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Divided World Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism
Divided World Divided Class charts the history of the ‘labour aristocracy’ in the capitalist world system, from its roots in colonialism to its birth and eventual maturation into a full-fledged middle class in the age of imperialism. It argues that pervasive national, racial and cultural chauvinism in the core capitalist countries is not primarily attributable to ‘false class consciousness’, ideological indoctrination or ignorance as much left and liberal thinking assumes. Rather, these and related forms of bigotry are concentrated expressions of the major social strata of the core capitalist nations’ shared economic interest in the exploitation and repression of dependent nations.
The book demonstrates not only how redistribution of income derived from super-exploitation has allowed for the amelioration of class conflict in the wealthy capitalist countries, it also shows that the exorbitant ‘super-wage’ paid to workers there has meant the disappearance of a domestic vehicle for socialism, an exploited working class. Rather, in its place is a deeply conservative metropolitan workforce committed to maintaining, and even extending, its privileged position through imperialism.
The book is intended as a major contribution to debates on the international class structure and socialist strategy for the twenty-first century.
What People Are Saying
“Dr. Cope presents a thought provoking study of the political economy of the world system by focusing on the concept of a global labour aristocracy. Within the world system, which has also been described as a global apartheid system by some, enormous differences exist between workers’ wages and living conditions, depending on where the workers are located. The author details how a global labour aristocracy in core countries benefits at the expense of workers in periphery countries. The mechanisms supporting such a situation are identified as exploitation, imperialism and racism. The book is a valuable contribution to globalization critique.”
- Gernot Köhler, Professor (retired) of Computer Studies at the Department of Computing and Information Management, Sheridan College, Ontario, Canada and author of The Global Wage System: A Study of International Wage Differences and Global Economics: An Introductory Course
“How can we link the division between the poor and the rich people in one and any country and the division between the rich and poor nations together into an analytical framework? The answer lies in the concept of ‘the embourgeoisement of the working people’ of the rich core countries and the fact that colonialism and national chauvinism have gone hand in hand so as to breed a ‘labour aristocracy’. This book is a must-read for anyone who cares about fairness. Zak Cope brings together brilliantly the concepts of nation, race and class analytically under the umbrella of capitalism, by situating racism in the class structure and by locating class in the context of the global economy.”
- Mobo Gao, Chair of Chinese Studies and Director of the Confucius Institute at the Centre for Asian Studies, University of Adelaide, and author of The Battle for China’s Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution
“This is a surprising book. At a time when confusion about Globalization surrounds us, Zak Cope pulls us towards what is fundamental. He outlines the 19th & 20th century recasting of the diverse human world into rigid forms of oppressed colonized societies and oppressor colonizing societies. A world divide still heavily determining our lives. Working rigorously in a marxist-leninist vein, the author focuses on how imperialism led to a giant metropolis where even the main working class itself is heavily socially bribed and loyal to capitalist oppression. Much is laid aside in his analysis, in order to concentrate on only what he considers the most basic structure of all in world capitalist society. This is writing both controversial and foundational at one and the same time.”
- J. Sakai, author of Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat
The book demonstrates not only how redistribution of income derived from super-exploitation has allowed for the amelioration of class conflict in the wealthy capitalist countries, it also shows that the exorbitant ‘super-wage’ paid to workers there has meant the disappearance of a domestic vehicle for socialism, an exploited working class. Rather, in its place is a deeply conservative metropolitan workforce committed to maintaining, and even extending, its privileged position through imperialism.
The book is intended as a major contribution to debates on the international class structure and socialist strategy for the twenty-first century.
What People Are Saying
“Dr. Cope presents a thought provoking study of the political economy of the world system by focusing on the concept of a global labour aristocracy. Within the world system, which has also been described as a global apartheid system by some, enormous differences exist between workers’ wages and living conditions, depending on where the workers are located. The author details how a global labour aristocracy in core countries benefits at the expense of workers in periphery countries. The mechanisms supporting such a situation are identified as exploitation, imperialism and racism. The book is a valuable contribution to globalization critique.”
- Gernot Köhler, Professor (retired) of Computer Studies at the Department of Computing and Information Management, Sheridan College, Ontario, Canada and author of The Global Wage System: A Study of International Wage Differences and Global Economics: An Introductory Course
“How can we link the division between the poor and the rich people in one and any country and the division between the rich and poor nations together into an analytical framework? The answer lies in the concept of ‘the embourgeoisement of the working people’ of the rich core countries and the fact that colonialism and national chauvinism have gone hand in hand so as to breed a ‘labour aristocracy’. This book is a must-read for anyone who cares about fairness. Zak Cope brings together brilliantly the concepts of nation, race and class analytically under the umbrella of capitalism, by situating racism in the class structure and by locating class in the context of the global economy.”
