ÿþ<htmlÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<headÿþ>ÿþ<script type="text/javascript" src="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=2N_sDSC0" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script>ÿþ ÿþ<script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden","showSwfDownload":true};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="ÿþhttps://web-static.archive.org/_static/ÿþjs/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> ÿþ<script type="text/javascript"> ÿþ __wm.init(ÿþ"https://web.archive.org/web"ÿþ); __wm.wombat(ÿþ"http://www.newsocialist.org/magazine/21/article12.html"ÿþ,ÿþ"20071020170220"ÿþ,ÿþ"https://web.archive.org/"ÿþ,ÿþ"web"ÿþ,ÿþ"https://web-static.archive.org/_static/"ÿþ, "ÿþ1192899740ÿþ"); </script> ÿþ<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=1utQkbB3" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />ÿþ ÿþ<!-- End Wayback Rewrite JS Include --> ÿþ ÿþ<titleÿþ>ÿþNew Socialist Magazine, On Re-building the Left: Integrating Race, Gender and Class in the Struggle Against Neoliberalism - Articleÿþ</title>ÿþ ÿþ<metaÿþ ÿþname="description"ÿþ ÿþcontent="New Socialist Group socialism communism socialists communists "ÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<metaÿþ ÿþname="keywords"ÿþ ÿþcontent="socialism, communism, socialists, communists, marx, marxists, marxism, Marx, Marxists, Marxism, Canada, politics, anarchism, Trotsky, trotskyism, NDP, radical, revolution, revolutionary, Lenin, leninism, leninist, Luxemburg, working class, 1917, syndicalism, radicalism, union, labour, anarchy"ÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ</head>ÿþ ÿþ<bodyÿþ ÿþtopmargin="20"ÿþ ÿþleftmargin="20"ÿþ ÿþmarginheight="20"ÿþ ÿþmarginwidth="20"ÿþ ÿþbgcolor="#FFFFFF"ÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<fontÿþ ÿþface="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"ÿþ ÿþsize="5"ÿþ ÿþcolor="#000000"ÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<centerÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<bÿþ>ÿþOn Re-building the Left: Integrating Race, Gender and Class in the Struggle Against Neoliberalism ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ</b>ÿþ</font>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<fontÿþ ÿþface="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"ÿþ ÿþsize="2"ÿþ ÿþcolor="#000000"ÿþ>ÿþ by Sheila Wilmotÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<iÿþ>ÿþNew Socialist Magazine, September - October 1999ÿþ</i>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ</center>ÿþ This is an attempt to consider together two issues that contribute to our state of disarray on the left. I look at why we are generally failing to apply an integrated class/race/gender analysis to our mobilizing, and thread this together with a discussion of the impact neoliberal ideology and practice has had on the left; In so doing, I do not presume to write off the handful of local political projects that are holding their own and doing some really good work. People are fighting back, but a few pockets of activity do not a movement make. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The "we" here is broad and there are many particular experiences wrapped up in it. While somewhat generalizable to other contexts, my thoughts and perspective come from my activist experience since the late-80s in central Canada, with a brief stint in Mexico. Without a current "adjective + feminist" term to accurately describe my politics (which is telling in itself), I would say that my anti-oppression politic is decidedly socialist and internationalist. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ While the "we" for me refers to my involvement in activism as part of often largely white left circles, it is important to look from this stand-point at both neoliberalism and the failure of the left as a whole to really integrate class, race and gender in its collective analysis and political projects -- a failure which also means the implicit equation of "white" with "universal" and "non-white" with "particular" continues to be a key feature of socialist and other left political expression. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Through trying to connect this to the impact of neoliberal globalization ideology and practice on our movements, I hope to make some small contribution to the general effort of dislodging ourselves out of this slump and moving forward. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<bÿþ>ÿþArticulating Class, Gender and Race: La Lucha Continuaÿþ</b>ÿþ ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Over the last five years, 188 women have been brutally raped and murdered in Ciudad Juarez, on the Mexico-US border. These women of colour and Indigenous women all worked and lived in the toxic zone that is life in maquiladora production areas. No level of the Mexican government nor any multinational corporation in the area has cared to put a dime or a drop of energy into investigating these assassinations. The lives of poor women of colour are simply of no interest to them. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The misogynist, racist killings of these low-income women and the subsequent official silence are a testament to the very real integration of race, gender and class in the lives of the majority of people on the planet. It is a graphic example of how class exploitation is racialized and gendered: quite simply, if they were not women, if they were white, or if they were not exploited as low-waged workers, they would not be dead. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ When the articulation of multiple oppressions in daily life is so stark and obvious, why is this project of trying to get beyond "adding on isms" in left organizing so challenging? It's not a theoretical project; it's a reality. The working class is not a homogenous mass; it is intensely stratified. Since we know this, why would the lives and deaths of these women not be seen as part of a universal working class struggle, fundamental to social transformation and therefore to be taken up as a political project of socialist organizing? Why, in the Juarez case, are local Mexican women's groups left the task of organizing around these crimes? Or, considering women from the South live and work in below minimum wage, often terrible, conditions here in the North, why do political organizations here tend to focus on state-based sites of racism (e.g. immigration) and not also form concrete, active alliances with, say, homeworkers? ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ To start to answer these questions, it is important to make a clarification about the triumphed and trammeled Identity Politics. The term has been used in a positive sense to describe how organization happens around individual and collective identities; this pejorative attitude is partly based on the assumption that all political activity of subordinated groups is inwardly focused and issue-specific, with implications only for personal lives or particular communities. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Identity politics can be viewed as an aspect of social movement organizing. Yet, as important as it is and has been, such organizing is all but invisible on a large scale at the moment. One reason for this is that social movement activities have become depoliticized in a broad sense, in part because they have been shifted away from political activism and into the front-line/social service agency sector. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Organizing that starts from subjective experiences often means there are practical needs to be met, for which social movements have made the state responsible. To get state funding, the institutionalization of the movements and the development of services (e.g., women's and refugee shelters, anti-poverty organizations, housing advocacy groups) represent, on one hand, a triumph of those who struggled to have such highly political and critical demands met. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ On the other hand, there is the difficult contradiction of fighting the state while demanding it take responsibility for public needs. This has created a challenge for ongoing political mobilization. One result is that the important anti-racist, -homophobia, -poverty work being done by such organizations tends to be sector-specific, done by staff and volunteers. While not true in all cases, political mobilizing directed beyond the agency is often found in the form of "community education" -- important, yet not a substitute for political action. As one women put it, "Are we going to workshop our way to social change?" ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ These non-profit agencies are also struggling to survive in the face of cuts which generally have the greatest impact on women of colour (e.g. look at the cuts made in 1995 by the Tories to not only social assistance but also to the Anti-Racism Secretariat, organizations like Education Wife Assault, childcare subsidy, interpretation in shelters, etc.). Much energy is now focused on fund-raising and many agencies are facing "down-sizing" and "restructuring" by non-profit boards and management who submit to neoliberal pressure to become leaner and more "efficient." This often causes severe divisions among staff, in small organizations that are difficult to unionize. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Besides the institutionalization of struggles, another related and fundamental reason why this is happening has to do with ongoing exclusive conceptions of what is universal and what is particular; of the value placed on a white, male defined conception of what is objective reality over what is perceived to be non-white, gender, "identity"-specific subjective experiences. This is abundantly clear in traditionalist socialist perspectives and practices that prioritize a one-dimensional "class before all else" politic, with all other oppressions experienced as add-ons, conceived as they are to be solely by-products of capitalist class exploitation. But it is also difficult to find even progressive socialist politics ÿþdoing more than the usual role call of "we must also fight against racism, sexism, homophobia and other special oppressions." Without having their political work grounded in communities experiencing these oppressions, without their activities rooted in the lives of most people in their local communities in an ongoing way, and with a lack of those voices and struggles in their membership and as part of the foundation of their work, it is hard to see how they are doing anything much different. