The Post New Left and Reification

Introduction
Life is hard, and capitalism makes it more difficult than it needs to be. Everyday, we all feel
unnecessary misery. And soon, we won't even be able to pass this on to future generations because
we're making ourselves endangered.
Until it's all over, though, there will always be a rose in the concrete. In this space, there's hope
for a better life, and activism enters. It usually starts with people doing something about their
immediate conditions.
But action is not always enough; you fail, and seek to understand why. This is where theory
comes in. It always lurks in the background, but becomes more pressing when practice hits a dead end.
It isn't necessarily about reading certain texts, or attending a lecture; theory can happen when people
are discussing their personal experiences, and linking these into a larger system of oppression.
This work is a modest contribution in helping to re-build the Left, and is part of a larger critique
of socialism-from-above. This includes the history of socialism in the 20 th century, as well our current
period of activism, the Post New Left.
The Post New Left, and its theoretical underpinnings, intersectionality, is the main target of
critique. But the less visible side is the critique of classical Marxism, something that intersectionality
tends to repeat in all of the worst ways. This work looks at some aspects of classical Marxism, but the
subject will be examined more fully in our later work.
Our main way of critiquing intersectionality (and classical Marxism) is through the concept of
reification. For far too long, it has hid in the ivory tower; it is now time to make it an indispensable tool
for activists trying to understand the capitalist world, in order to better bring about its much needed
demise.

Old Left, New Left, Post New Left

The New Left

I would think that if you understood what communism was, you would hope, you would pray
on your knees, that we would someday become communists. - Jane Fonda (1970)

The typical narrative of the 1960s is told from the point of view of its main protagonist, the
counterculture. Political upheaval, meanwhile, plays a supporting role; it becomes lost in a thick
cloud of smoke and psychedelic patterns; drowned out in rock and roll and sexual liberation.1
One of the New Left's distinguishing features is that it tended to side with the counterculture;
the Old Left, on the other hand, resembled a disapproving parent.
The New Left thought the Old Left was behind the times. Its main achievements were decades
before, in the Russian or Spanish Revolutions 2, and their efforts were often seen as the struggles of the
(white, male) working-class.3
Involvement in the counterculture of the 60s and 70s was certainly a bone of contention
between the Old and New Left, as well as being something that was debated in those circles
internally. A good example of this generational gap was given by Christopher Hitchens, a former
1

This is not to say that these are not political issues as well; the problem is that the usual narrative de-politicizes
them (in line with the general a-political view)
2
Among others, such as the post World War I wave that followed the Russian Revolution (in places like Germany,
Hungary, etc)
3
This applies mostly to Western Europe, North America, and Australasia

Trotskyite turned liberal cretin. He claimed that his former Trotskyist group had a relaxed and
humorous internal life and also a quizzical and critical attitude to the 'Sixties' mindset.4
They didnt grow long hair because they wanted to mingle with the workers on the factory gate
and on the housing estates. The man who drank his liver into oblivion claimed that they also didnt
'do' drugs. He regarded them as a pathetic, weak-minded escapism that was almost as contemptible
as religion.
They weren't totally opposed to the counterculture however; long hair and drugs were out, but
rock and roll and sex were OK.
Some tried this moderate approach, while others took more radical positions in embracing or
vigorously denouncing the new counterculture. The right liked to portray it as the moral degeneration
of the youth, while certain leftists argued that the counterculture contained the seeds of anti-capitalist
revolt. Others viciously attacked it, claiming that it was a distraction, and a form of de-politicization.
And, in a way, they were correct: a lot of people were perhaps too focused on getting high and jamming
out, rather than tackling the immediate problems at hand.
The counterculture and the political did not form separate containers, and were part of the
same milieu. Still, there was a slight distance between them. Some in the counterculture were more
political, while others leaned towards the a-political.
Kommune 1 was on the political end of the counterculture, its founding members coming
from the Socialist German Student Union (SDS). They were opposed to what they called bourgeois
culture and its accompanying concepts like personal privacy; accordingly, their bathrooms were
without doors. Leaders and authority figures were said to have been abolished, and the only rule was to
live out your life in front of the other members.
Most importantly, the patriarchal nuclear family was seen as the basic building block of
capitalism, and in particular, fascism. They sought to challenge its presence in every sphere of
bourgeois life by living out the slogan, the personal is the political. Mainstream norms, like short
hair for men, abstinence from drug use, or sexual exclusivity, were cast aside for those of the emergent
counterculture.
The members of Komune 1 became celebrities due to their off-beat lifestyles, and absurdist
political theater, the idea of joke as weapon. 5 Some of their numerous acts of provocation included
throwing hundreds of Little Red Books from the roof of a famous church in Berlin, 6 and printing fake
SDS pamphlets that declared, water cannons are paper tigers.
4

5
6

Christopher Hitchens. Hitch-22: A Memoir. Atlantic Books: London, 2010, pg. 88-9.
Witz als Waffe
The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedchtniskirche

Their growing notoriety brought famous guests, like Jimi Hendrix, as well as the media.
Typically, the commune tried to go beyond capitalist private property, and did things for passion rather
than reward.
But living in capitalism does produce certain restraints, so they interacted with the media on the
condition that the commune got paid for any interview or photo shoot.

More than just a bunch of dirty hippies, the New Left was first and foremost a political
movement, its origins lying before the rise of the counterculture.7
Take yourself back to 1956. The left political landscape is dominated by Social-Democracy and
(soviet) Marxism-Leninism, and the biggest decision is choosing between reformism (S-D) and
revolution (M-L)8.
The backdrop is a post-war economic boom that lasts until the late 60s - early 70s; the Golden
Age of Capitalism. With fascism defeated, and communism lurking in the background, revolution is
not the order of the day. Moderates abound; most have already chosen reform, and many SocialDemocratic parties are experiencing their heyday. Even the Moscow affiliated communist parties have
become more moderate.9
The key concept is cooperation (between bosses and workers). A 1963 Fortune headline will
eventually read, Unions Are Worth The Price. The compromise, in the industrial sectors, is a
system of increased output (and decreased workplace control) for increased wages.
All of this brings a level of affluence to the working class (in advanced industrialized countries)
that has never been seen before or since. The welfare state is vastly expanded, and unemployment rates
are kept low in most countries.10
In short, everything seems to be on the right track.

It seems like one should begin the story with the Old Left, but for reasons that will become clear later, it is better to
present things from some of the dominant New Left points of view
8
This is a bit of a simplification for the purpose of narrative structure. However, that same divide reform and revolution
reappeared when the Maoists parties grew (and called for revolution instead of the Soviet model which was
bureaucratic and revisionist). In the United States, the absence of a major social-democratic party made the Democratic
party the de facto one.
9
For example, in Italy, there were groups of partisans that had just finished defeating fascism, and were ready to fight for
socialism. Palmiro Togliatti, the leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), said that socialism was not on the agenda;
constitutional capitalist democracy was. His decision had been influenced by the recent defeat of the communists in Greece.
In line with strengthening the parliamentary state, the PCI also called for expanding the Italian economy, and could be quite
conservative when it came to labor disputes.
10
Even though it did not have a fully comprehensive welfare state, the United States' (marginal) tax rate for the top
income bracket was 91% in 1956 (and 39.6% in 2015).

Except for a few things, of course. The working class was not always content. Jim Crow still
existed in the southern United States, and decolonization was only beginning to happen. Women were
oppressed in a more outright way (than they are currently), not to speak of queer people. And the threat
of nuclear warfare hung over humanity.
The New Left was on a mission to tear down the facade of this harmonious society. It
included not only mainstream capitalist society, but also the Old Left.
The breaking point for many was the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. 11 Hungarians had
rose up and established democratic councils in their workplaces and communities, which took the place
of the disposed government.
Like other great revolutionary moments, it showed people that another world was possible; this
is why it wasn't long before Soviet tanks rolled in and crushed it. The Hungarians bravely fought the
Soviet tanks, with everything from armed adults to thirteen year olds with molotov cocktails. The
movement was defeated, but its spirit found a new home amongst the New Left.
Earlier that year, Nikita Kruschev had given his famous Secret Speech, where he listed some
of Stalin's crimes (in an attempt to win back the party from those loyal to the recently deceased Stalin).
This was a moment of crisis for many communists, but Kruschev seemed to be offering a slightly deStalinized route and so some stayed on. The invasion of Hungary in 1956, though, is where many drew
the line, and left the party. Some went to the right, becoming social-democrats, liberals, even
conservatives. Some, however, went further to the Left.
This is the beginning of the New Left; what was new was its rejection of the old ways of
doing leftist politics, mainly Stalinist Communism and Social-Democracy.12
11

The year 1956 offers a convenient chronological peg for comprehension of the international New Left. That was the
year of Khrushchev's condemnation of Stalin at the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist party, and the year of the
Soviet invasion of Hungary. These events put an end to the hegemony of Soviet communism in the world radical movement.
Response was immediate. In France, Jean-Paul Sartre broke with the French Communist party. In England, former
Communists and other radicals created the journals Universities and Left Review and The New Reasoner, later merged as
The New Left Review. In China, Mao Tsetung "suddenly changed course." According to a possibly apocryphal anecdote now
current in Peking, "he made his decision after his journey to the USSR where he was appalled by the ideological level of
foreign Communist leaders, and realized the ravages that bureaucratization had made in the Communist elite of the
European socialist countries."' In the same year, 1956, contrasting New Left charismas were launched in the Western
Hemisphere. Fidel Castro and his handful of followers landed from the Granma to conquer their Cuban homeland, and
Martin Luther King led the successful bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. Staughton Lynd. The New Left. Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 382, Protest in the Sixties (March 1969), pg. 65
12
This American New Left is actually part of an international political tendency. Differences in form notwithstanding, the
student movements of the 1960s in the United States, West Europe, and Japan share certain common concerns: rejection
both of capitalism and of the bureaucratic communism exemplified by the Soviet Union; anti-imperialism; and an
orientation to decentralized "direct action," violent or nonviolent. And, clearly, such movements in the so-called free world
are related to the heretical communisms of Tito, Mao Tse-tung, and Fidel Castro, to the libertarian currents in East Europe,
and to various versions of 'African socialism.' ibid, pg. 65

It also found its roots in many post-war events, like the civil rights movement in the United
States, the decolonization movements, and the Chinese and Cuban revolutions. Members of the New
Left could be found within the working class, the wealthy13 or the unemployed, but many of its main
spokespeople were university students or professors.
In the US, the Berkeley Free Speech movement (1964-1965) kicked off the wave of worldwide
student protest.14
The cooperation mentality had produced a predictable result at Berkeley; a liberal
university administration that wanted the university environment to be as a-political as possible.
Specifically, the administration prohibited political groups or causes from tabling, which is a
prime way to distribute information and literature, receive donations, and get new members. A small
strip of sidewalk that had been an unofficial safety valve was now closed.
The results were explosive.
At the height of the Civil Rights movement, CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality) decided to
fight the ban15. They set up a table, and were promptly accosted by the university administration. They
refused to leave, and the police tried to arrest an ex Berkeley grad student. A spontaneous crowd
formed to block the police, and was spurred on by experienced Civil Rights activists. Hundreds of
people were gathering. Some climbed on top of the immobilized cop car to give speeches. For many it
was their first protest.
By the end of the day, the car roof had become one large dent,16 and the University
administration was now facing significant resistance.
This was a tactic of direct action, or actions that are not centered on negotiation; other kinds of
direct action include sit-down strikes, and illegal demonstrations. Direct action works best when the
existing routes to change are blocked, or are slow moving.
For example, when the Supreme Court legally desegregated schools in Brown v. Board of
Education, they claimed that it should occur with all deliberate speed. It was a vague phrase that put
an accent on deliberation rather than the bit about speed.
A legal milestone had given way to an institutional problem; how were they actually going to
enforce this ruling? Some children had to be accompanied to their new (white) school by National
13

The Italian Giangiacomo Feltrinelli is an example.

For more on the Berkeley Speech Movement, see Hal Draper's excellent Berkeley: The New Student Revolt
15
Hal Draper - One of the most unique features of the Berkeley student revolt is that from its beginning to its climax it
was linked closely to the social and political issues and forces of the bigger society outside the campus. (Berkeley: The
New Student Revolt. Chapter 5. 1965. https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1965/berkeley/ch05.htm)
16
The vigil around the police car went on in the darkness; the speeches went on, more desultory; the roof of the car
became one large dent. (Hal Draper. Berkeley: The New Student Revolt. Chapter 12. 1965.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1965/berkeley/ch12.htm)
14

Guards, while others were eventually bussed to schools outside their district.
The direction of the Civil Rights movement changed over the 1950s; going through the courts to
marching in the street. The Civil Rights movement implemented de-segregation in other areas of social
life through actions like the Montgomery Bus Boycott (which lead to the rise of Martin Luther King
Jr.), or through direct actions, like sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. 17
Many Berkeley activists had been involved with the Civil Rights Movement, and were familiar
with these tactics. They had used them around the Bay Area, and had angered business owners with ties
to the University administration. This is the reason for the University's change in policy to more
aggressive neutrality.
Berkeley activists used direct action on a number of occasions, like in the occupation of Sproul
Hall. The university administration ultimately loosened up, but by the time the movement was over, it
had become a model for student activism worldwide.
Student activism was everywhere by the end of the 1960s, whether it was against the Vietnam
War or aligning with workers in revolution (May 1968 in France).
In fact, many students in the New Left saw themselves as being a vanguard of change along
with other oppressed groups around the world. What was omitted was the working class of the
advanced industrialized countries. As with today, the term working-class was often used as a
synonym for the white male working class.
They were supposedly bought off by capitalism, made comfortable by rising wages and an
expanded welfare state; glued to the boob-tube, the working class was no longer revolutionary or
much of a threat.18
Many on the New Left, therefore, changed the primary agent of revolution from the working
class in the advanced capitalist countries to students, people of color, women, queers, third world
17

Towards the end of the 60s, the Black Power movement would see these types of actions as degrading and defensive;
they fought back.
18
For example, in the Marxist camp: After capitalism was able to successfully incorporate immanent critiques into itself,
particularly during the Keynesian-Fordist boom that followed the second World War, many Marxists became definitively
convinced that capitalism would never encounter another economic crisis and that only subjective discontent could bring
about its overcoming. The Situationists, like the Frankfurt school, held completely to this perspective. As I mentioned
before, however, this totally changed after the 1970s. (Anselm Jappe. We Gotta Get Out Of This Place: Anselm Jappe
with Alastair Hemmens. The Brooklyn Rail. September 8, 2015. http://www.brooklynrail.org/2015/09/field-notes/anselmjappe-with-alastair-hemmens)
The narrative of formative episodes in the biography of the Western Left is generally situated in the context of
another, over-arching history: the rise of 'welfare' and 'consumer' capitalism bringing the 'masses' and specifically the
working class under its hegemonic spell, the changing structure (or in some versions, the virtual disappearance) of the
working class, the consequent decline of working class militancy (not to mention the failure of even an 'economistically'
militant proletariat to fulfill its historic mission as the agent of a socialist revolution), and hence the increasing separation of
left intellectuals from the labour movement or, indeed, any political movement at all. ( Ellen Meiksins Wood. A
Chronology of the New Left and its Successors, or; Who's Old-Fashioned Now?. Socialist Register (Vol. 31) 1995, pg. 22)

peasants, etc.
Anybody but the working class in the first world. Some went so far as to claim that the main
struggle was no longer between the industrialized working class in the first world versus the capitalists,
but the third world against imperialism.
History has proven all of this to be incredibly misguided.

The idea that the working class was largely reactionary, while other groups, such as students,
were not, does not even hold up to the facts. In 1970, during a famous demonstration against the Kent
State shooting on Wall Street, a group of 1,000 anti-war protestors were assaulted by a group of two
hundred construction workers. This is the ur-story that gave birth to the (American) New Left myth
of the hardhats vs. the hawks.
The working class was supposed to have been largely in support of the Vietnam War, while the
students, who were the main face of the opposition, were seen as the enlightened few; the only ones
capable of bringing down the war machine.
It's quite a peculiar narrative. First, it only makes sense if we forget the fact that the working
class was more likely to be sent off to Vietnam and killed; for this line of thought to be reasonable, their
interests in not dying have been erased from the historical record.
In fact, it was more the case that the more education one had, the more likely they were to
support the war. This means that the average working class person was more likely to be against the
Vietnam War than the average university student, a reality that flies in the face of the student
movement's haughty self-image.

The myth also doesn't align with the facts: the construction workers who beat up the protestors
were supported and encouraged to do so by construction firm executives and union leaders, to channel
growing worker discontent; they were asked to leave their job sites on May 8, and told that they
would still get paid if they went and confronted the protesters - some were [even] reportedly promised
a cash bonus.19 The people involved in the action were later questioned, and behind the facade of
tough talk about commie punks laid a vast outpouring of work grievances. 20 The action was also not
representative of the opinions of most union members: a poll after the events showed that 50%
disapproved of the attacks, while 30% supported them.21
Working class discontent is what ultimately gave lie to the idea that they were no longer
interested in struggle, or revolution. In the late 1960s, the post-war social compact broke down. In
manufacturing, the rate of profit was declining because of increased competition; Western Europe and
Japan had re-built themselves, and an overabundance of products was flooding the marketplace. The
system of more money for more production was being replaced by more work for less money or offshoring. 1973 saw a major oil crisis; it was a clear turning point into decades of economic slowdown.
By all accounts, in the late 60s and early 70s there was a sustained level of workplace struggle
that had not been seen since the Great Depression.
Not only did the total of lost hours shoot up; the post-war social contract was being
challenged. Workers weren't happy with just making more money; what's the use of having a vacation
home if you're spending all your time recovering from the stress of work?
Workers started to put forward demands that went beyond the simple wage rise (in exchange for
increased productivity); they wanted the line to slow down, and a less grueling pace of work; a safer
workplace; and, most importantly, a greater say in how the workplace was run. In short, more control
of the work place by the working-class.
The blue-collar working-class was revolting, and so were its white-collar counterparts, i.e. the
19

Penny Lewis. The Myth of the Hardhat Hawk. Jacobin. Issue 11-12. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/09/the-mythof-the-hardhat-hawk/ [Illustrations by Erin Schell]
20
John Zerzan. The Revolt Against Work. 1974. https://libcom.org/library/organized-labor-versus-revolt-against-workjohn-zerzan [On May 8, 1970, a large group of hard-hat construction workers assaulted peace demonstrators in Wall Street
and invaded Pace College and City Hall itself to attack students and others suspected of not supporting the prosecution of
the Vietnam war. The riot, in fact, was supported and directed by construction firm executives and union leaders, in all
likelihood to channel worker hostility away from themselves. Perhaps alone in its comprehension of the incident was public
television (WNET, New York) and its "Great American Dream Machine" program aired May 13. A segment of that
production uncovered the real job grievances that apparently underlined the affair. Intelligent questioning revealed, in a very
few minutes, that "commie punks" were not wholly the cause of their outburst, as an outpouring of gripes about unsafe
working conditions, the strain of the work pace, the fact that they could be fired at any given moment, etc., was recorded.
The head of the New York building trades union, Peter Brennan, and his union official colleagues were feted at the White
House on May 26 for their patriotism - and for diverting the workers? - and Brennan was later appointed Secretary of
Labor.]
21
Penny Lewis. Ibid.

army of office clerks, etc. White-collar workers were traditionally more docile, and looked down upon
the blue-collars due to their position of relative privilege in comparison to the members of the
working-class that work with their hands for a living.
By the end of the 1960s, many of these traditional (relative) privileges had been and much of
the white-collar workplace was beginning to acquire some shades of blue. They were also, like the
blue-collar working-class, demanding greater control of the workplace, what some referred to as selfmanagement.
Not only were workers rejecting the basis of the post-war compromise (between management
and the working-class) by challenging the prerogatives of management; some were rejecting the very
concept of work through various methods that amounted to what some termed the great refusal of
work.
The call for self-management and the revolt against work are moments of a larger New Left
theme; the attempt to dismantle hierarchies in every sphere, and to fight the Man, whether it be in
people's personal or public lives. The New Left's anti-hierarchical bend was its high point. It was
also, however, its biggest weakness.
The overturning of oppressive gender norms, or fighting for equal pay, has to be thought along
with the overturning of ancient relics and traditions during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
In Ultra-Leftist circles, smashing hierarchy quite frequently turned into a desire for
structurelessnesss. In a way, it was the next logical move: if one's goal is to abolish all hierarchy, 22 then
it is reasonable to expect that they would eventually think of structures themselves as a form of
hierarchy that needs to be done away with.23
In a way, the race riots that swept across the urban United States in the 1960s were emblematic
of this process. While not officially part of the New Left, 24 they were sometimes praised as potentially
22

Of course, one may also think that it should be limited to abolishing unnecessary hierarchies. While he is not
necessarily a member of the New Left, Noam Chomsky gives a good explanation of what is meant by this: The core of the
anarchist tradition, as I understand it, is that power is always illegitimate, unless it proves itself to be legitimate. So the
burden of proof is always on those who claim that some authoritarian hierarchic relation is legitimate. If they can't prove it,
then it should be dismantled.
Can you ever prove it? Well, it's a heavy burden of proof to bear, but I think sometimes you can bear it. So to take a
homely example, if I'm walking down the street with my four-year-old granddaughter, and she starts to run into the street,
and I grab her arm and pull her back, that's an exercise of power and authority, but I can give a justification for it, and it's
obvious what the justification would be. And maybe there are other cases where you can justify it. But the question that
always should be asked uppermost in our mind is, "Why should I accept it?" It's the responsibility of those who exercise
power to show that somehow it's legitimate. It's not the responsibility of anyone else to show that it's illegitimate. It's
illegitimate by assumption, if it's a relation of authority among human beings which places some above others. That's
illegitimate by assumption. Unless you can give a strong argument to show that it's right, you've lost. (Noam Chomsky.
Interview With Harry Kreisler. March 22, 2002. http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people2/Chomsky/chomsky-con2.html)
23
The opposite is also true as well, as is indicated by the proliferation of Marxist-Leninist groups towards the end of the
New Left
24
This being said, some of the members of the New Left participated in these riots, like many of the leaders of the League

radical. All order and hierarchy seemed suspended in protests of pure anger against the prevailing
order. State repression, whether it is police brutality, or the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., was
often the spark that lit up an existing mass of social strife. The riots were also usually not directed by a
main group25; if their organization went beyond everybody for themselves, its form usually resembled a
network of affinity groups.
Affinity groups are groups of 5 to 20 people,26 which organize around a shared interest or goal.
They are technically autonomous from larger bodies, and operate on the principle of convergence, or
coming together with other affinity groups, in a non-hierarchical manner, for specific aims and
purposes. In the case of the 1960s urban unrest, the principle of convergence, or the prevailing aim,
was rioting itself.
Groups which had been autonomous within larger organizations or groups were starting to
detach themselves from the movement, drifting off into the sectarian wilderness and becoming fully
autonomous.
This process arguably began with the turn to individual terrorism in the late 60s and early 70s.
It is interesting to note that many of these groups were influenced by Marxism-Leninism (even though
individual terrorism is usually looked down up in Marxist-Leninist circles). Among others were the
Front de Libration du Qubec (FLQ); the Baader-Meinhof-Gang (aka Red Army Faction) (in
Germany), which contained some members of the aforementioned Kommune 1; the Weatherman
Underground (in the US); and the Brigate Rosse in Italy.27 These groups were the product of a
downturn within the student movement, a growing impatience with traditional leftist organizations,
of Revolutionary Black Workers
25
There are some exceptions, such as Bill Epton and members of the Progressive Labor Party helping to incite the 1964
riots in Harlem: On July 16, 1964, a New York City cop, Thomas Gilligan, shot and killed a 15-year old African-American
high school student, James Powell, in cold blood. Over the next few days, the people of Harlem rose up in one of the first
major northern rebellions in that period, marking a new stage in the Black Liberation Movement.
At that time, Bill Epton was vice chair of the Progressive Labor (PL) and chair of its Harlem branch. Epton and his
comrades plastered the streets of Harlem with a poster: Wanted For Murder Gilligan the Cop. The city
administration
declared a state of emergency in Harlem, prohibiting all demonstrations. While most of the reformist leaders went
along
with this ban, Epton and the Harlem branch of PL called for a peaceful rally on 125th Street for July 25. When
Epton and
the others began to march, he was arrested, charged with 'criminal anarchy.' Epton was tried, found guilty and
sentenced to to one year in prison. (Progressive Labor Party. In Memoriam: Bill Epton, 1932-2002.
http://www.mltranslations.org/US/epton.htm)
26
Usually
27
These are only some of the most well-known groups; there were oftentimes numerous Marxist-Leninist terrorist groups
within a certain country. There were also groups in the third world that served as a model for these urban guerillas,
particularly Tupamaros in Uruguay.
Also, these groups were heavily influenced by Marxism-Leninism, but advocated terrorist actions that would often
be thought of as Ultra-Leftist; the types of actions that Marxist-Leninists denounce as individual terrorism. Anarchist
based terrorist groups existed, like the 2 June Movement (in West Germany), but they are not mentioned because their
existence is more predictable.

and, more importantly, the lack of a working-class revolution. Their acts of terrorism were meant to
incite the masses to revolt.
In 1970, the FLQ captured the British trade official James Cross. As one of the conditions for
his release, the FLQ demanded that their manifesto be read over the public radio (CBC/Radio-Canada).
On October 8, 1970, the workers of Quebec, were told over the radio to begin from this day forward
to take back what is yours; take yourselves what belongs to you. Only you know your factories, your
machines, your hotels, your universities, your unions; do not wait for some organization to produce a
miracle [italics mine]. Make your revolution yourselves in your neighbourhoods, in your places of
work. If you don't do it yourselves, other usurpers, technocrats or someone else, will replace the
handful of cigar-smokers we know today and everything will have to be done all over again. Only you
are capable of building a free society.28
The effectiveness of their actions is hard to measure. A poll taken after the manifesto was read
on the radio showed that only around 10% of the population agreed with the methods of the FLQ.
However, around 50% agreed with the manifesto's message.
Two years later, the call to revolution began to materialize. It started with the Common Front,29
a group of public sector unions that represented 210,000 (out of 250,000) public employees. Their
strike actions caused the government to react harshly. Striking hospital workers were jailed, and
workers were forced to agree to a back to work bill, banning normal trade union rights for two years.
The union leaders called for a fight against the imprisonment of fellow workers, as well as the
injunction. They were sentenced to a year in jail.
Within a matter of hours, workers began to strike. That night, in the town of Sept-les, a
workers' protest was disrupted by police, and a battle ensued. The revolt had begun.
Before it was all over, the province would be shook by a week-long general strike. Over
300,000 self-organized workers carried out the largest general strike in North American history.
In the period of a month, the people had occupied factories, and seized radio stations and
municipal administrations in small towns, where much of the revolt was centered not in the main
cities of Montral or Qubec City.
It is hard, when all is said and done, to estimate the influence of the FLQ on the Common Front.
Whether or not their manifesto had much of an effect is debatable; there is certainly a good case to
28

Front de Libration du Qubec. Manifesto of October 1970.

https://www.marxists.org/history/canada/quebec/flq/1970/manifesto.htm
29
For more English language information: George "Mick" Sweetman. 1972: The Qubec General Strike.
https://libcom.org/history/1972-the-quebec-general-strike ; Daniel Drache. Quebec, Only The Beginning; Manifestos of the
Common Front. Toronto: New Press. 1972 ; Nick Auf der Maur and Robert Chodos. Quebec: a chronicle 1968-1972: A Last
post special. Toronto: James Lewis & Samuel. 1972.

make for both sides.

Events like May '68 or the Common Front belied the myth that the working-class was no longer
revolutionary, or only interested in pay raises. As Clement Godbout, a Sept-les steelworker remarked
about the future: I see it as all right, because the workers have decided to stop fighting just for more
money and have decided to fight for a new society."
It was an era of peak militancy, but it was also the beginning of the end, so to speak. After the
early 1970s, the working-class seemed to be losing.

In 1970, the ruling-class of the first world looked on nervously as Salvador Allende became
Latin America's first democratically elected Marxist president. Something had to be done; when
economic starvation was not enough Nixon ordered CIA director Richard Helms to make the
economy scream the US carried out a coup d'tat. On September 11, 1973, they overthrew a
democratically elected regime, and installed an authoritarian dictatorship in its place. This is the
unofficial birthday of neoliberalism, the beginning of the capitalist counterattack.
The radicalization of the industrial working-class scared industrialists who were already worried
about falling rates of profit. This caused them to launch a massive attack on the working class, which
meant moving factories elsewhere, lowering corporate taxes, cutting welfare programs, etc.30
Unions were disintegrating and largely in decline from the mid 1970s onwards. So were activist
groups, which were splintering off to the point where the individual had become the supreme reality. It
didn't begin this way.
Originally, many New Left critiques were intended, at first, to show how traditional Leftist
organizations didnt measure up to their own ideals of equality. After the 60s, it is arguable that the
socialist-from-below impulse was channeled into the new forms of worker protest, or the new social
movements, in particular feminism, which, at least in its first political acts, came into being as
revolutionary education for revolutionaries, as living proof of their limitations.31
Soon though, this premise turned into a whole-sale abandonment of macro organizations. The
micro was all the rage, whether in forms of organization or in models for conceiving of power as
30

This happened in other sectors as well. For example, in the United States, the elites were worried about too much
democracy in the educational system. One of the problematic areas they identified was in liberal arts, which often had
more subjects involving critical thinking. One of the ways that they tried to move students out of the humanities was to
raise tuition rates, so that students could take on more debt, and be more likely to study things (like science, business, etc)
that would lead to a more immediate pay-off post graduation.
31
Robert Lumley. States of Emergency: Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978. London: Verso. 1990. [Mariella
Gramaglia quote]

constituted through everyday actions.

People sought to change the traditional leftist groups, but often left in frustration; women
began to drop out of organizations that they saw as male-dominated, black women began to leave
feminist groups that they saw as white and middle-class, etc. They formed groups that were supposed
to focus on their own oppression.
What took the place of the larger groups were groups that followed the logic of identity politics.
The Combahee Collective, a socialist-Black-lesbian-feminist group based in Boston from 1974 to 1980,
declared that this focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics.
We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own
identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else's oppression. In the case of Black women this is a
particularly repugnant, dangerous, threatening, and therefore revolutionary concept because it is
obvious from looking at all the political movements that have preceded us that anyone is more worthy
of liberation than ourselves. We reject pedestals, queenhood, and walking ten paces behind. To be
recognized as human, levelly human, is enough.
As neoliberalism became more entrenched, identity politics became all the rage. Everyone
seemed to wander off into their own corner, with good reason.
The internal politics of many of the New Left groups were filled with (among other things)
sexism, racism, as well as more general abuses of power and authority. The story of the decline of the
(New York) Young Lords is representative of a larger pattern of fragmentation and defeat.
The Young Lords began in 1960 as a Puerto Rican street gang in Chicago, and in 1967, became
more of a straightforward political organization, modeled on the Black Panther Party. They were
famous for taking over a neighborhood church, and using it as a center for community programs, such
as free breakfast and healthcare. The Chicago Young Lords inspired a group of Puerto Rican collegeeducated New Yorkers to set up a Young Lords organization centered in East Harlem (in 1969).
After conducting a neighborhood survey, the Young Lords decided that they were going to focus
on an issue that seemed relatively mundane compared to the anti-imperialist (and later Maoist)
aspirations of the Young Lords. The future Chairman, Felipe Luciano, later said that they went to the
people and asked them, What do you think you need? When people began to focus on the issue of
garbage collection, he thought, My god. All this romance, all this ideology to pick up garbage?
But thats what the citizens wanted. The city had been negligent in their duties, and rotting
garbage piled up throughout the summer. Outraged citizens had tried every moderate approach, with
no success.
The Young Lords decided that a more radical approach was needed. They called on the people

of East Harlem, or El Barrio, to take their trash and put it in the street; on Third Avenue, they formed
four to five foot tall barricades of trash, and then set on them on fire. This forced the Mayor to pick up
the garbage, and though there were numerous fights over this issue to come, the Young Lords had
shown the community that they were able to listen and effectively take action over an issue.
This focus on solving people's day-to-day problems, which is shown in some of their other
actions such as free clothing or breakfast programs, was not separate to their revolutionary aspirations,
but integral to it. They wanted to gain the confidence of the people, but also to give the people
confidence in themselves. The day-to-day struggles would sooner or later give way to the big picture.
By 1970, the group's membership stood at 1,000.
However, by late 1970, the Young Lords were already spiraling downwards. They parted ways
with the Chicago Young Lords, because they thought that they were too street and not focused
enough on serious work, like theory. This severing of ties did not help the organization, and allowed
for easier government repression.
The FBI was very interested in the Young Lords, and sought to infiltrate and break apart the
organization, as they sought to do in many other cases, such as their repression of the Black Panther
Party.32 Like the murders of Black Panthers such as Fred Hampton, execution was not out of the
question. An arrested Young Lord was found hanging in his jail cell; it was ruled a suicide, but many
were skeptical. At first, most of the group thought it was murder, but then some started to wonder if it
hadn't been suicide after all. The continued repression helped to fracture relations within the group and
break it apart.
But it wasn't only external forces that were responsible; certain internal divisions (that were
related to the outside world) also led to the demise of the group. There was a major split over
whether or not to base the group out of Puerto Rico. Part of the group left while the others stayed. For
those that left for Puerto Rico, their time on the island was severely disappointing: most of the locals
viewed them with suspicion, particularly because they were outsiders, and many could not speak
Spanish well (if at all).
When they came back, the group turned to a particularly dogmatic form of Marxism-Leninism
that gave up their roots in the community of El Barrio, and turning to the world of productive work,
where they sought to be a proper working-class organization. This turned out to be a massive failure.
As was often the case, there were also significant internal debates over issues of sexism in the
group. As one woman from the Young Lords put it, Life for women in the organization was pretty

32

Part of the COINTELPRO program

miserable.33 While the leadership was supposed to be open to anyone, in practice, woman faced the
same glass ceiling that they encountered in other parts of society. There were also debates over trans*
issues, with Sylvia Rivera, one of the members of the Stonewall Riot, often leading the charge. While
the Young Lords ended up adopting positions that were relatively radical on issues of gender, it was
only through periods of struggle. For example, Women, who made up almost half of the organization,
met for months in their own caucus and withheld sexual relations from the men until their demands
were ratified by the all-male Central Committee in June of 1970. The withholding of sex showed that
the youthful passion running through the Young Lords wasnt always under control or put to positive
ends. The organization encouraged sexual relationships among members but forbade ones with
outsiders due to fear of infiltration. Every member of the Central Committee violated this rule during
the 'no sex' strike.
Perhaps most importantly, the organization was run in a top-heavy way. It was typical of many
groups coming out of the early 1960s, and participatory democracy, to end up in Marxism-Leninism;
as the sixties dragged on, and the need for more effective models of organization became apparent,
many adopted the older (Marxist-Leninist) models that emphasized discipline (and to a certain
extent, centralization).
While the Young Lords were at their best when they sought to serve the people, they were
essentially run in a top-down manner (like their counterpart, the Black Panthers); input from the bottom
was accepted, and the people were supposed to the leaders. Ultimately though, decisions were made
at the top, in a Central Committee of no more than ten people. The top-heaviness of the group made it
easier for the government to repress; their mission was to target the leadership, and send the group into
disarray. In this, they were quite successful.
Two former Black Panthers were asked if they had any thoughts on mistakes made by the
Black Panther Party and what [could] be [learned] from them? One answered that they
would start [with] the structure of the organisation. One of the things that always sticks out in
my mind is how the BPP failed in terms of the leadership question. The leadership was not
accountable to the membership. After it became obvious that Huey Newton was clearly disabled
[to put it kindly suffering from mental paranoia not helped by heavy amounts of cocaine and
33

The enshrinement of 'revolutionary machismo' in the Lords original 13-point platform, for example, made it difficult for
young women to exercise their full potential within the organization. 'Life for women in the organization was pretty
miserable,' Denise Oliver later told filmmakers. While the Lords policy was to 'grant all members access to all
organizational activities,' women were blocked from taking leadership roles. Women, who made up almost half of the
organization, met for months in their own caucus and withheld sexual relations from the men until their demands were
ratified by the all-male Central Committee in June of 1970. The withholding of sex showed that the youthful passion
running through the Young Lords wasnt always under control or put to positive ends. The organization encouraged sexual
relationships among members but forbade ones with outsiders due to fear of infiltration. Every member of the Central
Committee violated this rule during the 'no sex' strike. (Mediashacker. Young Lords Party: examining its deficit of
democracy and decline (2008) http://libcom.org/library/young-lords-party-examining-its-deficit-democracy-decline)

an overdose of power] we werent able to remove him. [] Clearly having a tight organisation
didnt stave off repression in the BPP. Part of the reason it didnt is because of the leadership. I
mean, I cant lay everything at the leadership, we didnt carry our role in terms of challenging
as a body what we saw was clearly wrong and was harming the organisation. Thats all really
painful to look at. And I really loved Huey Newton and everything, at that period, more than
anyone. Still do to some extent. But there were many mistakes made.34
Mistakes were made, and the 1970s dragged on. By the end of the decade, revolution seemed far away.
In 1976, Mao died, and Deng Xiaoping took over two years after. Much like the election of
Francois Mitterrand in France a few years later (1981), the beginning of Deng's reign inspired hopes of
democratic socialism. After a couple of years, it became obvious, in both cases, that this was not
going to happen. Mitterrand, was part of a larger radicalization of social-democracy, but this had its
clear limits.35 The New Leftist idea of the long march through the institutions had produced a new
generation of bureaucratic sell-outs. Mitterand was no different.
By 1983, he had to reverse course and change the left-wing program that he had been elected
on. The Mitterand experience indicates where Social-Democracy is not enough: create all the
government programs that you want, but reform is not possible in the long-term. To protest, capitalists
will take their money out of the country, invest it elsewhere, and ruin the national economy. 36 The
(Social-Democratic) politician is not likely to be re-elected if this happens, and so stays on the ship
with all the other rats, sacrificing everything for the good of the economy.
By the 1980s, the reality of neoliberalism was starting to be accepted. Militant struggles were
being fought, for example in the Winter of Discontent in the UK (1978-79) or the air traffic controllers
strike in the United States (1981). The problem was that the working-class was losing; emboldened
34

Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin and JoNina Abron. Black autonomy: civil rights, the Panthers and today - Lorenzo Kom'boa
Ervin and JoNina Abron (Interview). (2000) https://libcom.org/library/black-autonomy-civil-rights-the-panthers-and-today
35
More broadly, it was emblematic of a leftward turn in social democracy after the 1960s, amid a burgeoning economic
crisis and escalating class struggle. That shift was apparent in social-democratic parties across Europe, as more left-wing
forces gained traction in country after country a dynamic manifested, during these years, in everything from the rise of
Bennism in the British Labor Party, to the plans adopted by the Swedish Social Democrats for wage-earner funds to
gradually socialize private industry.
Indeed, in many ways, Mitterrands victory represented the high-water mark of social-democratic radicalism during
the postwar period.
But if the Mitterrand experience reflects the radicalization inside European social democracy during the 1970s, it
also points to the limits of that radicalization. And in that regard, the early years of his presidency were characterized by his
attempt to grapple with the same kinds of constraints that the Syriza government faces today in Greece. (Jonah Birch.
The Many Lives of Franois Mitterrand. Jacobin. August 19, 2015. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/francoismitterrand-socialist-party-common-program-communist-pcf-1981-elections-austerity/)
36
But either way, the French case illustrates an important point for socialists to remember: the political power of the
capitalist class flows not just from what capital can do, but from what it can choose not to do invest. It is its control over
the investment function, not its collective organizations, that is the key source of capitalists power in the political sphere:
since, in a capitalist economy, investment is the prerequisite for growth, employment, and tax revenue, policymakers will
always have an incentive to prioritize the demands of business confidence over all other considerations.
The only alternative is to attempt to seize control over investment. This was not an approach that Mitterrand was,
in the end, willing to entertain. (ibid)

workers at the beginning of the decade were now largely on the retreat.37
It was in this time of defeat that the post New Left was born.

37

It is important to note that the New Left played itself out differently in each country: the impact of the New Left in
France and the United States, for example, was different in significant ways, mainly due to the fact that the United States
did not have a major communist or social democratic party like France did at the time; this meant that a lot of the
activism in the US was more liberal. The main actions of the New Left in either country were from the early 1960s to
the mid 1970s. The New Left in China arguably begin with the onset of the Cultural Revolution, and ended with,
depending on which marker one wants to choose, with the betrayal of the democratic socialists by Deng Xiaoping in
his first few years as paramount leader, or the massacre of Tienanmen Square (1989). While the New Left had lived on
in many different forms, it's defining period was over.

