this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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Thoughts on Third Worldism? (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by Zronger@lemmygrad.ml to c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml
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I have often heard ultra-lefts describe Marxists who oppose settler-colonialism and uphold AES as being "Third Worldists".

Looking at what people like Jason Unruhe have to say about the topic, Third Worldism does not seem entirely baseless (e.g. the proletariat in the imperial core more often being labor aristocrats).

So, what are our thoughts on Third Worldism?

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[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Third worldism, as i understand it, the position that the working class in the imperial core is inherently reactionary and thus an enemy, is a completely natural position to take for a global south person. Western marxists feel personally attacked for this position and end up rejecting it and discrediting it. This is not to say that there are no good comrades in the West, but simply that the vast majority are not.

Honestly it's a good way to lure out the chauvinism of western marxists.

Domenico Losurdo has written extensively on this on "Western Marxism".

[–] MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Western marxists feel personally attacked for this position and end up rejecting it and discrediting it.

This is certainly part of it, but there are at least three other reasons western marxists hold some reservations:

  1. Inside the imperial core, it's often framed as essentially a defeatist position. If a leftist from the U.S. accepts the idea that pretty much everyone around them is inherently reactionary, what are they supposed to do? You can't decide at the start that there's no way to win.
  2. While the material conditions of a poor person in the imperial core are better than poor people in the imperial periphery, the imperial machine rarely ties its exploitation directly to that benefit. A key part of modern imperialism (especially in the U.S.) is denying that you're an empire at all. When that's combined with obscene inequality in the core, you have the basics for building class consciousness even if on paper your imperial working class is better off than working people in the rest of the world.
  3. It occasionally veers into determinist/essentialist arguments, which have all sorts of problems.
[–] Commiejones@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

These arguments are all framed in the western individualist mindset. Just because there is no hope of seeing success in your lifetime is not a reason to help the process forward. Communism will come regardless of what any westerner does. The tides of history don't depend on any one person but that doesn't absolve people choosing to do their duty being part of the tide.

[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 5 days ago

滴水穿石! 👍

Water droplets drill the rock.