Thinking about the recent shit in Australia (which I pretty much know about exclusively through material on or referenced at the Archive and Interbreeding, and which I think I’ve convinced Thiago to write about unless I’ve just jinxed it here), I’ve started to think a bit about this category ‘white skin privilege’.
In the future I’d like to spend a little more time on this. What follows constitutes among other things a long reminder to myself to do so at a later date, when time permits.
The term had currency among anarchists in Chicago when I moved there in ‘01. It entered into anarcho circles, as far as I know, via the journal Race Traitor. I’m told the term got to Race Traitor (or Race Traitor was at least partially started) by Noel Ignatiev, who used to go by Noel Ignatin. He was a member of the Sojourner Truth Organization, a late 60s and 70s left organization in Chicago. At one point I knew people with access to an archive of STO material, but that material has since been dispersed. Ignatiev was active in STO along with Don Hamerquist or Hammerquist.
I’ve heard STO variably characterized (and I need to do some more digging on this) as Jamesians, leninists, and maoists. Certainly some of the people I’ve met who are ex-STO call themselves (ex)maoists. They may have been some amalgam. I’m told by an ex-member that questions of race caused a lot of tension in the group, partially because the group at one point had a contradictory position, calling for both a type of separatism (a black nation) and for a type of integration. Interestingly enough, some wobblies I know are interested in STO, partially on their work trying to form rank and file committees in unionized shops which are capable of taking on the factory bosses and the union bosses as needed. I think this stuff comes into IWW circles through members who are also part of one of the groups I’m going to mention in a minute, but I’m not sure. In any case, the roots of ‘white skin privilege’ as I understand the term are here, and it’s something I’d like to do more reading and thinking about.
For more on all of this one place to start is a piece by my old friend and reading group mate (sadly lost touch with him), Chris Wright -
http://libcom.org/library/marxism-white-skin-privilege-chris-wright
(That site is actually one I’d recommend to folks as well, it’s the old Endpage archive [RIP] that Tom maintained, with other material as well.)
So anyway, white skin privilege. The basic point: white people gain something by being white, white people profit from racism (structural mainly but not necessarily exclusively so). Some folks take the analysis further, turning it (appropriately enough, given the probably vanguardist roots of the idea) into the central contradiction: there’s no revolution because of white skin privilege.
In its most vulgar form, which some anarchists I met in Chicago held to, this means that there’s a blockage on political activity which can only be overcome by the political practice that was linked to white skin privilege analysis: abolition of whiteness. And this practice would only be done by people who are, under the current classificatory grids, white. So, in the name of anti-racism the analysis produced a picture of everybody else having to wait for white people to act (and act by giving up what they gain from racism that benefits white people). That’s dumb. That’s also not the only thing one can with this analysis, I don’t mean to suggest that it is. I must admit, though, that some of those conversations I had with people back then do stick with me and make me a bit hesitant with this stuff.
In any case, these are all matters for future thought and reading - histories of categories and organizations etc etc, and some ‘theory’ of sorts. I don’t really know the playing field. I’d be keen to hear from others who do know this stuff, to hear thoughts on this stuff, and to hear from people in Oz about what they make of this.
Also, I’d like to reference two contemporary US anarchist organizations in light of this stuff. These are Bring The Ruckus (BTR) - http://www.agitatorindex.org/ - and the Northeastern
Federation of Anarchist Communists (NEFAC) - http://www.nefac.net/ . (Sorry about not making the links better, I’ll clean this up later, in a rush just now, more insomniac writing I want to get out of my head so I can turn in.)
BTR are an anarchist cadre organization with a lot on the US west coast, but not only there. NEFAC are in the northeastern US and in Canada and are bilingual english-french. Some BTR folks are in the IWW, which is at least one avenue by which STO material has gotten into some folks’ hands (and I should say, folks I respect a great deal within our union). My friend Geo is into BTR. I know more about NEFAC and have some friends (many of whom I’ve lost touch with, sadly) who are members, and I’m generally more onboard with them. A friend whose a member used to joke that he was a class-reductionist (but in the name of class abolition). Me too, in some ways. Partly because my own experiences and problematics in recent times have been in/around workplace activity more than most. A number of NEFAC folks are involved in union work, and I know of several who are IWW members as well.
These two groups had a disagreement, some of which can be found here -
http://www.agitatorindex.org/articles/nefac.htm
about white skin privilege and the conclusions to draw from that idea. This may attributable to a number of factors - geographic differences, different organizational compositions, I don’t know, but it’s interesting to consider both why the differences might be and what use/effect different conclusions have organizationally. As may be expected by my comments on NEFAC, I’m generally more convinced by their responses, but my mind is not totally made up (and I’d hope the disagreements are/can be comradely ones - I also want to say that I know of at least one BTR member going to NO to help out people fucked over in the Katrina horribleness, and to do some organizng. I respect that a lot and it seems consistent with their analysis, even if it’s not the political practices I’d most foreground/follow in my own life).
