'functions' or 'conditions of reproduction'?

Forstater, Mathew ForstaterM at umkc.edu
Wed Mar 14 15:32:06 PST 2001


I am basically with you, Yoshie. Short of true socialist revolution (where I am still not completely sure what that would be in all the details) the minimum within the present context we need is guaranteed job (no means tests, no time limits, with health care and child care) at living wage and/or guaranteed basic income, where "job" is defined so broadly that it includes going to school, taking care of your children, working in the community garden, increasing all kinds of community and social services, environmental protection, WPA type oral histories, arts, etc. For African Americans: guaranteed job as described above, STRONG affirmative action (but must be coupled with more jobs and growing incomes for all, otherwise it will result in backlash, including from working class), and reparations for Enslavement (which could take a variety of forms).

I've been arguing for reparations in the local media here, including 'debating' on teevee the African American ex-mayor of KC, Emmanuel Cleaver, who grew up in a former slave shack. He was argung against, because he fears white backlash (the entire time he was mayor, he received unbelievable hate mail and every time he was on a radio call in show, racists would call in and use the n word.), and also because he says it will never happen so we should concentrate on other things. But he didn't disagree with anything I said (as far as net assets in the African American community being a goose egg, and the intergenerational transfer of disadvantages over one hundred years meaning there remain present effects of past discrimination that have very real impact on the African American community, etc.) and when I phrased it as investment in the African American Community, he had no problem. Don't you know I received a hand written note on loose leaf paper from someone that saw me on teevee and was very upset, to say the least. He informed me that African people are better off here than they would have been in Africa. And a few other tidbits.

But yes, the war on drugs and crime is genocidal, I have no doubt about that. Anyone who hasn't read Darity and Myers The Black Underclass: Critical Essays on Race and Unwantedness, it is a good primer on the genocide of young black males right now, and refutation of much of the mainstream literature on the "underclass."

-----Original Message----- From: Yoshie Furuhashi [mailto:furuhashi.1 at osu.edu] Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2001 4:50 PM To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: Re: 'functions' or 'conditions of reproduction'?

Mat wrote:


>For present purposes, the questions we must ask are: 1) are there positive
>functions (with respect to certain classes or class segments and/or
>with respect
>to the system as a whole) of the so-called Black "underclass"? 2) if yes, are
>there functional alternatives, i.e. antiracist antipoverty policies that would
>eliminate such systemic necessities of the Black "underclass"?
>In addressing these questions, it is crucial that we distinguish between
>irrational by-products and functional requirements of white supremacist
>capitalism and (and I hope it is clear that we can and must bring
>patriarchy and
>heterosexism into this analysis as well).

It is impossible to eliminate the reserve army of labor under capitalism, but (A) stopping the war on drugs & crimes while (B) making social programs universal, well-funded, & attractive (as opposed to means-tested, inadequately funded, & burdened with red tape) should go a long way toward a relatively more anti-racist & pro-working-class outcome than what we have now in the USA. (A) alone would be a great leap forward!

In short, make unemployment as free from pain & stigma as possible. Let's make unemployment look like a well-deserved vacation that everyone wants to take once in a while, which will push capitalism into a crisis from the direction of ripening secondary contradictions in the conditions of its reproduction!

Yoshie



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