Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.

[friendofdorothy]

The main arguments on this thread seems to take for granted that identity politics came about in the late eighties or something, but that does not seem right to me. Why would for instance A Vindication of the Rights of Woman not be identity politics? In my opinion there has been no shift that marks identity politics, that is politics pertaining to issues of identity, such as gender, ethnicity and sexuality, as something essentially different now than in for instance 1792. The critique of identity politics from the hard left is also mainly along the same lines as in the 19th and 20th centuries. What you are saying on this thread is also what women demanding votes were told, and women demanding abortion, education, communal child care, dealing with the violence of men against women etc.. It’s also what people fighting against racism and for lgbt-rights have been told by the “hard left” since the dawn of these movements. That if you challenge the position of white men, those men will turn reactionary/fascist, because they will not feel included on the left, and thus turn to the right. The conclusion on this bullshit analysis always being that those pesky women, gays and people of color should shut up, submit and move aside for “real socialism” – and the “important politics” - and when the working class has rallied behind the banner of socialism, these other - minor - issues will more or less deal with themselves. This reactionary and patriarchal instinct on the “real socialism” left is not something that came along with kids being stupid on tumblr, and I thank every brave IDpol activist of earlier centuries for not submitting to it.

This is very much my experience of being a lesbian activist in the 80s - the straight lefty men said 'but...' a lot, like we should stand behind the straight men until after their revolution. Like our gender /sexuality was a personal/ private trivial matter. Which is why I chose to join together with similarly oppressed people of various class backgrounds/educational backgrounds/incomes, to challenge the status quo, fight oppression and work for equality. That wasn't ID politics it was freedom fighting. You were as likely to be shunned by your family, community or sacked from your job if you were rich man or poor woman. My social and political life extended across class boundaries and involved working closely with people from all backgrounds.

What I hear about IDpol on-line or SJ 'warriors' sounds mostly like hot air. I'm not in favour of the current brand of playing privelege top trumps or of using 'safe' spaces to stifle debate. But I'm obviously old and jaded and have limited understanding of social media.

I see class a a more complex thing than just relation to the means of production. As someone said up thread what about the middle class, and the self employed? The precarity of employment/debt/lack of ownership or control - isn't only the preserve of 'working class' employees. What about the unemployed / destitute? How do we define 'the means of production' when most of us produce only phonecalls or move bits of paper or data about?

I am into questioning everything, asking questions, building bridges, forging contacts and avoiding cliques. I don't have a word to encapsulate that or a book of analysis to follow.

 

[chilango]

This is just a drive-by posting as I'm busy with RL, but it occurs to me that it might be better if I give examples of feminists who don't come from the identitypolitics framework. The first that came to mind was Silvia Federici Precarious Labor: A Feminist Viewpoint (Very much still alive. Member of the influential - on me - Midnight Notes collective).

And the next, Evelyn Reed, whose Women's Evolution had a big impact on me many decades ago.

Women: Caste, Class or Oppressed Sex by Evelyn Reed 1970

I heartily second Danny's recomendarecom of Midnight Notes' stuff. Not particularly on this issue, in general.

Their short book/long pamphlet on the anti-nuclear movement is a good starting point.

https://libcom.org/files/mn1pdfstrangvic0_0.pdf

 

[Athos]

I see class a a more complex thing than just relation to the means of production. As someone said up thread what about the middle class, and the self employed? The precarity of employment/debt/lack of ownership or control - isn't only the preserve of 'working class' employees. What about the unemployed / destitute? How do we define 'the means of production' when most of us produce only phonecalls or move bits of paper or data about?

What do you understand by the term 'means of production? Because I think there's a lot of talking at cross purposes going on.

And why do you think those aspects of class you've mentioned can't be adequately analysed from a Marxist perspective?