This is all more material for me to read and think about in sorting through this stuff, and again I’d love to hear what folks in other places make of any/all of this.
note to self:
refresh your memory on the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the DRUM/FRUM/etc activities in Detroit. That’s a good source, if organizational material exists, for rank and file committees in union shops, and also a good source to think about some questions connected with the above issues. If memory serves, Glaberman had at least some relation with the LRBW people, as did James Boggs. Boggs was, I think, critical of black nationalism as were I think the LRBW, and he also became critical of James I don’t know how much, if anything, by Boggs remains. It might be worth looking and trying to compare views. If STO were maoists (speculating) it might make sense for them to have had a lumpen-esque kind of perspective, nationalism as an internal third worldism; also (speculating more) if there’s a Jamesian moment to STO that might be another tension w/ Boggs, depending on what moments of James they took up and what Boggs objected to. I’ll have to check around. Also, remember Linebaugh (or was it someone else?)’s comment at the IWW Centenary panel on Weir and Glaberman: Glaberman left notes for a book on race/racism at his death. Look into that, and see what, if any, relationship he maintained with Bogg, the (ex)LRBW, and James, to compare and contrast with the STO and subsequent turns. Also interesting that there’s a semi-syndicalist or councilist moment across these positions, I’m keen on that and that’s I think part of what makes sense about these currents touching on contemporary US anarchist organizations and the IWW. (As Steve W told me a while ago before I joined, after apologizing for making what may be a pedantic point, the IWW is not necessarily an anarchist organization. Though many anarchists are members. There’s also lots of people who use other terms for themselves.)
Comment by Nate — December 14, 2005 @ 7:23 am
but its like…. ‘know what I mean… I know nate… he ain’t white…
Comment by Tzuchien — December 14, 2005 @ 8:01 am
STO were Maoists fo sho.
Now, a point for consideration, and I read something about this a while back, but can’t remember what, was the history of the relation of the U.S. communist movement with black nationalism, the attempt to work out whether the blacks are an oppressed nation who have a right to self-determination, or just part of the general American proletariat. All types of communists have seen splits on this issue, but the Maoists are the worst/best. The RCP are one extreme on this issue , preaching national and international proletarian solidarity against conventional Maoist wisdom.
Comment by mark — December 16, 2005 @ 8:58 pm
hey Mark,
Thanks for this. Interesting stuff, all this. As you know, I’ve got a syndicalist streak (or is it councilist? my grasp on semi-epithet lefty terms may be slipping, help!), so I’m more partial to the rank and file committee kind of stuff a la DRUM, FRUM, etc that the League of Revolutionary Black Workers were up to, more than national self-determination and all that. I don’t know enough about any of this to really comment, it’s more something I want to know more about (particularly the organizational histories).
In the meanwhile, I wrote to Scott McLemee (great guy, knows all kinds of good stuff, his site is here - http://www.mclemee.com/ ) about this stuff. He had this to say:
“there was a significant connection between STO and the Jamesian current. Marty Glaberman contributed to their journal, Urgent Tasks, and the first book on James was actually a special issue of that journal. However, I don’t think the white-skin privilege concept can be traced directly to the Johnsonite current (though one or two items reprinted in my collection of J’s writings might be construed as showing some affinity). The more direct source
probably comes from a kind of ancestor of STO called
the Provisional Organizing Committee.
I’ll write something up about all of this and post it to my own website, and give you the link. I’m busy with other things at the moment, but will try to get to it in the next few days.”
I look forward to reading what he posts, and will add a reference to it here.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — December 17, 2005 @ 5:45 am
wow, that mclee site is great! One of his most recent posts is a kitsch quote from bob Avakian!
Comment by mark — December 18, 2005 @ 8:05 pm
Yeah, I’m a Scott McLemee fan. He’s also really nice. I was looking for info on post- Johnson Forest Tendency stuff on email lists a few years ago and he very kindly offered to talk on the phone and fill me on some of what he knew and where else to look.
Regarding Chairman Bob, I noticed recently that he looks a lot like Zizek (there’s a photo of Zizek at Infinite Thought if you want to compare). Perhaps the two could collaborate together, write something called What About Lacan Motherfucker? or maybe What About Hitchcock.
Comment by Nate — December 18, 2005 @ 10:48 pm
not to mention that Avakian lives in exile in Paris - I can see it. Though really all you need to do to look like this is not take care of yourself, not shave regularly and chain smoke. See Christopher Hitchens.
