How Rich Countries Rob The Poor; The Failure of Social Democracy

Twitter: @YaBoiHakim
The lack of understanding regarding unequal exchange and the consequences of high wages in the imperial core have severely hampered our movement. In this video, I aim to introduce these simple concepts and to help provide a guide to political context and action in light of this oft-neglected aspect of theory. So, here you have it. How rich countries rob the poor, and the failure of social democracy.

[YaBoiHakim]

Twitter: @YaBoiHakim

Here's a video on something that's often neglected on the left. Stick around till the end before making up your mind; whether you agree or disagree with the implications doesn't matter all that much. What does matter is our strategy going forward.

Sources and recommended literature:
Unequal Exchange and The Prospects of Socialism by the Communist Working Group
Divided World, Divided Class by Zak Cope
Imperialism in The 21st Century by John Smith**** (I said Adam Smith in the video, my bad)
Unequal Exchange: A Study of The Imperialism of Trade by Emmanuel Arghiri

[a.n.l.aantineoliberalismas]

This man just told me to commit high treason and I love it

[big_yam]

As Parenti once said. “These countries aren’t undeveloped they’re overexploited”

[AnarchoPurp]

“Let’s take an easy example”
*starts speaking in fluent economese*

[culkaiy]

Hello greetings from Chile! It is always a pleasure to see you, excellent content, I know you probably know what is happening in my country, but I think you touched something in this video that gives me a lot of hope in a time that sometimes looks very dark. What the people are living here, may not be the revolution by itself, but it is an important step to achieve it. I know that this will be the decade where Latin America gets its desired freedom from imperialism, I know that change is in the hands of us, the people.
Thank you.
Some of you maybe not familiarized, So to give a little context:

Chile was the first country in the world, were the "shock doctrine" was implemented. The shock doctrine is a theory for explaining the way that force, stealth and crisis are used in implementing neoliberal economic policies such as privatization, deregulation and cuts to social services.

One of the earliest examples of the shock doctrine is the case of Chile. In 1973, Chile’s democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup d’état led by army general Augusto Pinochet, with support from the United States. Amid lingering turmoil created by the coup and tensions caused by the ensuing economic downturn, Milton Friedman suggested that Pinochet implement a “shock program” of sweeping reforms including privatization of state-owned industries, elimination of trade barriers, and cuts to government spending. To implement these policies, the Pinochet regime appointed to important positions several Chilean disciples of Friedman. Additionally, to squash popular movements that opposed these changes, the regime unleashed a notorious program of torture and “disappearances, ” which ultimately led to the deaths of thousands of dissidents.

Jaime Guzman (right hand of the dictator) and some other right wing members, helped create "The Ladrillo", this book is a study considered the base of many of the economic policies followed by the military dictatorship that ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. So in a sense, we as the people were used literally as test subjects of neoliberalism and the shock doctrine.

Now Chile has an exclusively exporting, extracting economy, which deeply undermines the people's and the earth resources. Chile is the only country in the world, as far as I know, where the water is private, we have the highest development rate in the region, but still we are the most unequal country in the OECD, we are 18 million people, but the highest income is from a group that makes up less than 1% of the population. In essence, the image that is sold from Chile is a lie created by those who manage power, as always.


But in October, after a rise in public transport whose only purpose was to fill even more the pockets of the private company that manages it (I know it is a bit confusing, but really the vast majority of public transport in this country is tendered to private) People went to evade (not pay) the subway of the capital, not only because of these increases but because there is nothing here, water, land, education, health, our natural resources, everything has been corrupted by the hand of capital, but for a large part of us it is time for a change.
Yesterday, the Senate approved the project presented by the Piñera regime to allow him to take the military to the street without decreeing State of Exception. We are talking about a president who has only 6% approval and has been denounced worldwide for violating Human Rights. This new anti-democratic brutality, is the SEVENTH repressive project presented by the Piñera regime in 3 months of social outbreak, which contrasts with the structural projects that the people demand, where they have not yet presented ANY. 33 dead, 29 by goverment agents (police, military), 5000 complaints for human rights violations, almost all of them are torture or sexual crimes. 9000 wounded, 300 mutilated of their eyes by direct shot of pellets and tear gas (yes fucking cans of tear gas).
but we will keep fuckin fighting, and we will not stop until we finish with this system, even if it is a slow and painful process because when the people open their eyes, they cannot be closed even by bullets.

