Capitalists!

The United States of America is a state of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The capitalists put all political power into their own hands. The state system serves the will and interests of the ruling class. The US government, a tool of the bourgeoisie, has been carrying out a policy of exploiting the labouring people at home and aggression and economic expansion abroad. In the age of imperialism, US monopoly capital and the government gradually merged into a state monopoly capitalism, which means the monopoly capitalists directly control the government.

Well, that is one way to put it, isn't it? Next week's theme in culture class is American government, and I'm working ahead. I thought it couldn't hurt to reference the textbook I was issued, to see if there was anything useful in there for the students to read, and this was the first paragraph of the government chapter. It isn't altogether surprising to find the US government system described this way; I rather expected it, considering the source. What is really interesting, though, is that the rest of the chapter reads like a typical civics text from any American high school. The three branches of government, how bills get passed into law, etc. In fact, I'd wager that the text likely comes from some American book, but every once in a while at the end of a paragraph, the Chinese angle pops up in lines like this: "Fundamentally, the Constitution safeguards the interests of the capitalists, the upper classes of America." These bits are pretty clearly tacked on, and paced evenly throughout the chapter. It made me chuckle while reading. It's not that the state system doesn't necessarily serve the interests of the ruling class, but last I checked, in the US everyone was a capitalist, and proud of it. It just is funny to read the semi-accusatory tone of the statements. Especially considering the ever-increasing embrace of capitalism in these parts.

Yesterday I saw someone rolling down the street in a brand new Jaguar sedan. Seems like the sort of thing you'd see in a capitalist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie... Oh, historical perspective! It sure is interesting.