In Marxist theory, those workers (proletarians) in developed countries who benefit from the superprofits extracted from the impoverished workers of underdeveloped countries form an "aristocracy of labor." The phrase was popularized by Karl Kautsky in 1901 and theorized by Vladimir Lenin in his treatise on Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Lenin's theory contends that companies in the developed world exploit workers in the developing world (where wages are much lower), resulting in increased profits. Because of these increased profits, the companies are able to pay higher wages to their employees "at home" (that is, in the developed world), thus creating a working class satisfied with their standard of living and not inclined to proletarian revolution. Lenin thus contended that imperialism had prevented increasing class polarization in the developed world, and argued that a workers' revolution could only begin in one of the underdeveloped or semideveloped countries, such as Russia. This theory of the labor aristocracy is controversial in the Marxist movement.
Okay, a bit heavy on the Marxist rhetoric but you don't have to be a Marxist to agree with it. So, is there any truth to this theory? Are the working classes of the Western world passively (probably unwittingly) exploiting the Third World by feathering their own nests with scraps from the table of companies who directly exploit the worlds poorest people? Or is it empty Marxist rhetoric and capitalism is pulling these people out of poverty as it did with us in the 19th and 20th centuries?