The Post New Left

The post New Left was born at the End of History, a period where many believed liberal
capitalism to be the best that humanity could do. It started somewhere in the late 70s/early 80s, and
came into its own after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The beginning of the era was a time of extreme
defeat and confusion for the Left; the post New Left has neither the certitude of the Old Left, nor the
optimism of the New Left.
If they survived, the old organizational models, particularly those associated with SocialDemocracy and Marxism-Leninism, resembled the Hegelian quip, first time as tragedy, second time as
farce. Others fell apart completely.
The British Labor Party went from being a social-democratic party that had left-wing, even
socialist, groups vying for influence, to a party that was taken over by Tony Blair and the Blairites.
New Labor had become the very thing it originally sought to oppose; it is often noted that Tony Blair,
in his actual policies, was more Thatcherist than Margaret Thatcher herself. The Labor Party
capitulated more quickly and in a more treacherous way than their Social-Democratic counterparts.38
The Naxalites39 in India were still strong, but the rest of Marxism-Leninism lay in ruins. The
two biggest pillars of state-socialism could not stop the capitalist onslaught. In China, a new capitalist
class was created from the communist party cadres; a similar process occurred in the former Soviet
38

In its essence, this project was to transform Labour into a bourgeois party. Its class basis in the trade unions was
marginalized, its residual commitment to reformist socialism was explicitly discarded (the famous Clause Four of the
partys constitution), and its policies were adapted to conform to the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. (Andrew Murray.
The Corbyn Leap. Jacobin Magazine. November 2, 2015. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/corbyn-labour-toriesleadership-miliband-blair-gordon-brown/)
39
The Naxalites are a Maoist group that, at any one time, controls 1/8 1/3 of India.

Union.
The thorough discrediting of Marxism-Leninism and Social-Democracy pushed Ultra-Leftism
into a leading role. This makes Ultra-Leftism the political current most strongly associated with the
post New Left.40 Subcommandante Marcos and the Zapatistas established a sort of anarchism-inone-territory in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. The role of affinity groups, for example, became a
central feature of some of the leading post New Left events, such as the Battle of Seattle in 1999. 41
Conservative estimates say that over 40,000 protested in Seattle during a World Trade Organization
Conference; it was primarily framed as a fight against globalization. The WTO, along with groups
like the IMF or the World Bank, is a key institution in the system of capitalist globalization. The fight
against capitalism became about transforming free trade into fair trade, something that,
incidentally, even someone like Donald Trump can get behind. When talking about wanting to
dismantle NAFTA and impose more tariffs, he said, "We don't need free trade, we need fair trade."
Prominent within the Battle of Seattle were the activities of the black bloc. We put the last
term in quotations because there isn't something like the (one and only) black bloc; instead the black
bloc is a type of tactic that anarchists (and Maoists) use to make protests a little more interesting. They
usually operate on an affinity group model, but in a protest are referred to in the singular (as the black
bloc).
In the midst of a protest, one can see swarms of black clothing (usually with a black hoodies
and black bandanas), sometimes darting around, sometimes more idle. Then you hear glass breaking;
someone in the black bloc has launched a trashcan through a bank window. You cheer, because fuck
banks and why not make things a little more radical?
Supporting the black bloc within certain circumstances is one thing; adhering to their general
assumptions is another. The outlook of the black bloc is marked by a certain way of appreciating direct
action; while there is no general theoretical consensus among the black bloc, some draw a distinction
between symbolic protest and direct action. Examples of symbolic protest include peaceful
marches, petitions, etc.
Members of the black bloc often view these things as being inauthentic when compared to
say, smashing a window, throwing paint or street fighting with the cops. This is a curious way to look at
things, because usually the actions of the black bloc is what makes the news. A relatively peaceful
march of two hundred thousand people can be overshadowed by the actions of a few hundred people,
taking up the most of the media space; and the irony is that the desire to go beyond symbolic action
40

Social-Democracy is the second most prominent, proving once against the old adage about the dialectical unity of ultraleftism and reformism.
41
The Hardt/Negri idea of the multitude is linked to this concept of a network of free-floating affinity groups

becomes its opposite, a love of the spectacle; the attempt to go beyond the merely symbolic ends in
some of the most symbolic actions of the march.
Symbolic actions were certain everywhere: the most notable leftist event of the early 2000s
were the anti-war demonstrations against the War in Iraq (2003). 42 It was the first time that millions of
people all over the world protested a war before it ended started. It unfortunately didn't do much; as is
common knowledge, the US invaded Iraq and was as destructive as the Mongols who invaded Bagdad
seven hundred forty-five years earlier, precipitating the downfall of the Islamic Golden Age.

The post New Left was also the time of third-wave feminism, and the questioning of binaries,
particularly the binary between male and female. This brought the *trans perspective into feminist
politics, creating a disconnect between second-wave feminists, adhering to ideas of the essence of
men and women, and third-wave feminists, who (rightly) insisted on questioning the assumption that
the world only consists of men and women.
What second-wave feminists find uncomfortable about is that this critique could lead to getting
rid of the category of woman altogether; if this were to happen, then the ability to name the
specificity of women's oppression would be eliminated. There is something to be said for the secondwave position, nevertheless, the third-wave has changed the way that gender should be viewed for
good; the goal should no longer (just) be about equality between men and women, but a genderneutral standard for society.
This debate, between second and third wave feminists, was part of a larger debate between the
(old) essentialisms and the (new) anti-essentialisms. The New Left grew up in the ages of late
modernism and early postmodernism, while the post New Left is fully postmodern.43
Whereas the Old Left (and significant parts of the New Left) tried to locate oppressions into a
larger system (like capitalism, patriarchy, etc), the post New Left has tended to view oppression in a
particularlized manner; attempts at telling (certain) master narrative (whether it be a Marxist,
feminist, etc) were denounced as essentialism, the philosophical crime of locating the source of
meaning within one thing (i.e. boiling everything to down to one level of meaning); for example the
people who interpret everything in a sexual way, or the person who responds to everything with, it's
cause I'm ____, isn't it?
While the post New Left (and the later part of the New Left) have been helpful in critiquing
42

This may seem like a contradiction to say that

The division between the late modernist and early postmodernist phases of the New Left is a good way of describing
the difference between what historians often term the first New Left and the second New Left
43

reductionist attitudes that are still prevalent, they oftentimes ended up missing the forest for the trees;
their insistence that the particularity of something should be highlighted made them unable to link their
critiques to the wider world around them; not focusing on the reality of certain concepts, above the
particular instances that one may encounter, makes it difficult to change them, sort of the like the
liberal who doesn't see race. This means whenever someone makes an anti-essentialist critique, one
can be sure that some of the most vulgar essentialisms will follow.
What the Old, New, and post New Left have struggled to conceptualize is a de-essentialized
essence, akin to the idea of phantom-like objectivity (that will be discussed later on).

The rollback of the (postwar) welfare state is part and parcel of neoliberalism; it is popularly
known as austerity, and has been a constant theme for the post New Left. Fighting austerity has
become the order of the day, which means that it's not only the right that is being targeted; so are
traditionally social-democratic parties like the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who have
pushed for an austerity from the left. In doing so, the SPD has greatly contributed to its own
irrelevance; it's membership has dropped from a high of over one million, in 1976, to just under
460,000 today.
Mainstream social-democracy looked like it was dying slowly; then, the 2008 economic crisis
hit, causing a resurgence in its radicalized wing.
In Europe, left parties had formed in the years before and after the crisis from the fragments
of the existing Left. Communists, radical environmentalists, feminists, and social-democrats created
parties like die Linke in Germany, Syriza in Greece, or Podemos in Spain. 44 The success of these parties
has varied; the Syriza saga deserves a closer look.
Greece before the 2008 crisis was doing relatively well economically. It was shown as a
model for how the Balkans and the Middle East should develop, and was the regional poster child of
the EU. the When the bubble burst, Greece (along with countries like Spain and Ireland, the former
Celtic Tiger) was hit especially hard. The government began imposing austerity measures to balance
the budget, which was not enough. They borrowed money, on the condition (from the creditors) that
further austerity was to be imposed.
Finally, after years of a downward spiral, one party seemed to offer hope. In the elections in
January 2015, Syriza was one of the only parties that was openly against austerity; the other two were
44

Many of these movements, particularly Podemos, draw theoretical inspiration from Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe;
this is a mistake and should be a source of concern.

the KKE (the Communist Party) and Golden Dawn (the far-right party, albeit for different reasons).
They received 36.3% of the vote, and were the leading party, capturing 149 out of 300 seats in
parliament. Suddenly, a small country of 10.8 million people was in the center of European news; eyes
around the world were on Greece, because in many ways the fate of Greece said a lot about Europe's
future, which in turn, would have a impact on the politics of the rest of the world. For many, it seemed
like there was something beyond austerity; Syriza seemed to provide a way out of the crisis. After
meeting with top European Union officials, and trying to buy some time, Syriza went to the people
and held a referendum about the austerity plan.
The results showed that the Greek people said No to the European Union's offer. The problem
was that it wasn't clear what people were saying yes to. The centrist and rightist elements of Syriza
seized on this ambiguity, and ended up capitulating to the European Union's demands. It was
technically allowable, but it left a nation feeling betrayed, yet again; this time by the people who
were supposed to be on our side.
The left-wing of Syriza broke off and formed it's own party; in the next elections, Syriza won
again, with 35.5% of the vote; the left wing opposition (Popular Unity) obtained 2.86% of the vote,
falling short of the 3% needed to obtain representation in parliament.45

Other events in continental Europe are The Left Bloc forming a coalition government (with the
Socialist Party) in Portugal, and the rise of Podemos in Spain. Parties like Syriza and Podemos grew
out of the (post 2008) protest movements. In Spain, the indignatos (or the 15-M Movement) organized
massive demonstrations against austerity, unemployment, and for a more democratic government. Out
of a country of 46 million, around 6.5 8 million people participated. Unemployment nearing 25% and
youth unemployment hovering around 50% is stark, but it is a situation that a lot of Europe is facing.
The sole exception seems to be Germany, but they are not quite the economic powerhouse that they
were a few decades before.
Given that economic hard times have become so widespread, one would expect more of a Left
reaction, in the home of modern socialism. Things, however, have been quiet on the Western Front.
In the 2012, the Left Front ran Jean-Luc Mlenchon for president, in a highly publicized campaign. He
received 11% of the vote, which isn't shabby, but still came in fourth place. Besides this, the French
Left has been virtually non-existent. The Socialist Party was elected the governing party in 2012, and
continued to impose austerity that began under Sarkozy; their slide to the right continued after
45

Panagiotis Alexiou provided advice for the section on Greece.

Mitterand's retreat in 1983; by now, they are, at best, in the center. The lack of a left wing has had
disastrous consequences.
It is no surprise that in the wake of the 2015 Paris attacks, the (far right) Front National obtained
record vote numbers in the regional elections, capturing about 27% of the electorate. The (center right)
Republicans, led by Nicolas Sarkozy, got 40% of the vote. The home of the French Revolution, the
Paris Commune and May '68 (along with the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848) has found itself under a
very dark cloud, and things are pretty grim.
In the East, things are even worse; the far right is more emboldened than in the West, where it
clearly still an issue. There is no significant left of any kind to speak of in many of the countries. In
Russia, Vladimir Putin has held sway for nearly two decades.
It is an odd turn of history that, in the developed world, the most interesting Leftist activity
has occurred primarily in the Anglo-American world, and specifically in the United States. Odd in
the sense that, despite having a rich Leftist history, the United States is not particularly known for its
radicalism. It doesn't help that the recent hegemonic imperialists of the capitalist world system have
been the British Empire, and then the United States; it can be hard to organize in the heart of empire.
In a way, it started with the Arab Spring in December 2010; millions poured into public squares
and demanded freedom and democracy. They overthrew their governments and set an example for the
rest of the world. The ensuing aftermath has been less than desirable, but images of people in the
streets protesting have inspired millions. Some of the inspired set up camp in Zuccotti Park on
September 17, 2011, located in the financial district of New York City. They would stay there until
November 15.
The issues that concerned them were seemingly infinite in number, but two main ideas seemed
to reverberate. The first was that democracy has become a sham. This was due to the second idea: that
society is split between a ruling class, the 1%, and the lower classes, the 99%. 46 The group became
known as Occupy Wall Street, and their message spread quickly, inspiring similar occupations in
central squares all over the country, and the rest of the world. It is easy to ridicule for Occupy for not
doing much concretely, or for their silly (?) ultra-leftist procedures, like consensus democracy (more on
this later). But ultimately, the impact of Occupy is immeasurable. When Occupy started, in 2011,
America had been through nearly three years of the Obama presidency, whose 2008 campaign slogan
had been Hope and Change. By 2011, there were no significant (positive) changes to be seen, and
46

The idea of a class struggle between the 99% and the 1% is Marxist in origin, having been introduced by Black
Panther Party member, George Jackson, in the early 1970s. More recently, of course, it reappeared in the discourse of the
Occupy movement, where it infused a certain type of class politics into the self-understanding and public profile of the
movement. (Steve D'Arcy. George Jackson on 'the 1%' and 'the 99%.' The Public Autonomy Project. December 20,
2013. http://publicautonomy.org/2013/12/20/george-jackson-on-the-1-and-the-99/)

people consequently began to lose hope in the system. Occupy served to redefine the political field:
confused as the idea of the 99% and 1% is, it helped to draw attention to a little mentioned, but severe
problem within American life: the gap between the rich and the poor is the biggest that humanity has
ever seen. It also helped to bring the general idea of a ruling class into the political discourse of a
country that previously liked to think of itself as universally middle-class. Poor people didn't exist, or
were the result of bad decisions; in either scenario, Occupy was able to bring across the idea that most
people are not economically well off. While there may have been extreme single-issue identity politics
mentalities at work, the overall impression of Occupy was that the oppressed need to come together,
not split apart.
However, it also gave a lesson in state repression; the squares were not going to stay occupied
forever, and the police eventually moved in. Even if they hadn't, it is doubtful that the movement would
have been able to go much further; in a way, the police repression allowed it to save face.

Police repression continued elsewhere, in its normal role. While police repression negatively
impacts whites (who are not trans*, sex workers, etc.), it tends to be disproportionally aimed at nonwhite communities, particularly lower-income black and brown ones.
Cops brutalizing black people is nothing new; many of the 1960s urban riots, for example,
began as protests against incidents of police brutality. In 1991, a man named George Holliday caught
video footage of the LAPD beating Rodney King. This video changed everything. Now, it was there for
everyone to see, whereas before it had been mostly based on conjecture. When the four officers charged
with assault were acquitted at the state level, South Central L.A. exploded into one of the largest riots
in U.S. history, lasting six days.
Fast forward to France, 2005: outside of Paris, in a suburb named Clichy-sous-Bois, three
youths are running from the police, and hide in a power-station. Two are electrocuted, causing a
blackout. For the next three weeks, there was rioting in the suburbs and torched cars everywhere. This
outburst made already existing tensions more visible: Fifteen hundred cars had to burn in a single
night and then, on a descending scale, nine hundred, five hundred, two hundred, for the daily norm to
be reached again, and people to realize that ninety cars on average are torched every night in this gentle
France of ours. A sort of eternal flame, like that under the Arc de Triomphe, burning in honour of the
Unknown Immigrant.47
In 2011, there were riots in London (and then the rest of England) over the police shooting a
47

Jean Baudrillard. The Pyres of Autumn. New Left Review (37) January-February 2006, pg. 5

local man, Mark Duggan. Then in 2012, in Florida, George Zimmerzan shot a (black) teenager named
Trayvon Martinm who was visiting the suburban gated community where his fathers fiance lived.
The homeowners of The Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Florida had suffered massive losses of
equity in the years immediately following the crisis, the value of their homes collapsing, and a couple
of recent break-ins had heightened the anxiety. Neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman
was armed and patrolling the area, anticipating a return of the culprits. The appearance of an
unrecognised individual, apparently fitting their racialised profile in Zimmermans mind, prompted him
to call the police, before getting involved in some confrontation. That Trayvon had been armed with
only a packet of Skittles and an Arizona Ice Tea when shot, but had been clothed in a standard racial
signifier the hoodie would establish the symbolic coordinates of the case.48 The issue was
highly charged, and ended up receiving more media coverage than the 2012 U.S. Presidential Race.
The capacity for a single fatality to set in motion what would once it had met with some
powerful cross-currents become the most significant wave of US struggles in decades thus
demands some explanation, and it is here that the particularities of hashtag activism become more
important, alongside other key factors. The recent mass uptake of easy-to-use digital tools had lowered
the bar for political mobilisation, generalising capacities for active production and dissemination of
information. This brought possibilities for countering or bypassing mainstream news agendas, and
facilitating processes of questioning the standard practice of simply reiterating police reports within
popular media. Other narratives could now be collectively constructed on the basis of relatively little
effort on the part of individuals, pulling together particular instances that in previous times would not
have been linked. In this context, along with minorities receiving the usual disproportionate ills from a
failing economy, the death of Trayvon Martin was a signal flare illuminating a tortured landscape.
There was thus nothing idle about the comparisons that would become commonplace between him and
Emmett Till, the murdered 14-year-old whose mutilated features helped spur the civil rights
movement.
When Zimmerman was acquitted in 2013, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter brought (the rest of)
America's attention to a little-stated fact: as a rule, black lives don't matter as much as white lives in our
racist system.49 It went from a hashtag to a decentralized movement with no formal hierarchy or
48
49

Endnotes. Brown vs. Ferguson. Endnotes. Issue 4. October 2015. http://endnotes.org.uk/en/endnotes-editorial-4

A 24 March 2012 Trayvon demonstration in Hollywood seems to have been the occasion for the first deployment of
Black Life Matters as a slogan and hashtag, perhaps responding to Trayvons father, Tracy Martins assertion just a
few days before at the Million Hoodie March, that Trayvon did matter. In Martins case it seems to have been meant
programmatically: that Trayvon would be made to matter through a campaign, in his name, for justice. Similar
performative intent may be perceived in the slogans that emerged at this time. #BlackLivesMatter appeared perhaps
as a corruption of the existing sloganin the response of @NeenoBrowne to the 12 April announcement that
Zimmerman would be charged with murder; the meme may well have an older provenance than that.

structure.
The next big showdown was in Ferguson, Missouri, a mostly (impoverished) black suburb of St.
Louis. Michael Brown was accused of stealing a couple packages of dutches: Office Darren Wilson
decided to be the judge and the executioner. Reports differ, with Wilson saying that Brown reached for
his gun. To many though, it looked like murder. A non-violent protest ended with rioting and the
National Guards being called in. These protestors proved that, the masses are the true heroes;
America vigorously debated the issue for weeks to come.
Similarly, the home of The Wire erupted when the police killed Freddie Gray. Radicals and local
youth gathered and ran through the downtown area, smashing windows and stomping on the hoods of
cop cars. It seems like the 60s are back.

Campus activism is also on the rise. The occupation of UC Berkeley in 2009 (to protest raising
tuition by 32%) led to the popularity of the no demands model that was adopted by Occupy, and
other university occupations. In England, there were demonstrations against tuition hikes that ended in
riots. In Qubec, the Printemps rables50 was a half-year long student strike against proposed postsecondary school tuition hikes;51 at its height, there were over two protests a day and over 300,000 out
of 460,000 students were on strike; massive demonstrations of 100,000 to 300,000 people seemed to be
a somewhat regular occurrence.
While a precedent already existed, in Qubec, of post-secondary students going on strike, the
2012 strike was the largest and most sustained (i.e. longest) strike to date. Originally, the non-student
population was largely against the students: Before the passage of a controversial emergency state bill
(Law 78), when asked if the people we were on the side of the students or the government, 24% of the
people supported the students. After the passage of Law 78, that number shot up to 42%. On the
question of whether the controversial, and likely unconstitutional, special law known as Loi 78 went
'too far,' 53 per cent agreed that it did, while 32 per cent judged it to be fair and balanced and 8 per cent
thought it didn't go far enough.52
Things seemed to be going our way. Suddenly the protests were looking older (and younger,

50
51
52

#BlackLifeMatters remained more common than #BlackLivesMatter through 2012. The activists who would become
known as the originators of the latter trace their own story back to the struggles of summer 2013, after Zimmerman was
acquitted of all charges. (ibid)
(Ibid)
The Maple Spring; in French, is a play on the the term Printemps arabe (Arab Spring)
CGEPs (pre-university) and universities
Ethan Cox. New Poll Is Bad News For Charest In His Battle With Students. Rabble.ca (May 22, 2012).
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/ethan-cox/2012/05/new-poll-bad-news-charest-his-battle-students

because of babies and small children); it was becoming a social movement. The possibilities for change
seemed unbounded to many of us.
Then, the summer came and went; elections were in the fall. The old adage about the unity of
Ultra-Leftism and Social-Democracy came true once again; (one part of) the movement's vigorous
ultra-leftism covered up the other Social-Democratic side of the movement, who was expecting to vote
in the answer in the upcoming elections. The social-democratic party, the Parti Qubecois, was voted
in, and the ruling party, the Liberals, were voted out. The PQ, of course, betrayed the students. The left
wing of the movement had predicted it, but by the time that tuition fees were raised, and school funding
cut, it was too late.
One of the biggest failures was the inability to link up with working class struggles. Tentative
calls for a '68 style student-labor alliance were made, but not taken up. 53 Part of the problem is that
combative working class struggle has been virtually non-existent in the wealthy capitalist countries,
when compared with the 1930s or the 1970s. Developing countries have fared better in this respect,
but still face issues of their own. For example, China has been hit with a myriad of protests: labor
struggles, environmental protests, anti-government protests, etc. However, the nature of the labor
struggles has lately taken a defensive turn, as China is now outsourcing its manufacturing to other
places in southeast Asia, or parts of Africa.
De-industrialization is a misleading term to describe what is happening. Sure, jobs are being
outsourced from all the big players in the capitalist world. But more jobs are being lost to
mechanization. The sad truth is that capitalists aren't in need of laborers; at this point in the capitalist
world system, there are too many. Our bargaining power is weakened, and a relentless drive against
unions ensues. The phenomenon of precarious work becomes a widespread reality.54 While this has
been the case for a lot of capitalist history, the nature of precarity today is a major problem; not only
is the old system of benefits eroding (if aren't already gone): lifetime employment, healthcare,
retirement, etc. There are simply too many workers from the standpoint of the capitalist mode of
production. This has lead people to wonder if a Universal Basic Income is the answer: if the
government gives everyone a mandatory wage, wouldn't that solve this problem?55
Arguably, the biggest strikes in the United States in recent years have been the 2012 Chicago
Teachers' Union strike,56 and the 2012 strikes (in California and Illinois) at key Walmart distribution
53
54

55
56

Attempts were made; for example, trying to shut down the port of Montral
See Aaron Benanav. Precarity Rising. Viewpoint Magazine. June 15, 2015 and Charlie Post. Were All Precarious
Now. Jacobin. April 20, 2015
In the process, allowing the government to slash social services, as in Finland
For more on this, read Micah Uetricht. Strike For America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity. London: Verso 2014

centers.57 Organizing in the main arteries of the capitalist network is a priority for socialists in the 21 st
century, as workforces become (in many ways) more diffuse. As was pointed out, if young radicals are
thinking about how to organize Walmart, should they try to organize at a store or a distribution center?
While there might be some benefit in organizing at the store level, at the latter, a small, concerted
group of radicals can make an impact to disrupt and bring the company to its knees for a short period of
time and exercise more social power.58 Currently, campaigns have been based on the Fight for 15
model; while this movement is exciting, and has gained some victories at a municipal level (for
example Seattle), it has not been as successful in organizing in the actual workplace.
Some areas of hope exist, but overall, things have been bleak. Currently, all that remains of
the workers movement are unions that manage the slow bleed-out of stable employment; social
democratic parties that implement austerity measures when conservative parties fail to do so; and
communist and anarchist sects that wait (actively or passively) for their chance to rush the stage. These
organisations have hardly been consigned to the dustbin of history. Yet none is likely to rejuvenate
itself on the world scale.59
It is against this background that significant electoral events are happening in the United States
and Britain.

If someone had suggested in 2006 that Bernie Sanders would eventually be a serious candidate
for U.S. president, they would have been laughed out of the room, even if that room was filled with
leftists.60 That person would have looked equally as crazy suggesting that the leader of the Labour party
was going to be the socialist, Jeremy Corbyn.
While the Labour Party, as previously discussed, has had a a history of a veritable socialist
opposition, it seemed as if this left-wing had become a fossil at the End of History. The rise of the
socialist Jeremy Corbyn would have been unthinkable in the pre-2008 era.
The media tried everything to stop it; even attempting to paint him as a died-in-the-wool
Stalinist. The character attacks didn't work, and when asked about how the opposition was trying to
paint him in the media, Corbyn gave a good answer for why, (and talking about how a lot of the
opposition doesn't focus on substance but works from personal attacks): There's something very
interesting about this summer; thousands of people have suddenly come out to discuss politics. And it's
57
58
59

60

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/17/warehouse-workers-strike-illinois_n_1891499.html
Charlie Post. Were All Precarious Now. Jacobin. April 20, 2015
Endnotes. History of Separation: Part 5. Endnotes. Issue 4. October 2015. http://endnotes.org.uk/en/endnotes-historyof-separation-part-5
Although not of the extremely naive Social-Democratic kind

not about personality, it's not about individuals, it's about ideas. They're fed up with all this personality
stuff, and they want ideas. It's great.61
This also applies to Bernie Sanders. He is a good speaker, but not a great one; though he appeals
to young people, he is an aging hippie/leftie holdover from the 60s. The Vermont senator was, for a
long time, the only well-known American politician to describe themselves as socialist, in a barren
political environment dominated by the Left and Right wings of the Capitalist Party. Sanders' policies
are mild Social-Democratic reformism (at best); he calls himself a socialist but reminds his voters that
the next time you hear me attacked as a socialist like tomorrow remember this: I dont believe
government should take over the grocery store down the street, or own the means of production []
But I do believe that the middle class and the working families of this country, who produce the wealth
of this county, deserve a decent standard of living, and that their incomes should go up, not down.
This message has made him the most popular candidate in the 2016 Presidential election so far.
Bernie's focus on the economy is refreshing, even if ultimately underwhelming (policy-wise). He
has made the other candidates (on both the right and the left) talk about the need for a more equal
distribution of wealth; his strategy is working, because 63% of Americans think that the distribution of
wealth is unfair, and 52% approve of taxing the rich more.62
Also, Bernie has an outsider appeal; although he's been in publicly elected positions for
decades now, he seems like he actually inhabits Earth, and deals with normal people within it. Besides
Donald Trump and Ben Carson (both of whom are awful), the other candidates are responsible,
establishment politicians, like Jeb Bush, that are effectively unelectable. They do not seem to reach the
seventy-five percent of Americans who distrust the Republicans and Democrats.
The 2016 presidential race has shown that voters are rallying behind candidates who, though
still part of the two-party system, are far outside the traditional establishment of both the Democratic
and Republican parties. Earlier this year, Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders was polling in first place
in both the Iowa and New Hampshire Democratic primaries, while Donald Trump has led the
Republican field virtually all year long. Disillusionment with the old way of doing things and the
hunger for something new is palpable.63
The Left has been split over how to relate to Bernie; his campaign is causing huge waves of
61
62

63

from guardian.co.uk video - https://www.facebook.com/theguardian/videos/10153524350376323/?fref=nf

Frank Newport. Americans Continue To Say U.S. Wealth Distribution Is Unfair. Gallup. May 4, 2015.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/182987/americans-continue-say-wealth-distribution-unfair.aspx
Erica Sagrans. The Rise of Podemos In Spain's Elections Shows How Much Trouble the Political Establishment Is In:
From Spain's Nueva Poltica to Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, outsider candidates and parties are catching fire,
creating new spaces for political revolution. In These Times. December 20, 2015.
http://inthesetimes.com/article/18713/spain-2015-election-results-podemos-PSOE-PP-IU-Cs

consternation, denunciation, and 'aha-gotcha-I-knew-you-were-wrong' statements among the shrinking

sects and basement dwellers.64 What some comrades in countries with established social-democracy
forget is that the U.S. is notable for its lack of social-democracy; the leftist institutionalism that is
characteristic of a country like Spain, or Japan, has never existed in the U.S.
This means that the campaign for Bernie has largely been grassroots and autonomous/selfdirected. Our lack of a social-democratic party becomes an advantage: it will give people an experience
in grassroots organizing that they can carry into future movements.
Jeremy Corbyn is a bit different, because Britain has more of an established leftist history.
Nonetheless, the fact that a socialist that has been elected the leader of a (rotting) social democratic
party is different from groups like Syriza or Podemos, who formed new parties, and (depending on who
you ask) zapped/re-directed/built off of the energies of previous social movements.
How successful would Corbyn or Sanders be, given the chance to be Prime Minister or
President? The truth is, not very. Their campaigns have generated a shift to the left, but this is about all
they can do, besides some very minor reforms. Current structural problems prevent any kind of socialdemocratic fix.
As Endnotes points out, states are taking out debt to prevent the onset of a debt-deflation
spiral; however, their capacity to take out this debt is based on the promise of future economic growth.
A combination of slow growth and already high debt levels has meant that government officials have
found themselves trapped between two opposed pressures. On the one hand, they have needed to spend
huge quantities of money to prevent recession from becoming depression. On the other, they have
already spent so much over the past few decades that they have little left to give.
Thus, instead of spending even more, governments in the richer countries engaged in
campaigns of austerity: to show their creditors that they remained in control of their finances, they cut
social services at the same time as they handed out money to bankers. Austerity has had devastating
consequences for workers. Public employees found themselves without jobs. The costs of education
and healthcare rose just as households incomes were pinched. Meanwhile, without a boost to demand
for goods and services, private economies stagnated. Creditor nations have been remarkably successful
in preventing any departure from this line among debtors.
This contradictory logic, we argued, shaped the unfolding crisis and so also the struggles that
erupted in response to it. Many people claimed that government officials were acting stupidly or even
crazily: shouldnt they have been making the banks pay in order to bail out the people, rather than the
other way around? The main explanation offered for this irrationality was that governments had been
64

Matt Hoke's phrasing

captured by moneyed interests; democracy had given way to oligarchy. It was in this way that the form
of the crisis determined the form of class struggle in this period: it became a contest of real democracy
against austerity. Real democracy could, according to the logic of the protests, force the state to
intervene in the interest of the nation, rather than that of crony capitalists.
In reality, governments have few options available to them, regardless of who is at the helm,
for this crisis is one not of crony or neoliberal capitalism but rather of capitalism itself. The latter is
beset by ever slower rates of economic growth. As productivity levels continue to rise in this context,
the result has been an ongoing production of surplus populations alongside surplus capital, excesses
which the economy has trouble absorbing. The social order persists, but it is slowly unraveling. The
categories of our world are increasingly indistinct. When protesters have come together in this context,
they have typically found it difficult to locate a common ground on which to build their struggle, since
they experience the crisis in such diverse ways some worse than others. The perspectives of the
old workers movement are dead and gone, and thus unavailable as a substantial basis for common
action. How are we to account for the failure of that movement to revive itself when workers
everywhere are getting screwed?65
The politics of the post New Left are folk politics, reflected in the (awkward) use of y'all
and folks (by people who did not grow up saying those terms); the attempt to be gender neutral turns
into a weird rural cultural appropriation.66
If folk politics is the practical side of the post New Left, the theoretical side is best
represented by intersectionality.
Some sneer at its status as a theory, claiming that it is nothing more than a bunch of common
sense assertions. Perhaps this is true, but these axioms form something of a worldview in their own
right, and should not be dismissed out of hand.
Intersectionality is simply the idea that (1) there are multiple types of oppression, (2) these
types of oppression are interrelated, and (3) their point of intersection is the individual. In a way,
intersectionality, and bodies of thought like Marxism, are in agreement on the first two points; where
65

66

Endnotes. Editorial #4. Endnotes. Issue 4. October 2015. http://endnotes.org.uk/en/endnotes-editorial-4

In reality, despite the offers of Marxist economists to save European capitalism from itself, states will continue to
find that they have very little room for manoeuvre, since they are beset by high debt levels and slow growth. It will
therefore be difficult for governments to deal with the catastrophic events to come, whether these are further economic
crises, or the already emerging consequences of global climate change, regardless of who is in charge. These pessimistic
conclusions are now becoming common, in a way that was not true in 201112, marking an important transition in
public discourse. A growing, although still small portion of the population now understands that the state even a real
democratic statewill not be able to revive capitalist economies. To bring this onwards-grinding wreck to a halt, the
passengers can only count on themselves.
Note, this term is only being used for the purposes of humor

they happen to differ is on the third point. Both try to escape from identity politics, going about it in
different ways.
The truth is, no one has ever been quite comfortable with the label of identity politics. While the
Combahee Collective might have used it as a positive term, it has since been the bane of existence of
intersectionalists, Marxists, and conservatives.
The problem is that, while all three of these groups seem to be against the concept, they secretly
accept the rules of identity politics, and its postmodern mutation, intersectionality. 67 This deeper unity
points to the fact that intersectionality is not just a theory: it is the political logic of late(r)-capitalism.68
It is more than just a leftist discourse, and structures the political spectrum as a whole.
This means that intersectionality works both ways; it was originally a term used by Kimberl
Crenshaw, in a series of articles written between 1989 and 1991. Her subject was the double burden
that black women carried within the legal system. She was working in Legal Studies, but the term
spread to other parts of the academy, eventually trickling down to the activist lingo. But the ideas that
are prominent in leftist intersectionality are also used by the Right to talk about another doubly
burdened figure: the white male.
From the 1970s until the present day, politics has been under the spell of identity politics; for
the present moment, we are using identity politics to talk about a specific moment in capitalist history,
and not about a feature of capitalist in general. 69 Identity politics is a division of the political space into
special interest groups that increasingly have little to do with one another; as was mentioned before, the
Combahee Collective believed that The most profound and potentially [...] radical politics come
directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else's oppression.
This was not only something that occurred on the New Left; it was part of the legacy of the
New Right.
In the United States, it began with Barry Goldwater's crushing defeat in the 1964 Presidential
race, a loss so bad that it led the right wing to radically rethink their strategy. They had to tone down
the economic conservationism, and fight the culture wars. Their main tactic was to channel popular
discontent towards a New Class that controlled the media, the school system (particularly the
universities) and the government. It doesn't quite make sense to put the lefties in charge of PBS in the
same boat with the CEO of GE; but for a lot of Americans, it had a certain logic.
67

68
69

Perhaps the strangest thing about identity politics is that its a political orphannobody wants to claim it as her own.
Identity politics has become a philosophical punching bag, and yet it remains the underlying politics of the Left over the
last thirty-five years or so, despite protestations of queer theorists and most contemporary advocates of intersectionality
and privilege politics. (Sherry Wolf. Unite and Fight? Marxism and Identity Politics. Issue 98: Fall 2015.
Intersectionality is the political logic of late(r)-capitalism. [Aphorism XLIII]
The ways in which identity is a general feature of capitalism will be brought up later on.

It was perceived as consistent because the New Right erased the economic basis of class by
measuring class based on cultural values and preferences. Class, conservatives insist, is not really
about money or birth or even occupation. It is primarily a matter of authenticity, that most valuable
cultural commodity. Class is about what one drives and where one shops and how one prays, and only
secondarily about the work one does or the income one makes. 70 This effectively means that one can
measure one's distance from or affinity with the working class by what products one consumes or what
cultural activity one participates in. Thus, the multi-millionaire who drinks beer, drives a pick-up, and
watches football is effectively on the same social footing as the meat-packer. By moving the definition
of class onto the terrain of culture, the New Right has been able to portray itself as allied with the
working class while propagating a gross caricature of liberals as arrogant college graduates driving
Volvos and reading poetry.71 This is possible because liberals are painted as having an all-powerful,
yet deleterious, influence over American society. Thus, conservative commentators constantly lament
liberal control over the universities, the media, public education, the arts, and the public sector to name
a few, which is responsible for a decadent liberal American culture that assaults family values,
produces obscenity, disrespects authority, coddles criminals, stymies initiative, foments revolution and
so on.
Just as in intersectionality, the erasure of the economic is a necessary precondition for such
ideas to have any coherence. For example, it is possible to understand popular culture as the product
of liberalism only if you have blinded yourself to the most fundamental of economic realities, namely,
that the networks and movie studios and advertising agencies and publishing houses and record labels
are, in fact, commercial enterprises.72
These are not delusions based on nothing. The ruling class tends to be more socially liberal, but
economically conservative, while elite opinions tend to be economically conservative and socially
progressive, the public tends to be economically progressive and socially conservative. 73 By focusing
on social issues, the New Right was able to make a ruling class devoid of bankers or industrialists,
and full of news reporters and professors. News reporters (and members of the media in general) are
more socially progressive, but are to the right of the public in terms of economic issues. 74 It also didn't
help that since at least the time of Jimmy Carter, the Democrat Party was going neoliberal, and
becoming a party of finance capital and white-collar big business (not the old stomping groups of
70

71
72
73
74

(Thomas Frank quote) Simon Enoch. The New Frankenstein? Culture War and the Abnegation of Class. Cultural
Logic (2006). http://clogic.eserver.org/2006/enoch.html
Ibid.
(Thomas Frank quote) ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.

industrial capital and unions (whether private or public sector)). By the time that Bill Clinton came to
office, the rise of the New Democrats was virtually complete, and Barack Obama has carried out this
legacy quite nicely.

Intersectionality is not able to account for (historical) changes in the categories such as race,
class, and gender. It can only imagine a quantitative adjustment of them, and not their abolition. It is
also unable to account for changes in the whole.
Genuine changes are made impossible, and being radical, in this framework, means shuffling
around already existing categories. It's a bit like how popular culture has been repeating the same stuff,
being incapable of any innovations or shifts. Everything that is new seems like a remix of past
materials; things like electro-polka, the continuing slew of superhero movies, generation hipster, etc.
The same problems that afflict intersectional thought are the same problems that pervade our
everyday lives in postmodern capitalism. The theoretical impasses of intersectionality, in other
words, reflect the conditions of capitalism at a certain stage of its existence: more specifically, it is
reflection of our current inability to provide a truly viable revolutionary alternative to capitalism at this
stage of its existence.
(for post New Left where I'm talking about campus activism) importance of the neoliberal
university and the thread that ties many of the protests together (i.e. against the neoliberal
model and its defunding of the arts, increasing tuition)
Mention Chilean student protests

Identity politics aren't bad per se, but too many neoliberal sympathizers and ego driven agenda
pushers use it to fracture solidarity and direct revolutionary energy to,endless and worthless ideological
purity contests and inter left sniping and feuding. Anarchists are particularly good at this.
i think what you're describing is class reductionism, which is also bad (probs worse)! identity politics,
as i see it, is bad when lacks a class analysis... so like when people think they can achieve liberation for
their specific identity group isolation, but don't realize that its literally impossible without overthrowing
capitalism (and therefore being in solidarity with the rest of the working class, even those that have

privileges over you).

so like women/queer ppl for example, who are like "fuck

men/straight people, we will get free with or without them"... and im like ok yeah sure fuck them for
what they often do to us, but to ACTUALLY WIN a revolution against the ruling class (that is profiting
from maintaining patriarchy) we are pretty much going to need everyone. thats why i am interested in
struggling with working class men/white ppl to overcome their own sexism/racism. like we are gonna
need those ppl to join the revolution, or at least not fight against it. [] where identity politics would
have me say "its not MY job as an oppressed person to educate men/straight people/allies/etc", I feel
like as a revolutionary socialist I am ok with that being my job (even tho it sucks!), because someone
has to radicalize them or they will be on the other side (killing us) when a revolution actually happens.
and like... i want us to win. sorry that was super long.

socialist fairy tails:

Lenin the professor
voting in Bernie Sanders which sparks the socialist revolution

** people mean atomization when they centralization, because the problem is that relying so
heavily on the center means people are completely isolated without it
the unique thing about humans, maybe is that we can examine or think about our own
thoughts... but this isn't the idealism that graham harman complains about, because we are
thinking about our own thoughts - which are about reality, so to speak
it only makes sense to have any concern for your own thoughts if they were frustrating or a
problem when they were dealing with the 'external' world

(use segway about police repression to talk about BlackLives matter (then maybe new
section) Bernie Sanders (and then Corbyn))
- Have something about Chavez (and the recent elections); also other stuff in Latin America
Student protests against austerity in Chile, Britain, and Qubec (along with Holland, and
many other places)

The election of Jeremy Corbyn, the most left-wing socialist and consistent anti-imperialist in the
House of Commons, as leader of the Labour Party and therefore of Her Majestys Loyal Opposition, is
a break in gradualness on a grand scale. Despite having the support of fewer than 10 percent of the
partys members of parliament, he secured a quarter of a million votes (nearly 60 percent) in the
election, winning nearly half of the first preferences of the partys individual membership in the
transferrable-vote ballot.

That party membership is now nearly twice the size it was at the

general election in May, with around sixty thousand people joining in the week following Corbyns
victory on a platform of opposition to austerity economics, foreign wars, welfare cuts, and nuclear
weaponry.75
But it is still a development of huge import, occurring as it has in the first party of social
imperialism worldwide, the home of Ernie Bevin and Tony Blair, the pioneer of
neoliberalism as a powerful trend in the international working-class movement.

