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I don't understand the appeal of "multipolarity" (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Personally, I fail to see why many Marxist-Leninists support multipolarity. The primary goal of the Leninist movements has always been "workers of the world unite!" and not "non-US-aligned countries unite!".

To be clear, in saying this, I am not endorsing US-led unipolarity. I am just saying that multipolarity is not inherently good as some MLs suggest. For example, the world in 1914 and 1939 were without a doubt multipolar, and those both resulted in brutal world wars which killed millions.

Could somebody explain why people support multipolarity so much?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ever heard of the concept of labor aristocracy? Western workers are getting paid like 11x as much as nonwestern ones. Its in their class interest to keep western hegemony. They are our enemies.

The global working class is outside the usa empire, not inside. "Workers of the world unite" is pretty much exactly the same as "Nonwestern people unite"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Replacing class struggle with national struggle is not going to better our movement. Western workers are still exploited and as proletarians (which is defined by their relations to the means of production, not their income level), their class interests remains in socialism.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Western workers' class interest is NOT socialism, their class interest is getting a bigger share of the imperial loot.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I recommend this excellent video which refutes third-worldist narratives on the labor aristocracy.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I’ve never heard of Jason Unruhe. Apparently he’s a Maoist-Third Worldist, a tendency which never comes up on Lemmygrad.

“Premier Matthew” is claiming that the concept of a labor aristocracy dismisses the fundamental class relationship, but it doesn’t at all. The working class isn’t an undifferentiated horde. In Marx’s Capital volumes, he distinguished British proletariat who’d become “bourgeoisified.” Was Marx making a fundamental error as well? AFAIK, Lenin himself coined the term labor aristocracy, which Stalin quoted.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

I have become more and more convinced—and it is only a question of driving this conviction home to the English working class — that it can never do anything decisive here in England until it separates its policy with regard to Ireland most definitely from the policy of the ruling classes, until it not only makes common cause with the Irish but even takes the initiative in dissolving the Union established in 1801 and replacing it by a free federal relationship. And this must be done, not as a matter of sympathy with Ireland but as a demand made in the interests of the English proletariat. If not, the English people will remain tied to the leading-strings of the ruling classes, because it will have to join with them in a common front against Ireland. Every one of its movements in England itself is crippled by the strife with the Irish, who form a very important section of the working class in England. The primary condition of emancipation here—the overthrow of the English landed oligarchy—remains impossible because its position here cannot be stormed so long as it maintains its strongly entrenched outposts in Ireland. But, once affairs are in the hands of the Irish people itself, once it is made its own legislator and ruler, once it becomes autonomous, the abolition there of the landed aristocracy (to a large extent the same persons as the English landlords) will be infinitely easier than here, because in Ireland it is not merely a simple economic question but at the same time a national question, for the landlords there are not, like those in England, the traditional dignitaries and representatives of the nation, but its mortally hated oppressors. And not only does England’s internal social development remain crippled by her present relations with Ireland; but also her foreign policy, and in particular her policy with regard to Russia and the United States of America. —Marx, Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann In Hanover

In other words, for the British workers to liberate themselves, they must fight for the Irish workers and support them in both words and deeds. Marx advocated replacing the U.K. with a voluntary federation of nations, quite akin to the U.S.S.R.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago

In other words, for the British workers to liberate themselves, they must fight for the Irish workers and support them in both words and deeds.

Marx’s strategy for the 19^th^ century British Isles was never tested, so we’ll never know what would have happened. He also believed that socialism would begin in the most industrialized states, but it didn‘t. It started in a weakened, largely feudal, largely pre-industrial empire after the first inter-imperialist world war, through Lenin’s theory of revolutionary defeatism.

Marx advocated replacing the U.K. with a voluntary federation of nations, quite akin to the U.S.S.R.

I don’t know that anybody is arguing against such an outcome. The question is how to actually get there from here. You can’t have a voluntary federation of states until you have sovereign socialist states. For imperialized states, that means that they 1) have been freed from the imperial boot and become properly sovereign and then 2) have overthrown their bourgeoisie. For Imperialist states, they can’t realistically be overthrown until their empires collapse. It’s necessarily so that the intermediary stages between a unipolar, imperial hegemon world and a world federation of socialist nations would be multipolar ones.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago

Why would the british workers want to "liberate" themselves from their colonies' imperial loot?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, while in practice there is.

It seems as though you’re taking communism 101 theory and insisting that it be followed universally and by the book, regardless of history and material conditions on the ground, as if no further investigation were needed. Maoists wouldn’t be Maoists if they took Mao’s Oppose Book Worship seriously.

People have suggested to you several works on anti-imperialism from a Marxist perspective. Another important one, especially for those who live in a settler-colonial state within the imperial core, is Settlers.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I mean, labor aristocrats are still be proletariat. Socialism would be in the best class interest overall, but would cause a considerable decrease in the standard of living during the transitional state (I'd have to lose my treats during a revolution? kitty-cri-screm ). Due to imperialism, the current unipolar order elevates entire nations to the level of labor aristocrats, meaning they have been sufficiently drained of revolutionary will. With this comes a destruction of solidarity with the rest of the proletariat. From my understanding, the idea behind multipolarity is that the ability to continue keeping the entire population of nations or international blocs in a state of labor aristocracy is vastly diminished or outright impossible in a multipolar world, as it gives nations who experience the worst of the exploitation bargaining power to uplift their nations and break away from the imperialists they are being subjected to. This would decrease the rate of profits, leading the group's bourgeoisie to relocalize the formerly exported exploitation, rapidly deteriorating the standards of living of those at home. This would drop the standards of living to the point that the offerings of the bourgeoisie are no longer sufficient for that nation's or nations' masses, leaving them better primed for revolution.

Edit: Sidenote: I don't actually think it's imperative for us Western Marxists to necessarily fully comprehend the idea behind it, as I don't see what action we take that would call for pushing for multipolarity that isn't already done under the banner of anti-imperialism.