Bob Avakian on Parasiticism

[i like jazz]

Even Bob Avakian talks about Lenin's thesis of parasiticism. Even though Bob is confused and doesn't follow the obvious implications of Lenin for the USA, at least Bob admits Lenin talked about it. Ironic -- all the babble on awip claiming that the notion of parasiticism has nothing to do with MLM or Lenin.

Even Bob talks about it:

In "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" and elsewhere Lenin talks about how one of the main features of imperialism is heightened parasitism and how this "sets the seal of parasitism" on
the whole of society, in the homelands of imperialism. In other words, there is this whole
parasitic character to society. And this is even more pronounced today--especially (although certainly not
exclusively) in the U.S.--than at the time Lenin was writing and using England as a particular example. **

(RW ONLINE: A Problem of Strategic
Orientation for the Revolution
A Problem of Strategic Orientation
for the Revolution
The Two 90/10's
Bob Avakian
Revolutionary Worker #890, January
19, 1997)

[RosaRL]

'm not going to beat this into the ground, but no one is denying that there is parasitism with imperialism and that it effects the actual conditions that we are dealing with. Lenin never says that revolution in the imperialist nations is hopeless. I gave quotes from a work where Lenin goes into quite some detail as well as a link for anyone who doubts the context of those quotes. However, as we have seen in this debate, MIM means something very different by parasitism than Lenin did (or that Bob Avakian does.. anyone who wants to read that article in context it can be found at rwor.org/a/chair/uflp/ba8.htm )

Now, some people start with the way things are right now. The vast majority are not revolutionary and they think that because this is the case right now that there is nothing that they can do accept maybe work for some reforms, or just wait around for the economy to collapse, or in MIM's case wait for some invasion. They just look at what is right in front of their face, they just look at what is easy to do and that sort of mentality leads to all kinds of non-revolutionary places.

Its the same mentality that leads people into working for community policing rather than lifting their sites to get rid of this system once and for all. Its the same mentality that leads people into working to get people elected to city councils, school boards and whatever else. I'm not saying MIM does those things, but those are some of the places that the approach they take can and does lead to. Its strait up pragmatism, not Marxism.

What is really different from what MIM says about the people and what CP-USA says? Dont they both think that the masses in the USA could never hear and take up a revolutionary line? Ultimately dont they both think that you cant have a revolution here? Well, one goes for waiting for some invasion and the other working within the system for peaceful transition -- but so what? Either way you are selling out or just plain giving up on revolution and looking for some easy way out. They are both approaching this from what is 'easy' to do!

No Marxist has ever said making revolution was going to be easy. Its hard work and it takes dedication. It takes being willing to face up to the facts, being willing to apply our science to the situation.. taking hold of it and transforming that situation. And THAT is the point of analysis.

[RosaRL]

One more thing: MIM's lie on the woman question has also been brought up here.

Let me ask this -- doesn't it essentially amount to giving up on men under the current conditions -- to actually giving in to the way things are instead of seeking to radically transform people's thinking now -- even though that may be difficult?

Isn't that also another example of MIM's pragmatism?

[rcp non sequiters]

Woah. MIM is the CPUSA? MIM are pragmatists? Can I have some of what you are smoking RosaRL?

[kasama]

notice the method here.

A MIM-supporter posts a crudely distorted remark on parasitism.

rosa gives a substantive response.

A MIM supporter with an adhominem (personal) attack: "Can I have some of what you are smoking RosaRL?"

Can't answer the point that both the CP and MIM believe the masses can only support imperialists and will never uphold revolution?

Isn't that the issue underlying the counterrevolutionary politics here -- which unites these two forces despite differences in form, history, and all kinds of secondary point. MIM themselves says that their stand on the masses is one of their "cardinal" (i.e. foundational) points. It defines them, profoundly.

don't think we don't notice both your method and your politics.

[marxist]

You call that substantive Kasama?
MIM has laid out the facts on surplus-value and has challenged the "RCP" to do the same for its position. Only in 2004 has the "RCP" come to the ASSERTION that surplus-value from the Third World is 8-10% of surplus-value within u.$. imperialism.

"RCP" has said NOTHING to the public about the sources for that conclusion or how it war arrived at. It's an empty Avakian-cult dogma. That is all and it's been that way for decades and now you want to say MIM is unsubstantive? Give us a break. Go read the book there online in the MIM Theory section. See all the data
and analyses with all the sources put out in public for examination.
www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/mt/imp97/index.html

When your favorite Avakian cult has put in 10% of the effort to study this question, get back to us.

[an observor]

I have watched this back and forth three or four times now.

MIM says no significant imperialists profit comes from within their home countries. RCP supporters have repeatedly given figures that show that most of the profit of imperialist ruling class come from within, and secondary flows are from other imperialists, and third (but important) profit flows come from the third world.

