Yes, everyone’s individual experience might have some differences, not everyone might be experiencing the same things. However, these differences more often that not are results of superstructures (law, institutions, etc), the form of which entirely depends on the base (mode of production).
As preface to A contribution to the Critique of Political Economy says:
In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.
Trans people get discriminated against by law and institutions, ruling class spreads propaganda against them because they attack the holy nuclear family, which serves the base in providing new workers for capital to exploit and grow with. Minorities get discriminated against due to them being a convenient target to increase capitalist rate of profit (with profit being what current production is based on) and to divide the proletariat via the spread of ruling class ideas that help preserve them. Sex workers, both ‘successful’ and desperate are where they are both due to capitalism’s tendency to commodify everything, even intimate human experience and due to necessity to keep an impoverished reserve army of labor to allow the decrease of wages.
It all has the same exact root, and no matter how many idpolers cry about it, there can’t be any long-term emancipation unless material conditions undergo a shift in a way where these concessions would actually positively serve the base. Slavery was abolished given how it was a pre-capitalist institution that was no longer efficient to keep, result being (not quite) equality under capital. Women were put to work in the factories rather than being traditional stay-at-home wives in the form of legal guardianship due to the growth of capital and need for more workers or labor shortages (especially during wartime). Various forms of welfare were introduced as a response to growing worker discontent as a way for bourgeois to preserve their class rule and pacify them, but more importantly it was done during the times when bourgeois states were prospering thanks to the superprofits WW2 provided and they could more than easily afford them, stimulating profit rates for private owners in the process. All of these things were changes to the superstructure that historically made sense to implement, but none emancipated from capitalism, only at best providing equality under it or an equality in exploitation.
And it is precisely why the idea of “unique struggle for every identity” is nonsense and turns into, at best, demands for equality in exploitation and at worst, a tool of division like with feminism, link to a short-ish article about it. There is no alternative or substitution to class struggle.
And even without all that, and maybe I’m severely misinformed about this, but there doesn’t even seem to be a sex worker struggle taking place, with it either being some highly localized union activity demanding for more legalities (hardly a movement where international support on underused social media platform matters) or straight up an imaginary product of sex pest leftists aiming to legitimize their porn addictions by claiming that “sex work is necessary!!” or some demented shit like that.
Like, if we really want to abolish sex work, we could put a huge dent in it by, for example, universalizing free high quality childcare and education, healthcare, housing, jobs guarantee, welfare programs, and in the process, develop a drastically different social reality for all workers.
Which is why this is just pure reformist idealism. Look at the real world, most bourgeois countries are arming for a third imperialist war but can hardly reach the sums mandated by NATO or are straight up getting close to defaulting on debts (like US). Welfare back in the day was possible because of WW2 super profits that came up thanks to the untold amount of destruction and death destroying capital and creating more investment opportunities for financial capital, raising the rate of profit. Today, even the most starry eyed social democrat that gets voted in can’t defy laws of physics and generate enough money for the budget to afford anything above small scale social programs that likely has millions of asterisks attached, especially as time goes on and crisis deepens, making austerity necessary.
You also do touch up on “we must do this” “we must support this” as if proletarian movement comes from random lemmy users or voluntarists/individuals/great men rather than proletariat themselves. Don’t fall into such delusions of grandeur, proletariat as a class has to emancipate themselves and not some ahistorical outside organization, with class organs such as the party developing out of this struggle. Until then, there is nothing an individual can do, change can only be accomplished through unified mass action.
If there is some “unique workers struggle” but no proletarian movement, all it can hope to do is beg the ruling class for… something. If there is a proletarian movement, then complete emancipation is possible, rendering the former isolated struggle pointless and to be clear, there’s nothing stopping them from joining it and doing their part on the barricades or even becoming part of class organs, talking about specific demands of theirs if it hasn’t been addressed yet. It’s one struggle.
Honestly I wrote all this just because I would feel bad to ignore a wall of text someone put effort into writing, but even though we don’t see eye to eye at least you can see where I’m coming from.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I would like to clarify a few things on my end, but we’ve both made our cases so I’ll try to be brief.
I am not pro-identity politics, I am critical of idpol. This is demonstrated by citing Marx as the basis for my argument. Idpol is anti-Marxist. I haven’t completed my criticism of identity politics, but I am not an adherent.
What you are calling idol, is critical pedagogy.
I never said unique worker struggles, I said unique worker experiences. You are putting that on me, i have been consistent for one worker struggle. Its one struggle with many qualities. Those qualities are determined by material relations, but the movement itself is made up of the individuals in those relations. In order to reach those individuals you have to understand their conditions, and in order to understand their conditions you have to have deep connections within their communities, within the lives of those individuals. There is one struggle.
