> CB: Obviously, you are correct. We are not headed to world communism,
>>
> because Americans and Europeans are selfish , and aren't about to give
> up their material superiority, despite the fact that they got that
> superiority through world conquest. The 100 plus US military bases
> around the world are not unrelated to the superior US living
> standards.
>
> The more I've thought about it over the years, the more wrong I think this
> is. The main reason we in the west ever extracted any goodies on a mass
> scale was not imperialism but socialism, the threat of it internationally
> and the movements for it domestically. Britain ripped off plenty from its
> colonies and yet the working class didn't start benefiting in the slightest
> until there were international threats of revolution and serious worker
> unrest.
>
This is a good point, though I'd hasten to avoid false dilemmas. They needed both a superior position in the world-system and the threat of revolution in order to enjoy social democracy.
>
> It's quite possible that we could go back completely--without a threat of
> socialism we have been getting all the bad parts of living in an empire
> (domestic racist insanity, long military deployments and the sick, desperate
> blowback, a looted treasury) and none of the alleged benefits. The most
> irritating part is that left and right everyone thinks empire is good for
> the U.S. working class: "Kick their ass and get their gas" on the right;
> "Draft SUV owners first" on the left. As though Shell exists to provide
> low-cost gas to patriotic Americans.
>
> So, what do workers in the U.S. have to gain from world socialism?--look
> what we already gained from socialism in other countries. Charles is right,
> it can't be sustained in one country or region, which is why we always have
> to put our shoulders to the wheel. But more socialism abroad has been
> historically better for us than less.
>
I think what we're looking at is a fallacy of composition. Third world socialist movements benefit first world workers (at least up to a point.) And first world social democracy benefits them too (indeed, is the pathway for the first.) But socialism as a world system that erases national boundaries isn't just an extreme application of the first plus an extreme application of the second.