Ya' Cousin Cleon
OG COUCH CORNER HUSTLA
The past year has seen the continuation of the debates in the DSA around questions of class, identity and strategy. In this article, David I. Backer argues against a class separatism which would reduce questions of identity to those of class, and argues for a new perspective which is attentive to both the structures and the experience of capitalist society.
They’re calling it “The Article.” Just before Christmas The New Republic published Miguel Salazar’s “Does DSA Have a Race Problem?” Almost immediately, a flurry of responses came out from different streams of socialist thinking within the organization, most notably the Campaign for a Better Philly DSA’s “How to address PDSA’s Race Problem.” In contrast, the tendency formerly known as Momentum published “What the TNR Got Wrong about DSA” at their website The Call.
Slightly after these two came out, Common Dreams published Adolph Reed’s “Which Side are you on?” A kind of intellectual grandfather to The Call, Reed set a conceptual backdrop for The Article. He laid out a choice of sides: either you’re on the side of race reductionism or class reductionism; identity politics or class politics; ineffective particularist organizing or meaningful and universal mass organizing.
The impasse between race and class Reed trots out will be recogonisable to anyone familiar with the debates over how to think about organizing the working class across differences that have taken place in recent years. It’s this tangle I want to approach yet again here because, like always, there’s a lot at stake. If organizers can figure out how to get at the working class’s diversity in a way that mobilizes the class, we have a better shot at shifting the balance of forces in our society towards a social formation that works for us all.
No blog post from an intellectual will do this of course. It’s organizers on the ground seeing what works and what doesn’t—finding out what’s strategically correct and incorrect—that will know how exactly to shift the balance. But ideas can help. I’ve been doing some organizing in Philadelphia Democratic Socialists of America, as well as tracking the ideas emerging from that practice, so this essay is both a reflection from and on the front. More specifically, I intend it as an assessment of the forces at work in The Article, an attempt to address whatever it is that’s making DSAers capitalize its letters.
In a previous essay on race and class reductionism, I called the concept Reed articulates in Common Dreams, which others have called a false dichotomy, a separatist concept of class. I know the term separatism recalls past separatist movements around race and gender, but I want to use the term somewhat differently: both to name a conception of relations of production and the organizing practices which manifest it on the contemporary socialist scene. This essay expands on the theme of class separatism, since I think it’s the concept operating in The Call, and might be the very concept of DSA’s “race problem.”
Relations of Production
As Marxists in capitalist economies, we all want to change relations of production. There’s no disagreement about what we’re aiming at: weakening and subordinating the capitalist ways people relate to one another and the environment when making our lives together. The hot question is how these capitalist relations of production hold and how we can weaken them.
Louis Althusser wrote forty years ago that there’s still a lot of thinking that needs to be done about relations of production. It shows. The disagreements at play in The Article rely on ambiguity about what relations of production are and how socialists can change them. So let’s dig a little.
Reading Marx’s economic writings, specifically Grundrisse and Capital, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are at least two necessary and sufficient elements in a relation of production. There’s a structural element and an individual element. The structural element is in the relation itself (externally-facing), like a ratio, for example, and the individual element is in how people experience and live the relation (internally-facing). Nancy Fraser’sdistinction between distribution and recognition is a good example of each element. Recognition is a kind of experience of a relation of production, while distribution is a kind of structural relation that holds among people and environments whether they experience it or not.
The wage relation is a paradigm case of a relation of production. It’s got structural elements, like the exploitative difference between amounts paid to workers compared to profits made by capitalists. It also has experiential elements, like how workers live their wage relations depending on their race, gender, nationality, sexuality, ability. Neither element is sufficient on its own for the relation of production. Neither is dependent on the other. Neither is a function of the other. Both are necessary and sufficient for the relation of production.
Some might say that the individual element is a function of the structural element, where the experience of a relation of production is dependent on the structural element. Some say for example that the base determines the superstructures in Marxist theory (economism, eg). Others might say the individual element is the essence of the structural element, prioritizing the “warm” elements of alienation over the “cold” elements of exploitation as Ernst Bloch wrote.
I think both of these miss a key point. An essence or function account separates the two equal elements of relations of production, creating a priority of one over the other. These positions claim, a priori, that one of the elements of a relation of production is more salient, powerful, crucial, important, serious. But, this is a mistake. If you agree that a relation of production is both structural and individual—that both are necessary and sufficient for a relation of production—you can’t claim that one or the other has any priority by definition. To understand a relation of production you have to account for both elements by definition.
Of course, any particular relation of production may feature certain elements more prominently than others and good organizers assess those features correctly given their conjunctures. But that assessment is based on a posteriori observation, trial and error and lessons learned while organizing, not determined beforehand by definition.