Only

two years ago it was still possible to retail the old saw on the British left that the only thing
harder than trying to transform the Labour Party is setting up a new party in opposition to
it. The Corbyn leap has put an end to that opposition for the present and for a long time to
come. The primacy of the Labour Party as a site of struggle for social advance, as opposed
to the construction of electoral alternatives to it, is as established as any outcome of the
dialectical process can be.
This defeat for Labour was itself long in the making. The atrophying of the partys vote
had proceeded in stages, from its highpoint in 1997, when Tony Blair entered Downing
Street on the back of a landslide for his New Labour operation.
First, two million votes went missing between his triumphal procession down Downing Street in 1997
and the subsequent election in 2001. They were mainly martyrs to apathy the turnout plummeted to
below 60 percent for the first time since 1918. Blairs parliamentary majority was almost unchanged,
but the enthusiasm was gone, nowhere more so than in working-class communities, which saw little to
choose between the major parties any longer.
Stage two of the New Labour vote loss was in 2005, when a further two million votes exited the Labour
column. This time there was a more definite reason Blairs pioneer role in the Iraq War in defiance
of mass public opinion; and there was very often a destination the antiwar Liberal Democrats.
So the back of the New Labour coalition was broken under the stewardship of its progenitor. His
successor, Gordon Brown, merely delivered the coup de grace in 2010 when another million votes were
lost after a mighty economic crash that swept away the neoliberal economic assumptions of the whole
New Labour project and three years of a premiership for which the term hapless scarcely does
justice.
75

Andrew Murray. The Corbyn Leap. Jacobin Magazine. November 2, 2015.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/corbyn-labour-tories-leadership-miliband-blair-gordon-brown/

Miliband actually effected a slight reversal of this relentless downward trend in 2015 in terms of votes.
In fact he secured more votes in England than Blair, who supposedly had a direct line to the hearts of
the middle England masses, did in his final election as leader. This, however, was far too little to gain
the victory which would have finally secured his hesitant and unpopular leadership. In fact, it was that
leadership which was most often cited as a reason for not voting Labour.
A man of modestly radical convictions, he consistently lacked the courage of them. He never sought to
impose his outlook tentatively postNew Labour on his shadow cabinet, he filled his private
office with advisers well to the right of him, and he disastrously sub-contracted control of the election
campaign and the leadership of the party in Scotland to Blairites as contemptuous of him as they were
of the values of core Labour voters.
The post-election Blairite narrative also laid emphasis on the supposedly unacceptable radicalism of
Labours economic policies. The evidence for this is scant. Undoubtedly, the fact that Labour was
holding the neoliberal parcel when the music stopped in 2008 was remembered, and neither Miliband
nor Gordon Brown had ever tried to counter the Tory/media narrative to the effect that Labour had
spent too much public money in the good times. These factors counted against it.
But the offer cooked up by Miliband and his chancellor, Ed Balls, was scarcely left-wing. Balls was
intent on shrinking the offer made by Labour to reduce the target the Tories would have to aim at. His
program essentially harked back to the recent past with no vision of economic transformation, he
simply wanted to get the roulette wheel spinning again in the City of London, taxing the proceeds to
invest in hospitals, schools, and more police officers. He also foregrounded the need to cut the deficit
and balance the budget as rapidly as possible key City demands.
Miliband went somewhat further, proposing interventions in the housing and energy markets, as well as
increased tax rates on the wealthy, the notorious non-doms in particular. But he shied away from
popular ideas like renationalizing the railway network, and his proposal to gradually raise the minimum
wage by little more than the anticipated inflation rate over five years has since been easily
trumped by Chancellor George Osbornes living wage pledge.
So Milibands legacy to Labour is scarcely one of unbridled economic interventionism, even if the
Daily Mail treated his policies as the greatest threat to private property since Stalin targeted the kulaks.
But he did make a lasting difference in three ways: firstly, by admitting that the Iraq War had been
wrong and by obstructing the proposed bombing of Syria in 2013 (albeit with an element of accident),
he distanced Labour from the worst single aspect of its last term in office and tiptoed the party away
from neoconservatism; second, by denying the right of the party their accustomed patronage by the
leaders office, he made possible the selection of a politically more diverse range of Labour candidates
in winnable parliamentary seats than would otherwise be the case; and third, by blundering into an
entirely avoidable confrontation with Unite, the countrys biggest trade union, over the parliamentary
selection in the Scottish seat of Falkirk, he triggered a change in many of Labours rules and
procedures including the procedure for electing the party leadership.
This was designed to reduce trade union influence over the process, alongside what looked like an
inconsequential diminution of the share of the vote held by Labour MPs. That was the system which
elected Corbyn. Seldom has the law of unintended consequences been on more luxuriant display.
Had the old system which no one was otherwise particularly looking to change been still in place
this summer, Andy Burnham would now be facing David Cameron across the Commons dispatch box.
Business as usual.

 Discuss Bernie Sander's, Jeremy Corbyn, as part of the post New Left (although their
relationship to the post New Left is complicated because they are mostly old school Social
Democrats in some ways (although mention that in some ways they are not like this,
particularly in the way that they try to emphasize ideas rather than individuals [find Corbyn
quote in this document] and how their needs to be a political revolution (find quote from
Sanders online) even though their policies are not radical enough, they are an interesting
change from normal Social-Democracy
talk about how Bernie got interrupted by BLM ** then, before or after this, talk about the
post New Left triad of R,G, C definitely a product of the New Left (started in the 70s/80s
with Selma James, Angela Davis, the group around Stuart Hall, etc.
Talk about the problem of the tyranny of structurelessness (anti-hierarchical stuff) and how it
persisted into the post New Left, in things like Occupy!

The themes of the post New Left have left their mark on popular culture, whether they be the subject of
satire in shows like South Park,76 the Kaitlyn Jenner controversy, or presidential candidate Ted Cruz
speculating that a terrorist attack on a Planned Parenthood was caused, not by fundamentalist
Christians, but by a transgendered leftist activist. 77 It is hard to not hear talk about privilege,
cultural appropriation, or trigger warnings. Debates over whether or not to have gender neutral
bathrooms are just one example of how the post New Left has found its way into everyday life, and
public/institutional policy.

Bernie Notes
On Thursday, in a major campaign address, he turned back stateside. Sanders cast himself not as the
76
77

South Park S19E01

David Ferguson. Ted Cruz Says Planned Parenthood Terrorist Was 'Transgendered Leftist Activist'. RawStory.
November 29, 2015. http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/ted-cruz-says-planned-parenthood-terrorist-was-transgenderedleftist-activist/

heir of Eugene Debs a portrait of whom hangs in his congressional office but of Franklin
Roosevelt. In short, for Sanders, democratic socialism means New Deal liberalism.
But Sanders never mentioned the word capitalism a rhetorical maneuver that sidesteps the systemic
basis of inequality and poverty, both in the US and globally. Instead of the imperatives of class and
competition he decries greed and corruption in a narrative that sits uncomfortably close to crony
capitalism, the Rights favorite villain.
But at the same time frustrating as it may be the popular association of socialism with
Scandinavian social democracy rather than the country with all the gulags that doesnt exist anymore
is a far better starting point for a renewed anticapitalist politics.
Bernies welfare-state liberalism is radical in todays political context.
So is it important that Sanders even bothers to use the s-word at all? I think so.
Standing on a national stage and using that term implies that there is a radically egalitarian force that is
in opposition and even hostile to capitalism even if in his particularly strained definition that means
that socialism is already here in the form of the US Post Office (and simply on the ropes). Sanders still
implies a conflict between the two not a corporatist harmony.

The growing proto-fascist, white-supremacist movement in the Republican Party is preying

upon non-rich white people who are literally dying of despair, turning to drugs and suicide to deal with
a reality they cant bear, and a society they believe doesnt care for them [W]hite people are right
that they are under attacktheyre just pointing to the wrong culprits.78
[It] is very important to see the roots of racismthrough their control of mass media, they
revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it
It may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor
white man Jim Crow. He gave him Jim Crow. And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food
78

Max Berger. How To Understand White Male Terrorism. The Nation. November 30, 2015.
http://www.thenation.com/article/how-to-understand-white-male-terrorism/

that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no
matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. - Martin Luther
King Jr.
(for summary of intersectionality, after the Race, Gender, Class part) This brings us to the
most troubling aspect of intersectional theory: it pays lip service to the idea of systemic change, but can
only offer individual solutions. The way in which class becomes mainly about classism is a perfect
example; if one doesnt believe that class can be overcome systemically, why not settle for individual
(and reformist) solutions like redistributing privilege?
Its part of the general logic of capitalism, and in particular neoliberalism, to individualize
social problems. This individualization is shown in how intersectional theorists often think about the
categories of race, gender and class, and their relation to the (capitalist) economy. The usual trick is to
treat class and the economy as if they were the same thing. In reducing the economy to class, two key
things occur.
The first is that it glosses over the fact that the economy is more socially encompassing than the
category of class. The second is that the economic is hidden away in the category of class, rather than
being seen as the medium in which the categories of race, class and gender interact.
This need to segregate the economic and sequester it into the category of class produces an
unexpected result: intersectionalitiys insistence on the connectedness of different types of oppression
things turns into its opposite, a repeated separation of the economic from not only race and gender, but
also class. The goal of intersection turns into a desire for separation. Rather than placing the emphasis
on people connecting and intersecting through mass movements, activists go into their own corners and
tend to narrowly focus on their specific concerns. They do so because they believe that their (particular)
concerns can be solved through reform instead of revolutionary transformation. This is not to downplay
the positive aspects of reform; it is just pointing out that it cannot ultimately solve the problem it tries
to fix. The same goes for intersectionality.

(for intersectionality section; or maybe why class doesn't equal the economic) intersectional thought
has always been good at understanding the interactions between race and gender; but when it comes to
class, intersectionality is quite weak. Not only that is is often left to the side then talk about why

bc the economy is equated with class, etc. have this link into thing I already wrote
[Identity] politics is not an alternative to class politics; it is a class politics, the politics of the
left-wing of neoliberalism. It is the expression and active agency of a political order and moral
economy in which capitalist market forces are treated as unassailable nature.

An

integral element of that moral economy is displacement of the critique of the invidious outcomes
produced by capitalist class power onto equally naturalized categories of ascriptive identity that
sort us into groups supposedly defined by what we essentially are rather than what we do. As I
have argued, following Walter Michaels and others, within that moral economy a society in
which 1% of the population controlled 90% of the resources could be just, provided that roughly
12% of the 1% were black, 12% were Latino, 50% were women, and whatever the appropriate
proportions were LGBT people.

It would be tough to imagine a normative ideal that

expresses more unambiguously the social position of people who consider themselves candidates
for inclusion in, or at least significant staff positions in service to, the ruling class. - Adolph
Reed Jr.

Even before that, however, some racial identitarians had grown bolder in laying bare the blur of
careerism and arbitrary, self-serving moralism at the base of this supposed politics. In an
unintentionally farcical homage to Black Power era radicalism, various racial ventriloquists
claiming to channel the Voices of the Youth leadership of the putative Black Lives Matter
"movement" have lately been arguing that the key condition for a left alliance is that we all must
"respect black leadership." Of course, that amounts to a claim to shut up and take whatever
anyone who claims that status says or does. Those of us old enough to remember Black Power
and the War on Poverty also will look around to see which funders or employers theyre
addressing. - Adolp Reed Jr.
(maybe put this in a section where I am talking about antinomies, in a footnote) (talking about
people comparing Rachel Dolezal and Kaitlyn Jenner) - The transrace/transgender comparison
makes clear the conceptual emptiness of the essentializing discourses, and the opportunist
politics, that undergird identitarian ideologies. There is no coherent, principled defense of the
stance that transgender identity is legitimate but transracial is not, at least not one that would
satisfy basic rules of argument. The debate also throws into relief the reality that a notion of

social justice that hinges on claims to entitlement based on extra-societal, ascriptive identities is
neoliberalisms critical self-consciousness. In insisting on the political priority of such fictive,
naturalized populations identitarianism meshes well with neoliberal naturalization of the
structures that reproduce inequality. In that sense its not just a pointed coincidence that Dolezals
critics were appalled with the NAACP for standing behind her work. It may be that one of Rachel
Dolezals most important contributions to the struggle for social justice may turn out to be having
catalyzed, not intentionally to be sure, a discussion that may help us move beyond the identitarian
dead end. - Adolph Reed Jr.

Simon Enoch. The New Frankenstein? Culture War and the Abnegation of Class. Cultural Logic
(2006). http://clogic.eserver.org/2006/enoch.html
By characterizing the elite as "liberal," conservatives can claim to stand for "the
people" against the "power bloc," thereby portraying the Republican Party as "antiestablishment" and populist. This invocation of "underdog" status, constantly victimized
by the machinations of the powerful liberal elite, constitutes the second key tenet of
culture war ideology. Culture war ideology relies heavily on its ability to portray white,
working-class Americans as victims of liberal inspired racial and religious policies (such
as affirmative action, immigration, gay rights, etc.) that are said to be the cause of their
diminishing opportunities. However, while the New Right has cleverly manipulated
racist and religious sentiments to stoke working-class anger, the American Left is also
culpable in that its retreat into identity politics has facilitated the New Right portrayal of
whites as a victimized "race." Indeed, as Valerie Scatamburlo argues, the emphasis
within sections of the left on an identity politics that impugns Whiteness lends itself to
New Right characterizations of White victim-hood. While Whiteness certainly has its
privileges in American society, not all Whites are materially advantaged. This is not to
deny the existence of superior opportunity and life chances of Whites in comparison to
other groups, but it is important to note that

60 percent of welfare

recipients are White; 63 percent of those dependent on food stamps are White; and more
than two-thirds of Americans without health insurance are White. Yet the prevailing
discourses of multiculturalism have failed to address the concerns of over 70 percent of
the population -- the White working and middle classes who also have to face

diminishing educational, employment, and social resources (Scatamburlo, 1998: 190).

Thus the Left's unwillingness to include White working-class Americans within its
theorizations of oppression left this constituency vulnerable to the culture war rhetoric
of White victimization. Indeed, Scatamburlo notes that the emergence of "White male
identity politics" is a growing cultural phenomenon based on Whiteness as a liability
rather than a privilege (Ibid, 192). Scatamburlo's observations are worth quoting at
length:

Feeling threatened and besieged, there has been a tendency among White

males to assume identificatory positions which are hyperbolic and in some cases
extreme. The combined effects of identity politics which has served to challenge the
traditional privileges and status of this group and economic decline engendered by the
global restructuring of capital have led many White males to assert their shared
"oppression" as a group which is allegedly being victimized by women, minorities, and
a "liberal" government which has kowtowed to "special interests" (Ibid, 192).
Newitz and Wray characterize this rhetoric of "whiteness as liability" as going identity
politics one better. By "painting themselves as the victims of multiculturalism," Whites
can portray themselves as the "victims of victims," donning the most marginalized
identity of all (Newitz & Wray, 1997: 174).
This rhetoric of persecuted Christians at war with a liberal, secular society merely
reinforces the cult of victim-hood at the heart of culture war ideology. Moreover, we can
divine a deep sense of anti-government sentiment implicit in all the above culture war
rhetoric: an all-powerful liberal elite, dominating the media, academia, and government
imposing its beliefs and values upon the hard-working, common man through racial
quotas, affirmative action, gay rights, abortion, etc.
Similarly, Jay Bookman argues that the rush to Bush by the American working class
reflects the pervasive insecurity and anxiety of this sector of society as it watches its
jobs, towns, culture and traditions sacrificed to the vagaries of multi-national capital
(Bookman, 2004). Left with nowhere to turn for economic protection, the working
classes turn to someone who at least offers promises of cultural protection. Indeed this
underlying economic insecurity can be further illustrated by examining the real intent
behind the supposed "moral values" that voters cited as the reasons for supporting Bush.
As Chomsky notes, "in some polls when voters were asked to choose the most urgent

moral crisis facing the country, 33 percent cited greed and materialism," while "31
percent selected poverty and economic justice" (Chomsky, 2004). What this seems to
suggest is that economic interests and questions of class have not been driven out of the
consciousness of the working class; rather, they have found no political outlet other than
the cultural, racial, and security concerns encapsulated in the ideology of culture war.
While the culture warriors have cleverly displaced economic concerns with cultural
and other social grievances, the failure to address the economic within the American
political system falls equally (if not more so) on the Democratic Party and its steady
drift towards neo-liberalism since the 1980's. As Davis notes, the defeat of Mondale in
1984 on a purported "progressive" economic platform led to the ascendance of "New
Democrats," ideologically disposed to neo-liberal economic policy and intent on
severing the Party's traditional labour and minority ties in favour of aligning with
affluent, white-collar professionals (Davis, 1986). By moving to court this strata of
society, the Democratic Party has abandoned any pretense of economic progressivism by
championing Free Trade, deregulation, privatization, welfare "reform," and so on. Frank
describes this as a "criminally stupid strategy," in that the result has been
that both parties have become vehicles for upper-middle-class interests (Frank, 2004a:
243). Moreover, while the Right was "industriously fabricating their own class-based
language" to appeal to working class voters, the Democrats were simultaneously
jettisoning those same voters, "ousting their representatives from positions within the
party and consigning their issuesto the dustbin of history" (Ibid, 243-44). This strategy
has played right into the hands of the New Right. As Christian conservative organizer
Mark Gietzen observes, by removing basic economic issues from the table, "only the
social issues remain to distinguish the parties, [and] in such a climate, Democratic
appeals to people of ordinary means can be easily neutralized" (Ibid, 176). Indeed by
abandoning the progressive economic policies that Justin Lewis demonstrates a majority
of working Americans support, the Democrats have effectively removed any affinities
white, working Americans might have had with the Party. Shorn of its economic
liberalism, the Democrats simply cannot compete with the New Right's social
conservatism that is more in keeping with white, working class attitudes.

1. The most telling difference between the Old/New Left and the post New Left is
in the way they view oppression.

Old/New Left

Oppression: a pattern of persistent and systematic disadvantage imposed on

large groups of people, in many domains of social life, including employment,
social status, treatment by the legal system, vulnerability to violence, and more;
e.g, racial oppression, gender oppression, etc.

Post-New Left

Privilege: a set of unearned benefits that some individuals enjoy (and others
are denied) in their everyday lives, by virtue of their place in a racial or gender
or other identity-hierarchy, e.g., male privilege, white privilege, cisgender
privilege, etc. [Aphorism XII] [from: http://publicautonomy.org/2014/01/27/therise-of-the-post-new-left-political-vocabulary/]
2. The difference between oppression and privilege is largely due to the shift in the
Old/New Lefts emphasis on ending exploitation, to the post-New Lefts
obsession with rooting out classism.

exploitation: a feature of

economic systems, including capitalism, in which unpaid labour is extracted

from working people for the benefit of a relatively small number of exploiters,
who comprise, in economic terms, a ruling class

classism: an attitude of

scorn, condescension, or disrespect toward persons of low income, similar to

what once was called snobbery or class-based elitism [Aphorism XIII]
[from:

http://publicautonomy.org/2014/01/27/the-rise-of-the-post-new-left-

political-vocabulary/]

2. Intersectionality believes that there is no such thing as society just various

special

interests.

Julie

Burchill

(http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9141292/dont-you-dare-tell-me-to-check-myprivilege/)

It should also be noted that the opposite is true, in that, while

intersectionality rejects the idea of society, it secretly believes in it.

[Aphorism

XXXVII] ** connect this with what Joe sent about Margaret Thatcher (there is
no such thing as society
3. Intersectionality is the name for the discourse that tries to accomplish, in words,

what was formerly being done in practice. [Aphorism CCLXXVII]

1. ** the New Left oftentimes viewed itself as more anti-hierarchical than the
Old Left talk about many went overboard with this, or more precisely, did not
go far enough (mention the ideas in Jo Freedman's Tyranny of
Structurelessness)

(footnote check to see if I already have it): kinship between Laclau's model of hegemony and
intersectionality
From History and Class Consciousness
pg. 47 - The essence of scientific Marxism consists, then, in the realisation that the real motor
forces of history are independent of mans (psychological) consciousness of them.
pg. 52 - Regarded abstractly and formally, then, class consciousness implies a classconditioned unconsciousness of ones own socio-historical and economic condition.
(perhaps Lukacs is not as subjectivist as someone like Adorno would have us believe) pg. 49 However, by reducing the objectivity of the social institutions so hostile to man to relations
between men, Marx also does away with the false implications of the irrationalist and
individualist principle, i.e. the other side of the dilemma. For to eliminate the objectivity
attributed both to social institutions inimical to man and to their historical evolution means the
restoration of this objectivity to their underlying basis, to the relations between men; it does not
involve the elimination of laws and objectivity independent of the will of man and in particular
the wills and thoughts of individual men. It simply means that this objectivity is the selfobjectification of human society at a particular stage in its development; its laws hold good only
within the framework of the historical context which produced them and which is in turn
determined by them.
pg. 55 - It follows from the above that for pre-capitalist epochs and for the behaviour of many
strata within capitalism whose economic roots lie in pre-capitalism, class consciousness is
unable to achieve complete clarity and to influence the course of history consciously.

This

is true above all because class interests in pre-capitalist society never achieve full (economic)
articulation. Hence the structuring of society into castes and estates means that economic

elements are inextricably joined to political and religious factors. In contrast to this, the rule of
the bourgeoisie means the abolition of the estates-system and this leads to the organisation of
society along class lines. (In many countries vestiges of the feudal system still survive, but this
does not detract from the validity of this observation.)

This situation has its roots in

the profound difference between capitalist and pre-capitalist economics. The most striking
distinction, and the one that directly concerns us, is that pre-capitalist societies are much less
cohesive than capitalism. The various parts are much more self-sufficient and less closely
interrelated than in capitalism. Commerce plays a smaller role in society, the various sectors
were more autonomous (as in the case of village communes) or else plays no part at all in the
economic life of the community and in the process of production (as was true of large numbers
of citizens in Greece and Rome). In such circumstances the state, i.e. the organised unity,
remains insecurely anchored in the real life of society. One sector of society simply lives out its
natural existence in what amounts to a total independence of the fate of the state. The
simplicity of the organisation for production in these self-sufficient communities that constantly
reproduce themselves in the same form, and when accidentally destroyed, spring up again on
the spot and with the same name this simplicity supplies the key to the secret of the
immutability of Asiatic societies, an immutability in such striking contrast with the constant
dissolution and resounding of Asiatic states, and the never-ceasing changes of dynasty. The
structure of the economic elements of society remains untouched by the storm-clouds of the
political sky.
pg. 56 - Yet another sector of society is economically completely parasitic. For this
sector the state with its power apparatus is not, as it is for the ruling classes under
capitalism, a means whereby to put into practice the principles of its economic power if
need be with the aid of force. Nor is it the instrument it uses to create the conditions for its
economic dominance (as with modern colonialism). That is to say, the state is not a
mediation of the economic control of society: it is that unmediated dominance itself.
(connect with some of EMW's points) - pg. 57 - In accordance with the looser economic
structure of society, the political and legal institutions (here the division into estates, privileges,
etc.), have different functions objectively and subjectively from those exercised under
capitalism. In capitalism these institutions merely imply the stabilisation of purely economic
forces so that as Karner has ably demonstrated they frequently adapt themselves to changed
economic structures without changing themselves in form or content. By contrast, in pre-

capitalist societies legal institutions intervene substantively in the interplay of economic forces.
In fact there are no purely economic categories to appear or to be given legal form (and
according to Marx, economic categories are forms of existence, determinations of life).
Economic and legal categories are objectively and substantively so interwoven as to be
inseparable. (Consider here the instances cited earlier of labour-rent, and taxes, of slavery, etc.)
In Hegels parlance the economy has not even objectively reached the stage of being-for-itself.
There is therefore no possible position within such a society from which the economic basis of
all social relations could be made conscious.
pg. 58-59 - Thus class consciousness has quite a different relation to history in pre-capitalist
and capitalist periods. In the former case the classes could only be deduced from the
immediately given historical reality by the methods of historical materialism. In capitalism they
themselves constitute this immediately given historical reality. It is therefore no accident that
(as Engels too has pointed out) this knowledge of history only became possible with the advent
of capitalism. Not only as Engels believed because of the greater simplicity of capitalism in
contrast to the complex and concealed relations of earlier ages. But primarily because only
with capitalism does economic class interest emerge in all its starkness as the motor of history.
In pre-capitalist periods man could never become conscious (not even by virtue of an imputed
consciousness) of the true driving forces which stand behind the motives of human actions in
history. They remained hidden behind motives and were in truth the blind forces of history.
Ideological factors do not merely mask economic interests, they are not merely the banners
and slogans: they are the parts, the components of which the real struggle is made. Of course, if
historical materialism is deployed to discover the sociological meaning of these struggles,
economic interests will doubtless be revealed as the decisive factors in any explanation.

But

there is still an unbridgeable gulf between this and capitalism where economic factors are not
concealed behind consciousness but are present in consciousness itself (albeit unconsciously
or repressed). With capitalism, with the abolition of the feudal estates and with the creation of a
society with a purely economic articulation, class consciousness arrived at the point where it
could become conscious. From then on social conflict was reflected in an ideological struggle
for consciousness and for the veiling or the exposure of the class character of society. But the
fact that this conflict became possible points forward to the dialectical contradictions and the
internal dissolution of pure class society.
pg. 76 - As the product of capitalism the proletariat must necessarily be subject to the modes of

existence of its creator. This mode of existence is inhumanity and reification. No doubt the very
existence of the proletariat implies criticism and the negation of this form of life. But until the
objective crisis of capitalism has matured and until the proletariat has achieved true class
consciousness, and the ability to understand the crisis fully, it cannot go beyond the criticism of
reification and so it is only negatively superior to its antagonist. Indeed, if it can do no more
than negate some aspects of capitalism, if it cannot at least aspire to a critique of the whole, then
it will not even achieve a negative superiority.
pg. 77 - The reified consciousness must also remain hopelessly trapped in the two extremes of
crude empiricism and abstract utopianism. In the one case, consciousness becomes either a
completely passive observer moving in obedience to laws which it can never control. In the
other it regards itself as a power which is able of its own subjective volition to master the
essentially meaningless motion of objects. We have already identified the crude empiricism of
the opportunists in its relation to proletarian class consciousness. We must now go on to see
utopianism as characteristic of the internal divisions within class consciousness. (The separation
of empiricism from utopianism undertaken here for purely methodological reasons should not
be taken as an admission that the two cannot occur together in particular trends and even
individuals. On the contrary, they are frequently found together and are joined by an internal
bond.)
pg. 80 - Every proletarian revolution has created workers councils in an increasingly radical
and conscious manner. When this weapon increases in power to the point where it becomes the
organ of state, this is a sign that the class consciousness of the proletariat is on the verge of
overcoming the bourgeois outlook of its leaders. [italic s mine]
The revolutionary workers council (not to be confused with its opportunist caricatures) is
one of the forms which the consciousness of the proletariat has striven to create ever since
its inception. The fact that it exists and is constantly developing shows that the proletariat
already stands on the threshold of its own consciousness and hence on the threshold of
victory. The workers council spells the political and economic defeat of reification. In the
period following the dictatorship it will eliminate the bourgeois separation of the legislature,
administration and judiciary. During the struggle for control its mission is twofold. On the
one hand, it must overcome the fragmentation of the proletariat in time and space, and on
the other, it has to bring economics and politics together into the true synthesis of
proletarian praxis. In this way it will help to reconcile the dialectical conflict between

immediate interests and ultimate goal.

pg. 80 - Thus we must never overlook the distance that separates the consciousness of even the
most revolutionary worker from the authentic class consciousness of the proletariat. But even
this situation can be explained on the basis of the Marxist theory of class struggle and class
consciousness. The proletariat only perfects itself by annihilating and transcending itself, by
creating the classless society through the successful conclusion of its own class struggle. The
struggle for this society, in which the dictatorship of the proletariat is merely a phase, is not just
a battle waged against an external enemy, the bourgeoisie. It is equally the struggle of the
proletariat against itself. against the devastating and degrading effects of the capitalist system
upon its class consciousness. The proletariat will only have won the real victory when it has
overcome these effects within itself.

this is something that should be talked about in the summary of the New Left --> (perhaps have
something about the Stonewall riots in 1969 ** the beginning of [Early homophile groups in the U.S.
sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational
education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very
contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights
Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with
the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots. shows
another example of how activists went beyond the legalistic approach, and went for more direct action];
**also, Sylvia Rivera and STAR) bring it up briefly in New Left section, then touch on this more in
the post New Left section (when talking about third wave feminism)

** It is more than a curious coincidence that the more intersectionalists stress the plurality of
struggles, the more they are obliged to have a singular figure of oppression (or perhaps more
accurately, a straw man to beat): the (upper-class?), able-bodied, heterosexual, CIS-gendered,
white male.

Endnotes. A History of Separation.

- Introduction

The history of communism is not only the history of defeats: taking risks, coming up against a

stronger force and losing. It is also a history of treachery, or of what the Left has typically called
betrayal. In the course of the traditional labour movement, there were many famous examples: of the
Social Democrats and the trade union leadership at the start of World War I, of Ebert and Noske in the
course of the German Revolution, of Trotsky in the midst of the Kronstadt Rebellion, of Stalin when he
assumed power, of the CNT in Spain, when it ordered revolutionaries to tear down the barricades, and
so on. In the anti-colonial movements of the mid-twentieth century, Chairman Mao, the Viet Minh, and
Kwame Nkrumah were all called betrayers. Meanwhile, in the last major upsurge in Europe, it was the
CGT in 1968 and the PCI in 1977, among others, who are said to have betrayed. The counter-revolution
comes not only from the outside, but apparently also from the heart of the revolution itself.

That defeat is ultimately attributed to the moral failings of Left organisations and individuals,

at least in leftist histories, is essential. If revolutions were defeated for some other reason (for example,
as a result of the exigencies of unique situations), then there would be little for us to learn with respect
to our own militancy. It is because the project of communism seemed to be blocked not by
chance, but by betrayal that communist theory has come to revolve, as if neurotically, around the
question of betrayal and the will that prevents it. The link between these two is key: at first glance, the
theory of betrayal appears to be the inverse of a heroic conception of history. But betrayal delineates
the negative space of the hero and thus of the figure of the militant. It is the militant, with her or his
correct revolutionary line and authentic revolutionary will as well as their vehicle: the party
who is supposed to stop the betrayal from taking place, and thus to bring the revolution to fruition.

this denunciation was only one instance of a trope repeated a thousand times thereafter. The

organisations created for the purpose of defending working class interests often doing so on the
basis of their own notions of betrayal and the will betrayed the class, time and again, in the course
of the twentieth century.

Whether they call themselves communists or anarchists, those who identify as

revolutionaries spend much of their time examining past betrayals, often in minute detail, to

determine exactly how those betrayals occurred.4 Many of these examinations try to recover the red
thread of history: the succession of individuals or groups who expressed a heroic fidelity to the
revolution. Their very existence supposedly proves that it was possible not to betray and, therefore, that
the revolution could have succeeded if only the right groups had been at the helm, or if the wrong
ones had been pushed away from the helm at the right moment. One becomes a communist or an
anarchist on the basis of the particular thread out of which one weaves ones banner (and today one
often flies these flags, not on the basis of a heartfelt identity, but rather due to the contingencies of
friendship). However, in raising whatever banner, revolutionaries fail to see the limits to which the
groups they revere were actually responding that is, precisely what made them a minority
formation. Revolutionaries get lost in history, defining themselves by reference to a context of struggle
that has no present-day correlate. They draw lines in sand which is no longer there.

The connection between global warming and swelling industrial output is clear. The factory

system is not the kernel of a future society, but a machine producing no-future. this seems too
dramatic...it's possible to have a factory system that uses clean energy, and doesn't waste raw
materials, etc.

Revolutionary strategists have mostly concerned themselves with the high points of various

cycles of struggle: 1917, 1936, 1949, 1968, 1977, and so on. In so doing, they usually ignore the
context in which those cycles unfold. The workers movement was that context: it provided the setting
in which distinct cycles unfolded: e.g. (in Europe) 19051921, 19341947, 196877. It was because
each cycle of struggle unfolded in the context of the workers movement that we can say of their high
points: these were not just ruptures within the capitalist class relation but ruptures produced within a
particular horizon of communism.12 It is worth examining such ruptures in detail, although that is not
the task we set for ourselves in this text.13 Our contention is that it is only by looking at the workers
movement as a whole, rather than at distinct high points, that we can see what made these points
distinct, or even, exceptional. The revolutions of the era of the workers movement emerged in spite of
rather than in concert with overall trends, and did so in a manner that went wholly against the
revolutionary theory of that era, with all its sense of inevitability.

The first fallacy is that capitalism is an inevitable or evolutionary stage of history. Marxists in

the late 19th century often imagined that capitalist social relations were relentlessly spreading across
the globe. They thought the city, the factory, and wage labour would soon absorb everyone. In actual
fact by 1950, some two-thirds of the worlds population remained in agriculture, the vast majority selfsufficient peasants or herdsmen. Even in the high-income countries, some 40 percent of the workforce

was in agriculture. It was not until the late 1970s and early 1980s that a tipping point was reached: the
agricultural population of the high-income countries shrank to a vanishing point, and globally, for the
first time in thousands of years, the majority of the worlds workers were no longer working in the
fields. Thus, the global peasantry, and the fast-frozen relations with which it was associated, were not
so quickly swept away. This house cleaning took longer than expected because in contrast to
what historical materialists imagined there was no natural or automatic tendency for the global
peasantry to fold into the proletariat, whether by the corrosion of market forces or by some tendency of
capitalists to expropriate peasants en masse.

The second fallacy is that the development of capitalism tends to unify the workers. The labour

market may be singular, but the workers who enter it to sell their labour power are not. They are
divided by language, religion, nation, race, gender, skill, etc. Some of these differences were preserved
and transformed by the rise of capitalism, while others were newly created. Such remixing had
ambivalent consequences. Most divisions proved to be obstacles to organising along lines of class
solidarity. However, some pre-existing forms of collectivity proved to be their own sources of
solidarity, an impetus to mass direct-action.

Champions of the workers movement declared that the development of the forces of

production would get rid of divisions among the workers. The dispersed masses, the class in itself,
would be formed by factory discipline into a compact mass, which might then be capable of becoming
the class for itself. Thus if the workers would only give up on their attempts to preserve the old ways,
if they would only give in to the scientific (and constant) reorganisation of the workplace, they would
soon find themselves positively transformed: they would be unified by the factory system into a
collective worker. For a while, in the early part of the twentieth century, this vision seemed to be
coming true.
But in fact, these transformations led to the integration of workers (for the most part, former peasants)
into market society, not only at the point of production, but also in exchange and in consumption,
where workers were atomised. It was this atomising feature of the new world, not the cooperative
aspects of work in the factory, that would prove dominant. That was true not only in consumer markets,
where workers exchanged wages for goods, but also in labour markets, where they exchanged their
promise to work for a promised wage and even in the factories themselves, since divisions among
workers were retained and made anew. The resulting intra-class competition was only partly mitigated
by unions, which acted as rival salesmens associations, attempting to corner the market in labour
power.
Here is the unity-in-separation of market society. People become ever more interdependent through the
market, but this power comes at the expense of their capacities for collective action. Capitalist society
reduces workers to petty commodity sellers, providing them with some autonomy, but always within

limits. In hindsight, it is clear that the dream of the workers movement that an actual unity of
workers, as opposed to their unity-in-separation, would be realised in the factories through the further
development of the productive forces was not true. Such an actual unity can come about only by
means of a communist transcendence of capitalist social relations.

Revisiting The Old Left

The CPUSA is a good test case because it is an Old Left organization that was supposedly
blind to intersectional concerns. Since intersectionality is meant to fix the errors of MarxismLeninism (along with the rest of the Old/New Left), it is interesting to see how this actually played
out in practice.

in this section, summary of the New Left, and then talking about how the myths about the Old Left
were not true
take all the bits that I have and put them here (or else, put them in the scrapyard)
Before the 1960s, people tried to dismiss feminism by saying that it messed with the way that things
were supposed to be, i.e. that it disrupted natural (patriarchal) relations between men and women.
Today, it is more common to do this by asking, who needs all that radicalism when women and men
are already equal? The prevailing strategy has changed: emphasizing inferiority got swapped out for
patriarchal equality.
The same thing is true of other social groups. A typical way to be racist today, for instance, is
not to say that African-Americans are lazy, but that they are given the equal opportunity to succeed
and do not take it up. In this case, systemic racism isn't justified by racial superiority, so much as
hidden underneath the mask of equality.79
79

The persistence of actual inequality, however, doesn't necessarily mean that we should abandon
this legacy entirely. Important gains were made that should not be overlooked; it would not be
preferable, for example, to return to a world with separate water fountains for whites and coloreds.
This is the way that the advanced capitalist world looked before the 1960s. It is to the New
Left's credit that they were able to fight against some of the most outright and brutal forms of
oppression. The problem is that, after their fight was over, the problems lived in on different ways.

For an example of the oppressors speaking the language of the oppressed today, see Ben Heller's article on
#GamerGate.
Also, it is important to note that this is how domination works in the defining feature of capitalism: a workingclass that sells their labor-power to a capitalist. The working-class and the capitalist are trading what seem to be equivalents;
money for labor. This means that capitalism, at is most essential is inequality in the guise of equality.

To sum up, the three things that define the New Left are (1) its opposition to Stalinist
communism and Social-Democracy (even if many eventually turned back to these), (2) its antihierarchical emphasis, and (3) its focus on what many thought of as non-class issues, such as
women's liberation or anti-racist struggles, and sometimes abandoning the primacy of the workingclass in industrialized countries.

It rebelled against bureaucracy, while setting up bureaucratic networks of its own, and thought
of itself as less hierarchical than the movements that had come before it. It also thought of itself as
more open to non-class issues than their predecessor, the Old Left.
Is this entirely true?
The Old Left, from the point of view of much the New Left, was often too working-class focused,
and narrowly focused on production. (although this is debatable to some extent: for example the
CPUSA, in response to widespread African-American unemployment in the Great Depression started
groups to help fight for rent control, against evictions, etc. [look into this]) In a way, this is true, and the
critique that followed tended to open up spaces for non-whites/non-males within leftist movements.
There are plenty of cases of chauvinism in the history of the Left; for example, women were not
allowed to vote in the Paris Commune (find source). And yet, the predominant New Left seems to be
overly negative in its portrayal of the Old Left. Yes, the Old Left had problems, but the New Left
tended to obscure the relative strides that the Old Left had been able to achieve, in regards to antiracism or anti-sexism, or anti-hierarchy, in short, all the things that the Old Left supposedly did not
really embrace.

As an example, mention that the CPUSA (problematic as much of its history has been) was
the only major political party in the United States, for a while, to call for unconditional
equality amongst all races

- Talk about the back to class reaction, how this has partially blocked people's visions of the Old Left,
and how what we are talking about is not a back to class approach

(have in the section on the power of movements to bring people together (and why intersectionality is
just an attempt at recreating this unity through thought)) - It was not the economics of Communism,
nor the great power of trade unions, nor the excitement of underground politics that claimed me; my
attention was caught by the similarity of workers in other lands, by the possibility of uniting scattered
but

kindred

peoples

into

whole.

 Richard Wright, Black Boy I went home full of reflection, probing the sincerity of the strange
white people, I had met, wondering how they really regarded Negroes. I lay on my bed and read the
magazines and was amazed to find that there did exist in this world an organized search for the truth of
the lives of the oppressed and the isolated. When I had begged bread from the officials, I had wondered
dimly if the outcasts could become united in action, thought, and feeling. Now I knew. It was being
done in one sixth of the earth already. The revolutionary words leaped from the printed page and struck
me with tremendous force.

It was not the economics of Communism, nor the great power

of trade unions, nor the excitement of underground politics that claimed me; my attention was caught
by the similarity of the experiences of workers in other lands, by the possibility of uniting scattered but
kindred peoples into a whole. It seemed to me that here at last, in the realm of revolutionary expression,
Negro experience could find a home, a functioning value and role. Out of the magazines I read came a
passionate call for the experiences of the disinherited, and there were none of the lame lispings of the
missionary in it. It did not say: Be like us and we like you, maybe. It said: If you possess enough
courage to speak out what you are, you will find that you are not alone. It urged life to believe in life.

Mao's idea of cultural revolution is like trying to put icing on a cake that isn't there

Intersectionality is avoiding the main issue (i.e. question begging) when it says that a movement
should be multi-faceted and intersectional; it avoids the main question: how are a bunch of
people, with a bunch of varying interests, supposed to come and fight together in relative unity?
this is one of the things that intersectionality misses about the communist/anarchist,
movement...it brings together a bunch of people who ordinarily would not have much to do with
one another (for example, someone joins the movement because of anti-racist concerns, but
then learns about issues of class inequality, environmental damage, etc. as little pieces
fighting for their own piece of the pie, interest-based identity groups will not be able to
accomplish what they want; it requires linking up with the rest of the working class (and the
other oppressed groups)
"...The workers and peasants of France could not have been expected to take any interest in
the colonial question in normal times, any more than one can expect similar interest from
British or French workers today. But now they were roused. They were striking at royalty,
tyranny, reaction and oppression of all types, and with these they included slavery. The

prejudice of race is superficially the most irrational of all prejudices, and by a perfectly
comprehensible reaction the Paris workers, from indifference in 1789, had come by this
time to detest no section of the aristocracy so much as those whom they called "the
aristocracy of the skin"...Paris between March 1793 and July 1794 was one of the supreme
epochs of political history. Never until 1917 were masses ever to have such powerful
influence--for it was no more than influence--on any government. In these few months of
their nearest approach to power they did not forget the blacks. They felt toward them as
brothers, and the old slave-owners, whom they knew to be supporters of the counterrevolution, they hated as if Frenchmen themselves had suffered under the whip." (C.L.R.
James. The Black Jacobins. New York, 1963, pp. 120, 138-139)
(Rob Hunter. The Civil Rights Movement's Forgotten Radicals. Jacobin.
March

20,

2015.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/civil-rights-

movement-bruce-ackerman/)
Organized socialists were among the few political groups, North or
South, who opposed segregation and Jim Crow in the decades preceding
the Civil Rights Movement.