Comment by mark — December 20, 2005 @ 9:44 pm
Does Hitchens look like Avakian like Zizek? Maybe they’re all the same person! It wouldn’t surprise me. I wonder who else they are …
Comment by Nate — December 20, 2005 @ 9:51 pm
sorry for my slowness in posting a reply:
the chicago anarchist understanding of whiteness, as far as i know, came from love&rage, and was central to their split. those most concerned with race then linked up a bit with race traitor folks and the new abolitionist. some cool maps are available at http://www.tc.umn.edu/%7Esigal003/left_history/lnrchart.htm and at http://freedomroad.org/staticfiles/familytree/megatree.html.
at present, BTR doesn’t hold what you present, rightly, as the “vulgar” position. firstly, it’s not as though an inevitable revolution was postponed by race: rather, a disruption of white privilege opens a space for radical organizing in all sectors. see ignatiev’s: http://olymedia.mahost.org/IntroductiontotheUnitedStates.pdf (that’s an excellent archive, BTW).
also, BTR has broken in a few respects with race traitor, identifying in places as Jamesian, DuBoisian, etc: http://www.agitatorindex.org/articles/racetraitorvruckus.htm
a central issue lately has been the tension you mention, that race traitor politics depend on “whites.” this has been the cruz of the debate between BTR and its significant other, APOC (http://www.illegalvoices.org/). APOC is mostly former-BTR folks who have significant (though not insuperable) beef with the race traitor issues. the full debate between BTR and APOC is available, i think, on both sites, and is very much useful.
incidentally, i think the real difference between BTR and NEFAC is more organizational, about platformism versus cadre organizing. but i think the differences regarding organization also shed light on their different positions on race.
long story short: there may be problems, but for me it’s the best game in town (and by “town” i mean domestic politics). it combines the imperative to cadre organizing with an excellent analysis of race, and i haven’t really seen anyone else that does so…
kisses,
geo
Comment by geogeogeo — December 21, 2005 @ 5:44 am
sorry if this is a bit polemical, but I checked out this BTR of yours (on the web) and I think it is a pretty absurd half-way house to talk about the seperate deal whites have worked out apropos of minorities in the US, without looking at how this privilege is really a separate deal worked out viz-a-viz the vast majority of humanity who are non-white and much of whom have worse conditions by far even than oppressed racial minorities in the US and, moreover, whose exploitation is directly related to the high living standards in first world countries i.e. how you can manage to racialise your anarchism without acknowledging the glaring and overarching reality of imperialism as the fundamental brake on your attempts to organise a revolution.
OK, just that one sentence, now I’m done.
Comment by mark — December 27, 2005 @ 11:15 am
hi Mark,
Polemical is fine by me. I don’t know if I agree w/ you on imperialism so I can’t respond to that, I don’t know enough to respond yet. Perhaps when you get around to writing your book I’ll be able to agree or phrase a clear disagreement. My immediate disagreement is that it strikes me as displacing any potential to act onto only one group, those in the third world (since, presumably, for people are interested in revolution it’s revolutionary activity that most matters). The view I think needs to be buttressed with some kind of account of what can be done in the first world, otherwise I wonder what use it has for firstworlders. I also don’t know what I think about the BTR and white skin privilege stuff. Geo could respond better than I can, maybe he will. I hope so. One thing, though - I don’t like the terms of “a deal that whites have worked out”. That implies too much of a race acting as a body than I think really happens, and too much intention. I just don’t think that’s the case with this stuff at any kind of macro-level. I’d say the same for phrases about imperialism and first world workers.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — December 27, 2005 @ 5:14 pm
hi mark,
i think i agree with the tension that you identify, and this is my source of difficulty with BTR. however, and i think nate gestures toward this: it is a tension that BTR recognizes and deems irresolvible. we must, they say, operate where we are, and the US is the belly of the beast, so to speak. and moreover, their analysis is above all a domestic one (and analysis, for BTR, is central to the formation of a cadre group). i’ve been thinking of how BTR can internationalize - to move from duboisian/jamesian to fanonian - but it isn’t easy.
there are, i think, two sides to a response. one is ethical, which you mention: the fact that we live off the less “developed” countries. but what do we do then? and moreover, many people in this country actually “live” worse, because of their infrastructural dependence on the state.
then, there is the strategic side, which is even more complicated. the white working class isn’t likely to be of use, but we shouldn’t abandon them. revolutionary movements on the domestic scene are likely to be crushed, but we can’t abandon them. and perhaps most importantly, even if crisis will only be forced upon the US from without (i’m an unrepentant “third worldist” sometimes), there are some important ways to facilitate this domestically (e.g. preventing a draft, keeping the US military weak). it’s like in the movie “The Spook Who Sat By the Door” (my favorite): black revolutionaries in the US can’t WIN, but that isn’t the point, since the US government can’t simultaneously win a domestic and an international war.
nate: i think i need to disagree on intention, though we are both speaking in relative terms. when white workers systematically exclude blacks from unions and systematically support US intervention abroad, then there is something macro going on. they don’t always do so, but enough to warrant attention, certainly. to “act as a body” or a totality doesn’t require organic unity, but rather an axis of orientation, directing the movement of the totality.
cheers
geo
Comment by geogeogeo — December 27, 2005 @ 8:10 pm
There’s a few of possibilities here. One is that revolutionaries in the US can act as a fifth column to third world struggles, “since the US government can’t simultaneously win a domestic and an international war.” Another is that they try to organise a support network for Third World revolution, as was done with the Zapatistas, as is done for Cuba and Venezuela and Palestine and in the Spanish Civil War for that matter (not the Third World technically, but people were living in caves in Spain in the 1920s, it was an agrarian country ripe for revolution).
