Class based analysis of the system is what is required in order to raise consciousness so the work can be done to change the ground rules that are making a hot mess of things .
“A now-retired colleague of Marxist persuasion once remarked on what he saw as a telling omission on the part of many academics who study inequality. He observed that while everyone agrees that racism and sexism are wrong and should be eradicated, few people make the same argument about class. “Why is it imperative to oppose racism and sexism,” he asked, “and not class?” Between us, it was mostly a rhetorical question. We knew that the answer had to do with academics’ class privilege and need to embrace an ideology of meritocracy to justify that privilege. To call class into question would be to question not just a system of inequality but our own deservingness.
While social scientists certainly haven’t ignored class, the attention we’ve paid to it usually takes one of two forms: using class as a variable to predict the attitudes or behaviors of individuals; or studying the lives of people in certain class categories (e.g., ethnographic studies of working-class communities). Such studies can be useful for showing how people experience and are affected by their class locations. What’s typically missing, however, is analysis of how the class system works—how it is used by those who control the means of production and administration—to generate and maintain the inequalities that shape people’s lives.
Part of the problem is that some of the conceptual language useful for unpacking these matters has been stigmatized. The language exists but using it carries a high risk of being dismissed as an ideologue. To speak of a growing gap between productivity and wages over the last thirty years is acceptable. To speak of wage stagnation as a partial result of declining union membership is okay. To speak of ever more wealth accruing to the richest 1% is now within respectable bounds. But to speak of an increasing rate of expropriation enabled by capitalist victories in the class struggle is to invite trouble. Or invisibility.
This is not just a matter of how class is talked about in academic circles. How we study, talk about, and write about class has wider consequences. Focusing solely on diversity, inclusion, privilege, and mobility means having little to contribute when it comes to challenging capitalist power, advancing working-class interests, or transforming capitalism as a whole. It means, in effect, accepting a soft ringside seat.”
by Michael Schwalbe (writing in Counterpunch).
7 comments
January 3, 2017 at 10:40 am
syrbal-labrys
Hey, talking about class would make us communists, don’t you know? And sadly, some of the people who ARE willing to talk about class ARE ideologues who make anyone with a practical mien roll their eyes right ON out of their heads. I admit, I am fair discouraged — the very bad film “Idiocracy” seems to be coming true in practice. Our now Ingrate Pumpkin national CEO is a moron, and I suspect – a broke moron – who will use his office merely to illegally refill his personal coffers; he could give a rat’s ass what it does to America. I have been bitching about the continual “serfification” of the American working class for two decades, and being laughed at and ignored.
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January 3, 2017 at 12:48 pm
The Arbourist
@Syrbal
The language that defines the structures that oppress people are purposefully put out of reach. If one cannot name the oppression how can it be fought?
Agreed. Dark times ahead and what not. :/
People take such a long time to convince. Even it the bad-stuff is happening to them. There still may be time, but the role of Cassandra is becoming much more likely.
Well, all that optimism and brimming positivity aside, Happy New Year Syrbal. :) At least it will be interesting.
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January 3, 2017 at 1:51 pm
syrbal-labrys
I’ve had plenty of interesting times; I’d like to make THEIR times interesting, like French Revolution interesting.
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January 3, 2017 at 5:32 pm
Meg
Who is the “we” you are speaking of? When you say “we all agree that sexism is a problem” I can say for certain here in the United States that is not the case at all. I don’t know about Canada since I don’t really know anyone Canadian. However outside of very few blogs, I have a hard time addressing or talking about sexism since most people think it either doesn’t exist, isn’t worth acknowledging, or they think sexism is awesome and okay. Americans speak out against racism all the time, then they go home and treat their own mothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends, co-workers, nieces, and other female relations like shit. Bernie Bros openly called women c***s, accused women of voting with their vaginas, and said “Bern the witch” when Hillary was running. Are you really going to suggest that “everyone agrees sexism is a problem” when there was nothing but a continuous avalanche of misogynist hate over the course of the last year and a half election cycle? Obviously most people don’t think sexism matters or it would have never happened. If it did, it would have been rooted out and consequences would have resulted. Trump’s head would have been rolling if anyone gave even the tiniest shit about women. No, people only care when men are disadvantaged but could care less when half the human population is stuck under the collective boots of men.
Labor organizations in the United States have long been filled with men who assumed women shouldn’t work let alone be afforded higher work opportunities or political representation. Anti-classism efforts and the boom of the middle class in the ’40s and ’50s came at the expense of women who were expected to stay home and serve men’s needs. Women were and still are subject to mandatory heterosexuality and PIV to produce the next generation of soldiers and workers for men. White men had both civil rights and workers rights and women were still dying from either having too many children or dying because they tried to perform an abortion on themselves because it was illegal. Domestic violence was rampant and it took decades of feminist work to make marital rape illegal. Poor men were just as likely as rich men to perpetrate heinous crimes against women for simply being female.
