this mostly applies to the U.S. but also most of the western world:
As Marxists we know that most policy is driven by what capital allows or within the increasingly narrow range of acceptable discourse it allows within bourgeois dictatorship
Obviously it’s not a conspiracy of ten guys in a secret room but a general consensus that develops from a chaotic web-like oligarchy of money peddlers, influencers, lackeys, billionaire puppetmasters, etc
But this really, really hurts Capital. they need the influx of cheap labor or face the real threat of forced degrowth. and we know every is trying to make it harder for people to be childless but short of forcing people to procreate at gunpoint…
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so why allow this to become a bipartisan consensus (U.S.) instead of say throwing some scraps of social democratic programs?
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or in Europe’s case allowing these parties to come to power instead of reversing some neoliberal austerity?
Is this a case of anti-immigration just being easier to do vs. building resiliency into the system? i mean it’s always easier to write laws crimializing stuff and throwing cops at a problem i suppose
Or something else?
It creates a sort of form of domestic Imperialism, Capital supports anti-immigration so they can domestically hyper-exploit immigrants via threat of calling ICE and kicking them out or killing them, all while maintaining Capital and development of Capital domestically, so it can’t be seized. It’s monstrously cruel and is an example of just how well-organized Capitalism evolves to become over time, independent of anyone’s individual will, ironically paving the way for its own erasure.
Its also just another way to create a division in the working class. The more divided the working class is the longer it takes for it to organize against the capitalists that are exploiting them all.
Exactly. It’s generally useful to maintain this reign of terror, it divides the Proletariat and Lumpenproletariat into sections, hence the importance for intersectionality for any self-respecting Leftist serious about organizing.
Even worse they make us fight each other and propaganda it like it’s the other people in our class or the poor classes fault for their shortcomings and for creating this 1% profit oriented society.
It’s recreating the environment of the 19th century British factory but because it gets tied up in the immigration/culture war aspect everyone overlooks the regressive exploitation.
Climate change brings with it 100s of millions of climate refugees. We are already seeing some of this occur.
The destabilising effect of 100s of millions of refugees is beyond anything any state has ever survived before. It will cause collapses and revolutions. These revolutions will be won by socialists if fascists are not around to fight us.
The funding and development of fascism coincides directly with the bourgeoisie feeling a need to use ultra violence to suppress the left. That need is on the horizon and they feel it existentially.
Yeah it’s this. The bourgeoisie are preparing for mass migration on a scale previously thought unimaginable. They’re getting systems in place and priming the population to accept the mass extermination of refugees.
The bourgeoisie are preparing for mass migration on a scale previously thought unimaginable. They’re getting systems in place and priming the population to accept the mass extermination of refugees.
This has been what I’m thinking for quite some time. And because the left doesn’t exist in the imperialist nations, it’s easier for them to do it.
Others have given good answers (The reserve army of labour) but may I give another one. They’re fantasically, transcendentally stupid and they’ve got nothing left but cruelty.
They are running out of productive forces to centralise, have rotted innovation from within, and have gone all in on AI as their last hope. They’ve not so much drunk the kool aid as injected a kool aid producing gene directly into their cells. It’s their last gasp as China’s natural productive capacity outpaces them.
If you really believe in AI, you believe that most labour will be replaced. But, you can’t have labour be replaced since it causes a crisis of consumption and there’s only so many ivory backscratchers you can own. So you need a minimal UBI to maintain capital flows in the medium term (using it as guillotine insurance has only occured to a few in DMT fueled fever nightmares). Additionally you need to fuck over China by outproducing them and maintaining the living standards of the upper middle classes in the imperial core.
On the other hand, UBI costs money and you like money and your shareholders are literally legally obliging you to give them all the money in the universe. So you have the contradiction of
a) Needing to prevent a crisis of domestic consumption
b) Fucking over the third world with over-production to screw China
c) No tax, only spend.
d) If everythings a robot we don’t need third world slaves anymore!
So a UBI (or more likely a bullshit jobs generator to make middle management tyrants happy) inside the core (for Pell grant recipients etc etc) and a air gapped populace outside being sold stuff they increasingly can’t afford, kept in check by bombs.
Some might say, this is just Generalplan Ost with robots, to which I say “yeah, good thing AI is mostly bullshit huh?”
