"Garvey declared that both capitalists and socialists were capable of imperialist exploitation; his black nationalism held that white industrial powers could fleece colonial nations regardless of their particular economic system. Describing the western socialist movement in his ‘Black Man’ monthly, he wrote: ‘The people who make up the rank and file are of the lower and upper working classes. They organize, they agitate and they fight because they desire primarily to improve their economic status.’ In Garvey’s view, this was already an elevated status ‘enjoyed at the expense of the oppressed and suppressed darker and Black races who are ruthlessly exploited by the capitalist class in their respective colonies… If the Communist or Socialist in America or England receives $4 or 16s a day as his average wage, that $4 or 16s is the result of the supply of the cheap raw materials of the native countries by the native populations of Africa, India and China. So to maintain the present wage scale in America and in England the native must be paid 2s a day and the coolies in INdia 3d a day. It means therefore, that a higher wage standard of the American or English white worker must result in a lower standard for the exploited natives in their country.’ Hence when white workers ‘inveigle darker peoples into Communism, they are only endeavoring to use them to gain a greater advantage in the economic scale…’ … Garvey’s attempt at such criticism went unanswered by his left-wing opponents, who found it most difficult to make analytical rebuttals to his ideological position. His consistently ‘color-first’ viewpoint seemed to the theorists of class struggle to be an intellectual morass of contradictions and hypocrisy; since the white socialists of Garvey’s day could not understand the meaning of or the need for black power, they could not fathom Garvey’s economic views. Garvey, in turn, saw nothing of benefit to the black nation in the programs of American and European leftists. ‘Fundamentally, what racial difference is there between a white Communist, Republican or Democrat?’ he asked. For posing such questions, Garvey was called a narrow-minded racist, just as black power spokesmen today are labeled reverse racists for similar remarks."