During the Great Depression,

American socialists did what few other activists would, undertaking the
slow and unglamorous work of organizing thousands of members into a
movement capable of threatening racist institutions from below. The
prewar alliance of black radicals, labor organizers, and socialist cadres
laid the foundations for the mass movements that powered the Civil
Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.

This radical engine is

omitted from conventional portrayals of the Civil Rights Movement. The

legislative

victories

of

the

Civil

Rights

Movement

werent

magnanimously handed down from on high. School desegregation, the

Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Title VIII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (the Fair Housing Act) emerged from
elite-dominated institutions, but they were the results of intense popular
pressure.
Eric Foner - This is a pseudo-politics, a psycho-politics, that says people ought to be loving each

other. Thats not what politics is, people loving each other. Its people acting together, even if they dont
love each other, for a common purpose. If youre going out to a labor picket line, are they all loving
each other, the people on that picket line? Probably not. But they have a common self-interest that
theyre pursuing.
Today one of our problems is we have a lot of movements going on and theyre
sympathetic to one another but they dont seem to connect with one another. Whether its
antiracist movements, gay movements, environmentalist they all seem kind of
fragmented. Whereas the Socialist Party, they all came together. You had Emma Goldman in
there, you had Debs, you had municipal reformers, Jane Addams, progressives it was part
of the political dynamic of the country.
Many in the New Left, like those in the Old Left, saw revolution, or at the very least some form of
systemic change, as necessary. The thing that most separated them from the Old Left is in who was
supposed to be the primary social group.
The traditionalist Marxist (as well as anarcho-communist) view was that the working class was
the main agent of change. By the 1960s, the situation looked a lot different: due to a post-war economic
boom, the workers had cars and televisions now.

As it turns out, the New Left wasn't that new after all; pretty much all of its innovations (as well as
its mistakes) could be found in the Old Left. They were not the same, but their differences shouldn't be
ignored.

Oddly enough, the (seemingly) mundane bread-and-butter economically oriented events are
buried and forgotten. People have most likely heard about of the Black Panther Party. But who, outside
of a small circle of radicals, has heard of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers?
A black communist group based in Detroit, many of the members worked in the auto plants;

their ability to disrupt the national economy was enormous, with an estimated one of out of every six
Americans being directly or indirectly employed by the automotive industry.80
Groups like the Black Panther Party are remembered largely for their political theater
[/theatrics], even though most of their effective work was in everyday causes like free breakfast
programs and clinics. Scary black guys with big guns? Remembered. Helping the people?
Not so much.
So when this everyday [find better term for this] aspect is largely forgotten [find another
word], what chance does the League of Revolutionary Black Workers have of being remembered? It's
thoroughly working-class character is what clearly differentiated the Detroit experience from other
major social movements of the sixties and early seventies.81
This forgetting of the economic is not a unique phenomenon; in the popular memory, the
immediate post-World War II years are like the 1950s; the images of a Leave It To Beaver, happy-golucky, anti-communist hell are a bit misleading. Maybe this was the 50s (for some people), but
certainly not the years before 1948. The 1950s, for a lot of the Left, is best forgotten; a conservative
decade full of anti-communism and more traditional forms of outright oppression.
People tend to forget that the Post-War years experienced some of the greatest labor unrest that
the West has ever seen [find source]. In fact, this, and the growth of radical organizations (as well as
the communist revolutions in China and Korea, and the failed coup in Greece [and the almost
revolution in Italy]), is what prompted the (McCarthy) anti-communist crusade.

80

81

Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin. Detroit: I Do Mind Dying. South End Press: Cambridge,
Massachusetts. 1998, pg. 1 (This was the figure for the late 60s/early 70s.)
ibid, pg. 5

A long time ago, Marx had noted that the bourgeois economists (and most radical ones too)
were satisfied with questioning the content of certain categories (such as labor, price, profit, value,
etc.), but had never extended their analysis to a questioning of the form of these categories; in other
words, they tended to treat them a-historically, or valid for all of history. As if the cavemen were
really just proto-capitlists.
In the same way, intersectionalists tend to concern themselves with the content of the forms of
oppression. They never seem to ask, What kind of social system produces the categories of Race,
Gender, and Class and how are we able to talk about these in equivalent terms (mirroring the logic of
capitalist commodity exchange?

Kate Weigand. Red Feminism: American Communism and the Making of Women's Liberation.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. 2001.

important to note that she is not a Soviet supporter or a communist, as she states in the

preface pg. Xi

pg. 2-3 - It goes without saying that progressive women's struggles of the 1940s and 1950s did

not even come close to eradicating gender inequality among American Communists and their
supporters. Throughout those decades the Communist Party and the progressive Left continued to
perpetuate many of the discriminatory attitudes and policies toward women that Anthony and the others
set out to change. Nevertheless, progressive women's work is particularly significant because its
influence ultimately reached far beyond the Old Left. Anthony and the others did not simply resurrect
the radical feminist thinking of the 1910s. They revolutionized it by conceptualizing the dynamics of
women's oppression and liberation within a framework that made race and class central. They sustained
a small but vibrant women's movement through the 1940s and 1950s and transmitted influential
terminology, tactics, and concepts to the next generation of feminists. Their bold new thinking about
the interdependence of gender, race, and class, and about the personal and cultural aspects of sexism,
shaped modern feminismboth directly and indirectlyand laid absolutely crucial groundwork for the
second wave. Since its emergence in the 1960s the modern women's movement has transformed gender
relations and women's status in the United States. The issues Communist and progressive feminists
raised in the decade after World War II still reverberate throughout American society as we enter the

twenty-first century.

pg. 99-100 - Beginning early in the 1930s it was common for African-American women

Communists to complain that routine relationships between black men and white women in CP circles
made it difficult for them to find black partners and that white men's tendency to avoid them at social
and political events made it impossible for them to form interracial relationships of their own. In
Harlem in 1934 black women grew so resentful of this pattern that they finally asked their section's
leaders to ban interracial marriages in the Party's ranks.
In keeping with the CP's willingness to fight racism at the personal level as well as structurally
in the 1930s, black women framed their grievances about their difficulties within the Party in terms of
white chauvinism. The Party could erase their problems, their complaint implied by instituting a policy
that would force black and white men alike to cast off their white chauvinist notions about black
women's supposedly second-rate attractiveness. Communist leaders took the women's demands
seriously and, in order to follow through on its commitment to fight white male chauvinism, the CP
assigned black leader Abner Berry (whose own wife was white) to deal with them. Berry insisted that
the Communist Party could not outlaw interracial relationships because it was counterrevolutionary
to do so, but he and other leaders initiated changes in the Party's atmosphere intended to improve the
situation. Party organizers launched educational discussions about black women's triply oppressed
status and made an effort to teach dancing to white male Communists so they would be less
embarrassed to ask black women to dance at CP affairs. Apparently, some young black male
Communists even chose voluntarily to end relationships with white wives and girlfriends and to seek
out black women as partners instead.
** (for section on race / part on reification/cynical ideology) - Denying racism is the new racism
(from a FB meme)

To better understand this pamphlet a certain historical background on the CP line concerning women
is helpful. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Communist Party did some effective work among
women, though this work was hampered by the general line of the ultra-left third period. Given the
line and practice of the Party in the Browder period, and the eventual liquidation of the Party and
communist work generally, activity among women was severely affected.

Though the Party was reconstituted in 1945 under William Z. Foster, Inman forcefully points out that
there was no serious and fundamental rectification of the many political and theoretical errors in Party
work among women, many of which continue to this day.
Several structures were established by the Party in the early 1930s to implement special programs for
women. A Womens Commission and special departments were set up to coordinate work among
women. Throughout the early part of the 1930s a daily womens column entitled Home Life appeared
in the Daily Worker, which raised issues of sexism within the party and gave a legitimacy and focus to
womens problems and concerns. These columns probably even helped women bring up these issues in
their home life. Working Woman, a journal whose editors and contributors were predominantly women,
was an official party publication which achieved a circulation of about 8,000 copies per month in the
mid 1930s. The journal took up questions of birth control and those relating to women on the job and
in the home. Further, proposals were made that all CP members study the questions involved.[3]
But women were not limited to discussing their own oppression, and were encouraged to participate in
the overall work of the Party, with many women providing leadership in key areas of struggle, even
against the wishes of their husbands. United Councils of Working Class Women sponsored by the CP
helped mobilize tens of thousands of women to oppose high prices, rent hikes and similar problems.
All this began to change when the Party took up and began to actively implement the line of the 7th
Comintern Congress on united and popular fronts. The popular front line was predicated on an alliance
with non-proletarian strata, which ended in the subordination of communists to larger and more
powerful bourgeois groups. Rather than seeking to maintain working class independence politically and
organizationally, the Party quickly capitulated to tailing after Roosevelt and the New Deal.
There were four major results of this new orientation of party work among women: (1) the
abandonment of the centrality of working class hegemony in the struggle for womens liberation, (2)
the political and organizational subordination of communists to organizations and practices led by and
dominated by women actively supporting the ideology of capitalism, (3) the liquidation of independent
working womens organizations for the struggle toward womens liberation, in general, and for
working womens struggles specifically, and (4) theoretically and politically the Party abandoned a
Marxist-Leninist line on womens oppression, and politically tailed after, and practiced, the lines of
womens organizations dominated by capitalist ideology, to the detriment of working class women.

Linear, Expressive and Structural Causality, or Marxism and Intersectionality as Strange Bedfellows

There far more affinities between intersectionality and one of its most detested enemies,
Marxism, than either side would like to admit.82
One of these similarities is in how, at their best, they both view causality, or the relation
between cause and effect. A famous Marxist critique offered up three different types of causality: linear,
expressive, and structural.83 The first, linear causality, is aptly nicknamed the billiard-ball model; a
cue ball is hit (the cause) and hits another ball (the effect). In other words it is the relation an isolated
object (A) has on another isolated object (B).
How well does linear causality work for other types of interactions? Consider microaggressions, like rape jokes, that help to propagate a larger system of oppression, like rape culture.
For example, let's say that I'm playing video games with my friends. I win and shout, I r***d
82

83

For example: Intersectionality and the base/superstructure operate in a eerily similar fashion, despite the mutual
animosity between their respective supporters. They serve a critical, mediating function: to de-reify our capitalist reality
just a bit, and to make us think about things in a slightly different way. Similar 'tools' include the phrase 'the personal is
the political.'
These are necessary at first, but then quickly become sterile dogmas. Nothing is more pathetic than seeing older leftists
repeating these 'truisms,' year after year, as if the world doesnt change. [Aphorism CCXXIII]
Louis Althuser. Reading Capital. NLB: London. 1970, pg. 186-189
Very schematically, we can say that classical philosophy (the existing Theoretical) had two and only two systems of
concepts with which to think effectivity. The mechanistic system, Cartesian in origin, which reduced causality to a
transitive and analytical effectivity: it could not be made to think the effectivity of a whole on its elements, except at the
cost of extra-ordinary distortions (such as those in Descartes' 'psychology' and biology). But a second system was
available, one conceived precisely in order to deal with the effectivity of a whole on its elements: the Leibnizian concept
of expression. This is the model that dominates all Hegel's thought. But it presupposes in principle that the whole in
question be reducible to an inner essence, of which the elements of the whole are then no more than the phenomenal
forms of expression, the inner principle of the essence being present at each point in the whole, such that at each
moment it is possible to write the immediately adequate equation: such and such an element (economic, political, legal,
literary, religious, etc., in Hegel) = the inner essence of the whole. Here was a model which made it possible to think the
effectivity of the whole on each of its elements, but if this category -- inner essence/outer phenomenon -- was to be
applicable everywhere and at every moment to each of the phenomena arising in the totality in question, it presupposed
that the whole had a certain nature, precisely the nature of a 'spiritual ' whole in which each element was expressive of
the entire totality as a 'pars totalis'. In other words, Leibniz and Hegel did have a category for the effectivity of the
whole on its elements or parts, but on the absolute condition that the whole was not a structure. If the whole is posed as
structured, i.e., as possessing a type of unity quite different from the type of unity of the spiritual whole, this is no longer
the case: not only does it become impossible to think the determination of the elements by the structure in the categories
of analytical and transitive causality, it also becomes impossible to think it in the category of the global expressive
causality of a universal inner essence immanent in its phenomenon The structure is not an essence outside the
economic phenomena which comes and alters their aspect, forms and relations and which is effective on them as an
absent cause, absent because it is outside them. The absence of the cause in the structure's 'metonymic causality '[45] on
its effects is not the fault of the exteriority of the structure with respect to the economic phenomena ; on the contrary, it
is the very form of the interiority of the structure, as a structure, in its effects. This implies therefore that the effects are
not outside the structure, are not a pre-existing object, element or space in which the structure arrives to imprint its mark
: on the contrary, it implies that the structure is immanent in its effects, a cause immanent in its effects in the Spinozist
sense of the term, that the whole existence of the structure consists of its effects, in short that the structure, which is
merely a specific combination of its peculiar elements, is nothing outside its effects.

you guys. What I consciously mean to say is I was the unquestionable winner, but what I end up is
saying is much different; what I end up doing is supporting rape culture.
How? Because, even if none of the people in the room will ever commit a sexual assault (and
you know them well enough to know that they most likely won't), it still maintains a social standard
that joking about sexual assault is ok (when it is not), and thereby helping to normalize it. One of the
results is helping to keep a culture alive that does not listen to the victims of sexual assault, wiping their
complaints under the rug.
Linear causality is not very helpful in this case, because it is only able to see direct interactions
between objects. It would seem to suggest that a joke about sexual assault is only a problem if it
immediately leads to a negative effect, like offending someone.
Every single person who tells a bad taste joke will not necessarily follow through on their
convictions. The problem is more in the message that it sends to the other people around us. It says
that, Hey, I'm not personally for sexual assault, but I'm going to help create a culture where its destigmatized through jokes that signal that I'm not 'for it' but that I'm not going to banish you for doing it
either. This social dimension is the real issue. Linear causality, and its emphasis on part to part
interactions, cannot adequately account for the social, or the interaction between a part and the whole.
This is where expressive causality comes in. It views the effects that make up any whole as
being caused by a single thing. For example, think of people who boil down the motivation for all
human actions to purely sexual reasons. For them, everything is ultimately about sex.
Expressive causality is one way to talk about the interaction between a part and a whole. It is
able to show how something (such as a racist joke) is an effect of a larger system (in this case, racial
oppression).
According to linear causality, the whole is nothing but the sum of its parts. This means that, for
linear causality, there is no major difference between eight people trying to individually lift a tree and
eight people lifting the tree together.
Expressive causality can deal with this problem by showing that the whole is more than the sum
of its parts; the effect of eight people trying to carry a tree individually and eight people doing it
together produce qualitatively different results. The Ancient Wonders were impossible without cooperation, i.e. a large and co-ordinated labor force. Co-operation is the basis of capitalism,84 and so
expressive causality can have its uses, especially when trying to understand a system like capitalism. It
is also necessary to understanding sexual assault (and the jokes about it) as, not just isolated incidents
within a mostly good system, but parts of a rotten system that needs to be changed entirely.
84

Quote from Marx in Capital Vol. 1

For all the things that expressive causality is able to do (most notably its ability to think in terms
of totality, or the whole), it ends up in conceptual dead-ends. One of its major problems is what is now
commonly referred to as essentialism, or reducing everything to a single cause. For example,
Marxists often reduced everything in human history to being (ultimately) caused by the economy; the
base and superstructure being a well-known theoretical model for this interaction.
It is interesting to note that the attack against essentialism was becoming popular around the
same time as the neoliberal downturn, and the slow defeat of the working-class. These grim prospects
had caused many on the Left to embrace the strand of New Left thinking that did away with the
centrality of the working-class, a notion that was now deemed essentialist. And it wasn't only this
idea that was under fire; amongst many other things, things like the essence of being a woman or
African-American were being heavily questioned. There were certain features that were thought to be
essential to those categories (such as a certain feminine way of acting, etc.) that were beginning to
be de-linked.
In short, essentialism was good for the more straightforward days of identity politics, but was
found faltering when people tried to account for the effects that the mixture of these ideas would have
in a person. In terms of intersectional theory, the charge of essentialism would mean that one
category (race, gender, class, etc) is always treated as the dominant one, and that all other oppressions
are always secondary; there is no hierarchy of the categories. For anti-essentialists, there is no
essential type of oppression, which means that the causes for peoples oppression are nonhierachically structured.
Anti-essentialism seems like a good idea, but in practice it almost always ends up repeating the
most vulgar essentialisms that it despises, in theory. Judith Butler's comments at a talk are a good
example.85 She was discussing the uncertainty that is associated with gender, her main point was that
the concept of gender is something that can help to undermine the traditional binary model of
(heterosexual) male/female; at the same time, can give people anxiety. People think that they are set
within their sexual orientation, and then discover that things are a bit different. Or perhaps they knew
for a while, like Caitlyn Jenner.
This fits into Butler's primary work, which is centered around deconstructing essentialist
notions of gender, and questions the links that people often draw between certain actions and certain
genders; males do this, females do that; gays do this, etc.
Gender is a social construction, and so old-fashioned essentialist notions of it have to be
thrown out the window. The story that she used to illustrate her point, however, showed all the typical
85

May 30, 2013; McGill University

pitfalls of the anti-essentialist stance. She was at a recent visit to a hotel in London, and that (in her
words), a gentleman86 (how she started off the storyher words, and would repeat it two more times)
came to her door. He didn't know if Judith Butler was a man or a woman, and knocked on the door
and said Madame, Mister, Madame, Mister, Madame, Mister, Madame...etc
She finally she answered the door, Yes, so as to partially alleviate his anxiety. He asked if
she minded that he was going to check the fridge in the room to make sure its working properlyShe
said, Sure, and then said as an aside to the audience, Although, I don't know what my gender had to
do with checking the fridge, i.e. why it was necessary to check know her gender in order to be able to
check the fridge? A room full of gender studies students and professors laughed (and had been laughing
for the whole time). It was amazing for them to not see the blatant hypocrisy; Judith Butler seemed to
imply that she was sure that he was a gentleman, but that her own gender should be viewed as
ambiguous.
She then recounted another incident at that same hotel, in the locker roomtwo women came
in while Judith Butler was changing, and they began to act nervously. They then asked Judith Butler if
this changing room was for women and for men or just for women, to which JB responded (after the
other incident, she was feeling a bit exasperated), Im a lady! Something that she told us she had
never said that in her life. It seems like, in both stories, anti-essentialism has turned back into goodold essentialism.
The problem lies in what anti-essentialism tries to do. It is attempt to do away with the
question of causality entirely, only to have to have it come back with a vengeance, in practice.
It never works out this way though; every anti-essentialist harbors a secret essentialism;
behind the rhetoric, they all have a privileged category.
One consequence of this is that one can take the side of essentialism or anti-essentialism,
but it will end up at the same point: a permanent oscillation between the unhelpful extremes of realism
and nominalism87, i.e. an antinomy between realism and nominalism.
In 2011-2012, at McGill University, there was a publicized strike by university staff, which was
then followed by a province-wide strike, the biggest in Qubec's history. At one of many points, in
2011, the leftist group on campus, Mob Squad, was embroiled in contentious debate.88 The issue this
time was the group's name.
On the one side were the realists, who had differing opinions over what the group name should
be. Some wanted it to stay the same; others wanted it to change. But the assumptions for many on this
86

She would use this term two more times in the story
Realism: the idea that universals objectively exist; Nominalism; the idea that the universal is nothing but a name
88
One of the other hot button topics was security culture.
87

side was that Mob Squad as a group exists, and that there should be a single, agreed upon form of
action. For example, deciding whether Mob Squad would occupy a building, and whether it would
endorse it.
So really, the debate over the name change was actually a convoluted (and unnecessarily time
consuming) way of addressing a real issue; who is Mob Squad, what should it strive to do and how
should it go about doing that?
On the other side, mostly Ultra-Leftist, were a smaller group of people that we can call the
nominalists. They claimed that these debates were useless, because Mob Squad wasn't a real thing; it
was, in their eyes, only a collection of people, nothing more. For some of this persuasion, Mob Squad
should not be thought of as a thing that existed independently of its members; for others that were
more extreme, it supposedly did not exist at all.
And yet, their actions didn't exactly match up with their theories. They still came to meetings
and participated in a group that was purportedly non-existent. In fact, some were part of the leading
comrades. They said one thing (nominalism), but did another (realism). Their position seemed to be
the most radical, but it was actually the most conservative one, because it questioned the existence of
the group, while relying on it to function normally. By denying the existence of the group, they were
also denying that it was an entity which one could change. In other words, it became a way of
enforcing the status quo.
So, in a way, both sides were right about some things and wrong about others. The essentialists
are right to think that the group did exist. On the other hand, the nominalists were right, in that,
technically, Mob Squad did not exist, in the sense that it was not a thing that someone could find in
the wilderness, or in a magic box.
Structural causality was a way of trying to solve the dilemmas of expressive causality,
particularly its reductionism (or essentialism), and its antinomy between realism and nominalism. Its
solution was to keep the emphasis on the whole, but to think of the whole as a (contingent) structure.
Let's say that you are talking with someone who makes the argument that, blacks are naturally
more violent than whites. Your first response might be to say, That sounds like a racist argument, to
which they will say, It's not, I'm just talking about the facts. Whether you look at the US, or Africa, or
Africans elsewhere, their rates of violent crime are usually much higher.
This person is trying to pull you into an empiricist trap. This is thinking about the facts
without considering what is behind them. It is also essentialist, in that it naturalizes something that is a
social issue (and is therefore able to be changed).
Some people might respond to this racist assertion by coming from an anti-essentialist point of

view No not all Africans are like that. This is true in a way, but doesn't really touch the core of the
problem: the fact that, in a way, the other person is right. There are significantly higher rates of violent
crime among blacks than whites. This is a problem that cannot simply be ignored by claiming
everyone isn't like that.
One could point out that there were large stretches of history when Africans were less violent
than their European counterparts. One could also show how the structure of capitalism has oppressed
blacks in a way that they tend to have a greater propensity for violence, and how this would change in a
communist society. In either case, it is showing that what seems to be an essential and inalterable
feature of blacks, i.e. being more violent than whites, is a transient, historically identifiable
phenomenon.
This is where structural causality comes in. It is able to think about problems in a structural
sense, while at the same time historicizing the structure, and showing that it is not eternal or
natural. This would mean that, yes, in the current system, blacks do tend to be more violent than
whites, but it would seek to understand why this is the case and how it could eventually change. In
other words, an effect is understand to be caused by an (impermanent) structure.
Another name for structural causality is overdetermination. This is a helpful tool for
understanding the nature of exceptions that often seem to contradict a (vulgar) essentialist view of
power. These exceptions can often work in two ways.
The first can be found, for example, when people are talking about the sexual objectification of
women. In steps the male with seemingly nothing to lose. He wants to play devil's advocate, so he says,
Yes, women are sexually objectified, but so are men! Haven't you ever seen Calvin Klein ads?
What we have is a Mr. Me Too on our hands.89
Another good example is when blacks and whites are arguing about the legacy of slavery. Some
whites will say, My family came from Ireland/Italy/Poland, etc, and didn't have two cents to their
name, but they worked their way up. They were poor and exploited, but they managed to make
something for themselves, unlike the African-Americans, who can't seem to get their act together.
The correct response to this racist idiocy is, Yeah, but your ancestors chose to come here.
In both cases, the Mr. Me Too, who doesn't actually need to be a male, is trying to say that both
89

Not-all man is like Mr. Me Too. Whenever someone says that were oppressed because of x, y and z, Mr. Me Too
will shout, Yeah me too! This position is false in many ways, particularly in its performative dimension. Nevertheless,
it represents a conceptual advance over the unilateral model of oppression (i.e. oppressor does all the oppression [and
therefore has all the agency], while the oppressed can be acted on or resistant). This is because it introduces the perspective
of totality (admittedly in a lame way).
[I know, I know, yep, yeah you too / Okay we get it, yep, yeah you too / I know,
I know, yep, yeah you too / Okay everybody meet Mr. Me Too / I know what you thinkin why I call you Me Too / Cause
everything I say, I got you sayin Me Too - The Clipse feat. Pharrell (Mr. Me Too)] [Aphorism CCXXXIX]

sides are equal, because we're all in this together.

We may all be in this mess together, but certainly not in an equal way. Overdetermination
goes beyond the truism that (A) has an effect on (B), and vice versa.90 Overdetermination shows how
they are mutually interacting, with (A) having more of an effect on (B) than (B) has on (A). For
example, while men and women are both objectified, it is clearly the case that the sexual objectification
of women is more prevalent. Not only is it statistically more prevalent; patriarchy is the dominant form
that this objectification takes. Patriarchy is a system that effects all genders, but in significantly
different ways. This means that the sexual objectification of women overdetermines the sexual
objectification of men; to put it another way, between men objectifying women and women
objectifying men, the former is the overdetermining instance.
Overdetermination should not be simply boiled down to a statistical majority (i.e. one can
count the cases of how often people are sexually objectified and then tally up the results). What is
important is the form. Patriarchy does not have to mean that women are the statistical majority in cases
of sexual assault.
In many parts of the country, the United States has been spending more on building new prisons
than new schools, one of the consequences being that it is the first country in the history of the world
to count more rapes for men than for women.91 It would be silly to suggest this proves that sexual
assault isn't primarily patriarchal anymore. The patriarchal form remains; it overdetermines.
The ruling class, for example, are far from being the majority of the society; however, as the
classic line goes, the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.92

Structural causality was originally a rethinking of the base-superstructure model that had held
such an importance for classical Marxism. The base-superstructure concept is traceable to (a few of)
Marx and Engel's writings, and is generally meant to indicate that a society, and the relations that
90

As E.P. Thompson pointed out, mutual interaction is scarcely determination. (E.P. Thompson, 'Caudwell', Socialist
Register (1977), pg. 246-247)
91
In January, prodded in part by outrage over a series of articles in the New York Review of Books, the Justice Department
finally released an estimate of the prevalence of sexual abuse in penitentiaries. The reliance on filed complaints appeared to
understate the problem. For 2008, for example, the government had previously tallied 935 confirmed instances of sexual
abuse. After asking around, and performing some calculations, the Justice Department came up with a new number:
216,000. Thats 216,000 victims, not instances. These victims are often assaulted multiple times over the course of the year.
The Justice Department now seems to be saying that prison rape accounted for the majority of all rapes committed in the US
in 2008, likely making the United States the first country in the history of the world to count more rapes for men than for
women. (Christopher Glazek. Raise The Crime Rate. N+1. Issue 13: Machine Politics. Winter 2012.
https://nplusonemag.com/issue-13/politics/raise-the-crime-rate/)
92
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society,
is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. (Karl Marx. The German Ideology.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm)

constitute it, follow a similar pattern: an economic base gives rise to a political and cultural
superstructure.
What this meant, in a precise sense, was never quite clear. However, the relationship between
the base and the superstructure was generally thought of in the terms of expressive causality;
everything, at the end of the day, was nothing more than the movements of the economy.
Cultural critiques often adopted the position of reflection theory, which held that our mental
conceptions were just reflections of the world around us, but also, that cultural products were just
reflections of economic circumstances. Jaws, for example, was read nothing more than a symbolic
tale of capitalism and its destructive effects on small-town America, the shark representing capitalism
(or in Fidel Castro's reading, American capitalism). Also popular is the affixing of class labels to
everything, as if this is the final word on a work of art. A formal style, say expressionism, is pigeonholed as petit-bourgeois, with nothing more to meaningful say.
These practices, such as relating cultural products to the predominant relations of production, or
talking about them in terms of class, are integral parts of any radical criticism. The problem is in the
mechanical and formulaic way they were often used.
They gave the impression that history could be boiled down to a single logic, as if a single Godcreator was at the source of everything, whether it was a religious being, or the economy (which
followed its own deterministic path, creating the rest of society). One can see this in some of the
more unfortunate parts of Marx's work; according to this schema of history, the forces of production are
what really matter, and are the true driving force behind changes in the relations of production. This
theory is made into a trans-historical law, instead of being understood as a thoroughly capitalist idea.
This will be explained more thoroughly in a bit.
For the time being though, we can say that this idea of history is in line with the thinking of
Stalin's Five Year Plans, which sought to increase the productive forces of the Soviet Union, so as to
usher in communism in the future. The relations of production were socialist, which means to say
that the state owned all the major things within society, and undemocratically planned production. Any
attempt to establish some form of legitimate worker's control, especially at the national level, was
repressed by the state; it was extremism because it was trying to establish certain relations of
production that the forces of production were not yet ready for.
The Five Year Plans same some of the most rapid economic growth within history, but were also
accompanied by bloodshed and misery. In many ways, the true theoretical target of expressive
causality was Stalin.
Structural causality, in its Marxist version, proposed a new way of looking at the relationship

between base and superstructure. It claimed that, the superstructure had a relative autonomy, i.e. its
own internal logic that could not be simply reduced to the movements in the base.
This helped to justify a very specific political practice: Maoism.

Maoism has certainly seen better days. Today it gets a bad rap, and for good reasons; but it is
also something that is incredibly misunderstood a phenomenon that is better than most people give it
credit for, while simultaneously being more terrible than most can imagine. In attempting to
comprehend this situation, the viewpoint of expressive causality tends to lay the blame primarily at the
level of the leadership. Mao is portrayed as the villain who masterminded all of the evil, and perhaps
this is why people are so obsessed with finding out how much Mao knew about things like the famine
during the Great Leap Forward.
This vision of the world is good for comic books, but not for serious historical inquiry: it
presents Mao as someone who had the power to shape China, but chose to do so in the wrong way. As
if Mao actually had complete control, or wasn't constantly struggling with the people he called the
capitalist-roaders. What people find hard to accept about things like the famine during the Great Leap
Forward is that they did not emanate from a single source (i.e. Mao); they were events that were
determined from multiple sources. The leadership of the communist party may have had an
overdetermining role in the disaster, but they were not the only player.
Most people picture Mao giving the orders for millions to die, and all the people below him
faithfully carrying out his orders to the letter. Its a very personalizing view, which blocks the more
frightening reality: that this was a system, like any other, which was fundamentally under no one's
control. The image for the violence in the People's Republic of China should not be Mao shouting
supposed death orders, but a bureaucrat going to work, shuffling some papers around, and then going
home and calling it a day. The general incompetence of the system should be the primary focus, not
Mao, or the other members of the leadership; if the leadership is playing an unhealthfully predominant
role within the society, then this is due to how that society works, not because of some eternal quality
of the leadership in every single kind of society. This view of leadership through the lenses of
expressive causality is also uncomfortably close to the way to Mao's own opinions on good
leadership: What does a revolutionary commander do? He sees to it that everyone has food to eat,
clothes to wear, a place to live, and books to read. And in order to achieve this, he must lead a billion
and more people to struggle against the oppressors and bring them to a final victory. This is precisely

what Stalin wants to do.93 This makes it seem as if Mao shared Stalin's style of commandism (or
leading purely from the top-down, through cadres). Mao's own position, however, was a bit different.
In many respects, Maoism was an advance over Stalinism. For example, when concerning the
question of leadership, Stalin tended to view the relationship between the masses and the leadership in
a particularly one sided manner. Mao, on the other hand, advocated the idea of the mass line. He called
on communists to take the ideas of the masses and concentrate them, then go to the masses, persevere
in the ideas and carry them through, so as to form correct ideas of leadership - such is the basic method
of leadership.94 It was certainly better than what came before it, but often boiled down to the
communist equivalent of write your congressman,95 and did not essentially challenge the leadershipcentric view that it inherited from Stalinism.
More importantly, for our purposes, were Mao's thoughts on the relationship between base and
superstructure. When commenting one of Stalin's books on economic problems in the USSR, he wrote
that it says nothing about the superstructure,96 because why talk about the superstructure when it's
nothing more than a reflection of the base? Mao claimed that Stalin's outlook is not concerned with
people, but with things, specifically economic things. Instead of viewing the superstructure as
nothing but a mere reflex of the base, Mao insisted that the superstructure stood in a position of relative
autonomy from the base. This meant that it was somehow possible to have a socialist base of the
country without a corresponding socialist superstructure. There are many problems with this idea, but
for now, it is enough to point out that the attempt to bring the superstructure more into line with the
socialist base resulted in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.97
As a good Marxist, Mao gave priority to the base, but also indicated that there could be
instances when the superstructure becomes more important. The base was the ultimate deciding factor
between whether the base or superstructure played a predominant role; it was the structure in
dominance because the economic base determines (in the last instance) which element is to be
93

Mao Tse-Tung. Speech at a Meeting of All Circles in Yanan to Commemorate Stalins Sixtieth Birthday (Dec. 21,
1939): http://massline.org/SingleSpark/Stalin/StalinMaoEval.htm
94
Mao Tse-Tung. Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse- Tung. Chapter 11: The Mass Line.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch11.htm
95
I owe this reference to Robert Jones.
96
Stalin's book from first to last says nothing about the superstructure. It is not concerned with people; it considers things,
not people. Does the kind of supply system for consumer goods help spur economic development or not? He should have
touched on this at the least. Is it better to have commodity production or is it better not to? Everyone has to study this.
Stalin's point of view in his last letter is almost altogether wrong. The basic error is mistrust of the peasants. (Mao TseTung. A Critique of Soviet Economics. Monthly Review Press: New York. 1977, pg. 35)
97
It is, again, a misunderstood event that was both worse and better than people think that it is. For more on the Cultural
Revolution, see Maurice Meisner. Maos China and After: A History of the Peoples Republic (Third Edition). The Free
Press: New York, 1999, and also our upcoming work on the three main forms of Socialism-From-Above in the twentieth
century: Social-Democracy, Ultra-Leftism and Marxism-Leninism.

dominant in a social formation.98 Whereas expressive causality presupposed a center, or an

original, primary essence, structural causality is supposed to represent a de-centered structure; it
has no centre, only a dominant element, and a determination in the last instance.99
The critique almost writes itself: if there is no pre-given center, then why does the economy
seem to occupy this role? From this angle, (Marxist) structural causality is a failed attempt at antiessentialism, albeit a more complex one than can be found within the realm of expressive causality.
It is not hard to see how, in the dark days of neoliberalism and identity politics, many started to
make the shift from saying that there was a relative to full autonomy of the base and
superstructure; in the anti-essentialist program, Marxist economism had to go, and any priority given
to the economic or the working-class was instantly branded as essentialist.
Convincing as this may be, it had its own set of problems; clearly, there were some issues that
had priority over others; people do not have an infinite amount of time and choose to spend their time
doing some things rather than others. For example, it would have been a bit weird to insist that the most
important issue facing the world in 1943 was the unethical treatment of animals.
This means that, not only do people tend to privilege certain things, but that a theory is better
for taking this into account. The (anarchist) thinker bell hooks was asked what this kind of
intersectionality would look like, and gave an answer that is noteworthy for two reasons; it represents
the best of intersectionality, but also is surprising for its foregrounding of class:
[Interviewer]: Youre known, especially within our circles, for popularizing intersectional
theory as opposed to reductionisms. Can you say a little bit about how intersectional theory
plays out in practice? That is to say, your typical class reductionist at least has a priority; a
Black Nationalist has something to prioritize. How do you practice intersectionalism?
[bell] hooks: Intersectionality allow us to focus on what is most important at a given point in
time. I used to say to people, if youre in a domestic situation where the man is violent,
patriarchy and male dominationeven though you understand it intersectionallyyou focus,
98

Louis Althusser in Ben Brewster. Althusser Glossary (1969):

https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/althusser/index.htm
99
This was also expressed in the Althusserian distinction between structural domination and structural determination: The
determination of all [...] social formations is to be sure economic, in the sense of the type of production current in each. Yet
the unifying ideology of each onethe dominantmay well be quite different: various forms of religion, or else the ethos
of the polis or ancient city-state, or power relations and personal domination, as in feudalism (not to mention the now
unmentionable Asiatic mode, unified by way of the God-emperor at its center). In these cases the ideological or religious
dominant is distinct from its determinant in the type of production involved: only in capitalism are these two things
identical, and the economic determinant is also the secular dominant (or in other words its structuration by the money form).
If this seems already too mysterious we may rephrase it in terms of community or collectivity (Gemeinschaft): the various
pre-capitalist societies, whatever their technical production, are all organized collectively: only capitalism constitutes a
social formationthat is, an organized multiplicity of peopleunited by the absence of community, by separation and by
individuality. (Fredric Jameson. Representing Capital: A Reading of Volume One. Verso: London. 2011, pg. 16)

you highlight that dimension of it, if thats what is needed to change the situation. I think
that, again, if we move away from either/or thinking, and if we think, okay, every day of my life
that I walk out of my house I am a combination of race, gender, class, sexual preference and
religion or what have you, what gets foregrounded? I think its crazy for us to think that people
dont understand whats being foregrounded in their lives at a given point in time. Like right
now, for many Americans, class is being foregrounded like never before because of the
economic situation. It doesnt mean that race doesnt matter, or gender doesnt matter, but it
means that right now in many peoples lives, in the lives of my own family members, people are
losing jobs, insurance. I was teasing my brother that he was penniless, homeless, jobless. Right
now in his life, racism isnt the central highlighting force: its the world of work and economics.
It doesnt mean that he isnt influenced by racism, but when he wakes up in the morning the
thing thats driving his world is really issues of class, economics and power as they articulate
themselves. I guess I wish we could talk about: what does it mean to have a politics of
intersectionality that also privileges what form of domination is most oppressing us at a given
moment in time.100
So, in contrast to Marxist structural causality, which explicitly held to the ideas of both structure in
dominance and determination in the last instance (by the base or the economic), intersectionality, at its
best, looks to be advocating a de-essentialized structural causality. It held on to the idea of structure
in dominance while seeming to ditch the concept of determination in the last instance.101
It did this, but not entirely. While it did away with the determination in the last instance of the
economic, a closer look at bell hook's argument reveals that it does not manage to do away with the
concept of determination in the last instance in general. The economic has simply been replaced by a
more vacuous, and less determinate concept: power.
It is vulgar, but the Marxist insistence on the determination of the economic in the last instance
is at least tied (even if in the most embarrassingly incorrect way) to the movements of the economy, a
social network that is an objective phenomenon (in that, it tends to behave in certain ways). For
example, no matter how much a lot of the capitalists and their apologists try to deny it, capitalism
inevitably falls into crisis after a boom period.
It cannot be studied with the accuracy of a natural science, but it can certainly reach the level of
a dismal science.102 The intersectional stance is nowadays more attentive to non-class oppressions
100

bell hooks. How Do You Practice Intersectionalism? An interview with bell hooks. Common Struggle. 2009.
http://www.commonstruggle.org/bellhooks [submitted March 15, 2012]
101
At it's best, Judith Butler's theory gender-performativity, where someone's gender is constituted through a repetition of
(habitual) acts, seems to fit with this model of structural causality.
102
For example, this is a quote from Marx at his worst (i.e. at his closest proximity to other bourgeois thinkers): The
changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In
studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic
conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science [italics mine], and the legal,
political, religious, artistic or philosophic in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and
fight it out. (Karl Marx. Preface to A Contribution To The Critique of Political Economy. (1859)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm)

in many key ways,103 but throws away causality, and so has little that is meaningful to say about how
one should act in the present; this is linked to their inability to link oppressions with the objective
structures of capitalist domination.104
Although classical Marxism105 and intersectionality disagree on whether the economic is
actually determinate in the last instance, they do happen to share one feature; the way in which they
explain how a certain aspect becomes predominant within a certain structure. They seem to both
adhere to the idea that a structure is only predominant [structure in dominance] because of the way that
the parts in the whole happen to be aligning at any one moment.106 [put Althusser quote in the footnote]
What seems like a common sense thing to say, quickly becomes untenable when applied to the
real world. Take the New York City subway; how much sense would it make to say that the subway
system is nothing but the way that the parts are aligning at a certain moment. It would be true, but it
would be a pretty banal thing to say.
The subway is a structure (an open one), and it does have many parts, whether they be
stations, trains, commuters; they are all part of the whole, the entire network. Even though
commuters come and go, stations and close and open, new trains are bought and old ones are reefed,
it doesn't stop being the New York City subway; it has a certain continuity as an object. Sure it
experiences changes, but it is still called the New York City subway for a reason; not purely out of
convention, but because the concept that people are referring to remains, even through its changes.
There is another good example of the idea that a system is nothing but the parts that make it up
at any one time: the conservative motto of personal choice. A conservative will look at a group of
poor people and say that they are poor because of personal choices; if they had made different
decisions, like saving their money instead of buying luxuries, then they would not be poor, or so the
argument goes. A single question is enough to bring down this whole line of argumentation: if wealth is
the result of personal choices, why do certain social groups tend to continually make the same choices?
This would seem to suggest that things are not merely a matter of personal choice but also involve
certain structural factors. And as many social scientists are quick to point out, it's easier to predict the
behavior of groups than individuals.
This is, first, an example of how the whole is never reducible to the sum of its parts. But it is
103

Although, at the same time, as is clear from the Old Left, New Left, Post New Left section, this is certainly not
unilaterally true.
104
This is also a criticism that can be said about classical Marxism (in particular Althusserian Marxism); as Ellen Meiksins
Woods points out, for all their talk about structures, the Althusserians had a hard time talking about how empirical
situations were determined by structures, without giving a determinist or voluntarist analysis.
105
Another term for classical Marxism is what some people in the Value-Form Theory camp call world-view Marxism
106

also an example of how an object is not reducible to its parts or qualities.

