I think that you can say that Labourism or trade unionism is another species of identity politics (perhaps the first).
But there is one aspect of Marxism that refuses to be assimilated into identity politics. That is the proposition that the historic mission of the working class is its own abolition.
That, surely, is what sets Marxism aside from all other identity politics. All other identity politics will tend to seek recognition for and incorporation of the excluded identity. Marxism proposes the abolition of that identity.
Bear in mind of course that Marx tried this argument out with regard to Jewishness, when he argued that the emancipation of the Jews would be completed with their emancipation from their own Jewishness. Not a proposition that sits to happily with identity politics.
In message <001d01bf00e8$9d5d18c0$66ac10cb at rcollins>, rc-am
<rcollins at netlink.com.au> writes
>why is everyone assuming that identity politics relates to feminist,
>civil rights, gay and lesbian rights, etc movements and politics? does
>anyone seriously beleive that there is not also an identity politics
>within certain strains of marxism, socialism...? what about council
>communism or syndicalism or the lassallean socialists with their 'labour
>is the source of all value' position or whatever else posits
>emancipation in already-given identities, liberation as the revelation
>of the hidden truth of such-and-such identity?
>
>it seems to me that when people think of identity politics, they think
>immediately of things like particularity and universality (in which all
>sorts of things get supposed about, say, women).
>
>adorno's critique of what he calls 'identitarian thinking' is perhaps
>the best place to begin for understanding the practices and suppositions
>of an identity politics (with whatever identity you like to pin to
>that), and it certainly has nothing to do with women, blacks, lesbians,
>... unless you want to continue assuming another identity politics as
>the unexplored, and universal identity (humanity, Man, proletariat as
>the universal class, etc) upon which all other identities are rendered
>insufficient, inadequate, etc.
>
>Angela
>_________
>
>
>
-- Jim heartfield