Mim complains no sources were given. But in fact they were cites, (coming from U.S. government review of business figures0. I looked it up, and there is was.

What exactly is the point? Every economist in the world, and every study, documents that the bulk of surplus value comes from within the imperialist home-socialformations. And? This doesn't mean the third world isn't oppressed. It doesn't mean that the profit from the third world is oppressive. It doesn't mean that there isn't resultant parasitism within imperialist countries. But it does mean that the working class WITHIN the imperialist countries is also exploited and oppressed. (Which is, after all, part of the ABCs of marxism.)

[another observer]

I have never seen RCP give any figures. PLEASE provide them if you have them. All the RCP ever does is make claims that the majority of investment is put into the USA and not the 3rd world. In addition they make baseless arbitrary assertions that only 8% of surplus value comes the 3rd world. Lenin and MIM have already refuted the idea that where surplus value ends up does not correlate with where it is produced. This is part of what Lenin called the decadance of imperialism. As for the random assertion that only 8% of surplus value is from the 3rd world. PLEASE show a source and how you arrived at it. Of course, I already know you won't because RCP never does.

Ok - let's put this to the test. RCP, please refute MIM. Show your calculations for global surplus value and how you arrived at them. Show how you break up productive vs non-productive sector. Show your damn calculations. RCP has never produced anything like this and anyone with half a brain knows it. Maybe we need an internet campaign to buy the RCP some calculators. If I am wrong, then POST the RCP calculations and put them in Marxist form as MIM does in their MIM theory.

RCP clowns and their peanut gallery rarely actually say anything substantive. Like the so called "observer" in the previous post. He claims he has seen a refutation of MIM, which would include a Marxist calculation of global surplus value. Ok - please post it here.

[Leo]

I dont agree in MIM using the term Third World geographically.The proletariat is the Thirld World.When you find proletariat you also find the Third World.

You cant say you found proletariat in the First World.

It is a contradiction.

[kasama]

another observor wrote: "All the RCP ever does is make claims that the majority of investment is put into the USA and not the 3rd world. In addition they make baseless arbitrary assertions that only 8% of surplus value comes the 3rd world."

To be clear: I have never seen the RCP make any of these claims. And neither have you.

MIM supporters constantly write "The RCP said this or that about MIM's position." This is mistaken. The RCP has never written anything about MIM, period, except for the single, poignant one-sentence observation (in a footnote somewhere) that MIM's view of the working class in the U.S. is counterrevoltionary. And then there were some remarks by an RCP spokesperson, D.V., on 2ctw. That's it.

Having said that... let me make some observations:

MIM's latest paper describes that in a rally someone mentioned supporting the strike of Safeway workers: "'a RAIL comrade responded by pointingto our poster which reads 'Imperialism: the majority of the world's people can't live with it, you can't live without it.' That is our analysis of Americans as a whole."

Elsewhere in this issue, they write: "IT is only MIM teaching that 90% of the enemy of the international proletariat is right in the imperialist countries. That's just dialectics, the law of uneven development." This piece specifically goes on argue that minimum wage workers (!!) in the U.S. are not allies of the international proletariat.

MIM's view is not just that all white workers are "parasites" (absurd and non-materialist as that would be) but "Americans as a whole."

In the 2ctw site, they ran detailed analyses about how people on welfare were "parasites" (living without producing surplus value). And how even black workers were part of this "parasitism."

there is much to say about this.

First: this is very different from the "captive nations" line that some people have promoted. And it is very different from J. Sakai's line (which is also a "captive nations" line).

(To put it a little crudely) this view says that white people (more or less as a whole) are so deeply affected by their position as part of a dominant oppressor nation and by the ideology of white chauvinism, that none of them (including the millions of white workers) cannot be seen as reliable (or even potential) allies of the world revolution. The national liberaton struggles of the oppressed nationalities (within the U.S.) are then seen as the sole motor force of any potential revolution.

And for that reasons, those who hold this line are Bundists (meaning that they think communist organizations within the U.S. should be organised along separated, nationalist lines -- rather than in a single MLM multinational vanguard party.)

I don't agree with the "captive nations" line -- and think that the revolution will be a merger of the national liberatoin struggles with the struggle for socialism by the multinational proletariat.

But my point here is that MIM is putting forward something quite different from both those views.

It is based on an absurd theory with two main arguments:

a) that anyone paid above the value of their labor power is a "parasite" (when in fact, workers paid above the value of their labor power are still often and widely producing varying amounts of surplus value.)

b) That only those producing surplus value can be allies of the proletarian world revolution (and that everyone else is an enemy).