 

[Odrade]

What I hear about IDpol on-line or SJ 'warriors' sounds mostly like hot air. I'm not in favour of the current brand of playing privelege top trumps or of using 'safe' spaces to stifle debate. But I'm obviously old and jaded and have limited understanding of social media.

I do not disagree on the point that a lot of this SJW, check-your-privilege, safe space, no platforming stuff is bullshit, stupid, hot air, etc. etc. I have read a lot of feminist theory from the last three centuries, and there is a lot of moronic stuff all over the place: the strict religious moralism of the proto-feminists,the racism and classism of the 19th-century (and beyond!),all that running with the wolves and "authentic call to nature" of the seventies, the straigth up man hating of the eighties. But all those morons might not have been the most helpful at all times, most of them still, for all their faults made some meaningful contribution to the feminist movement. They are not the de facto reason that men as such were or are anti-feminists. Not even the lesbian seperatist, p-i-v is rape, feminists were in any relevant way the cause of that. Anti-feminists has always managed this feat on their own. Because the reason for anti-feminism is not stupid feminists, it is the prevalence of sexism and misogyny under a patriarcal order. The reason for racism is not misguided anti-racists, it is the fact that we live in a racist society. The reason for homophobia is not that the lgbt-movement are too loud. To not see that, but see anti-feminism as a failure of feminists to take proper care of men, is anti-feminism.

I know that you are not saying this! I am just trying to agree with you, while droning on about my point.

 

[redsquirrel]

I see class a a more complex thing than just relation to the means of production.

No offence but this does not really relate to the posts either myself or danny la rouge have made.
You can see class however you wish, but class as defined as the relationship to the MoP is a definition that socialists use, and one that makes sense of capitalism in a way that social definitions do not (well that's my contention at least).

As someone said up thread what about the middle class, and the self employed? The precarity of employment/debt/lack of ownership or control - isn't only the preserve of 'working class' employees. What about the unemployed / destitute?

I'm sorry but all your confusion here seems to be because you are not using a socialist definition of class.

What do you mean by "middle class"? Socially I would be "middle class", probably group B on the census (and of course I do obtain certain privileges from that) but that's irrelevant to my connection to the MoP. I am still required to sell by labour in order to live. The "precarity of employment" might not only be the preserve of people in the C2DE categories but it is certainly not the preserve of capital. You seem to be in a muddle here because you are trying to shoehorn social class definitions into a socialist class perspective.

How do we define 'the means of production' when most of us produce only phonecalls or move bits of paper or data about?

Well first I'd point out that the idea that "most of us produce only phonecalls or move bits of paper or data about?" is false. Hundreds of millions (billions) of people are engaged in manufacturing (butchersapron can correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure he's said in the past that the number today is greater than at any time in the past). Billions more will be involved in the service industries.

But leaving that I don't understand why being in employed in administration confuses the relationship to the MoP? It's not like people not being directly engaged on the floor of a factory is something new. Administrators, middle managers, secretaries etc all existed in Marx's day.

 

[mojo pixy]

I have read a lot of feminist theory from the last three centuries, and there is a lot of moronic stuff all over the place: the strict religious moralism of the proto-feminists,the racism and classism of the 19th-century (and beyond!),all that running with the wolves and "authentic call to nature" of the seventies, the straigth up man hating of the eighties. But all those morons might not have been the most helpful at all times, most of them still, for all their faults made some meaningful contribution to the feminist movement. They are not the de facto reason that men as such were or are anti-feminists. Not even the lesbian seperatist, p-i-v is rape, feminists were in any relevant way the cause of that. Anti-feminists has always managed this feat on their own. Because the reason for anti-feminism is not stupid feminists, it is the prevalence of sexism and misogyny under a patriarcal order. The reason for racism is not misguided anti-racists, it is the fact that we live in a racist society. The reason for homophobia is not that the lgbt-movement are too loud. To not see that, but see anti-feminism as a failure of feminists to take proper care of men, is anti-feminism.

Do you consider the gains of Feminism should be limited to women?