The west has a really powerful petite bourgeois class, they’re the main drivers of anti-immigration sentiment since large scale immigration can in fact hurt the middle class by reducing completion for labor. Middle class ideology is so engrained into the American psyche that some members of the haute bourgeois like to larp as plucky small business kulaks and so go along with the anti-immigrant thing for cultural reasons. Also most of the haute bourgeoise have international investments so domestic production doesn’t matter that much to them.
can intact hurt the middle class but reducing
sorry but I got lost here, I think maybe autocorrect struck twice and overwhelmed my parser. could you clarify
From Matt Christman of the podcast:
And that’s what these guys are, these guys that marched in Charlottesville, these are the people who are aware of the unspoken premise of this sort of zombie neoliberalism that we’re living in, which is that we’re coming to a point where there’s gonna be ecological catastrophe, and that it’s gonna require either massive redistribution of the ill-gotten gains of the first world, or genocide.
And these are the first people who have basically said, “Well if that’s the choice, then I choose genocide”, and they’re getting everyone else ready, intellectually and emotionally, for why that’s gonna be okay when it happens, why they’re not really people. When we’re putting all this money into more fucking walls and drones and bombs and guns to keep them away, so that we can watch them die with clear consciences, it’s because we’ve been loaded with the ideology that these guys are now starting to express publicly.
On the other side of them, we have people who are saying in full fucking voice, “No, we have the resources to save everybody, to give everybody a decent and worthwhile existence, and that is what we want.” And that is the fucking real difference between these two, and you can tell that to the next asshole who tells you that they’re actually two sides of the same coin."
I remember this stream and watching it live and was like finally somebody said it. Finally somebody crystallized it. They are given the option and choose murder. And it won’t happen overnight. You’ll just wake up one day and you will find out the “yes, murder” people outnumber the “no, what the fuck, how did you already conclude murder is okay?” Like it got escalated while you were asleep. And these goofy people are the first to try. And they’re stupid and they will fail. But they’ll keep trying. It’s bone chilling.
To be fair, Marxist theorists have been saying similar for quite some time. From Samir Amin’s Eurocentrism:
The recognition of the role of colonialism in the unequal development of capitalism is not enough. For, despite this recognition, the dominant view is based on a refusal to accept the principle that the contradiction between the centers and the peripheries constitutes the fundamental contradiction of the modern world. Certainly, until 1914 the world system was built on the basis of a polarization between the centers and peripheries that was accepted de facto at the time. Since then, this polarization is no longer accepted as such. Socialist revolutions and the successful independence struggles in former colonies are proof of this change.
To the extent that modern media places the aspiration for a better fate than that which is reserved for them in the system within the reach of all peoples, frustration mounts each day, making this contrast the most explosive contradiction of our world. Those who stubbornly refuse to call into question the system that fosters this contrast and frustration are simply burying their heads in the sand. The world of “economists,” who administer our societies as they go about the business of “managing the world economy,” is part of this artificial world. For the problem is not one of management, but resides in the objective necessity for a reform of the world system; failing this, the only way out is through the worst barbarity, the genocide of entire peoples or a worldwide conflagration." I, therefore, charge Eurocentrism with an inability to see anything other than the lives of those who are comfortably installed in the modern world. Modern culture claims to be founded on humanist universalism. In fact, in its Eurocentric version, it negates any such universalism. Eurocentrism has brought with it the destruction of peoples and civilizations that have resisted its spread. In this sense, Nazism, far from being an aberration, always remains a latent possibility, for it is only the extreme formulation of the theses of Eurocentrism. If there ever were an impasse, it is that in which Eurocentrism encloses contemporary humanity.
That’s such a great quote. I’d emphasize this part instead, though.
Modern culture claims to be founded on humanist universalism. In fact, in its Eurocentric version, it negates any such universalism. Eurocentrism has brought with it the destruction of peoples and civilizations that have resisted
We can apply this to modernity or the Islamic conquests or the crusades or fucking Rome or all these versions of people that tried to “enlighten” other people by stabbing them to death. This is all part of them trying to force the world to make sense. It’s just death. You are trying to solve the equation of life and you found this “cheat code” called death. You can dress it up in all the pretty colors but thats really what’s going on. That’s the actual finality going on here. Living with other people who are different can be difficult. It can upset the balance. But I got a knife or a rock or whatever and I can make the problem go away
And that is the fundamental flaw. They don’t want things to be “un pretty” but their solution is killing people which is the messiest thing. Moving a body takes so much work. Like even if you accept the premise of fascism they are doing it the wrong way. There is a mechanical rebuke of them that goes beyond the appeals to emotion that normally could be used to condemn them. They’re doing bad things and they aren’t doing them well.
I don’t even listen to the podcast, I was only made aware of this quote because a South African journalist I follow on Twitter reposted it and appears to be a fan of the podcast.
But yes, a lot of his rants and quotes are very good.