IMO comparing classism to sexism is flawed. First and foremost it’s women who suffer from classism since women are paid the least, exploited the most, perform almost all of society’s unpaid labor, and more likely to be victims of trafficking. But guess who is helping to oppress poor women? Poor men are. Poor men are paid more, offered more opportunities for advancement, and aren’t considered a liability if they have children. There is a reason why a lot of women aren’t involved in anti-classism efforts and it’s because they know that they are only going to help poor men who will only stab them in the back later. There is no point in giving more ammunition to the abuser who will use what financial gains he has to make your life a living hell for not wanting to be beaten/raped.
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January 3, 2017 at 7:49 pm
The Arbourist
@Meg
I’d like to think that up here in Canada we do pay a little more attention to the social ills of racism and sexism. In the group of people in my sphere of influence, the ideas presented here would be not be considered particularly contentious.
I do know for certain though, that the people who ‘get’ these issues are still sadly in the minority, at least here in Alberta. The people who are truly on the progressive edge have a strong base in Quebec, as much of our progressive praxis originates from that province.
Alberta, sadly, is toward the other end of the spectrum.
I think perhaps within the context of the article, the author was referring to his academic community. To generalize that statement – everyone agrees that sexism is a problem – would mean that we would see significantly less sexism in our respective societies.
Clearly, this is not the case.
No disagreement here.
Truth. History, as written, purposefully overlooks what patriarchy has done, and is doing to women. :(
Being at the bottom of the hierarchy is exactly as you describe. Only radical, collective action can overthrow this particularly disadvantageous position.
Not my intent, but rather to highlight the need for class analysis, the deconstruction of patriarchal norms, and the need for organization and solidarity amongst the oppressed classes of society.
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January 4, 2017 at 3:04 pm
Lavender Blume
I’ve always understood class as a concept that describes one group or class of people as being distinct and experiencing inequality in relation to another group (class) of people. I think most of the time when people talk about class obviously they’re somewhere on the left and are typically referring to socio-economic class because that was Marx’s focus. But for many people, capitalism isn’t necessarily the primary or only cause of their marginalization; being a person of colour or female can itself push a person into poverty or make it harder for them to overcome it. Class divisions can be experienced on the axis of sex, income, race, etc., and racism, sexism and capitalism are all class issues because they involve the oppression of one class of people by another.
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January 5, 2017 at 5:55 pm
Meg
@Arborist, Shulamith Firestone jump started the radical feminist movement by analyzing both class and race in her book the Dialectic of Sex. There are other books like the Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale. Nine Deuce from Rage At the Manchine frequently criticizes consumerism which we know intersects with class. It’s not that there’s a lack of class analysis (or topics associated with class), it’s just that people refuse to read feminist books or choose to devalue what feminists have to say about it.
I also suspect that most Americans in particular American men would ever know how to analyze class effectively. The vantage point of a first world nation isn’t the most objective. To analyze class one must actually know how the money system works and psychoanalyze how Machiavellian and narcissistic traits as found in such people like Donald Trump reduce people to mere cattle or objects to use until they are discarded. One must also analyze the stock market and how men’s and men’s opinion alone determines what something is worth and how gambling and other risk taking behavior found in antisocial behavior contributes to financial instability in the long run. There is also the fact that on a global scale, Americans have tricked less rich countries into expensive loans which are then paid back by the natural resources they may have. A good documentary to watch is “Flow” how even water in India is being held hostage by big name soda companies and forces the poorest of the poor in the world to pay for clean water to drink.
It’s an understatement to say that Bernie Sanders and his hoard of Bernie Bros (including the women) are a screaming farce to those of us who not only read books but are capable of class analysis. It’s true that you cannot solve classism without addressing racism, but you also cannot solve classism without solving sexism, since the poorest of the poor are women and men treat women like objects to be used and discarded much like the elite treat the poor and working class. As long as men are allowed to treat women like objects, social inequality will continue and take different forms over time. Radical feminism was right, case closed.
But American men don’t want to hear it (neither do the women who identify with men and put men above their interests). They would sooner kill radical minded women than listen to us, even if our work saves their hide from the violence of other males. Dumbasses. They think all they have to do is tweak the system so they escape it’s worst outcomes and gain more financial leverage over women. They aren’t actually interested in changing anything, or they’d be willing to examine male behavior including men’s predilection for creating elaborate hierarchies and putting themselves at the top. Is that not the root definition of classism? Since Americans including leftist activists refuse to hold men accountable for anything except racism, there is literally no point in even trying to talk sense into them a.k.a. doing the heavy lifting of class analysis for them.
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