People should probably just stop using the term identity politics, because its almost always used in a reactionary way.
The right uses it to fear-monger about minorities, women, and gays being elevated to the same level as white men.
The reactionary “left” uses it for the same way, but in a “class-essentialist” context, making the claim that only relation to production determines class (and not between colonizer and colonized, enslaved and not enslaved, domestic servitude to the male patriarch, etc).
Class essentialism (really it should be called wage-earner-essentialism) is wrong: race, ethnicity, sex, and gender minority should not be extricated from poverty. Just look at the US or Latin America, your skin color is completely correlated to your wealth and life outcomes, and any analysis that tries to ignore colonialism, slavery, or patriarchal servitude as “just idpol”, is doing class collaborationism with the white rulers and the mostly white labor aristocracy, who have historically been beneficiaries of the women’s oppression in the household, and colonialism.
A correct definition of class should be holistic, and include those other forms of oppression, not just the simplistic understanding of class as “anyone who makes a wage.” Even Engels within his lifetime went beyond that original definition from his principles of communism.
There are leftist critiques of liberal tokenism, and things like “the nation of immigrants” / “multi-culturalist” US propaganda, when the US tries to say its a “melting pot”, and not a nation founded on indigenous genocide. But that is distinct from identity politics, where the entire group is targeted and treated as a monolithic entity that should stay at its current level, or dissolve their grievances and become collaborators.
Regardless, all socialist countries have had affirmative-action style programs to reduce inequalities between ethnic groups, and women’s rights (hopefully sexual minorities in the future too). In this way they’re doing the opposite of collaborationism, or asking groups to dissolve their specific grievances.
Yeah, I think the key part to focus on that left ideology needs to be inclusive and uniting. The ideas have to unite people from different cultures and walks of life. This is precisely what makes class analysis so important in my opinion. The relationship between the exploiter and the exploited is an invariant in capitalist relations. Focusing on this relationship creates a common thread that all workers can rally around.
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said here but I still have more on my mind.
I’ll be honest, I’ve never liked “SJWs” (for lack of a better term). Maybe it’s just me having been raised on 4chan during my teenage years but even now I still look at these kind of people with disdain. Whilst I’m fully on board with fighting for the rights of all kinds of minorities in society, I feel the approach taken by many “SJWs” is needlessly antagonistic towards the wrong people and is also completely devoid of class consciousness.
Reaction should not be tolerated, however this does not necessitate talking down spitefully to everyone who holds reactionary views. Many people are reactionaries not because they have a heart burning with hatred for minorities but because their minds have been twisted by bourgeois propaganda telling them that these people are a threat and can you really blame them? Can any of us here say with confidence that we have never been liberals or reactionaries or have never placed any trust in MSM narratives at any point in our lives? If you can then I commend you for having been raised and guided all throughout your life by such staunchly progressive revolutionaries but the reality for the vast majority of us in the imperial core is simply not like that at all.
Much of the proletariat has been pushed into the arms of the right since this culture wars bullshit began, you can see that reflected in how many “working class” (for lack of a better term, we cannot ignore class divisions) people support Trump whilst many of those people get roundly shat on by “SJWs” who, despite some having minority status themselves, are indeed economically privileged in comparison or “middle class” and I think it’s undeniable that economic privilege trumps every other privilege as money can buy freedom, dignity and respect for any member of any minority group. I know many of us here recognise that “working class” and “middle class” are bourgeois concepts but that still doesn’t dismiss the economic reality that people live under in that a few are at the top, some in the middle and everyone else is at the bottom. Those at the bottom can only look up in scorn. A wealthy trans person is more economically privileged than a poor cishet but would you really tell the cishet that they are the ones who need to “check their privilege” purely because they don’t have a problem with the genitals they were born with?
I also strongly believe that whilst Marxists should always fight for the rights of all oppressed groups, the economic emancipation of the proletariat must absolutely come first and foremost in everything we do to push for change. If economic emancipation takes a backseat, we are no better than single-issue campaigners because we’re just trying to affect change whilst remaining under a system that will continuously frustrate our efforts and create new conflicts and divisions. I also feel that progressive social change under a bourgeois dictatorship only serves to enhance the arguments in favour of bourgeois dictatorships which you see in many liberals. It’s too easy to make shallow takes like “US legalised gay marriage but China still hasn’t, therefore the US is overall more progressive than a socialist country.” (Don’t get me wrong here, as much as I hold disdain for “SJWs” I also hold the same disdain for reactionaries in socialist countries like China who are holding back social change due to “traditional family values” or other assorted piles of horse shit.)
