The Settler J. Sykes and the FRSO

In a recently published article from Fightback! News, “Marxism-Leninism and the theory of settler-colonialism in the United States,” leading Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) theoretician J. Sykes purports to refute the theory that the United States is a settler-colonial nation.¹ The piece is, to put it bluntly, intellectually lazy and starts from an unfounded conclusion and works backwards to justify it, setting up strawman opponents and dressing up a shallow and flawed analysis in Mao quotes to do so. The minimal scientific effort on the part of the author barely deserves a refutation, but the unfortunate fact is that this piece has been issued by an empire-wide organization that professes a dedication to decolonization. Given this shared objective, we present this refutation of their position not as an open attack on their organization, but as an attempt at forming a basis for unity through struggle, and at encouraging better standards for their publications. Line struggle is a tradition of Marxist unity because it is only through struggle that we can expose the errors in our positions and illuminate the contradictions within our movement, spurring forward progress. Consider this response a form of scientific peer-review; we invite the FRSO and any other interested parties to respond in kind. Tell us where we’re wrong! Tell us where our argumentation falls short! We can thereby refine our position and through this process of struggle approach ever closer to an objectively correct line.

Though we object to numerous aspects of the article, we would like to focus on three key failures: (1) Sykes collapses class struggle down to a binary, (2) Sykes uses an inadequate definition of settler colonialism, (3) Sykes argues against strawmen, showing little evidence of having read theoretical works by those they are attempting to refute.

It is the duty of the Communist movement to study the actual reality around them, to adapt their theory to fit those conditions, and to use this theory to lead the working classes to victory over the old society. It is a serious perversion to study theory and demand conditions alter themselves to match what is written on the page. Sykes insists that the working classes of the U.S. empire’s oppressor nation have the same immediate material interests as the working classes of its oppressed nations and as the oppressed nations of the world. Only someone with fundamental misunderstanding of material reality or a mind completely rotted away by chauvinism could entertain this notion for more than a moment before discarding it.

It is, rather, our duty to identify the internal contradictions which prevent the working classes in the U.S. empire from uniting to destroy the capitalist-imperialist state and resolve them non-antagonistically. It is our duty to overcome those internal contradictions. It is impossible to overcome something that, like Sykes, you pretend isn’t there. A man with his eyes closed cannot bridge a gap: he must fall into it.

As a preliminary question, we must then ask: why has revolution failed to manifest in the U.S. and other imperialist centers for over one hundred years? Should we make the same mistakes? If not, what can we do to avoid them? Certainly not repeat the same tired chauvinist platitudes that destroyed our hopes at revolution in the 20th century.

Point 1: Sykes sees class struggle as a simplistic binary

Sykes describes the position of their ideological opponents in this way:

“[T]he basic argument from the proponents of this theory goes something like this: The United States remains today a settler-colonial state. People of European descent, regardless of their actual class position, are settlers, and are seen as continuing to benefit from and perpetuate a colonial system. In other words, the people of the United States are divided into two camps, with the colonized in one camp, and the settlers in the other. Some even go so far as to say that this makes up the principal contradiction in the U.S. This is furthermore viewed as a fundamentally antagonistic contradiction.”

In brief, Sykes accuses their opponents of collapsing class struggle into a binary, with settlers on one side and the colonized on the other. This accusation comes with some irony, as Sykes declares their own position to be one of collapsing the class struggle into a different binary:

“[W]e see a division of U.S. society into two camps. On the one hand there is the camp of the capitalists, and on the other the oppressed and exploited masses of workers and oppressed nationalities. The principal contradiction is therefore between the capitalist class on the one hand, and the multinational working class and its allies on the other, particularly the oppressed nations.”

Sykes goes on to propose that the “multinational working class and the oppressed nations” must form a “united front” against capitalism. We agree that the working classes must come together in solidarity to struggle against capitalism. However, we understand the working classes of the imperial core as a multitude of classes, often in contradiction with each other — gender, settler-colonial, and imperialist contradictions. The class struggles of U.S. society cannot be collapsed into two camps, except at the broadest level. These are the ultimately antagonistic camps of worker and owner — but that is not the only class antagonism that exists, that is not the only contradiction that exists.

