, stoves, microwaves, VCRs and Personal Computers. That is not comparing the poor of now with the poor of the past. We are comparing the poor of now with all households of 1971 and the poor of now are better off."

See more in this article: http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/bookstore/books/capital/cox.html

and further MSH wrote:

A quick look at sociological data shows that the majority of White, Asian and Indigenous households in the United States own their own homes. For Whites, around 3/4th of all households own their own homes. For Blacks and Latinos, the number is around 50 percent. Without looking up the exact numbers, it is pretty obvious that the vast majority of households also own (at least one) car, usually several televisions, stereos, ovens, kitchen appliances, computers and other big ticket items. In addition to this, even the poorest households in the United States have large wardrobes, toys for children, and other smaller luxury goods. The vast majority of humanity cannot even to hope to live as well as the poorest Amerikan worker. There are more people in India, for example, making less than 80 cents a day than exist in the United States. The median worldwide is 2 to 3 dollars a day. Even an Amerikan at the so-called “poverty line” is one of the richest 15 percent in the world.

... the reason they have the outlook of the propertied class is because the workers in the United States are a propertied class. They are not the proletariat that Marx described. They have far more to lose than their chains. They make far more than just enough to reproduce their labor for the next production cycles. They are not living at subsistence and subsistence as Marx described the proletariat. Many First World workers have more access to capital than bourgeoisie in the Third World. Capitalism works for the vast majority of people in the First World. That is why they consistently support it and imperialism. This is why they do not support radical programs to remake society, but they do support social democratic reforms that benefit themselves. They are net beneficiaries of the imperialist system. The majority of the First World workers would lose out under an egalitarian distribution of the social product, which is why First World workers align with the system. -- Leading Light For Life: comments on First Worldism and Popper’s challenge

D. wrote:

So the re-location of productive forces to where the labour is cheapest, the corresponding losses in employment among the "labour Ari$tokkkkrat$" ,

The fact is unemployment in the 1st world is no worse now than it has been for a number of decades (pretty steady 6%-8%), and unemployed life is subsidized by 3rd world labour anyways, social services, EI, CPP are only able to exist because labour aristocrats can afford cheap goods and services while paying into it. This is in contrast to proletarians who lives day by day and pay by pay in poverty; it is a completely different world of privilege that we live in from theirs. The fact is homeless people and people on welfare live much better than workers doing 12 hour shifts in the 3rd world. All this wealth has to come form somewhere.

D. wrote:

and the over-all transformation of the imperialist countries into useless husks with a steadily decreasing productive capacity, steadilly depleting sources of domestic raw materials, and an un-stable economy based on finance capital and investment that inevitibly implodes... this is in the interests of the working class in the "first world"?

Any capitalist economy is unstable to a certain extent, any half decent Marxist knows this. But Marx and Engels were not around at the time to see imperialism rise to a mode of production that turns whole nations into oppressors including the "workers", they did see a very newborn version of what was to come based on colonial plunder, for example:

"The English proletariat is actually becoming more
and more bourgeois, so that the ultimate aim of
this most bourgeois of all nations would appear to
be the possession, alongside the bourgeoisie, of a
bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat.
In the case of a nation which exploits the entire
world this is, of course, justified to some
extent."

F. Engels, October 7, 1858 "Letter to Marx"

In a letter to Kautsky, dated September 12, 1882, Engels wrote:

“You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general. There is no workers’ party here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of England’s monopoly of the world market and the colonies.”

Lenin noted the above attitudes of Marx and Engels in his article 'Imperialism and the Split in Socialism'.

And this, Engels to Bebel August 30 1883, saying basically there is no "real proletarian movement" in England:

"Do not on any account whatever let yourself be
deluded into thinking there is a real proletarian
movement going on here. . .

And--apart from the unexpected--a really general
workers' movement will only come into existence
here when the workers are made to feel the fact
that England's world monopoly is broken."

Participation in the domination of the world
market was and is the basis of the political
nullity of the English workers. The tail of the
bourgeoisie in the economic exploitation of this
monopoly but nevertheless sharing in its
advantages, politically they are naturally the
tail of the "great Liberal Party."

What Lenin later saw was that imperialism was now systematically making oppressor nations more wealthy and being used to buy off the working class (there was no 1st and 3rd worlds yet and was still a proletarian in Europe, America, etc. but that was disappearing to some extent even by then), and this is why capitalism has been stabilized in the 1st world since WW II. Do you really think if not for imperialism an isolated ameriKKKa would have lasted this long?

Hitler knew that would not work for Germany which is why he expanded imperialism from the get go. Hitler knew that there was not enough to go around for everyone on earth to live a high standard of living, but you could do it for just Germans by stealing land and resources; enslaving many people and killing the rest, and essentially this is what the 1st world axis is doing now, following in nazi footsteps with the workers of the 1st world lock step behind as the German workers were in 1939.

It took the Red Army going straight to Berlin to stop nazism, and it will take something along the same lines happening to the 1st world to end imperialism in this epoch.

