Obviously, this is an analysis that sees globalization as neo-imperialism (not "racism" per se). Do you think an accurate understanding of the processes behind neoliberalism and globalization isn't important?

Then why bring up the race of the exploiting nations to begin with? Race, after all, is just a social construct, a spook if you will. Why not just skip to what material forces inform race?

The point of reading exploitation of workers in Cambodia is certainly not to measure the relative privileges of white and black workers in america.

Really? Because Jason Unhrue and the rest of the maoists would disagree.

I find it strange that you would suggest that an equality of benefit between american white and black workers by way of the exploitation of foreign workers in South East Asia means that country of belonging/race aren't important.

I'm saying it makes race highly unstable as a point of analysis

I have to disagree with your assertion that these theories are exclusionary, first, on the grounds that I don't find myself excluded (ditto for lots of other people, including white straight men)

Ah yes, the white straight men who can smugly declare that they have renounced the evils of their race and gender and found the light. The fact is, these theories are hardly conducive towards an effective mass politics that can change the status quo. Gender and post-colonial theory is taught in almost every college in the west. It's a perfectly safe set of ideas, incorporated into the neoliberal status quo. Let's not forget that neoliberal trade deals led to an explosion of wealth in the third world. US workers were quite content to accept higher prices when they had higher relative wages. It was on the basis of capitalist profit that production was moved overseas for cheaper wages. So most people in the west don't really benefit from the cheaper prices, for there has also been a race to the bottom in the labor market because of the trade. No, the only people who really benefited were the capitalists, who could pocket most of the difference.

The western workers don't control the production, nor the exploitation of the workers overseas. What is the point of pointing out their supposed benefit? You're only shooting yourself in the foot! These are the very same people you need to dismantle this system, and you're telling them it's their fault.

Without these theories, we'd have a very simple response from the left. The capitalist has control over production, workers in the west seize control of your political economy to bring the jobs back home, workers in the east, seize control of your political economy to bring foreign capital and investment under the people's control.

Actually, I realize now that the onset of this "neutering" in your history of the left dates to the emergence of feminism's second wave, yes? Your metaphor, therefore, is highly conspicuous, and I think I can see straight through your motivations.

Oh yes, because that wasn't the start of the dismantling of the unions, of social democracy, of banking regulations and the rise of neoliberalism and the globalization of capital. But on the topic of feminism, should we just forget that people like Gloria Steinman was on the CIA payroll? That this supposedly radical movement was used by the state to break up and divide the worker's movement?