It also shows why why materialism is not first and foremost about matter; matter, of course,
cannot be ignored, but the problem with a matter-first view of materialism is that it discounts the
possibility of larger emergent entities.107 For example, even if all nations of the European Union are
composed of quarks and electrons, we can shift these particles around to some extent without changing
the Union. There are countless different numbers and arrangements of particles that could be tried
without the Union itself being changed.
This is an illustration of redundant causation, the principle that numerous different causes
can yield the same object, which suggests that the object is something over and above its more
primitive elements. Intersectionality, in particular, tends to do this: instead of understanding capitalism
as an object, it thinks that understanding capitalism requires making a laundry list of oppressions,
and then adding them together (of course, with the stipulation that this is far from being an exhaustive
list). In not being able to understand capitalism as an object, intersectionality and classical Marxism
are not materialist.

Capitalism as an Object

What exactly is an object? In everyday speak, an object usually means a thing, and more
precisely, a thing that exists, and that has determinate mass. Apples, cars, fire-hydrants; these seem
like the types of things we usually think of when we talk about objects.
So for some, it might have seemed weird to refer to the New York City subway as not just a
system, but also as an object. This would seem to indicate a different understanding of what objects
are.
Understanding an object means avoiding two common ways of talking about objects. The first
kind is the one when you explain a thing by explaining the tiny pieces its made of,108 as in the
107

Graham Harman. The Quadruple Object (Kindle Locations 221-225). Zero Books. Kindle Edition, 2011.
To say, therefore, that an object is material is [...] to say nothing. Materiality as such does not specify, it is rather a
generic attribute, a property common to all things. Indeed, however strange it may seem, and at the risk of provoking
protest from some over-zealous materialist, it should be said loud and clear that matter as such is itself only an idea.
(Lucio Colletti. From Rousseau to Lenin: Studies in Ideology and Society. New York, N.Y: Monthly Review Press, 1974,
pg. 5)
108
Graham Harman. Graham Harman at Moderna Museet: What is an Object?. January 15, 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eiv-rQw1lc

previous European Union example.

This doesn't get us very far, because one could conceivably change a few of the molecules of
the EU, as is happening all the time anyway, without affecting its core as an object. This way of
reducing objects is referred to as overmining,109 an approach that is more associated with
intersectionality than classical Marxism. Intersectionality overmines the object by being primarily
interested in the effects of capitalist oppression. For example, rather than talk about class exploitation,
intersectionality prefers to call-out class privilege (or classism); the concept of class exploitation
focuses more on the underlying (class) relations between people, while the second is more concerned
with the surface effects of these interactions.
Classical Marxism, on the other hand, tends to undermine capitalism as an object. Undermining
philosophies approach the object from below, in contrast to overmining philosophies which approach
the object from above. Undermining is when someone claims that objects are not the primary reality,
because they are part of something deeper: a larger network, story, flux, etc.110
An example of undermining is when your smart-ass friend asks something like, But what
makes this lamp, a lamp? Where does the lamp end and the sidewalk begin? Where does anything start
and begin? Isn't all of reality one?
For classical Marxism, capitalism is just one system in a series of modes of production. This
means that, to its credit, Marxism has an (explicit) meta-narrative of history and our place in it.
Intersectionality, being a product of postmodernism, usually does not like the idea of meta-narratives;
this makes it hard to cognitively map our social environment and its corresponding history.
The idea of a meta-narrative is not the problem here. What is problematic is the way that the
(typical) Marxist narrative thinks of capitalism as an object.111 For a lot of Marxists, capitalism is just
like any other mode of production: a tension between forces and relations of production. The forces of
production are supposed to be constantly expanding, eventually breaking through the relations of
109

Rather than being undermined from beneath, the object is overmined from above. On this view, objects are important
only insofar as they are manifested to the mind, or are part of some concrete event that affects other objects as well.
Consider the widespread empiricist view that the supposed objects of experience are nothing but bundles of qualities. The
word apple is merely a collective nickname for a series of discrete qualities habitually linked together: red, sweet, cold,
hard, solid, juicy. What exist are individual impressions, ultimately in the form of tiny pixels of experience, and the
customary conjunction of these puncta leads us to weave them into larger units. Graham Harman. The Quadruple Object
(Kindle Locations 146-151). Zero Books. Kindle Edition.
110
Someone like Gilles Deleuze belongs here, but also a (seemingly different) thinker like Lukcs (and other Marxists with
a certain reading of Hegel).
111
What follows is not supposed to be representative of all Marxism, but of the way that Marxism is usually presented and
received. In terms of Marx himself, I share the following opinion: While it has been argued that economic determinism
contradicts Marxs historical materialism, and runs directly counter to the critique of political economy, it must be admitted
that support for such determinism can genuinely be found in a number of the brief statements of their work made by Marx
and Engels, qualifications notwithstanding. (Georges Comninel. Rethinking the French Revolution: Marxism and the
Revisionist Challenge. Verso: London, 1990, pg. 154)

production of a certain epoch; a new social order is formed, one that is better suited to tend to the
current forces of production.
There are many problems with this view. First, the imperative constantly to improve the
technical forces of production [is] specific to capitalism, and to posit technological determinism as a
general theory of history [is] simply to read back into all history a drive that is a specifically capitalist
imperative.112 It is telling that, for all its impressive technical accomplishments, Ancient Rome was not
able to have the kind of continued technological progress in its nearly 1,000 year history that the United
States has experienced within the last two-hundred years. This was due to its slave-based economy,
which did not have the structural imperative to constantly develop the forces of production.
The second problem with this view is that it sees communism as a more or less automatic
outcome of capitalism. The story goes something like: capitalism will continue to produce and produce
until this becomes too much for even capitalism to handle. At this point, the forces of production will
select socialism over capitalism; socialism is then the further development of the productive forces
until we reach communism, where all scarcity will be abolished.
It's a curious story that seems to be missing a major actor: a revolutionary subject. There doesn't
seem to be much room for conscious action against capitalism, when the forces of production have
taken care of that for you. In a way, for much of classical Marxism, the true revolutionary subject is
not the proletariat, and not even the peasanty, but machines and techniques, i.e. the forces of
production.113
In viewing the forces of production as the guiding hand of history, classical Marxism sees
capitalism where it doesn't exist; it bleeds the boundaries together into a monochrome blur. The
specificity of capitalism is lost, because the object (capitalism) has been undermined.
Undermining and overmining don't work alone however; the use of one usually presupposes the
other. Intersectionality is based on overmining, but can also have an undermining aspect. Think of
how power was the ultimately determining instance for intersectionality; it is something that is
supposed to be deeper than any of its surface manifestations. Or when intersectionalists say that
capitalism is just one system of out of many (colonialism, patriarchy, etc). Hence, their love of saying
things like fuck this capitalist-patriarchal-racist-colonialist system; it is not only a mouthful, it's a bit
incorrect politically. The way that classical Marxism's undermining presupposes an overmining will be
explained later. The important thing is not to stress a synthesis between under and overmining, but to
112

Ellen Meiksins Wood (in Charles Post. The American Road To Capitalism: Studies in Class-Structure, Economic
Development and Political Conflict, 1620-1877. Leiden: Brill, 2011, pg. xii)
113
According to the Marxist-Leninists, the forces of production bring the masses to a revolutionary boiling point, and the
leadership provides direction (i.e. takes it over from there). [Aphorism CLXXXVIII]

see which side is overdetermining.

To recapitulate: what does it mean to say that capitalism is an object? It means that capitalism is
not reducible to the sum of its parts. Capitalism is a system that is produced by people, and wouldn't
exist without their participation. At the same time, capitalism is not merely the sum total of these
activities; it has a certain logic that is irreducible to them. Social-Democracy tends to view capitalism
as a series of parts which can be reformed, piece-by-piece; if only the transition to socialism were this
simple. Revolutions happen for a reason; some systems are not able to be reformed, and need a
complete overhaul. The capitalist object cannot just be dissolved piece-by-piece; we have to aim for its
core.114
The core feature capitalism is commodity fetishism; it provides the logic of capitalism (as an
object/system). It means that, whether they are conscious of it or not, people within capitalism
generally have to do things that most people did not have to do throughout history, such as depending
on a wage for survival. This seems normal to us now, but consider that for most of civilized history,
the vast majority of people were subsistence farmers, obtaining the necessities of life from the land
around them, perhaps augmented with a bit of trade. This is why the taking away of the commons (in
England) is marked as one of the beginning moments of capitalism: it took away the common lands and
created a mass of landless peasants, now faced with having to sell their labor-power for a wage to
continue to live, or living on the margins of society (and surviving through criminal activity). This
process cannot be boiled down to the sum of a collection of subjective decisions; individual
decisions do matter, but the thing that is structuring individual choices is more important.
For example, many people like to portray the ruling class as evil and not nice. Donald
Trump and the like certainly have odious personalities, but this view is naive, because a member of the
ruling class can be perfectly ok in their personal life, and still make ruthless business decisions that
negatively impact a whole network of people. If they do not make these decisions, then the
shareholders will find someone who can do it. And if the shareholders are like Robert Owen and the
utopian socialists, and try to set up socialist factories and villages, they will quickly learn that the laws
of the capitalist marketplace will inevitably wipe out these attempts.115 This is because the marketplace
114

When we meet a friend, say Joe, we do not approach them as someone who is 95% like the person named Joe This
means that objects have a certain givenness as well as a unity. We interact primarily with objects, not their features.
It is important to understand capitalism as a unity to avoid the reformist temptation. Just as a table can be painted a
different color, or have one of its legs replaced, it still remains, in many key ways, the same table. Capitalism must be
challenged as an object with a unity. This does not mean that people should go for Ultra-Leftist absolute negation either.
The capitalist unity is the unity of unity and disunity, meaning that the system has cracks in it. For more on this, see out
future work on the three main types of Socialism-From-Above in the twentieth century.
115
The laws of the creation and circulation of value impose themselves on the whole of society and leave no place for
conscious, subjective decisions, not even for the 'ruling classes:' this is what Marx calls 'commodity fetishism.' []
Replacing the critique of capitalism with the critique of financial markets is pure populism and simply means avoiding the

is something that is universal: under capitalism, both the ruling classes and the exploited classes must
reproduce themselves through the marketplace for the first time in human history.116
How we consciously relate to commodity fetishism is not the most important moment: one can
easily imagine a scenario where a Marxist professor is at the grocery store with their friend,
deconstructing a transaction, explaining the intricacies of commodity fetishism (this isn't just money;
it's a symbol that only has relevance because of an 'objective' system of belief), while at same time
handing over money to cashier (in other words, engaging in activities that sustain commodity
fetishism). Thinking is an important action, but a type of action nonetheless; at the end of the day, it is
not the most important action sustaining commodity fetishism.117
The basis for commodity fetishism is the (relative) separation between the political and the
economic. In pre-capitalist societies, the ruling class acquired most its wealth through relatively
political means, such as tax, war, mandatory work, or outright slavery. If you were a farmer, for
example, that was self-subsistent, and you had to give the lord a tax for seemingly no reason (except for
a sort of protection from other lords), this would seem like a pretty outright form of political
exploitation. However, in capitalism, the sphere of the economic appears in a big way. Capitalism is
characterized by the ruling class making the large share of its wealth in the (seemingly nonpolitical) economic realm.
People usually do everything but trying to account for the separation between the economic and
political; one strategy is to boil one down to the other. This is expressed in statements like politics is
just condensed economics, or conversely, its all about politics. Another failed move is to stress their
unity, by saying that there is an eternal yin and yang of politics and economy, or that they are really
one.
In the grand scheme of things, the political and the economic are one, in the sense that
they are part of capitalism, but this explanation, along with the others, is missing the constituent feature
of capitalism: the separation between the economic and the political. This separation leads to an
incompatibility of the logic of the economic and the political, something that can be found in The
real questions. The real drama is that everybody is still forced to work in order to live, even when labor is no longer needed
in production. The problem is not the greed of specific individualseven if this greed obviously existsand it cannot be
resolved on a moral basis. Bankers and their ilkwho, it cannot be denied, are very often clearly unpleasant figuresare
only carrying out the blind laws of a fetishistic system that must be criticized as a whole. (Anselm Jappe. We Gotta Get
Out Of This Place: Anselm Jappe with Alastair Hemmens. The Brooklyn Rail. September 8, 2015.
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2015/09/field-notes/anselm-jappe-with-alastair-hemmens)
116
Charlie Post. The Debate on Marxism and History: What Is At Stake? (A Response To Neil Davidson's Is there
anything to defend in Political Marxism?) International Socialist Review. Issue 92: Spring 2014.
http://isreview.org/issue/92/debate-marxism-and-history-what-stake (Under capitalism, both producers and
nonproducers must reproduce themselves through the marketplace for the first time in human history.)
117
This will be explained further in the reification section

Wire, a TV show centered around the Baltimore drug trade, but which strives to represent the totality
of Baltimore by highlighting the port, the government, the school systems and the media in each
season, from two to five.
Part of the show is about a drug crew in West Baltimore led by Avon Barksdale, and his secondin-command, Stringer Bell. They run a successful enterprise, but have different opinions on how to run
the business. Avon tends to think more politically, concerning himself with turf, honor, and being a
soldier.
Stringer sees things a little differently. He strives to be more of a businessman, something that
makes his perspective more in line with the logic of the economic. He takes classes at a community
college in business, his bookshelves include The Wealth of Nations,118 and he sets up legitimate
business ventures with the goal of being fully legal (in contrast to Avon, who doesn't seem to plan for
a life outside of the drug trade).
Violence, especially murders, draw the attention of the police, making it harder to run the
business. Stringer prefers to not be at war, and sets up a co-op, which is, in effect, a cartel
composed of the biggest heroin traffickers in the city. Stringer believes, with some initial victories to
back it up, that this set-up will avoid future conflict, because people will be focused on the bottom
line.
If only capitalism were so simple. One of the core capitalist fantasies is picturing the economy
as a machine; a fundamentally a-political unit that functions best without political intervention.
Stringer buys into this fantasy, and this is the source of his downfall. In the end, what he misses is that
the economic is already a political-unit. Not only in the sense that many companies are structurally
dependent on corporate welfare (and other forms of political intervention), or that the structure of
capitalist businesses is already political, and a site for class struggle. Something more basic is
overlooked: Stringer seems to think that by taking politics out the picture, and focusing on the
economic, that money can be made without conflict. He forgets about competition, and one of the the
rival kingpins named Marlo ends up being a problem. Also, Stringer, in his attempts to get into realestate, bribes a congressman to necessary construction permits. The congressman, Clay Davis, cons
Stringer and takes without delivering the golden goose that he promised. From wanting to stop the
violence, in order to focus on the economic, Stringer reverses course and goes for one of the most
political forms of violence. He becomes enraged, and overreacts by trying to get someone to
assassinate Clay Davis.
Later on, the Barksdale organization disintegrates, and the remaining crews join up with other
118

As well as the Art of War, a book that is popular amongst capitalists.

groups. It goes to show how capitalism, like the Barksdale organization, was possible because of the
unity of the political and the economic; at the same time, this unity is always a fragile one. In time,
things break apart. They need each other, but are never the same, and are often at odds. Communism
requires neither emphasizing the rule of one over the other, nor stressing their unity; it requires going
beyond this distinction entirely.

Marxists, and others who view privilege a certain (mis-)understanding of class, miss the
specificity of capitalism as an object; specifically, they do not see that the economy is a concept that
is (with some exceptions) only applicable within capitalism; the idea of class, on the other hand, is
applicable to all of the (post-civilizational) modes of production. In missing this, Marxists and the
intersectionalists are in line with the rest of bourgeois thought, which tend to find the economic in
parts of class history where it does not properly belong; the uniqueness of the economic (within
capitalism) is overlooked.
This has many consequences, one of which is the nature of capitalist democracy. Compared to
other class societies, capitalism is surprisingly accommodating of democracy. Capitalism and
democracy are not natural partners, but from time-to-time, they get along quite nicely, as long as
the sphere of the economy is left intact. Not only is capitalism incredibly intolerant of workplace
democracy; a democratic economy cannot exist within capitalism.119
When most people hear the term commodity fetishism, they think that it has to do with the
economic, understood in a very narrow sense, as dealing with issues of class. This is incorrect; the
social relations that make up commodity fetishism embrace the whole of capitalist society and involve
much more than the relationship between capitalist and proletariat.
The following is a short account of each of the categories within the (intersectional) Holy
Trinity: race, gender and class. This is not supposed to be an exhaustive account of these oppressions,
or of the different types of oppression within capitalism. It is meant to illustrate the pervasiveness of
commodity fetishism within our society, but also to show how these three key categories interact with
capitalism.

(for capitalism as object section) (when talking about the logic of capitalism, and belief [make sure to
include footnote to Zizek's thing on the stock market]) include Johnny Depp in Blow as an example
119

Later on, in the reification section, we will explain why a concept like economic democracy is a confused concept

of the objectivity of belief (and the big Other) then have this lead to why we choose the word object
and system for NYC subway example...shows the objectivity in belief; also shows how this is what
Althusser's/intersectionality's structural causality do not have: a proper understanding of objects this
means that they are actually a form of expressive causality, and still repeat the oscillation between
essentialism and anti-essentialism
EMW - Even

when the market is not, as it commonly is in

advanced capitalist societies, merely an instrument of

power for giant conglomerates and multinational
corporations, it is still a coercive force, capable of
subjecting

all

human

values,

activities,

and

relationships to its imperatives. No ancient despot

could have hoped to penetrate the personal lives of
his

subjects

their

choices,

preferences,

and

relationships in the same comprehensive and

minute detail, not only in the workplace but in every
corner of their lives.
(maybe have this for intro quote to reification section) EMW - This

business.

Capitalism

is

constituted

is a serious
by

class

exploitation, but capitalism is more than just a system

of class oppression. It is a ruthless totalizing process
which shapes our lives in every conceivable aspect,
and everywhere, not just in the relative opulence of

the capitalist North.

Among other things, and even leaving aside the sheer
power of capital, it subjects all social life to the
abstract requirements of the market, through the
commodification of life in all its aspects. This makes a
mockery of all our aspirations to autonomy, freedom of
choice, and democratic self-government. For socialists,
it is morally and politically unacceptable to advance a
conceptual framework which makes this system
invisible, or reduces it to one of many fragmented
realities, just at a time when the system is more
pervasive, more global than ever.
While political composition had tended to present itself as a
fundamental, unsolvable riddle for the movements of the
global 201112 wave, they were not compositionally static.
There had been a tendency to produce descending
modulations, with the worse-off entering and transforming
protests initiated by the better-off: occupations initiated by
students or educated professionals over time attracted
growing numbers of the homeless and destitute; university
demonstrations over fee hikes gradually brought out kids who
would never have gone to university in the first place. Later,
the Ukraines Maidan protests, kicked off by pro-European
liberals and nationalists, mutated into encampments of
dispossessed workers. In England, such modulations had
terminated with the crescendo of the 2011 riots, as the
racialised poor brought their anti-police fury to the streets.
** When talking about intersectionality, make sure to mention a key feature of it: that it attempts to
give an account of experience that is not reducible to the parts of one's experience (being black, a
women)...i.e. It's not about the sum of oppressions, but accounting for a qualitatively unique
viewpoint The first use of the term intersectional: Because the intersectional experience is greater

than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot
sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated. Kimberl
Crenshaw, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex link this with the idea that the site of
intersection should be the social formation (or mode of production?), not the individual
** Fetish

means to take something for something that it is not. An important

form of fetishism is taking payment for labor-power to be payment for labor

itself. put this when explaining commodity fetishism...we act as if we are
taking payment for the labor itself, but what we are getting is payment for our
labor-power
Profit is congealed class struggle in the material [dingliche] form of money.

My friend Pavel Minorski wondered how the figure who most clearly exposed Social Democratic
opportunism and provided the clearest statement of the need to smash the bourgeois state could then go
on to write about how the dictatorship of the proletariat would be the bourgeois state without the
bourgeoisie.

Race

Seeing the removal of Confederate flags is a good sign; a symbol of oppression is being thrown
into the dustin of history where it belongs. But racism still exists. We can burn every Confederate flag
that was ever made and still not get close to the core of the problem. The troublesome truth is that the
predominant face of racism is not currently the Confederate flag, or the Ku Klux Klan.
This is because racism has come a long way since it's birth in the beginning of modern
slavery. It would be misleading to remark, like many have, on how racism still survives, as a relic

from a distant past. This treats racism as a dinosaur, when it is as contemporary as the capitalist system
that nurtures it. If it is some pre-historic monster, then it is more like the genetically enhanced newbreed from Jurassic World, the Indominus rex, designed to meet the ever-changing demands of the
consumer.
One of the major changes in racism has been in how it functions as an ideology. Ideology is
now based more on reification than it was in the past, and this changed the nature of racism,
particularly in the United States. Racism as an ideology was more based upon the (political)
oppression and exclusion of marginalized races through laws, or groups like the Ku Klux Klan. It was
based on ideas of natural inferiority, and certain races were denied rights because of a supposed natural
gap between the superior and the inferior race. Of course it had elements of a more reified
outlook, but this was not the primary way that racism was perceived.
Nowadays, this outright ideological racism exists, but comes across as an embarrassing
anachronism. Reified racism has become the norm.For an example of how reified racism works,
meet Ephraim, a 26 year old landlord from Brooklyn, New York.
As a Hasidic Jew, Ephraim knows what racism is like, being the target of anti-semitism. He claims
that when he used to collect rent money, I used to go to the buildings in my car, and knock on every
single door. This was like five years ago. And they didnt give me payment. One out of 10, one out of
20, maybe. And they were yelling at me, 'You fucking Jew! Leave me alone!'120 He can see the reasons
for people's anti-semitism: I understand it. Not all Jewish people are nice people. Every tree has a bad
apple. Some of them are really nasty and can trick their tenants. But some of the tenants put up such a
fight that you have to trick them. [...] I did that once four years ago. I told someone, 'Im going to give
you twenty grand to move just move out first, and then Ill give you the money.' And then I screwed
them. I gave him something but not the money I told him. And he couldnt come back to me because he
wasnt even legally supposed to live there.
Ephraim is not a great person, and comes off as scummy. He is also racist, despite his repeated
assertions that he isn't trying to be: We just did a place on Nostrand Avenue. People are not even there
yet. We put in $600,000 and everyone was laughing at us. 'Its crazy, youre over there. A building for
yuppies, white people? Its not going to work.' The building was full of tenants $1,300, $1,400
tenants. We paid every tenant the average of twelve, thirteen thousand dollars to leave. I actually went
to meet them lawyers are not going to help you. And we got them out of the building and now we
DW Gibson. 'It Put In White Tenants': The Grim, Racist, (and Likely Illegal) Methods of One Brooklyn
Landlord. New York Magazine. May 12, 2015. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/grim-racistmethods-of-one-brooklyn-landlord.html
120

have tenants paying $2,700, $2,800, and theyre all white. [] My saying is again, Im not racist
every black person has a price. The average price for a black person here in Bed-Stuy is $30,000
dollars. Up over there in East New York, its $10,000 dollars. Everyone wants them to leave, not
because we dont like them, its just theyre messing up they bring everything down. Not all of
them.
Not all of them, but still a racist sentiment. However, this is where things get tricky.
It is easy to cast Ephraim, in a proto-anti-semitic way, as the villain responsible for all the
problems, and the sole catalyst of racism, but this leaves out much of the picture. The problem seems to
be more systemic; it is racism justified by the bottom line: in every building we have, I put in white
tenants. They want to know if black people are going to be living there. So sometimes we have ten
apartments and everything is white, and then all of the sudden one tenant comes in with one black
roommate, and they dont like it. They see black people and get all riled up, they call me: 'Were not
paying that much money to have black people live in the building.' If its white tenants only, its clean. I
know its a little bit racist but its not. Theyre the ones that are paying and I have to give them what
they want. Or Im not going to get the tenants and the money is not going to be what it is. 121
Notice a key line: I know it's a little bit racist but it's not. 122 This captures the essence of
contemporary racism today; yes, there are a lot of old-fashioned bigots. But, as was mentioned
before, they do not occupy the hegemonic face of racism. It has become harder to openly be a
racist.123 Even the leader of the Ku Klux Klan has said that they are not a hate group, but rather a
Christian organization: We dont hate people because of their race, I mean, were a Christian
organization, [] Because of the acts of a few rogue Klansmen, all Klansmen are supposed to be
murderers, and wanting to lynch black people, and we're supposed to be terrorists. That's a complete
falsehood.124 Today, racism tends to be justified in terms of dollars and cents more than anything else,
or by its accompanying by-products, such as the (covertly racist) doctrine of Political Correctness.

121

122

123

124

This allows us to re-read the history of racism from the standpoint of reification; phenomena like whiteflight, for example, seem to be based more on market-based imperatives (and consumer choices) than
political coercion.
This is a perfect example of how commodity fetishism functions like Freud's category of fetishism: I know
that something is the case, nonetheless...
That's how racism functions today. Nobody is openly a racist today. We all say, 'they are wonderful, the
Other.' But, [on the other hand], 'I don't like their spices, their music, and so on.' (Slavoj Zizek. Do Not
Fulfill Your Dreams (Lecture). November 11, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7x1RuLF9VA)
Shades Ashtari. KKK Leader Disputes Hate Group Label: 'We're A Christian Organization'. Huffington
Post. March 21, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/21/virginia-kkk-fliers_n_5008647.html

it is an odd charge that Marxism is incapable of comprehending the racialized nature of capitalism,
while simultaneously becoming the politics that led the vast majority of non-white national liberation
movements in the 20th century. (re-word...quote not mine)
to illustrate how race is neither just objective, i.e. rooted in some kind of
biological/geographical determinism, nor wholly subjective, i.e. a psychological deformity
(whether it be a lack of information [ignorance] or empathy [intolerance]) racism has a
phantom-like objectivity; to illustrate this, use example of Johnny Depp from Blow
** When talking about the rise of racism, talk about how it is stupid, especially in an American context,
to see race as nothing but a divisive issue, that distracts people from class; this is incredibly
misguided because it misses the main point, which is to truly understand how class functions in the
United States, one must understand how race fits into the class compromise that has allowed for
America to be a capitalist paradise.
Talk about the idea of racism being a matter of white normativity then talk about how, while this
is the current reality, it is conceivable that racism could become a matter of brown or yellow
normativity with a shift in world hegemony
Bring up overdetermination in the simple sense of A and B interacting, but
with

one

pole

overdetermining

the

other

talk

about

other

overdetermination stuff later in the article

have something on the #BlackLivesMatter protestors interrupting Bernie Sanders (and why it is
necessary)
We live and work in a state that has the largest funding disparity between wealthy and poor districts
and in a city whose externally appointed school governance commission is proposing to continue to
close down schools that primarily serve low-income African-American families. In Philadelphia, where
79 percent of the citys students are black and Latino, $9,299 is spent per pupil compared to the $17,
261 spent just across the city line in Lower Merion, where 91 percent of the students are white. This is
the civil rights crisis of our generation. (https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/10/black-lives-matterteach-for-america/) also, perhaps have thing which says that school funding is high for poor whites

than for poor blacks

Harry believed these views were metaphoric rather than analytical, and, as he delved further into
Capital and the Grundrisse, he became convinced that Marxs method could also be applied to
understanding racism:
More than half of Capital is devoted to the critique of bourgeois political economic categories
[commodity, value, money, capital, etc.]. It is a key insight of historical materialism that historical
development is reflected in the logical development [the development of concepts and categories] and,
as Engels put it, the latter, as a result, represent the former in complete maturity and classical form.
Hence the critique of capitalist categories plays a crucial role in the analysis of the capitalist mode of
production. This is also the method that must be applied to the race question.A Marxist analysis of
racism must begin with a critique of the racial categories (black and white) themselves, and from there
proceed to an examination of the socio-historical situation that endowed these forms of thought with
deadly social validity. (Racism and Racial Categories, 1973)
Put another way, Harrys first methodological insight was: Racism should only be the subject not the
object of study. The object of study should be racial categories and the social practice that produced
them. By this method, Harry sought to overcome what he saw as rampant subjectivity in race
theorizing, especially the transposition of the race question into an internal colonial, national, or ethnic
question.
If we ask a million people what racism is we would probably get a million different answers, since
racism refers to individual opinions formed in the course of living in race relations. But if we ask a
million people to identify each other as black or white the chances are the results would be
practically uniform. The race of a person is not subject to individual-subjective interpretation, is not a
matter of opinion. The racial distinction is a categorical necessity without which racism cannot fully
function while the concept of racism is not. (Untitled manuscript, 1975)
It was, he decided, in the dialectical materialist critique of these racial categories that the particularity
of the social relations of racism (compared to class, caste, nation, nationality, or ethnicity) could be
accurately identified. If that task were not undertaken, he argued, racial categories are posited as
eternal metaphysical entities existing prior to race relations and valid beyond the realm of racism, a
notion he thought as wrongheaded as seeing capital as an eternal reality valid beyond the realm of
capitalism. Such a view would lead, he thought, to the uncritical notion that the goal of antiracist
struggle is racial (or national) equality rather than the elimination of oppression based on racial
categories, just as reformist or utopian theories of capitalism called for equality between classes.
[]

In fact, he argued, these categories themselves harbor a chauvinistic logic: Inherent in the notion of
White is the requirement of genetic purity while the notion of Black harbors the assumption of
genetic contamination. One of the peculiarities of the racist psyche in the U.S. is that its sense of a
drop of African blood is unbelievably acute but it is practically blind to a drop of European blood.
White and black are not the least bit neutral; they contained the chauvinistic logic of pure versus
contaminated, clean versus dirty, and pure breed versus mongrel. Racial categories, in other words, are
not determined by natural science or genealogy, and were certainly not an attempt at neutral physical
description. Racial categories are not biological categories, but social-relational categories that
fetishize genetic diversity. The logic of racial categories is itself racist.
[]
So where Cox and others had seen racism as essentially an international phenomenon, Harrys
connection to Cuba (and his study of South Africa) helped him clearly see that racial categories (and
therefore racisms) are qualitatively different in different countries, and may change in different
historical periods within a given country. Racial categories are not, in other words, universal or global
categories like capital or money. By focusing on the development of racial categories, Harry insisted on
the ability to differentiate between racism proper (e.g., the U.S.) from quasi-racial or racism-like
situations (as in most of Latin America) where racial discrimination exists but not as a fully
independent and systematic social relation.

(Adolph Reed Jr. Marx, Race and Neoliberalism. New Labor Forum. 22 (1). 2013, pg. 49) - A
Marxist perspective can be most helpful for understanding race and racism insofar as it perceives
capitalism dialectically, as a social totality that includes modes of production, relations of
production, and the pragmatically evolving
ensemble of institutions and ideologies that lubricate and propel its reproduction. From this
perspective, Marxisms most important contribution to making sense of race and racism in the
United States may be demystification. A historical materialist perspective should stress that
racewhich includes racism, as one is unthinkable without the otheris a historically
specific ideology that emerged, took shape, and has evolved as a constitutive element within a
definite set of social relations anchored to a particular system of production.
(pg. 53) - Disconnection from political economy is also a crucial feature of postwar liberalisms
construction of racial inequality as prejudice or intolerance. Racism becomes an independent
variable in a moralistic argument that is idealist intellectually and ultimately defeatist politically.

 introduce the idea of racecraft, or race as a type of pseudo-causality [look for this in the notes]
introduce the Social Control thesis [footnote to Theodore Allen] show how this is different than
the idea of racism as purely a form of labor division (this difference, between the Social Control thesis
and the labor competition thesis, is like the difference between how we say that capitalism is a system
based on commodity fetishism (instead of the [admittedly extremely crucial] Marxist point that
capitalism is a system based on the presence of two classes: capitalist and proletariat)
for race section...the previous used of racism was prejudice, which suggested something of a
personal quirk, or bad thinking...whereas racism was used a term to describe the systemic aspect of
racial prejudice

it is an odd charge that Marxism is incapable of comprehending the racialized nature of capitalism,
while simultaneously becoming the politics that led the vast majority of non-white national liberation
movements in the 20th century. (re-word...quote not mine)
Chairman Mao Tse-tung had a very cordial, friendly talk with the friends from Africa. During the talk,
he condemned the racial discrimination practiced by U.S. imperialism, as well as that of the colonialist
authorities of South Africa and in every part of the world. Racial discrimination, he said, is found in
Africa, in Asia, and in other parts of the world. The racial question is in essence a class question. Our
unity is not one of race; it is the unity of comrades and friends. We should strengthen our unity and
wage a common struggle against imperialism. colonialism, and the running dogs, to attain complete
and thorough national independence and liberation.

to illustrate how race is neither just objective, i.e. rooted in some kind of biological/geographical
determinism, nor wholly subjective, i.e. a psychological deformity (whether it be a lack of
information [ignorance] or empathy [intolerance]) racism has a phantom-like objectivity; to
illustrate this, use example of Johnny Depp from Blow

There will be no liberation of black people from racial oppression in the United States short of a
socialist revolution, and there will be no socialist revolution in this country unless Communists
seriously put the struggle for black equality at the forefront of their political agenda and program.
(https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/communist-party-scottsboro-cominterm-zumoff-debs-racism/)

On that topic, definitely. Its mind-boggling how indulgent the inclusive Socialist Party was
towards racism, even of the most virulent sort.

Aside from black Socialists such

as Hubert Harrison, who tended to be marginalized within the party, very few people in the SP
understood the importance of fighting racial oppression as a central part of struggling for
socialism in the United States. [space] Some leaders, like Victor Berger, foresaw a socialist
America as being segregated. The best of the lot was probably Eugene Debs, who was strongly
opposed to racism and refused to speak to segregated audiences.

The early American

Communist Party inherited this sort of colorblind framework at a time when black radicalism
(the so-called New Negro movement) was emerging that, among other things, advocated selfdefense against racist attacks. This legacy of colorblindness is no doubt why the tens of
thousands of early Communists included just one black member, Otto Huiswoud.
Despite his efforts, Socialist Party practice and positions included segregated locals in the
South and racist positions on Asian immigration. Harrison concluded that Socialist Party
leaders, like organized labor, put the white Race first and class after.
At the same time, Harrison, through most of his political life, was attempting to articulate
the relationship between race and class. While in the Socialist Party, Harrison polemicized
against the white blindspot economism which was common, not only within the right wing
of the Socialist Party, but also within sections of the Partys left wing. His disappointment
with what he saw as the white-race-first approach of many white radicals and white trade
unionists led him to shift gears toward a race first and later race consciousness approach
toward black liberation. It becomes clear in reading Harrison that he never abandoned the
class struggle, nor his recognition of its centrality. Rather, he believed that far too many
whites in the union movement and on the left had abandoned it in practice, and certainly in
theory.
Harrisons views offer us another vantage point on the struggles of the early twentieth
century, as well as food for thought in two respects. One, the lingering problem of white

racial economism in the political realm, i.e., the belief that taking on issues of racism and
national oppression are somehow divisive and, thus, political movements should restrict
themselves to common economic issues which will somehow unite us in the struggle. This
is all part of the trip wire which movements have faced in the United States.
"Since the civil-rights movement, the Republican establishment t he big bankers and CEOs that
actually run the party h ave danced with racists in the white grassroots by conflating racism and
fear of the government. Instead of providing all Americans with decent healthcare, education, jobs, or
housing, the racist white grassroots and rich establishment agreed that everyone should be on their
own s o black people and immigrants dont accidentally get anything good.
** [Marx] understands value theory as a social theory, a theory which explains [to] us how a society
or an economy can work in which on the one hand, the producers are dependent on each other, because
of the division of labor. But on the other hand, these producers behave as if they were 'lonesome
Robinsons'; they produce privately, independently from each other. [...] We are so used to this that
maybe [we can't even see] how crazy this situation is: that you, on the one hand, depend on each other,
but on the other, you negate, you ignore this dependence. (Michael Heinrich. Value, Fetishism and
Impersonal Domination. March 13, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MklmkoV3REE)
(for part on taking up space): This is often presented as the big, power-hungry males take up all
the space to exclude women and perpetuate unnecessary hierarchical distinctions among the
sexes/genders. The problem with this is that it misses a key aspect: feminine desire, i.e. that people
who like men tend to like men who take up space, etc. (find article about things that woman find
attractive...I think it was in Playboy...maybe get the actual study)

From Goldwater to the Tea Party, the far right parlayed white peoples fear of blacks and other people
of color into an anti-government backlash that gutted the middle class.

All of us live with

the extreme inequality these politics have generated. Denying healthcare to poor people will keep some
black people from getting things, but poverty knows no color. Making college unaffordable to all but
the rich will keep some black people off campuses, but it will also burden white families. Ironically,
racism and white supremacy has made non-rich white people deal with some of the same issues that
people of color have faced for centuries.

Whats new in this moment is the Republican establishments losing control of the grassroots for the
first time in the postcivil rights era. Instead of the corporate Republicans winning the white vote with
coded racist language, the grassroots outsiders are competing with one another to be more and more
openly racist. Trump and Ben Carson are far-right populists rushing to turn non-rich white peoples fear
and despair into ever-greater inequality by blaming others for their situation. The villainization of
Mexicans, black people, and Muslims thats happened over the course of this election season isnt new,
but the nakedness of the hatred is fueled by white panic about their diminishing prospects in the face of
growing economic and political inequality.

We suggest that all capitalisms are necessarily racial capitalisms, not as a matter of contingent
political circumstances or a conscious ruling class conspiring, but as a matter of the internal logic of
the system. If we are to take such a broader view, we need to move away from the old Left reflex that
assumes racist oppression to be a relatively superficial aspect of capitalism, while class exploitation
operates at a deeper ontological level. Such thinking has been historically devastating for the Left,
fostering an activist culture that doesnt take racism seriously because it fails to see it as a systematic
aspect of capitalism.

Gender
have thing from my other article here (from EliteDaily or w/e)
John D'Emilio article
read Maria VM's book
have part about how the beginnings of capitalism affected women, using witch hunts as an
example
have thing about Penn survey here this should be somewhere in notes

Class
Out of the Race, Gender, Class triad, class is usually treated as the black sheep (or alternatively,
the bete-noire).
Furthermore, our meta-narrative is of a defined time period, relevant to certain parts of the world; the
beginning of class in agriculture to the present-day capitalist mode of production. It is not to say that
other areas of history (or the present) are not important, or that non-class issues don't matter. Why is
class given this priority and not say, gender or race?
We need to be reminded why Marxism ascribes a determinative primacy to class struggle. It is
not because class is the only form of oppression or even the most frequent, consistent, or violent source
of social conflict, but rather because its terrain is the social organization of production which creates
the material conditions of existence itself. The first principle of historical materialism is not class or
class struggle, but the organization of material life and social reproduction. Class enters the picture
when access to the conditions of existence and to the means of appropriation are organized in class
ways, that is, when some people are systematically compelled by differential access to the means of
production or appropriation to transfer surplus labour to others.125
In this way, the priority of a certain analytical category is not a statement about how the world
was, is and will always be; it is precisely a meta-narrative that is connected to action and our ability to
transform the world. maybe have aphorisms about overdetermination (being linked to action) here
In contrast to Classical Marxism, and intersectionality, which sees the economic and power
(respectively) in all imaginable periods of history (except in utopias of course), we are proposing
class a determination in the last instance, something that we see as changeable. This means that we are
more contingent than intersectionality, even if our formal frame is subject to change.

Ellen Meiksins Wood. Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press. 1995, pg. 108
125

One gets the feeling, however, that the general attack on essentialism is targeting a very
specific type of essentialism. This is the dreaded class essentialism. To counter this reductive view of
class, proponents of intersectionality like to highlight the importance of what they see as non-class
issues, such as racism, ecology, sexism, etc. In this, intersectionality has been quite useful.
But when intersectionality is considered in terms of its ability to help solve those issues, its
found to be a bit lacking. Consider the widespread use of the term classism among intersectional
theorists. Classism refers to the unfair treatment of people because of their social or economic class.
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/classism) A few decades ago, it was more common to
talk about class exploitation, or the fact that exploitation is inherent to any society with classes.
Problems were conceptualized in a more systemic way, and the solutions often involved some sort of
systemic (and revolutionary) change.
Today, many activists still hold to the idea of revolution, but do so in a more individualized
way. Instead of exploitation, we now talk about classism. It shifts the attention to the impoliteness the
different classes show towards one another, rather than with their existence in the first place.
For example, consider what an Intersectionalist would say about Elite Dailys list of The 20
Mistakes You Dont Want To Make In Your Twenties, particularly number six. This the mistake of
spending your money on women who aren't escorts. The author writes that
Your sex life is an investment and the smarter the deals you execute, the savvier of an
investor you become. Free sex is the most expensive sex in the world. Instead of navigating
through an ambiguous investment in which you shower your woman with cash and prizes for
the mediocre sex provided, deal with a professional as soon as possible. Although some of you
may immediately jump to the negative connotations of a woman who is paid for sex, we suggest
you take one step back. As an entrepreneur herself, why would you not want to deal with
someone who has the same honesty and integrity that you do. Want a best friend? Buy a puppy.
Want great sex? Call an escort. (http://elitedaily.com/life/the-20-mistakes-you-dont-want-tomake-in-your-20s/)
A proponent of intersectionality would most like perceive the author as being, among other things, a
classist and sexist. And they might agree with the authors opinion that prostitution should destigmatized.