Along with the vanishing manufacturing jobs is a vanished proletarian in place of service worker parasites that live off of the production of proletarians in other nations:

"The export of capital, one of the most essential economic bases of
imperialism, still more completely isolates the rentiers from production
and sets the seal of parasitism on the whole country that lives by
exploiting the labour of several overseas countries and colonies."

V. I. Lenin
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1973, p. 120

Though Mao sat on the fence somewhat in this respect he at least saw that "revolution in imperialist countries is "impossible" without Third World support":

"Without support from the revolutionary struggles
of the oppressed nations and people of Asia Africa
and Latin America, it will be impossible for the
proletariat and the people in capitalist Europe
and America to free themselves from the calamities
of capitalist oppression and of the menace of
imperialist war. Therefore, the proletarian
parties of the metropolitan imperialist countries
are duty bound to heed the voice of the
revolutionary people in these regions, study their
experience, respect their revolutionary feelings
and support their revolutionary struggles. They
have no right whatsoever to flaunt their seniority
before these people, to put on lordly airs, to
carp and cavil, like Comrade Thorez of France who
so arrogantly and disdainfully speaks of them as
being 'young and inexperienced'. Much less have
they the right to take a social-chauvinist
attitude, slandering, cursing, intimidating and
obstructing the fighting revolutionary people in
these regions."

--Mao Zedong, 1963
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/classics/mao/polemics/tog2_3.html

Maoists Third Worldists see that Lin Biao's thinking was very advanced in the Maoist camp at the time, and here is an excerpt:

"Taking the entire globe, if North America and Western Europe can be

called the 'cities of the world,' then Asia, Africa and Latin
America constitute 'the rural areas of the world.' Since World War
II, the proletarian revolutionary movement has for various reasons
been temporarily held back in the North American and West European
capitalist countries, while the people's revolutionary movement in
Asia, Africa and Latin America has been growing vigorously. In a
sense, the contemporary world revolution also presents a picture of
the encirclement of the cities by the rural areas. In the final
analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the
revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American
peoples who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's
population. The socialist countries should regard it as their
internationalist duty to support the people's revolutionary
struggles in Asia, Africa and Latin America."

"Long Live the Victory of People's War!" of September 3, 1965 by Lin Piao (Lin Biao)
Distributed by the Communist Party of China

Now Finally, I go to Comrade Prairie Fire, one of the most groundbreaking comrades in the MTW camp who has written numerous great historical and contemporary economic articles concerning the situation as it is today. One of the reasons why MTW is so advanced is because we continue to advance our theories, not just basing our theory and practice on Mao, but on Maoism, and taking it up to advance Marxism ourselves based on science, not dogma.

Here Comrade PF describes how the 1st world has become a "mall economy", and at the mall one can find all kinds of cheap and wonderful goods, but none of them are actually produced there. 1st world workers live in a dreamy mall-like paradise, and happily feast away in the food court and shop away daily.

Comrade PF wrote:

Because of the tremendous productive capacity of capitalism, these unproductive sectors have expanded significantly. These unproductive sectors have come to dominate whole national economies in the First World. Walmart, for example, is the biggest employer in the United States, with over 1 million employees. (4) The total population of the United States is 309 million. Of the 145 million people who are employed (this includes the undocumented too) within the United States, roughly 26 million are employed in those sectors of the economy that loosely (since we are relying on Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data) correspond with direct production. (5) However, it is important to note that many of those employed in these sectors are not the direct producers themselves. Many in these sectors are management, etc., even if they are employed in the direct production sector of the economy. It is a conservative estimate that at least 10% to 30% of this sector can be considered to not be direct producers in a literal or extended sense. We can generously say that 23.4 million to 18.2 million people in the United States can be counted as direct producers in the loosest sense of the term. By contrast, 126.8 million to 121.6 million in the United States are employed but are not direct producers. (6) This tremendous lopsidedness is why the United States’ economy can be described as a mall economy. As great as the productive forces may be, 23.4 million to 18.2 million people cannot account for the sum of the incomes of the 145 million employed plus the incomes of those tens of millions who are not employed but still have incomes, i.e. capitalists, the petty bourgeoisie, the unemployed, those on welfare, retirees, students, etc. Rather, it stands to reason, the value that allows for this tremendous lopsidedness has to be coming from outside “the mall,” from the Third World. It is, of course, no accident that the increase of this lopsidedness in the United States corresponds to the rise of the United States as the supreme imperialist power after World War II and the decline of inter-imperialist rivalry. Imperialism aided this lopsided development, and continues to maintain it. The lopsidedness is production, but also in wealth and power, after World War II, is why Lin Biao noted that revolution in the First World had halted even while revolution was bursting on the historical stage in the Third. - Revisiting value and exploitation, Posted on June 23, 2010

D. wrote:

The old model of imperialism is extracting raw materials from the colonies to the imperial capital, there the materials are manufactured into finished goods, and then the colonies then become captive markets for said finished goods.