The one I’ve been leaning towards is the support of movements of a more anti-consumption, anti-economist type, namely the Australian Greens, since ending the oil economy and the relentless drive for profit at home is the best thing we can do internally for the rest of the world, since that would then undercut the need for military adventures and allow the Third World to develop.
Obviously, none of these possibilities are exclusive of one another.
Comment by mark — December 27, 2005 @ 11:16 pm
hi Mark, Geo,
In a rush so I gotta be brief. Interesting stuff. I think I’m more invested in the white US working class than you two are, but that’s fine. As Mark notes, none of this is necessarily incompatible. I’ll have to think about the rest of this re: imperialism and white skin privilege. I’m not entirely convinced, partially because I think these are relative non sequiturs to the types of projects I’m involved in and understand, but they’re both topics I’ll have to think more about.
Geo, I’d like to hear more on internationalism/internationalization, and Mark you as well re: support networks. I’m keen on how those activities can feed into building momentum for other projects domestically as well (this was an issue in some Argentine solidarity circles not too long ago, I’m told - some folks were doing the left tourist thing and got worried as to whether or not they were making any contribution to the Argentine context. That’s quite valid, but I see my own translating activity, for instance, as part of something that US lefties may be able to learn from Argentina in order to use in our own domestic projects.) Gotta run.
abrazos,
Nate
Comment by Nate — December 28, 2005 @ 1:41 am
Support networks aren’t helpful to building things domestically. They emphasise the differences between the home country and those overseas. They involve building groups, but only of people who make themselves feel better and distance themselves further from direct struggles in their own community. Still, this may well be strategically acceptable insofar as this work supporting revolution overseas may do a lot to help the domestic situation if those revolutions are successful.
Only fifth columnism and local anti-economism/anti-militarism/anti-consumerism involve building things locally in a revolutionary direction.
Comment by mark — December 28, 2005 @ 4:51 am
hi Mark,
You’re probably right. At the same time all those activities involve building collectivities and I think I want to say that some of that organization building activity is transferrable. So people can work on one thing and learn certain skills and gain certain experiences (class hatred!) that can be retooled for use in other contexts. So, perhaps, a group doing support for far away places can help people build language skills for working w/ domestic speakers of those langauges (and, perhaps, organizing around immigration related issues might bridge those divides, like say activity around fees charged by places that facilitate the remittance of wages by immigrants from the US to other places, or activity against the border regimes that serve to configure labor markets here and elsewhere, by the management of who gets out and who gets in and under what conditions).
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — December 28, 2005 @ 6:39 pm
folks,
i’m with mark on the “fifth columnism” (which sounds cool to boot, maybe i’ll put it on a t-shirt), especially vis-a-vis so-called “support networks,” which often-as mark points out-cultivate an idea of difference, but not in a productive way. ward churchill has shown how these sorts of networks often serve as a way for “non-violent” activists in the US to support revolutions without offending their own values. so if that were the only choice, i would support revolutionary violence at home any day. nate: my point to you is that some “support” activity has internal limits, in that it is premised on something incompatible with its transferral to more substantive struggles.
however, to mark, i’m pretty skeptical about what you’re calling “anti-consumerism” struggles, mostly because your prior post makes this just sound like another form of consumerism (i.e. shifting away from oil). crucially, you underestimate the structure of the world-system. the US doesn’t invade countries because of the oil economy, though the latter is a part of a general need for resources and overproduction. and it’s not possible for the “third world to develop” without a change in the US, if you mean development in the strong sense. if you just mean pushing for breathing room to allow, e.g., venezuela, bolivia to reinforce regional integration, then we agree, but that has little to do with consumer struggles (and indeed the collapse of the market for fossil fuels would, in the short term, destroy both countries!).
cheers
geo
Comment by geogeogeo — December 28, 2005 @ 7:21 pm
hey gents,
Maybe I don’t know what you guys mean by support networks and fifth columns. By the latter I understand basically anything that makes it harder to rule at home (I’d love a fight column t-shirt too, by the way). By the former, I take it you guys mean the old fashioned solidarity network type of stuff, a la Sandinista support activity done back in that day, is that right?
As for revolutionary violence, I’m not a pacifist but I do think that nonpacific activities in the US simply wouldn’t survive. In the IWW recently there was a controversy over some document with the name “red and black brigades” which had our name on it and had nothing to do with the organization, it was calling for armed struggle in what struck me as a naive way, and in a dangerous way for our organization by putting our name on it. I think the question of how one assesses/measures revolutionay activity is a big one - to my mind there’s both external goal oriented results (winning demands) and internal development results (solidifying commitment, skills, anger). Both need to be taken into account and both are, I suspect, highly situational. Revolutionary violence (in the sense of armed struggle), to my mind, must be assessed like everything else along both axes and in my view is not a good idea in the US. I can’t speak to other contexts except the Italian one, where I think it was generally a mistake in many forms.
take care,
Nate
ps-Geo, you want to read some Mao with me and Tzuchien and Mark?
