Friday, May 28, 2021
"Racial Capitalism"
Reading an online mag called The Forge I keep running into this term "racial capitalism" and references to "the uprising". What I am hoping, seriously hoping, is that these folks can do some comparative analysis with Occupy Wall Street, so as to avoid similar pitfalls. The other thing that jumps out at me (old white man me) is the call to "center Black leadership" in the movement and here I am reminded of Standing Rock and the calls to "center indigenous leadership". The other problematic similar to Standing Rock is the rejection of "isms".
Fortunately no one reads this blog or cares what I think, so my critique won't induce attacks, but this is a good-faith effort: the uprising, standing rock and occupy need to be looked at in their historical context, both in terms of similarities and differences. These events, along with the anti-Iraq war movement, define the popular protest of a generation and from my perspective, it's not a pretty picture. One of the key frictions in all three events has involved the definition and parsing of the term capitalism and the purposeful avoidance of class analysis (whether one accepts or rejects it).
I truly hope "racial capitalism" is not that. I truly hope Black academics do not resort too quickly to the term "class reduction" as they theorize the conjunction of crises that is upon us. Policing (especially racist policing) and gun violence are symptoms, and unless you are willing to talk about "isms", you will not get to the root, the disease, the terrifying trauma. As for "centering", let's also remember that the trauma can affect leadership, that leading has its own set of problems and inclusion and intersectionality have to work both ways. Ecology might not be the first thing you think about waking up in the inner city but it is no less Real.
Out here where I live there are wide-open spaces but no Black folk to speak of and the cops deal with meth addicts and wife beaters and teen suicides and all kinds of well-armed humans damaged by plain old capitalism. Not to mention criminals. Abolishing them requires fixing the world first and I'd like to collaborate on that project, not follow.
Finlly, The Loud Right-Wing Media is calling BLM "Marxist" in the hopes of driving a wedge and I hope the movement doesn't go all liberal and fall for the trap. What would Fred Hampton do? He'd preach a little Marx- ism.
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"Fortunately no one reads this blog or cares what I think"
ReplyDeleteI read your blog, Troutsky! Am I no one? I care what you think... But your "fortunately" at the front of that sentence is correct because I am mostly here reading you to steal new things to say and so I will not be an attack induced.
As a fellow anti-capitalist doom wonk the part of your post I wanted to zoom in on and talk about for a few hours is the bit about the last four movements which define a generation and how the messengers of those movements have chosen to put adjectives in front of capitalism. Which adjectives did they use and why? What role do these adjectives play in qualifying and tempering and introducing and obscuring the idea of Capitalism? How do they help and hurt the Left in pointing towards root causes? A charting:
The Anti-Iraq War Movement (2001-2008) - ________ (help me out here) capitalism… “Imperial” or “State" or “US" capitalism… “petro” and “fossil" capitalism maybe were said…. Maybe “military industrial complex” saw an increase in usage and implies capitalism in certain ways...
The Occupy Wall Street Movement (2011-2013) - “casino" or "corporate” or “crony” capitalism were used regularly, but the 1% was the main takeaway… Wall Street vs. Main Street gained usage...
Standing Rock (2016-2017) - _______ (more help please) capitalism… maybe we heard “colonial capitalism”, but more “extractivism” and “the system” and “the black snake"
Black Lives Matter (2014-current) - "racialized” capitalism, a new one
How do these adjectives compare to the international or theoretically engaged anti-capitalist left's use of adjectives like “semio” or “postmodern” or “global” or “neoliberal” or “late” capitalism? How do they compare to the pro-capitalist “green” capitalism the invisible hand is ***patiently*** molding? What about “surveillance” capitalism which I have been hearing more regularly and tries to point to the time space trauma of all of our digital communication and interpersonal self-production being recorded and commodified? Or “consumer” capitalism with its implied scolding of the obese US labor aristocracy? Certainly we need adjectives to describe the global and historical complexity of shape shifting and planet destroying Capitalism… but what are the lessons for this generation in how to talk about capitalism in a way that is nourishing to people’s world views and empowering to their ability to organize and fight and resist?
I guess this question feels more urgent given a meeting I attended last night. A group of 25-40 year old guys in a park who want to hold a summit of all of Missoula’s explicitly anti-capitalist and left leaning organizations. They all call themselves anti-capitalists. They all live in and are trying to see and discuss Actually Existing Capitalism. They all lived through and grew to political and class consciousness by way of having lived through exactly the time period you are outlining. What should they sound like? How do they engage in popular protest in a way that is a pretty picture and does not shy away from class analysis? In Missoula here and now, which classes should be analyzed in what ways? How should they parse and define the word capitalism? What’s the little bit of Marxism they should preach Fred Hampton style?