Also, with the economic emancipation of the proletariat and the establishment of a strong proletarian state, this will destroy the structures behind, and effectiveness of, bourgeois propaganda as it will no longer be possible to paint certain groups of people as a threat to your livelihood when your livelihood is guaranteed by the state, bourgeois media orgs are banned and public education sets people on the right path. In such a way, much of the reactionary sentiment currently present in the proletariat should simply fade away into irrelevance.
So I guess my main point is simply that whilst we should not engage in class essentialism, we cannot deny economic reality as many do.
I always thought class was the primary contradiction and all the identity stuff were separate issues, as in once there is a revolution there can still be issues faces by certain types of people. Like just because a country is now socialist doesn’t make literally all problems and contradictions go away. For example western liberal democracies have better rights for lgbtq people compared to China, or the mentality that having a baby boy is better than having a baby girl. This type of thinking is very common in certain parts of China to this day, even after the revolution.
Also the fact that so many proletariats are being pushed to the right can be a reflection of the failure of the left to reach out to the working class, so I agree with your point of not talking down to people with reactionary views. The left is so quick to call people with reactionary views literal Nazis as a strawman so they can absolve themselves of trying to remove those views.
I agree with part of what you said but not all of it. I wonder if some Socratic questions would reveal how much we agree and perhaps make you change your mind.
Do you mean that after a revolution a socialist state would still have to deal with gender, sexuality, racial, etc, issues? (I think this is what you meant,v as you give the example of China, and I agree.)
If so, does it matter that a socialist state will still have to deal with class as well? China still had a bourgeoisie, for example, and has to reign it in now and again.
To ask the question in a different way: can class and other ‘identity’ issues be separated just because those ‘identity’ issues will remain after a revolution, if class will also remain a problem after the revolution?
During a dictatorship of the proletariat, there will still be a bourgeoisie, and the related problems of having a bourgeois class, even if it’s power is diminished. It would not be till much later, when bourgeois social relations have withered away, that class is abolished and ‘full’ communism reached.
Would you expect those identity issues to have been dealt with by the time that full communism is reached?
If so, is that not the exact time that class contradictions will be finally resolved?
And to get back to where we started, does this indicate that ‘identity’ and class are interwoven after all and cannot be treated as separate issues?
People should probably just stop using the term identity politics, because its almost always used in a reactionary way.
Class essentialism (really it should be called wage-earner-essentialism) is wrong: race, ethnicity, sex, and gender minority should not be extricated from poverty. Just look at the US or Latin America, your skin color is completely correlated to your wealth and life outcomes, and any analysis that tries to ignore colonialism, slavery, or patriarchal servitude as “just idpol”, is doing class collaborationism with the white rulers and the mostly white labor aristocracy, who have historically been beneficiaries of the women’s oppression in the household, and colonialism.
A correct definition of class should be holistic, and include those other forms of oppression, not just the simplistic understanding of class as “anyone who makes a wage.” Even Engels within his lifetime went beyond that original definition from his principles of communism.
There are leftist critiques of liberal tokenism, and things like “the nation of immigrants” / “multi-culturalist” US propaganda, when the US tries to say its a “melting pot”, and not a nation founded on indigenous genocide. But that is distinct from identity politics, where the entire group is targeted and treated as a monolithic entity that should stay at its current level, or dissolve their grievances and become collaborators.
Regardless, all socialist countries have had affirmative-action style programs to reduce inequalities between ethnic groups, and women’s rights (hopefully sexual minorities in the future too). In this way they’re doing the opposite of collaborationism, or asking groups to dissolve their specific grievances.
Yeah, I think the key part to focus on that left ideology needs to be inclusive and uniting. The ideas have to unite people from different cultures and walks of life. This is precisely what makes class analysis so important in my opinion. The relationship between the exploiter and the exploited is an invariant in capitalist relations. Focusing on this relationship creates a common thread that all workers can rally around.
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said here but I still have more on my mind.
I’ll be honest, I’ve never liked “SJWs” (for lack of a better term). Maybe it’s just me having been raised on 4chan during my teenage years but even now I still look at these kind of people with disdain. Whilst I’m fully on board with fighting for the rights of all kinds of minorities in society, I feel the approach taken by many “SJWs” is needlessly antagonistic towards the wrong people and is also completely devoid of class consciousness.