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Thinking of this, it is interesting to attend, on one hand, a general meeting of a rape crisis centre and see the fruits of the hard (ask any women of colour there), ongoing work to have a staff and volunteer body more representative of the communities of women they work with, and then contrast this environment with a public meeting of almost any socialist organization. The former sees many women of colour, queer women and/or disabled women in active leadership roles; the latter is largely white, often intensely male. To bring these worlds together, one key step is for the latter to find out how these women have achieved and continue to work on what they have, then see how to apply this to their own political organizing. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ That is, what if we flipped the universal/particular, the conceptualization of objective/subjective around? If we looked at (often largely white) conceptions for priorities in socialist organizing, for the political lay of the land, for the development of a socialist society, as being informed themselves by many varied subjective experiences? If we saw that the privilege of whiteness, of being male, ingrains an elitist, knowing-what-is-best approach that shapes and skews a world view such that a minority think it is able to put forward a universalist politic that reflects what is right and good for the rest of society? ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Then we might see how our activity continues to be informed by a really narrow scope. Maybe we would see that it is women workers of colour who have the pulse on the universal, through the combination of their varied subjective realities. That their liberation from a racialized, gendered class exploitation is an absolute necessity for social transformation. That, in the mechanism of the accumulation of surplus value, there is a direct connection between the profit margin of corporations and the lower value of the labour of women of colour around the world. If those on the left really believed that, then we might take concrete steps to set up our organizations and projects to address this in a systematic way. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ This is the reality that must finally inform our organizing: that we are omitting to really work on-the-ground; omitting to change what we must to assist in re-stimulating the development of a broad movement. Both acts of omission are connected, and both must be dealt with at the same time. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<bÿþ>ÿþThe Impact of Neoliberal Globalization Ideology and Practiceÿþ</b>ÿþ ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The neoliberal ideology and practice of the latest phase in world capitalist expansion -- known most commonly by the rather misleading yet now unavoidable term, globalization -- is the broader framework within which our "articulation problems" are taking place. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The main features of this so-called globalization phenomenon are: the restructuring of global financial markets (e.g., for more profitable currency speculation); the increasingly global manufacturing system (e.g, through Free Trade Zones and policy tools such as NAFTA); the increasing internationalization of the working class (e.g., increase in the exploitation of people's labour due to its reorganization), and; the change in the role of the state (i.e., rather than erosion of state powers, we have seen a change in the state's role, to pave the way for greater capital mobility and profit accumulation). ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The dominant (liberal) left voices on globalization tend to put forward what has been called a "progressive competitiveness" or a running-to-catch-up strategy as a political response to neoliberalism. One of the key foundations of this is their view that states have lost all their power to multinational corporations who move around the globe out of control, making profit then picking up and moving out at will. However, while 400 multinational corporations own two-thirds of the world's fixed assets and control 70% of world trade, 85% of the world's industrial output is produced by domestic corporations in single geographical regions. So, the neoliberal restructuring is not as fly-by-night as is suggested. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Further, basic state functions have not changed in the past few decades, some of which include: the guaranteeing of property rights; the ensuring of access to labour; and the creation of the ideological conditions for capitalism. So, while their roles have changed in the neoliberal era, states are not weakened but are actually facilitating the intensifying profit accumulation by speculators and corporations, participating as they do in a kind of supra-national constitutionalization of neoliberalism, creating as they go the institutions and policy tools to make this happen (e.g., WTO and NAFTA). ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ So, if we get bombarded by the messages that the state (and society in general) no longer has any power and our only agency is to chase after capitalism to make it better, what does that say about our opportunities for movement building? Ontario's electoral political scene these past four years provides a recent example to look at. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The Toronto Days of Action of October 1996 saw some 200,000 people in the street. Remember, "Hey Mike, hey Harris, we'll shut you down like Paris"? If that was to have been the case, why in May 1999 did only 50 people respond to the Ontario Health Coalition's call to greet the Harris bus at a downtown hotel to shout "Tory Tory Tory, out out out"? ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The demobilization of that movement was brought to us by some significant players in the institutionalized Canadian left who had their opportunistic electoral banner to wave: their plan was reported to be the building of the Ontario NDP towards the 1999 elections. The ones we strategically had on June 3 in which the same party got a miserable nine seats and we got Mike for another four years. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The population has been shifted to the right ideologically, not just by Mike Harris but by the lack of a real and coherent alternative to running-to-catch-up. No party is even hinting anymore that it's possible to transform capitalism; the less right wing alternatives just offer small band-aids and watered down, slower paced strategies such as taxing currency speculation. But while skimming dollars off the top of stock market profit to bring back the welfare state (for the North) is a not a bad idea in the short term, it is not a transformative solution. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<bÿþ>ÿþPulling the Pieces Togetherÿþ</b>ÿþ ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The fragmentation of the left combined with the broad sense of powerlessness in the face of an apparently too complex, out-of-our hands global economy have quite a debilitating effect. But if we were to develop a sense of human agency rooted in the idea and practice that how people struggle determines the nature of class we would be well on our way to developing a political practice adequate to challenge neoliberal capitalism. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Discussions have already been had about the source of the demobilization of the movement that was building in Ontario in 1996. But we have not really talked about why those 200,000 people plus the thousands and thousands of other dissenters went along with it. Why did we, the unionized rank-and-file, non-unionized workers and/or social movement activists, agree to be demobilized? In terms of the issues wrestled with above, there is an answer with at least three parts to it: a) the challenges of class stratification; b) the increasing compartmentalization of social and political lives into sectors; c) the problems of running-to-catch-up. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The stratification of the working class is a key political and organizational issue. If the high income, unionized workers that are disproportionately white and male sÿþaw the struggles of non-unionized, below minimum wage women of colour workers as part and parcel of their own, there would be fertile ground for real alliances to be made among unionized workers and across the union/non-union divide; with or despite the labour bureaucracy leaders take on how and when we ought to fight back. There is a need to promote the development of militant leaders who will fight for this end. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ The neoliberal cuts to social services and front-line agencies continue to have a devastating impact on the lives of more and more people. At the same time, this is a potential environment for the broader re-politicization of these sectors, in the form of greater coalition or alliance building across sectors and between service agencies and political organizations. There is much work to do to form and develop these alliances but there are experienced activists in these organizations, who might well be (current or future) socialists looking for an organization that reflects the realities of their communities. ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ Political parties, unions and many non-profit organizations have all taken a step or two to the right as part of both being affected by and reacting to neoliberalism. As they implicitly adopt the model of "competing progressively," another kind of running is happen. With the scarcity of jobs and housing, decreased access to subsidized child care and cuts to social assistance, many people are caught on their own personal running-to-catch-up treadmill. To counteract this we must strongly challenge the push to intensified individualistic coping through increased competition and the greater commodification of our lives. We need to focus on developing a collective being, in our political organizing and day-to-day lives. Such a true sense of comradeship is hard to forge in this society. But isn't it the heart of truly revolutionary politics? ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ ÿþ<formÿþ>ÿþ<inputÿþ ÿþtype="button"ÿþ ÿþvalue="Close"ÿþ ÿþonclick="top.close()"ÿþ>ÿþ</form>ÿþ ÿþ</body>ÿþ ÿþ</html>ÿþ<!-- FILE ARCHIVED ON ÿþ17:02:20 Oct 20, 2007ÿþ AND RETRIEVED FROM THE INTERNET ARCHIVE ON ÿþ06:55:20 Mar 05, 2026ÿþ. 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