To add to your criticism of point 3: Dr. Rahman highlights this in his Marxism lecture series. The absolute position of a proletarian may improve over time (I think like... 50% of the world has smartphones)? But our relative position will continue to diminish (the richest people right now are basically running countries within their business and controlling countries outside of it). Even if white proletarian get imperial core treats this fundamental contradiction as a result of the falling rate of profit will remain.

I would boldly claim that white people in eastern Tennessee and West Virginia are pretty poor - they don’t even get the „treats“ that are used as evidence of a non-existing American Proletariat - which is as you said not a measurement of the class relations.

It's a good moment for the adage "oppose book worship", I think:

Whatever is written in a book is right — such is still the mentality of culturally backward Chinese peasants. Strangely enough, within the Communist Party there are also people who always say in a discussion, "Show me where it's written in the book." When we say that a directive of a higher organ of leadership is correct, that is not just because it comes from "a higher organ of leadership" but because its contents conform with both the objective and subjective circumstances of the struggle and meet its requirements. It is quite wrong to take a formalistic attitude and blindly carry out directives without discussing and examining them in the light of actual conditions simply because they come from a higher organ. It is the mischief done by this formalism which explains why the line and tactics of the Party do not take deeper root among the masses. To carry out a directive of a higher organ blindly, and seemingly without any disagreement, is not really to carry it out but is the most artful way of opposing or sabotaging it.

The method of studying the social sciences exclusively from the book is likewise extremely dangerous and may even lead one onto the road of counter-revolution. Clear proof of this is provided by the fact that whole batches of Chinese Communists who confined themselves to books in their study of the social sciences have turned into counter-revolutionaries. When we say Marxism is correct, it is certainly not because Marx was a "prophet" but because his theory has been proved correct in our practice and in our struggle. We need Marxism in our struggle. In our acceptance of his theory no such formalisation of mystical notion as that of "prophecy" ever enters our minds. Many who have read Marxist books have become renegades from the revolution, whereas illiterate workers often grasp Marxism very well. Of course we should study Marxist books, but this study must be integrated with our country's actual conditions. We need books, but we must overcome book worship, which is divorced from the actual situation.

How can we overcome book worship? The only way is to investigate the actual situation.

And:

V. THE AIM OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INVESTIGATION IS TO ARRIVE AT A CORRECT APPRAISAL OF CLASS FORCES AND THEN TO FORMULATE CORRECT TACTICS FOR THE STRUGGLE

This is our answer to the question: Why do we have to investigate social and economic conditions? Accordingly, the object of our investigation is all the social classes and not fragmentary social phenomena. Of late, the comrades in the Fourth Army of the Red Army have generally given attention to the work of investigation, [3] but the method many of them employ is wrong. The results of their investigation are therefore as trivial as a grocer's accounts, or resemble the many strange tales a country bumpkin hears when he comes to town, or are like a distant view of a populous city from a mountain top. This kind of investigation is of little use and cannot achieve our main purpose. Our main purpose is to learn the political and economic situation of the various social classes. The outcome of our investigation should be a picture of the present situation of each class and the ups and downs of its development. For example, when we investigate the composition of the peasantry, not only must we know the number of owner-peasants, semi-owner peasants and tenant-peasants, who are differentiated according to tenancy relationships, but more especially we must know the number of rich peasants, middle peasants and poor peasants, who are differentiated according to class or stratum. When we investigate the composition of the merchants, not only must we know the number in each trade, such as grain, clothing, medicinal herbs, etc., but more especially we must know the number of small merchants, middle merchants and big merchants. We should investigate not only the state of each trade, but more especially the class relations within it. We should investigate the relationships not only between the different trades but more especially between the different classes. Our chief method of investigation must be to dissect the different social classes, the ultimate purpose being to understand their interrelations, to arrive at a correct appraisal of class forces and then to formulate the correct tactics for the struggle, defining which classes constitute the main force in the revolutionary struggle, which classes are to be won over as allies and which classes are to be overthrown. This is our sole purpose.

What are the social classes requiring investigation?