But this is an error that the CPC-ML continues to make, they still seem to see it this way to some extent. They don't seem to understand that some 80% of 1st world workers are actually service workers now, and this means that they aren't really producing that much of anything at all. The resources are being extracted and produced in the 3rd world, that means that the 1st world is saving a huge amount of productive cost which benefits whole nations, not just 1st world bourgeoisie.

D. wrote:

Now, because of the inevitible consequences of the labour theory of value, the manufacturing itself, the vital process of transforming materials into finished goods has been out-sourced to neo-colonies as well, so the imperialist countries find themselves without the last factor that generated wealth and kept their home metropolises viable. As Marx said, they have built their own grave diggers.

Except that this is entirely false. It has only become even more profitable and simply replaced 1st world manufacturing jobs with office and service jobs, if not more more petty-bourgeois. The fact is the 1st world keeps getting wealthier in the sense of material consumption. It is true some "safety nets" have been dismantled in the 1st world but since the majority of workers aren't in manufacturing sectors anymore, things like pensions, health care, unionization, etc aren't even widely supported or desired anymore. They are seen as "blue collar" and one has to ask why workers don't even support social-imperialist revisionist of the CPs (or even "left" (social-)democrats and liberals) . It might even benefit them (at the cost of taking food out of the mouths of 3rd worlders) but in reality they are already very comfortable and would rather see the cheap goods continue to roll off 3rd world production lines and pay for the dentist as needed or with the cheapest market insurance then risk losing it to better wages and security at the cost of more expensive products they have to produce themselves.

Let alone that ownership of the means of production is the furthest thing from the minds of 1st world workers!

D. wrote:

So, logically, even a hierarchal system of global imperialism is not in the material interests of the proletariat in the "first world".

We agree that in the long term it is not in the interest of anyone to continue imperialism and that even environmentally it will be unsustainable and disastrous to do so, which is why we point out that if you are a true Marxist you understand in the short to (most likely) mid term, or even a longer term; if you want global equality, 1st worlders will have to lose out materially under socialism. The fact is, it would take the resources of about 3-6 earths for all the world's people to live at the same level as the average 1st world pig.

So the question is, does CPC and CPC-ML not tell people this, because they know they would get even less support of labour aristocrats if they did so, so instead they pander to them and tell them they can be even more wealthy and so can the rest of the world? Or do they know that giving more food to the trough of imperialists pigs means social-imperialism and keeping the 3rd world enslaved? More wealth for already the wealthiest people at the hands of continued oppression of the 3rd world? Or, are these comrades genuinely ignorant to these facts?

For more on this, see another groundbreaking article ‘Real versus Fake Marxism on Socialist Distribution’.

All the stats and facts are right there. Here is a more simpler video that explains what is going on right now:

Hate ameriKKKa to death (a concise but comprehensive understanding)....

... this can not continue if you want equality, 1st worlders will have to lose out and drastically reorganize into productive sectors under socialism. But not only that, there are hundreds of years of reparations that need to be repaid, especially to the First Nations people:

"There are land claims to settle, mainly for the First Nations, but also for Aztlán [occupied Mexico -- MSH) and perhaps the Black nation. Conceivably some other nations could be moved to North America if they wished to be, such as Nauru or the small nations in Ghana whose land has been ruined by imperialist corporations. Amerikkkans are going to have to move out of much of North America and make room for other nations." - The form of the Joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat of Oppressed Nations

and...

"The Third World is also owed big reparations. An excellent way to make those reparations is to put Amerikkkans to work building infrastructure in the Third World: roads, housing, water supplies, sewage, electricity, telecommunications, schools. Amerikkkans can also work in Third World factories and fields to expand production for the benefit of the Third World."- Ibid.

D. wrote:

While third-worldists attempt to substitute GDP and geographical borders for class analysis ( with IMF classification systems, no less,), attempt to confine the flow of capital between producers and exploiters into national paradigms, the reality is that contemporary capital has no country.

The reality is that there are borders and nations for proletarians but not necessarily for the big bourgeoisie; and in many cases not really for the so called "workers" of the first world either. For them, the world is a vacation playground and even it's people playthings!

But here is some GDP for you - one of the characteristics of the proletarian is that he/she is paid below the value of their labour - which according to world GDP is $4.25 - $5.85 per hour. This even includes services workers, who while in some sense produce a surplus don't actually produce value at it's root. (Source: A rough estimate of the value of labor, see Revisiting value and exploitation for a Marxist explanation on the source of value).

D. wrote:

The ironic twist of fate (and it has allready begun), is that the "third world" countries will become the new developed imperialist countries of this epoch, because the inevitable mechanisms of the flow of capital looking for the highest return have inadvertantly slit their own throats by out-sourcing all of their productive capacity to the "third world". In a global capital-centred economy, where countries are viewed as either a source of raw materials or a sources of manufacturing capacity, now the "third world" has most of the cards from both categories in their hands, and the imperialist countries are becoming increasingly irrelevant with nothing tangible to bring to the table.

