Base and Superstructure

Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology

Month: September 2018

capitalism and racism

Capitalism and Racism: Which is Prior?

September 24, 2018 /

Marxists, other leftists, and/or antiracists have argued for decades about the relative importance of capitalism and racism. They’ve framed the issue in different ways. Some people discuss which system exerts the greatest force on society. Others discuss which system offers the more fundamental social explanation. Some people talk about which one came first, historically. And still others ask which we should address first in our leftist movements.

Not only that, but approaches aren’t even mutually exclusive.

You might ask: what’s the difference between these frames? If so, that’s unfortunate, because they are different. It’s possible to argue, for example, that racism (or capitalism) came first historically, but that capitalism (or racism) explains more or should be addressed first.

And so, I’m going to sort out some of these issues in this post. I’ll use Ibram X. Kendi’s book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America as a reference point.

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Stamped from the Beginning

September 16, 2018 /

stamped from the beginning

Ibram X. Kendi is Professor of History and International Relations and Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University in Washington, D. C. Most of his work covers 20th century racial justice movements, from the student activism of the 1960s to current activism. He’s the author of the recent book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.

Stamped from the Beginning is rather sweeping and ambitious. Kendi places the entire five or six century history of racist thought into a consistent historical narrative. He also takes steps toward assessing the relative importance of racist ideas to American life. The project is historical, sociological, political, and philosophical.

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College Students and Local Elections

September 10, 2018 /

College students turned out in droves to vote for Bernie Sanders. Among voters under the age of 30, Sanders won about as many primary votes as Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Ted Cruz combined.

‘Under 30’ and ‘college student’ aren’t the same group. Some college students are over 30, and many people under 30 aren’t college students. But there’s a lot of overlap. We also know that voters, as a group, have a higher socioeconomic status than non-voters. It stands to reason, then, that college students make up a healthy portion of the under 30 vote.

My own Iowa caucus site sits on a college campus. While the site covers both student and non-student neighborhoods, it overflowed with Sanders supporters. He won 77% to Clinton’s 23%. Nothing was more obvious than the age difference between the two camps. And, despite attempts to label Sanders a candidate for only white people, he carried the under 30 vote nationally across all racial groups.

Local elections are a different story. Turnout is low among basically all ages everywhere across the country. But it’s really low among young voters.

Given the facts about who votes, you’d expect turnout to be very low among young people who don’t go to college and relatively higher among those who do. And turnout is low among those who don’t go to college, in both national and local elections. College students, though, don’t behave quite as expected. They do often vote in national elections but don’t vote in local elections.

Why is that?

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Why is Labor Day in September?

September 3, 2018 /
labor day

Source: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2010/09/06/president-obama-labor-day-fight-americas-workers-continues

Let’s say you don’t live in the United States or Canada. You’re probably confused that we celebrate Labor Day in September. Even Americans might not know this is unusual.

Most countries celebrate International Workers’ Day on May 1. And for most people, this is a holiday of the radical left. By contrast, most people see Labor Day as a holiday for center-left labor movements. International Workers’ Day is broadly international, while Labor Day is mostly American and Canadian.

That’s close, though not exactly right. For one, both holidays come from the US. Specifically, from the US in the 1880s. We know the September Labor Day date came first, but there’s disagreement over the details. What we know pretty well is that someone from the Knights of Labor established it in 1882. And the US made it a federal holiday in 1894.

But International Workers’ Day originated in the US as well. Likely because of the pre-existing folk holiday May Day. A bit later, the Second International set May 1 as a day of labor in 1891. However, in addition to May Day, the May 1 date refers to the Haymarket affair in Chicago.

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