The World Needs American Socialism
The World Needs American Socialism
Youssef Bouchi writes on the importance of American socialism from his perspective as an Arab immigrant in Canada:
"Grassroots movements in the U.S. already understand this [...] Our task from the outside is to support them."
Socialism is internationalist. The world needs you to get some education.
The point isn't some idea of American Exceptionalism, but that a successful Socialist revolution in the world's largest Empire will dramatically liberate the Global South.
a revolution in the world's largest empire is extremely unlikely by virtue of it being the world's largest empire
Imperialism is an unsustainable practice, and the Empire must still be overthrown, whether internally or externally. I don't think revolution is impossible, but either revolution or outside factors are still required to progress beyond the present stage in Imperialism.
sure. it's not gonna come from within, though. it's no coincidence that no successful socialist revolution ever happened in the imperial core
It will be a mix of both, most likely.
China is already socialist. At least they claim to be.
China isn't an Empire. Being a large country is not the same as being an Empire, the US is an Empire because of how it leverages IMF loans to force countries in the Global South into privatizing and opening themselves up for foreign plundering, as well as maintaining hundreds of millitary bases globally to keep this process of foreign plundering going.
China is Socialist, just not an Empire.
Has China made any progress towards socialism lately or are they solidly authoritarian capitalists?
If we are to judge the PRC on Marxist lines, given that they are Marxist-Leninists, then they are already Socialist. The large firms and key industries of the PRC are already overwhelmingly under public control, while private enterprise is a mix of small corporations, sole proprietorships, and cooperatives, all of which would not be able to go away simply by making them illegal, and need to be developed out of.
That's a more classical interpretation of Marxism than the later Maoist era, which tried to achieve a fully publicly owned economy in an extremely underdeveloped economy. That's why Marx was such a stickler about developing the Productive Forces.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i. e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
I want you to look at the bolded word. Why did Marx say by degree? Did he think on day 1, businesses named A-C are nationalized, day 2 businesses D-E, etc etc? No. Marx believed that it is through nationalizing of the large firms that would be done immediately, and gradually as the small firms develop, they too can be folded into the public sector. The path to eliminated Private Property isn't to make it illegal, but to develop out of it.
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital;[43] the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
This is why, in the previous paragraph, Marx described public seizure in degrees, but raising the level of the productive forces as rapidly as possible.
China does have Billionaires, but these billionaires do not control key industries, nor vast megacorps. The number of billionaires is actually shrinking in the last few years. Instead, large firms and key industries are publicly owned, and small firms are privately owned. This is Marxism.
If we are to judge the PRC on Anarchist lines, then no, they are certainly not Anarchists, but they aren't claiming to be, either.
No one said it wasn’t? Socialism isn’t going to take over the world without a socialist movement developing within the imperial core, fighting imperialism from within. The imperial core is the greatest obstacle to socialism that there is, and the US is the global imperialist hegemon.
Socialism isn’t going to take over the world without a socialist movement developing within the imperial core
yeah it will. defeating the west is far more likely and more effective for that goal. we don't need the west leading anything, it needs to lose to socialism and take the back seat
all this is just american/western exceptionalism, but it is so embedded in your mind that you don't realize it
we don’t need the west leading anything, it needs to lose to socialism and take the back seat
I didn’t claim that it needs to lead anything. Yes, it needs to lose to socialism by any means necessary, whether within or without, or some combination of the two. I happen to be within it, so struggling from within is what’s available to me personally.
you are not wrong, but US socialism would certainly make it easier for us to be free too
american exceptionalism: socialist edition
seriously though, how would an us-american socialist revolution (let's pretend that's possible) be better for the world than the usa crumbling completely?
The US isn’t going to spontaneously crumble. People need to struggle to make it happen. And the people in the US aren’t going to magically disappear when the state crumbles. The power vacuum will be replaced by one or more new states. Everyone in the world is better off if those states are socialist ones, not capitalist.
it is far more likely that the us starts collapsing and tries to bring the world down with it than a socialist revolution ever happens. we need to defeat the usa, not hope that it brings about a popular democracy.
saying the world needs a "socialist america" is like saying we need a "socialist police force". it's an oxymoron
I will grant that “Socialist America” is not a good turn of phrase, because whatever new state(s) arise should abandon its ownership of “America,” which is two entire continents.
You seem to be assuming that these socialist states would simply continue being imperialist. But if that were true then they wouldn’t be socialist; that would be an oxymoron.
it is far more likely that the us starts collapsing and tries to bring the world down with it than a socialist revolution ever happens. we need to defeat the usa, not hope that it brings about a popular democracy.
Please do try to take down the US. We will need all the help we can get. We too have no faith that it will be taken down democratically. Probably it will be happen in a revolutionary defeatist opportunity that a crisis of war presents.
i'd say us socialism is not possible right now and won't for a while until they do the work to build it. it could collapse too, for any reason. either one works for us.
in either hypothetical situation, they wouldn't be practicing imperialism. by either direct violence or through proxies, or excercising the economic control only a nation that owns the world's currency can. and other ways.
most successful communist revolutions on the planet were squashed by some kind of meddling by western imperial forces. we would be freer to determine our own future.
isso se aplica aqui no brasil também, joão goulart foi deposto pelo golpe justamente por estar 'dando direitos demais'. o golpe teve apoio da burguesia estadunidense, através da cia. eles ainda mantém um certo controle sobre nós, e não gostam de ver a gente dar um passo sequer pela libertação.
The article does not advocate American exceptionalism. It reflects on the influence America has globally and how social struggle within America has global impact.