 

[brixtonscot]

" Thirty years later, the gay-rights movement came to be represented by lobbying organizations, not activist ones, and its top aims became the right to get married and serve in the military. This result was very nearly the opposite of the Gay Liberation Front vision. It reflected a narrow agenda that hardly lent itself to solidarity with other oppressed groups. And it involved a fight for the right to join institutions that the G.L.F. wanted to see abolished: the nuclear family and war, which the organization saw as an expression, solely, of what we now call toxic masculinity.
Most important, the movement started trying to gain access to institutions rather than trying to transform them."
Martin Duberman Points to the Failures of the Gay-Rights Movement

 

[Edie]

What do you understand by the term 'means of production? Because I think there's a lot of talking at cross purposes going on.

And why do you think those aspects of class you've mentioned can't be adequately analysed from a Marxist perspective?

What is owning means of production? I thought now it meant owning a business?

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

I agree with belboid. Awful shallow waffly stuff and exactly what i hoped we weren't doing with this thread and wider critiques of identity politics. Its normalisation of alt-right term, it's ownership of them in fact is rank.

Good to see you picking up on this, her twitter feed is just full of transgender stuff and she’s high fiving fucking Glinner like fuck atm (you could have guessed as much given Miranda Yardley is mentioned in that video). Capitalism might not “care whether you are trans or black” as she puts it but she seems to have a few prejudices and fixations herself. I think we are going to see a lot of this trend in the future, bigotry dressed up as a critique of idpol “from the left”.

To see this stuff being mentioned alongside the likes of Ralph Leonard and Kenan Malik is really depressing. Some could really do with paying attention to these 2 writers, as they demonstrate exactly how you critique identity politics without throwing minorities under the bus in the process.

I hope that wasn’t rambling drunken shite, it feels on point right now urban so it does.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

Oh and Danny La Rogue. He does a good job as well, absolutely brilliant and accessible writing for eedgits like masel. That video was shit DLR don’t watch it, don’t even watch all of it. Bite your thumb at it!

 

[brixtonscot]

I think a couple of things ( at least ) have happened with what is now referred to as "identity politics"'.

What started out as movements for collective liberation - e.g. Black , women's , gay liberation movements - became appropriated by neoliberal individualism.

To take one example - The Gay Liberation Front was originally set up after the Stonewall riots - which were initiated by w/c trans* & queers of colour - as a challenge to the conservative establishment and for the sexual liberation of EVERYBODY.

Part of the problem was that many on the Left who were "straight/white/male" didn't acknowledge that gender/ethnicity/sexuality also concerned (implicated ?) themselves.

Over time the the "gay rights lobby" was appropriated by m/c white boys wanting to be assimilated INTO the institutions of the conservative establishment - e.g. the military and matrimony.

Two examples - Angela Mason of Stonewall started out associated with Angry Brigade
NIck Partridge of Terence Higgins Trust , stared out involved in Irish solidarity activism.
They are both now "honoured" darlings of the conservative establishment !

 

[ManchesterBeth]

thinking aloud here: So the common complaint about people who prioritise an identity or whatever sometimes revolves in them not taking an active need in organisation or whatever. Seems legit to me. And yet:

When you have say the definition of emotional labour being reduced to this neoliberal pay me for the most trivial of disagreements is it any wonder that say disabled people (in my case) are atomised? Everything feels like a transaction, assistance with making spaces accessible (i didn't say safe) speeding up the chaotic public transport process or whatever, assistance on demos, assistance linking up with other unemployed in my case, all of this gets sidelined. like you gotta have that dynamic of this being a collective endeavoufr rather than just feeling like an individual imprisoned.

Corbyn surge has just made this worse as we're expected to wait for the messiah to get into power

ott: how do i change my username?

 

[BigTom]

ott: how do i change my username?

you need to pm editor to ask for a username change.

 

[danny la rouge]

What is owning means of production? I thought now it meant owning a business?