- Mobo Gao, Chair of Chinese Studies and Director of the Confucius Institute at the Centre for Asian Studies, University of Adelaide, and author of The Battle for China’s Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution
“This is a surprising book. At a time when confusion about Globalization surrounds us, Zak Cope pulls us towards what is fundamental. He outlines the 19th & 20th century recasting of the diverse human world into rigid forms of oppressed colonized societies and oppressor colonizing societies. A world divide still heavily determining our lives. Working rigorously in a marxist-leninist vein, the author focuses on how imperialism led to a giant metropolis where even the main working class itself is heavily socially bribed and loyal to capitalist oppression. Much is laid aside in his analysis, in order to concentrate on only what he considers the most basic structure of all in world capitalist society. This is writing both controversial and foundational at one and the same time.”
- J. Sakai, author of Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat
387 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2012
31 people are currently reading
1416 people want to read
About the author
Zak Cope
8 books35 followersZak Cope is the author of The Wealth of (Some) Nations (Pluto, 2019) Divided World Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism (Kersplebedeb, 2015), He is co-editor of the Journal of Labor and Society and the Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 26, 2019
Whoa. It’s only October, but for me Zak Cope’s books are my picks of the year.
There’s stuff in there, I just can’t ‘unread’ and which has challenged me to really rethink and reevaluate some long-held political beliefs of a 21st century socialist strategy.
I don’t have the kind of social network where I could validate these ideas over a beer so desperately trying to find out what David Harvey makes of this :-) Initial ‘research’ suggests that he agrees with the broad findings but does not think that they warrant a total rethinking of Western socialist strategy for the 21st century. More on this later.
After Zak Cope’s ‘The Wealth of Some Nations’ (Pluto, 2019) left me a little shattered, I ordered his earlier book from 2012 ‘Divided World, Divided Class. Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour under Capitalism’. I need to get to the bottom of this, until I strike oil :)
The core argument goes as follows:
1. The current global inequality between the core of advanced countries and the periphery of ‘developing countries’ is the result of 400 years or so of colonialism and imperialism. The developing world’s ‘economic backwardness’ is not a result of inherently lower productivity, but imposed upon developing countries by colonialism and imperialism. They are not poor but are being impoverished. Not much new there. But important to keep in mind that race and racism have their origins in colonialism. White supremacy is sustained in and through imperialist capitalism.
2. There is a continued structural net transfer of value from the periphery to the core, ‘unequal’ exchange (differential levels of exploitation in the developing and industrial countries) being one of the mechanisms of this transfer (others being FDI/repatriated profits, debt, transfer pricing etc).
3. Critical: this net transfer of wealth from the third to the first world benefits the core nations as a whole, ie the living standard of the metropolitan working class is made possible through the super-exploitation of the farmers and workers in the global south.
4. As such, the first world holds a monopoly on high wages and there is generally support among the metropolitan working class for imperialism and social chauvinism rather than solidarity with the working class of the global south. The metropolitan working class’s support for racist and nationalist policies (and fascism at times) is not due to ‘false consciousness’ but has material causes related to the contradictions of monopoly capitalism and imperialism. This has important political implications.
5. The labour-capital compromise in the first world after WW2 was ‘bought’ by the sharing of the spoils of exploitation of the third world with the metropolitan working class. Despite the reduction of the wage share in the West, globally speaking, the entirety of the metropolitan working class represents a ‘labour aristocracy’ who maintain their lifestyle from the exploitation of the global south. Engels referred to this strata of the working class a ‘bourgeois working class’.
6. (The book then provides a history of the ‘labour aristocracy’ over the 400 or years of capitalism and three distinct stages mercantilism (1492-1769 - from ‘discovery of the new world to the first industrial revolution); classic capitalism and today’s imperialist monopoly capitalism (1870s to today).
7. Although neoliberalism dismantled this post-war social contract, the massive proletarianization and super exploitation of the third world labour in the final decades of the 20th century provided that unprecedented standards of living and the widespread introduction of supervisory and circulatory occupations further insulated metropolitan labour from the intrinsic conflict between capital and labour. At least temporarily. The 19th century restrictions imposed by labour aristocratic unions on membership for the mass of workers have today been entirely substituted for restrictions on immigration from the third world which are national in scope and allow the maintanence of profound global wage differentials.
8. Racist and militaristic immigration policies in the West ensure a captive labour force in the Global South - racist consciousness and practice have helped secure bourgeois social status for First World workers over the course of four centuries of capitalist ascendancy. Again, working class national chauvinism is the result of a long and violent process where living the political and economic privileges of an imperialist nation have come to seem natural and acceptable to the First World citizenry. ‘First Worldism’ - the governing ideology of the rule of entirely parasitic nations over the whole of the dependent third world. It is the sense of entitlement to a standard of living predicated on super exploitation as felt by the vast majority in advanced industrial nations.
