Can Organized Labor Be Won to Anti-Imperialism?
There is not a clear answer to this question. There are good reasons to believe that segments of the working class, including parts of its organized section, can, in the short run, be won to a variant of anti-imperialist politics. In the long term, however, anti-imperialism will need to become the dominant view within the U.S. working class if any form of progressive, transformative politics, such as socialism, is to become hegemonic. The Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano made the observation that in order for the global South to achieve the level of development that the global North has achieved, there would need to be ten more planets in the solar system. This is a dramatic illustration of the skewed manner in which resources are distributed and used internationally. According to the United Nations, the richest fifth of the world’s population consumes 86 percent of all goods and services while the poorest fifth consumes 1.3 percent. In addition to actual resources, wealth is polarized