Comment by Nate — December 28, 2005 @ 7:40 pm
nate: i agree largely, but isn’t there a tension between arguing that violence “must be assessed like everything else” and that it “is not a good idea in the US”? also, doesn’t this “assessment” need to bear in mind the counterfactual? (i.e. a baseline of no change is far from a neutral situation).
totally down to read mao, but only if we read “combat liberalism”
g
Comment by geogeogeo — December 28, 2005 @ 9:56 pm
g: re:anti-consumerism, I still disagree with you. Imperialism is about economics. All it is is economic exploitation, with a military-political enforcement mechanism (indeed the same one employed to enforce exploitation at home, with modifications). Anti-economist movements, like the Australian Greens, advocate what is basically a revolutionary notion, that economic growth is not in itself a good thing, and that in fact at present it is a bad thing, making people unhappy and ruining the planet. If you can use populist arguments to undercut the norm which the media, government and economists promulgate, that we need growth, then you have undercut the logic of imperialist policy. This involves the capture of state power by democratic means ostensibly in the service of the people of your rich country.
n: as a form of fifth columnism, the armed struggle is fine. From the point of view of building a movement with a domestic agenda, it’s problematic, but I think it can be used intelligently as a complement to the more important business of organising. What is absolutely necessary for a revolutionary movement is that it keeps arms and military strategy in reserve for when the state cracks down. The failure to do this is why the IWW failed first time around, and I can’t see that anything has changed, althought of course the IWW is currently a long way away from the situation where any of this matters.
Comment by mark — December 30, 2005 @ 12:39 am
mark:
you’re right: imperialism is about economics, which is why i referred to “a general need for resources and overproduction.” my point was that you can’t resolve such problems with anti-consumer campaigns, and you’ve proven my point brilliantly! it’s all good and well to convince people that economic growth isn’t a good in and of itself, but this doesn’t change the fact that these people will feel the effects of low or no growth!!! economic growth has material effects that can’t be effaced with an idealist attempt to change the consciousness of the western consumer!!!
geo
Comment by geogeogeo — December 30, 2005 @ 7:07 pm
Yeah, I can relate to this: you’re being as economistic as the capitalists. I’ve been there man, and no good comes of it. Frankly, ‘downshifting’ is all the rage, and comfortable Westerners are so comfortable that they will take a drop in consumption. The Western working class won’t, but Green politics is redistributive in their direction,so there’s no need for them to. Really, this difference already exists in continental Europe, where people do support laws that make people work less hours for less pay.
Comment by mark — December 31, 2005 @ 12:41 am
Oh, and I’m sensitive to this allegation of idealism, but aren’t you trying to change consciousness as well?
Comment by mark — December 31, 2005 @ 12:42 am
i feel like i have no idea what you’re talking about at this point…. back around comment #10, i thought we agreed. but now you seem to
a.) emphasize imperialism, and the dependence of a high standard of living in western countries, while simultaneously
b.) placing the onus of change on precisely those people, by claiming that *somehow*, their high standard of living will allow a “downshifting.”
can’t you see the contradiction? you’re claiming that the western standard of living, which RESULTS from imperialism (we agree here) can be transformed immanently. the result can’t devour the cause. this is insanity.
which brings us to the question of consciousness (and economism). i feel strange calling someone an idealist, since i don’t consider myself particularly materialistic. but when you’re staking the future on changing the consciousness of precisely those who benefit the most, we part ways dramatically. this is absolutely untenable. so if noting that western citizens enjoy their quality of life, and will defend it (as they do everyday), if this makes me “as economistic as the capitalists” then i’m guilty as charged.
cheers,
geo
Comment by geogeogeo — December 31, 2005 @ 6:25 pm
hi Mark, Geo,
Mark I don’t know enough about the history of the IWW to assess your claim about violence and historical failures. I think I agree with you to some extent, as far as self-defense and all that, though I think one has to be careful and creative in thinking this stuff through - I think that stockpiling arms, say, in the US would be a quick ticket to organizational disappearance for most relatively public (in the sense of not-clandestine) organizations, and recourse to arms is only meaningful self-defense if it really works (I’m sceptical or pessimistic about this myself). I’m also pretty adamant that organized armed struggle in the US would not be constructive (this is presuming something like the “war on the state” model of organized armed struggle). Geo, the distinction is not armed struggle vs no change.
All of this, of course, turns around the definitions of violence and all that. I mean something like corporeal harm, not the “violence” of withdrawing our labor power or property damage or intimidation etc against scabs, my opposition to this is as an offensive strategy/tactic with organizations or as a tendency within domestic movements. Virno’s got a piece on this that may be relevant (I’m biased cuz I translated it), written in response to events in Argentina. It’s here.
Also, to be clear, I’m less skeptical re: something like the Tutte Bianchi or piqueteros if it were very, very carefully undertaken, compared to offensive attacks… I suspect that the strategies/tactics have to outgrowth of organizational forms more than constitutive of them (I think).
