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Divided World Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism ISBN 978-1-894946-41-4

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Divided World Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism ISBN 978-1-894946-41-4 M cc ti. •a■rf J v»1 ce jH i 'Sí' (A 09 I?* tí ÜO «-r p -<pr jfw «#* ’*•. || 4¡Utji »k> -t4h*<r. *r W / f » ^ f ' ; ce >> ?• «üfí V * ' - i JT? «V'H Zak Cope D iv id e d W o r l d D iv id e d C l a s s D iv id e d W o r l d D iv id e d C l a s s G l o b a l P o l i t i c a l E c o n o m y a n d t h e S tratification o f L a b o u r U n d e r C a p i t a l i s m Zak Cope (B.A., M.A., Ph.D.) Divided World Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism ISBN 978-1-894946-41-4 Published in 2012 by Kersplebedeb Copyright © Zak Cope This edition © Kersplebedeb All rights reserved Subject Index by Zak Cope Cover and interior design by Kersplebedeb To order copies of the book, contact: Kersplebedeb CP 63560 CCCP Van Horne Montreal, Quebec Canada H3W 3H8 [email protected] www.kersplebedeb.com www.leftwingbooks.net Also available from: AK Press 674-А 23rd Street Oakland, CA 94612 Voice: (510) 208-1700 Fax: (510) 208-1701 www.akpress.org Printed in Canada cDedicated to my mother, %osemary, my sisters, and Takira, and my fiancee, Urona, with all my love. C o n t e n t s Preface і Acknowledgments v Introduction 3 Notes to the Introduction 35 I. Historical Capitalism and the Development of the Labour Hierarchy 41 LI Mercantilism and Imperial Chauvinism 43 1.2 Classical Capitalism and Racism 69 1.3 Imperialism and Social Chauvinism 83 1.4 Global Imperialism and First Worldism 114 Notes to Part I 136 II. Global Value-Transfer and Stratified Labour Today 155 11.1 Understanding Capitalism and Imperialism 164 11.2 Estimates of Superprofits and Super-Wages 185 11.3 Conclusion 207 Notes to Part II 214 III. The Ideology of Global Wage Scaling 221 111.1 Capital Export and Imperialist Denialism 222 111.2 Workers’ Militancy and Global Wage Differentials 227 111.3 Productivity and Global Wage Differentials 230 111.4 Skills and Global Wage Differentials 246 Notes to Part III 251 IV. Marxism or Euro-Marxism? 255 IV.l Britain: Empire and the Bourgeois Working Class 258 IV.2 United States: Settlerism and the White Working Class 263 IV.3 Germany: From Social Imperialism to (Social) Fascism 275 I V.4 Fascism and the Labour Aristocracy 294 IV.5 Nation, “Race” and the Global Split in the Working Class 300 Notes to Part IV 307 Appendices 315 I Male Wage Rates for Selected OECD and Non-OECD Countries 316 II OECD Profits and the Trade Deficit 321 III Structure of World Merchandise Trade, 1990-2006 322 IV Unequal Exchange and Distorted Currency Valuation 327 V Egalitarianism and the Labour Aristocracy 329 Bibliography 341 Subject Index 386 L i s t o f Ta b l .e s a n d Illustrations Table I Rising Real Wages in North-Western Europe, 1850-1913 107 Figure I International Trade in 2008 193 Table II International Workforce in 2008 196 Table III Global Underemployment 196 Table IV Global Value-Added in 2010 196 Table V Transferred Surplus-Value in 2009 239 P r e f a c e In Belfast, where I have lived all my life, there is a saying “you cant eat a flag for breakfast” Particularly as it is used by the social demo­ cratic and liberal left, this saying is supposed to demonstrate axiom- atically that the national question in Ireland (that is, whether Ireland is to form a united and sovereign nation or whether it is to be ruled in whole or in part from Britain) is entirely distinct from purely eco­ nomic struggles over income, wages and working conditions and, furthermore, that nationalist politics, whether Irish or British in ori­ entation, are a malign distraction from the common interests of the working class in these same “bread and butter” issues. In truth, however, the saying has been little more than a folksy ra­ tionalisation and justification for firmly Unionist, British nationalist politics with a “left” veneer. The ethnically segregated and segment­ ed workforce in Northern Ireland has traditionally been dominated economically, politically and organizationally by a Protestant and Unionist working class. Relative to its Catholic counterpart, this population historically occupied all of the best jobs with the high­ est wages, lived in better houses, attended better schools and could count on better life opportunities as a result. Most significantly, the Protestant working class, of British settler-colonial descent, could rely upon a political dispensation which the disenfranchised, gerry­ mandered and oppressed Catholic working class could not. Thus ig­ noring or deliberately obscuring how national politics have impacted the conditions of working-class life in Northern Ireland meant (and still means) to adopt a not-so-implicit British nationalist frame of reference. The present work is a study in the politics of class within the capi­ talist world system. It examines, on