Class Separatism
Now we can say something about class separatism. Class separatists separate out the structural element of relations of production, name it “class”, and then distinguish this element of relations of production from the individual elements, calling them “identity”. Given the above account of relations of production, you can already see that this distinction doesn’t make sense because structural and individual elements are both necessary and sufficient for relations of production. Separating identity from class is bad class analysis. But it’s been impactful on the left recently in the United States, so let’s explore the position.
First, notice that class separatism isn’t class reductionism. I don’t think a separatist concept of relations of production warrants the term class reductionism because class separatism is a weak concept of class. Class reductionists would know better. Second, there are two kinds of class separatism that I’ve noticed. The first is a priori and the second is a posteriori.
A priori class separatists say that only the structural element of a relation of production is necessary for a relation of production. Some very barebones people might say that the structural element is sufficient too, but most would take the more popular stance that structural elements are insufficient for understanding relations of production because you need the individual elements for the “whole picture.” Of course, they say, individual experience is important. Either way, the a priori class separatist takes issue with the idea that individual elements are necessary elements of relations of production. They separate out the structural element, naming it “class”, and give it conceptual priority over the individual elements, which (like liberals, tragically) they call “identity.” These a priori class separatists work on discourse and are typically academics writing articles and advising on strategy. Vivek Chibber, in “Rescuing Class from the Cultural Turn” is a case study of a priori class separatism. Reed in Common Dreams is another: “class” is separate from other kinds of political concerns, like “identity”. As Reed asks, “which side are you on?” He separates out “class” from other social elements gives it more political weight than individual elements.
A posteriori class separatists are different. They don’t care much for theory, or at least they only read their chosen theorists enough to justify their organizing decisions. When they organize, their practices separate out the structural element of relations of production and organize accordingly. They separate out “mass” organizing from “particularistic” organizing, favoring the former and denouncing the latter as “identitarian.” If you ever hear someone say that their campaign issue is a “universal” issue, and they don’t want to have other “particular” issues confuse, divide, or muddle their work, you know you’re dealing with an a posteriori class separatist. (See for instance Momentum tendency’s critique of the Campaign for a Better Philly DSA’s proposal to create a diversity committee.)
Either way, if you separate out the structural elements of relations of production and call them “class”, you’re separating out the structural element from relations of production and making it necessary. You are therefore a class separatist. It’s a kind of class essentialism. But the word class here should technically be in quotation marks. In that previous piece on class reductionism, I argued that separating the structural element from a relation of production isn’t a concept of class at all since it only gives part of the picture of relations of production. So class separatists are really “class” separatists.
Slightly after these two came out, Common Dreams published Adolph Reed’s “Which Side are you on?” A kind of intellectual grandfather to The Call, Reed set a conceptual backdrop for The Article. He laid out a choice of sides: either you’re on the side of race reductionism or class reductionism; identity politics or class politics; ineffective particularist organizing or meaningful and universal mass organizing.
The impasse between race and class Reed trots out will be recogonisable to anyone familiar with the debates over how to think about organizing the working class across differences that have taken place in recent years. It’s this tangle I want to approach yet again here because, like always, there’s a lot at stake. If organizers can figure out how to get at the working class’s diversity in a way that mobilizes the class, we have a better shot at shifting the balance of forces in our society towards a social formation that works for us all.
No blog post from an intellectual will do this of course. It’s organizers on the ground seeing what works and what doesn’t—finding out what’s strategically correct and incorrect—that will know how exactly to shift the balance. But ideas can help. I’ve been doing some organizing in Philadelphia Democratic Socialists of America, as well as tracking the ideas emerging from that practice, so this essay is both a reflection from and on the front. More specifically, I intend it as an assessment of the forces at work in The Article, an attempt to address whatever it is that’s making DSAers capitalize its letters.
In a previous essay on race and class reductionism, I called the concept Reed articulates in Common Dreams, which others have called a false dichotomy, a separatist concept of class. I know the term separatism recalls past separatist movements around race and gender, but I want to use the term somewhat differently: both to name a conception of relations of production and the organizing practices which manifest it on the contemporary socialist scene. This essay expands on the theme of class separatism, since I think it’s the concept operating in The Call, and might be the very concept of DSA’s “race problem.”
Relations of Production
As Marxists in capitalist economies, we all want to change relations of production. There’s no disagreement about what we’re aiming at: weakening and subordinating the capitalist ways people relate to one another and the environment when making our lives together. The hot question is how these capitalist relations of production hold and how we can weaken them.