These things are true but dont get to the most problematic aspect, which is in considering ones
sex life as an investment. One could, in theory, take away all of the classist and sexist elements
from the transaction being described, and still have it be a capitalist transaction. In the same manner, a
boss can be nice to their workers, eschewing any form of classism, racism or sexism, but at the end of
the day theyre still the boss.
This is because class (like race, sex, gender etc.) primarily indicates a social relationship, not a
quality that individuals possess. Contrary to what Ron Swanson might say, the individual is not the
fundamental unit within society.
This brings us to the most troubling aspect of intersectional theory: it pays lip service to the idea
of systemic change, but can only offer individual solutions. The way in which class becomes mainly
about classism is a perfect example; if one doesnt believe that class can be overcome systemically,
why not settle for individual (and reformist) solutions like redistributing privilege?

Capitalism as object in the sense that, for the first time in the world, there is one global system, and
people begin to think of the entire world as ripe for conquest, etc. this means that,
of course we could say that, in a sense, pre-capitalist global systems combined to form
an object...the problem with this view is that, while we can say this today, this is not
how the people at the time experienced this

The workers identity could function as a depth category because it seemed to be at the same time
both a particular and universal identity. The particular identity was that of the semi-skilled, male
industrial worker: The working class was identified too easily with the wage relationship in a pure
form: the authentic worker, the true proletarian, was the factory worker, and we might add, more
specifically, the male factory worker. Although it often held their needs to be secondary, the movement
did not ignore women: among workers, Engels Origins of Private Property, the Family and the State,
and August Bebels Women and Socialism were more popular than Marxs Capital. Of course, women
did work in factories, particularly in light industry (textiles, electronics assembly), and were often
important labour organisers.

Yet it remained the case that the particular identity of the

semi-skilled, male industrial worker was seen as having a universal significance: it was only as the
industrial working class that the class approximated the collective worker, the class in-and-for-itself.

This significance was not just political. During the ascendency of the workers movement it seemed
that all non-class identities even gender, insofar as it served to separate out certain tasks into male
and female labours were dissolving in the vast army of semi-skilled factory workers.
The theorists of the workers movement saw the collective worker emerging from the bowels of the
factory and envisaged the extension of this dynamic to society as a whole. Due to the division of labour
and the deskilling of the worker, the sort of work that industrial workers did was expected to become
ever more fungible. The workers themselves would become interchangeable, as they were shuffled
from industry to industry, in accordance with an ever changing demand for labour and for goods.
Moreover, in the factories, workers would be forced to work with many other members of their class,
irrespective of race, gender, nationality, etc. Capitalists were expected to pack all sorts of workers
into their gigantic combines: the capitalist interest in turning a profit would overcome all unprofitable
prejudices in hiring and firing, forcing the workers to do the same. As a result, workers sectional
interests would be short-circuited. Here were the solids melting into air, the holies profaned.
In reality, the homogenisation that seemed to be taking place in the factory was always partial. Workers
became interchangeable parts in a giant machine; however, that machine turned out to be vastly
complex. That in itself opened up many opportunities for pitting different groups against each other. In
US auto plants, black workers were concentrated in the foundry, the dirtiest work. Southern Italians
equally found themselves segregated from Northerners in the plants of Turin and Milan. Such
segregation may appear inefficient, for employers, since it restricts the pool of potential workers for
any given post. But as long as the relevant populations are large enough, employers are able to segment
the labour market and drive down wages. If differential sets of interests among workers could be
created by the internal divisions within the plant (as in Toyota-isation), so much the better. Capitalists
were content for the labouring population to remain diverse and incommensurable in all sorts of ways,
especially when it undermined workers organising efforts.

(http://endnotes.org.uk/en/endnotes-

history-of-separation-part-3) related to this is EMW's comment about the ability of capitalism to

bring together, but also to divide
Given that the expected homogeneity of the semi-skilled workforce failed to fully realise itself,
it became part of the task of the workers movement to realise that homogeneity by other means.
As we saw above, organisation requires an affirmable identity, an image of working class
respectability and dignity. When workers failed to fit this mold, the champions of the workers
movement became champions of self-transformation. The workers movement was a sect
with DIY, straight-edge sensibilities, a particular style of dress, etc. Yet the predicates of the
dignified worker (male, disciplined, atheist, expressing a thirst for scientific knowledge and

political education, etc.) were often drawn by analogy to the values of bourgeois society. The
party activists wanted to live worthy, upstanding, moral, moderate, and disciplined lives: on the
one hand, to show the workers who were not yet organised a good example; on the other hand,
to show bourgeois society that one was up to all tasks, that one deserved good standing and
respect. In other words, party activists were quite often killjoys.
Bernsteins

solution to these embarrassments was to to

give up on the goal of a revolutionary transition to

socialism altogether and to try to find a more inclusive,
liberal-democratic way forward.

For the

mainstream of the socialist movement, it was not yet

time to give up on the goal. One part of the movement
drew the conclusion that it was now necessary to bide
ones time: they should allow capitalism to mature, and
await the further integration of the population into the
modern industrial workforce; meanwhile, they should
continue to organise that workforce into a conscious,
coherent mass through the mediations of the trade
unions and the social democratic parties. By contrast, for
the romantic revolutionariesincluding Trotskythere
was no time to wait. History had stalled, half-complete.
The revolutionary communist international would thus
constitute itself in the decision to de-arrest the dialectic
of history. What was supposed to be a historical
inevitability would now become an act of will. Everyone
is being proletarianised, and so, to achieve communism,

we must proletarianise everyone! [space] Regardless of

which faction they joined, socialists shared this overall
perspective. As the catastrophes of history piled ever
higher, they put their faith in the full development of the
productive

forces.

Movement

strategists

saw

that

development, and the class power it would bring, as the

only way to break out of the penultimate stage of history
and into the final one.
The cleaving off of human beings from their capacitiesthe
expropriation of workers set against the means of
productionis simultaneously

the social separation of

individuals from one another, of the sphere of production

from that of reproduction. It is also the separation of the
economy from politics. All that is given in the phenomenon of
market dependence and market exchange: we are cut off
from nature and from other people, in such a way that we
relate to both almost exclusively through the mediation of
markets, overseen by states. We remain dependent on one
another, but in a way that keeps us separate from one
another. This practical unity-in-separation instantiates itself in
a set of ideas, which come to seem self-evident: a fair days
work for a fair days pay; he who does not work shall not
eat.

All of these separations, together, would have to be

overcome in order to achieve communism, that is, a world in
which the connection between how much one works and
how much one eats has been definitively broken. For the
labour movement, only the initial separation of workers from
means of production came clearly into view as something to
be overcome: this they hoped to achieve by abolishing
private property in the means of production, and replacing
private exchange with centralised planning of production and
distribution.32 By contrast, the commodityas use-value
but not as exchange-valueappeared to be neutral and
transhistorical; it was the same in every era. And so, they
thought, the more the better: if more wheat will feed
everyone, then why not more of everything else? That can
only be a good thing.33 Commodities, heaped together in
great piles (an immense collection of commodities), were
seen as the overcoming of alienation, not its realisation. More
importantly, the factory systemas labour process, but
not as valorisation processwas to survive the end of the
capitalist mode of production. It was understood as the
foundation of socialism, not as the material embodiment of
abstract domination.
(connected to M-L (and reification/bourgeois ideology in general) and
the march of the productive forces): Here we come to the as yet
unmentioned key to the labourist vision of the future. The
fuller development of the productive forces was expected to
propel the workers into the leading role. The development of
the productive forces was simultaneously the multiplication
of the proletariat, its becoming the majority of bourgeois
society. Crucially, proletarians were not only becoming the

majority; they were also made over into a compact mass: the
Gesamtarbeiter, or collective worker. The factory system was
pregnant with this collective worker, which was born of
bourgeois society in such a way that it would destroy that
society.
Yet

history

marched

at

a halting

pace.

The

Marxist

understanding of history turned out to be only partially

correct. The entire world was not made over in the image of
the English factory. Industrialisation took place in some
regions; however, it largely failed to give birth to the
collective worker as a compact mass. We have provided a
historical account of these problems, above. Here, we focus
on internal debates among socialists and communists. At
issue was the question: would capital eventually give rise to a
working class that was large and unified enough to take over
and then to destroy bourgeois societyand how quickly?
(Bernstein as privilege theorist?) - Even more problematic,
for Bernstein, was the fact that these modern wage-earners
are not a homogeneous mass, devoid in an equal degree of
property,

family,

etc.,

as

the

Communist

Manifesto

foresees.23 That is to say, the factory system was not giving

birth to the collective worker as a compact mass. Between

workers of different situations and skills, it might be possible

to imagine a lively, mutual sympathy; however, there is a
great difference betweensocial political sympathy and
economic solidarity.24 Moreover, the factory system was
tending to accentuate divisions between workers, not reduce
them.
Bernstein argued that socialists would have a hard time
maintaining equality among workers, even if they managed
the factories themselves. For as soon as a factory has
attained a certain sizewhich may be relatively very
modestequality breaks down because differentiation of
functions is necessary and with it subordination. If equality is
given up, the corner-stone of the building is removed, and the
other stones follow in the course of time. Decay and
conversion into ordinary business concerns step in.
Bernsteins solution to these embarrassments was to to give
up on the goal of a revolutionary transition to socialism
altogether and to try to find a more inclusive, liberaldemocratic way forward.

- Robert C Allen Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction

(good book)

Reification
'This is not the time to philosophize' or so we are told from the left and right. It is absolutely
crucial not to give in to this temptation. - Alenka Zupancic126
The problem of commodities must not be considered in isolation or even regarded as the
central problem in economics, but as the central, structural problem of capitalist society in all
its aspects. - Georg Lukcs127

Philadelphia's skyline is prominent in a city full of two to three story row-homes. It serves as a
helpful orientation point for residents and visitors, alike; the skyscrapers in Center City are a
rudimentary compass, helping one to find their general direction in most of South, North and West
Philly. In comparison to sprawling nightmares spread over hills (like Los Angeles or Athens), this
126

Alenka Zupancic. Interview in Jones Irwin and Helena Motoh. Zizek and His Contemporaries: On the Emergence of
the Slovenian Lacan. Bloomsbury: London. 2014, pg. 178
127
Gyrgy Lukcs. History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics. Cambridge, Mass: MIT. 1971, pg. 83

makes Philly relatively easily to cognitively map. The concept of cognitive mapping, in the context of
urban studies, means our ability to mentally map our urban environment. Compare the ease of
navigating Philadelphia, or New York, with the difficulty of doing so a cul-de-sac city like Houston.
Cognitive mapping originated in urban studies, and but has since found its way into other
domains. Some Marxists have used it as code for class consciousness,128 which is fine, provided that
one understand how class consciousness works in capitalism.
In pre-capitalist societies, class relations129 are more brutal and direct. If you are a peasant
family (or community) that can survive on the goods from the land, then it seems ridiculous to pay
taxes to a lord, or to work on their fields for a few days of the year; in fact, it seems like outright theft.
In the case of slavery, this is even more apparent.
Within capitalism, this appears a little differently. One of the prerequisites for capitalism is a
large group of landless people, looking for a way to survive.130 Often with little to their name, they have
nothing to sell but their ability to work (their labor-power). There is no law that obliges the proletariat
to submit itself to the yoke of capitalism. Poverty, the lack of means of production, obliges the
proletariat to submit itself to the yoke of capitalism. 131 This also means that no law in the world can
give to the proletariat the means of production while it remains in the framework of bourgeois society,
for not laws but economic development have torn the means of production from the producers
possession.132
In capitalism, despite what the advocates of a middle-class society may claim, differences
between classes are still visible. The nature of class struggle, however, has changed.
A pre-capitalist revolt of peasants or slaves would likely be directly challenging the underlying
relations of exploitation, by say, refusing to pay the lords' taxes, or to work on their lands. In
capitalism, workers mainly use their inside voice when engaging in more explicit kinds of class
struggle; only periodically do such struggles erupt into total revolt. There can be bitter fights for things
128

In particular Fredric Jameson: The conception of cognitive mapping proposed here therefore involves an
extrapolation of Lynchs spatial analysis to the realm of social structure, that is to say, in our historical
moment, to the totality of class relations on a global (or should I say multinational) scale. (Fredric
Jameson. Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Verso: New York. 1992, pg. 416)
129

If they exist, i.e. if it is a class society

In some countries this is more oriented towards people taking on wage work to help send money back to the countryside.
This is incidentally why capitalists do not (necessarily) want full proletarianization: [quote/citation to Immanuel
Wallerstein's Historical Capitalism]
131
Rosa Luxemburg. Reform or Revolution? (1900) https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reformrevolution/ch08.htm
132
In cases where direct producers - like feudal peasants - remain in possession of the means of production, the transfer of
surplus is determined by direct coercion, by means of the appropriator's superior force. In capitalism, the compulsion is
of a different kind. The direct producer's obligation to forfeit surplus is a pre-condition for access to the means of
production, the means of sustaining life itself. (Ellen Meiksins Wood. Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing
Historical Materialism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 1995, pg. 109)
130

like higher wages, but these do not usually challenge the essential social relations of domination within
the firm, or within capitalism as a whole. This does not preclude the possibility of revolution, but it
helps to explain why capitalism, which is supposed to unify the oppressed peoples, simultaneously is
also a source of fragmentation. [here perhaps reference to thing from Endnotes article about the
worker's identity] What most people think of as class struggle is actually class war; with the exception
of periodic rebellions, in capitalism the class struggle has been domesticated. Every class struggle is
not a 'political' struggle in any conventional sense, at least not in capitalist societies. 133 This is one of
the biggest problems that capitalism poses for socialists. It has created historically unprecedented
conditions in which class struggle can be not 'political' but purely 'economic.' Of course 'economic'
struggles have to do with power and domination. But there was a time, in pre capitalist societies, when
conflicts over economic exploitation directly implicated 'political' powers, the jurisdictional and
coercive powers of lords or states. Capitalism has shifted many of these conflicts to a new and separate
'economic' sphere, and even into the workplace, which is generally sealed off from the 'political' or
'public' sphere, even while the power of capital ultimately depends on the coercive powers of the state.
This is one of the main reasons why, as mentioned before, it should be stressed that class and
the economy are not the same thing; the economic takes more straight-forward forms of (precapitalist) class struggle, and ensnares them within its web (along with other pre-capitalist social
relations). This web is a world system sustained by commodity fetishism; to overthrow it means
worldwide revolution or nothing, making class-consciousness quite a tricky matter. For the first time in
history, class-consciousness is possible on a global scale; what complicates this is the logic of
capitalism, which also fragments. The very structure of capitalism, its specific mode of exploitation,
fragments the working class. It does so, among other things, precisely by domesticating what might, in
other conditions, be political struggles, enclosing them within the walls of the workplace and turning
them into purely 'economic' conflicts. In other words, the same conditions that prevent every class
struggle from being a political struggle also militate against the unification of the working class. 134
This means that capitalism creates distinctive political problems, distinctive obstacles to political
struggle, that need to be overcome by active organizational efforts which often work against the grain
[italics mine].
At a very fundamental level, this fragmentation is carried into how we think about the world; it
affects our ability to cognitively map our world. This disease of cognitive mapping is termed
133

134

Ellen Meiksins Wood. Politics and the Communist Manifesto--Part 1. Against The Current (72) January-February
1998. https://solidarity-us.org/node/1151
Ibid. The last two sentences seems to suggest two (interrelated) things: (a) capitalism creates distinctive political
problems because of their economic forms, and that (b) these effects are inclusive of class, race, gender, etc.

reification. It is the ideology of capitalism, 135 and is the mental form that accompanies the socialrelations of commodity fetishism.136 One of the most elementary examples of reification is in the old
MasterCard commercial series, the first of which137 featured a father and son going to a baseball game:
Two baseball tickets: $28
Two hot dogs, two popcorns, and two sodas: $18
One autographed baseball: $45
Real conversation with eleven-year old son: Priceless.
There are some things money can't buy. For everything else there's MasterCard.
In capitalism, people value things (in the everyday sense of the term) according to their price.
Even when people say that something is beyond value, or priceless, it is still within the boundaries
of reified thinking. This is not meant to be an invitation to escape from reified thinking in any sort of
immediate way; all attempts at (ultra-leftist) absolute negation end up reproducing the thing they are
fighting against.138
This is because reification is not primarily a matter of what an individual thinks; it is about how
they are acting in their everyday life. It is rooted in real processes and is not just a distortion of the
way things really are: the way that capitalism really is includes this distortion. It has to be there,
because it is a constitutive part of the system. In other words, it is not necessarily the thinking that is
distorted, but the actions themselves. It is silly to see an ultimate rationalism in a fundamentally
irrational system. For example, if many people hate their jobs within capitalism, why do they
continue to work? Why not just drop out and live on the margins of society? For some this may
work; but most do not choose to follow this path; in terms of the capitalist system, this behavior is
rational. This is because in a market economy, goods are (in large part) allocated according to the [...]
ability of individuals to purchase them.139 Having a higher income means higher-quality goods. This
is important not just because a new BMW is more fun to drive than a used Toyota. More income can
135

136

137
138
139

Reification, in many ways, is also a mutation of the concept of ideology, especially as conceived by classical Marxist
and bourgeois thought
Before tackling the problem itself we must be quite clear in our minds that commodity fetishism is a specific problem
of our age, the age of modern capitalism. Commodity exchange an the corresponding subjective and objective
commodity relations existed, as we know, when society was still very primitive. What is at issue here, however, is the
question: how far is commodity exchange together with its structural consequences able to influence the total outer and
inner life of society? (Gyrgy Lukcs. History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics. Cambridge,
Mass: MIT. 1971, pg. 84)
In October 1997
For more on this aspect of Ultra-Leftism, see our essay on the subject
Michael R. Strain. Has Capitalism Devoured Christmas? Spirituality vs. Shopping. The Washington Post. December
21, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/21/has-capitalism-devoured-christmas/?
tid=sm_fb

translate into an easier, less stressful life. If I made more money, then I would worry less about an
unexpected illness; I could afford to live closer to work, where housing prices are higher, and I
wouldnt have to spend as much time commuting; I would worry less about being able to afford the
tuition bills that are looming in the future. In other words, acting upon the healthy desire for an
easier, less stressful life in a market economy can lead us to spend more and more time working, and
less and less time with our spouses, raising our kids, serving our communities. This means that, in
capitalism, what is rational for the individual is not only a nightmare for society as a whole; it is
ultimately irrational for the individual as well.
In the previous section, we mentioned that thinking is an important action within commodity
fetishism, but that it is not the most important one. This is because reification, like commodity
fetishism, is an objective feature of our (capitalist) social life; it cannot be merely thought away. We
should be thinking against the grain, but mental revolutions have to be preceded or accompanied by a
revolution in our current social relations, instituting democratic rule by the people. Only then can the
shackles of reification be truly lifted.
Until then, the effects of reification will appear as permanent or natural, like any other
ideology. Capitalism seems as natural as the air we breathe, in large part because most of us don't know
anything else. No matter the time or place, wherever humanity exists, the specific laws of capitalism
are supposed to found alongside them. Humanity seems condemned to eternal partnership with
capitalism, because reification freezes over the current order, making it seem like the ultimate horizon
of our existence. It makes us apathetic and resistant to the idea that we could make a real change.
Reification, in other words, is how we compromise with capitalism.140
One of the more noticeable effects of reified life is an obsession with quantity. Qualitative
differences are boiled down to numbers, in a system which has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies
of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of
egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value.141
That's what it comes down to in capitalism: seemingly everything has a price. Sure, people can
barter, but the value of the products being traded is usually measured in a currency. All commodities
are reduced to the one ultimate commodity: money. If you were trading cars with someone, it would
make sense to check the Blue Book and see how much each car is actually worth. You might just
140

Reification presupposes a de-politicization of society.

This means that reification occurs when a socialist-from-above group is forced to compromise with reality, by
accepting that most people wont be political. [Aphorism CXIII]
141
Karl Marx and Frederic Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party. 1848. Chapter 1.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007

really want the other person's car, regardless of either of the cars' value, but this is an exception, and
not the norm.
Other types of numerical measurement become important as well, such as the notion of time
acquiring a pre-eminence in capitalism that did not exist before; punching a clock, getting stock trades
down to microseconds, or the creation of time zones (which were created for railroad schedules in the
earlier days of capitalism).142 Take, for instance, how time was measured in the Roman Empire:
In the Roman era, for lack of precise clocks, there is no mention of of minutes or seconds. And
then because the hours are not always the same; their duration depends on the season! [] To
give you an example, in the summertime the hour between twelve noon and one o'clock lasts
seventy-five minutes, while in winter it lasts only forty-four minutes [] The real clocks that
regulate Roman time are the activities that follow one another in the course of the day.143
Imagine the chaos that would ensue if the highest echelons of developed capitalism operated with
such clocks. Even in the lower tech industries this would be madness. The manufacturers of Adidas
(and other) sneakers calculate their workforces' exploitation by the second, going to show how crucial
time is for a capitalist society, particularly when compared to other social formations throughout
history.144 The statement time is money reflects the importance of time in capitalism; think of when
you wanted to buy something, but then thought, is it really worth wasting my pay from two hours of
work on this? Time is not natural; time is a social phenomenon,145 meaning that human lives do
not occur in time; rather, they make and are made by time. Time is produced by and through social
practices, and time systems [vary from one] historical period to another. In other words, Time itself
142

The more we measure and organise [time], the less we seem to control it. This basic paradox is all the present with us
today. While throughout history, most of humankind's means of temporal orientation were provided by celestial
movements, the needs of modern societies in terms of temporal precision now exceed the capacities for time-marking
procided by a geocentric perspective on celestial bodies. Parallel to the emergence of a historically unique form of
abstract time, a protracted social process of quantification and rationalisation of time has produced an important
paradigm change in the history of time-systems and time-units: the natural referent of our social time categories shifted
from the skies to the subatomic realm. A long way from rudimentary time-marking achieved by planting sticks in the
ground, observing lights or measuring shadows, today's high-tech atomic clocks, which measure the second (officially
9,192,631,770 oscillations of a caesium atom) with an accuracy of better than one part in a hundred trillion, underpin a
globalised time-system that structures our lives and activities to an unprecedented degree. And yet, time appears to us as
this absolute force that operates independently of our wills. [] We order our lives according to an abstract, impersonal
and extremely precise temporal order, but the concreteness of our lived times often seem out of synch with the abstract
character of our clock-based social time regime. It is as if our obsession with saving, measuring and organizing time has
gine hand in hand with our own temporal alienation. (Jonathan Martineau. Time, Capitalism and Alienation: A SocioHistorical Inquiry into the Making of Modern Time. Brill: Leiden, the Netherlands. 2015, pg. 1-2)
143
Alberto Angela. A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome. Europa Editions: New York. 2014, pg. 74-75.
And in terms of meetings: It's clear that with such elastic hours and without precise clocks, daily appointment schedules
are much less rigid and there is a certain tolerance for latecomers. But there is also a way to be punctual. For example, you
can make an appointment at the Forum for when it's filled to half capacity; if we checked every day with a watch we'd
notice that this description always corresponds, more or less, to the same time. Even if it is common in places like
modern-day Rome to show up to a meeting/appointment late, it is still lateness against a fixed time.
144
With the exception of the state-socialist systems in the 20th century.
145
Jonathan Martineau. Time, Capitalism and Alienation: A Socio-Historical Inquiry into the Making of Modern Time. Brill:
Leiden, the Netherlands. 2015, pg. 4

has a history. In capitalism, time sheds its qualitative, variable, flowing nature; it freezes into an
exactly delimited, quantifiable continuum filled with quantifiable things.' 146 It produces a split
between a rigid, unbending idea of time, or objective time, and our lived experience of time, or
subjective time. To illustrate this idea, think of how time flies when you're having fun, but seems to
drag on as the seconds tick away on the school clock.
If is social, then it is also political; accordingly, time is in need of a de-reifying critique. 147 It
is not a 'thing', a natural object, or a neutral ('given', 'ahistorical' and 'asocial') universal feature of
human consciousness; time is rather a locus of struggle over meanings and practices, and [] can
function as as a power political and ideological tool.

This obsession with quantity is not just a feature of the productive relations or technology
and science; it affects our most intimate thoughts and feelings.
Every culture (thus far) has had its standards for what is beautiful, and how people should think
about themselves (in relation to others). Capitalism has its own sinister ways of going about this.
One of its ways is the current wave of eating disorders in developed societies. It is not just an
indictment of the ridiculousness of capitalist social relations, particularly the anarchy of the market,
where some people have so little food that they starve, and some have so much that it's popular to diet.
It also says a lot about how reification goes beyond what people consider to be the economic; the
concept of reification is supposed to show that the logic of the economic finds itself in places where it
isn't supposed to be.
Whether it be stepping on the scale, or counting calories, modern (capitalist) eating disorders
are intricately tied to matters of quantity. If reification is a disease of cognitive mapping, and eating
disorders are dealt with in reified ways, then how are (modern) eating disorders a disease of cognitive
mapping?
To start, think about how people think of beauty today. It's common to use the (unofficial) out
of 10 rating system (for example, they're a seven); not everyone uses it, but its prevalence suggests
something about how people judge beauty in a society dominated by the commodity, just as all the
products of different types of labor are equated with the supreme commodity: money.
In the case of eating disorders, we are not trying to say that they are only represented in
quantitative terms. What we are trying to say is that the quantitative outlook is overdetermining.
146
147

pg. 90
Ibid, pg. 5

Calorie counting is a good example. In a way, some type of calorie counting is good, and there are
certain minimums that need to be maintained for a human to continue living normally. And certainly,
eating too many calories is not advisable for one's health either.
Calorie counting can be an important part of being healthy but if it is taken too far, it can also
be a form of obsessive self-control; the part that ties it most into reification is the obsession with
number and quantity. The subject tries to take back the feeling of powerlessness they have in the social
realm by practicing self-control, particularly through numbers. In the words of one person, I saw food
as numbers, not nourishment.148 They started out using an iPhone app called MyFitnessPal, which
tells you how many calories you need to eat every day in order to lose weight. They recorded
everything they ate, even calories from gum and pills (like Tums). Eventually, they stopped eating
many of the foods they loved.
They write, Nothing felt weird or wrong about this; I felt good. I felt like I was taking control
of my health. But then, once you reach your goal, it becomes addicting and you want to lose more.
Of course, looking back now, I realize how insane that sounds, but at the time, I was so blinded by my
obsession that it seemed logical. Food had become reduced to numbers.
Where cognitive mapping comes into it is that eating disorders are never an individual
phenomenon; like the rest of our desires, they are inescapably social. Most of our desires (or more
precisely, the form of them) are structured through something called the big Other; this is an
individual's perception of their social context, organized by their expectations of how others will act.
Most importantly, however, we learn to desire by seeing what others desire and what, in turn, we
think they want us to desire. In the case of the person mentioned above, she decided to start losing
weight when she came back from Australia and was ashamed of how much [she] had let [herself] go,
even though when [she] stepped on the scale at home, [her] weight hadnt actually changed. Her
muscle had been converted to fat. This was something [she] couldnt accept. This was because it
clashed with how she saw herself relating to the world around her: Not being thin and fit felt like
losing a part of my identity.
There are a lot of reasons why eating disorders develop. First, and most clearly, it has to do with
unrealistic ideal body types that the media (and the people) perpetuate. Some of the responses to this
anxiety are anorexia and overeating. In the United States, both of these extremes have become the
148

Katrina Nicholson. Calorie Counting Isn't An Eating Disorder, But It's Disordered Eating. Elite Daily. February 28,
2015. http://elitedaily.com/life/calorie-counting-isnt-eating-disorder-disordered-eating/946709/
In the end, it seems to have gotten better for this person: I dont see food as numbers anymore, and I dont see myself
as a number on the scale. As cheesy as it sounds, I try to look at myself in the mirror and be proud of the body I built.
I still worry what people think of me and I fear that Im not thin enough. Some days are worse than others, but I am
making my mental health and body image a priority in my life. This time, I want to do it the right way.

mainstream. They should also be considered, particularly in the case of overeating, as responses to the
general stress and anxiety of work, but also capitalist life in general.
With anorexia-based eating disorders, all genders are affected, but women are the vast majority
of cases. These disorders often manifest themselves in a need for self-control; its feminine character
shows how reification takes on patriarchal forms; frustrated with their lack of control of in the
outside world, it is easy for women to use food, one of the most basic needs, as a way of obtaining
control of the interior.149
In short, the basis for (most) eating disorders within capitalist society is a reified form of
thinking.150
Not only is food represented in numbers, so are social relationships.151
What people with eating disorders (same w addictions etc) want is a certain type of social connection
that they aren't getting; the quantitative thing is a way of obtaining that through a "distorted" form of
cognitive mapping. i.e. its like the old Marxist critique that the price, supply and demand, etc stuff is
just a "reified" understanding of what are actually social relations
got the idea from this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/09/drug-addiction_n_7765472.html

It has already been noted that the very concept of the economy, or even the economic, is
necessarily specific to capitalist society, with its uniquely economic form of exploitative surplus
extraction. (Georges Comninel. Rethinking the French Revolution: Marxism and the Revisionist
Challenge. Verso: London, 1990, pg. 137)

[for quantifcation section, to talk about the social basis for this...talk about people bringing their
private labors in to the social, etc] find Marx quote

Neil Sharma. This Neuroscientist Argues That Addiction Is Not a Disease and Rehab Is Bullshit.
Vice. December 4, 2015. http://www.vice.com/read/this-neuroscientist-argues-that-addiction-is-not-a149

150

151

What appears as an illness brought about by the social climate and external pressure to conform to the ideal of beauty,
which is thin, is also an extremely private and inherent feeling the sufferer has that she is worthless and bad at her
very core. (Harriet Parsons. Considering Eating Disorders Within the Context of Addiction: A Psychoanalytic
Perspective. Inside Out. Issue 45: Spring 2005. http://iahip.org/inside-out/issue-45-spring-2005/considering-eatingdisorders-within-the-context-of-addiction-a-psychoanalytic-perspective)
Locating the cause of addiction within the individual, as well as locating the specific effects of the drug within the
individual, results in treatment and recovery strategies focusing on the individual and on his or her subjective
experience. Eating disorders, similarly, cannot be studied simply from the perspective of food and diet. (ibid)
How else could it be in capitalist society, where price obscures the value relation, i.e. a fundamentally social one

disease-and-the-rehab-industry-is-bullshit
Will has an awful lot to do with it. A lot of addiction experts feel that self-empowerment, selfmotivation, self-directed activities, self-designed goals for [addicts'] own progress are critical steps on
the road of overcoming addiction. The medical model says you're a patient and you have to do what the
doctor tells you.
[Del. Dan Morhaim, a doctor and Maryland legislator] is quoted as saying addiction is "a medical issue
that has disastrous social consequences." That's very typical. Take those words, turn them around and
you have something that's much more accurate: It's a social issue that has disastrous medical
consequences.
Your new book, The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not a Disease, eponymously puts forward
that addiction is not a disease, and calling it such gets in the way of proper treatment.
Firstly, defining addicts as patients makes them passive. It makes them fatalistic and it makes them
pessimistic. If you're told you have a chronic brain disease that causes you to do all this nasty shit, you
don't think you'll ever get free of it. But, in fact, most addicts do recover and the statistics are very clear
on that, whether they're soft drugs or harder drugs like heroin. So, it's a chronic disease? Really?
[perhaps put this in the section on subjectivity]
The second thing is it tends to overshadow other approaches to treating addiction that relies on much
more individualized psychological methods. There are various kinds of psychotherapy, counseling,
support networks, and mindfulness meditation approaches that are also being shown to be very
effective. If you believe you have a chronic disease and so does your care provider, they're not very
likely to recommend mindfulness meditation, but it's been shown to be very effective.
While opiate and alcohol withdrawal can wreak physical havoc on addicts, you argue that
addiction

is

purely

behavioral

rather

than

physiological,

like,

say,

cancer

is?

That's another discrepancy. You have substance addiction on one hand, and behavioral on the other:
gambling, sex addiction, porn addiction, a number of eating disorders, internet gaming. The cool thing
is when you do brain scans, you get the same neural activation patterns in behavioral addictions as you
do in substance addictions. That should be enough to knock out the disease model. If addiction is a
disease, then people who spend 12 hours a day playing video games are suffering the same way people
who are addicted to heroin do.
What all these patterns have in common is they involve deep learninga set of assumptions of what
you need to get through the day; that learning gets entrenched through repetition and you're addicted,
but there's nothing disease-like about it. People recover from all addictions, which means it's all about
neural plasticity. It's not that you go back to where you were, because development never goes in
reverse, it's that you learn skills that help you overcome your impulses and you learn new cognitive
habits. All learning involves changes in synapses, which means creation and strengthening of certain
synapses, and the weakening or disappearance of synapses that aren't being used.

Addiction has to do with isolation and feeling alone, not having a support network and not being able
to deeply connect with other people. You can superficially connect and have a nice circle of addicts, but
not connecting with people in a way that's harmonious and fulfilling, those are the people that are really
vulnerable to addiction. They're lonely, depressed, anxious, and traumatized. It's just like the Rat Park
[Canadian study into drug addiction]. What I said doesn't just apply to humans, it applies to other
animals, too. Isolation is really bad for you and it's the underlining factor of addiction.

(connect with the idea of commodity as stain use stuff from system outline): This distinctly
geopolitical character of the origins of capitalism is brilliantly anticipated in German Renaissance
painter Hans Holbeins 1532 masterpiece The Ambassadors, which illustrates a meeting between
French envoys Jean de Dinteville and George de Selve in London. The painting astounds because
these two aristocratic subjects are placed at the periphery, and the only explicitly religious symbol,
a cross, is veiled by a curtain. While these two pillars of medieval power the church and
aristocracy are symbolically pushed to the side, an anamorphic skull and a table littered with
objects with commodities occupy the focal point of the painting. Was this a prophetic, if
unwitting, forecast of feudalisms imminent decline? Did it anticipate a capitalist future where
social relations would come to be mediated by things?

Notwithstanding such

speculation, these objects constitute a vivid record of the geopolitical milieu that defined
European7 international relations in the early 16th century. The morbidity portrayed by the skull
reminds us that death was at the forefront of European consciousness in this period indeed,
Holbeins own life would be taken by plague in the autumn of 1543 in England just ten years after
the painting was completed. In the immediate time of the painting, peasant revolts were sweeping
through Christendom, leaving the ashes of serfdom in their wake. In preceding centuries, Europe
had been ravaged by disease, precipitating a demographic crisis that had reduced Europes
population by between 30 and 60 per cent by the 15th century.

On the bottom right-hand

side of the table in the painting, a book ofLutheran hymns sits by a broken lute, signifying the
discord in Christendom between Protestants and the Catholic Church. To the left of these items
rests Martin Benhaims terrestrial globe, made under the commission of Nuremberg merchants
seeking to break the Portuguese hold on the spice trade. The globe is tilted so that after European
towns, Affrica and Brisilici R. (Brazil) are the most legible markers. We can also see the Linea
Divisionis Castellanorum et Portugallenum (Line of division between Spain and Portugal)
demarcating the division of the New World between Habsburg Spain (west of the line) and Portugal
(east of the line), here signifying the importance of these discoveries and the subsequent
competition between European states over commercially profitable territories.

In front of

the globe is Peter Apians A New and Well Grounded Instruction in All Merchants Arithmetic, an
early textbook of commercial scholarship that covered profitloss calculation, trading customs,
navigation and route mapping. Placed alongside Benhaims globe, it demonstrates the
inseparability of commercial interests from maritime exploration, as well as the increasingly global
and competitive character of trade. Above these items, on the top of the table, numerous
scientific instruments highlight the rapid development of techniques in seafaring. Continuing the
theme of Christendoms decline, these also indicate a mounting shift away from the divinity of
religion as the predominant episteme

and towards the rationality of scientific inquiry and

humanism. Finally, linking the resting arms of the two ambassadors, and tying the objects
together, is a Turkic rug, indicating the rivalry between the Ottoman and Habsburg empires. The
presence of this Eastern commodity indicates that the numerous changes taking place in Europe
in this period were often undergirded by processes emanating from non-European sources, by
social formations and actors that were unambiguously more powerful than anything seen in
Europe at the time.

Let us run through these themes once more: a demographic crisis

brought about by the Black Death; the OttomanHabsburg rivalry; the discovery of the New World
and its division along linearly demarcated spaces of sovereignty; the festering atmosphere of
revolt and rebellion; the economic significance of colonisation. Each in their own way either
captures or anticipates the central dynamics and historical processes behind the collapse of
feudalism and the emergence of capitalist modernity. Moreover, running throughout the themes of
the painting is a resolute awareness of the geopolitics behind these processes. The emphasis on
the New World and the Ottoman Empire reminds us that the making of capitalism in Europe was
not simply an intra-European phenomenon, but a decidedly international (or intersocietal) one:
one in which non-European agency relentlessly impinged upon and (re)directed the trajectory and
nature of European development. Tracing this international dimension in the origins of capitalism
and the so-called rise of the West is what concerns us in this book. (How The West Came To
Rule. pg. 2-4)

(example of quantification) - One of Barbies recent haulsa quick one, she wroteincluded four
perfume bottles from Victorias Secret and a Michael Kors purse from a Dillards department store. She
estimated the value to be $510. She keeps a running tally, proudly displaying the values of stolen items
at the top of her blog: $6,077saved since 15, her profile boasts. She also says shes boosted $435,
money made by selling stolen goods. Unicorn-Lift has a similar counter set to $4,863 for lifted
merchandise and $585 for boosts. Both girls have the tagline How Bad Can I Be? emblazoned across
the top of their profiles, a reference to a song in the movie adaptation of Dr. Seuss The Lorax. Its our
jam, says Barbie. Its on their lifting playlist, which includes Panic! At the Discos Emperors New
Clothes (I see whats mine and take it / finders keepers, losers weepers) and Set It Offs Partners In
Crime (Well live like spoiled royalty). We get home, empty out our haul on the floor, and blast our

lifting playlist while adding up the prices, says Barbie. (https://www.good.is/features/issue-37-we-rcute-shoplifters) Ironic, because shoplifting has been called an anti-capitalist action; this type of
social justice warrior shoplifting is still clearly immersed within a capitalist mindset [at least one
person realizes this: A lifter who wanted to be identified as M.P. says she lifts because she considers it
a victimless crime. When I walk out of a store with $500 worth of shit that I would NEVER pay $500
for, Im like yeah fuck the man, but I dont think Im helping to accomplish anything greater than my
own personal satisfaction, she says.]
I should note that the councils died very quickly out of necessity. They're too
unstable as structures so the fetish around them needs to be abolished. - Miah
Simone (FB)

Like Danglars in The Count of Monte Cristo, capitalism, as a system, is more concerned with
numbers than people: Danglars was one of those calculating men who are born with a pen behind their
ear and an inkwell instead of a heart. To him, everything in this world was subtraction or
multiplication, and a numeral was much dearer than a man, when it was a numeral that would increase
the total (while a man might reduce it).152 The line profits before people is certainly true in
capitalism; it is the result of the fact that production in capitalism is primarily about making money, not
producing things for people. A system of commodity exchange is driven by the primacy of exchangevalue over use-value.
Use-value is an important concept, because it signals not only an affinity with the wants and
needs of consumers, but also a relationship with the earth. Since capitalism is concerned about the
bottom line, and production for the sake of production, we end up disregarding both people and the
natural world involved in our system. The systemic imperative to constantly produce more (at the
cheapest possible price) is wreaking havoc on the environment and is slowly killing us. It is the
mentality of productivism.
Productivism forms an important part within reified thought, and finds itself in places that
(unsuccessfully) struggled to overcome the law of value, such as the USSR. Obsessed with numbers for
steel output or tractor production, actual people were deemed less important. It was a vision of
socialism where the first stage was about collecting the productive forces necessary to burst through to
152

Alexandre Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo. Translated by Robin Buss. Penguin: London. 2003, pg. 88-89

the second stage, communism, where all scarcity would be abolished. Not only was this a utopian
fantasy; it created a productivist disaster. The Five Year Plan may have been one of the world's greatest
periods of productive expansion, it came at the cost of millions of lives. In this way, the beginnings
of state socialism condensed all the horrors of capitalist primitive accumulation; what took capitalism
hundreds of years in some places, was accomplished in the span of a decade.
There was plenty of dissent against the regime, and Stalin in particular. However, it should also
be emphasized that a significant amount of the population supported Stalin.
And productivism is not only something that comes from above; it also comes from below.
[Staknovism] [how ideology is not just about from above but also about from below creator
subject etc] maybe even have Wallerstein thing here about capitalists not necessarily wanting full
proletarianization
An important part of the reified mentality is productivism, or the stuff mentality.

