[Peace-discuss] Will I.P. elect McCain?

[John W.]

On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 5:08 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:

It is, as I say, at best a stop-gap, a temporary measure to correct some
> small
> part of historic exploitation -- not to end the exploitation itself, which
> is
> endemic to capitalism.  In fact, affirmative action accepts that
> exploitation in
> principle while it tries to get a better deal for those "identified" by
> race,
> gender, etc. (which is why it's generally been resented by the white
> working
> class).
>
> In the spring tide of American socialism, more than a century ago, one of
> the
> leading US capitalists, Jay Gould, said, "I can always hire one half of the
> American working class -- to kill the other half." That ruling class policy
> accounts for the United States' having one of the bloodiest labor histories
> in
> the world.  And affirmative action was the acceptable face of that policy.
>
> There were those who said a generation ago -- only half in jest -- that
> when the
> revolution finally came, the barricades of the old order would be defended
> by
> those blacks and women who'd made it under affirmative action...
>
> The history of identity politics in the US is pretty clear.  It was the
> position
> to which soi-disant progressives retreated when the revolutionary and
> transformative goals of "the sixties" (and well into the 1970s) were given
> up.
>
> When the assault of neoliberalism began to look like winning, ca. 30 years
> ago,
> and progressives gave up class-based politics in defeat, there was a rather
> unseemly scramble on the Left as groups looked for other, non-class
> identities
> as bases for progressive political action -- notably women, people of
> color,
> ethnics, sexual minorities, etc. But the search was predicated on the
> conclusion
> that no fundamental transformation of class relations was possible (or
> perhaps
> even desirable).


I have to add here that this transformation of which you speak was brought
about in very large part by certain decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court,
which created "protected classes" for race and gender for purposes of "equal
protection" scrutiny.   On the other hand, the S.C. has adamantly refused to
accord poverty any particular constitutional protection, with the lone
exception of providing an attorney for the indigent in a criminal trial
where incarceration is a possibility (Gideon v. Wainwright).

Attorneys fighting to change the system have to use whatever legal tools are
available to them.  This "identity poltics" wasn't just cooked up by
"soi-disant" liberals or progressives in a vacuum; it was cooked up by the
Supreme Court, which apparently does indeed have a vested interest in
maintaining a capitalist, class-based system.



> By the 1990s there was a general condemnation on the Left of a trinity of
> oppressions -- by gender, race and class -- but little recognition that
> they
> were not alike.  In principle, the first two can be solved by
> reconciliation (affirmative action, if you like), however difficult that is
> in practice.  But
> oppression by class cannot be solved that way.  Exploiter and exploited
> cannot
> be reconciled -- their formal antagonism is what makes the system go.
> (Crudely,
> owners must purchase labor as cheaply as possible while workers must sell
> it as
> expensively as possible.)  Exploitation by class can be solved only by the
> liquidation of the exploiter (the social role, not necessarily the person).


This is true, and a fairly prescient analysis.



> Staring into this abyss, the modern left has generally preferred to take
> the
> stop-gap options offered, and it's only inconvenient people like Benn
> Michaels
> (and three centuries of economists who tried to puzzle out how capitalism
> worked) who point out that diversity offers a false vision of social
> justice --
> by allowing us to neglect the difference that really matters, that between
> rich
> and poor, and its source.  --CGE
>
>
> Robert Naiman wrote:


>  Now it seems like you're saying that actually, support of affirmative
>> action
>> *is* "the Left" position, but it shouldn't be. Just clarifying. So I
>> didn't
>> miss the meeting.
>
>
>>
>> On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 7:11 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>> wrote:
>
>
>>  Affirmative action is at best a stop-gap that risks substituting the
>>> pursuit of diversity for the pursuit of equality. In the last generation
>>> the American left, such as it is, has been bought off by tokenism to give
>>> up its critique of class.
>>>
>>> People of color managing state capitalism is a rather limited victory for
>>> the Left in the US -- especially when the price has been the Left's
>>> diminuendo of the critique of capitalism as it was a generation (or a
>>> century) ago.  The Left is much further Right than it was then -- and it
>>> was done not with a meeting but in rather embarrassed silence.
>>>
>>>
>>> Robert Naiman wrote:
>>
>>
>>>  When was the meeting where it was decided that "the Left" doesn't
>>>> support
>>>> affirmative action? Was there a meeting notice? I must have missed it.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 5:56 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>  "Affirmative action" is at best a stop-gap that risks substituting the
>>>>> pursuit of diversity for the pursuit of equality.  The latter is the
>>>>> Left position. --CGE
>>>>
>>>>
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