Communists do not traditionally champion the proletariat merely because it is among the most oppressed classes or because it is a uniquely communistic class. Communists champion the classes most receptive to their message and who are best prepared to build a revolutionary movement.² In our conditions it is the colonized working classes who play this role. A Communist movement in North America must be led by centering decolonization and opposing settler interests. This is because the interests of the colonized are directly opposed to the immediate interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie, and so they are most in line with the interests of the international working masses. These decolonial priorities must inform organization structure, programming priorities and political education strategies at every level, and must certainly not be relegated to the realm of mere “special consideration.”

For example, resource extraction projects often find popular support among the white working classes that see them as opportunities for jobs that will keep bread on the table or keep gas prices low, which puts their immediate material interests at odds with the indigenous communities whose land sovereignty these projects violate, and instead aligns their interests with those of the bourgeoisie. As Communists, we know that it is also in the long-term interests of the white working class to respect land sovereignty, to seek sustainable energy sources, and for workers to own these productive means and not private companies.³ To resolve these contradicting interests and to unite these forces, it is essential that political education center decolonization and that institutional structures insist upon decolonial priorities over these immediate interests of the white working classes. 

Sykes does not recognize that the white working classes have real material interests in settler-colonial relations, insisting that it is only “the monopoly capitalist class who reap the super-profits from national oppression,” and denying that an entire ideological superstructure has formed to support these material interests of settlers (“those ideas [racist and white chauvinist ideas] are the ideology of the class enemy.”) Because these material interests are not acknowledged but are instead papered over, FRSO’s political program is unprepared to deal with contradictions between the colonized and the settler working classes. 

Point 2: Sykes presents a woefully inadequate definition of settler colonialism

Sykes defines settler colonialism as follows:

“U.S. settler-colonialism is a particular social formation with a particular set of contradictions at the heart of it. Historically it is a transitionary period in the early development of the capitalist mode of production. It is characterized by the dominant role played by the contradiction between settlers on the one hand and colonized people on the other. This contradiction is the main thing shaping the trajectory of the capitalist mode of production in the period of ‘primitive accumulation’⁴ during its nascent development. In this way, settler-colonialism fueled the rapid growth of the capitalist mode of production in the early United States.”

This definition requires settler colonialism to be transitionary, conveniently making it by-definition incompatible with capitalism. It is also a tautology: settler colonialism is a contradiction with settlers on one side and colonized people on the other. Furthermore, this definition fails to distinguish between colonialism and settler colonialism. These are modes of extraction and oppression with different characteristics, and this difference is crucial for understanding our present context. 

Let us contrast Sykes’s near-meaningless definition with definitions used by those who do argue that the U.S. is a settler-colonial nation. Glen Coulthard, author of Red Skin, White Masks, is a member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, an Indigenous studies scholar, and associate professor of political science at the University of British Columbia. He defines settler colonialism in this way:

“A settler-colonial relationship is one characterized by a particular form of domination; that is, it is a relationship where power…has been structured into a relatively secure or sedimented set of hierarchical social relations that continue to facilitate the dispossession of Indigenous peoples of their lands and self-determining authority.”⁵

For example, the Dakota Access Pipeline was proposed to run within 10 miles of Bismarck, ND, but because it would require additional new infrastructure construction, because it would threaten the water supply of the settler city, and because it would violate settler laws about residential zoning, it was decided that it would cross the Standing Rock Reservation instead. Indigenous land defenders waged years of struggle in the form of protests, legal challenges, sabotage, and eventually open violence. Though many settlers joined the movement, the majority of local settlers did not and were content to allow the project to continue. The state’s subsequent violent clamp-down on protests enabled the project to continue to completion. Ultimately, the settler state almost always sides with settler interests, which occupy a position of entrenched institutional privilege backed by the monopoly of violence wielded by the bourgeoisie. 

Patrick Wolfe, historian and scholar of Aboriginal history, described as a “cherished friend of the Wurundjeri” at his memorial service, said the following about settler colonialism:

“The primary motive for [settler colonialism] is not race (or religion, ethnicity, grade of civilization, etc.) but access to territory. Territoriality is settler-colonialism’s specific, irreducible element.”⁶

That Sykes’s definition does not even mention territoriality is a critical error in analysis. In skating past the material basis of the settler-colonized contraction, Sykes appears to see the contradiction not as a material class relationship facilitating the violent acquisition of land and accumulation of power through control over land, but as a mere contradiction of identity. The colonized and the settlers may as well be two opposing football teams for all it matters to Sykes.

