by the Editorial Board
What is identity politics and how do they pose a problem to class-based unity? Identity politics were invented under nominally leftist disguise, but they are not what they used to be. They have in fact taken much of society in their grip and have been used as a deceptive tool by the imperialist ruling class. The electoral farce displays this in particularly vulgar ways. Simply put, identity politics use individual identity as a means to validate a certain politics, whether or not the politics are legitimate, authentic, progressive or backward. Identity politics use identity not only to validate but as the criteria of correctness, as a means to shield politics from criticism and often to prevent challenge, or to sell backward political ideas to the masses. Sex, race, nationality, age, etc. can all be utilized in identity politics. Of course, these represent actual conditions that are part of the forming of politics, but it obscures the basis of whether or not the politics are correct—which is, if it corresponds with objective reality in service of advancing the position of the working class toward its seizure and defense of power. Identity does not determine reality, rather it is a part of reality that must be understood in order to transform it.
There are two aspects to identity politics: one is that it sees identity as the basis of truth, and therefore it negates the existence of an objective reality or makes objective reality dependent on and determined by the subjective will of the oppressed identity—this is called philosophical idealism; secondly, identity politics focuses on the effect of imperialism rather than its cause—in other words, it obscures economic relations and focuses instead on the social relations it engenders. By making various identities all-important, it obscures what is primary: class distinction and the relationships to production. By over-emphasizing secondary aspects, identity politics become harmful to a sober analysis of material reality.
Class, which is the relationship to production, is primary because economics forms the basis of society. A society’s mode of production is the basis of producing and reproducing its conditions of existence, and therefore everything else—all of society and its ideas—emerge from this basis and are fundamentally either in support of the existing mode of production or against it. In general, people spend a considerable amount of their life working and ultimately the existence each individual leads depends on their finances, which derives from their class. The relationship to production corresponds to certain ideas: the handful of exploiters and those who benefit from their rule will tend toward ideas in support of exploitation and the corresponding mode of production, while those who mainly suffer from exploitation will tend toward ideas for the overthrow of exploitation—i.e., socialism.
Identities are historically constituted on the basis of a given mode of production and in its service. Even though certain identities may have been oppressed across a number of different modes of production, the nature of their oppression varied based on the specific needs of the ruling class of each one. Identity reflects a social relation that is mediated through the class struggle, serving as more points of contradiction. This gives rise to a more acute class struggle and therefore the basis for deeper involvement in the class struggle, which can give rise to more correct ideas. But it is not a 1:1 relationship—given the person’s relationship to production and also how stratified production is, it can also provide a basis for capitulation and bribery, utilizing identity as a weapon to provide false leadership to get the masses to tail behind their exploiters. This is as true today as it was during the era of American slavery.
Both imperialist ruling class parties use identity politics. While the Democrats jumped early on this bandwagon, the Republicans have followed them in their own fashion. It was beneficial to the ruling class to have mass movements in the 1970s shift focus away from politics representing broader class unity to perspectives built more narrowly around individual identities, and limiting combinations of them with “intersectionality” so that they could not establish a common cause for the suffering, miring them in small group concerns in place of gigantic class concerns. A lot of time and money was spent on making this intervention—the ruling class generally came together for it, the CIA translated French Theory and used the universities to spread it all in an attempt to get Marxism pushed out, or to get it corrupted and ineffective by merging it with identity politics. We can take the examples of the current presidential campaign to see how the ruling class is using identity politics today.
In a recent opinion published on The Worker, Kamala Harris, is exposed as an agent of the repressive state. With this concrete fact, her legitimacy on the basis of being a Black woman is negated. The Democrats boast of making history by indicating that they will put her on the ticket. The first Black woman president they will say, even though they had to find a Black woman who is exactly like Joe Biden in every conceivable way. For them the change in sex and race will be a more marketable package for the same old Biden politics. Identity is used to validate backward reactionary politics.
Does Kamala Harris have anything in common with the masses of Black people in the US? No, she does not. First, she is Indian and Jamaican, so she has no common basis in culture or history with Black Americans, who developed from slavery through sharecropping and suffering as an oppressed nation and ethnic minority whose ancestry was suppressed. Add to this that she is from a class of professionals and not the lower classes of workers and semi-workers who have been kept out of production most of their lives. She has been granted access to the highest halls of power, precisely because of what she lacks in common with Black Americans. The resemblance is as superficial as the identity politics. Black is not simply a race, in the strict sense it is a historically constituted subject, to be Black means having a common culture, a common history, a common territory and a shared psychology. Much of these traits were forged by the specific practice of slavery in the cotton belt on which the US was reliant as a whole and developed through centuries of struggle and oppression. It is not surprising that Harris then found her place in the modern plantation of the US, not struggling in the fields, or even in the master’s house, but at the master’s table as part of his repressive force, his system of oppression and control—this is a question of essential difference, of class difference.
Ruling class identity politics is never sincere, it cannot be. The game is to find the right identity to spew the ideas most favorable to the imperialist, and then insist we have to listen to this “voice” and follow this “lead” because the identity checks out.
The Republicans and their sympathizers among the monopoly media have claimed at times to oppose identity politics, and underneath their opposition is almost always racism or some other form of bigotry. They use a false critique of identity politics to oppose reform attempts to mitigate certain social disadvantages, and to preserve them closer to how they were. It is ironic that this critique is commonly just their own brand of identity politics. Donald Trump’s selection of running mate J.D. Vance gives such an example. It is a political statement that Trump has chosen a young white man as his Vice Presidential candidate, this appeals to the racists who are convinced that there are no prospects for white men left and everything is getting “too diverse.” But what makes Vance special? According to the Republicans it is his background, which both Vance and the party have played up.
Vance is from Appalachia, a region which has a lot of poverty and of course a glorious tradition of working class struggle. The young white middle-American “common man,” the “salt of the earth” image is the identity politics the Republicans cling to in order to hock bad politics on the masses. They also never get tired of bringing up the fact that he is married to an Indian woman. The fact that Vance is not an out-of-work coal miner, but a tech millionaire who has completely aligned himself with industrialists and financial capitalists is not enough to stop them from promoting his “of the people” image. At the core of Vance’s politics is the idea that the boss and industrialist will pull the people out of poverty, and not the people fighting for their own rights—for Vance, it is to rely on the generosity and humanity of billionaires and not the grit of the people. He is a rich man in the pocket of bankers, and he is no better if he came from poor folk stock. This identity, as well as his religious identity, are used to deceive the masses, just as Kamala Harris’s identity is used. Do not be taken in by the farce.
The correct way to combat identity politics is with Marxism. This is to study how identities develop in history. History is determined not by identity, but by the mode of production, and society emerges from and serves a given mode of production. Social classes emerge as a result and within them there are any number of identities. It is the class struggle that determines social change and the progress of history. Today it is working class politics and not identity politics that will unite the masses under the leadership of the working class to really fight back against exploitation, oppression and injustice.