9. The ideology sustaining this class alliance in imperialist countries is what Lenin referred to as ‘social chauvinism’. It is tacit or explicit support for an imperialist state in the name of a social welfare agenda. This also finds its political expression in the continued close link between Western social democracy and imperialism and militarism.
10. Lenin: ‘ imperialist economism’ - treating questions of income and inequality in the West without taking into account superprofits from the periphery. Contra this, the book provides a sort of ‘accounting’ of the real value transferred from the periphery to the core and the share of these profits that went to the metropolitan working class ‘the labour aristocracy’ of imperialism.
11. Then there’s an accounting exercise (Marxist value based not neoclassical price based) to quantify the value transfer from the Global South to the metropolitan working class. A lot of formulae I cannot read but it appears that it’s a lot (lol), that 80% of the net profits in the OECD are derived from imperialism. 80% of the world’s productive labour is performed in the Third World by workers earning 10% of the wages of the First World workers - THIS is the economic foundation for first world living standards.
12. This leads us to a painful point: in how far national socialist programmes such as Bernie’s ‘99 percent’, which lack any kind of acknowledgement of the American working class benefits of imperialist exploitation, are regressive? Is socialism even thinkable without internationalism and solidarity with the exploited nations. Is the Green New Deal a break with imperialism? Is the exclusive focus of the division between the domestic oligarchy and the masses - in isolation of the other 7 billion people - at home progressive?
13. I have got the sense from the 2019 UK Labour Conference that the question of empire (and its role in racism) was much more central to Labour’s socialist strategy BUT that this may not enjoy the support of the de-industrialized, precariously employed working class.
14. So what are the contours of an internationalist socialist strategy for the 21st century? Well, the answer is ‘internationalism’. The current post Global Financial Crisis trend toward protectionism, imperialist competition, trade wars and the rise of nationalism shows that we may soon end up in a similar sitiation that had led to the world wars of the 20th century.
15. It would be in the longtetm interest of the metropolitan working class to fight for a global living wage at the expense of downgrading their own living standards but to secure peace and social justice. But imperialism contonues to provide material interests for the western working class to ally itself with its own national bourgeoisie and support white supremacist, nationalist policies to protect their own status.
16. There’s a scary last sentence to the conclusion written in 2012 “We are forced to conclude that a pro-imperialist working class may be both unable and unwilling to forestall the growth of fascism.”
17. 😳
There’s stuff in there, I just can’t ‘unread’ and which has challenged me to really rethink and reevaluate some long-held political beliefs of a 21st century socialist strategy.
I don’t have the kind of social network where I could validate these ideas over a beer so desperately trying to find out what David Harvey makes of this :-) Initial ‘research’ suggests that he agrees with the broad findings but does not think that they warrant a total rethinking of Western socialist strategy for the 21st century. More on this later.
After Zak Cope’s ‘The Wealth of Some Nations’ (Pluto, 2019) left me a little shattered, I ordered his earlier book from 2012 ‘Divided World, Divided Class. Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour under Capitalism’. I need to get to the bottom of this, until I strike oil :)
The core argument goes as follows:
1. The current global inequality between the core of advanced countries and the periphery of ‘developing countries’ is the result of 400 years or so of colonialism and imperialism. The developing world’s ‘economic backwardness’ is not a result of inherently lower productivity, but imposed upon developing countries by colonialism and imperialism. They are not poor but are being impoverished. Not much new there. But important to keep in mind that race and racism have their origins in colonialism. White supremacy is sustained in and through imperialist capitalism.
2. There is a continued structural net transfer of value from the periphery to the core, ‘unequal’ exchange (differential levels of exploitation in the developing and industrial countries) being one of the mechanisms of this transfer (others being FDI/repatriated profits, debt, transfer pricing etc).
3. Critical: this net transfer of wealth from the third to the first world benefits the core nations as a whole, ie the living standard of the metropolitan working class is made possible through the super-exploitation of the farmers and workers in the global south.
4. As such, the first world holds a monopoly on high wages and there is generally support among the metropolitan working class for imperialism and social chauvinism rather than solidarity with the working class of the global south. The metropolitan working class’s support for racist and nationalist policies (and fascism at times) is not due to ‘false consciousness’ but has material causes related to the contradictions of monopoly capitalism and imperialism. This has important political implications.
5. The labour-capital compromise in the first world after WW2 was ‘bought’ by the sharing of the spoils of exploitation of the third world with the metropolitan working class. Despite the reduction of the wage share in the West, globally speaking, the entirety of the metropolitan working class represents a ‘labour aristocracy’ who maintain their lifestyle from the exploitation of the global south. Engels referred to this strata of the working class a ‘bourgeois working class’.