We are flabbergasted that someone calling themselves a Marxist could have such a backward world outlook, so far and distant from any reality. The fact is, the wealth is steadily flowing to the imperialists countries, and the only way that is going to change is via socialist and/or national-liberation revolutions in the 3rd world. The imperialist infrastructure isn't simply going to "wither away" and the 1st worlder "workers" aren't doing anything to bring down capitalism, in fact they embrace it and only hit the streets or picket lines when they want more pie, with few noble exceptions, and those exceptions almost never lead to anything remotely revolutionary or that isn't self-serving, and rarely have any real mass support, especially in North ameriKKKa.

D. wrote:

Understand, that capitalism doesn't have any loyalties or pre-dispositions towards any nation. It will use a country up and spit it out when there ceases to be capital there, and then move on to the next healthy viable host. Because the "Third world" now has the raw materials and the productive capacity, they no longer have need for the developed imperialist countries.

Capitalism is not just a mysterious force, remember that people are behind it and embrace it, just like they were in the 3rd Reich. It would be impossible for imperialism to flourish if it didn't have the support of the 1st world masses behind it. If people really seriously objected to the exploitation of the world, they would have done a lot more to weaken it if not crush it by now, but the fact of the matter is since post WW II the 1st world masses have gotten an increase in standard of living because of it, and therefore either support it or became apathetic riders of the "gravy train" it provides them; effectively becoming a net exploiter class. You could argue they are passively subjected to it; but I would say that they are little more than active little eichman$$$ greasing the wheels of oppression -- especially if they lack any motivation to at least object morally.

D. wrote:

Even as sources of markets for finished goods, what capital will the people of the "First world" use to purchase imported finished goods? If there are no productive forces in their country, no significant sources of raw materials, where will the "Labour Ari$toKKKrat$" of the "first world" acquire the capital to make these purchases?

The same capital they have been using for decades, that which is acquired on the backs of third world labour. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

D. wrote:

Is it any wonder that tent cities are springing up in the United States?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnnOOo6tRs8

http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/1300/

Big deal. This is not the majority of ameriKKKanadians but a very small strata of them, and even this strata lives way better then 3rd world proletarians, never mind the millions of people that have almost no income at all and have to live off of scavenging.

In Haiti people are eating mud pies. In many parts of Africa dirty water is a score let alone the luxury of clean water, in Afghanistan not being bombed or raped is a good day. This is contrary to the amount of food 1st worlders waist (For starters see: One billion go hungry.. socialism is better than capitalism, Haiti's Poor Forced to Eat Dirt As Food, Haitians eat dirt cookies to survive, Food waist report, Grain Drain: Food rots as poor starve across).


To compare a starving African child with a swollen belly to a homeless kid in the $tate$ or klanada who can make $20 in a few hours of panhandling is a sick joke! It's not uncommon to see homeless people in the 1st world who are morbidly obese from eating fast food and drinking everyday (which isn't even cheap really anymore)!

(Art by Comrade Shubel Morgan)

Yes, it's true the lower 1st world strata are eating less healthy stuff which contributes to obesity, and this is especially true among the more oppressed nationalities and peoples within the 1st world (First Nations, Black and Latino) but they are still eating and thus surviving well! Comparing a fat 1st world white guy drinking sodas or beers to a 3rd world kid with toothpicks for arms drinking pissy water is a very poor and un-Marxist comparison.

D. wrote:

Detroit rusts and crumbles, while Seoul turns out sparkling new automobiles.

Comrade, with all due respect you must see how emotionally nationalist that line is. Your sentimentality for an older era of 1st world "egalitarianism" transparently shows that your politics aren't really that radical and actually reflects something more closer to Kautskyism then Leninism. Your call for a return of good jobs is no more radical then the NDP or Liberals.

But to answer your cry, I ask you who are driving these cars? Putting aside the fact that RoK is aligned with the first world, Korean workers are somewhat on the lower end of the strata, how many of them are driving them? Hyundai or whatever is a cheap 2nd or 3rd car for ameriKKKanadian "workers" or maybe the first car they buy for their 16 year old daughter's birthday.

The proletarian that M & E wrote about certainly didn't cart around in several carriages with 2 or 3 horses in the coach house. They likely could rarely afford the trolley and generally walked to their 16 hour shift.

D. wrote:

The "Celtic Tiger" is dead in Ireland ( with a recent bail-out and "austerity measures",) , McDonalds withdraws from Iceland because it is no longer profitable to operate there, Greece becomes the first "First world" country to become the target of IMF "Shock doctrine" style re-structuring...

The Irish are not dying from a potato famine anymore, they are working in offices instead of factories and the struggle against brit$hit domination has long ago changed from a issue of exploitative oppression to almost purely a cultural one. There is still some issues of class, certainly, but even Northern Ireland is aligned with the imperialist axis and merrily feasts on the worlds poor along with it.