It is best

encapsulated in the primacy of the forces of production (relations/forces of production). [Aphorism

CLXXIV]
(for productivism section; probably as footnote) basis of productivism is the capitalist imperative to
constantly expand the forces of production this is not to say that state socialist countries were
capitalist (bc they weren't); it's to say that they inherited some of the same capitalist ways of thinking
and were subject to pressures from the capitalist sphere of the world (being about to compete military
and defend themselves)
Like other Marxists we view capitalism as the necessary precondition for a transition to socialism.
However, from our perspective, this is not primarily because capitalism develops the productive forces,
but because it creates a class with the capacity and interest in the abolition of capitalism and the
construction of a democratic, collectivist social orderthe working class.

maybe have Jameson footnote about cognitive mapping in relationship to the three periods of
capitalism, and its affect on form, in the footnotes
(for part about antinomies) antinomies are not just logical contradictions; they are
contradictions that arise from social practice

 for part when I talk about (Lukcs' observations on) epistemology passing into ontology...mention
how feminist consciousness-raising groups were about this exactly...a lot of times, to do something
about a problem, we have to first see (or become aware) that it's a problem
She believes that a universal basic income in Germany could succeed because many people
now work without remuneration and with too little recognition caring for family members,
housekeeping, volunteer work and coaching at clubs. "There is more work being done without
pay than there is at the factories and office buildings and everywhere else."
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-germany-basic-income-20151227-story.html
"A basic income paid out to everyone could unleash enormous amounts of creativity," said
Bohmeyer, who left his Internet start-up business, and for a while was savoring a relatively
carefree life, living off those proceeds, when he came up with the basic payment experiment.
"Machines are going to be taking care of just about everything for us over time," added
Bohmeyer, who comes from formerly communist eastern Germany. "So to be able to work
creatively, people need some security, they need to feel free. And they can get that with a basic
income."
** Markets value goods and services, but the story doesnt stop there society tends to value objects
that are valued by markets more than those that arent. For example, the market places an explicit dollar
value on my undertaking and completing another work-related project, and I can trade those dollars for
more consumption. At the same time, the market does not (explicitly) place a price on an hour I spend
with my wife, and I cant use an extra hour with her to help pay this months grocery bill. Because the
projects dollar value is more explicit, it is easy for me to prioritize it above family time. It looms larger
in my mind.
We are swimming in an ocean of price tags. Economists understand that those prices are
signals that coordinate behavior [...] within markets, as well as outside of markets.
Markets are not morally neutral. Slapping a price tag on something and putting it on a shelf
[changes] the character of the object being sold.
But to say that markets are not morally neutral is not an indictment of markets. Rather, it is a
warning to those of us who are blessed to live among free markets. We must recognize that

markets (properly understood) exist to advance human flourishing; humans do not exist to
serve markets. The tail must never wag the dog.

[italics mine] The problem is that, in

capitalism, the tail does wag the dog.

We must blunt the rough edges of markets through a social safety net designed to stop
anyone from falling too far. We must use some of the wealth created by markets to help the
poor, making sure that the least among us who often cant afford the prices markets
assign to necessary goods have enough to eat and that resources are available so that as
many as possible can be offered a hand up into self-sufficiency. And we should keep
markets out of places where they dont belong.

say that reification is a type of alienation alientation belongs to class societies in general, whereas
reification is a specific type of capitalist alienation the concept of alienation originally came from
religion, where people treat God as if it was an alien force outside of us, when really God is our
creation. (i.e. God is a human creation, endowed with powers of its own, which ends up dominating
even creating its creators)
Maoism is liberalism on steroids. You even leap forward, bro? - (from Barney
Tiocfaidh r L on FB)

First, capitalism is the first economic system in which the market plays a central role. So while
markets have existed for millennia, ours is the first era in which they actually regulate production and
exchange, and hence generate the social division of labor.
This did not come about naturally. There is no in-built tendency for markets to grow to the point
where they displace pre-capitalist forms of production. They had to be created by forcibly stripping
peasants of their land.
Rosa Luxemburg (example of how she is a Marxist-Leninist; but also, how she couldn't include
herself into the totality that she was criticizing) - Thus it is clear that in every revolution only that
party capable of seizing the leadership and power which has the courage to issue the appropriate watch-

words for driving the revolution ahead, and the courage to draw all the necessary conclusions from the
situation. This makes clear, too, the miserable role of the Russian Mensheviks, the Dans, Zeretellis,
etc., who had enormous influence on the masses at the beginning, but, after their prolonged wavering
and after they had fought with both hands and feet against taking over power and responsibility, were
driven ignobly off the stage.
The party of Lenin was the only one which grasped the mandate and duty of a truly revolutionary party
and which, by the slogan All power in the hands of the proletariat and peasantry insured the
continued development of the revolution.
Thereby the Bolsheviks solved the famous problem of winning a majority of the people, which
problem has ever weighed on the German Social-Democracy like a nightmare. As bred-in-the-bone
disciples of parliamentary cretinism,[3] these German Social-Democrats have sought to apply to
revolutions the home-made wisdom of the parliamentary nursery: in order to carry anything, you must
first have a majority. The same, they say, applies to a revolution: first lets become a majority. The
true dialectic of revolutions, however, stands this wisdom of parliamentary moles on its head: not
through a majority, but through revolutionary tactics to a majority thats the way the road runs.
Only a party which knows how to lead, that is, to advance things, wins support in stormy times. The
determination with which, at the decisive moment, Lenin and his comrades offered the only solution
which could advance things (all power in the hands of the proletariat and peasantry), transformed
them almost overnight from a persecuted, slandered, outlawed minority whose leader had to hid like
Marat in cellars, into the absolute master of the situation.
Moreover, the Bolsheviks immediately set as the aim of this seizure of power a complete, far-reaching
revolutionary program; not the safeguarding of bourgeois democracy, but a dictatorship of the
proletariat for the purpose of realizing socialism. Thereby they won for themselves the imperishable
historic distinction of having for the first time proclaimed the final aim of socialism as the direct
program of practical politics.
Whatever a party could offer of courage, revolutionary far-sightedness and consistency in an historic
hour, Lenin, Trotsky and all the other comrades have given in good measure. All the revolutionary
honor and capacity which western Social-Democracy lacked was represented by the Bolsheviks. Their
October uprising was not only the actual salvation of the Russian Revolution; it was also the salvation
of the honor of international socialism.

talk about how intersectionality is not just going against classical Marxism, but any strain of radical
politics that eschews identity politics: To the Manarchist, we are all one race,
the human race. The Manarchist has a phobia of identity politics. He
wishes people of colour, feminists, queers, would stop splitting the
left. These sour-faced identitarians spoil his fun. The Manarchist
understands other peoples oppressions better than they do themselves
(one of his friends is black): after the revolution racism will just
disappear. The politics of white working class men are not identity
politics,

they

are

the

true

struggle.

(http://strikemag.org/manarchist/)
(me) That's the thing: by "self-rule" I don't mean the individualistic bs that everyone should
get what they want. Communism will certainly not be a place where people get everything
they want. But, imo, the assumptions that people bring to the democratic process will be
different.
"Success" in political processes is usually measured by how much we were (at the end of a
process) able to accomplish our own individual goals that we had at the beginning. This is
kind of a sad commentary on our society: so we have nothing to learn from other people? Our
way is always the best? There's no room for real debate, etc in that set-up.
So, imo, communist democracy would have to be based around the fact that, a priori, we don't
get what we want. This would make things like representation is necessary.
then go on to talk about economistic and purely political mistakes
have that one of the consequences of this is a focus on the economic (defined very narrowly [link
this up to discussion before about how the economy/commodity fetishism is bigger than it is conceived
as (almost in a sub-class manner .. the most reductivist mix of the economic and class)])
On the one side, class reductionists claim that one only has to deal with class issues (or what they call
the economy) and the other oppressions will (magically) go away after class has been abolished. On
the other side, anti-essentialists say that dealing with only class issues won't solve the problems of
racism or sexism. Both sides make a fatal (reified) mistake: assuming that class can be abolished
alone, without taking care of anything else. In other words, it makes the mistake of assuming that the
economy is a separate thing that can be dealt with, and then politics comes later.

[Socialism, for us, is not just a question of economic reorganisation from which other
benefits will inevitably follow, without consciously being fought for. It is a total vision of a
completely different society, Such a vision is linked to the total critique of capitalism we
have previously referred to. (Solidarity As We Dont See It)]

Some say that the revolution will take care of non-class issues.

Others are a little

more sophisticated; they say that the revolution will not necessarily take care of nonclass issues, but dealing with them now is divisive. They are best dealt with afterwards.

Then there are those who claim that the revolution has yet to solve non-class issues, and
so we should fight those battles separately.
all part of the same thing.

Some pathetically assert that theyre

Socialism-from-below is the recognition that the

revolution has yet to solve the problem of class, and will be unable to do so unless the
non-class issues are addressed within the course of the struggle. [Aphorism LV]

IMHO privilege is a useful way of explaining one thing;

Why in conditions where there is formal equality of opportunity (job market, the law) do certain groups
of people get the short end of the stick? Like you can use it to explain why supposedly equal
opportunity employers tend to have white men in there upper echelons, thatch about it. Now that's a
useful tool, I'm not denying that. It is useful because it forces institutions to live up there own
standards, by pointing out the privilege you can force the organization to rectify it. In this context
check privilege makes sense. It is the anti oppression politics of board rooms and HR departments.
The problem is when its applied to literally any other sphere of life. It doesn't explain relations based
on domination. Slave owners weren't privileged over their slaves they dominated them and extracted
wealth from their labor. - James Turner (from FB status)
- there is no pure route to socialism outside of reification
perhaps address some of the dominant reified mental forms > voluntarism vs determinism, etc;
also, show linear, expressive and (pseudo) structural causality to be forms of reified thinking
(for example: linear causality, because it abstracts from the context in which an interaction is
happening...then connect it with value, etc)
reification and it's relationship to cynical ideology (and the corresponding tactics from the post
New Left)
Economy as Thing
The economy is suffering, let it die - May '68 slogan
A key economistic errors has already been mentioned; productivism. Where does the
productivist mentality come from?
One of the crucial aspects of reified action (and thought) is to treat the economy as a sphere that
is natural, and eternal. But it is also to view the economy as natural and eternal while being anti-

capitalist. In fact, reified thought is the norm, even among us; merely living in a capitalist society
means that our thought is bound to, at the very least, begin in reification.
To end in reification, one treats the separation between politics and economics as a
permanent feature; reification is the mindset of a person navigating the split between economics and
politics in their capitalist life.153
The effects of reification on leftist practice and thought have, in many ways, been nothing short
of detrimental; one only needs to glance over the history of the twentieth-century to get an idea.
One of the capitalist assumptions that anti-capitalists tend to take up is the image of the
economy as a thing or a machine. Its an assumption that comes from treating the economy as a
thing beyond our control. The idea of the economy as a thing with a mind of its own (and as a
permanent feature of human life).
Like other categories that we have discussed (race, gender, class, etc), the economy and its
hold over people is not just the result of an illusion; it is an illusion or error rooted in a specific
social process; not only is it rooted in it, it is a constituent part.
The alienation that most feel in capitalist society is real, with the law of value (i.e. commodity
fetishism) bringing all classes under its spell.
Sometimes people talk about a socialism of human, or universal appeal; the argument goes,
if all people are negatively impacted by capitalism (and 'ultimately' would be better off with out it),
why appeal to 'narrow' class interests? Why not appeal to everyone? Surely, the bourgeoisie have
problems too, and can be convinced.
The problem with this thinking is that it assumes all people have an equal interest in abolishing
capitalism; the ruling class cannot be convinced to give up their evil ways when presented with the
world's most rational plan, or the most rousing speech ever delivered. The FBI heard Martin Luther
King's dream, but that didn't stop them from assassinating him.
Furthermore, there is no example of the majority of capitalists voluntarily opting to give up
their hold on the means of product; on the other hand, there have been plenty of mass movements by
the lower classes seeking to build a classless society.
Appealing to universal interests and class interests are not mutually exclusive; in fact, it is only
the proletariat [make sure to give definition of/different between proletariat/working class] that can
carry out a universal program; only they have a real interest in bringing this about.
Though there are differing ways of dealing with alienation (and though it affects each class
153

Reification is the mindset of a person navigating the split between economics and politics in their capitalist life.
[Aphorism CLXXVIII]
To end up back in reification means to make an antinomy out of the split between economics and politics.

differently), it is nevertheless something that affects all (capitalist) actors. For the bourgeoisie, the laws
of the capitalism are ultimately objective; for the proletariat, there is the chance of bringing this chaos
into a more rational plan, a consciously planned out society, in contrast to most of human history,
which has been based on an adherence to mostly unconscious or external forces; like religion,
particularly when mixed with the state (as has been the case throughout much of civilized history), or
commodity fetishism. Religion still plays an important role, but there is a reason for why the Church
always complains about the influence of consumerism distorting the true meaning of Christmas.
They're right; in capitalism, commodity fetishism is king.
Commodity fetishism (and its mental counterpart, reification) is based on a lack of meaningful
(conscious) control, by most people, over the essential operations of society. Consider that the capitalist
workplace, for the most part, is modeled on tyrannical lines. How many people elect their boss? Do the
majority of workers have an ability to do what is best for them and their workplace, instead of having it
be management (or consultants) telling them what to do? They don't and this makes everyone worse
off; the old adage that the rank-and-file know most about the shop floor is true. The experts rule, but
end up making everything dumber.
Alongside this lack of control often comes a defeated attitude; this attitude is reification. It
accepts the permanence of the separation between the economic and the political. The economic does
not appear as political, and the political seems like its own sphere, for parliaments and the like. In
this set-up, the economy appears as an a-political unit, which ideally functions best without
political intervention. [maybe have link to Jacobin article about this] It is a-political because it's
basic runnings, i.e. class domination, cannot be dealt with by what is normally considered politics in
bourgeois society.
This results in one of the central reified metaphors, the economy as machine. It also gives rise to
the related idea of the economy of a subject. This means that people relate to the economy in a very
individual way; collective, conscious action is rarely possible in capitalist society. For example, when
the markets crashed in 2008, and Congress had to bail out Wall St., instead of ordinary Americans. The
logic of the market means that people are homeless when their house is foreclosed on, leading to a
system where we have (at least) five time empty homes per homeless person. 154 Capitalists want to
uphold this system, because if housing was taken care of, people may expect a lot of other things, and
this could lead to communism; more immediately, it would send their profits spiraling downward. What
is rational for capitalism is irrational for the needs of humanity, or the eco-system as a whole.
154

There are more than five times as many vacant homes in the U.S. as there are homeless people, according to Amnesty
International USA.
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/more_vacant_homes_than_homeless_in_us_20111231

** (from conversation w me and Ben) the base is viewed almost as though it's already communist, and
the corrupting political superstructure [i.e. the political ballast] must be done away with to let it
realize its potential; sort of the opposite of (but also similar to) the old marxist approach, that the
capitalist base must be overcome... yet the capitalist base was also thought to be 'bursting through',
almost as though it wanted to be communist all along...
- pg. 83 - The essence of commodity-structure has often been pointed out. Its basis is that a relation
between people takes on the character of a thing and thus acquires a phantom objectivity, an
autonomy that seems so strictly rational and all-embracing as to conceal every trace of its fundamental
nature: the relation between people. put in economy as thing section
pg. 86-87 - What is of central importance here is that because of this situation a mans own activity,
his own labour becomes something objective and independent of him, something that controls him by
virtue of an autonomy alien to man. There is both an objective and a subjective side to this
phenomenon. Objectively a world of objects and relations between things springs into being (the world
of commodities and their movements on the market). The laws governing these objects are indeed
gradually discovered by man, but even so they confront him as invisible forces that generate their own
power. The individual can use his knowledge of these laws to his own advantage, but he is not able to
modify the process by his own activity. Subjectively - where the market economy has been fully
developed - a mans activity becomes estranged from himself, it turns into a commodity which, subject
to the non-human objectivity of the natural laws of society, must go its own way independently of man
just like any consumer article.
Before we talk about one of the most important aspects of reification, a word on free will is
necessary. We usually view free will in one of two ways; either, people think that we are free to do
what we want (free will); or that we do not have free will and are completely determined by natural
forces (determinism). The problem is that free will turns into voluntarism, or the position which acts as
if our actions are not bound by any limits. Some may call it confidence, others heroism; in reality, it's
potentially lethal stupidity.
When people inevitably run up against certain limits, it becomes easy to lapse into determinism.
In the Little Red Book one can find Mao saying, The socialist system will eventually replace the
capitalist system; this is an objective law independent of man's will. However much the reactionaries

try to hold back the wheel of history, eventually revolution will take place and will inevitably
triumph.155 This seems like quite a determinist statement: no matter what we try do, socialism will
inevitably triumph. So the obvious question is, why do anything at all? Why bother fighting guerilla
warfare and taking over a country,? Why would we Dare to Struggle and Dare to Win when victory is
already secure?
It is, on first glance, pretty strange to hear this type of determinism from Mao. In the very same
book, we see him saying something completely different: 156 It is up to us to organize the people. As for
the reactionaries in China, it is up to us to organize the people to overthrow them. Everything
reactionary is the same; if you do not hit it, it will not fall. This is also like sweeping the floor; as a rule,
where the broom does not reach, the dust will not vanish of itself.157
This statement seems to imply that action is necessary for socialism to be achieved, because the
capitalists won't be voluntarily giving up their property anytime in the near future (or ever), and
reactionaries won't be sending themselves to re-education camp.
On the one hand, Mao derived from the objective laws of social development proclaimed in
Marxist theory some degree of assurance of the historic inevitably of a socialist future. But, in the final
analysis, Mao's faith in socialism was not based upon any real Marxist confidence in the objective
forces of historical development, because he believed the essential factor in determining the course
of history was conscious human activity. This meant that the most important ingredients for
revolution were how people thought and their willingness to engage in revolutionary action, [implying]
that revolution in China was not dependent on any predetermined levels of social and economic
development and that revolutionary action need not be restrained by inherited Marxist-Leninist
orthodoxies.158
So is Mao a determinist or a voluntarist? The answer is both; the issue is that he treated the
155

156

157

158

Mao Tse-Tung. Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse- Tung. Chapter 3: Socialism and Communism.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch03.htm
Determinism and voluntarism are two sides of the same worthless coin. It makes sense that in the same book, Mao TseTung can say that, the socialist system will eventually replace the capitalist system; this is an objective law independent
of mans will. However much the reactionaries try to hold back the wheel of history, eventually revolution will take
place and will inevitably triumph, as well as: It is up to us to organize the people. As for the reactionaries in China, it
is up to us to organize the people to overthrow them. Everything reactionary is the same; if you do not hit it, it will not
fall. This is also like sweeping the floor; as a rule, where the broom does not reach, the dust will not vanish of itself.
[Aphorism XVII]
Mao Tse-Tung. Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse- Tung. Chapter 2: Classes and Class Struggle.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch02.htm
Maurice Meisner. Maos China and After: A History of the Peoples Republic (Third Edition). The Free Press: New York,
1999, pg. 42
It also implied a special concern for developing a 'correct ideological consciousness,' the ultimately
decisive factor in achieving success. Correct thought, in the Maoist view, was the essential prerequisite for effective
revolutionary action, and it is this assumption that gave rise to the enormous Maoist stress on 'thought reform' and
'ideological remolding' developed and refined in the Yan'an era.

relationship between voluntarism and determinism as an antinomy, or a conceptual fork in the road.
Antinomies are what happens when our thought tries to take a certain idea to the extreme; in the case of
determination, we get two mutually exclusive propositions: (1) I am absolutely determined
(determinism), and (2) I am absolutely free of determination (free will). Both of these propositions
seem to be reasonable; so which one is true?
While some of Mao's statements seem to suggest a synthesis between these two ideas, in his
practice, he often swung between these two options. For example, during the Cultural Revolution he
(and the other Maoists) called for people to rebel against the bureaucracy, in specific, those who they
referred to as capitalist roaders.159 This seemed to be in line with Mao's voluntarism, because he
was calling for a push towards more socialist relations, when many in the party thought that China had
to institute more capitalist ways of running the country to be able to recover from the Great Leap
Forward. He thought that the base of the country was socialist, but that a revolution in the
superstructure was needed.160 He called on the masses to carry the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution through to the end!161
Then, a few months later, the masses of Shanghai rose up and established the Shanghai
Commune, something that was loosely based on the Paris Commune; they intended to establish a new
form of government, based on more popular forms of organization, like a self-government of
producers. Mao had enjoined people to take things to the end, but not this far. Eventually, the Maoists
in Beijing took advantage of the divided movement and established normalcy within Shanghai.
Overall, the Shanghai Commune had lasted around a month (January February 1967). This shows the
determinist side of Maoism, as it scorns attempts to pursue actual socialism as
counterrevolutionary, presumably because Ultra-Leftists are asking for things to go too quickly.
For Mao, the overdetermining side was determinism. In the way that predestination drives
Calvinists, paradoxically, to increased activity to try to gain the favor of God, it was this faith in the
inevitability of socialism that led to the (ultimately destructive) flights of Maoist voluntarism. The
problem is to fight for socialism without a guaranteed outcome; the only authentic socialist-from159

160

161

Mao Tse-tung: The basic contradiction the great proletarian Cultural Revolution is trying to resolve is the one between
the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the proletarian and bourgeois roads. The main point of the movement is to
struggle against the capitalist roaders in authority in the party.
(https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-9/mswv9_84.htm)
Mao Tse-tung. 16 Points On The Cultural Revolution: At present our objective is to struggle against and crush those
persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road, to criticise and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic
authorities and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes and transform education, literature, and
art and all other parts of the superstructure that do not correspond to the socialist economic base, so as to facilitate the
consolidation and development of the socialist system. (http://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/mao-zedongs-16points-on-the-cultural-revolution-1966/#sthash.KvIqdauy.dpuf)
Mao Tse-tung. Directives Regarding Cultural Revolution (1966-1969).
(https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-9/mswv9_84.htm)

below way is to accept the fact that we may lose; capitalism may tend towards communism, but it can
just as easily become another form of class society.
The example of Mao shows how, at a first glance, antinomies seem extreme, in that, they
seem to be stretching the limits. However, from the perspective of the radical change needed to
overcome capitalism, they are not extreme enough. This is because they do not question the
underlying assumptions that both sides share.
Faulty assumptions are also found in a related antinomy, the split between spontaneity and
structure.

This was covered a bit in the history of the New Left. The revolt against structure

encouraged spontaneity, making it into a virtue; for some, like the Situationists, it was a guide for
living.
Alongside this was its opposite; the turn to Marxism-Leninism and more disciplined modes of
organization; both form an antinomy. Antinomies are not just logical contradictions; they are
referring to real social conditions. This means that antinomies are both a valid appearance of
bourgeois society, as well as a blockage in our ability to cognitively map it. This means that
contradictions are real, but that having one's thoughts stuck in antinomies is neither helpful for
understanding capitalism and our place in it, nor for changing this rotten world.
Here is an example of an American reflecting on the Quebec student strike of 2012, and making
an antinomy out of structure and spontaneity:
Writing on AlterNet last week, two student activists from the City University New York argued
that the lesson to import from Quebec lies in the importance of institutionalizing student power:
'We believe that if students in the United States hope to have the kind of impact on our
universities that we witnessed in Montreal, we will need to first establish radical, federated
student unions here at home, organizations capable of replacing our currently weak systems of
student participation.' For many student organizers, this will be the take-away from Quebec. I
want to urge a different lesson entirely. Vajda noted, 'Many students did not think at the outset
that they would be sacrificing the semester worth of work, tuition, fees, but I think increasingly
it is becoming clear that the stakes are high and those sacrifices can create leverage to work
toward shaping a different future that will not follow the neoliberal model of debt-fueled
education.' Crucially, the increasingly radical strike has been and continues to be a daring
experiment for those involved, far surpassing the assumed remit of the original student walkout.
The conviction and strength of the strike, according to Vajda, grows every day as people
continue to meet and act in the streets. Law 78 only served to galvanize and generalize this
experimental dissent. The powerful message from Quebec, for me, is not the importance of
strong student leadership. Rather, it is that thousands of individuals have taken risks, broken
with their daily routines and found each other in the streets (despite numerous social and
political divisions) to engage in a radical political experiment with no clear endpoint. One of the
main Twitter hashtags relating the Quebec actions is #manifencours, an abbreviation of
manifestation en cours, meaning simply demonstration in the streets. As the proliferation of
the phrase suggests, the situation in Quebec is no longer just about negotiating tuition fees; its a

manifestation with an open trajectory.162

The first question one might have with this is, why are structure and spontaneity seen as being
separate? Why can't they work together? What if having more structure is the thing that allows for a
radical political experiment with no endpoint?
In other words, structure and spontaneity are not opposed; even when taken to their extremes,
there is no such thing as pure (unstructured) spontaneity or pure structure. Rather, they reinforce
one another; having structure is what allows for true spontaneity.163
A way of fixing this problem is the well-known quote that [people] make history, but not in
circumstances of their own choosing.164 In other words, yes, we have free will. But within certain
limits, of course. This is a good start, but what does our free will entail?
To start, it is not a voluntary decision to do something. This may seem to leave no room for free
will, but things are more complicated. Benjamin Libet did a series of experiments which

(antinomy between determinism and voluntarism relationship to reification (maybe bring this in
after introducing the different modes of subjectivity))

The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a voluntary act, but rather to control
whether the act takes place. We may view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as 'bubbling
up' in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these initiatives may go forward to an action
or which ones to veto and abort, with no act appearing.165 This even makes sense over a series of
actions. For example, after going to rehab, you will be advised to stay away from the people that you
used to do drugs with. This is because, if one does not practice an incredible amount of veto power in
the beginning, then one will fall back into old habits.
162

163

164

165

Natasha Lennard. Dissent, la Qubecoise. Salon.com. May 23, 2012.

(http://www.salon.com/2012/05/23/dissent_a_la_quebecoise/)
Also, notice how (in a typical Ultra-Leftist move, and the other side of the Marxist-Leninist coin), organization
becomes the importance of strong student leadership.
[People] make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected
circumstances, but under circumstances existing already. Karl Marx. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.
1852. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm)
Benjamin Libet. Do We Have Free Will?. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, No. 89, 1999, pp. 54
This is yet another sign that radical free will begins with the negative (Hegel), not the affirmative (Nietzsche).

The reified mindset allows for two types of subjectivity. Individuals can either act as:

1) great

individuals (usually the leadership, visionaries, etc.), as the autocratic makers of history. Since
most people will, by definition, not be big people, they cannot overcome the objective
circumstances and have to stick to
unchangeable/eternal) laws.

2) exploiting existing natural (and seemingly

Everything else seems to be impossible most of the time.

[Note:

(1) is voluntarism, and (2) is determinismthe old antinomy comes back] [Aphorism CLXXXIV]
[In reification, people] as collective subjects come to be reduced to the status of passive spectators of a
social world whose processes, viewed as a whole, seem to unfold with an inherent
lawfulness. True, the possibility of human agency does offer itself but only in a strictly
limited way. [People] may act technically, or they may act ethically. On the one hand, they
may turn to technology and change certain aspects of their material environment by
exploiting natural laws to their practical advantage. But the laws they exploit are
themselves unchangeable. On the other hand, they may turn to ethics and try to transform
themselves as individuals by receding into privacy as the sole remaining sphere of a
possible freedom. But to become only partly a human being, a person only in inwardness,
is to perpetuate the fissure in [people] and in society, the division of the self into an agent
and a thing; here, the duality of [people] as subject and object is internalized, not
overcome. Thus neither through technology nor through ethics is it possible to find a way
out of the impasse. In neither direction could [people] become historical agents
collectively transforming the structure of their social world. (Paul Connerton. The
Collective Historical Subject: Reflections on Lukcs History and Class Consciousness.
The British Journal of Sociology. 25.2 (1974): 167)

(pg. 171): Because of their

incapacity to understand history, the attitude of the bourgeoisie becomes polarized into
two extremes: great individuals viewed as the autocratic makers of history, on the other
hand, there were the natural laws of the historical environment.
** Related to the way that people have to compromise w reality (at the beginning, esp. part about
agency that I italicized)
Two results of the capitalist world (and two ways of reifying the world, our social relations and the
relationship between the two):

Technological-economic determinism This results in the productivist mentality

Ethical determinism ** Results in the big man view of history (Also results in voluntarism)
talk about how the reified mind views subjectivity ***** connect the idea of the creator-subject
with the Big Man mode (and also the other one)
-In all bourgeois political parties the party is divided into an active and a passive group so that
the latter is only occasionally brought into play and then only at the behest of the former [kind of Hal
Drapers comment about the masses being a battering ram in socialism-from-above]; corresponding to
this is the necessary appearance simultaneously of two complementary but equally false views of the
course of history: the voluntaristic overestimation of the active importance of the individual (the leader)
and the fatalistic underestimation of the importance of the class (the masses).

(Paul Connerton.

The Collective Historical Subject: Reflections on Lukcs History and Class Consciousness. The
British Journal of Sociology. 25.2 (1974): 172)
One should be determinist to the point of non-determinism. What has happened in our past, in a way,
had to happen for us to be where we are at now, and looking back at our past in this way. However, in
seeing how it had to happen that way, it also shows that there is a limit; recognizing necessity makes it
so that we don't have to be held down by it in the future; that we can use our free will and "pull the ebrake" so to speak.
** (for big man part put stuff about the cult of personality in here then put this stuff in the
Marxist-Leninist article)
(for creator subject section...perhaps have as an intro quote) - Nowadays, in our evolutionary
conception of the universe, there is absolutely no room for either a Creator or a Ruler - Engels

Much of the left sees the working class as passive consumers of radical ideas: the left comes to the
working class with a box of soap and says would you like this soap? Its 10% off, or it has extra
whitener and added starch. And the workers are expected to choose [] Working people are not
passive consumers, they will make their own destiny.
In opposition to the vulgar evolutionist brand of Marxism, Benjamin does not conceive the proletarian
revolution as the natural or inevitable result of economic and technical progress, but as the critical

interruption of an evolution leading to catastrophe.

(when talking about objects interacting indirectly) - American democracy was supposed to be about
educating its citizens so the citizens could rule themselves, and so forth, and we see how that's worked:
it's not worked very well. The public is often quite ignorant of these issues, demagogues easily
manipulate the American public, and so forth. Lippman was worried that America was slowly turning
into a technocracy, and he saw no alternative in certain periods of his career to this, because the public
could not possibly stay informed about all these issues. Now John Dewey read these thoughts [] but
drew the exact opposite conclusion from them. [...] Dewey said, yes this happens but it's nothing to
bemoan, it's just the way things work. Not everybody can stay informed about all issues at all times.
Even Walter Lippman, the most educated journalist of his day, could not have opinions on every tiny
political issue, some of them very local issues that would be of no interest to him. [] [Object-oriented
politics and object-oriented democracy mean] that every issue, or every object, finds its own public.
There is not a constant group called 'the public' that has to be informed about everything. We all kind of
duck in and out of the political sphere as issues arise that concern us, or don't concern us, or bore us, or
interest us. And this is what democracy is about; it's not demanding constant self-education and
constant presence on every political issues, but it means that we dive in where things are of concern to
us.166
-

good quote for a lot of things, but particularly issues of transparency (and the epistemological

outlook overall), and when people say that it is the duty of privileged people to be informed...by saying
that it's not the duty of the oppressed to explain (etc etc)

(put in reification section...subjectivity part) - Along with the rise of a neoliberal economic order that
privileges the market over citizens, weve witnessed the evolution of a national attitude that
increasingly views social crises as personal problems.
In other words, rather than understanding the challenges facing this generation of young people 166

Graham Harman. Graham Harman at Moderna Museet: What is an Object?. January 15, 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eiv-rQw1lc

student debt, a hostile economy, a highly polarized society, strained race relations, increased academic
pressuresas a social crisis that affects us all, the trend has been to privatize their problems and
assume that students just need to toughen up.

**Another way to describe the split between commodity fetishism and reification
commodity fetishism comes from the collective point of view
reification seeing how the individual fits into the collective (or the whole)
** (for reification section...when talking about privilege, and critiquing its quantitative understanding
of the world) the are you privileged quiz online that gives you a number
for the part of having minorities in the leadership talk about how this is similar to the idea that
women/blacks/etc should have the equal opportunity to exploit people
(perhaps put in modes of subjectivity i.e. the post New Left concept of an ally as a reified mode of
subjectivity...or perhaps have this as a concept of the post New Left to critique, and look at it from
the perspective of it being a reified mode of subjectivity) So called "white allies" are just cheerleaders
for the liberal, reformist, black political class.
I don't have allies, I have comrades. My comrades are of all colors, they think for them selves, and
they're next to me actively attacking the white supremacist power structure. - Okwute Ekwensu
(Facebook; December 3, 2015)
Lukacs' comments about reified thought exhibiting the characteristics of a formalistic system that is
indifferent to the content (which is ultimately a thing-in-itself) related to the intersectional
model
*** importance of viewing capitalism as a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts

I don't believe in 'Diversity of Tactics'. Some tactics are effective. Some waste time, effort, and
resources. Some are counterproductive.

We need for everyone to be free, not for everyone

to feel like a special snowflake. - Robert Jones (on FB) In my experience, people tend to trot out

the principle 'Diversity of Tactics' when they want to avoid struggling with difficult questions about
efficacy and ethics wrt [with respect to] tactics. - Natasha Daffodil (on FB)
- i feel historically DoT emerged as a way to move forward while allowing those who held
hegemony in the 80s (stale orthodox sectlets, pacifists, and liberals) to save face when they were no
longer able to enforce their silly rules at demonstrations. Both because the balance hadn't shifted
enough for them to be completely sidelined, and also because there wasn't really a desire or consensus
amongst the 90s/00s crews that they did want to clearly break with them.

As a catchphrase,

it probably gained traction for reasons similar to what Dylan says above -- "diversity" is supposed to
always be good. Its like a superduper neocolonial empty signifier.

But i still don't see it as

all bad. "Non-dogmatic approach to tactics" would be more precise, and is what i think (at the best of
times) is meant by the term, but sounds more jargonish. Of course, any catchphrase sooner or later
becomes an impediment to further analysis - Kay Kersplebedeb (on FB)

Privilege, or The Misuse of a Concept

The concept of privilege is often good for interpersonal situations. It can explain why, for example, it is
likely that a

white

cis-gendered

male

will take up space in a meeting.

comparisons, such as X is privileged in comparison to Y.

able-bodied

upper-class

It is also good for relative

When used systemically

though, it obtains nightmarish qualities (like capitalist central planning or the anarchy of
the market). Like exchange-values triumph over use-value (in capitalism), the concept of
privilege manages to flatten out the qualitative differences between various types of
oppression. When discussed, it often looks (and feels) like the bureaucratic list shown above.
[Aphorism XIV]
One of the biggest problems with the way privilege is often used is that it seems to suggest that those
that have the least amount of privilege have the most amount of incentive to do something
about their situation (and within certain perspectives, are the most revolutionary). This was a
view that was common in the 1960s in the New Left, particularly among student radicals. The
idea was that the margins would be the engine of the revolution: students, blacks, the
lumpen-proletariat, third-world struggles, etc. The problem is that this is not actually true.
[give empirical example] This is not to take the other side, which is to say that the
revolution can only be led by the most privileged [perhaps have an example of one of the

utopian socialists trying to convince the other bourgeois about socialism]. It is to point out, in
fact, that is privilege politics that thinks this, in its presuppositions (lay out why)
Linking this up with the critique of reification
- have note on the concept of a workers' aristocracy reference Charles Post's article
Space
Taking Up Space
The people that tell others to not take up space are usually the biggest offenders of this rule.
[Aphorism XV]
Nowadays, the thing that takes up the most space in neo-anarchist activist circles is call-out
culture.

In this, they resemble the Maoists, who have their preferred method of public

shaming. [Aphorism CCLXVII]

(for essay) talk about the MTA campaign against man-spreading (also mention the saving room for
your cat thing) have pictures from both (preferably an official sign for the MTA)
Safe Spaces
What was the USSR, if not a safe space against capitalism on a national scale? Isnt the concept of
socialism-in-one-country a bit like a safe space for a nation?
** Make sure to point out that the concept of a safe space is not only applicable to activist circles, but
originated [?] in [sexual assault] survivor groups [find source]the problem isnt in the use
of a safe space for these purposes, but in its importation into activism (in a general
overarching sense)
** Point out the links between safe space and security culture
For example, its usually not decided (although sometimes there can be a (mood) coordinator or
something similar) who is in charge of keeping the space safe, and how they are
accountable to the rest of the group; it is assumed that the members of the group will be
able to know the right thing to do, and then to mutually police it. The problem is that the
idea of a safe space can be used to silence opinions that are contrary to the dominant
thought-action patterns of the group
Assumption 1. There exists such thing as a 'safe space.'

I feel strongly that the idea of safe

space is a really dangerous one, no matter whos claiming it for what space. It seems like
theres an underlying assumption in some comments that safe space does indeed exist or
that its something worth striving for. For me, as soon as the concept comes up, whether
this precise term is used or it just seems to be implied, I immediately become super
uncomfortable and feel very concerned about how people will behave in whatever space is

being discussed. Ive seen this idea used as a battering ram [interesting use of this word:
Hal Draper uses the same metaphor to describe the relationship between the masses and
certain types of socialism-from-above], essentially, in way too many contexts, usually as a
way to police behaviour in a mean-spirited manner or to exclude people or create an 'incrowd' of people who 'get it.' Doesnt really matter whether its an activist space, a party, a
conference, whatever. Almost universally, its about people buying into a fantasy of safety
that simply does not match realityand making a lot of people quite unsafe by using
policing-style behaviour.

[space] In reality, you are only 'safe' from things that might

make you uncomfortable or triggered if you stay at home where you have absolute control
over everything that happens (and even then, not always). Each persons idea of 'safe' is
different, and therefore a group space cannot possibly be 'safe.' 'Safe' isnt real, and as such
I believe its not worth investing energy in. Its much better, in my opinion, to create spaces
where there are a few clear rules for acceptable behaviour (which does *not* depend on
identity or status of any kind, gender or otherwise), a stated expectation of kindness and
goodwill, and one or several people who are in charge of smoothing things out if they go
wrong. (Andrea Zanin. if trans women aren't welcome, neither am I. Sex Geek.
September 20, 2013. https://sexgeek.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/if-trans-women-arentwelcome-neither-am-i/) I agree with this, except for the last little bit...I think that for the
most part that safe spaces are not as effective as what the author mentioned, they do have
limited validity (in the types of spaces that are mentioned in the note above [about sexual
assault groups])
On the left the most effective way to fight sexism and racism is to make sure we battle against
privileged positions and the abuse of power, against secrecy and cronyism. It was not lack of
safe spaces that led to the disastrous situation in the Socialist Workers Party. It was secrecy,
the power of those in authority, their ability to use confidentiality to suppress reporting.
(Yassamine Mather. The Tyranny of Safe Spaces. Weekly Worker. November 20, 2014.
http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1035/the-tyranny-of-safe-spaces/)
Safe spaces as echo chambers: In an echo chamber nobody learns anything new or expands their
perspectives. Similarly if women, blacks or LGBTQ activists refuse to confront their
opponents, safe spaces risk becoming echo chambers.
Tyranny

of

Safe

Spaces.

Weekly

Worker.

(Yassamine Mather. The

November

20,

2014.

http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1035/the-tyranny-of-safe-spaces/)
** related to including oneself into the totality that they are criticizing (and how, even with its merits,

safe spaces can often fail to do this): It is interesting that students in Holley and Steiners
study (2005) held instructors primarily responsible for creating a safe space to facilitate
student engagement and learning, when research on classroom interactions has indicated that
instructor qualities account for little variance in the degree to which students actively
participate in classes. (Betty J. Barrett. "Is 'Safety' Dangerous? A Critical Examination of
the Classroom as Safe Space. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning. (Vol. 1: Iss. 1, Article 9), 2010, pg. 4)
Allies vs. Solidarity
How to not be an ally or show solidarity http://newsthump.com/2015/08/07/left-wing-buildershouts-slogans-of-empowerment-at-passing-women/?r1=http%3A%2F%2Fnewsthump.com
%2F2015%2F08%2F07%2Fleft-wing-builder-shouts-slogans-of-empowerment-at-passingwomen%2F
We should not succumb to nostalgia, but it cant escape our notice that Jackson wrote at a time when
one still spoke of forging alliances, the confluence in struggle of large social forces, not
just about being an ally, which is understood nowadays to be a process of personal growth
undertaken largely by individuals (as opposed to mass organizations, movements or
classes).
Consensus Decision-Making
Use notes from Consensus section (in the Ultra-Leftist section)

Reification, The Thing-in-itself and Indirect Relations Among Objects

Reification is often (mistakenly) equated with objectification, a concept of much greater scope,
and which covers everything from language to perception, being too transhistorical to describe a
specifically capitalist problem.
Reification should not be understood as a critique of objectification; not only is this not
desirable, it is not even possible. Our world is made up of objects, and we interact with them in our
own limited and biased ways; when I look at a tree, my perspective is one of an infinite amount of
possible viewpoints. For a while, philosophy has been obsessed with the finitude of the relationship
between subject and object.167 This generated the division between the world as it appears to us and the
way that it really is, or the thing-in-itself. In many ways, this generated a false problem, but also a
167

Especially since Kant's Copernican turn

moral dilemma: if this division between appearance and thing-in-itself existed, then that would mean
that our moral freedom (to choose between good and evil) is based on us not knowing how the world
really works. This position was both the height of classical philosophy, but also its (conceptual) ends.
It's the idea that that to know [Plato's Republic thing] [see if I have quote for this in the footnotes]
did I already talk about cynical ideology etc? (if so reference it and move on) then talk about how
objects have indirect relations (Toy Story, etc.)
Now we can see one of the political implications of the notion of indirect causality; the need
to re-think the concept of alienation.
Living in capitalism is certainly an alienating experience; the crisis in mental health in
advanced capitalist countries is one indication of how bad the problem really is. Our lack of control
of production (and re-production) is the basis of capitalism's nefariousness. In being to designate this as
a problem, the concept of alienation is quite helpful.
But alienation is also commonly used with different presuppositions behind the word's meaning:
In class societies, producers are diminished in their human possibilities in that they cannot attain the
fulfillment of their capacities and potential. They are also unable to fully interact with their fellow
human beings as species beings. In other words, alienation prevents humans from accomplishing their
species nature through their species activity, from experiencing their objective world as their own
creation, and from developing their potential as world-making social beings. 168 This seems to suggest
something different entirely. The implied solution is direct interaction between people; but this is
impossible. Not only can we not directly interact with ourselves; at a more basic level, as mentioned
before, objects do not interact directly with each other or themselves.
For this point of view to make sense, society would have to be organized into small tribes; in
theory, you would know everyone in your tribe, and any other system that is larger than our ability to
fully and directly cognitively map it would be, according to this view, alienation. Most leftists who
hold this opinion usually do not state their presuppositions so explicitly, but this effectively what would
need to happen. This problem is that tribes are not isolated, and often have contact and trade with
others. Even if a tribe is isolated, it is impossible for one member to know everything about the
rest; this is not just because there are details that will inevitably escape us; it is due to the fact that, as
pointed out before, there is no everything to get.
And more; our system of production (and any future communist one) would strive to be local,
168

Jonathan Martineau. Time, Capitalism and Alienation: A Socio-Historical Inquiry into the Making of Modern Time. Brill:
Leiden, the Netherlands. 2015, pg. 15

but would have to also be more global than capitalism. Also, our eco-system is global, and one cannot
simply go into one's own corner, doing whatever they want, without any consequences for anywhere
else in the world. The current effort to save our lifeworld can only be done on a global scale, involving
billions of people, most of whom we will never see in our lifetimes. In this sense, a little alienation,
understood in the sense of indirect interaction, is necessary.
In fact, one could even say that communism will be more alienating than the typical
bourgeois democracy. We tend to think that success in politics is judged by how well, at the end, we
were able to get what we wanted at the beginning. But if you think about it, there is something wrong
with that: the idea that we can get what we want is not only not a guarantee within capitalism; in
communism, this would be a good thing
Why? Because, even though people should be happy, what is the best idea is usually the
product of intense debate, theoretical synthesis, followed by more discussion. It is silly to think that
what we want (immediately) is the best idea in the long term, or even the short term.
This is not advocating some kind of (singular) centralized agency that is an ultimate
planner/arbiter: it is precisely because this place is impossible that we should turn this into an
advantage.

