Here’s what we’ve got so far.
- In the early 1970’s, an international communist movement so mired in mistaking parasitic first world populations for class allies of the world proletariat that even otherwise genuine Maoists in China were committing the same deadly error.
- An international proletariat highly suspicious that in the 1970’s it was already quite late in the material day for communists to be fucking up on this issue on such a grand scale.
- An international proletariat highly suspicious that this grand fuck up can be attributed to a massive ideological lacuna afflicting the ICM throughout the 20th century, that lacuna itself being symptomatic of virulent infection of the ICM by a particular form of bourgeois ideology, the theory of the productive forces.
- A global form of the theory of the productive forces that draws its pernicious and lethal potency from the showcase populations of the first world labor aristocracy.
- And, finally, the lie behind the lie, the root deceit propping up this international form of the enemy lie of the TOPF: the lie that the whole world can have a first world standard of living. The succinct version being, that the whole world can live like amerikkkans.
Simply put, the theory of the productive forces is a lie in prescriptive form peddled to the oppressed and exploited: do this, and you’ll get that. The “this” is the invitation to forget class struggle, to focus instead on building up the forces of production, acquiring technology, etc. – in fact, it’s the invitation to do anything but remember class struggle. The “that” is the proffered reward to the oppressed and exploited for this good behavior. And the international form of the TOPF offers a stunning illusory payoff: hey, you’ll get to live like amerikkkans, because that’s how they got where they are.
Let’s once again go over the broad economics of this to see just how very stunning such an offer is. The first world populations are far and away the richest on the planet. Nearly every single first worlder is part of the world’s richest 15%. The majority of amerikkkans, that paradigm population of parasite “prosperity,” are among the world’s richest 10%. Even those at the economic bottommost of the first world nations live whole levels above the world majority, who by contrast live at subsistence level and less.
So naturally at this point the video says, in referring to these first world parasite populations, that they are “the wealthy few of the planet.” Because that’s beyond refutation.
Continuing on then, the video says, “And, as Maoists, we know that the wealth of the few comes from thievery.” You just don’t get much more elemental in your basic Marxism, your basic proletarian internationalism, than that: the wealth of the few derives from the impoverishment of the many.
Marxists are supposed to know this. So Maoists are supposed to know that the TOPF is, in all its forms, local and international, a lie. The first world populations did not obtain their riches in the manner their TOPF prescribes to the world’s oppressed and exploited majority. First worlders did not acquire their wealth by building up their productive forces and becoming technological whiz kids. There is nothing “innovative” in the genocide by which they stole a continent. There is nothing “new and improved” in enslaving a nation to build your own nation. And the military/political agenda of the few (the first world) dominating and exploiting the many (the Third World), well we know, if we’re Marxists, that that’s old hat, not high tech.
Of course, as with all things of first world origin, the opposite of what is claimed is true. It is only the centuries old continuous theft of wealth from the Third World and all oppressed nations that makes possible all that gleaming blood-drenched first world advanced technology.
Not for one instant in all those centuries did the first world populations forget class struggle. It was by keeping class struggle against the oppressed nations topmost on their political program – keeping the politics of oppression and exploitation in command – that got these parasites the riches of decadence that they possess today.
So the international theory of the productive forces is a lie because Marxism is correct: exploitation exists. And therefore the entire world cannot live at the economic level of the world’s richest 10%, or the world’s richest 15%. The international TOPF is a lie because, for the entire planet to live like the first world, like amerikkkans, a whole new planet, several times earth’s population, would have to be discovered, conquered, oppressed, exploited and sucked off of just as the first world for centuries has sucked off the Third World. That’s not hard to see. For a rich minority to become a rich minority, they have to oppress and steal from an oppressed majority. And, yes, the same thing goes for the process of remaining a rich minority.
The lie of the international TOPF is just not that theoretically complex, and the raw facts of the worldwide class analysis it entails are not hard to come by. Is anyone arguing that nearly all of the first world is not part of the world’s richest 15%? Is anyone arguing that most amerikkkans are not part of the world’s richest 10%? Is anyone arguing that nearly half the world does not live on less than $2 a day? No, the facts of first world hegemony are all just common, everyday prima facie stuff.
But then we come right back to the international proletariat’s nagging suspicion that the parasitic nature of the first world populations has been prima facie stuff pretty much throughout the entire last century. How long has it been, for instance, that amerikkka has been globally acknowledged as the land of milk and honey? Not just for the rarefied tip top economic strata of amerikkkans, but for all amerikkkans – the land of money, honey. How long has it been, for another instance, that the economic disparity between the first world populations and the Third World has been, shall we say, conspicuous?
And so the international proletariat is to be forgiven for then asking quite bluntly, where in the fuck was the great bulk of the international communist movement for the last century while it was tasked with exposing just such pernicious enemy lies as this international theory of the productive forces?
Further, the international proletariat is to be forgiven for its as yet un-allayed suspicion that the bulk of the ICM was in fact for most of that century asleep at the wheel, drugged out on dreams of the oppressed and exploited “advancing” toward a parasite first world standard of living. Just plain drugged out on the international TOPF.
We explained in Part 3 that the potency of the international TOPF derives from the showcase populations of the first world labor aristocracy. You can think of it this way. Would any proletarian forces buy a bit of this lie if the vast majority of the first world lived on $2 a day? An international TOPF like that, that promised do this (forget class struggle) and you can get this (a subsistence level existence just like the one you have now), would ring up precious few sales among the oppressed.
But with the actual first world labor aristocracy on parade – millions of Dicks and Janes who look for all the world like garden variety “regular folks” but who enjoy a standard of living stratospherically above the world majority – then you’ve got a huckster’s shill that’ll draw in a crowd. And that, the international proletariat suspicions, is exactly what happened to the ICM. The promise of first world richness for the world majority was too enticing to turn down, to disbelieve, so by the multitudes the ICM stepped right up, forked over a goodly portion of their precious revolutionary responsibilities, and bought themselves a heaping helping of the lie of the TOPF, the bogus amerikkkan dream peddled to the oppressed and exploited.
Now, discerning readers will have noticed that we’ve continued to stress the proletariat’s suspicions about the ICM’s errors on the international TOPF in the 20th century without mentioning that today the ICM is for the most part every bit as fucked up on this question as it has been for the last century. By all means we’ll get to that.
But we cannot fully understand the enemy’s contemporary ideological victories via the TOPF if we do not fully grasp the power and reach of the international TOPF as fueled by the first world labor aristocracy. And that means comprehending the enormity of the ICM’s past defeat by this imperialist ideological weapon, a defeat that extends back over scores of years and has been nearly absolute. And the efforts toward the investigation and study aimed at fully comprehending that defeat have, sadly, begun only recently.
Fortunately, we have some good and capable comrades leading the way in this investigation and study. The international proletariat demands to know what part this massive enemy ideological victory has played on the two main fronts of the proletarian struggle: the struggle for national liberation of the oppressed nations, and the attempts to build socialism in the former socialist nations. In Part 5 we will consider the possible damage done by the international theory of the productive forces in a particular instance of latter area, the murder of socialism in the People’s Republic of China.
In that Part we will make much use of Prairie Fire’s fine article posted at MSH, Some notes on lines within the Chinese Communist Party in the Maoist period. This article is an excellent example of the kind of theoretical and investigative work demanded by the international proletariat to assure the defeat of the imperialist weapon of the international TOPF and to hasten the defeat of the first world itself. So read that work well in the meantime.
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