You see, many 1st world Marxist seem to be unable to see how material conditions have changed and thus so have people. If you want to organize a proletarian revolution you need to know where to look and how to recognize potential for a revolutionary class that is genuinely exploited and oppressed to rise up.

Comrade Prairie Fire wrote:

Overall, people’s behaviors are a function of class, nation, gender, etc. This is part of what Marx called historical materialism. However, people are not divided sharply into distinct categories. Rather, the world is a continuum of gray. There are people who may move from the being exploited to being an exploiter. They may retain the outlook of the oppressed for sometime after that, even though it will tend to fade. Sometimes we refer to this as “proletarian memory.” For example, look at Northern Ireland. There is a higher degree of internationalist sentiment there even though Northern Ireland is part of the First World and contains no significant proletariat. National oppression can also help preserve a degree of proletarian, internationalist sentiment in the culture. However, over time, as a country becomes less and less exploited, as it becomes more and more bourgeoisified, proletarian memory fades. -- Two questions on exploitation and sociological mobility

In fact, the Median household income for Ireland was 35,410 EUR (47,317.09 CAD) in 2005 (source) which puts the average Irishman in the bracket of the TOP 0.001% richest people in the world (source)!

Iceland also banned all strip clubs, and is a small country with 319,062 people as of 2009. I'm not sure what you think the shutting of McDicks in a country with a smaller population than most cities proves, other than that maybe they are smart enough not to eat stuff that is about as good for you as deep fried shit.

In Greece, did the workers have a revolution there? Toronto is a city with a significant Greek population and the CPC has a lot of links to the Greek community and the Democratic Associations. More than a few communists swore up and down that this was it; that Greece was going to literally have a revolution! In reality they were fighting to maintain 1st world privilege, and nothing more. The ones in Greece that were either willing to or wanted to take things further were in the minority. Greece was nothing more than a big strike. Engels talked about this over 100 years ago:

"For a number of years past the English working-
class movement has been hopelessly describing a
narrow circle of strikes for higher wages and
shorter hours, not, however, as an expedient or
means of propaganda and organization but as the
ultimate aim.

"The Trades Unions even bar all political action on
principle and in their charters, and thereby also
ban participation in any general activity of the
working class as a class. The workers are divided
politically into Conservatives and Liberal
Radicals, into supporters of the Disraeli
(Beaconsfield) ministry and supporters of the
Gladstone ministry. One can speak here of a labour
movement only in so far as strikes take place here
which, whether they are won or not, do not get the
movement one step further. . . . No attempt should
be made to conceal the fact that at present no
real labour movement in the Continental sense
exists here, and I therefore believe you will not
lose much if for the time being you do not receive
any reports on the doings of the Trades Unions
here."

Engels to Bernstein June 17 1879

D. wrote:

The enormous multi-billion dollar "bail out" in the United States in 2008...

What about it? It certainly did not cause a depression let alone plunge "workers" into a revolt. In fact, ameriKKKanadians barely made a peep about it, probably because they were too busy txt'ing someone, watching Jersey Shore and shopping at the mall.

D. wrote:

1 in 3 Japanese workers is a temporary labourer...

This is often the nature of service work; and seems to be working just fine for them so long as they have other Asians and the rest of the 3rd world to exploit. As of 2005 the average Japanese worker has an income of about 3,786,080 yen (29,304 USD), with disposable income of 3,190,848 yen (or 24,697 USD) (Based on salary & business average income per workers' household and number of earners per household. Source: National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure, Japan Statistical Yearbook, 2007).

An average Japanese janitor makes 324,947 ( 3,933.22 CAD) yens per month; flight attendants 449,000 yens who make more than most teachers at 392,000 yens, whom make more than most engineers at 335,000 yens; office clerks 313,952 yens, computer programmers 261,000 yens, auxiliary nurses (women only) 248,000 yens, car mechanics 242,000 yens, salesperson ( Women only. Salesclerks in department stores) 196,000, taxi drivers 192,000, cashiers (Women only, supermarket cashier), 168,000, 153,000 for bakers ( Women only. Private establishments), and garment cutters (Women only, dress maker) 128,000 yens.

Keep in mind, some of these jobs are on the low end, especially the ones which are women only. You can easily get the exchange rate from XE.com and/or go to globalrichlist to see the position of wealth these "workers" hold in comparison to the world's majority poor and oppressed. This isn't rocket science, but it is a Marxist approach to establishing who the oppressed and who the oppressors are.

(Source: The gross monthly average income is based on data supplied by the Japan Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare to the International Labour Organization and to the Japan Statistical Yearbook The average income includes the salaries and wages of paid employees. Employees include both men and women unless otherwise noted. The average income by sector include the bonus and are limited to the regular (full-time) employees working for enterprises with 5 or more regular employees. The average bonus in 2005 is of 2.3 months salary for regular employees working in enterprises with 5 or more regular employees. In the education sector and the gas-electricity sector, the bonus reaches 5 months salary. )

Also, since 1980 the average Japanese salary went from 1,035,782 yens to 1,712,702 in 2005 (Source: National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure, Japan Statistical Yearbook, 2007). So the idea that imperialism is failing and people are getting poorer is once again shown false in another 1st world nation, in fact the reverse, that they are getting richer from the plunder, seems to be the obvious case.