It's a bit more specific than that: it's the physical things required in order to produce. So, it could be the factory building and land, the machinery in the factory, the desks and filing cabinets in the offices, the tools, the raw materials, and so on.

 

[danny la rouge]

How do we define 'the means of production' when most of us produce only phonecalls or move bits of paper or data about?

The call centre building, the car park, the land it's built on, the computers, the headsets, the stationery, the desks, and so on.

 

[emanymton]

What is owning means of production? I thought now it meant owning a business?

I'm going to try and answer this and some of the other questions. I don't read like I used to so I might be a bit off. No doubt someone will be along soon to explain why I'm wrong. But this is roughly my understanding.

I'll start with a miny glossary of sorts.

Means of production - any tool or object used by humans to produce. This can be a plough, a robot in a car factory, a computer or simply a pen. Anything external to us that we use to produce. It can also include space (land and buildings) and any raw materials required.

Labour Power - The human capacity to work productively. This obviously includes the capacity of our physical bodies but crucially also our minds, our knowledge, skills and training.

Productive forces - collective term for the means of production and Labour power. Basically everything that is needed for production to take place.

Relations of production - In order for production to take place within a society labour power needs to be brought together with the means of production. The way in which this is achived is the relations of production. Basically it is how a particular society organises itself to allow production to take place. Generally this is a series of rights of ownership (or at least control) over the productive forces. In a slave society the slave master owns both the means of production and the slave's labour power. In a capitalist society the worker owns his own labour power.



The relations of production is where class enters the equation. In a situation where some people don't own their own means of ptoduction there has to be a way to bring them together with the means of production. In a slave society this is brtual and direct, in capitalism it is more subtle. The worker owns their own labour power but without access to the means of production they are foced to sell it to those that do. While not as brutal as the slave society this is still an unequal relationship that results in exploitation. Generally the working class is defined as having ownership (formally at least) over their own labour power, but not the means of production.


An important thing to note is that capitalism is not concerned with the production of physical objects, it is interested in the production of commodities to be bought and sold. And there is a lot more involved in producing a commodity than just the physical production of an object. Just think about the process of shipping goods from one side of the world to the other. Somone has to organise space on a ship, make sure a shipping container is available, it has to be collected and routed to the right warehouse, soneone has to organise insurance. This is just a tiny part of what goes on to produce a commodity beyond producing physical objects.

This is why it is sometimes better to talk about control of the means of production rather than ownership. A worker my own their own equipment but lack the means to use it to effectively produce commodities for the capitalist market. Think of Uber drives who own their own cars but are essentially fighting to be recorgnised as workers.

One final point. Labour power, is itself a commodity that needs to be produced. In a sense then schools, hospitals, universities can all be seen as means.of production producing the single most important commodity in the world, human labour power.

 

[mojo pixy]

The call centre building, the car park, the land it's built on, the computers, the headsets, the stationery, the desks, and so on.

And, importantly in the case of a lot of call centre / admin / sales / customer service work, the information you use to do your job. Who owns that? Could you legally / practically take this info and do the same work for yourself under your own name?

 

[danny la rouge]

Labour power, is itself a commodity that needs to be produced. In a sense then schools, hospitals, universities can all be seen as means.of production producing the single most important commodity in the world, human labour power

And though the NHS and state schools in this country may be run by the state and paid for from taxation, don't forget that the buildings are often actually owned by consortia to whom the health board or education board pay rent, using money that is made available by the exchequer because the staff are there doing the work. Similarly drugs and cannulas and machines that go beep which are sold to the NHS by private companies. These buildings and machines that go beep are also means of production: they are the tools and resources and materials.

 

[Red Cat]

Oh and Danny La Rogue. He does a good job as well, absolutely brilliant and accessible writing for eedgits like masel. That video was shit DLR don’t watch it, don’t even watch all of it. Bite your thumb at it!