Wolfe also notes:

“Settler colonialism is inherently eliminatory … The logic of elimination not only refers to the summary liquidation of Indigenous people, though it includes that. In common with genocide as Raphaël Lemkin characterized it, settler colonialism has both negative and positive dimensions. Negatively, it strives for the dissolution of native societies. Positively, it erects a new colonial society on the expropriated land base—as I put it, settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event.

…

In its positive aspect, the logic of elimination marks a return whereby the native repressed continues to structure settler-colonial society. It is both as complex social formation and as continuity through time that I term settler colonization a structure rather than an event.”

Sykes merely views settler colonialism as an event. To them it is an ephemeral phase of the development of the contemporary state, a phase which has long since passed and only bears consideration as an academic matter. Sykes fundamentally does not understand what settler colonialism is or what it does, and was evidently not challenged by others in his organization. As a self-professed “revolutionary” organization operating within a settler-colonial system, FRSO can and must do better than this!

Point 3: Sykes argues against strawmen

Sykes sets out to refute “the proponents of the U.S. settler-colonialism theory” but does not name these opponents, nor quote them in their own words. Indeed, Sykes shows little evidence of having read many theorists of this persuasion at all. The crux of Sykes’s assertion that the U.S. does not remain a settler-colonial state is that this phenomenon happened a long time ago and the U.S. is no longer an English colony:

“[S]ome people believe it’s as simple as ‘once a settler-colony, always a settler-colony.’ This is metaphysical thinking. While it is true that the legacy of settler-colonialism in the United States certainly persists, the systems of oppression have not remained static. … As the capitalist mode of production developed, this transitional settler-colonial period had to give way to mature competitive capitalism, bringing forth new contradictions.

…

As the book An Economic History of the Major Capitalist Countries by Kang Fan puts it, ‘American victory in the war [of Independence] and the subsequent establishment of the United States overthrew England’s colonial rule in North America. Domestically, it swept aside many feudal remnants, and it opened the road for the development of capitalism.’ Lenin called the War of Independence ‘one of those great, really liberating, really revolutionary wars of which there have been so few,’⁷ and after that war the U.S. was no longer a colony.”

It is true that settler colonialism is not a static arrangement, this of course would be metaphysical thinking, if anyone were actually asserting this to be the case. Theorists that refer to the United States and Canada as settler-colonial states have also noted that socioeconomic relationships have changed over the last centuries. The argument, however, is that settler-colonial relationships that dispossess Indigenous people of their lands and self-determining authority continue to play a role in our society.⁸

For example, Glen Coulthard notes “the escalating onslaught of violent, state-orchestrated enclosures following neoliberalism’s ascent to hegemony has unmistakably demonstrated the persistent role that unconcealed, violent dispossession continues to play in the reproduction of colonial and capitalist social relations in both the domestic and global contexts.”⁹ Nick Estes, describing specific examples of violent dispossession of indigenous communities in the 21st century, states “settler states like Canada and the United States continue to settle the land, raping and killing Native women and Two-Spirit people in order to do so.”¹⁰ Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz argues settler-colonial ideology continues to shape the behaviors and beliefs of both settlers and new immigrants:

“A ‘race to innocence’ is what occurs when individuals assume that they are innocent of complicity in structures of domination and oppression. This concept captures the understandable assumption made by new immigrants or children of recent immigrants to any country. They cannot be responsible, they assume, for what occurred in their adopted country’s past. Neither are those who are already citizens guilty, even if they are descendants of slave owners, Indian killers, or Andrew Jackson himself. Yet, in a settler society that has not come to terms with its past, whatever historical trauma was entailed in settling the land affects the assumptions and behavior of living generations at any given time, including immigrants and the children of recent immigrants.”¹¹

Racing towards innocence themself, Sykes does not engage with these Indigenous scholars, nor, as previously pointed out, with any theorist that believes that “the United States remains today a settler-colonial state.” The result is that this “scientific” analysis falls apart when consulting the works written by theorists that term the U.S. a settler colonial state.