Reaction should not be tolerated, however this does not necessitate talking down spitefully to everyone who holds reactionary views. Many people are reactionaries not because they have a heart burning with hatred for minorities but because their minds have been twisted by bourgeois propaganda telling them that these people are a threat and can you really blame them? Can any of us here say with confidence that we have never been liberals or reactionaries or have never placed any trust in MSM narratives at any point in our lives? If you can then I commend you for having been raised and guided all throughout your life by such staunchly progressive revolutionaries but the reality for the vast majority of us in the imperial core is simply not like that at all.
Much of the proletariat has been pushed into the arms of the right since this culture wars bullshit began, you can see that reflected in how many “working class” (for lack of a better term, we cannot ignore class divisions) people support Trump whilst many of those people get roundly shat on by “SJWs” who, despite some having minority status themselves, are indeed economically privileged in comparison or “middle class” and I think it’s undeniable that economic privilege trumps every other privilege as money can buy freedom, dignity and respect for any member of any minority group. I know many of us here recognise that “working class” and “middle class” are bourgeois concepts but that still doesn’t dismiss the economic reality that people live under in that a few are at the top, some in the middle and everyone else is at the bottom. Those at the bottom can only look up in scorn. A wealthy trans person is more economically privileged than a poor cishet but would you really tell the cishet that they are the ones who need to “check their privilege” purely because they don’t have a problem with the genitals they were born with?
I also strongly believe that whilst Marxists should always fight for the rights of all oppressed groups, the economic emancipation of the proletariat must absolutely come first and foremost in everything we do to push for change. If economic emancipation takes a backseat, we are no better than single-issue campaigners because we’re just trying to affect change whilst remaining under a system that will continuously frustrate our efforts and create new conflicts and divisions. I also feel that progressive social change under a bourgeois dictatorship only serves to enhance the arguments in favour of bourgeois dictatorships which you see in many liberals. It’s too easy to make shallow takes like “US legalised gay marriage but China still hasn’t, therefore the US is overall more progressive than a socialist country.” (Don’t get me wrong here, as much as I hold disdain for “SJWs” I also hold the same disdain for reactionaries in socialist countries like China who are holding back social change due to “traditional family values” or other assorted piles of horse shit.)
Also, with the economic emancipation of the proletariat and the establishment of a strong proletarian state, this will destroy the structures behind, and effectiveness of, bourgeois propaganda as it will no longer be possible to paint certain groups of people as a threat to your livelihood when your livelihood is guaranteed by the state, bourgeois media orgs are banned and public education sets people on the right path. In such a way, much of the reactionary sentiment currently present in the proletariat should simply fade away into irrelevance.
So I guess my main point is simply that whilst we should not engage in class essentialism, we cannot deny economic reality as many do.
I always thought class was the primary contradiction and all the identity stuff were separate issues, as in once there is a revolution there can still be issues faces by certain types of people. Like just because a country is now socialist doesn’t make literally all problems and contradictions go away. For example western liberal democracies have better rights for lgbtq people compared to China, or the mentality that having a baby boy is better than having a baby girl. This type of thinking is very common in certain parts of China to this day, even after the revolution.
Also the fact that so many proletariats are being pushed to the right can be a reflection of the failure of the left to reach out to the working class, so I agree with your point of not talking down to people with reactionary views. The left is so quick to call people with reactionary views literal Nazis as a strawman so they can absolve themselves of trying to remove those views.
I agree with part of what you said but not all of it. I wonder if some Socratic questions would reveal how much we agree and perhaps make you change your mind.
Do you mean that after a revolution a socialist state would still have to deal with gender, sexuality, racial, etc, issues? (I think this is what you meant,v as you give the example of China, and I agree.)
If so, does it matter that a socialist state will still have to deal with class as well? China still had a bourgeoisie, for example, and has to reign it in now and again.
To ask the question in a different way: can class and other ‘identity’ issues be separated just because those ‘identity’ issues will remain after a revolution, if class will also remain a problem after the revolution?
During a dictatorship of the proletariat, there will still be a bourgeoisie, and the related problems of having a bourgeois class, even if it’s power is diminished. It would not be till much later, when bourgeois social relations have withered away, that class is abolished and ‘full’ communism reached.
Would you expect those identity issues to have been dealt with by the time that full communism is reached?
If so, is that not the exact time that class contradictions will be finally resolved?
And to get back to where we started, does this indicate that ‘identity’ and class are interwoven after all and cannot be treated as separate issues?