Edit: I focused too much on US here but I think the same applies to UK
There is no independent landlord class in the US. It is finance capital which speculates on land, with the aim to extract economic rent. But the distinction has vanished between speculation on this or any other financial asset; the speculator is indifferent to the asset itself and cares only about the yield derived from it.
There is a meaningful class divide between industrial capital and finance capital. It’s just that finance capital won years ago especially in the US. Whatever is left of industrial capital in the US has no ability to fight against finance capital, and is gradually bought up and hollowed out by finance capital via corporate takeover, offshoring, and outsourcing. Industrial capital in this way is transformed into finance capital. In the name of “cutting costs” the physical locus of productive labor is moved to global south, with only a kernel of bean-counters left in the home country to “manage” the “investment”. This is the main kind of “work” that occurs in the imperial core. It is why it is called neocolonialism, because formally it is not very different from the “management” by colonial powers over their colonies.
Spitballing here, but I think the primary contradiction in US political economy is finance capital opposed to itself. The entire world economy, including China btw (although this is changing over the past two decades), depends on export to the US for consumption. By extracting too much monopoly rent, it undermines the consumer class that necessarily must purchase overpriced shit. If no one can afford to buy their overpriced shit, it all falls apart. Up til now this contradiction has been papered over by imperialism, by exporting the effects of this monopoly rent extraction to the Global South, through inflated wages for imperial core workers to cover the inflated prices.
In the name of “cutting costs” the physical locus of productive labor is moved to global south, with only a kernel of bean-counters left in the home country to “manage” the “investment”. This is the main kind of “work” that occurs in the imperial core. It is why it is called neocolonialism, because formally it is not very different from the “management” by colonial powers over their colonies.
Spot on!
Spitballing here, but I think the primary contradiction in US political economy is finance capital opposed to itself.
Yes, I think you could frame it that way, but only if you bring in the connection to imperialism (as you do, of course, only a few sentences later).
Edit: I focused too much on US here but I think the same applies to UK
There is no independent landlord class in the US. It is finance capital which speculates on land, with the aim to extract economic rent. But the distinction has vanished between speculation on this or any other financial asset; the speculator is indifferent to the asset itself and cares only about the yield derived from it.
There is a meaningful class divide between industrial capital and finance capital. It’s just that finance capital won years ago especially in the US. Whatever is left of industrial capital in the US has no ability to fight against finance capital, and is gradually bought up and hollowed out by finance capital via corporate takeover, offshoring, and outsourcing. Industrial capital in this way is transformed into finance capital. In the name of “cutting costs” the physical locus of productive labor is moved to global south, with only a kernel of bean-counters left in the home country to “manage” the “investment”. This is the main kind of “work” that occurs in the imperial core. It is why it is called neocolonialism, because formally it is not very different from the “management” by colonial powers over their colonies.
Spitballing here, but I think the primary contradiction in US political economy is finance capital opposed to itself. The entire world economy, including China btw (although this is changing over the past two decades), depends on export to the US for consumption. By extracting too much monopoly rent, it undermines the consumer class that necessarily must purchase overpriced shit. If no one can afford to buy their overpriced shit, it all falls apart. Up til now this contradiction has been papered over by imperialism, by exporting the effects of this monopoly rent extraction to the Global South, through inflated wages for imperial core workers to cover the inflated prices.
Thanks, all of this makes total sense to me.
Spot on!
Yes, I think you could frame it that way, but only if you bring in the connection to imperialism (as you do, of course, only a few sentences later).