Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Category: Class (Page 19 of 24)

primitive accumulation money from africa to north america

Primitive Accumulation, Race, and Capitalism

January 6, 2020 /

Most conversations about race and capitalism quickly degenerate into a chicken-or-egg discussion. You know the one. Which came first, racism or our beloved ‘free enterprise system’? I say we’ve had enough of that. The debate is played out. It’s monotonous and tired. But there’s a Marxist term from the debate still relevant to us. I’m referring to ‘primitive accumulation‘.

Does ‘primitive accumulation’ solve these issues? If so, how far does it take us? More broadly, does primitive accumulation account for the role of race in the capitalist system? Or if you approach these issues like, say, Ta-Nehisi Coates approaches them, does it account for the role of capitalism in the racial hierarchy?

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Class Reductionism: What is it, and is it Bad?

January 2, 2020 /

class reductionism karl marx factory

Lots of people talk about class reductionism. Most people seem to agree it’s a bad thing, and that some other group of people does it. But few people talk about what ‘class reductionism’ means. It’s simply assumed or unstated. I, on the other hand, find the term extremely unclear. And unclear in both its parts. That is to say I think it’s unclear what ‘class’ means and what it means to reduce something to it.

What we have, then, is a useful project for an analytic philosopher. What does ‘class reductionism’ mean? Is it a political or explanatory project of some kind? What’s it all about? Some thoughts on that…

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socialist party vote socialist poster

Do We Need a Socialist Party?

December 23, 2019 /

There’s been a lot of interest lately in the question of whether we need a socialist party in the US. Perhaps to put this in a way people might ask it: Do we need a socialist party in our time, and, if so, what would it look like? In one sense, it’s a surprising question. We have a socialist party in the US! In fact, we have lots of them.

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working class latina

Who’s Part of the Working Class?

November 25, 2019 /

You might have the idea I think and talk a lot about class. It’s true. But I tend to write about class in general. For example, I’ve argued against using ‘class’ as a marker of socioeconomic status (SES) and in favor of using it as a marker of certain relations of economic power. On the other hand, I haven’t written a great deal about specific classes, like the working class. I’ve said a bit about what the working class isn’t, namely Trump’s base. But a bit less about what it is.

Let’s remedy that. Specifically, let’s zoom in on the working class. Who’s in it? Is it smaller than it used to be? Did deindustrialization defeat it? And, if so, do we now use ‘working class’ as a marker of identity rather than economic relations?

I’ll work through some of these questions.

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prison abolition milk carton 2.3 million missing Americans

Prison Abolition: Variations on a Theme

November 4, 2019 /

‘Prison abolition’ doesn’t sound complicated. It’s abolishing prison. Done. Put that shit through a spell check, clock out early, and fly a kite. But it is complicated. Go figure.

I recently saw a Twitter thread on the term ‘prison abolition’. Here’s the background. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote some tweets explaining and defending limits on the prison system, using ‘prison abolition’ as a hook. Carissa Byrne Hessick, a criminal law professor and director of the Prosecutors and Politics Project, responded.

Hessick largely agreed with AOC, but she objected to AOC’s use of ‘prison abolition’. She thought AOC misused the term. Why? Well, AOC doesn’t advocate abolishing all forms of imprisonment or confinement under a judicial system. Rather, she wants to close most prisons and release many prisoners. Since ‘prison abolition’, according to Hessick, means to eliminate all of those things, AOC misused the term. Perhaps in a politically motivated way?

Is Hessick right? I’ll argue she’s not. Or, at least, I think we can build a coherent concept of ‘prison abolition’ that doesn’t abolish all forms of confinement. Whether AOC’s on board with this is a separate issue.

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