Massimo de Angelis's profound work, The Beginning of History highlights one of capital's successes, "Capital does not have a problem acknowledging diversity and difference, as long as it is diversity that finds its common centre of articulation within capitalist markets." What he means is that within the bounds of global territory or spaces, skin color, gender identity, or sexual orientation are readily acceptable so long as these diverse subjectivities are constructed on the basis of the value of capital, on the value of a competitive world - all versus all. This is a pluralistic homogenization creating a spectacle of multiculturalism subject to the discipline of global capitalist markets, a one-size fits all identity available to everyone.
In contrast, history lives in forgotten places, and the spectre of old grudges, of past wrongs, and of cooperations and beauties worth celebrating live on in a myriad of available subjectivities - some oppressive, some liberatory. The failure of anti-capitalist politics is to construct spaces, to reclaim commons, in which this multitude of subjectivities can articulate, both healing past grudges, and forging a being-in-common that could challenge the being-in-competition of global spaces. The post-modern project, or the identity politics that it produced, has more or less developed the homogenized multiculturalism of global spaces, giving an implicit pass to the capitalist oppressors. By divorcing differing forms of oppression and setting them up as autonomous contests, and by relegating class, the standard issue of the left, post-modernism merely reshaped global capital in a multicultural way, something Rodriguez called "White Neoliberal Multiculturalism."
This is not to deny the very real effects of identity politics and the post-modern movement. Race and gender are in everyone's lexicon, but the project now is to facilitate a true political class formation while not forgetting the lessons of identity. The story of history, as always, is the story of class struggle, and the lack of a unified political class has allowed capital to stretch its reach and domination to levels never thought possible and never before seen. A new capitalism will emerge from this crisis, but activists must use this crisis as an opportunity to reclaim as much of the commons as possible, to renew forgotten places through the collectivization of their resources and the use of these resources by those in forgotten places. The goal is not to defeat capital all at once through a revolutionary movement, but to whittle away at capital's spaces by many, but unified, revolutionary movements.
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Really interesting post. Is it also possible to think about the period of identity politics as a necessary phase in order to establish the equality of all so that the classes can see themselves in each other?
ReplyDeleteI think identity politics served a very useful purpose (and still do in some cases), and I think it's an overstatement to write it off as white, homogenizing multiculturalism, especially since a lot of the advocates of such politics were grassroots and racially and otherwise disenfranchised. Perhaps it has become that, but I have a hard time seeing it as it having always been that.
So I wonder if it is more helpful to see it as a necessary imperfection that can get us to a place where a more broad cooperation (based on class?) can occur. Had the identity politics not happened, I doubt, sadly, that I would consider a partnership of any sort with a racial minority anything other than a step down as a Southern white male.
Of course, I in no way look to denigrate the successes of identity politics (indeed homogenized capitalist multiculturalism is better than white male capitalist multiculturalism), nor do I seek to spur a new world of orthodox and color/gender-blind Marxism, but identity politics, the notion of a politics of disembodied ether, is irresponsible in a time of global financial meltdown. Post-modernism emerged out of the failures of the late 1960s, and discouraged and defeated scholars adopted this school of thought as an implicit acceptance of capital; indeed, they believed capital had won and the task was to fight within a totalitarian system, and while I accept the important contributions of the post-modern movement, I reject the implicit acceptance capital (with some authors; later more obscure post-modern theorists have integrated critiques of capital into their work, and a synthesis of Marxist and post-Modern schools seems to be well underway). A new materialism that understands the ether as rooted in actual practices must guide a reclaimation of the commons and the production of new subjectivities.
ReplyDeleteI don't think "identity politics" as delving into disembodied ether, but rather an attempt to achieve full embodiment. Isn't calling every person who participates in American global capitalism a "white male capitalist" just as bad, if not worse? It assigns a race and a gender, in many cases, that is disembodied from reality. In other words, it deifies everything that is not white, male and capitalist as inherently better (which is grossly oversimplified and factually incorrect) and credits whatever faults there are to find in persons of color to white capitalist thought. The language remains obsessed with race, only now the race that carries within it inherent badness are whites. It's an inversion of the old paradigm, as seen particularly in Rodriguez's article.
ReplyDeleteAlso, It is not the successes though of identity politics that should be recognized, but the necessity of it to get to the point where other arguments can even be considered.
But that is the essence of identity politics, the use of strategic essentialisms to create an "agonistic democracy," in the words of Laclau and Moffe, that levels the playing field. Since the world is all socially constructed the political project is socially construct a reality that fits one's particular political goals. Of course, I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, post-modern thought has much to add to a new materialism.
ReplyDeleteBasically, we are collectively at the point that Martin got to in 1968. The election of Obama didn't cost the imperialists one dime.
I understand what you are saying, but will just reiterate that the fact that we are even at where Martin was at in 1968 is nothing to brush past. The election of Obama might not have costs imperialist one dime, but it doesn't make it any less precious, particularly to African-Americans. Sometimes the value of something isn't measured in capital or dollars, but in spirit.
ReplyDeleteI don't brush past it, I want it to be realized broadly. The time for materialism is now, particularly because of how destabilized the Americanism, so to speak, has become thanks to the financial meltdown and the election of Obama.
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