They are:

The industrial proletariat The handicraft workers The farm labourers The poor peasants The urban poor The lumpen-Proletariat The master handicraftsmen The small merchants The middle peasants The rich peasants The landlords The commercial bourgeoisie The industrial bourgeoisie

In our investigation we should give attention to the state of all these classes or strata. Only the industrial proletariat and industrial bourgeoisie are absent in the areas where we are now working, and we constantly come across all the others. Our tactics of struggle are tactics in relation to all these classes and strata.

Another serious shortcoming in our past investigations has been the undue stress on the countryside to the neglect of the towns, so that many comrades have always been vague about our tactics towards the urban poor and the commercial bourgeoisie. The development of the struggle has enabled us to leave the mountains for the plains.[4] We have descended physically, but we are still up in the mountains mentally. We must understand the towns as well as the countryside, or we shall be unable to meet the needs of the revolutionary struggle.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_11.htm

Mao was encouraging revolutionaries to be this meticulous about class observations and noting down the particulars of them in a given region. Then in this thread, we're arguing over out of context book quotes on the internet - quotes that exaggerate and oversimplify.

I get tired of it in the context of discussion about the US because it is often spoken of in lockstep with a fatalistic attitude about the revolutionary potential of the people there, rather than as a means of better understanding the class makeup of the region in detail, in order to contend with it. It also risks being used as a form of blame-shifting; "we failed because they actually were too comfy as they are and didn't want to be liberated." Meanwhile, Mao is like "here's one of our shortcomings in how we're going about engaging with people who live a different kind of life than what we're used to."

i agree, saying that there is no proletariat in the us would be false, but i guess we could say most of the proletariat is part of the labour aristocracy, which is compatible with his view and marxist leninist analysis. there is a proletariat, but there is one so alienated from itself it will never actually fight for their own class.

Respectfully, have you read/listened to the whole work? I'll admit, I had resistance to it the first time I read it, maybe all the way until the end and I considered it as a whole.

I think what is important is understanding that people experience the US (and canada, but I won't type that out every time) differently. I'm sure there are some details I have a hard time seeing, but I'd like to try and address points 2 and 3.

2. I believe these statements refer to the history of the USA. I think it's fair to say that the north american colonies are unique with respect to their relationship with capitalism because of their founding.

The paragraph after the one pictured explains more:

The settler masses of Colonial Amerika had a situation totally unlike their cousins back in Old Europe. For the privileges of conquest produced a nonproletarian society of settlers. The large majority of settlers were of the property-owning middle classes (insofar as classes had yet become visible in the new society): tradesmen, self-employed artisans, and land-owning farmers. Every European who wanted to could own land. Every white settler could be a property owner. No wonder immigration to the "New World" (newly conquered, newly enslaved) was so popular in Old Europe. No wonder life in Amerika was spoken of almost as a fable by the masses of Old Europe. Young Amerika was capitalism's real-life Disneyland.

3. I think the disagreement you have might be around definitions, and not fully understanding why the authors claims there is no proletariat class. His argument isn't that they are paid to well, but that they occupy the class of petit bourgeoisie. I think land ownership is one of the major distinctions.

Some additional passages from that chapter that might help:

Although there were Euro-Amerikan craftsmen and workers they never coalesced into a proletariat because they were too privileged and transitory in condition. It is important to grasp firmly that the mere presence of settler craftsmen and workers doesn't automatically mean that they were a conscious class. With their extra-proletarian living standard and their future in the propertied middle classes, most settler workmen had no reason to develop a proletarian consciousness. Further, the rapid turnover of settlers in these strata left no material basis for the formation of a class.

And

The special and non-proletarian character of settler artisans and workers (which has been so conveniently forgotten about by today's Euro-Amerikan radicals) was well-known a century ago by Europeans such as Marx and Engels. In 1859 Marx wrote of "...the United States of North America, where, though classes already exist, they have not yet become fixed, but continually change and interchange their elements in constant flux..."(30) What Marx saw in this class fluidity was the ultimate privilege of settler society — the privilege of having no proletariat at all. He later pointed out: "Hence the relatively high standard of wages in the United States. Capital may there try its utmost. It cannot prevent the labor market from being continuously emptied by the continuous conversion of wages laborers into independent, self-sustaining peasants. The position of wages laborer is for a very large part of the American people but a probational state, which they are sure to leave within a shorter or longer term."(31) And Marx was writing not about a momentary or temporary phase, but about basic conditions that were true for well over two centuries in Amerika.

