Four ways Martin Luther King Jr. wanted to battle inequality

[BainsBane]

176. That is not Marx's definition of capitalism

Last edited Fri Jul 10, 2015, 07:09 PM - Edit history (2)

Capitalism is based on the exploitation of labor, a stage of history in which workers became alienated from the means of production. So, for example, instead of a cobbler making a pair of shoes from start to finish, he works in factory where he made only part of the shoe, repeating the same task over and over again. He doesn't own or sell the shoe. The industrialist owns what the worker produces; he controls the means of production. Finance capital and the increasing globalization of production has altered the dynamic, but industrialists are also capitalists, not just financiers.

What I am saying is that capitalism is built around inequality, and has been since its inception. It is dependent on the exploitation of labor. Our nation was borne from liberalism, the political corollary of capitalism. Notions of individual rights as opposed to the collective good provide a political and cultural context in which capital thrives. Yet those rights, liberty for some, depended on exploitation of many. The very notion of freedom for white propertied men was juxtaposed in contrast to black slavery, and slavery in fact made freedom possible for whites. (This relates to the history of white indentured servitude and how it came to be replaced by African slave labor, well established in the academic literature).

My point is this. We see here people here talk about a recent decline in the middle class. That is indeed true if one is talking primarily about the white male middle class and upper-middle class. Those people, however, imagine their experience to be universal, when it is not. They talk about the "real" Democrats like FDR who cared about "the people." Yet those were years in which the Democratic party presided over Jim Crow. Basic civil rights and the ability to prosper economically were denied to the majority of Americans: people of color, women, LGBT.

I see people outraged that they have begun to feel like what it is like to live in America, to be subject to the inequality that is at the core of our nation. I don't see a critique of capitalism itself or even an understanding of how deeply inequality runs through our society. In fact, some perpetuate that inequality even through their political protest by arguing that racism is a "distraction" from what really matters. What they are saying, though they may not be aware of it, is what really matters is them. As they insist racism and patriarchy are of lesser consequence or even mere "distractions," they deny central axes of inequality that shape people's lives and insist the only issues that matter are those than pertain to their own lives. That kind of statement is only possible through entitlement. No black person would imagine that the racism he experiences on a daily basis was universal to all Americans, regardless of skin color. No LGBT person would imagine that the bigotry they face applies equally to straight people. The statement that the only issues that matter are certain economic conditions (foreign policy is usually included too) is possible because they wrongly believe their experience is universal. Yet when they are told repeatedly it is not and but still persist in the claims, it, to my mind, becomes willfully exclusionary.

My critique really isn't about who you support for president. I really don't have an issue with people supporting a different candidate. That is their choice. What bothers me is they insist the way they frame politics is the only possible one. For upper-middle class people to lecture me about being aligned with Goldman Sachs because I don't share their contempt for Clinton is really the limit. They have no idea what it's like to live as a poor person in America, and their protest is about their class standing, even as their income is substantially higher than the national average and more than I myself can ever imagine earning. (I'm not saying this is all Sanders supporters, but rather applies to a couple who are particularly insulting of those less economically fortunate than themselves). People should vote however they choose. Support Sanders, O'Malley, Webb, whoever they want. But don't come and tell me theirs is the only way of seeing the world and that I'm aligned with corporate America because I don't share their assessment of particular members of the political elite.