6. (The book then provides a history of the ‘labour aristocracy’ over the 400 or years of capitalism and three distinct stages mercantilism (1492-1769 - from ‘discovery of the new world to the first industrial revolution); classic capitalism and today’s imperialist monopoly capitalism (1870s to today).
7. Although neoliberalism dismantled this post-war social contract, the massive proletarianization and super exploitation of the third world labour in the final decades of the 20th century provided that unprecedented standards of living and the widespread introduction of supervisory and circulatory occupations further insulated metropolitan labour from the intrinsic conflict between capital and labour. At least temporarily. The 19th century restrictions imposed by labour aristocratic unions on membership for the mass of workers have today been entirely substituted for restrictions on immigration from the third world which are national in scope and allow the maintanence of profound global wage differentials.
8. Racist and militaristic immigration policies in the West ensure a captive labour force in the Global South - racist consciousness and practice have helped secure bourgeois social status for First World workers over the course of four centuries of capitalist ascendancy. Again, working class national chauvinism is the result of a long and violent process where living the political and economic privileges of an imperialist nation have come to seem natural and acceptable to the First World citizenry. ‘First Worldism’ - the governing ideology of the rule of entirely parasitic nations over the whole of the dependent third world. It is the sense of entitlement to a standard of living predicated on super exploitation as felt by the vast majority in advanced industrial nations.
9. The ideology sustaining this class alliance in imperialist countries is what Lenin referred to as ‘social chauvinism’. It is tacit or explicit support for an imperialist state in the name of a social welfare agenda. This also finds its political expression in the continued close link between Western social democracy and imperialism and militarism.
10. Lenin: ‘ imperialist economism’ - treating questions of income and inequality in the West without taking into account superprofits from the periphery. Contra this, the book provides a sort of ‘accounting’ of the real value transferred from the periphery to the core and the share of these profits that went to the metropolitan working class ‘the labour aristocracy’ of imperialism.
11. Then there’s an accounting exercise (Marxist value based not neoclassical price based) to quantify the value transfer from the Global South to the metropolitan working class. A lot of formulae I cannot read but it appears that it’s a lot (lol), that 80% of the net profits in the OECD are derived from imperialism. 80% of the world’s productive labour is performed in the Third World by workers earning 10% of the wages of the First World workers - THIS is the economic foundation for first world living standards.
12. This leads us to a painful point: in how far national socialist programmes such as Bernie’s ‘99 percent’, which lack any kind of acknowledgement of the American working class benefits of imperialist exploitation, are regressive? Is socialism even thinkable without internationalism and solidarity with the exploited nations. Is the Green New Deal a break with imperialism? Is the exclusive focus of the division between the domestic oligarchy and the masses - in isolation of the other 7 billion people - at home progressive?
13. I have got the sense from the 2019 UK Labour Conference that the question of empire (and its role in racism) was much more central to Labour’s socialist strategy BUT that this may not enjoy the support of the de-industrialized, precariously employed working class.
14. So what are the contours of an internationalist socialist strategy for the 21st century? Well, the answer is ‘internationalism’. The current post Global Financial Crisis trend toward protectionism, imperialist competition, trade wars and the rise of nationalism shows that we may soon end up in a similar sitiation that had led to the world wars of the 20th century.
15. It would be in the longtetm interest of the metropolitan working class to fight for a global living wage at the expense of downgrading their own living standards but to secure peace and social justice. But imperialism contonues to provide material interests for the western working class to ally itself with its own national bourgeoisie and support white supremacist, nationalist policies to protect their own status.
16. There’s a scary last sentence to the conclusion written in 2012 “We are forced to conclude that a pro-imperialist working class may be both unable and unwilling to forestall the growth of fascism.”
17. 😳
December 30, 2018
I'm sympathetic to parts of Zak Cope's analysis. It's true without a doubt that the First World / Global North / imperial core working class does benefit to a degree from the continued exploitation and un-development of the Third World / Global South / periphery. However, Zak Cope goes further than that and says that the majority of workers in the imperial core are embourgeoisified -- that their interests coincide with the imperial bourgeoisie -- and that exploitation is rare to non-existent within the borders of the First World. Even from a cursory anecdotal look into my life and the lives of working class people here in the imperial core, this is demonstrably false. It's odd that Cope would believe such a thing, given that he lives in the north of Ireland, an area that is within the imperial core (being occupied by the UK and rightfully Irish), and yet experiences incredible rates of deprivation (especially in its Catholic / nationalist areas). Zak Cope's analysis flattens the class struggle to be purely a national struggle -- this is just as wrong-headed as analyses which flatten the national struggle into purely a class struggle.