Also, Geo, this is interesting, you’ve brought out something in Mark’s view that makes it clearer and makes me a little more sympathetic. My basic reservation (other than my lack of a grasp of international relations and economy) about going along w/ you and Mark on this imperialism stuff is that it strikes me as rendering populations that I’m rather invested in (firstworlders) as inert and noncontradictory - just a part of the problem, full stop. Mark’s view, I think, is that firstworlders can generally be at best imperialism-neutral, except perhaps by support networks (which can be at best domestic-neutral), by fifth columnism (also at best domestic-neutral?), and by anti-consumerism (which may be perhaps be on the side of the angels re both imperialism the domestic scene). I am, quite frankly, not excited about the anti-consumer stuff insofar as I understand what Mark is saying (that may just be temperment), but I quite like that this seems to be the one place where Mark admits of some confluence of positive outcomes re: both imperialism and the domestic scene.
Two (and a half) last comments… first, Geo, you write “the result can’t devour the cause”. Result devouring cause is I think precisely what much of orthodox marxism holds to - the proletariat, effect of capitalism, are the gravediggers of the cause.
Second, I’m really enjoying you guy’s exchanges and would like to see them continue. I wonder, though, if some of this would benefit from longer treatments (I’d be happy to host them here are posts or as comments, or you could do them at the sites you’re affiliated). Interested?
Oh hell, one last thing - Geo, I’m going to start the Mao with the Red Book cuz that’s the one I own. I’ll try to get other stuff out of the library - or maybe stuff’s available online? - but I’d need to know what to get (where’s “combat liberalism” at?)
happy new year you two,
Nate
Comment by Nate — December 31, 2005 @ 9:17 pm
dang, as soon as i wrote that i knew someone would pull that marx shit on me. to be clearer: the raison d’etre of a system is unlikely to provide its gravediggers. the proletariat in orthodox marxism is an unintended side effect, whereas the capitalists (and the bourgeoisie to a lesser extent, are analogous to its raison d’etre, the outcome of its logic.
nate, i don’t want to sound like i’m saying first-worlders are “just part of the problem” in a general sense, and certainly not in the sense of them being “intert.” indeed, being inert would be a step forward! my point is that there is a certain interest involved which–while not absolutely negating the positive impact of the privileged–makes it rather unlikely. also, bear in mind that i wouldn’t write off all westerners, especially not the racialized and lumpen (i’m a fanonian at heart).
i would be interested to hear from both of you how the middle-upper bourgeoisie in developed countries could be anything other than on the wrong side of imperialism (except accidentally). this is possible in peripheral nations, but not here…
the mao is available in the “selected readings” but alson online in various places.
g
Comment by geogeogeo — January 1, 2006 @ 1:41 am
hi Geo,
I agree with you about the proletariat but orthodox marxists wouldn’t - the determinist version holds something like the raison d’etre of capitalism is its own abolition. (Another dumb idea of a dumb body of ideas.) I also agree w/ you re: likelihoods and all that of which sectors doing what.
Just to clarify what I meant by inert though - it does seem like in the imperialism stuff (which, to be fair, I do recognize is barely a thumbnail sketch in your and Mark’s offhand presentations) there’s an image of certain populations as just acting out their objective interests. Those interests are themselves political, and I think Mark’s stuff w/ the Greens and all that could be read as an attempt to attack the subjective processes by which those interests come to be formed (or, if you prefer, an attempt to get people to subjectively orient themselves against their objective interests).
I think also perhaps we’re not understanding each other here - you refer to the bourgeoisie. I’ve got no interest in them, they’re fucks and only the enemy. I’ve got no interest in trying to jockey the bosses into taking positions on anything. The liberals can try to do that. Bosses are only ever the enemy for our activities. The people I’m invested in really here (the ones in my mind as the three of us go back and forth on this) are the labor aristocracies - highly paid construction trades, for instance - other sectors of the working class that can be considered as privileged from some standards of evalation. At least some of these groups are highly problematic, as are many other sectors in the working class, but to my mind their being problematic is not given (by objective interests/force) so much as produced (and thus subject to being taken apart and to anomolous [sp?] figures within it).
Also, in hopes of being clear generally, I should say that the bugbear for me is always my own vulgar objectivist (and vanguardist) marxist self several years ago, I tend to read that into things overmuch and may be doing that here.
happy new year,
Nate
Comment by Nate — January 1, 2006 @ 2:46 am
Nate:
the U$ is the place where arming your membership is most possible - you just make sure everyone has the arms to which they are legally entitled. The fifth ammendment exists specifically to allow for political self-defence against the government. I’m with the Sparts on this one.
Geo:
you misunderstand/exagerate the role I impute to anti-consumerism - it may be an anvil against which the hammer of Third World people’s wars may strike, for example. I don’t put my hope there. But I do think it is reasonable to put my activity there in Australia. The Australian situation is quite different insofar as the Greens are the third largest party and poll around 10% and Australia’s baroque electoral system (compulsary, transferable voting means comparison with other countries is difficult). I know several thinking Marxists who are in the Greens and formulate their economic policy.