Wrt my “demands” for sex workers, yes I believe in revolutionary reforms, so did Marx. I am not a reformist but I think this is the actual political difference between us, my political education was very demand-centered. It is in many ways a weakness that I have to make accommodations for. Part of my organizing experience is in developing political programs. This is an area of activity for me. I don’t think this makes me a reformist idealist because the way I develop and apply that program is active and practical. But I am aware of the strengths and weaknesses of this approach since I have direct experience with them in an organizing context with a revolutionary character.
“We must do this/we must support this” okay this is a legit call out, its another peculiarity of the tradition I come from and frankly it drives me crazy, meanwhile yes I also do this. However it isn’t coming from a random Lemmy user, its coming from a 50 year old socialist tradition. I agree with you though, I don’t like it even though I do it. If this was an article I was editing I would have reframed my point to exclude this wording.
So this is what passes for a short response from me lol. Thanks for the discussion!
Yes, everyone’s individual experience might have some differences, not everyone might be experiencing the same things. However, these differences more often that not are results of superstructures (law, institutions, etc), the form of which entirely depends on the base (mode of production).
As preface to A contribution to the Critique of Political Economy says:
Trans people get discriminated against by law and institutions, ruling class spreads propaganda against them because they attack the holy nuclear family, which serves the base in providing new workers for capital to exploit and grow with. Minorities get discriminated against due to them being a convenient target to increase capitalist rate of profit (with profit being what current production is based on) and to divide the proletariat via the spread of ruling class ideas that help preserve them. Sex workers, both ‘successful’ and desperate are where they are both due to capitalism’s tendency to commodify everything, even intimate human experience and due to necessity to keep an impoverished reserve army of labor to allow the decrease of wages.
It all has the same exact root, and no matter how many idpolers cry about it, there can’t be any long-term emancipation unless material conditions undergo a shift in a way where these concessions would actually positively serve the base. Slavery was abolished given how it was a pre-capitalist institution that was no longer efficient to keep, result being (not quite) equality under capital. Women were put to work in the factories rather than being traditional stay-at-home wives in the form of legal guardianship due to the growth of capital and need for more workers or labor shortages (especially during wartime). Various forms of welfare were introduced as a response to growing worker discontent as a way for bourgeois to preserve their class rule and pacify them, but more importantly it was done during the times when bourgeois states were prospering thanks to the superprofits WW2 provided and they could more than easily afford them, stimulating profit rates for private owners in the process. All of these things were changes to the superstructure that historically made sense to implement, but none emancipated from capitalism, only at best providing equality under it or an equality in exploitation.
And it is precisely why the idea of “unique struggle for every identity” is nonsense and turns into, at best, demands for equality in exploitation and at worst, a tool of division like with feminism, link to a short-ish article about it. There is no alternative or substitution to class struggle.
And even without all that, and maybe I’m severely misinformed about this, but there doesn’t even seem to be a sex worker struggle taking place, with it either being some highly localized union activity demanding for more legalities (hardly a movement where international support on underused social media platform matters) or straight up an imaginary product of sex pest leftists aiming to legitimize their porn addictions by claiming that “sex work is necessary!!” or some demented shit like that.
Which is why this is just pure reformist idealism. Look at the real world, most bourgeois countries are arming for a third imperialist war but can hardly reach the sums mandated by NATO or are straight up getting close to defaulting on debts (like US). Welfare back in the day was possible because of WW2 super profits that came up thanks to the untold amount of destruction and death destroying capital and creating more investment opportunities for financial capital, raising the rate of profit. Today, even the most starry eyed social democrat that gets voted in can’t defy laws of physics and generate enough money for the budget to afford anything above small scale social programs that likely has millions of asterisks attached, especially as time goes on and crisis deepens, making austerity necessary.
You also do touch up on “we must do this” “we must support this” as if proletarian movement comes from random lemmy users or voluntarists/individuals/great men rather than proletariat themselves. Don’t fall into such delusions of grandeur, proletariat as a class has to emancipate themselves and not some ahistorical outside organization, with class organs such as the party developing out of this struggle. Until then, there is nothing an individual can do, change can only be accomplished through unified mass action.
If there is some “unique workers struggle” but no proletarian movement, all it can hope to do is beg the ruling class for… something. If there is a proletarian movement, then complete emancipation is possible, rendering the former isolated struggle pointless and to be clear, there’s nothing stopping them from joining it and doing their part on the barricades or even becoming part of class organs, talking about specific demands of theirs if it hasn’t been addressed yet. It’s one struggle.
Honestly I wrote all this just because I would feel bad to ignore a wall of text someone put effort into writing, but even though we don’t see eye to eye at least you can see where I’m coming from.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I would like to clarify a few things on my end, but we’ve both made our cases so I’ll try to be brief.
So this is what passes for a short response from me lol. Thanks for the discussion!