This comes up so often when discussing Welsh, Scottish, Cornish etc. secession from the Westminster state. Liberals often conflate the often coercive and dominating force that England has on the politics of the union to colonialism, when in fact this is more akin to the exact same stratification that develops within all bourgeois societies.
The development of a reserve army of labour entails the oppression of the proletariat of the imperial core, because the goal of imperialism is NOT to sprinkle treats amongst the workers to keep them suppressed, it is to create the gradient boundary necessary for the accumulation of capital.
The fact we have treats to buy and the means to do so is part of the process, not a byproduct. Yes, it also has the benefit of suppressing our efforts in class struggle, but no less do bullets, bombs, and hunger suppress the workers at the imperial periphery. The treats are not a reward.
The point being, colonialism isn’t when one country is annexed by another and develops a stratified hierarchy within its borders, it is when that system is exported and maintained through its military. The struggle between the imperial and colonised world powers does not negate the importance of class struggle within the imperial core; both produce the social and material relations to produce the other.
At least this is how I’ve come to critique this misinterpretation of the relationships of the UK’s inner states. I should probably read more theory.
Well, there’s a racialized system within the core, right? There’s a privileged caste of workers that gets to enjoy imperial superprofits and work in cushy imperial make-work jobs and benefit from financial superexploitation and is rewarded with treats. Not just treats either, but financial investments (properties, stocks, securities, bonds, etc) that actually give them every incentive to support the empire. We can call this group the “middle class” and this group of workers is intensely loyal to the empire, and as long as the empire is ascendant it is essentially impossible to have solidarity with them in the class struggle.
But, when the empire is in decline, the privileged caste of workers shrinks. While this makes it possible to organize this cohort against empire, it also makes them prone to reactionary and backwards ideology. Instead of correctly blaming the decline of the empire on its own internal contradictions, they’ll blame the lower castes within the racial caste system: nonwhite immigrants, then nonwhite citizens, then white immigrants, then different white ethnicities, and around and around the circular firing squad goes.
We’re in for a rough time.
UK’s inner states
Presumably this excludes Northern Ireland, which definitely maintains the dubious honour of being the Original British Colony™. As someone who has been trying to find more local theory I say Good Luck. Everything here is 30 year old Trotskyist discussions of the GFA, constantly arguing over sectarianism destroying worker solidarity while completely ignoring the colonial aspects.
Presumably this excludes Northern Ireland
I agree, I was wondering, if the main post was aiming at that, but probably not.
The thing good theory will teach you is that your role is to organize class consciousness and organs that build and wield it.
Regarding internal states, in Marxist terms we could describe this as contradictions. De facto national conflict within a nation, extraction and exploitation from one to another. Not only can this coexist with class conflict within the internal states / larger nation-state, both emerge from the capitalist system. The cross-state exploitation and its functionary, marginalization, is part of the development of imperialism. Workers vs. owners is one contradiction, capitalist production depends on their relationship even as their interests diametrically oppose. Inter-state conflict of this form is another, imperialism being promoted by monopolization and profit-seeking (especially as rates fall).
There is an important risk to be aware of when focusing on class conflict within a country, particularly the imperial core. It can end up simplistic and focused solely on (allegedly) increasing the well-being of the common people of the nation, regardless of form. This is easily twisted into nationalism and support for imperialism so long as it’s happening to other people, i.e. false consciousness is a constant drain on our ability to accomplish what you want. The flip side of this is to understand that imperialism does mean that even while workers are exploited within imperial core nations, they are the beneficiaries of global imperialism. It’s why a ton of the things they buy are so cheap (even as others are needlessly expensive). It doesn’t take dramatically less labor to produce a bunch of bananas and ship them across the Atlantic than it does to grow a couple pints of raspberries. The economic lives forced on those workers of other countries appears as cheap imported commodities. This is just one example. But one to be mindful of when centering imperial core workers and exploitation: there’s a risk of saying your bananas are too expensive rather than your labor stolen, just like that of those who grew, treated, transported, and stocked the bananas.
I really like the banana explanation, thank you. Reminds me of a part in Organizing Means Commitment, where Boggs quotes Revolution and Evolution in the Twenty-First Century:
The revolution to be made in the United States will be the first revolution in history to require the masses to make material sacrifices rather than to acquire more material things. We must give up many of the things which this country has acquired at the expense of damning over one-third of the world into a state of underdevelopment, ignorance, disease and early death… It is obviously going to take a tremendous transformation to prepare the people of the United States for these new social goals. But potential revolutionaries only become true revolutionaries if they take the side of those who believe that humanity can be transformed.
Yes, or at least a massive shakeup in prices. If there were a rapid flattening, cheap imported consumer goods would rapidly rise in price. The bananas may triple in price or more.
Though also, some of the largest costs in the imperial core are in economic rent. While those imports would become expensive, even just overhauling housing and healthcare would crash the two most expensive bills for every worker.
Furthermore, that exploitation still exists in the imperial core. Workers are rarely paid on par with what is brought in by the product of their labor, even high wage earners. I’ve spoken with baby lefty tech workers who think of themselves as privileged and that labor organizing is for other people, people who need it. They don’t consider that their $200k is compensation for a product that made $1.5 million per dev and that the difference was used to pay useless management and pocketed as profit. While a high wage earner doesn’t face the desperation of other workers, and this carries a psychological challenge to class consciousness, they are still wage earners exploited by their employers. A sudden socialist realignment could begin changing this quite directly, nationalizing various industries and raising wages.
Good point. Treats will be more expensive, but I’d expect that to be largely offset by increased earnings and lower cost of living.
May we live to see the day that one banana costs $10 :inshallah:
Good post
The struggle between the imperial and colonised world powers does not negate the importance of class struggle within the imperial core; both produce the social and material relations to produce the other.
Can you expand more on this? Personally the third worldist half of this makes sense to me, in terms of if revolution succeeds in periphery, lack of treats to the core would heighten the potential for class struggle there. For the other half, if I’m not misunderstanding you’re talking about the importance of consumer demand in the core for capital accumulation. If tomorrow there is a workers revolution in the core, and we take a fully cynical/realpolitik view of it, in what way do you envision it helping conditions for struggle in the periphery?
May I ask what prompted this post? Because I don’t really get what you’re arguing against (or for) in practice. But that might just be, because I’m not knowledgeable on British political actors.
Liberals often conflate the often coercive and dominating force that England has on the politics of the union to colonialism
I genuinely didn’t know they did that. I’m surprised they speak about colonialism at all. Are there concrete parties or factions that refuse or engage in alliances that you rather wish they would or wouldn’t?
I think it’s best to define colonialism by the material contradictions that create and maintain it, the function it performs in capitalism. Like primitive accumulation to get capitalism started and absorbing the surplus product outside of capital circulation as well as securing cheap labor and inputs to offset falling profits. Involvement of military or hierarchy seems like a superficial aspect.
Do you agree about framing Irelands history in terms of colonial theory, like Irish marxists seem to do?