I’m afraid I do think anti-consumerism is absolutely enormous and enormously promising because it promises to liberate the wage-workers, middle and working class, of the First World. I see all kinds of stuff as being in here, not just the Aussie Greens and seachangers, but Adbusters, and indeed the refusal of work. Sorry.
I wonder if we could somehow transform this into an empirical question for which we could actually produce answers to which of us is right about this whole possibility/phenomenon.
“the result can’t devour the cause. ”
And why can’t it? I would agree contra orthodox Marxism, that I wouldn’t expect the imperialism to regularly produce the agent of its own destruction. But it is nonsense that just because it produces something that thing cannot be opposed to it. It would be true that the opposition would be impossible if anti-consumerism is a luxury afforded by imperialism. I do not think that is so however, since it is only the superabundance that anti-consumerism denounces that is produced by imperialism.
Comment by mark — January 1, 2006 @ 12:51 pm
I found an article by a Bring The Ruckus member, here:
http://www.iww.org/en/node/1738
Argument seems to be precisely one of changing consciousness. Relating this to the whole idealism vs materialism thing that’s come up a bit here (a distinction which I’m ultimately not particularly invested in), how does the white skin privilege/white supremacy thing play out? If white privilege/supremacy is a product of material conditions (which’d need an argument, but I’d be willing to assume this is the case) then the project of attacking it by changing consciousness would be a case of what Geo mentioned: proceeding from effect to cause (from racism to production). That would in turn mean either that such a procession is not problematic (such that Mark’s pro-Greens stuff isn’t anymore problematic than BTR’s anti- white privilege/supremacy stuff) or that the anti- white privilege/supremacy projects must fall under the same charge of idealism and at best limited utility.
On the other hand, if white privilege/supremacy is the source, the lynchpin, of large parts of imperialism, and at least for the article linked here by a BTR member this privilege/supremacy is in large part a matter of consciousness (beliefs and wants to maintain a certain position in racial hierarchy and racialized economic hierarchy) then that is a different sort of idealism - consciousness producing material reality.
Comment by Nate — January 7, 2006 @ 7:27 am
more stuff re: all of this … links -
http://nefac.net/node/405
http://www.anti-racist-action.org/pn/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=14&page=1
http://www.criminalanarchy.com/BTR.html
In addition to historical and theoretical questions of race and imperialism bound up with this, there’s also questions of organizational form. I need to look over the BTR stuff again, as I don’t remember what they mean by ‘cadre’. The term makes me think of vanguardists, but that may just be my association (NEFAC get called all kinds of names, alleged to be trots etc etc and I like NEFAC a lot, I don’t want to do any kind of thing like that to BTR). The definition here doesn’t sound like a problem: www.answers.com/topic/cadre but it also doesn’t explain much either, in terms of what a cadre organization might mean. (In the dictionary defintion at that link there it just means like ‘leadership’ or ‘organizer’ or ‘person who steps up’.) This is interesting, from the MST in Brazil: http://www.newsocialist.org/index.php?id=595
Freedom Road describe themselves as cadre as well:
http://freedomroad.org/content/view/346/76/lang,/
Some notes on community organizing…
http://web.hku.hk/~ssycwong/comwk/Lecture13.htm
Ahh, more digging, perhaps the NEFAC/BTR thing goes back earlier, to the L&R days… http://www.criminalanarchy.com/threefronts.html
That’s a history I want to know more about. Here’s a start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_and_Rage
Curious to know what a specifically anarchist cadre organization means. This book might help: http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/skirrev.htm
The FRAC was a midwest (whoo!) anarcho group that had elements in common w/ both BTR and NEFAC, from what I can tell… http://www.frac.ws/index.html The Chicago folks were also hella nice.
Anyway, much to read… I found some discussion from my old pal Chris Wright on organization that I want to remember to revist, here (a bit embarassing, cannabaliizing the old autopsy list, but then, I’m shameless) http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/aut-op-sy/2002m12/msg00086.htm
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/aut-op-sy/2002m12/msg00104.htm
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/aut-op-sy/2002m12/msg00106.htm
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/aut-op-sy/2002m12/msg00124.htm
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/aut-op-sy/2002m12/msg00124.htm
We worked on a magazine together, he did most of the work, one issue came out in PDF form. Good times.
http://libcom.org/library/libertarian-marxist-tendency-map
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2379/simon.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2379/
So much to read, so little time.
Comment by Nate — January 17, 2006 @ 5:48 am
Hello,
Not sure I followed anything here after about comment #9, but I wanted to chime in on the history and legacy of STO. I have known and/or met a dozen or more former members of STO, and I’m in the process of researching what I hope will eventually be a book length history of the group.
