This is the digital edition. For the physical edition (which comes with ebook files for no additional cost) click here.
Divided World Divided Class charts the history of the ‘labour aristocracy’ in the capitalist world system, from its roots in colonialism to its birth and eventual maturation into a full-fledged middle class in the age of imperialism. It argues that pervasive national, racial and cultural chauvinism in the core capitalist countries is not primarily attributable to ‘false class consciousness’, ideological indoctrination or ignorance as much left and liberal thinking assumes. Rather, these and related forms of bigotry are concentrated expressions of the major social strata of the core capitalist nations’ shared economic interest in the exploitation and repression of dependent nations.
The book demonstrates not only how redistribution of income derived from super-exploitation has allowed for the amelioration of class conflict in the wealthy capitalist countries, it also shows that the exorbitant ‘super-wage’ paid to workers there has meant the disappearance of a domestic vehicle for socialism, an exploited working class. Rather, in its place is a deeply conservative metropolitan workforce committed to maintaining, and even extending, its privileged position through imperialism. The book is intended as a major contribution to debates on the international class structure and socialist strategy for the twenty-first century.
This second edition includes new material such as data on growing inequality between the richest and poorest countries; data illustrating rising real wages in Imperial Britain; explication of the concepts of value, monopoly capital and unequal exchange and their ramifications for the global class structure; discussion of social imperialism on the left; responses to critiques surrounding the thesis of mass embourgeoisement through imperialism; as well as further information on a range of subjects.
What People Are Saying
“Dr. Cope presents a thought provoking study of the political economy of the world system by focusing on the concept of a global labour aristocracy. Within the world system, which has also been described as a global apartheid system by some, enormous differences exist between workers’ wages and living conditions, depending on where the workers are located. The author details how a global labour aristocracy in core countries benefits at the expense of workers in periphery countries. The mechanisms supporting such a situation are identified as exploitation, imperialism and racism. The book is a valuable contribution to globalization critique.” Gernot Köhler, Professor (retired) of Computer Studies at the Department of Computing and Information Management, Sheridan College, Ontario, Canada and author of The Global Wage System: A Study of International Wage Differences and Global Economics: An Introductory Course
“How can we link the division between the poor and the rich people in one and any country and the division between the rich and poor nations together into an analytical framework? The answer lies in the concept of ‘the embourgeoisement of the working people’ of the rich core countries and the fact that colonialism and national chauvinism have gone hand in hand so as to breed a ‘labour aristocracy’. This book is a must-read for anyone who cares about fairness. Zak Cope brings together brilliantly the concepts of nation, race and class analytically under the umbrella of capitalism, by situating racism in the class structure and by locating class in the context of the global economy.” Mobo Gao, Chair of Chinese Studies and Director of the Confucius Institute at the Centre for Asian Studies, University of Adelaide, and author of The Battle for China’s Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution
“This is a surprising book. At a time when confusion about Globalization surrounds us, Zak Cope pulls us towards what is fundamental. He outlines the 19th & 20th century recasting of the diverse human world into rigid forms of oppressed colonized societies and oppressor colonizing societies. A world divide still heavily determining our lives. Working rigorously in a marxist-leninist vein, the author focuses on how imperialism led to a giant metropolis where even the main working class itself is heavily socially bribed and loyal to capitalist oppression. Much is laid aside in his analysis, in order to concentrate on only what he considers the most basic structure of all in world capitalist society. This is writing both controversial and foundational at one and the same time.” J. Sakai, author of Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat
"Divided World Divided Class is valuable to a wide audience, especially those unfamiliar with the history of imperialism, the unequal exchange paradigm, and its impact on class structure. It should be a wake-up call to advocates for the exploited classes of the global South as they attempt to develop a twenty-first-century praxis, and as they engage with advocates for workers in the global North—without denying activists in the global North a role in helping to change the world in favor of the exploited peoples of the world. It reaffirms, with an impressive breadth and depth of evidence and argument, that the Northern workers must help fight for democratic sovereignty in the global South—even if it appears to be against their material interests to do so." — Professor Timothy Kerswell, University of Macau, Department of Government and Public Administration
Kersplebedeb Statement on Zak Cope's About Face (Aug. 16 2024)
TLDR: Zak Cope has renounced his former anti-imperialist views and has embraced “the West,” zionism, and the legacies and ongoing realities of colonialism and imperialism. Kersplebedeb Publishing stands by Zak’s previous work and is saddened to see him now embracing the structures of oppression, exploitation, and genocide which he previously had stood against.