a historical basis, power struggles surrounding the distribution of socially-created wealth and the re­ lations of production which determine the same. Specifically, it is an attempt to explain and relate: (1) the enrichment of the working class of the core, metropolitan or First World nations within capital­ ist social structures; (2) the massive and growing income disparity between the people living in advanced capitalist societies and those living in peripheral, economically extraverted or dependent capital­ ist societies; and (3) the widespread racism, ethnic chauvinism and xenophobia pervading First World society today. In doing so, we hope to elucidate both how issues of class shape “the national ques­ tion” (the boundaries of national self-determination in any given case) and, also, how nationality has come to impact class relations on a world scale. The introduction of the present work relates the concepts of class, nation and “race” under capitalism, concentrating in particular on addressing the connection between racism and colonialism. It also clarifies the meaning of those terms used throughout the book that are essential to scientific understanding of the present international class structure. Part I of the book considers the development of an as­ cendant section of the working class out of the unequal international relations formed within the capitalist system. Drawing on world sys­ tem and dependency theory, it delineates certain “stages” of global capital accumulation. Corresponding to these stages is a dynamic ordering of the international economy into a core and a periphery and the dissemination ofpopular ideologies of elitist supremacism in the former. Establishing as fact the embourgeoisement of the working populations of the rich countries, we argue that these populations have become materially accustomed to accepting the capitalist sys­ tem and those forms of national chauvinism created in the course of its global expansion. Chapter I argues that during the initial mer­ cantile stage of capital accumulation, the transition to bourgeois he­ gemony at the core of the new world system is rendered relatively II DIVIDED WORLD DIVIDED CLASS gradual and peaceful through the creation of a dependent periphery. It argues that a capitalist polity based on internal colonialism cul­ tivates imperial chauvinism within the broad petty-bourgeois popu­ lace. Chapter 2 argues that competitive capitalist industry in Europe brings colonialism in its wake. In the colonial situation, European settlers, employers, soldiers and officials confront a perennially sub­ jugated non-European population and racism is thereby encouraged. Chapter 3 argues that monopoly capitalism necessitates imperialism which relies upon social chauvinism to function. This chapter elabo­ rates on the historical origins of the labour aristocracy as a section of the (ineluctably international) proletariat provided with economic and political benefits that have helped secure its allegiance to the imperialist status quo. This chapter introduces the concept of social imperialism and examines its currency in the era of the First World War and the Second International Working Men s Association. The fourth chapter argues that the reconstitution of the imperialist sys­ tem on the basis of the overall global hegemony of US-based mo­ nopoly capitalism after World War II requires state welfarism and consumerism in the core nations, thus fostering the ideology o f First Worldism. This chapter details the economics of global imperialism and shows that after the Second World War the labour aristocracy is effectively “nationalised,” that is, the entire working class of the imperialist nations is subsumed into the richest fraction of the world petty bourgeoisie. This chapter also addresses how the increased eco­ nomic significance of immigration to this stage of capital accumula­ tion has been managed according to a mutual need on the part of monopoly capital and the labour aristocracy to maintain black and ethnic minorities in a state of marginality and low-wage conditions. Part II of the book argues (in abstraction from the reality of in­ stitutional discrimination against immigrant and minority ethnic populations favouring white workers) that, in the context of the con­ temporary capitalist world system, little or no legal exploitation takes place within First World borders. Having established the global split in the working class as being the product of imperialism, this second section of the book measures the extent of that divide today by means of empirical investigation, specifically by operationalising concepts such as unequal exchange and capital export imperialism which PREFACE III purport to reveal the mechanics of global value-transfer. It provides both a means of measuring and an account of the super-wages—wages supplemented by superprofits—that the First World working class is in receipt of today.
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