[bigbobmeyers]

Hakim, as a western leftist I want to thank you very much for always expanding my horizons and views. Considering the world wide labor movement seems to be so forgotten.

[Valo]

Social democract is not enough. It's fine to vote, to hope that you'll be able to actually see a doctor if you need to if some center-left agenda gains traction.

Just don't let there be a price for your complacency. Use reformism as a springboard for revolution, inserting leftist ideas into the discussion whenever possible when interest in these things is so high. But don't let reformism serve as a replacement for revolution.

[Pridetoons]

This is why Liberal Societies are divided by income brackets. All Capitalist need to do is cater to the higher income brackets to deincentivize revolution.

[Malonmalon]

Great work, Comrade Hakim. The work of liberation must always start at the bottom, from those that suffer the most.

[thehammer]

This is all true, the welfare state exacerbates imperialism and strengthens the imperial core. Great analysis as always.

[UmQasaann]

Social democracy is the “final stop” before full-on fascism. It’s basically a tacit admission by the bourgeoisie that a socialist revolution is drawing near, and they need to appease the workers by whatever means necessary. Social democracy can also exist, feasibly, primarily via imperialism. The reason capitalism is able to provide such a robust welfare state is through the impoverishment and ruin of other countries.

As I understand it, it is for these reasons that Stalin (correctly) calls social democracy “objectively the moderate wing of fascism.”

[ShubhamBhushanCC]

Reforms can always be undone. The end of Keynesian Welfare Market Economies is the best example of it.

[naomistarlight]

Right now I'm reading "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45" by Milton Mayer. He interviewed a bunch of regular people who for one reason or another ended up being Nazis during the regime even though most of them were not that interested in politics. Political apathy built the Nazi party, essentially. I'm worried about that today. What happened was that a bunch of people who'd never given one goddamn about anything political suddenly got motivated and inspired by Nazi speeches.

And one problem was with the German left was that there were a few communists but they were widely hated as traitors who would side with Russia, so they were seen as not on the side of German interests. The average person did not give a shit about reading Marx or whatever but just wanted to keep Germany free from foreign interference.

The "average" person, the "middle of the road" person, the bourgeoisie, many claimed to be socialists but fell into the Nazi fold when, just like in this video, the fascists promised certain concessions to the working class. That's how you get the idea of "national socialism" ie they were able to trick the softcore socialists in Germany that nationalism was more important than socialist ideas, or get them to think that their non-international form of socialism was valid. No, without free and open international cooperation, I don't think it's a valid form of socialism. You can't tie socialism and nationalism together, you have to end up abandoning one or the other. Most Germans, pissed off after having lost WWI, chose nationalism.

Germany was not uniquely evil, fascist Germany was naturally born out of the conditions of the country. Apathetic centrists and non-communists calling themselves "socialist" because it's popular are bad and will be destructive in the future. Because they will be easily tricked or convinced to go along with what fascists desire.

[diegowushu]

Here in SA we learn this in high school. Argentinian economist Raúl Prebisch called it "deteriorating terms of interchange". In the XIX century we sold England the leather, and then they sold us back belts. Now it's pretty much the same, even if some details are different.

[jacobclark]

That entire cycle of footage: **Exists**

Hakim: STONKS

[СлаваСталину-тх]

This video is what I have been trying to tell my friends who tell me "but the nordic countries have instituted socialism", said in a better way than I could have ever said it. Thanks!

[meneliki]

I will fully enjoy your video tomorrow! You are one of the best communist tubers of all the time! (in my opinion obviously). I find all of your videos very interesting and well documented. I will love to see a your video about the history of Ussr and his welfare sistem. I also will love a video on the terrible and genocidal history of the European and USA colonialism in the XIX and the XX centuries! Good night and thanks for your great works!

