Identity Politics Is a Poor Substitute for Socialism
Identity Politics Is a Poor Substitute for Socialism
In No Politics but Class Politics, Walter Benn Michaels and Adolph Reed show how an identity politics that obscures class politics and ignores economic inequality only makes the many miseries around us worse.
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I think there is a thin line were they are right, but it frequently can arrive into insensitiveness town or straight terf island. Liberal identity project is to get black ceo, woman ceo, non binary ceo whatever. Allow possibilities of ascendance into bourgeoisie of the out-group, thus equilibrating capital atavisms from previous eras.
Woman liberation in marxists term is about unpaid social labor, but capital managed to make it about profitable social labor by socialing those functions and making woman role to go to work same as man. Social labor inside the house still remains unpaid. But oprah is a billionaire, so thats fine.
Capitalism will slowly arrive at equilibrium gender/race ceo ratio with populace. And not lots of things will change.
But incidentally, after the revolution, racism, sexism, neurotypical preferences won't dissappear magically, it will still take work and work largely similar to the one performed by identity politics now (as in telling default people how other people are also real, though different from them). If revolution comes after society readjusts itself, it will make after revolutionary work easier
i think squaring the circle here might be realizing that liberal identity politics are not international at all, because at their heart they're still imperialists. A liberal's vision of eliminating racism is what you said, they want domestic access to positions of power for all of a nation's internal ethnic groups. They want equal access to imperialism (for those who are already within an imperialist nation)
That vanishes from their brains when international people are considered, since a western nation's spoils rely upon cheap foreign labor and goods. Liberals do not see monetary exploitation of Africa by western powers as racist. They tend to not consider it at all.
Liberals do not see monetary exploitation of Africa by western powers as racist. They tend to not consider it at all.
Well, to be “fair” to these ghouls, when they ARE considering it, they wouldn’t care if the people living there were black or white as long as there was lithium underneath their houses. But that’s only relevant to ideological racism, not systemic racism which I think is what you’re talking about
Person literally named Adolph is definitely not right though
I still think it's racism that liberals promote. For instance, look at their reactions to when a terrorist attack happens to a European country versus somewhere like Southeast Asia.
Oh yeah
I think they would. Consider it is self reinforcing. If the revolution happens and we have falgsac and someone is being rascist or sexist people simply don't have to deal with them. Picture the police. They exist to opress minorities so that it is profitable to exploit them. Without that being a possibility they simply wouldn't be tasked to do that. So all those negative outcomes go away. Yeah you would still have some people in it for the love of the game. However the majority of the negative outcomes are profit driven. These people are ideologically incoherent foe the most part.
Kinda, but for example soviet union didn't arrive natively to acceptance of gay people, despite it being null effect on economy one way or the other. So these atavisms can persist for 70 years or three generations without active fight. Same with neuro atypical people, left to its own devices it doesn't resolve itself.
And obviously conclusion of "we should mass relocate these people" cannot be arrived without some "those people be like this".
And usa experience of racial shenanigans at unions in 1890-1930s also doesnt point to automatic resolution.
Now, if you were to say that in process of struggle workers would become better educated on those issues, thats very true, but that requires minority comrades being there to educate them and fight with them
I mean it seems to have worked that way for Cuba and China. The USSR for its faults was still better than it's historical contemporary of apartide US. Their policies are beyond what can be expected in most places in the US today so I am not really sure you are comparing relevant cases. So yes, it isn't a magic bullet, it does seem to do way more work than people give it credit for though.
oh it was miles better (see pogroms dissappearance and also women liberation still persisting in former ussr to this day), but its important to keep in mind that resolution of class question doesn't solve brainworms questions (or not completely). I'm also more class first type of guy, so i try to keep in mind that it didn't work out that simple (and that im a white guy, and can miss stuff quite strongly)
A. reed is fairly good thinker, but got completely lost in trans acceptance issues.