Edit: Since this blog post was made, Daniel Sullivan has removed his Facebook post out of embarrassment.

In a recent post in the Communism 101 group on Facebook, the admin Daniel Sullivan (who is no stranger to myself) placed a challenge to members of the group to attack the Third Worldist line.[1] As usual for Sullivan he was entirely dishonest and presented a straw man argument. His goal was clear, present a falsehood of Third Worldism and repeatedly attack it and declaring himself the victor. This kind of dishonest tactic is really something more akin to so-called debate on the FOX News channel.

This is his post:

Contrary to his false claim here, the Maoist International Movement (MIM) doesn’t make that argument. This argument is entirely fabricated by Sullivan. Certainly this does, and is a symptom of a global class divide. It is unarguable that the First World people have tremendously higher living standards thanks to the plunder of imperialism. Seemingly Sullivan here is in denial of that. If he asserts (poorly) that Third Worldism is false, then he is saying that First World people are as equally revolutionary as Third World people. This statement is obviously false. This can be seen in the simple reality that revolution is taking place in the Third World while it is not in the First World. According to Sullivan’s belief a $60,000 a year construction worker who owns a home and two cars and a 401k waiting for him in retirement is the same as a worker in Ghana who earns $1.48 USD on average a day. Such is the nonsense of people like Sullivan who simply stomp their feet in angry denial proclaiming that they are an exploited oppressed group that are bound to ‘break their chains’ any day now. I assume à-la-Occupy Wall Street.

While the claim that, “anyone earning more than the world per GDP capita is necessarily an exploiter”, is false, the reality is actually much worse. A study done by Branko Milanovic , a World Bank economist, in his book The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality,[2] the population of the United States literally is the 1% of the globe.[3] His data shows that 60 million people comprise the 1% of the globe. 29 million of those people reside in the United States. In fact to be in the 1% of the globe you only need $34,000 USD a year per person after taxes. Now compare that to the previously mentioned worker in Ghana who earns $1.48 a day in U.S. dollars. Even a person on welfare in the United States is astronomically wealthier than a Third World worker.

It’s pretty clear that the mass of the U.S. people are nowhere near the bottom of the global economic order. But don’t mention this to Daniel Sullivan because he’d rather believe that he’s just as down trodden as the actually wretched of the earth. Poor (so I’m told) lawyer must have a hard time getting by. I’d assume that a layer makes more than $34,000 a year after taxes. In fact this same study shows that to be in the 1% of the United States you would only have to make over $500,000 a year. I know many lawyers who make this much money. So it’s possible Daniel Sullivan is the 1% he is so vehemently opposed to while claiming to be exploited and oppressed.

What argument Third Worldists do make is that the global privilege, which is very clear from the aforementioned data; is the great global privilege that keeps the so-called working class of the First World from being revolutionary. The material conditions for revolution literally do not exist in the United States nor any other country in the First World. First Worldists have no answer for this. If the First World has revolutionary potential, then why is it not occurring? Why is Daniel Sullivan playing on Facebook instead of leading the First World masses in revolution? They have no answer, they just assert that they must be right and ignore any data or observable reality that would tell them different.

Not to be out done, a few members of the Communism 101 group added to the ignorance of the group in the replies.

The claim made by Ezekiel Giordan is absolutely ludicrous. It is far more expensive to live in the Third World than the First World. If this wasn’t true then why is the Third World poor? Here is a prime example of why Giordan is wrong. In Ghana the minimum wage is 13,500 cedis per day[4] (or US $1.48 a day) which translates to 19₵ an hour for an eight hour day. A loaf of fresh white bread in Ghana is on average US $2.00.[5] This means the daily wage of a worker in Ghana is less than the cost of a loaf of bread. In the U.S. the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour[6] an hour while on average a loaf of fresh white bread $2.45 USD.[7] What a worker in Ghana can’t afford in a single day, an American “worker” can purchase almost 3 times over in a single hour, even at the lowest of income. According to Giordan the ability to buy something 3 times over in a single hour is less expensive than not being able to buy that same thing in a day. His claim that it is less expensive to live in the Third World is false.

