Talking about striking workers:
“It is in truth no trifle for a working man, who knows want from experience, to face it with his wife and children, to endure hunger and wretchedness for months together, and to stand firm and unshaken through it all. What is death, what the galleys which await the French revolutionist, in comparison with gradual starvation, with the daily sight of a starving family, with the certainty of future revenge on the part of the bourgeoisie, all of which the English working man chooses in preference to subjection under the yoke of the property-holding class... people who endure so much to bend one single bourgeois will be able to break the power of the whole bourgeoisie.”
spoiler
Let’s revive the Marxism sub comrades
If you're in a western country, and I'm making an assumption you are (if not then ignore me), then the labor aristocracy (bourgeoisified proletariat using a term closer to Marx and Engel's own description) are a real thing. Not all, but enough western workers and their unions are effectively bribed by the spoils of imperialism. So the revolutionary potential of most workers in the imperial nations is muted at the moment. But as Lenin says in response to this, one must go lower and deeper. The class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie take on a national characteristic in our age of imperialism. The Global South fighting against their chains, the Palestinains fighting their colonizers, these are the continuations of the struggle. Those with a material incentive to fight imperialism are where you're more likely to see class struggle imo.
But it isn't that class struggle dissappears in the core, but like you've mentioned, you're less likely to see this attitude, not to mention revolutionary consciousness within the imperialist core's proletariat. There are definitely people in the core who aren't seeing much of the benefit of the spoils and hopefully they become more and more organized and conscious of this.
With the rapidly incoming Milei-ification of the US Economy, we might be entering into a new age of class struggle in the core. We'll see how things look once the markets open in about two minutes, but between a full halt on federal grants, and potential sanctions on Taiwan semiconductors, things are poised to only get worse.
Perhaps so. "Heaven in chaos" moments approaching? My own gut feeling is to lean on the pessimism side with Americans, though. But that definitely has its faults (I may miss out on real opportunities). I feel that they won't let the sinking ship that is the imperial core go down easy. They'll ramp up every inhumane measure they can to "keep the treats flowing," although the decline is inevitable. But, this is vibes based analysis of mine. So maybe the limits are already being reached, idk.
Another vibe-based analysis of mine is my pessmisitic view of the white American worker. I feel that the web of white supremacy and settler colonialism is so strong here and it's going to be a very serious hindrance to organizing white workers. It isn't impossible, but I fear it is harder than the orgs I am (and have been) involved with admit (or at least show to me - I have limited info of what higher ups think in terms of strategy).
And again, thus is vibes on my part. Growing up where I did, having the type of family I have, seeing "communist parties" full of labor aristocrats deny settler colonialism after Oct 7th, and seeing baby leftist aquantiances of mine make the turn to patsoc and then proto-fascist in the matter of years (all while starting to deny that racism is even a problem) has impacted my optimism of America. I'm convinced that the above people I've met will fight against socialism, especially if it has an aspect of anti-colonial struggle as I believe it should. But, these are vibes from being around predominantly white spaces. So it is far from the whole picture.
I also don't think it's wise to use my above thoughts to abandon class struggle here. Class struggle will continie. Abandoning my own responsibility is something I don't want to do, even if I'm unsure at the moment of what this responsibility is and how it fits in with a larger strategy. But, overall, I just think the struggle for socialism will be hard, and there are reasons for it. (The mix of white supremacy, a bourgeoisified proletariat, settler colonial attitudes).
But, like you point out, nothing lasts. The basis for this type of ideology in the core won't be around forever. But when that rugs starts getting pulled, I think the pendulum will swing rightwards by default as the above groups will do everything they can to hold on to their status. But, that only means left forces must be organized to counter it. Even in the imperial core, class struggle will play out.