Yes, Danny has been patiently explaining this stuff for years on here. As have others, although I think some people take the view, perhaps, that the finding out and reading yourself might be part of the process of developing political agency.

I have hardly any time to read political stuff but there's plenty out there on Marx without having to read Capital (which I would love to dedicate some time to at some point). It does bug me all this what aboutery like he didn't think about this stuff. Marx, what a dick eh?

 

[Shechemite]

One final point. Labour power, is itself a commodity that needs to be produced. In a sense then schools, hospitals, universities can all be seen as means.of production producing the single most important commodity in the world, human labour power.

And though the NHS and state schools in this country may be run by the state and paid for from taxation, don't forget that the buildings are often actually owned by consortia to whom the health board or education board pay rent, using money that is made available by the exchequer because the staff are there doing the work. Similarly drugs and cannulas and machines that go beep which are sold to the NHS by private companies. These buildings and machines that go beep are also means of production: they are the tools and resources and materials.

I've been making similar points on other threads - that the 'nice' elements of the state (eg NHS, education, social care) have the principal function of (helping in) reproducing capitalism - and that abuse/violence in those contexts are a consequence of that (and was called all sorts of horrid names for doing so)

Being under the boot of the 'nice' bits of state and capital involves the experience of being denied your humanity, precisely because thats the point - as useless eater, one is a commodity, to be fashioned (at whatever cost) into something more useful' or at least less burdensome (hence, eugenics, institutionalisation, 'care in the community', 'the recovery model' and so on)

One of the problems of neglecting the role of 'care' in a materialist analysis is that it gives an open goal to the conspiracists/cultists, hippies and idpollers to co-opt struggles around the NHS/'psychiatry'/'care' that are fundamentally about class-struggle.

Is there any work looking at violence (of whatever nature) against people with MH problems/learning disabilities/autism etc from a materialist perspective?

I found this interesting.

http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/cedr/files/2017/06/A-Trade-in-People-CeDR-2017-1.pdf

 

[ManchesterBeth]

care in the community is more like isolation from the community.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

Also my experiences around NHS therapies have always been individualistic — you can't change what's around you but you can change yourself.

Well no, is it?

And isn't that a kind of state directed identity politics.

 

[Shechemite]

care in the community is more like isolation from the community.

Well quite. It’s more efficient for the state to starve people/drive them to suicide/or ‘recover’ them into low-paid work than it is (generally speaking) to institutionalise them.

 

[Shechemite]

Also my experiences around therapies have always been individualistic — you can't change what's around you but you can change yourself.

Well no, is it?

Therapy is class-warfare (not the good sort)

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

thinking aloud here: So the common complaint about people who prioritise an identity or whatever sometimes revolves in them not taking an active need in organisation or whatever. Seems legit to me. And yet:

When you have say the definition of emotional labour being reduced to this neoliberal pay me for the most trivial of disagreements is it any wonder that say disabled people (in my case) are atomised? Everything feels like a transaction, assistance with making spaces accessible (i didn't say safe) speeding up the chaotic public transport process or whatever, assistance on demos, assistance linking up with other unemployed in my case, all of this gets sidelined. like you gotta have that dynamic of this being a collective endeavoufr rather than just feeling like an individual imprisoned.

Corbyn surge has just made this worse as we're expected to wait for the messiah to get into power

ott: how do i change my username?

I hope you haven’t lost faith in yer dialectics comrade

 

[Odrade]

This is just a drive-by posting as I'm busy with RL, but it occurs to me that it might be better if I give examples of feminists who don't come from the identitypolitics framework. The first that came to mind was Silvia Federici Precarious Labor: A Feminist Viewpoint (Very much still alive. Member of the influential - on me - Midnight Notes collective).

And the next, Evelyn Reed, whose Women's Evolution had a big impact on me many decades ago.