Ehsivar Cudo doesn’t do much better. He or she (I can’t tell because they’re using an anime picture for a profile) claims that not owning the means of production means that one cannot engage in exploitation. If we dogmatically hold onto this view from the 1800s then we’d be correct. However the wages of First World “workers” are inflated because of the super-exploitation exploitation of Third World workers. The capitalist wouldn’t be able to afford the wages they pay First World workers if they didn’t. Secondly, First World workers very often don’t actually produce any value. They simply facilitate the delivery of the product to the customer, retail workers for example. Their labour isn’t actually exploited because they’re not contributing to the creation of value. If they are counted as exploited, then so are C.E.O.s by their standard. The fact is that the Third World does the overwhelming lion’s share of value creation which subsidizes the wages of First World workers. So yes, First World workers are exploiters. They leach value off of those who actually create it. Cudo’s clam that First World workers don’t exploit is only acceptable if we dogmatically hold on to an economic relationship that hasn’t existed in over a hundred years. It would be quite beneficial for him/her to read some Lenin on the situation. Even some Engels would be of great benefit.

“Do not on any account whatever let yourself be deluded into thinking there is a real proletarian movement going on here. . .

“And–apart from the unexpected–a really general workers’ movement will only come into existence here when the workers are made to feel the fact that England’s world monopoly is broken.

“Participation in the domination of the world market was and is the basis of the political nullity of the English workers. The tail of the bourgeoisie in the economic exploitation of this monopoly but nevertheless sharing in its advantages, politically they are naturally the tail of the “great Liberal Party.”” – Frederic Engels[8]

I think it is safe to say that “workers” in the First World, particularly the United States, are much wealthier than they were in 1883.

Cudo also claims First World “workers” can’t be exploiters because they also don’t have any “meaningful political power nationally or internationally”. This statement doesn’t even make sense. You don’t actually have to have any meaningful power politically nationally or internationally to be an exploiter. By this logic a small businessman with employees isn’t an exploiter. Cudo refers to the standard Marxist definition of exploitation to claim it isn’t happening, then invents a new one to continue his claim. This doesn’t make any sense. Even then both of them refuse to accept that the degree of exploitation is significant. Besides, of course the proletariat in the First World doesn’t have any meaningful political power… They’re refusing to do any revolution. Which the Third Worldist point.

Daniel Sullivan then cites a post by Kevin Rashid that claims to debunk Third Worldism.[9] I’ve already death with that post in the past.[10] It was horribly done, made straw man arguments, and pointed a convenient logical fallacy: the exception to the rule means the rule doesn’t exist. Kevin Rashid or the blog Democracy and Class Struggle gave a complete non-sequitur in response to myself and the Leading Light Communist Organization.[11] Daniel Sullivan clearly didn’t even read the post.

These were all the replies I saw in the screenshot. I am unable to actually see the post because I am blocked from doing so. Refuting the actual post I think was enough as he made a false argument.

Daniel Sullivan proves once again that neither he nor his followers knows what they’re talking about. It is enough for Sullivan to make straw man arguments. I’ve corrected him on Third Worldism before, but he’s blocked me from the group when I asked him to back up what he says. I don’t expect the coward to answer, or to even be honest.

* * *

Sources:

[1] Daniel Sullivan Post, Communism101, April 20th, 2015
https://www.facebook.com/groups/communism101/permalink/10153172171131343/

[2] Branko Milanovic, The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality, Basic Books, published 2012
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Haves-Have-Nots-Idiosyncratic-Inequality/dp/0465031412

[3] America IS the 1%: You need just $34,000 annual income to be in the global elite… and HALF the world’s richest people live in the U.S., Mail Online
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082385/We-1–You-need-34k-income-global-elite–half-worlds-richest-live-U-S.html?

[4] There is no need for wahala demo, Kwesi Pratt-Rejoinder, Ghana Web
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=79434

[5] Cost of Living in Ghana, Numbeo
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Ghana

[6] United States Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division (WHD)
http://www.dol.gov/whd/minimumwage.htm

[7] Cost of Living in the United States, Numbeo
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=United+States

[8] Engels to August Bebel In Borsdorf near Leipzig, Gesamtausgabe, International Publishers, 1942
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/letters/83_08_30.htm

[9] Kevin Rashid Johnson : MIM or MLM? Confronting the Divergent Politics of the Petty Bourgeois “Left” On the Labor Aristocracy and Other Burning Issues in Today’s Revolutionary Struggle, Democracy and Class Struggle
http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/kevin-rashid-johnson-mim-or-mlm.html

[10] The Pretend Revolution of Kevin Rashid’s First Worldism, Maoist Rebel News
https://maoistrebelnews.com/2015/02/26/the-pretend-revolution-of-kevin-rashids-first-worldism/

[11] Mao and Lin Biao – Refuting the Anti-Maoism of The Leading Light Communist Organisation and so called “Maoist” Rebel News, Democracy and Class Struggle
http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/mao-and-lin-biao-refuting-anti-maoism.html