[JohnDoe-xjek]

I'm very new to a lot of this, but I took a class on global economic exchanges recently where I did a commodity report on Bananas. One thing I noticed was, in Columbia, American corporations (like Chiquita) directly paid paramilitary groups to suppress Farc and labor unions. These American companies often have incredible power, money, and influence, and are capable of funding, what are essentially terrorists, to suppress labor movements. As an American (albeit of Puerto Rican descent), I have to wonder how practical it is to hope countries in the peripheries are successful when American companies are this powerful. Would it not be better to work towards reforms which diminish the size, scope, and influence of these companies so they are no longer capable of coercing their will upon the rest of the world?

[sovietwinterprison]

Great video. It's important to take into account the material differences between the first world nations and third world nations and how important the exploitation of 3rd world countries is in ensuring the higher living standards in 1st world countries. The imperialist core countries get by through the unequal exchange with the 3rd world.

[szarekhtheimmortal]

I believe that the deindustrialization of the imperial core as it stands today (meaning the move of western enterprises, factories and countless other means of production away from the core) was one of the best moves capitalists pulled off to not only cut profits, but also shoot the working class in the foot there. By moving these places that generally see a lot of solidarity take place away from it, there has been a creation of this strange working limbo we see today (bullshit jobs are on a significant rise these days).
I mean, there's a reason why a country like France, previously an industrial powerhouse, now profits most of all from its tourism. This move launched by the birth of neo-liberalism and its agressive push in the Reagan-Thatcher years (funny enough, for us Frenchies, it was a member of the socialist parti, so much for social democracy, eh fellas?).
To this day, French businesses are abandonning ship, laying off thousands of employees so that they may join the reserve army of labor and that they can be replaced by cheaper and, through the lack of working rights, more efficient workers (even then, it's arguable) in the third world. The saddest thing is that historically the same horrifying working conditions we see over there started right here. Miners, factory workers dying from accidents by lack of protective gear or from health issues, working tirelessly for pennies, children forced to work by lack of choice. The XIXth century was filled with these cruelties in the West. Of course, these days saying "we need to bring back the factories" seems counter productive with the planet burning and all. It's just interesting to see how that whole "sell the industries, it'll go splendidly" went so wrong and is still to this day unchallenged even here.

Although, I would like to add some sort of criticism, at the very least for the argument I've heard of "Europe's social democracies are a reaction to the USSR's socialism". Certainly there's a point to be made, however, I think that at least here there's some nuance. Communism post war was popular, armed and powerfull. I could even go as far as to say, had it not been a post war situation, it would have been a prime time for revolution. Unfortunately, US meddling and a society tired by the devastating occupation just couldn't let that happen. But these concessions, which make us to this day a social democracy (at least what's left of one) were done and decided by communists and resistants of all kinds. It offered healthcare, women's suffrage, mass nationalization of most things that could be usefull to the nations, hell, even planned economy. Fun fact, this was France's economic golden age (full employment, good pay and all).
The dark side of the coin is that we were deeply fucking colonialists. The 4th French Republic saw conflicts like the Indochina war and the Algeria war. During which the military forces of my country tortured, raped and killed thousands. The right still carries these "good ol' days" like a southern nostalgic carries the confederate flag.
But hey, you never know. While it's true it was also filled with the right, the yellow vest movement was one formed not out of ideology but out of a material common ground that showed that maybe some day we might actually raise that red flag again. I just hope it's not the fash who come out on top. Please not again.

(speaking of which, you beautiful iraki comrade, if you're reading this, doubt you will, it's an old vid, I know, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this little yellow escapade of the French people. It's a short and not all that impactful movement, but a strange one nonetheless both for good and ill, I feel)

(Second edit, you never know: I'd also like to know your thoughts on the potential, if small, of a successful revolution in an imperial country and its potential impact on the movement as a whole. Do you see it even lasting? etc.)