To my knowledge there are no western bourgeois economists that are asking these kinds of questions and doing this kind of research. That right there is incredibly telling. You could probably develop an entire sub-field of economics around researching the unequal exchange between global north and global south, and yet no one is drilling into it. I wonder why…
This is some of the most important research Marxian economists can do right now. We all know the very first objection that westerners have to socialism: that it “doesn’t work”, and the fact that western capitalist countries were so much wealthier than AES states like the USSR, DPRK, and Cuba is proof of that. In additional to various historical advantages (colonialism) and improper comparison (why aren’t we comparing Haiti and Cuba instead of the US and Cuba?), so much of why capitalism “works” in the US is exploitation of labor in the global south.
And what this says is… to make a fair comparison, you have to massively increase the cost of most goods that you buy without a corresponding increase in wages. Change that and the living standards for most Americans would fall off a cliff. It’s obvious that the standard of living that most Americans enjoy that they credit to the “miracle of capitalism” is really just from the exploitation of labor in the global south. And on top of that, the American quality of life is also juiced by unsustainable environmental degradation (if everyone consumed like Americans, we would need five earth’s worth of resources to keep up).
Eliminate exploitation of the global south and unsustainable environmental degradation, and American workers would have living conditions similar to what Engels describes in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.
improper comparison (why aren’t we comparing Haiti and Cuba instead of the US and Cuba?)
this has buggered me so much since the first time i ever heard that comparison
it’s especially bad when it’s someone from the 3rd world spouting that bullshit. “people are leaving cuba to go to the US!!” yea bitch but more people are leaving our country for america too and ours is a fucking capitalist one
Along a similar vein, I see so many libs resorting to saying “Americans are so much better off than 90% of the world’s population! Be grateful for what you have!” But why would America want to compare itself to Sudan, Myanmar, or Mozambique? They would rather plunder the global South than change anything about how America functions at a fundamental level
A big difference would also be that all the labor that goes into managing empire would also be able to be put to production for society instead of production for monopoly capitalists. It would ultimately depend on what type of system the US runs under in a hypothetical world where it is moved to semi periphery
Right now 30k per year in the US is hardly survivable outside of rural areas. Rent can cost 30k a year in big cities and 30k a year is a minimum wage job.
sans rent, as we are talking about products and commodities. And yeah, it would require but outside of that its survivable wage, non? even with medical and utilities prices being slightly bonkers
To my knowledge there are no western bourgeois economists that are asking these kinds of questions and doing this kind of research. That right there is incredibly telling. You could probably develop an entire sub-field of economics around researching the unequal exchange between global north and global south, and yet no one is drilling into it. I wonder why…
This is some of the most important research Marxian economists can do right now. We all know the very first objection that westerners have to socialism: that it “doesn’t work”, and the fact that western capitalist countries were so much wealthier than AES states like the USSR, DPRK, and Cuba is proof of that. In additional to various historical advantages (colonialism) and improper comparison (why aren’t we comparing Haiti and Cuba instead of the US and Cuba?), so much of why capitalism “works” in the US is exploitation of labor in the global south.
And what this says is… to make a fair comparison, you have to massively increase the cost of most goods that you buy without a corresponding increase in wages. Change that and the living standards for most Americans would fall off a cliff. It’s obvious that the standard of living that most Americans enjoy that they credit to the “miracle of capitalism” is really just from the exploitation of labor in the global south. And on top of that, the American quality of life is also juiced by unsustainable environmental degradation (if everyone consumed like Americans, we would need five earth’s worth of resources to keep up).
Eliminate exploitation of the global south and unsustainable environmental degradation, and American workers would have living conditions similar to what Engels describes in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.
this has buggered me so much since the first time i ever heard that comparison
it’s especially bad when it’s someone from the 3rd world spouting that bullshit. “people are leaving cuba to go to the US!!” yea bitch but more people are leaving our country for america too and ours is a fucking capitalist one
Along a similar vein, I see so many libs resorting to saying “Americans are so much better off than 90% of the world’s population! Be grateful for what you have!” But why would America want to compare itself to Sudan, Myanmar, or Mozambique? They would rather plunder the global South than change anything about how America functions at a fundamental level
What would a US that isn’t exploiting the global South look like for most?
A big difference would also be that all the labor that goes into managing empire would also be able to be put to production for society instead of production for monopoly capitalists. It would ultimately depend on what type of system the US runs under in a hypothetical world where it is moved to semi periphery
1990s Russia
So hell
mean wage in usa is like 60k i believe, so 30 k ±. (thats before looking a quintiles) perfectly survivable tbh
Right now 30k per year in the US is hardly survivable outside of rural areas. Rent can cost 30k a year in big cities and 30k a year is a minimum wage job.
sans rent, as we are talking about products and commodities. And yeah, it would require
but outside of that its survivable wage, non? even with medical and utilities prices being slightly bonkers