Louis Althusser wrote forty years ago that there’s still a lot of thinking that needs to be done about relations of production. It shows. The disagreements at play in The Article rely on ambiguity about what relations of production are and how socialists can change them. So let’s dig a little.
Reading Marx’s economic writings, specifically Grundrisse and Capital, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are at least two necessary and sufficient elements in a relation of production. There’s a structural element and an individual element. The structural element is in the relation itself (externally-facing), like a ratio, for example, and the individual element is in how people experience and live the relation (internally-facing). Nancy Fraser’sdistinction between distribution and recognition is a good example of each element. Recognition is a kind of experience of a relation of production, while distribution is a kind of structural relation that holds among people and environments whether they experience it or not.
The wage relation is a paradigm case of a relation of production. It’s got structural elements, like the exploitative difference between amounts paid to workers compared to profits made by capitalists. It also has experiential elements, like how workers live their wage relations depending on their race, gender, nationality, sexuality, ability. Neither element is sufficient on its own for the relation of production. Neither is dependent on the other. Neither is a function of the other. Both are necessary and sufficient for the relation of production.
Some might say that the individual element is a function of the structural element, where the experience of a relation of production is dependent on the structural element. Some say for example that the base determines the superstructures in Marxist theory (economism, eg). Others might say the individual element is the essence of the structural element, prioritizing the “warm” elements of alienation over the “cold” elements of exploitation as Ernst Bloch wrote.
I think both of these miss a key point. An essence or function account separates the two equal elements of relations of production, creating a priority of one over the other. These positions claim, a priori, that one of the elements of a relation of production is more salient, powerful, crucial, important, serious. But, this is a mistake. If you agree that a relation of production is both structural and individual—that both are necessary and sufficient for a relation of production—you can’t claim that one or the other has any priority by definition. To understand a relation of production you have to account for both elements by definition.
Of course, any particular relation of production may feature certain elements more prominently than others and good organizers assess those features correctly given their conjunctures. But that assessment is based on a posteriori observation, trial and error and lessons learned while organizing, not determined beforehand by definition.
Class Separatism
Now we can say something about class separatism. Class separatists separate out the structural element of relations of production, name it “class”, and then distinguish this element of relations of production from the individual elements, calling them “identity”. Given the above account of relations of production, you can already see that this distinction doesn’t make sense because structural and individual elements are both necessary and sufficient for relations of production. Separating identity from class is bad class analysis. But it’s been impactful on the left recently in the United States, so let’s explore the position.
First, notice that class separatism isn’t class reductionism. I don’t think a separatist concept of relations of production warrants the term class reductionism because class separatism is a weak concept of class. Class reductionists would know better. Second, there are two kinds of class separatism that I’ve noticed. The first is a priori and the second is a posteriori.
A priori class separatists say that only the structural element of a relation of production is necessary for a relation of production. Some very barebones people might say that the structural element is sufficient too, but most would take the more popular stance that structural elements are insufficient for understanding relations of production because you need the individual elements for the “whole picture.” Of course, they say, individual experience is important. Either way, the a priori class separatist takes issue with the idea that individual elements are necessary elements of relations of production. They separate out the structural element, naming it “class”, and give it conceptual priority over the individual elements, which (like liberals, tragically) they call “identity.” These a priori class separatists work on discourse and are typically academics writing articles and advising on strategy. Vivek Chibber, in “Rescuing Class from the Cultural Turn” is a case study of a priori class separatism. Reed in Common Dreams is another: “class” is separate from other kinds of political concerns, like “identity”. As Reed asks, “which side are you on?” He separates out “class” from other social elements gives it more political weight than individual elements.
A posteriori class separatists are different. They don’t care much for theory, or at least they only read their chosen theorists enough to justify their organizing decisions. When they organize, their practices separate out the structural element of relations of production and organize accordingly. They separate out “mass” organizing from “particularistic” organizing, favoring the former and denouncing the latter as “identitarian.” If you ever hear someone say that their campaign issue is a “universal” issue, and they don’t want to have other “particular” issues confuse, divide, or muddle their work, you know you’re dealing with an a posteriori class separatist. (See for instance Momentum tendency’s critique of the Campaign for a Better Philly DSA’s proposal to create a diversity committee.)
Either way, if you separate out the structural elements of relations of production and call them “class”, you’re separating out the structural element from relations of production and making it necessary. You are therefore a class separatist. It’s a kind of class essentialism. But the word class here should technically be in quotation marks. In that previous piece on class reductionism, I argued that separating the structural element from a relation of production isn’t a concept of class at all since it only gives part of the picture of relations of production. So class separatists are really “class” separatists.
them ones in DC pulled up on that trick Nielsen 