This is wrong, and not because of any dispute over "numbers."

The argument is also not over where most of U.S. imperialism's profits come from. They are arguing that there is no exploited class (at all) in the U.S. -- and so they must deny that any significant chunk of surplus value is extracted from the masses in the U.S. You don't need a stack of numbers to know that is nonsense -- though any economic analysis will give you plenty of numbers.

Now, imperialism has an affect on the lives, position, stability, and class struggle of workers in imperialist countries. The whole country floats on a pool of labor stolen from the people of the world. It is unmistakable, and one of the major influential dynamics of the world. But this dynamics is not the simplistic, one-sided, mechanical analysis that MIM is putting out.

There are classes and class struggle within the U.S. -- there are desperate uprisings, millions of oppressed people, revolutniary movements, revolutinary potential -- and even the potential for deep discontent and struggle among people who aren't-so-terribly-oppressed.

The world does not work in some linear, economist fashion.

In addition, MIM's line is bizarrely anti-MLM. Marxism has always held that non-proletarian forces can be part of a proletarian revolution. The fact that someone (or some strata) may not be part of the proletariat (i.e. living on the level of a Haitian worker) doesn't mean they cant have various levels of unity with the world revolution. They are not automatically a pig, and their class interests are not automatically with the system.

Mao called for a broad united front. He even included the Chinese national bourgoeisie (which didn't produce surplus labor, but lived off of it!) This is because even though this class was capitalist, it had objective interests with the revolution.

there is no progressive national bourgeoisie in the U.S. (which is not an oppressed semi-colonial country) -- but clearly there are classes (and millions of people) who are not proletarians, and even some who may hire and exploit labor (bookstore owners, small landlords with maintanence workers) who could potentially be allies (however vacilatory) in a revolutionary struggle (especially in times of crisis.)

The fact is there is a significant proletariat within the U.S. (including tens of millions of workers whose position is similar to the one Marx described: of only living as long as they work, and who have nothing to lose but their chains.) And this is a multinational class within the U.S.

And the fact is also, that even broad classes outside the proletariat itself (including sections of the middle classes in the U.S.) have an objective interest in socialism, and can (potentially) be won to supporting the revolution.

Think through the bizarre and pessimistic and anti-people line that MIM is promoting. And its counterrevolutinoary implications.

[another observer]

Another Observer says : All the RCP ever does is make claims that the majority of investment is put into the USA and not the 3rd world. In addition they make baseless arbitrary assertions that only 8% of surplus value comes the 3rd world.

Kasama says : To be clear: I have never seen the RCP make any of these claims. And neither have you.

On Jan 13th, 2004, 4:45pm AndreiX a so called "rcp supporter" wrote on the AWIP website : If I recall from research, only 8-10% of the surplus-value obtained by the U.S. ruling class comes from outside U.S. borders.

All it takes is about 2 minutes on the AWIP search engine to see rcpers making these kinds of claims. I didn't even half to check the other forums.

Of course also note that AndreiX's claims are 100% undocumented. Just random assertions by rcpers.

Kasama is probably right that no *official* spokesperson has made such idiotic claims, but this is how rcp operates. That's how rcp works. They are opportunists in this way. They sit back and let their people make all kinds of ridiculous claims and when they are asked to take responsibility - out pops Kasama and the damage control to deny, deny, deny..

Let rcp rebut rcper Andreix's figures if they claim now that it isn't rcp's line. Let rcp rebut MIM with a global calculation of surplus value. We are still waiting.. Why don't you just do the investigations? Come up with a calculation and put it to rest?

[Leo]

As I see you(another observer,MIM and its supporters) are trying always to accuse the RCP for being revisionist.

Have you proved any of your accusations ?

As far as I know, no.

The arrogance that you are showing your theories makes everyone to believe that you consider your theories a dogma.

If you think you can prove what you say,prove it.

[notsocialdem]

Guest-an said:

I have watched this back and forth three or four times now.

MIM says no significant imperialists profit comes from within their home countries. RCP supporters have repeatedly given figures that show that most of the profit of imperialist ruling class come from within, and secondary flows are from other imperialists, and third (but important) profit flows come from the third world.

Mim complains no sources were given. But in fact they were cites, (coming from U.S. government review of business figures0. I looked it up, and there is was.

What exactly is the point? Every economist in the world, and every study, documents that the bulk of surplus value comes from within the imperialist home-socialformations. And?

Look "an observor," I'LL give you a hand. When Kasama and RosaRL point to that 8-10% figure they are using something that requires something called "division." And in "division," you need a numerator and a denominator. How about that for starters? There is none from any rcp=u$a fan and we cannot be surprised given the philistinism that the rcp=u$a encourages. It is a bullshit assertion. That is all.