D. wrote:

Do you see the disgraceful fallacie of trying to confine the paradigm of exploiters and exploited to national borders?

What we see as a disgrace is white nationalist social imperialists masquerading as Marxists because they are either too ignorant or afraid to tell the truth to the 1st world parasites they pander to, does that answer your question?

D. wrote:

So, this person Amihan Malaya ( Who?), spouts more of that politically paralyzing cynical bullshit that is heavy on the emotional statements, but lacks even the most basic understanding of international capital, let alone the economics of Marxism-Leninism.

You are certainly welcome to read more (if you can read Tagalog) instead of basing your opinion on a tiny paragraph from the comrade posted on facebook. It seems you are having an emotional outburst yourself, which in fact is the usual outburst we receiving from first worlders who think we are being "too rude" or disrespectful by pointing out truths, and object to our line.

On another note, it is interesting that the MTW movement in it's infancy is able to post articles in an array of languages yet no organization or party calling it's self Marxist-Leninist in Klanada can seem to conjure up anything not written in the colonial languages of English and French. Perhaps this has to do with the fact they are only interested in making outreach to potential voters (Kanadian citizens)?

Now, you should turn around and say the same to comrade Lenin you did of Amihan Malaya, as Lenin said things like this all the way back in 1915:

"Imperialism means the progressively mounting oppression of the nations
of the world by a handful of Great Powers; it means a period of wars
between the latter to extend and consolidate the oppression of nations;
it means a period in which the masses of the people are deceived by
hypocritical social-patriots, i.e., individuals who, under the pretext of
the 'freedom of nations', 'the right of nations to self-determination',
and 'defence of the fatherland', justify and defend the oppression of
the majority of the world's nations by the Great Powers.

"That is why the focal point in the Social-Democratic programme
must be that division of nations into oppressor and oppressed which
forms the essence of imperialism, and is deceitfully evaded by the
social-chauvinists and Kautsky. This division is not significant
from the angle of bourgeois pacifism or the philistine Utopia of
peaceful competition among independent nations under capitalism, but
it is most significant from the angle of the revolutionary struggle
against imperialism. It is from this division that our definition of
the 'right of nations to self-determination' must follow, a definition
that is consistently democratic, revolutionary, and in accord with the
general task of the immediate struggle for socialism. It is for that
right, and in a struggle to achieve sincere recognition for it, that the
Social-Democrats of the oppressor nations must demand that the oppressed
nations should have the right of secession, for otherwise recognition of
equal rights for nations and of international working-class solidarity
would in fact be merely empty phrase-mongering, sheer hypocrisy. On the
other hand, the Social-Democrats of the oppressed nations must attach
prime significance to the unity and the merging of the workers of the
oppressed nations with those of the oppressor nations; otherwise these
Social-Democrats will involuntarily become the allies of their own
national bourgeoisie, which always betrays the interests of the people
and of democracy, and is always ready, in its turn, to annex territory
and oppress other nations."

V. I. Lenin
Collected Works
London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1960, Vol. 21, p. 409

"The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination"

If Lenin could see imperialist oppressor nations in that light as far back as 1915, why is it in all it's vulgarity and in it's utterly unabashed form can not so called communists like those in the CPC and CPC-ML see it now?

Elections are a joke, almost no one but party members read the TML Daily and selling 7 copies of the Workers Forum at the "Labour Day" parade to aristoKKKrat$ wearing "$upport our troop$" yellow ribbons is a considered a good day of political work!!!

D. wrote:

Also, I'm calling bullshit on this nobody for their bold, unfounded assertion that "...("First world" Communists) politics is characterized as social-imperialist, social-fascist, it's about "socialist" "revolution" in the imperialist countries while retaining the semi-colonial or colonial conditions of Third World countries".

Do you not see what your own words (bolden) implies? This is the exact opposite of what a Marxist-Leninist position should be. But this is exact what every single one of these 1st worldist parties proposes, even if subconsciously, because there is no other way you can maintain the first world standard of living let alone increase it in the 1st world otherwise! How about we let Lenin answer again?

"Crispien went on to speak of high wages. The position in Germany, he
said, is that the workers are quite well off compared with the workers
in Russia or in general, in the East of Europe. A revolution, as he sees
it, can be made only if it does not worsen the workers' conditions 'too
much'. Is it permissible, in a  Communist Party, to speak in a tone like
this, I ask? This is the language of counter-revolution. . .The  workers'
victory cannot be achieved without sacrifices, without a temporary
deterioration of their  conditions. We must tell the workers the very
opposite of what Crispien has said. If, in desiring to prepare  the
workers for the dictatorship, one tells them that their conditions will
not be worsened 'too much', one is losing sight of the main thing, namely,
that it was by helping their 'own' bourgeoisie to conquer and  strangle
the whole world by imperialist methods, with the aim of thereby ensuring
better pay for  themselves, that the labor aristocracy developed. If
the German workers now want to work for the  revolution they must make
sacrifices, and not be afraid to do so. . . .