** for this section, link this into the fundamental problem of bourgeois thought: the thing-in-itself
connect to antinomies such as the subject-object antinomy, nature/society, etc.
(for reification section) Reification is, philosophically, an inability to understand objects. This is
completely different from the usual account of reification, where objectification is thought to be the
boogeyman.

(in Lukacs HCC) pg. 93 (related to reification's push against understanding the nature of

objects) - Thus even the individual object which man confronts directly, either as producer or
consumer, is distorted in its objectivity by its commodity character.

is the society/nature split the ultimate antinomy? (or is it the subject/object antinomy)

importance of de-naturalizing nature for communism...but also of seeing how humans are not
separated from nature (we are part of the eco-system, etc)
(from book on Martineau's book on time, pg, 29) - As such, different orders of determinations
do exist between nature and society in terms of time and temporality, but the a priori separation
of these two orders, instead of the acknowledgement of their continuities and discontinuities,
might have disabling effects for theoretical endeavours into the question of time, such as
rendering the theory incapable of grasping the relationship between intersecting temporalities
that bring together bodies and their environments, social processes and biological human needs,
human activities and climate, and so on. is Einstein's theory of relativity, and the
implications it has for time, a good model for understanding time in general (i.e. whether
humans exist or not)
pg. 29 - Time being both natural and social means that 'social time' cannot be thought of
without reference to the conditioning determinations brought about by natural phenomena,
just as the latter cannot be properly conceptualised and addressed without a recognition of
their always already socially mediated character. Natural phenomena such as celestial
movements such as celestial movements and atomic pulses are socially standardised
continua of change, just as biological, natural and physical sequences of change, cycles,
(instability) and (dis)continuity are ingrained in every form of social time relations.
(from Martineau, pg. 46 - I argue that social time relations in capitalist societies are dominated by
clock-time: capitalist clock-time occupies a hegemonic position in the hierarchy of temporalities that
form capitalist social time relations, alienating, subordinating, colonising, absorbing, and/or
marginalising other conceptions and practices of time and concrete temporalities. Moreover, this study
operates with an explanatory rather than a descriptive logic. I argue that capitalist social time relations
are dominated by abstract clock-time because of the intimate relationship between clock-time and
processes of capitalist value formation.
** objects are only possible because of indirect causation otherwise, we'd only have one object
** objects and (Deleuze's idea of difference and repetition) objects are infinitely divisible but also
repeatable

** Graham Harman seems to assume that object-object interactions are incomplete, while subjectobject interactions are
** Ben's idea that people are all reacting to the 'same' reality, but not the same object (to look into:
relationship to the Lacanian real)
maybe for Reification and Objects section...when talking about how objects interact indirectly, talk
about how the universal is biased (quote Zizek stuff)
one example of what indirect causality means: quantum mechanics shows that, at a certain level,
the universe is fun,damentally probabilistic in an extreme way, at the sub-atomic level, something,
in the present, can be exist and not exist at the same time, because there is a certain probability that
both is true...is almost like taking the idea that Hegel constantly says (something both is and is not)
literally

Graham

Harmans

description

of

how

subjects-objects

and

objects-objects

always

act

asymmetricallythis is a way of talking about overdetermination: A few words on

asymmetry are now in order. Real objects cannot touch real objects, and in this respect
Heideggers tool-analysis reawakens the occasionalist scenario. And sensual objects do not
touch other sensual objects, but exist only as contiguous in a single experience that serves as
their bridge. For this reason the only possible kind of direct contact is asymmetrical, with real
objects touching the sensual objects that they experience. This contradicts the usual
assumption that causal or relational contact is always symmetrical, always transitive. If a first
object touches a second, then supposedly the second cannot avoid touching the first in return:
for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction; look into the abyss and it looks back
into you. But that is not what happens according to the model developed in this book. Instead,
there is always just one real object involved in any interaction. If I perceive the tree, it can
probably perceive me in turn. But this must occur as part of a different relation, not as the
reverse side of the same one. Graham Harman (2011-07-15T02:15:02+00:00). The
Quadruple Object (Kindle Locations 1048-1056). Zero Books. Kindle Edition.

Graham Harman - Third, there is the most central claim of object-oriented philosophy: that the
human-object relation is merely a special case of object-object relations more generally. The tree-initself is withheld from us not because we humans are specially tragic finite beings, but simply because
we are objects at all. The wind has no more and no less direct access to the tree than I do. The phrase
relations are external to their terms is valid not just for human empirical observers, but for brute
causal interactions as well. The reason many people become angry about object-oriented
philosophy is that they sense its vigorous anti-reductionism, but they want philosophy to be a kind of
debunking reductionism in one or both of two possible ways. Either we must debunk downward by
showing that science gives the best description of what is real, with the rest counting as nothing more
than epidermal illusion; or, we must debunk upward by showing that everything is constructed by
language, society, perception, or events, so that only nave, life-hating oppressors would insist on a
'reality' hiding beneath the play of surfaces. I call the first group 'underminers' and the second group
'overminers.' The first group dislikes me because I think Popeye and sunflower seeds cant be
broken down to scientifically privileged entities. The second group dislikes me because I insist on
reality and essences, which sounds to them like an old-fashioned doctrine of patriarchal imperialism
though in fact its the exact opposite, since I dont think the essences can ever be directly known, and
hence they can never be used as political measuring-sticks.
Graham Harman - We now turn to the concept of vicarious causation. This follows naturally from
the model of objects as withdrawn. If two objects make contact only with caricatures, translations, or
distortions of one another, it follows that they never make direct contact at all, and hence they need a
mediating term.
GH - How do we get out of this mess? By abolishing the current division of labor in which the
sciences deal with object-object relations and philosophers become involved only when human thought
or normativity enters the scene. This is the situation as Kant left it, since along with his endorsement of
finitude (which I support) he also valorized the human-world relation as prior to any other. You cant
talk about two billiard balls colliding in their own right, but only about how this collision appears to us
according to the categories of the understanding. Again, this proposed division of labor is taxonomical:
natural scientists shall talk about non-human things, while philosophers and social scientists shall only
talk about human things.

I reject this exile of philosophy from the realm of object-object

relations. Its actually incorrect to say that I argue against the search for underlying material causes.
Thats what physics already searches for, and with plenty of success. But there is also an aspect of
metaphysics that deals with the interaction of inanimate things, and one that does not conflict with or
try to surmount physics, since the division of labor involves different methods of dealing with the same
realities. Physics has little choice but to treat things as bundles of empirically determinable qualities,
but this is precisely what philosophy must not do. This does not mean that philosophy needs to stay
away from inanimate objects, only that it cannot deal with objects as bundles of determinate qualities.
We cannot accept the currently popular blend of German Idealism, mathematics, empirical science,
and Halloweenish mood music as the future of continental thought. - GH
** Example of how GH misses the subject (and it's free will...i.e. its ability to stop something...for
Harman, the subject is just the contemplative subject) - The question is not whether human thinking
has a special methodological status (which it must, since we are human) but whether it has a special
ontological status. In other words, is the human-world gap different in ontological kind from the gaps
between raindrops and wood or fire and cotton? No, it is not. The human relation to cotton in thinking
about it may be far more intricate than fires relation to that cotton in destroying it, but we can easily
see that both human thought and fire have the following feature in common: both of them fail to
encounter the cotton as a whole. Both of them are translations of the cotton; they are distortions,
caricatures, or oversimplifications of the cotton. This is the usefully non-Kantian side of Whitehead and
Latour: their awareness that the philosophical problem is translation as such, not the very special and
limited form of translation that appears in human experience. The fact that we can only think these
thoughts from within a human mind does not entail that thought has a special ontological status that
makes it something other than causal translation.
My answer is that correlationism covertly bundles together two separate concepts. One of them is
finitude, the idea that we cannot speak of reality outside its givenness to us. The other is the centrality
of one kind of relation: that between human and world, such that we can only talk about the causal
relation between two rocks insofar as we humans encounter this relation, so that humans always make
up 50% of any philosophical situation. (Graham Harman. Interview With Graham Harman (2).
Figure/Ground. October 2, 2013. http://figureground.org/interview-with-graham-harman-2/)

Ray Brassier confronts this problem head-on when, in his interpretation of Wilfrid Sellars, he defines
materialism with the Marxist-sounding notion of determination in the last instance, which should be
opposed to the similar notion of overdetermination: determination-in-the-last-instance is the causality
which renders it universally possible for any object X to determine its own real cognition, but only in
the last instance. Overdetermination is transcendental, that is, the point of transcendentalism is that I
cannot ever fully objectivize myself, reduce myself to a part of the objective reality in front of me,
since such reality is always already transcendentally constituted by subjectivity: no matter to what
extent I succeed in accounting for myself as a phenomenon within the great chain of being, as a
result determined by a network of natural (or supernatural) reasons, this causal image is always already
over-determined by the transcendental horizon which structures my approach to reality. To this
transcendental overdetermination Brassier opposes the naturalist determination in the last instance: a
serious materialist has to presume that every subjective horizon within which reality appears, every
subjective constitution or mediation of reality, has to be ultimately determined by its place in objective
reality, that is, it has to be conceived as part of the all-encompassing natural process. The contrast is
clear here: overdetermination refers not to the way an all-encompassing whole determines the interplay
of its parts, but, on the contrary, to the way a part of the whole emerges as a self-relating One which
over-determines the network of its relations with others. In this precise sense, the elementary form of
overdetermination is life: a living being is part of the world, but it relates to its environs as a function of
its self-relating (the simplest example: an organism relates to food because it needs food to survive).
Overdetermination is a name for this paradoxical reversal by means of which a moment subsumes
under itself the whole out of which it grew (or, in Hegelese, posits its presuppositions). Such a
relationship between overdetermination and determination in the last instance is antagonistic, since
overdetermination makes any direct conceptualization of determination in the last instance impossible.
Alternatively: at the level of temporality, the structure of overdetermination is that of retroactivity, of an
effect which retroactively posits (over-determines) the very causes by which it is is determined in the
last instance; to reduce overdetermination to the determination in the last instance is to succeed in
transposing retroactive causality back into the linear causal network. Why, then, does (symbolicretroactive) overdetermination emerge at all? Is it ultimately an illusion, albeit a spontaneous and
necessary one?
The only way to avoid this conclusion is to break the closure of the linear determinist chain and
assert the ontological openness of reality: overdetermination is not illusory insofar as it retroactively
fills in the gaps in the chain of causality. The solution is thus not to establish a grand evolutionary
narrative explaining or describing how higher modes of being emerge out of lower modes (life out of

the chemistry of dead matter, spirit out of life), but to approach head-on the question of how the
prehuman real has to be structured so as to allow for the emergence of the symbolic/normative
dimension. It is here that the most radical dimension of Hegels thought, the dimension overlooked by
Pippin, comes into view. In a well-known passage from the Foreword to his Phenomenology of Spirit
Hegel provides the most elementary formula for what it means to conceive Substance also as Subject:
The disparity which exists in consciousness between the I and the substance which is its object is the
distinction between them, the negative in general. This can be regarded as the defect of both, though it
is their soul, or that which moves them. That is why some of the ancients conceived the void as the
principle of motion, for they rightly saw the moving principle as the negative, though they did not as
yet grasp that the negative is the self. Now, although this negative appears at first as a disparity between
the I and its object, it is just as much a disparity of the substance with itself. Thus what seems to
happen outside of it, to be an activity directed against it, is really its own doing, and substance shows
itself to be essentially subject.32
The final reversal is crucial: the disparity between subject and substance is simultaneously the disparity
of substance with itself. This reversal takes place at all levels: subjectivity emerges when substance
cannot achieve full identity with itself, when substance is in itself barred, traversed by an immanent
impossibility or antagonism; the subjects epistemological ignorance, its failure to fully grasp the
opposed substantial content, simultaneously indicates a limitation, failure, or lack in the substantial
content itself; the believers experience of abandonment by God is simultaneously a gap that separates
God from the believer, an indication of the unfinished nature of the divine identity, and so on.
Applied to Pippins ontological ambiguity, this means that the gap separating the normative from the
factual should be simultaneously conceived as a gap immanent to the factual itself. Or, to put it in a
slightly different way, while everything is to be mediated/ posited by the self-relating void of
subjectivity, this void itself emerges out of the Substance through its self-alienation. We thus encounter
here the same ambiguity that characterizes the Lacanian Real: everything is subjectively mediated, but
the subject does not come firstit emerges through the self-alienation of the Substance. In other
words, while we have no direct access to the substantial pre-subjective Real, we also cannot get rid of
it.
The subject does not come first: it is a predicate-becoming-subject, a passive screen asserting itself as a
First Principle, i.e., something posited which retroactively posits its presuppositions.
Excerpt From: Slavoj Zizek. Absolute Recoil. iBooks.

It is far too simplistic to claim that the specter of this self-engendering monster pursuing its ends
regardless of any human or environmental concern is an ideological abstraction, and to insist that one
should never forget that, behind this abstraction, lie real people and natural objects on whose
productive capacities and resources capitals circulation is based and on which it feeds like a gigantic
parasite. The problem is that this abstraction is not only in our (financial speculators) misperception
of social reality, but is also real in the precise sense of determining the structure of very material
social processes: the fate of whole swathes of society and sometimes of whole countries can be decided
by the speculative dance of Capital, which pursues its goal of profitability with a blessed indifference
to how its movements will affect social reality.
Excerpt From: Slavoj Zizek. Absolute Recoil. iBooks.

(for section when I am talking about the difference between the capitalist and pre-capitalist modes of
production in the reification section [use as footnote]) Therein resides the fundamental systemic
violence of capitalism, much more uncanny than direct pre-capitalist socio-ideological violence: its
violence is no longer attributable to concrete individuals with their evil intentions, but is purely
objective, systemic, anonymousquite literally a conceptual violence, the violence of a Concept
whose self-deployment rules and regulates social reality.
Excerpt From: Slavoj Zizek. Absolute Recoil. iBooks.
From the standpoint of emancipatory struggle, it is thus crucial to take into account how, in the
process of the actualization of a Notion, the Notion itself changes (into its opposite). And the purer this
Notion is, the more brutal the reversal. This is why Marx is too (pseudo-)Hegelian, he really counts
on the synthesis of communism as the overcoming of all history hitherto. At a general formal level,
let us imagine a dialectical process which points towards its future resolutionthe exemplary case
would be Marxs vision of history in the Grundrisse, where the progress goes from substance to
alienated subjectivity, i.e., subjectivity separated from the objective conditions of its labor. This

development reaches its apogee in capitalism, in the figure of proletariat as substanceless subjectivity;
however, this point of extreme alienation is in itself already a resolution, for it opens up the perspective
of its own overcoming, of the collective subjectivity reappropriating its objective conditionsthis
time not by being substantially immersed in them, but by asserting itself as the subject of the entire
process. From a strict Hegelian standpoint, a teleological process like this will always go wrong, and
the intended goal will turn into its opposite (as confirmed by the reversal of revolutionary emancipation
into Stalinist nightmare). The standard Marxist counter-argument here would have to be that such a
reversal is precisely the basic feature of an alienated history in which individuals are the playthings
of an impenetrable substantial process. For Hegel, however, the self-transformation of the goal during
the process of its actualization is not an effect of the alienated character of a substantial process in
which subjects are caught upon the contrary, the idea that the process is dominated by a substantial
big Other is in itself an ideological illusion. The Hegelian matrix of the dialectical process is thus that
one must first fail in reaching the goal, as the intended reconciliation turns into its opposite, and only
then, in a second moment, will the true reconciliation come, when one recognizes this failure itself as
the form of success.

The Retrograde Left

Ernest Mandel put forward the idea, in the early 1970s, that capitalism had so far been through
three stages: (1) the mercantilist, or national stage; (2) the imperialist stage; and (3) late capitalism.
The left is still fighting with strategies from the imperialist stage of capitalism, and has yet to
meet the reality of multinational capitalism. This process began in the late 60s and the early 70s; capital
was beginning to automate away jobs, as well as move them overseas. While more jobs have been lost
to automation than to off-shoring, the threat of moving was often strong enough. This was due to the
fact that the world was becoming more integrated; the main axis of trade was not between the colonies
and the colonizer, but between the advanced capitalist countries. This freeing up of trade gave capital
more mobility; the left has not been able to counter this with any kind of international strategy of their
own.

Excerpt From: Slavoj Zizek. Absolute Recoil. iBooks.

Every historical situation harbors its own unique utopian perspective, an immanent vision of what is
wrong with it, an ideal representation of how, with the necessary changes, the situation could be
rendered much better. When the desire for radical social change emerges, it is thus logical that it should
first endeavor to actualize this immanent utopian visionwhich is why it has to end in catastrophe. It is
here that we can also discern Marxs fundamental mistake: he saw how capitalism had unleashed the
breathtaking dynamic of self-enhancing productivity; on the other hand, he also clearly perceived how
this dynamic is propelled by its own inner obstacle or antagonismthe ultimate limit of capitalism (of
self-propelling productivity) is Capital itself; the very development and revolutionizing of its own
material conditions, the mad dance of its unconditional spiral of productivity, is ultimately nothing but
a desperate attempt to escape its own debilitating inherent contradiction. Marxs mistake was to
conclude that a new, higher social order (communism) was possible, an order that would not only
maintain but would raise to an even higher degree the potential of the dynamic of productivity which,
in capitalism, on account of its inherent contradiction, is again and again thwarted by socially
destructive economic crises. In short, what Marx overlooked was that the inherent antagonism as the
condition of impossibility of the full deployment of the productive forces is simultaneously its
condition of possibility: if we abolish the obstacle, the inherent contradiction of capitalism, then far
from fully unleashing the drive to productivity, we lose precisely this dynamic that seemed to be
generated and simultaneously thwarted by capitalism. If we remove the obstacle, the very potential
thwarted by the obstacle dissipates (herein would reside a possible Lacanian critique of Marx, focusing
on the ambiguous overlap between surplus-value and surplus-enjoyment).
Excerpt From: Slavoj Zizek. Absolute Recoil. iBooks.
In order to see this, we have to draw another key distinction: between the alienated situation in
which we, as living subjects, are under the control of a virtual Monster/Master (Capital), and a more
elementary alienated situation in which, to put it in a somewhat simplified way, no one is in control:
not only us, but the objective process itself is also decentered, inconsistentor, to repeat Hegels
formula, the secrets of the Egyptians are also secrets for the Egyptians themselves.

Excerpt From: Slavoj Zizek. Absolute Recoil. iBooks.

Instead, he says: we figure out what we wantthis is how a true Master works: he does not try to
guess what people want; he simply obeys his own desire and leaves it up to others to decide if they
want to follow him. In other words, his power stems from his fidelity to his desire, from refusing to
compromise on it. Therein lies the difference between a true Master and, say, the fascist or Stalinist
leader who pretends to know (better than the people themselves) what people really want (what is
really good for them), and is then ready to enforce it on them even against their will.
Excerpt From: Slavoj Zizek. Absolute Recoil. iBooks.
(Zizek being socialist from below, and rejecting his previous idea of the master?) - Should we not
rather follow the well-known motto of all emancipatory movements: freedom cannot be handed down
to us by a benevolent master but has to be won through hard struggle?
Excerpt From: Slavoj Zizek. Absolute Recoil. iBooks.

MB: Do you think that its your specific engagement with the sciences that differentiates
your account of how a more-than-material subject emerges from materiality from the
accounts given by Badiou and Meillassoux, for the emergence of events or life? In really
simple terms, there seems to be a similar structure happening there.
AJ: Yes, theres this similar structure, although Badiou refuses to tie his version of materialism to the natural sciences and Meillassoux has yet to expand upon his views regarding subjectivity. . Youve heard me use this line before, so pardon me for repeat ing
the over-used, over-paraphrased Churchill one-liner: I think the empirical experimental
sciences of modernity are the worst basis for constructing things like theories of
subjectivity except for all those others that weve tried from time to time. Along these
lines, Brassier is one of my closest fellow travellers in that both of us are adamant that
modern science is not something to be held warily at arms length or even aggressively
checked externally from the standpoint of philosophy; he and I agree that, instead, we
need to, as many of the analytics have done, embrace the sciences, really accept that
they are a fundamental part of our Weltanschauung and seek in them resources as opposed to problematic points to be resisted, criticized, rejected, etc. For me, the balancing
act of my position, where I think it represents an alternative, is that, on the one hand, it
involves concurring with Brassier that there is something fundamental about the sciences
and that the progress we make in those disciplines cannot be ignored save for at the
price of some kind of irresponsible intellectual bankruptcy; but, on the other hand, I dont

think that those sciences necessarily produce, in fact I think they point in the opposite
direction, they dont produce a reductive picture where everything can be explained from
within the sciences themselves. I think that the sciences are showing how you can
scientifically explain why everything cant be explained scientifically, as it were. This goes
back to that Hegelian phenomenological gesture in the section on Observing Reason in
the Phenomenology of Spirit that the sciences produce out of themselves, on their own
grounds, an internal delimitation of their explanatory jurisdictions. You can say that you
have an empirical explanatory ground for why an empirical experimental approach cant
account for everything that youre after, which is different from just dogmatically insisting
what ultimately would have to come down to a kind of a priori theoretical dogmatism, a
sort that I dont think is very defensible, for example, simply saying, No, theres this
dimension which cant be reduced down to that level and thats it. I think that to have a
scientific account for why you cant reduce everything to the sciences is a way to get
what you want, for instance, to keep what, I will concede, for instance, religion, various
kinds of theological approaches are describing, things that are there, I think, albeit in a
very distorted form or in a kind of dualistic or anti-reductivitst stance. I think you can get
all of that without having to fall back on what, in my view, are very shaky, a priori, footstamping, fist-banging sorts of postulates or insistences that are threatened by the
sciences. My position sounds like having your cake and eating it too, but I do think that
there are good scientific supports for the idea that a subject that is not itself capturable
by the sciences emerges out of what the sciences are looking at, and I think that those
disciplines themselves are providing the resources for that account, which I seek to
harness in this very Hegelian way too, of stepping back and just allowing those disciplines
to unfold their own resources and then, as Hegel put it, recollecting the results. But, of
course, the picture that emerges is different from what a lot of people who arent
sympathetic to this approach would think, which is that in the end youre still going to fall
into something like eliminative, or reductive materialism. I dont think so.
BS: So, you think, in a sense, this divergence that you get between the subjects actual
behaviour and our explanation of that behaviour, via the best current scientific model,
can be given a positive account? We are not limited to a simple negative account of this
divergence, in terms of the weaknesses or flaws of our current, incomplete, science? This
irreducibility can be accounted for in a positive sense, and thats the role of philosophy,
to try and give a positive account of the way in which science and subjectivity will never
completely coincide and merge?
AJ: Absolutely.Even though Badiou and I disagree about the nature and status of the
sciences and scientificity, nonetheless, in terms of certain aspects of my approach, Im
deeply indebted to him. I come back to this idea of philosophys role as putting certain of
its conditions in cross-resonating relationship with each other and exploring their
compossibility, and so one of the features of my work that sometimes gets more attention than others is the fact that I draw on resources from the natural sciences generally,
and the life sciences especially. For me, its never just a matter of fixating upon those dis ciplines, its about trying to see how those disciplines become self-sundering, reaching
this point where theyre beginning to demarcate their own boundaries. That calls for work
from other sides too., How are certain resources from philosophy, psychoanalysis,
political theory, etc. necessarily part of this picture as well, and how do we then start
constructing the links between those different domains and developments? Thats very
much what Im after. There are important contributions that, for example, a Lacanian
psychoanalytic framework brings. Its not that we have to, in a one-way fashion, rework
Lacanian psychoanalysis, rework the various philosophers and philosophical orientations
that Im talking about, due to these sciences. Its also an issue of asking: how do we have
to modify these sciences, or how would their research programmes have to alter, in light

of key contributions from philosophy and psychoanalysis? The sciences have, in some
cases, vindicated us, and its not just a matter of us having to make concessions to them;
thats part of the rhetoric I was deploying at the end of my talk last year in Dundee. The
dialectical sword slices both ways. The sciences have reached the point where they are
going to have to accept that their interpretations of their data and their research
programmes require significant modification in light of the contributions, for the past two
centuries, weve been making on the philosophical side of things.
BS: Isnt one of the deepest ways in which that comes out is that for any reductive programme in science, and some other traditional approaches in science, there is the fundamental belief that the Real, or Nature, is in some sense consistent. Whereas what
youve always been talking about, in the psychoanalytic aspect of your work, is precisely
that the Real, or Nature, or whatever you want to call it, is not consistent, and its that
which is going to be the fundamental shift from the point of view of science in its relation
to philosophy.
AJ: Yes, and theres a lot of work to be done in this regard. In addition to McDowell, one of
the other key figures who features in a piece I recently finished is the London School of
Economics philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright. I think her work is very important.
Shes published a number of books, but the text that is really invaluable for my purposes,
although it builds on earlier work of hers, is the 1999 book The Dappled World: A Study in
the Boundaries of Science. On the basis of considerations internal to much more
analytically orientated philosophy of science, she argues for a vision of Nature as a detotalized jumble of constituents that are not bound together by some sort of seamless
underlying fundamental unity. She pleads for that very much on strict philosophy of
science grounds, claiming that if youre an empiricist and realist, then the weight of the
evidence should lead you to gamble in the opposite direction, not to invest your faith in
what is a metaphysical article of faith regarding the ultimate unity, homo geneity, and
seamlessness of reality, its reducibility to basic fundamental laws. Keep in mind that this
is an article of faith that in practice is unprovable, even if all humanity for the rest of our
existence were to spend its time crunching data; we would never get to the point where
we would be able to take just a one-minute slice of the behavior of a mid-sized
perceivable organism, like another human being or even a smaller animal, to reduce
everything down to, say, the quantum constituents of this organism, and then to show
that theres a seamless linkage that flows from the base up to the more complex
aggregate levels that proves reductionism is right. Reductionism is a metaphysical ar ticle
of faith, its a gamble, its a hypothesis. Even though a lot people want to be realist about
it, at its strongest its just what Kant called a regulative ideal, and what he calls
specifically in the Prolegomena the cosmological idea of reason as a regulative ideal for
natural scientific practice. It might be a good heuristic device and I think it does have its
value, at that level, but I think that one shouldnt mistake a good heuristic device for a
solid basis for an ontology. I think were much closer to what Cartwright calls the
dappled world or what you point to, for which I use Lacanian and Badiouian language,
when I speak of this not-One, non-All nature as our best picture of nature. I think that
there are both psychoanalytic and philosophy of science considerations that show that
there is better evidence for Cartwrights dappled world, or for the de-totalized real of
Lacan and Badiou. Theres even better evidence just looking at the state of the sciences
and their historical achievements and lack of achievements than there is for the old
reductivist dogma.

Adrian Johnston. Materialism, Subjectivity and the Outcome Of French Philosophy:

Interview with Adrian Johnston by Michael Burns & Brian Smith. Cosmos and
History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy. Vol. 7, No. 1, 2011, pg. 176179

Harman, Graham. 2007. "On Vicarious Causation" in Collapse II: Speculative Realism. London:
Urbanomic.
pg. 188 - To revive causation in philosophy means to reject the dominance of Kants Copernican
Revolution and its single lonely rift between people and everything else. Although I will claim that real
objects do exist beyond human sensual access to them, this should not be confused with Kants
distinction between phenomena and noumena.
pg. 188-189 - Neither Kant, nor Hegel, nor their more up-to-date cousins have anything to say about
the collision of balls-in-themselves.
pg. 190 - My claim is that two entities influence one another only by meeting on the interior of a third,
where they exist side-by-side until something happens that allows them to interact. In this sense, the
theory of vicarious causation is a theory of the molten inner core of objects a sort of plate tectonics of
ontology. (how to think about this in terms of overdetermination (A's relationship with B)...also
autonomy as a type of relation)
pg. 195-197 - Real objects withdraw into obscure cavernous underworlds, deprived of causal links.
Sensual objects, by contrast, are so inclined to interact with their neighbors that we wonder why they
fail to do so at every instant. In other words, the only place in the cosmos where interactions occur is
the sensual, phenomenal realm. Against philosophies that regard the surface as formal or sterile and
grant causal power only to shadowy depths, we must defend the opposite view: discrete, autonomous
form lies only in the depths, while dramatic power and interaction float along the surface. All
relationships are superficial. For this reason, we must discover how real objects poke through into the
phenomenal realm, the only place where one relates to another. The various eruptions of real objects
into sensuality lie side by side, buffered from immediate interaction. Something must happen on the
sensual plane to allow them to make contact, just as corrosive chemicals lie side by side in a bomb
separated by a thin film eaten away over time, or ruptured by distant signals.
pg. 219-220 - I make contact with another object, not through impossible contact with its interior life,
but only by brushing its surface in such a manner as to bring its inner life into play. Just as only the
opposite poles of magnets make contact, and just as the opposite sexes alone are fertile, it is also the
case that two objects of the same type do not directly touch one another. Contiguity between sensual
objects is impossible without a real intentional agent, and connection between real ones does not occur
except by means of a sensual intermediary. This entails that all contact must be asymmetrical. However
deeply I burrow into the world, I never encounter anything but sensual objects, and neither do real
objects ever encounter anything but my own sensual facade. The key to vicarious causation is that two
objects must somehow touch without touching.
pg. 220-221 - The only way to bring real objects into the sensual sphere is to reconfigure sensual

objects in such a way that they no longer merely fuse into a new one, as parts into a whole, but rather
become animated by allusion to a deeper power lying beyond: a real object. The gravitational field of a
real object must somehow invade the existing sensual field. Just as I am the vicarious link between two
sensual objects, the alluring tree is the vicarious link between me and the real tree. The exact dynamics
of this process deserve a lengthier treatment, but something unusual has already become evident. The
separation of a thing from its quality is no longer a local phenomenon of human experience, but instead
is the root of all relations between real objects, including causal relations. In other words, allure
belongs to ontology as a whole, not to the special metaphysics of animal perception. Relations between
all real objects, including mindless chunks of dirt, occur only by means of some form of allusion. But
insofar as we have identified allure with an aesthetic effect, this means that aesthetics becomes first
philosophy.

To Dhoruba Bin Wahad, hope was an illusory concept. Hed been hopeful once. Back in the fall of
1968, when Eldridge Cleaver first came to town as a candidate for president, the Black Panther Party
seemed like an idea whose time had come. Party chapters were sprouting up all over the country; the
possibility of global revolution seemed to be within reach. Student protesters, antiwar activists, and
leading lights of the counterculture had begun to coalesce around similar movements all over Europe,
Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Disenfranchised people all over the world were rising up,
and the concept of black liberation was a powerful and attractive component of the international
groundswell. In New York, the movement revolved around the Black Panther Party, and the party
revolved around leaders like Dhoruba, who was committed enough to put his life on the line.
Then, in a short period of time, that dream went up in smoke.
Excerpt From: T. J. English. The Savage City. iBooks.
The philosophical differences between the East and West Coast factions of the party might
have been resolved if the counterintelligence efforts of BOSS and COINTELPRO hadnt
exacerbated them. The infighting, in turn, had brought about a bad case of revolutionary
suicide. Cops killed Panthers, Panthers killed Panthers, Panthers killed copsthe vicious cycle
seemed to take the struggle from its goals of civil rights, and then Black Power, into the realm
of revenge. The big payback.

https://libcom.org/library/postmodern-left-success-neoliberalism

Kit Caless. Your Job Is Pointless. Vice. January 8, 2016. http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/what-isthe-point-of-your-job-389?utm_source=Facebook&utm_campaign=viceuk&utm_medium=soci

General antipathy for work makes it all the more weird that, if you live in a metropolis like
London, the one question everyone will ask when they meet you for the first time is, "What do
you do?" Fleming says this is natural. "The ideology of work has demolished all of the other
traditional status structures related to religion, artistic endeavour, raising family and other status
symbols within communities. After demolishing these structures we have been presented with a

situation that tells us the only thing that matters is the work you do and therefore you should
revolve and centre your whole life around that. It's followed the increased individulisation of
society, which has broken traditional communities apart."
A global survey by Gallup in 2013 broke down employees into three different categories:
Engaged (13 percent), Disengaged (63 percent) and Actively Disengaged (23 percent).
Engaged workers are jobsworths, basically: "Someone who goes out of their way to make sure
the organisation succeeds because they see their welfare inextricably linked to the company's
welfare. If they see that something can be done better they will share that information."
A
disengaged worker has simply given up; they don't care: "They go from Hell One [home life] to
Hell Two [workplace], backwards and forwards. They suffer 'presenteeism': turning up at 9AM,
getting their work done for the first couple of hours and then just sitting there doing nothing for
the rest of the day."
If you're reading this at work, that probably sounds familiar.
The actively disengaged, meanwhile, are involved in deliberate sabotage. They "hurt the
organisation. They see a problem, have a solution but choose not to offer it. They steal. They
hurt those around them. There was a recent case of a city worker, a lawyer, who had put their
own shit in the toilet soap dispenser at work, mixed it up with the soap and people used it
without knowing. They also hurt themselves, through suicide, or self abuse."
The
shitting in a soap dispenser thing is weird and reprehensible, but if you've ever stolen office
equipment or are nursing a banging hangover you didn't want on a weekday, congrats: you are
the 23 percent.
The amount of time we spend at work, even if we are suffering "presenteeism", is more than
ever. On top of this, many more companies are now inviting alcohol into the workplace
drinking, as it's known, "al desko". While drinks in the office on a Friday evening might sound
like your boss is just being nice, Fleming is more cynical. He thinks the blurring of work into
play and non-work is dangerous. The modern manager "wants to be your friend, and they're
actually nice people. It's the worst thing that you can come across. If my manager thinks I'm
their friend and I can joke with them, they have created a bond with me that's inescapable. If I
want to refuse an order, they will see it as a personal insult, like a friend being jilted. They can
rightly say, 'mate, friends don't treat each other like that'."
The relationship between
booze and work used to be so different. Back in the 18th century, employees celebrated Saint
Monday "A customary practice of workers dropping their tools, vacating the factory and
getting extremely inebriated on Monday mornings just as the work day was beginning,"
explains Fleming.
We used to get drunk to piss our boss off, now he encourages us to
drink with him.
*** idea investigate relationship between consumer power (which often time drives down
wages) and worker power for example, if the working-class shops at Walmart, they can
purchase more with their buying power, but how does this relate to their status as members of
the working-class?

Since August 4, 1914, German Social-Democracy has been a stinking corpse" Rosa Luxemburg
(https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/feb/x01.htm)
Socialism is the first popular movement in world history that has set itself the goal of bringing human
consciousness, and thereby free will, into play in the social actions of mankind. For this reason,

Friedrich Engels designated the final victory of the socialist proletariat a leap of humanity from the
animal world into the realm of freedom. - Rosa Luxemburg

**** how S-D, U-L, and M-L are strategies for a not fully capitalist world (i.e. the world in the 20th
century ** use Endnotes article History of Separation (#1) **

There are two ways that the ruling ideas are not necessarily the ideas of those that rule. First,
as Zizek points out, (following others in the Marxist tradition, like Fredric Jameson or Ernst Bloch), the
ruling ideology always have to incorporate the authentic longings of the oppressed; in this way, there
is no pure ruling class ideology that is handed down bit by bit to the oppressed classes.
This also goes the other way; the ruling ideas are oftentimes not practiced by the ruling class.
What is supposed to be good for the common people simply doesn't apply to them. For example:
many people in the upper classes will talk about how welfare is bad, but are more than happy to take
corporate welfare when it comes their way (in fact, they are structurally obligated to). Or a similar

motif: free trade for the poor, protectionism for the rich. One can see this in agriculture, where products
from the developed world are made significantly cheaper by subsidies, and are then dumped onto the
developing world through free trade agreements, effectively rendering large parts of their agricultural
economy useless.
Related to this is the idea that the ruling class presents their interests as not only beneficial to
their class, but to society as a whole.

Notes From Against the Dictatorship of the Economy:

A change of government, the "democratisation" of a state, state control of the means of
production, agrarian reform, banks for the poor or remuneration based on labour vouchers... can
never truly oppose the general dictatorship of value valorising itself and it is ridiculous to think
that they could. The only solution, for the whole of humanity, is the abolition of the law of
value, the total and despotic destruction of the tyranny of the economy. This is the centre, the
heart of the communist programme, the key to the invariance of the revolutionary programme
for the destruction of capitalism as much for todays militants as for the militants of yesterday.
Starting from the historical necessity for the destruction of the dictatorship of value, it will be
of prime importance to fight against all ideologies (like that of one-nation socialism) that see
the dictatorship of the proletariat as a political dictatorship, as a formal dictatorship of one or
other sector or party of the "proletariat" or "socialist party". We must oppose them with our own
conception that the social character (the total character) of the dictatorship of the proletariat is
the historical revenge of use value against value, the affirmation of human necessities against
value in process. This clarifies why the proletariat has never been able to impose its dictatorship
and that, as the antagonism which will triumph against commodity and all its laws, can only
impose itself on a worldwide scale. It then becomes clear that, apart from certain struggles of
class against class, as in Mexico at the beginning of this century, in Russia from 17 to 19, in
Germany a little later or in Spain in the 30s, when we fought against the thousand and one
expressions of the law of value, it is a nonsense to talk about "dictatorship of the proletariat" in
any country. Even in exemplary cases of organisation of revolutionary action by our class we
have just mentionned, we can only talk about prefiguration and attempts to impose class
dictatorship - not about the dictatorship of the proletariat itself, which can only be worldwide.
The economy itself has become the dominant issue for all politicians and all governments. In
the past, the decisive place of the economy was hidden behind religion, politics or various other
ideologies and there was no way in which it could be used as an argument of force against
human beings; moreover, a politician or a government would fall into disgrace if he dared to
reveal the secret of domination and openly declare that all should be sacrificed on the altar of
the economy, of the national economys competitiveness.
The original guilt complex of the bourgeoisie (that imposed its social system in the name
of the people and social equality -"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity") lead it to hide the fact that
this system sacrifices human beings on the altar of money. Politicians hid what cynical and
lucid bourgeois economists (such as David Ricardo) had discovered and written down in

their scientific works. Politicians, ideologists, and governors assumed the task of keeping
the "secret" in the circle of the "initiated". Today, on the contrary, they proclaim it far and
wide: the only thing that matters is the drive for profit, the competitiveness of the national
economy and if people must starve for it, then this is just a necessary evil. Every politician
tries to show off his entrepreneurial skills, calling on the population to work harder and earn
less.

Stuff To Add To System Outline

Is it possible that there are four stages of capitalism? (Robert C. Allen Global Economic
History first couple of pages)
(1) Mercantilist
(2) National
(3) Imperialist
(4) Late Capitalism

People rightly talk about how the Bolsheviks, Maoists, etc distorted Marx's ideas...but wouldn't it be
nice to hear someone arguing that Marx distorted Leninism, Bolshevism, (etc) ?
#mindflip
In crisis, people thirst after Marxs theory of value because it is a theory of crisis. This is one way to
distinguish its nature from marginal utility theory. The latter is actually quite good at explaining prices
at any given moment; if we wanted little but static pictures of the market in series, it would suffice.
What it cannot do is show us the movie: offer a logical and historical basis for discerning a moving
trajectory for capitalist accumulation, for the real movement of historical process located in the
political-economic whole.

(FB conversation):
The whole "of color" annoys me.
Actually me too.
I honestly just said it to lever my position to sound like I'm super woke so my words are perhaps
listened to a little more rather than being immediately discounted