Instead of putting forth any effort to understand and critique the arguments made by those who call the U.S. settler-colonial, Sykes dismisses this position because his unnamed opponents are alleged to be petty bourgeois: 

“The petty bourgeoisie, the class of small business owners or petty capitalists, is under immense pressure  … from the working class on the one hand, whom they exploit generally, and the monopoly capitalists on the other hand, with whom they cannot compete. Because they are driven to ruin by the monopoly capitalists, and ultimately have no future as a class, they sometimes take up radical, even revolutionary, ideas, however inconsistently. … They are not members of the working class and do not grasp the centrality of the working class in the socialist revolution. They take up all sorts of petty bourgeois ideas about the backwardness or ignorance of the working class and take a pessimistic and defeatist attitude regarding the revolutionary potential of the working class. So, they seek revolutionary potential elsewhere.”

Those committing the “error” of asserting that the U.S. remains a settler-colonial state that are not merely petty bourgeois ideologues are instead naively trying to copy-paste their analysis of Palestine onto American soil:

“Second, many see the heroic struggle of Palestinian resistance against Zionism and wish to copy and paste an analysis of the Palestinian struggle onto U.S. conditions. Largely this comes from a desire to use what is happening in Palestine to draw attention to the need for revolution in the U.S. As admirable as this is, the United States is not Palestine, and so this obscures as much as it illuminates.”

True, the U.S. is not Palestine. But in what ways are they different?

“The U.S. isn’t an apartheid system, like ‘Israel’ or ‘Rhodesia’ for example. The horrific system of Jim Crow segregation that followed the betrayal of Reconstruction was itself uprooted by the Black liberation movement. While national oppression remains, de jure segregation no longer exists. The working class, as a result of its historical development, is therefore multinational in character.”

In what ways does national oppression remain? What are the forms it takes? Sykes doesn’t tell us. Certainly “du jure” segregation has long since been abolished, but that naturally leads us to ask, what about de facto segregation? What are redlining, gerrymandering, ghettoization, if not the contemporary form that racial segregation takes? Does the “reservation” system not qualify as an apartheid system? A “reservation” is a particular zone, whose borders are generally designated by the settler state, in which the Indigenous may exercise limited sovereignty and may enjoy the few special rights still afforded them by the settler state. Outside this zone these remaining privileges largely do not exist, and what few there are can only be accessed by registration of “native status” with the state. How is this functionally different from other apartheid systems? How does a native community – isolated and deprived of amenities like consistent access to electricity, sanitation, and clean drinking water – have identical class interests with a settler community? The suburban sprawl of settler communities, with their huge homes, lawns, commercial plazas, and roads and parking lots their cars, have paved over the land and natural resources which the indigenous used to rely on for life. To claim these two groups are, in the present moment, a single class is simply ridiculous.

If one wishes to truly refute settler colonialism as a discrete theory of class relations and historical development in the contemporary U.S. empire, one would have to actually engage with prominent theorists, in their own words, and present a real counterargument. Instead Sykes sets up a pair of easily dismantled strawman positions, tears them down, and calls it a day. 

Why Was This Article Written?

Sykes emphasizes the need to “understand the contradictions at work in society,” recognizing the stakes for this debate are high: 

“[I]f the proponents of the U.S. settler-colonialism theory are correct, then there is no basis whatsoever upon which to build a multinational working class communist party in this country. Indeed, such a view sees the ‘settler working class’ as instruments of colonialism, hostile to the interests of the colonized people, rather than viewing all working and oppressed people as natural allies in the struggle against imperialism, our mutual oppressor.”

In other words, the author asserts that if the theory of settler colonialism is correct, their own revolutionary program is incorrect and will not work. Therefore the settler-colonial theory must be incorrect. Rather than engage with the actual arguments put forth by theorists, Sykes sets out to collapse class struggle down to only that of workers versus capitalists, and builds their argument backwards to support this conclusion.

Of particular note is the author’s implied assertion that socialist revolution is impossible within the context of settler colonialism. This is not the conclusion reached by proponents of settler-colonial theory, but appears to be what the author believes is the necessary conclusion reached by settler colonial theory. 

Nick Estes documented the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline that brought together Black Lives Matter activists, revolutionary socialists, and poor whites:

“Political elites and corporate media have frequently depicted poor whites and poor Natives as irreconcilable enemies, without common ground competing for scarce resources in economically depressed rural areas. Yet, the defense of Native land, water, and treaties brought us together.”¹²

Aligning with the interests of the colonized is the clear path to unity and intensification of the struggle. We have to ask, then, if the proponents of settler-colonial theory are not incorrect, why does the author believe this obviates the possibility of building a multinational communist party? We certainly do not believe this. 

