i'm still surprised that people think that identity politics is somehow counterposed to class politics (in the sense of labourism, syndicalism, etc). and yes, identity politics, given certain cirsumstances, does lend itself quite easily to, or is already, at best, pluralism, and at worst, corporatism.
i would add too, that marx 'priveliges' the working class in the overthrow of capitalism (importantly, not a priveliging in the sense of morality or essential purpose, but) because capital relies on the working class, and that capital (crudely) cannot be if workers refuse to work (the withdrawal of their labour as workers). identity connected to non-identity in the overthrow of capital as marx conceives it, and it is perhaps a politics of non-identity that would best describe communism.
Angela _________
Jim heartfield wrote:
>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.<
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