Cope's understanding of imperialism too seems curiously outdated, as he relies mainly on a classical Leninist understanding of imperialism, generated over a hundred years ago in a very different reality. One further criticism I have of the book is that it fails to explain how countries can move to and from the periphery and core -- see for example Zak Cope's home of Ireland, which began last century as a desperately impoverished and super-exploited colony of Britain and ended last century as one of the richest nations in the world by GDP per capita. Again, I am sympathetic to the basics of Cope's position -- as any Marxist worth her salt would be. But he takes giant leaps and broad brush strokes to produce a Manichaean view of the world -- devoid of class struggle -- that is completely untenable.
Cope's understanding of imperialism too seems curiously outdated, as he relies mainly on a classical Leninist understanding of imperialism, generated over a hundred years ago in a very different reality. One further criticism I have of the book is that it fails to explain how countries can move to and from the periphery and core -- see for example Zak Cope's home of Ireland, which began last century as a desperately impoverished and super-exploited colony of Britain and ended last century as one of the richest nations in the world by GDP per capita. Again, I am sympathetic to the basics of Cope's position -- as any Marxist worth her salt would be. But he takes giant leaps and broad brush strokes to produce a Manichaean view of the world -- devoid of class struggle -- that is completely untenable.
July 20, 2023
What an incredible read. I sincerely hope that everyone who calls themself a socialist or communist in the Global North reads this book and sits with its, at times, admittedly uncomfortable conclusions: that improved conditions for workers in the imperial core have historically been bought and paid for with the blood of superexploited Third World workers, and —what I am sure is the toughest pill to swallow for many a DSAer — that the First World working class’s reliance imperialism’s superprofits to maintain its own social reproduction makes it an extremely poor candidate to lead a global socialist movement.
However, I found, and I know that others will too find, hope and renewed passion for justice in Cope’s conclusion, ie what Third World socialists have been saying for decades: that the only way the poorest and most vulnerable among us, both in the Third and First Worlds, will ever be free from exploitation and immiseration is autonomy and sovereignty for those at the very bottom of the global hierarchy of labor. The most important contribution by far that communists living in the imperial core can make is to ally ourselves with the actions and interests of these superexploited Third World workers and producers, first and foremost by rejecting imperialism at every turn. Worldwide socialist revolution is indeed possible; we just have to be humble enough to accept that we won’t be the ones in charge!
Warning: Some of the economics is a bit dense and at times he uses very narrow definitions of certain terms in particular contexts (“exploitation” as a mathematical formula rather than a general term conveying moral disapproval, for instance). Stick with it and skip the maths if you have to, but absolutely read through all the supporting explanations and conclusions!
However, I found, and I know that others will too find, hope and renewed passion for justice in Cope’s conclusion, ie what Third World socialists have been saying for decades: that the only way the poorest and most vulnerable among us, both in the Third and First Worlds, will ever be free from exploitation and immiseration is autonomy and sovereignty for those at the very bottom of the global hierarchy of labor. The most important contribution by far that communists living in the imperial core can make is to ally ourselves with the actions and interests of these superexploited Third World workers and producers, first and foremost by rejecting imperialism at every turn. Worldwide socialist revolution is indeed possible; we just have to be humble enough to accept that we won’t be the ones in charge!
Warning: Some of the economics is a bit dense and at times he uses very narrow definitions of certain terms in particular contexts (“exploitation” as a mathematical formula rather than a general term conveying moral disapproval, for instance). Stick with it and skip the maths if you have to, but absolutely read through all the supporting explanations and conclusions!
December 16, 2021
This book is an excellent study of labour stratification because of imperialism, with the book making the central thesis: in the present there is a labour aristocracy in the imperial core, whose existence is predicated upon the exploitation of the global south. It is non-exploited, and encompasses the entire working class in the first world (exclusion: racialised minorities).
This is a radical thesis - however, the book makes a convincing argument for it. Chapter 1 and 4 are the best, the first is a general discussion of labour aristocracy, why it exists, what is the response to this. It is an excellent introduction. Chapter 4 is a general discussion of labour aristocracy in England, US and Germany and a last one arguing that labour aristocrats will not stop fascism, often they are at the forefront it in the present.
However, chapter 2 and in part chapter 3 consist out of a lot of calculations trying to calculate value transfer towards the core and the appropiation of surplus-value by the labour aristocrats, and their non-exploitation. Good and all - however he makes a fundamental category error: he tries to calculate value transfer through labour inputs. Possible - however he now simply uses wage costs to calculate labour inputs, which is a category error. Why? For Marx SNLT determines value - with individual values being transformed into prices of production, which then determine prices generally. For Sraffa prices are determined by wage costs with no reference to value. This is mixing Sraffa and Marx fundamentally to make its argument.
Nonetheless, it is a good book I'd use as recommendation - especially chapter 1 and 4, and parts of 3 attacking other explanations for the mass wage differentials.