I must disagree with Mark’s claim that STO was a Maoist group (“fo sho”, no less). The group consistently self-identified as “Leninist”, in contrast to the near universal Maoist moniker “Marxist-Leninist.” Not a single former member I’ve ever talked to has described her- or himself as a present or former Maoist, and yet it remains a persistent myth about the organization to this day. One major culprit for this mis-identification is the opening quote from Mao in the early STO pamphlet “Toward a Revolutionary Party,” which can be viewed at the new STO archive: http://www.sojournertruth.net/tarp.pdf The quote does nicely capture an anti-determinist Marxism (what any number of more orthodox Leninists would have derided as a voluntaristic avoidance of objective conditions), but the choice of Mao was probably unfortunate to the extent that otherwise smart people continue to think of STO as having been a Maoist group.
STO’s politics can best be viewed as a sort of mosaic of Lenin, CLR James, Antonio Gramsci, and WEB Du Bois. As I understand it, Du Bois is the source for much of the terminology that gets associated with STO: “white blindspot,” “white (skin) privilege,” and so forth. Noel Ignatin (now Ignatiev) along with Ted Allen (who were indeed comrades in the Provisional Organizing Committee, which was a Stalinist split from the Krushchev-era CP), did much to popularize this terminology inside the New Left in the late 60’s. Ignatin was among the founders of STO, which continued to push an analysis of white skin privilege as indispensable to revolutionary struggle in the US, while combining this notion with a Jamesian anti-stalinism. It is worth noting that, notwithstanding the current popularity of “white skin privilege” rhetoric (if not always the analysis that should come with it) on the left, in the 1970’s this line of thinking was, in the white left, almost exclusively the purview of STO and its various splits.
While STO was always an avowedly “Leninist” organization, it was also thoroughly anti-stalinist. Much of the group’s energy was spent in attempting to shift the terms of debate amongst white revolutionaries, away from Stalin and toward a real version of workers’ self-management. While they were never councilists, they certainly tended more in the direction of Pannekoek, by way of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, than they did toward any of the “party-building” sects that are more well-known to students of the far left in the US (the RCP, the ISO, etc.). They were sufficiently anti-authoritarian in both ideology and internal functioning that they attracted former anarchists to their ranks, and considered anarchists to be worthy discussion/debate partners. By the early nineties, a number of former members had indeed joined Love and Rage. At least one former member is now involved with Bring the Ruckus (which, by the way, is not strictly speaking an anarchist organization, although last I checked many anarchists were involved in it).
As for nationalism, STO was very enamored of the revolutionary nationalist movements of its day, developing solid ties with a number of different movements in Puerto Rican, Iranian, and New African contexts in particular. They rejected the politics (now best articulated by the RCP) that class unity trumps racial divisions, and instead argued that class unity was impossible until white people came to support black (or Puerto Rican) demands for equality in the workplace and in society. This perspective still seems important to me today, although it has to be recast to accommodate the degeneration of revolutionary nationalism.
By some estimates several hundred people passed in and out of STO over the course of some fifteen years of existence, which produced a somewhat outsized legacy for a group that never much exceed fifty members at any one time. The comparable legacy of Socialisme ou Barbarie in France seems the best parallel. To the best of my knowledge, it hasn’t yet become fashionable for middle aged leftists to say they were in STO even if they weren’t, but the legacy is certainly far less embarrassing than the baggage carried by former members of, say, the October League, which supported Pol Pot for a time.
Finally, as for the anarchists in Chicago at the turn of the millennium, I was one of them (and remain one of them, midway through the decade). I don’t recall anyone holding the “vulgar” position you describe. Certainly, the formal position was not that everyone must wait for white people, but that white folks needed to catch up to the rest of the world. Nonetheless, probably some folks did draw inappropriate conclusions from the rhetoric of white skin privilege; most often, I find white leftists use it as an excuse for their own irrelevance.
Okay, I’ve rambled more than enough for now. It’s nice to know people are trying to piece together this history.
Solidarity,
Mike
PS. Just curious if the Nate who seems to be responsible for this blog is the Nate I knew in Chicago a few years back…
Comment by Mike — January 22, 2006 @ 5:43 am
hi Mike,
Yeah, that’s me. Nice to be in touch with you again. Thanks for this, and for the STO archive link. I’ll have to check that out, and I look forward to reading your study when it’s done. I hope it’s clear from this that most of my views are provisional and I more want to know more about this stuff than have well developed views or criticisms. As for the vulgar view, I can’t think of anyone in particular who held that view. I just remember some irritating conversations at a dinner party or two at a friend’s house on the Northwest side of town and at Matches and Mayhem. The folks that (at least in my mind) are/were associated witj your circles were and are among the most interesting and impressive anarchists I met in Chicago, or that I’ve met at all, so it doesn’t surprise me if you didn’t know folks who held dumber versions of these ideas. Also, I don’t mean my anecdote as an attack on the idea as such, but rather as an explanation of one of - not the only - reasons why I’m not sure about the white skin privilege analysis from what little I know of it. When I get more time to read about this stuff I’m sure my opinions will be more developed and perhaps even change. I hope not though, being wrong kinda sucks…
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — January 23, 2006 @ 12:44 am