The American left is the reason why the movements suck?

Not… you know? The mass incarceration, demonization, and assassination of leftist figures by apparati of the state at the behest of the capitalist class?

I do agree however that the text is grimly defeatist, and almost useless in determining what one should do to improve things.

Maybe living in kkklanada (sorry lol) takes the sting off a bit (although I understand this text is about us too) and maybe I'm reading the text with rose-coloured glasses and he's literally telling us it's hopeless but I don't see it that way. I haven't been exposed to the criticisms you mention so I can't respond to them in a meaningful way.

I would encourage those who are able to engage with the text, sit with it, and think of it as highlighting practical challenges in north america as an aid to the local movements rather than a condemnation of them.

Endless trade deficit must be offset by capital inflows. Its how the world spins.

Maybe I'm reaching, but is the majority of the stuff the capitalists of the USA want/need come from the exploitation of proletariat outside of the USA instead of the proletariat inside the USA?

Yes, but perhaps not in a precise, literal way.

I shared this in another reply, but I think it would be interesting to you: https://mronline.org/2026/10/08/gill-imperialism-then-and-now/

I have not read enough Lenin to discuss intelligently, but I believe Sakai was building on Lenin's theories of imperialism.

This is where Lenin argues that monopoly finance capital leads to the search for new fields of profitable reinvestment, which leads to the export of capital to the colonies. What might otherwise have led to socialism–workers in concentrated monopoly firms fighting for a greater share of accumulated surplus–is deferred, because that surplus is directed outward towards what Lenin calls “backward nations.” That surplus builds railroads in the colonies that drain out resources, gains access to cheaper labour, and, by imposing conditions of dependency, forces the dependent countries to offer cheap labour and cheap resources to the core. This export of capital and finance from core to periphery heightens relations of dependency, forcing those countries that receive exported capital to reorient their economies to service the core. This generates super-profits for overaccumulated capital, underdevelops the periphery, and buys off sections of the working class in the core through modest improvements in living standards.

I think this is why I am having such a hard time understanding the push back on Sakai. He added a lot to the discourse, I don't want to discount that. But this concept of relative privilege being a major detriment to class consciousness isn't new.

Is it that it is Sakai pointing that at america specifically, and to white americans, that makes it seem more pointed than Lenin's theories of imperialism? It's no longer a concept but an accusation? (Rhetorical, but would accept people's thoughts)

Prison labor would be an excellent example of internal exploitation.

That still feels like an incredible reach, since local economies nonetheless predominantly rely on the local proletariat, which necessitates the existence of said proletariat. You can’t exactly import every single little commodity or service.

Plus wealth isn’t the measure of being a proletarian anyway, but ones control over the means of production. Even if every worker in the US was a millionaire, they still would not control any aspect of the system and be entirely at the mercy of the capital owning class.

It means settlers, as opposed to indigenous peoples.

This is from the book (fittingly titled) Settlers.

Eta: I should have included how the people the euro anericans enslaved fit into this, as it is central to the author's point:

In general, it's commonly agreed that Euro-Amerikan workers earned at least twice what their British kinfolk made — some reports say the earnings gap was five or six times what Swedish or Danish workers earned.(34) Even a whole century later, the difference was still so large that Marx commented:

"Now, all of you know that the average wages of the American agricultural laborer amount to more than double that of the English agricultural laborer, although the prices of agricultural produce are lower in the United States than in the United Kingdom... "(35)

It was only possible for settler society to afford this best-paid, most bourgeoisified white workforce because they had also obtained the least-paid, most proletarian Afrikan colony to support it.

It's an attempt to break through the bullshit narrative that America and Europe are somehow separate historical processes.