This is a radical thesis - however, the book makes a convincing argument for it. Chapter 1 and 4 are the best, the first is a general discussion of labour aristocracy, why it exists, what is the response to this. It is an excellent introduction. Chapter 4 is a general discussion of labour aristocracy in England, US and Germany and a last one arguing that labour aristocrats will not stop fascism, often they are at the forefront it in the present.
However, chapter 2 and in part chapter 3 consist out of a lot of calculations trying to calculate value transfer towards the core and the appropiation of surplus-value by the labour aristocrats, and their non-exploitation. Good and all - however he makes a fundamental category error: he tries to calculate value transfer through labour inputs. Possible - however he now simply uses wage costs to calculate labour inputs, which is a category error. Why? For Marx SNLT determines value - with individual values being transformed into prices of production, which then determine prices generally. For Sraffa prices are determined by wage costs with no reference to value. This is mixing Sraffa and Marx fundamentally to make its argument.
Nonetheless, it is a good book I'd use as recommendation - especially chapter 1 and 4, and parts of 3 attacking other explanations for the mass wage differentials.
December 7, 2013
prettay, preeettay prettay prettay good.
August 15, 2024
this book is okay i guess. sucks that this guy is hitler now
November 14, 2024
An excellent, insightful and thought-provoking read on the history of labour under capitalism and how imperialism operates via global labour arbitrage (production being relocated to nations where labour and the cost of doing business is inexpensive and/or impoverished labour moves to nations with higher paying jobs) for further profit under unequal exchange
The book draws on insights from social reproduction theory in recognising that domestic labour, while a prerequisite for capital accumulation, does not produce anything extra for the market and thus remains unpaid and undervalued under capitalism. So the fight for feminism is not for housewives and domestic labourers to be paid wages for their work, but for women and men to share domestic and social labour equally
The book also refers to late anti-racist anthropologist Ruth Benedict, who defines racism as "the dogma that one ethnic group is condemned by nature to congenital inferiority and another groups is destined to congenital superiority", and refers to the history of racism only coming into Western languages during the middle of the 16th century and that no word in ancient Hebrew, Greek or Roman had the same meaning. By discussing race and white supremacy being sustained through imperialist capitalism, the book recognises that the racism of the working class in the imperial core is not the result of a backward consciousness, but the end result of a process of political struggle wherein the economic and political privileges of living in an imperialist nation have come to seem natural and acceptable to the majority therein. Racism thus grows via the practices of capitalism and neocolonialism, imperialist division of labour, border controls and wars. Perry Anderson is referenced in recognising the corporate nature of the British working class and their alliance with the dominant bourgeoisie in the expectation that its own economic betterment can be thereby achieved, thus in supporting the maintenance of imperialism, the British working class has become both advocate and practitioner of national and racial oppression
Highlights in the book include:
Recounting how the Labour government in 1948 launched a massive counter-insurgency operation against the Communist-led Malayan independence movement in order to protect the profits of Britain's rubber and tin industries
Referencing Lenin's recognisation that social democracy of the Western European kind equates to social chauvinism - "socialist" support for imperialist institutions and the material basis for social chauvinism that relies on globalisation of production and the superexploitation of 3rd world labour
Highlighting the imperialist underpinnings of Fabianism, which sought to weld "socialism" (narrowly defined as a more egalitarian redistribution of Britain's wealth) to the expansionist nationalism of British imperialism, as evidenced by its support for British capitalism's war in South Africa
Referencing French Marxist economists Gerard Duménil and Dominique Lévy who recognised that the benefits to the First World of the Third World debt crisis were multifold, such as the appropriation of natural resources at low prices, the exploitation by transnational corporations of segments of the cheap labour force and the opportunities opened up by the privatisation of public companies
Identifying and explaining that dollar hegemony is one of the principal mechanisms by which the imperialist bloc is able to secure economic supremacy over periphery nations
Defining profit as the unpaid labour-time of the worker appropriated by the capitalist as measured against total capital invested rather than the more widely-accepted definition rooted in capitalist accounting, as the excess of sales revenue over the cost of producing the goods sold
Identifying exploitation as occuring when wage-labourers are paid wages with less value than that which their labour-power creates, and superexploitation as the greater than average rate of exploitation imperialist capitalism submits workers in (neo-)colonial nations to, often to the point where their wages are set at levels insufficient for their households to reproduce their labour power
Dispelling the connection between egalitarianism and Marxist political economy, by defining egalitarianism as the belief that relations between persons and nations should tend towards equality of income and political power, socialist accounting does not proceed upon any moral imperative to level all incomes but on a calculation based on value creation and distribution, which is not one of precisely equal distribution of the social product to all citizens, but rather "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their work performed", as such, those who contribute more value to society through their labour may expect to receive more of the social product than those who contribute less
