The problem is that exploitation is largely just exported to the countries that the west subjugate. Plenty of exploitation in places like Africa and Latin America is currently happening in order to produce cheap goods people in Europe consume. This is the kind of stuff that props things up theguardian.com/…/mars-nestle-and-hershey-to-face…
Undeniably. But the benefit of this exploitation accrues first and foremost to the ownership class.
Of course, but the conditions of the working class are also improved by imperialism and that’s the reason there is sufficient support for ruling class policies from the working majority in the imperial core.
They’re not importing a bunch of Global South doctors and teachers to get the cost of their socialized programs down.
My point was that many of the stable goods consumed by the people in Scandinavia are either partially or entirely sourced in colonized countries. This eliminates a lot of the hard labor jobs in Scandinavia that would otherwise be necessary.
I’m not arguing that the proletariat are the primary beneficiaries of colonialism, I’m just pointing out that people in western countries enjoy a higher standard of living because of it. And this is a necessary part of the social contract that keeps capitalists in power.
Cuba isn’t “principled”, its “embargoed”. Cubans would be more than happy to get the Scandinavian tier of treats if they were on offer.
Cuba would not exploit other countries if it wasn’t embargoed because exploitation isn’t inherent in Cuban economic system as it is under capitalism.
A great deal of western economy runs on exploitation of Latin America and Africa where western companies commit crimes against humanity on the daily basis.
To say the US democratic model or the Middle Eastern monarchy model are predicated on imperialism would be far more accurate.
Scandinavians are part of the US empire, and Scandinavian companies are directly involved in exploitation happening in developing countries. US does provide the military might to back this exploitation to be sure, but the resource and labour extraction is done by all western countries.
The benefit of the Scandinavian model is in how it delivers professional health care and education labor. That’s the primary appeal of the system and it has nothing to do with cheap foreign imports.
Except that it does since Scandinavia is not a closed economy. This the whole point here, much of the labor needed to make Scandinavia run happens in the countries the empire subjugates. You have to look at this in a holistic fashion accounting for all the labor needed to make these economies operate as opposed to just the labor that happens domestically.
Success of social democracy is not predicated on the success of a consumerist market economy. Cuba is an excellent counterexample. It implements a raft of policies that are comparable to Scandinavian social services and reaps enormous economic benefits despite being entirely cut off from imperialist trade and cheap labor.
Sure, the positive aspects of Scandinavian economies aren’t exclusive to Scandinavia, and Cuba is indeed a far more principled example of socialist policies in action.
The Nordic model is often thrown out as an alternative to Marxism. The argument is that Nordic countries managed to create a capitalist society without exploitation.
The whole western economy runs on cheap labour and resource extraction from the colonized countries. Nordic countries have very little industry and are certainly nowhere close to being self sufficient in any sense.
Scandinavian social democracy only seems to work because of the imperialism they practice on third world countries and the benefits they reaped from European colonialism. It’s just a slightly better distribution of the imperialist plunder from 3rd world nations. They never would have been rich if they didn’t exploit workers and resources in developing nations along with forcing terribly unfair trading terms upon them. Socialism actually seeks to liberate the world from all forms of oppression whereas Scandinavian social democracy merely ships it off to 3rd world countries (which houses 85% of the world’s population). Success of social democracy is not possible without inflicting inhumane suffering and oppression upon people in the global south:
Meanwhile, people who put this all together are the ones running the empire, and as long as Americans keep voting for the lesser evil nothing’s going to change.
Biden has continued all the same policies and has also dragged the world into a proxy war against Russia while continuing to escalate tensions with China. Biden is a lunatic whose actions continue to bring the world closer to a world war.
Trump would’ve done the exact same thing. You’re not minimizing any damage your regime is facilitating a literal genocide. The fact that you’re keep trying to minimize this fact because it’s your fascist in office shows how utterly morally bankrupt you are.
Let’s be real, if capitalists could make you work in your sleep, that’s just going to be added to your existing work. There’s zero chance it replaces 9-5. The reality is that we’ve already made stunning leaps in automation since the industrial revolution, but none of that translated into people working less.
Also, I’m not a neurologist, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that hijacking your sleep cycle that evolved over millions of years to allow your brain to rest in order to do work will likely have some spectacular negative consequences.