sakaisettlersocr

XII. THE GLOBAL
PLANTATION
1. The Promotion of the Proletariat and
Replacement by Third-World Labor
The short era of "Pax Americana" after World
War I1 was one of completing profound changes for Euro-
Amerikan society. Those expansionist years of 1945-1965,
when U.S. military and economic power lorded over the
entire non-socialist world, saw the final promotion of the
white proletariat. This was an en masse promotion so profound
that it eliminated not only consciousness, but the
class itself.
Just as in the 19th Century, the Euro-Amerikan
bourgeoisie both watered-down class contradictions and
reinforced its settler garrison over the continental Empire
by absorbing immigrant European nationalities fully into
the U.S. oppressor nation. This 20th Century cycle had
begun in the anti-communist "Americanization" campaign
of the World War I period; it reached its decisive
point in the accommodation between the imperialist State
and the dependent, settleristic CIO unions of the 1930s.
The process was sealed by the post-World War I1 imperialist
feast, finally laying to rest the class contradictions
of the period of industrial unionism. While the
deproletarianization of the white masses was a historic
pacification, it led to an increase in decadence and
parasitism that has today reached a nodal point.
This mass promotion rewarded settlers for the
U.S. Empire's "supreme triumph" as the world's No. 1
imperialist, Super-privileged life for the Euro-Amerikan
masses was made possible by two factors: U.S. domination
of world markets and the Empire's giant reserve armies of
colonial proletarians, who took over a greater and greater
burden of essential production from white workers. We
must remember that World War I1 had physically
devastated and bankrupted all the major imperialist nations
save one. In the late 1940's U.S. steel mills supplied
50% of the world's steel (and now supply only 15%). U.S.
aircraft plants manufactured almost 100% of the world's
commercial airplanes. As late as 1949 the flow of U.S.
trucks, diesel engines, elevators, pharmaceuticals, industrial
tools, wheat, etc. accounted for roughtly 25% of
all world trade. (1) Of course, the largest single market in
the entire world - the continental U.S. Empire - was
"owned" by U.S. corporations. This produced the
economic surpluses that started Euro-Amerikan society on
its long retreat from essential production.
In these years the Euro-Amerikan workers moved
upwards, increasingly handing over their places in basic
production to colonial workers. Broom and Glenn summarized
in the 1960's: "Between 1940 and 1960, the total
number of employed white workers increased by nearly 12
million, or 81 per cent, while the total employed labor
force increased by only 37 per cent. Hundreds of
thousands of white workers have moved up into higherlevel
jobs, leaving vacancies at intermediate levels that
could be filled by Negroes ... Negroes are now well
represented in semi-skilled work and in industrial
unions.. . " (2) Once driven, step-by-step during the 19th
Century, out of U.S. industry they had created, Afrikans
were recruited anew into the factories. They, along with
Chicano-Mexicano and Puerto Rican labor, would keep
production growing while most Euro-Amerikan workers
laid down their tools, one by one.
By the early 1950s Armour's main Chicago meatpacking
plant was 66% Afrikan. Of the 7,500 workers
there almost all the younger men and women were
Afrikan. The younger Euro-Amerikans hired by Armour
went into white-collar jobs at the nearby,
4,000-person Armour main office, which was all-white.
136 Swift's meat-packing plant in Chicago was also 55%