The book draws on insights from social reproduction theory in recognising that domestic labour, while a prerequisite for capital accumulation, does not produce anything extra for the market and thus remains unpaid and undervalued under capitalism. So the fight for feminism is not for housewives and domestic labourers to be paid wages for their work, but for women and men to share domestic and social labour equally
The book also refers to late anti-racist anthropologist Ruth Benedict, who defines racism as "the dogma that one ethnic group is condemned by nature to congenital inferiority and another groups is destined to congenital superiority", and refers to the history of racism only coming into Western languages during the middle of the 16th century and that no word in ancient Hebrew, Greek or Roman had the same meaning. By discussing race and white supremacy being sustained through imperialist capitalism, the book recognises that the racism of the working class in the imperial core is not the result of a backward consciousness, but the end result of a process of political struggle wherein the economic and political privileges of living in an imperialist nation have come to seem natural and acceptable to the majority therein. Racism thus grows via the practices of capitalism and neocolonialism, imperialist division of labour, border controls and wars. Perry Anderson is referenced in recognising the corporate nature of the British working class and their alliance with the dominant bourgeoisie in the expectation that its own economic betterment can be thereby achieved, thus in supporting the maintenance of imperialism, the British working class has become both advocate and practitioner of national and racial oppression
Highlights in the book include:
Recounting how the Labour government in 1948 launched a massive counter-insurgency operation against the Communist-led Malayan independence movement in order to protect the profits of Britain's rubber and tin industries
Referencing Lenin's recognisation that social democracy of the Western European kind equates to social chauvinism - "socialist" support for imperialist institutions and the material basis for social chauvinism that relies on globalisation of production and the superexploitation of 3rd world labour
Highlighting the imperialist underpinnings of Fabianism, which sought to weld "socialism" (narrowly defined as a more egalitarian redistribution of Britain's wealth) to the expansionist nationalism of British imperialism, as evidenced by its support for British capitalism's war in South Africa
Referencing French Marxist economists Gerard Duménil and Dominique Lévy who recognised that the benefits to the First World of the Third World debt crisis were multifold, such as the appropriation of natural resources at low prices, the exploitation by transnational corporations of segments of the cheap labour force and the opportunities opened up by the privatisation of public companies
Identifying and explaining that dollar hegemony is one of the principal mechanisms by which the imperialist bloc is able to secure economic supremacy over periphery nations
Defining profit as the unpaid labour-time of the worker appropriated by the capitalist as measured against total capital invested rather than the more widely-accepted definition rooted in capitalist accounting, as the excess of sales revenue over the cost of producing the goods sold
Identifying exploitation as occuring when wage-labourers are paid wages with less value than that which their labour-power creates, and superexploitation as the greater than average rate of exploitation imperialist capitalism submits workers in (neo-)colonial nations to, often to the point where their wages are set at levels insufficient for their households to reproduce their labour power
Dispelling the connection between egalitarianism and Marxist political economy, by defining egalitarianism as the belief that relations between persons and nations should tend towards equality of income and political power, socialist accounting does not proceed upon any moral imperative to level all incomes but on a calculation based on value creation and distribution, which is not one of precisely equal distribution of the social product to all citizens, but rather "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their work performed", as such, those who contribute more value to society through their labour may expect to receive more of the social product than those who contribute less
August 18, 2017
Very interesting book that probably, as close as the current trend of Third World political economy encapsulates the fundamental lessons of Lenin, Du Bois, Fanon/Yakuba, Amin regarding the labor aristocracy. Where Lenin describes "nations of parasites" Cope sees "multi-national countries of labor aristocrats". A shift altogether representing the effects of globalization and the privileges given by Civil Rights movements in the imperialist core. Even New Afrikans and Indigenous complicity is called out in terms of being integrated into globally exploiting classes. That would probably have, in a different context, irritated Lenin who in Marx's vain talks of the "entombment of the natives and enslavement of the Africans" quite often. It essentially sets limits on that form of resistance towards internal colonization. At least, until globally imperialist privileges go away, and those countries convert back into regular non-imperialist formations.
The quote collection itself is quite impressive, as well as the data to back its conclusions. Buy this book just to be challenged by that if anything. Because there is more historical precedence to what Cope is saying than might be assumed, even if you in the end disagree with his conclusions.
The quote collection itself is quite impressive, as well as the data to back its conclusions. Buy this book just to be challenged by that if anything. Because there is more historical precedence to what Cope is saying than might be assumed, even if you in the end disagree with his conclusions.
May 4, 2014
Whatever your opinion of political trends resulting from this book you have to respect Dr. Cope's work here. His endeavor to investigate the social division of labor as occurring internationally has sort of 'changed the ball game' of political inquiry. But even this statement is too crude. You really just have to read it for yourself to appreciate the investigation at play.