"To tell the workers in the handful of rich countries where life is
easier, thanks to imperialist pillage, that  they must be afraid of 'too
great' impoverishment, is counter-revolutionary. It is the reverse that
they should  be told. The labour aristocracy that is afraid of sacrifices,
afraid of 'too great' impoverishment during the  revolutionary struggle,
cannot belong to the Party. Otherwise, the dictatorship is impossible,
especially in West-European countries."

V. I. Lenin

Collected Works, Vol. 31
Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1960, pp. 248-9

"Speech on the Terms of Admission to the Communist International July 30"

D. wrote:

your own experience with "first-world" communist organizations should have been enough for you to recognize this as the lie that it was, let alone deter you from re-posting it.

In fact, it is my very experience in years trying to organize youth, students, the lumpen class, the unemployed, the employed, with communists, with anarchists, even with Trotskyites, in the anti-racist and anti-fascist movements and time as a union organizer that has pushed me further and further in the correct position.

As Hardial Bains said in Necessity For Change!: "Understanding requires an act of conscious participation of the individual, an act of finding out. In other words, understanding, or becoming conscious, is an experience." -- He was right!

D. wrote:

Which communist organization in an imperialist country since the days of the second international has objectively advocated such a line?

Almost all of them, and certainly since the death of Stalin and certainly since the loss of the line "Long Live the Victory of Peoples War" (LLVP) to the revisionist Three Worlds Theory (TWT)!

Lenin again:

"The industrial workers cannot accomplish their epoch-making
mission. . .if they. . . smugly restrict themselves to attaining an
improvement in their own conditions, which may sometimes be tolerable
in the petty-bourgeois sense. This is exactly what happens to the 'labor
aristocracy' of many advanced countries, who constitute the core of the
so-called socialist parties of the Second International; they are actually
the bitter enemies and betrayers of socialism, petty-bourgeois chauvinists
and agents of the bourgeoisie within the working-class movement."

V. I. Lenin
Collected Works, Vol. 31
Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1960, pp. 152-3

"Preliminary Draft Theses on the Agrarian Question"

Would you go to a bourgeois country club and try to start a revolutionary workers organization among the members? It would make about as much sense as trying to form a feminist reading circle among men who frequent strip clubs.

This seems to be the approach of 1st worldist Marxists, though.

D. wrote:

Even if you want to make the argument that subjectively this is the line of all "First world" communist organizations, I'd still say that the politics of said organizations are completely incompatible with a colonial/neo-colonial framework of any type.

It certainly is not, it's essentially a revisionist line. You can compare it to the shit Kautsky or Trotsky spouted. While CPC-ML objectively has an anti-revisionist (in terms of Soviet history only) line hidden behind it's curtain of populism and kanadian bourgeois "nation building", in practice it is compeltely a revisionist party. I even held such stupid positions in the past myself (for example, this, I am ashamed to say).

Khrushchev went ahead setting up a social-imperialist like system were he advocated a "peaceful-coexistence" with the U$ and at the same time he plundered some of the Soviet Republics like they were colonies, though certainly not as vulgar as the U$ imperialists do to theirs. He also had years of genuine socialist structure to work off the back of. But the line was to move further to the right.

The problem with CPC and CPC-ML is that they are both already so far to the right that there is not much difference between their "demands" and means of getting to those demands (elections) with that of the Liberal Party; let alone the NDP! This is why the Liberal party and Elections Canada and other Canadian government agencies have adopted some of the Parties language from time to time and vice versa, even the CPC's "revolutionary" call a few years back to raise the minimum wage to $10 was adopted by the Liberal Party of Ontario!

Why would a bourgeois party oppose more fill in their own trough?

D. wrote:

This is divisive nonsense, splitting the world proletariat into battling parts, and paralyzing tangible practical political orghanizations into waiting for glorious liberation by more-deserving external elements.

It's reality, and just because you don't like it doesn't change the fact that...

"...in all the civilized, advanced countries the bourgeoisie rob--either
by colonial oppression or by financially extracting 'gain' from formally
independent weak countries--they rob a population many times larger than
that of 'their own' country.  This is the economic factor that enables
the imperialist bourgeoisie to obtain superprofits, part of which is
used to bribe the top section of the proletariat and convert it into a
reformist, opportunist petty bourgeoisie that fears revolution."

V. I. Lenin
Collected Works
Moscow: Progress Publishers,  1963-1970, Vol. 28 of 45, p. 433

"Letter to Workers of Europe and America" 1919.

D. wrote:

And for the record, either words have meaning or they don't. "Proletariat" means that a person is a wage-labourer, who is in an economic situation where they have to sell their labour to survive,they are in a position where they perform vital productive labour, and they are exploited by others who perform no labour.