We can glean greater insight into FRSO’s position by breaking down its key points:

1. Settler-colonial theory asserts that the interests of the settler working class are hostile to the interests of the colonized masses.
2. Revolution can only be carried out by broad unity of the working masses across national lines.
3. If (1) is correct, then (2) is impossible to achieve. 

By process of elimination, we are led to conclude that:

4. The position of the FRSO is that revolution is only possible through the participation of settlers as a class. The settler-colonized contradiction must not be abolished as a primary revolutionary task, but relegated as a secondary consideration. 

Why not come out and say that then? Why cloak it in this obfuscating argumentation about how settler-colonial theory is petty bourgeois? Some insight may be gleaned from this earlier passage: 

“They [the ‘petty bourgeois’ proponents of settler colonial theory] are not members of the working class and do not grasp the centrality of the working class in the socialist revolution. They take up all sorts of petty bourgeois ideas about the backwardness or ignorance of the working class and take a pessimistic and defeatist attitude regarding the revolutionary potential of the working class. So, they seek revolutionary potential elsewhere.”

We can derive the following further conclusions from this: 

5. FRSO believes proponents of settler-colonial theory are searching for a revolutionary subject outside the “working class”.
6. Following the above conclusion (4), FRSO sees the “working class” as being chiefly comprised of the settler masses, and the colonized masses as being peripheral contingents of workers incapable of independent revolutionary action, or as groups outside the working class entirely.

This conclusion (6) is further supported by the final passage in the article: “Only the multinational working class, allied with the liberation movements of oppressed nationalities, can overthrow the rule of the capitalists, smash the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, build socialism, and end exploitation and oppression once and for all.” (Emphasis ours.) The liberation movements are here considered separate from the proletarian struggle, one which the “multinational working class” must ally with. 

Sykes attempts to establish that the “multinational working class” is a single revolutionary body above lesser considerations like nationality: 

“While national oppression remains, de jure segregation no longer exists. The working class, as a result of its historical development, is therefore multinational in character. This is because workers of all nationalities, both oppressed nationality workers and white workers, toil shoulder to shoulder on assembly lines and shop floors, in kitchens, warehouses and offices, from coast to coast. Even as national oppression puts greater pressure on oppressed nationality workers, they are still forged into one multinational working class together with their white siblings as they suffer exploitation together under the same bosses.”

However it is difficult to square this with the above conclusions. If Sykes’s position is incorrect and the interests of the colonized must be centered in order to defeat the settler state, then it follows that revolutionary organization must be built within the colonized masses first, and in the process their leadership will provide the basis for international unity within the U.S. empire. If proponents of settler-colonial theory are wrong, then certainly the above quoted passage is more-or-less correct, but how then are we to understand the general tendency of settlers to align themselves with the capitalist class? Importantly, neither position rules out revolution, only defining the overall strategy by which it is to be achieved.

This then explains Sykes’s assertion that proponents of settler-colonial theory are “pessimistic and defeatist.” Only if we accept the premise that the settler masses are the only class capable of leading the revolutionary struggle would insisting that they are incapable of revolutionary action on the basis of their settler identity lead us to the conclusion that revolution in settler-colonial states is simply impossible. This conclusion then leads us down the path of reformism or nihilism, a truly counterrevolutionary and reactionary mode of thought. 

But this is not scientific socialism. Many assumptions are being made without supporting evidence: 

1. The settler masses are the chief revolutionary subject.
2. Unity between settler and colonized is necessary for revolution.
3. The capitalist-worker contradiction supersedes national contradictions.
4. Unity between settler and colonized is possible on the basis of (3).

Far from clarifying the strategy for revolution, FRSO’s position muddies the waters of national oppression and settler-colonial theory. Far from presenting a unifying message, it attempts to build the case that issues of national oppression are secondary to the class struggle. By attempting to place national oppression in the backseat and “multinational unity” in the driver’s seat, FRSO once more sets down the worn and tired dead-end path laid by the CPUSA in the 1940s and 50s.