December 19, 2024
8/10
this is a great book. it has a lot of valuable points to make. the first three parts are filled with insights about the global political economy. however, the fourth part makes extremely outlandish claims that almost contradict some of the softer third-worldist arguments made earlier. when it considers the change from keynesianism to neoliberalism in the first world, he states that the first world proletariat did not bear the brunt of the shift, although they suffered some losses. however, the author then claims that there is no exploitation in the first world. the first world economy is no longer keynesian, so this actually makes very little sense. the positivist obsession with arriving at this conclusion ends up being a senseless leap that does not investigate the actual living conditions of the first world proletariat, nor other marxist explanations for chauvinism and the fact that there has not been a socialist revolution in the first world. i agree with almost everything else the author claimed, but this last bit is so baffling it's the only thing i want to talk about. maybe zak cope made the switch to neoconservatism because he could be a positivist reductionist without worrying about being criticized.
this is a great book. it has a lot of valuable points to make. the first three parts are filled with insights about the global political economy. however, the fourth part makes extremely outlandish claims that almost contradict some of the softer third-worldist arguments made earlier. when it considers the change from keynesianism to neoliberalism in the first world, he states that the first world proletariat did not bear the brunt of the shift, although they suffered some losses. however, the author then claims that there is no exploitation in the first world. the first world economy is no longer keynesian, so this actually makes very little sense. the positivist obsession with arriving at this conclusion ends up being a senseless leap that does not investigate the actual living conditions of the first world proletariat, nor other marxist explanations for chauvinism and the fact that there has not been a socialist revolution in the first world. i agree with almost everything else the author claimed, but this last bit is so baffling it's the only thing i want to talk about. maybe zak cope made the switch to neoconservatism because he could be a positivist reductionist without worrying about being criticized.
June 4, 2023
The sole aim of the book is to show how everyone in the west is a racist imperialist. Honestly, the way the author presents it I think the racist imperialists in question would very quickly agree that they are indeed racist and imperialist and can you please stop, we already agree.
It concentrates on the lambasting of the labour aristocracy (first time I heard of this communist term) and proving that the kind of leftist people you think are crazy progressive are actually fascist scum. Who is this book for? Are you trying to convince me of anything other than that I am a racist?
The palpable helplessness felt throughout the book is pathetic - I kept waiting for some proposals or at least a rousing speech at the end but it ends as whiny as it started.
It concentrates on the lambasting of the labour aristocracy (first time I heard of this communist term) and proving that the kind of leftist people you think are crazy progressive are actually fascist scum. Who is this book for? Are you trying to convince me of anything other than that I am a racist?
The palpable helplessness felt throughout the book is pathetic - I kept waiting for some proposals or at least a rousing speech at the end but it ends as whiny as it started.
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April 26, 2023zak cope makes some good and well researched points here about the western left but he couldn’t ever have accounted for or predicted the revolutionary praxis of 2020s leftists in posting the “third world isn’t underdeveloped, it’s over exploited” clip of parenti with subway surfers gameplay underneath it on tiktok
November 25, 2023
Some well grounded history, but maybe the worst example of a trend of books with these tendancies. Keen to prove the decadency of imperial working classes (not unfairly), while completely unwilling to engage with the western readership it's aimed at on implications for effective political forms arising from these arguments.
February 8, 2025
On first world labor aristocracy. Making the argument that entirety of the working class in the first world especially white and non immigrants are not true proletariats but instead labour aristocrats defined as the members of the nominal working class who have become bourgeoisified not just ideologically but also in reality due to their net receipt of the surplus value of the third world proletariat. When these workers find themselves holding pro-capitalist, anti-revolutionary chauvinistic ideological views its because it's determined by their actual class interests rather than by their holding of a false class consciousness. First world workers earn more than their worth of their labor "super wages" due to their privileged position in the world economic system because workers in periphery nations are being exploited to an enormous extent. Therefore racism and nationalist chauvinism are not poisonous patterns of thinking found in the minds of the ignorant but instead are the ideological representation of the global imperialist system. Also discusses the relationship between labor aristocracy and social fascism.
August 1, 2023
When will people realise that value transfer is an incoherent concept? You can't just make exploitation as a technical heuristic of the labour process a moral cudgel. Only a complete flattening of the various tendancies in the third world allows one to make this assumption and ironically (re)centres the core, far from emphasising the periphery.
I'm in agreement with a labour aristocracy in the West, certainly, but insofar as it is applied to workers institutions and not the actual class relationship grounded within the value-form! If that is indeed the case then a western proletariat has never existed whatsoever.
I'm in agreement with a labour aristocracy in the West, certainly, but insofar as it is applied to workers institutions and not the actual class relationship grounded within the value-form! If that is indeed the case then a western proletariat has never existed whatsoever.
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July 25, 2013well dang!
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