I once heard Walter Mosley define working class: if you need a paycheck to pay your bills, you’re working class. So, anyone without capital. It’s not an identity at the individual level, but the construct aligns the interests of people for greater power to fight oppression.
I’m glad you read this and wrote about it (so I don’t have to!). Hard to understand why anyone who’s honest would say race doesn’t matter, especially in the US, which was literally founded on appropriating (violently) the assets of non-white people and enslaving them.
It’s not like you have to choose one type of injustice to oppose. As you say, just be against oppression. Seems simple enough and for most people on the left, I assume perhaps wrongly, that’s the right thing to do. You don’t even have to understand the specific cause of the oppressed, just stand up against the bully.
I realize that I am unclear, from reading your review, does Haider think: (a) that class is a better organizing tool for building political power, (b) that class is a better way of (accurately) understanding the world, or (c) both?
I see various people making the first argument (for example, I remember Richard Kahlenberg mentioning the idea in his first book, and he appears to have built a career on it), and that's an easier argument to make because it is narrower.
I think both are _sometimes_ right, but I am also inclined to believe that the burden of proof should be on the person making the argument, "in this case we can more effectively proceed by moving considerations of race to the background."
Isn't the 'class first ' argument a causal argument at base? It means race doesn't operate causally independently of class. Race is classed or race will morph and transform to meet the needs of a class system rather than operating in a causally independent way in this system. It's about what explains what more. Class is explained by capitalism, and race is ALSO explained by capitalism. They are mutually effective. Class isn't THAT hard to explain if you focus on harms and benefits rather than what people do --or related objective interests. It wouldn't be a
fixed identity necessarily. So if you have yet our wealth in investments then it doesn't matter if you work--you are benefitted by a good stock market. I oversimplified because hell if I know but I don't see a logical failure. Race is an ideology, class is also formed by ideology. There's nothing 'real' about the metaphysical claims people make but obviously it's all real since it shapes our whole social reality. Race & racist ideology is so impenetrable but so shifty and changeable because it's fundamental to the base, the economic conditions in making subordinates that the system needs. Anyway I gotta read the book but where the pure Marxist account seems oversimplifying to me is always that all culture and cultural ideas amounts to superstructure. Lots of human things probably have more complex causes. But when it comes to race it sure does explain a LOT--like how you can have people challenge the biological lies of racism and even be of the race those lies were applied to go along with the ideology that enables there to be a racial underclass, mass incarceration, etc. How do you get such a slippery system? Economics explains so much, e.g., absorbing unused labor then making a whole ideology about it that doesn't depend on biological racism. I am not a Marxist and don't know what I think but I find the view coherent even if my gut says it isn't correct
I think the issue for me is that class isn't really a base on which other things are built. Like, gender precedes class historically, in most accounts. Oppression functions on a range of axes, and they intersect in complicated ways; Cedric Robinson argues that European poor were framed as racially other basically from before capitalism existed, so that race always shaped capitalist exploitation and is inseparable from it in a lot of ways. Does that mean that people are racialized in order to justify class exploitation, or that class was created to enable racial exploitation? Well, probably both—but either way it doesn't really make sense to present the Black bourgeoisie as uniquely evil while shrugging when labor unions are racist.
Sure. I don't find it interesting to think of it as a current political dispute. Like whatever! I think half these incidents & even books are ephemeral. The real question is this absolutely destructive 500+ year old system of racial ideology (or whatever word you prefer)...WTF man! This Nightmare of murder, slavery & torture! Robinson's book attempts to figure it out & it's the reason I want to think on this question. It's above my pay grade but since I live in the nightmare I want to try to understand. Most of the popular books don't help that much though I am sure they are sincere but Robinson's book is a tour de force.
I once heard Walter Mosley define working class: if you need a paycheck to pay your bills, you’re working class. So, anyone without capital. It’s not an identity at the individual level, but the construct aligns the interests of people for greater power to fight oppression.
I’m glad you read this and wrote about it (so I don’t have to!). Hard to understand why anyone who’s honest would say race doesn’t matter, especially in the US, which was literally founded on appropriating (violently) the assets of non-white people and enslaving them.
It’s not like you have to choose one type of injustice to oppose. As you say, just be against oppression. Seems simple enough and for most people on the left, I assume perhaps wrongly, that’s the right thing to do. You don’t even have to understand the specific cause of the oppressed, just stand up against the bully.
Haider believes race matters! Just, he thinks class is the thing to focus on to rectify racial disparities, I think...
I realize that I am unclear, from reading your review, does Haider think: (a) that class is a better organizing tool for building political power, (b) that class is a better way of (accurately) understanding the world, or (c) both?
I see various people making the first argument (for example, I remember Richard Kahlenberg mentioning the idea in his first book, and he appears to have built a career on it), and that's an easier argument to make because it is narrower.
I think it's both? I think both are wrong, fwiw.
I think both are _sometimes_ right, but I am also inclined to believe that the burden of proof should be on the person making the argument, "in this case we can more effectively proceed by moving considerations of race to the background."
Do you have two substacks?
Nope; just the one. I just changed the address to a custom domain, though, which is maybe causing some confusion.
Isn't the 'class first ' argument a causal argument at base? It means race doesn't operate causally independently of class. Race is classed or race will morph and transform to meet the needs of a class system rather than operating in a causally independent way in this system. It's about what explains what more. Class is explained by capitalism, and race is ALSO explained by capitalism. They are mutually effective. Class isn't THAT hard to explain if you focus on harms and benefits rather than what people do --or related objective interests. It wouldn't be a
fixed identity necessarily. So if you have yet our wealth in investments then it doesn't matter if you work--you are benefitted by a good stock market. I oversimplified because hell if I know but I don't see a logical failure. Race is an ideology, class is also formed by ideology. There's nothing 'real' about the metaphysical claims people make but obviously it's all real since it shapes our whole social reality. Race & racist ideology is so impenetrable but so shifty and changeable because it's fundamental to the base, the economic conditions in making subordinates that the system needs. Anyway I gotta read the book but where the pure Marxist account seems oversimplifying to me is always that all culture and cultural ideas amounts to superstructure. Lots of human things probably have more complex causes. But when it comes to race it sure does explain a LOT--like how you can have people challenge the biological lies of racism and even be of the race those lies were applied to go along with the ideology that enables there to be a racial underclass, mass incarceration, etc. How do you get such a slippery system? Economics explains so much, e.g., absorbing unused labor then making a whole ideology about it that doesn't depend on biological racism. I am not a Marxist and don't know what I think but I find the view coherent even if my gut says it isn't correct
I think the issue for me is that class isn't really a base on which other things are built. Like, gender precedes class historically, in most accounts. Oppression functions on a range of axes, and they intersect in complicated ways; Cedric Robinson argues that European poor were framed as racially other basically from before capitalism existed, so that race always shaped capitalist exploitation and is inseparable from it in a lot of ways. Does that mean that people are racialized in order to justify class exploitation, or that class was created to enable racial exploitation? Well, probably both—but either way it doesn't really make sense to present the Black bourgeoisie as uniquely evil while shrugging when labor unions are racist.
Sure. I don't find it interesting to think of it as a current political dispute. Like whatever! I think half these incidents & even books are ephemeral. The real question is this absolutely destructive 500+ year old system of racial ideology (or whatever word you prefer)...WTF man! This Nightmare of murder, slavery & torture! Robinson's book attempts to figure it out & it's the reason I want to think on this question. It's above my pay grade but since I live in the nightmare I want to try to understand. Most of the popular books don't help that much though I am sure they are sincere but Robinson's book is a tour de force.