According to Marx and Engels, the definition of proletarian is NOT that simple. You might want to re-read works like The Condition of the Working Class in England and Capital in which they make the definitions. For ease MTWists like to break it down to about 5 characteristics which are most important, keep in mind not necessarily every single one should be present, but the majority should be there to represent this class in any given nation when looking for the proletarian class...

Comrade Prairie Fire wrote:

When we look at Marx’s description as a whole, we see that:
1. Marx described the proletariat as the class that has nothing to lose but its chains, 2. as a class that has nothing but its labor-power to sell,

3. as a class that is exploited, produces surplus value, does productive labor, etc.

4. as a class that is immiserated to the point that its wages level out at subsistence, only enough to survive from day to day, etc. (they are paid below the value of labour, which we established as $4.25 - $5.85 per hour - 3W1)

5. as a class that does not own the means of production (do not First World workers increasingly have a stake in the means of production anyway?, etc. Almost none of this describes First World workers. However, it does describe Third World workers. We need to look at the reality behind what Marx was getting at. (my bold)

First World peoples stand to lose out under a socialist distribution globally. It is pure utopianism to hold that First World workers will gain. Marx fought against this utopianism his whole life.

D. wrote:

Any influx of additional surplus value from abroad in no way negates the objective conditions that a person either does or does not occupy. - D.

Well, it certainly does when we are talking about the cause of that effect negating some of the principle characteristics noted above, don't you agree? And to finish with Lenin:

"First, what is the cardinal idea underlying our theses? It is the
distinction between oppressed and oppressor nations. Unlike the
Second International and bourgeois democracy, we emphasise this
distinction. . . .The characteristic feature of imperialism consists
in the whole world, as we now see, being divided into a large number
of oppressed nations and an insignificant number of oppressor nations,
the latter possessing colossal wealth and powerful armed force.

[...]

"Comrade Quelch of the British Socialist Party spoke of this in our
commission. He said that the rank-and-file British worker would consider
it treasonable to help the enslaved nations in their uprisings against
British rule. True, the jingoist and chauvinist-minded labour aristocrats
of Britain and America present a very great danger to socialism, and
are a bulwark of the Second International. Here we are confronted with
the greatest treachery on the part of leaders and workers belonging to
this bourgeois International. The colonial question has been discussed
in the Second International as well. The Basle Manifesto is quite
clear on this point, too. The parties of the Second International have
pledged themselves to revolutionary action, but they have given no sign
of genuine revolutionary work or of assistance to the exploited and
dependent nations in their revolt against the oppressor nations. This,
I think, applies also to most of the parties that have withdrawn from
the Second International and wish to join the Third International."

V. I. Lenin
Collected Works
London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1960, Vol. 31, pp. 240-5

"Report of the Commission on the National and the Colonial Questions"
July 26, 1920

Again, I find it disgraceful that Lenin could see this in 1920, and as blatant as it is now his so-called disciples all over the 1st world are going down the opportunist road he fought against (Kautsky, Crispien and this Quelch, etc.) his whole life while calling themselves Leninists.

They all essentially represent the same view, with very few difference.

I would say CPC-ML and CPC are almost exactly the same with a few trivial differences in their approach to parliamentary politics, they both have the same demands (more pie for parasites!), the same approach to victory (organize the "workers" and the "people" to vote communist/ML) and the same view of "klanada" as an oppressed nation when it comes to the "united" $nake$ of pigmeriKKKa (see for example Hardial Bains in 1980 and CPC's Program chapter 1 "Our Aim is Socialism": "Capitalist globalization – led by US imperialism with the full support of the imperialist ruling class of Canada – is threatening the remaining threads of Canadian sovereignty and independence. ") rather than an oppressor one allied with it (though they deny it, it becomes apparent in the appeals they make to 1st world "workers" all of the time.)

Is it no surprise then that the Quebecois wing supports Quebec independence but doesn't see how Quebec itself is imperialist and a colonial oppressor to First Nations!?

At least RCP-PCR can see that, though their idea of people's war in kanada can only be described as stupid.

Is it any surprise in the CPC's fall plenum they did not even utter a single word about First Nations?!

D., consider breaking with revisionism, cast aside the old leftovers of Hoxhaism, forget the stale and so-called Maoists of the "orthodox" lot. Reject this bourgeois "nation-building" line!

Join the 21st century; join the MTW movement and hold the sentiment of LLVP! See the Guiding light of the Leading Light Communist Organization (LLCO) and the just work of the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement (RAIM)!

The Revolutionary Sun Rises in the East!

We would ask the same of the whole party; I would plead the case of the oppressed majority to the party, but I know they will never listen to reason.

We hope you will.

Have you ever wondered why only the youth of the party answer to real Marxist politics? They only do so until the older party comrades teach them not to!

If you have fundamental differences with a party, there is only so much you can do before you must break off! Politics must be put in command, no matter what sentiment of love, caring or friendship you may have for the party or comrades!

3W1