Capitalism in the USA oppresses and Enslaves the poor and working class

[AnonPoster]

The capitalist system is very short-term thinking. They only care about profits in there here-and-now, in dividing up the pie so the elites get as much as possible while regular people get as little as possible. They are less concerned about long-term problems and in fact it is completely incapable of planning for anything in the long term. That’s why its infrastructure is falling apart, why it failed to plan for a pandemic, why its economy crashes every few years.

But this also gets into imperialism, because the US carries this thinking onto the global stage. The US is more concerned not about even its own long-term growth, but about dividing the pie up on the world stage so that the US gets the biggest cut of it, independent of long-term growth or any sort of long-term sustainability.

Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.

— Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, General; the United Nations, Volume I, Part 2

The US has followed this ever since WW2, trying to take control over the whole globe through endless perpetual wars for its own interests.

While the US does get a lot of its wealth from its raping and pillaging of the globe, this is ultimately not a long-term viable model, and is not good for long-term development. It’s only good for making the US wealthy in the short-term, and maintaining the US as a world hegemon.

Take a look at China now. China as a country that is now rising and has its own independent manufacturing is producing a ton of wealth and the US benefits from that wealth. Much of US manufacturing is now done in China and there is a lot of sharing of technology and innovation between the two countries.

The US economy benefits today way more from China than they ever did when China was a poor power under the boot of imperialism. Sure, the US benefited from that too with the “coolie trade”, but that pales in comparison to the enormous economic benefit there is with the US and its relationship with China now.

The point is, poor countries rapidly developing is ultimately a good thing. It means they have a lot more goods and services to offer to the world, a lot more beneficial trade, a lot more science and technology.

The imperialist system takes control of the country’s industry by western monopolistic corporations and funnels away all their profits to western countries. This prevents them from developing economically and keeps them impoverished.

While, yes, the US does directly benefit from such a system, it in fact actually hinders the US’s long-term growth, because the US would have way more to gain with fair trade deals from a wealthy country than raping and pillaging a poor country.

Americans have trouble seeing this because they are very short-term thinkers. Capitalism has taught them only to care about immediate profits, and dividing up the pie as it already exists, rather than making the pie bigger.

Imagine if the US not only built up its own infrastructure, but the infrastructure of its neighbors. Imagine if it helped build up Mexico for decades and turned Mexico into an economic powerhouse. This would benefit the US’s economy enormously in the long-run.

Not only that, but it would create warm feelings between the two nations. Instead, the US builds a wall instead.

The US’s pillaging of the globe has created a ton of enemies the US never had to have in the first place. There was no reason for the US to attack Vietnam, or Cuba, or Syria, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Nicaragua. There is no reason for the US to try and have hostile relations with China and Iran.

The US imperialist system not only in the long term reduces US economic growth but it also creates tons of enemies. This is not sustainable in the long-run because it pushes countries away from it over time, and those countries can respond by adopting a policy that actually does take into account long-term development.

That’s exactly what China has done. It has taken on a policy of understanding that building up other countries is important for its own development, so it has launched what has now become a global infrastructure project, the Belt & Road Initiative.

This has lead to many poor countries to have very fast economic growth and China has been forming very positive relationships with countries in the global south, and this is starting to challenge the US’s imperialist system which is crumbling.

-Zhenli 真理 the Marxist Lenninist