Women: Caste, Class or Oppressed Sex by Evelyn Reed 1970

This is not really that clarifying to me. While you seem to be saying that a feminist analysis that remains within a marxist framwork is not what you would define as "identity politics", that does nothing to rule out any feminist analysis outside a marxist framwork, and as we all know, these are legion. It might set The Second Sex outside "identity politics", de Beauvoir being a marxist and all, but the feminist movement is mainly not a marxist movement. Most feminist analysis mainly deal with identity, this is not something new, but has been the case from the onset. The same is true of all these movements. So when does this become "identity politics", is there some break where a feminism that does not deal with class (which is the case for a very, very big part of feminist analysis), becomes "identity politics"? Would the Feminist Mystique be "identity politics" if written today? Was it "identity politics" when written?

 

[campanula]

feminism that does not deal with class (which is the case for a very, very big part of feminist analysis)

Really, What would this entail then? My understanding of feminism in no way stems from academic theorising, but from the realpolitick of daily life...which is always filtered through a class prism when poverty, lack of opportunity, employment injustice...especially as applied to the female sex, therefore aligned with biology, culture and social expectations. Maybe there is a place for feminist theorising which is somehow separate from the overarching principles of living under capitalism...but I am not aware of any.

 

[Odrade]

Really, What would this entail then? My understanding of feminism in no way stems from academic theorising, but from the realpolitick of daily life...which is always filtered through a class prism when poverty, lack of opportunity, employment injustice...especially as applied to the female sex, therefore aligned with biology, culture and social expectations. Maybe there is a place for feminist theorising which is somehow separate from the overarching principles of living under capitalism...but I am not aware of any.

Well, feminism was at the beginning a liberalist endeavour. John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor does a brilliant analysis of women's suppression, but they are not capable of dealing with class in a meaningful way, the same is the case for Mary Wollstonecraft. This is the case for a lot of feminist theory. My understanding of feminism comes from reading a lot of theory, but mainly from doing feminist activism. In the realm of feminist activism the people you ally with change from case to case, sometimes it's the liberal feminists, sometimes it's the cristian conservatives, some times it's the social democrats, and the socialists, ect., and sometimes we all rally together. In all these ideological encampments you will find both feminism and anti-feminism, and the most important feminist victories has been achieved by feminists alliances accross party lines.

 

[campanula]

Well mine comes from feminist activism too - I worked for Women's Aid, women's education groups, worked in female collectives and women and homelessness groups...and always, always, the deepest concerns were overwhelmingly based on access to housing, education, childcare, employment, benefits, health services...I mean we didn't sit around and consider the 'male gaze' or sexual dissidence...and I didn't (as I was once told by a scarily right on feminist), feel that I had been 'betrayed by my womb'. It is probably fair to say that I don't really feel much sisterhood between women just because they are women...and while I do recognise particular issues as being specifically female in nature (the whole reproductive cycle, say), I just cannot separate feminism out from the broader issue of power relations...although I accept I may have a flawed understanding of both class and feminism.

I was struggling to think how or where I might have had an alliance with Christian conservatives...but I do think Women's Aid and certainly the Women's Resource centre may have received funding from such groups...

 

[ManchesterBeth]

the people you ally with change from case to case, sometimes it's the liberal feminists, sometimes it's the cristian conservatives, some times it's the social democrats, and the socialists, ect., and sometimes we all rally together. In all these ideological encampments you will find both feminism and anti-feminism, and the most important feminist victories has been achieved by feminists alliances accross party lines.

Well obviously you work together with all kinds of people justifying what they do with all kinds of bizarre ideologies prevailing at whatever given time. this isn't exclusive to liberal feminism. but we are talking about political programme and content, which you it seems to me, sidestep and:

All those 'ideollogical alignments' are pro-capitalist and resultantly statist (especially the social democrats and socialists.) they can happily coexist together. So it's class collaboration then. and what becomes the measure, not reproduction of society and gendered labour.

Which communist and materialist feminists advocate an indifferent capitalism?