A Scientific Case for Revolution

Our position is this: the settler masses of the U.S. empire are materially invested in the perpetuation of settler-colonial property relations. Petty bourgeois ideological currents are predominant among the material beneficiaries of settler-colonial land theft and imperialist resource and labor exploitation.¹³ No class unity can develop among the settlers except through outright rejection of settler privileges. However, their privileged class position is fading as imperialism continues its historical decline. The “middle classes” are historically doomed, just as Marx observed in the Communist Manifesto. Furthermore, the question of national liberation in the U.S. empire is not separate or peripheral to the class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie, but is the most advanced form that this struggle takes.¹⁴

Our movement’s abysmal historical record is reflected in this – by failing to recognize the petty bourgeois tendency of the settler masses and the proletarian character of the movements for national liberation, and by nature of the settler masses being the majority of the population of the U.S. empire, our movement has historically centered petty bourgeois leadership and strategy, firmly positioning the interests of the proletariat in a perpetually secondary and subservient role. In order to carry out revolution this relationship must be reversed. We must center the struggle for national liberation and decolonization as the particular forms taken by the proletarian struggle in the U.S. empire. In doing so we can establish a clear revolutionary path forward, one which invites the beneficiaries of fading U.S. imperialism to reject their doomed privileges and join the ranks of the revolutionary proletariat. It is not the colonized masses which must ally with the leadership of the “multinational working class,” but the settler masses who must discard their petty privileges in order to ally with the proletarian leadership of the colonized masses, and only by doing so can we at long last forge the basis for a truly multinational working class movement.

1. J. Sykes, “Marxism-Leninism and the theory of settler-colonialism in the United States”, Fightback! News, December 4th, 2024. <link> All quotes derive from this article unless otherwise indicated. ↩︎
2. See, for example: Mao on the semi-proletariat versus the land-owning classes (<link>) and on all the classes of a nation united versus imperialism (<link>); Lars Lih on the Bolsheviks and the proletariat versus Tsarism (in Lenin Rediscovered (2008), particularly pages 6-7); Marx on the revolutionary potential of the Russian agricultural commune, contrasted to the Western European proletariat (<link>). ↩︎
3. In fact, Marx and Engels highlight the dehumanizing effect capitalism has on capitalists too, a dehumanization that would be abolished through the dissolution of capitalism. “The propertied class and the class of the proletariat present the same human self-estrangement. But the former class feels at ease and strengthened in this self-estrangement, it recognizes estrangement as its own power and has in it the semblance of a human existence.” (<link>) ↩︎
4. Sykes also misunderstands what is meant by “primitive accumulation.” This is a basic or initial step in the process of capital accumulation, where resources, labor, land, etc. are violently appropriated and transformed into capital. This process necessarily occurs prior to the ability of wealth to function as capital, but it is nevertheless ongoing. See W.C. Roberts, What Was Primitive Accumulation? Reconstructing the Origin of a Critical Concept (2017) <link> ↩︎
5. G.S. Coulthard, Red Skin, White Masks, “Introduction: Subjects of Empire” (2014). Emphasis in original. ↩︎
6. P. Wolfe, “Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native”, Journal of Genocide Research (2006). <link> ↩︎
7. The revolutionary nature of the American War of Independence has been challenged since Lenin’s time, see G. Horne, The Counterrevolution of 1776 (2014). ↩︎
8. For example, in 2017, the Canadian state upheld that corporations may continue to profit through the use of Indigenous territory against the wishes of the Indigenous communities affected. <link> ↩︎
9. G.S. Coulthard, Red Skin, White Masks, “Introduction: Subjects of Empire” (2014). Emphasis in original. ↩︎
10. N. Estes, Our History Is the Future, “1. Siege” (2019). ↩︎
11. R. Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, “Conclusion: The Future of the United States.” (2014). ↩︎
12. N. Estes, Our History Is the Future, “Prologue: Prophets” (2019). ↩︎
13. D. Phos “Then as Farce” (2024) <link>, “The Middle Class Is Not a Myth” (2022) <link> ↩︎
14. In Accumulation on a World Scale (1970) Samir Amin identifies the emergence of the bourgeois-proletarian contradiction on an international scale, where the “center” nations of the capitalist world system occupy a bourgeois oppressor formation, and the “periphery” occupies an oppressed proletarian formation. This differentiation also occurs within the borders of center nations: “The mechanisms of centralization for the benefit of the dominant capital also apply as between the different regions of the center: the development of capitalism is everywhere a development of regional inequalities. Thus, each developed country has created its own underdeveloped country within its own borders.” ↩︎