LONGER VERSION:
We at Kersplebedeb Publishing were surprised to learn (to say the least) that Zak Cope, author of Divided World Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism—which we published two editions of in 2012 and 2015, respectively—has had a dramatic change of opinion on seemingly every aspect of political economy in the last year (he implies that it was sparked by the events of October 7, 2023). In the Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Geopolitics (2024), which Cope edited and to which he contributed two chapters, he describes his “personal and intellectual commitment to free markets, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law and the conservative and classical liberal values that uphold the same.” He declares his support for “the people of... Israel in their just struggle to overcome the imperialist and totalitarian forces bent on their destruction.”
Despite this description of the opponents of the zionist state as “imperialist,” it is not clear whether Cope—who has been mainly known as a prominent theorist of anti-imperialism and defender of the theory of a global labour aristocracy—now thinks imperialism does not exist or just that it is a good thing. He compares foreign direct investment from the Global North into the Global South to “people who spend less than they earn... loan[ing] to those who spend more than they earn.” He denies that there is anything morally problematic in this relationship, arguing to the contrary that “free trade can and has led to historically unprecedented reductions in poverty rates worldwide.” He states that “Europe’s industrialization and economic take-off was largely endogenous, driven by technological innovation, entrepreneurship, liberal institutions, and scientific culture,” while “Colonialism and the slave trade played a relatively minor role.”
Cope now espouses right-wing shibboleths, such as the historically ignorant view that Nazi Germany was socialist (!) or that a domination of the social sciences by Marxism and postcolonialism (“the academic study of the cultural, political, and economic legacies of colonialism and imperialism,” as he defines it) has “seriously curtailed academic freedom.” He derisively refers to the concept of “European, Western, and ‘White’ oppression, exploitation, and racism,” a use of scare quotes implying that he views the entire concept of whiteness as being of questionable analytic utility, at a minimum. (Elsewhere, he uses scare quotes on “First World” and “Third World,” as well as “core” and “periphery.”) He approvingly cites Thatcher’s aphorism about socialism being broken by its dependence on an exhaustible supply of “other people’s money.” He rejects the labour theory of value and calls “counter[ing] anti-capitalism with reasoned, fact-based, and historically grounded argument... one of the most urgent cultural and political challenges of our time.”
In a footnote, he “retract[s]” Divided World and The Wealth of Some Nations (which he published with Pluto Press in 2019) for the reason that they are “based on Marxist views that are outright false or misleadingly one-sided.”
We share Cope’s desire to make a clear distinction between his past work and his output today and going forward—barring a second 180° degree rotation.
Cope’s argument in Divided World Divided Class and similar writings was nothing more nor less than an assertion of the humanity of the people of the Third World (or Global South) and an attempt to explain their dehumanization in the realm of ideas (racism and national chauvinism) by reviewing their position in the realm of economics, as those who produce most of the world's enormous wealth yet receive scarcely any of its benefit. If there was a weakness to his approach, it was his reliance on a lot of numbers and statistics and math (themselves often the mystifying product of bourgeois economics) to show what could be illustrated much more simply and clearly in more concrete terms. But so it goes with “immanent critique”—our thought at the time was (and is now) that given the use of bourgeois economics to muddy the waters in order to hide the reality of imperialist exploitation, that there was value in using it to clarify and demystify.
Cope’s new position—which comes as an utter shock to us, and which we find difficult to believe he can himself take seriously—does indeed amount to a complete reversal of this: a dehumanization of the global majority and an obfuscation and denial of the racism and national chauvinism to which they are subject.
Zak, wtf?
Note to Readers: Kersplebedeb is making the ebook version of Divided World Divided Class, which we still consider to be a valuable contribution to understanding the world we live in, available free of charge via the leftwingbooks.net website: www.leftwingbooks.net//divided-world-divided-class-ebook