In light of the fact that some people have reported that people are being class reductionist on this site, I would like to say that class reductionism is reactionary and has nothing to do with Marxism or Anarchism.
The class vs identity debate is incredibly silly, and I hate that it keeps coming up amongst people. The fact is that there is no class vs idpol conflict. Heres why:
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Communism is incompatible with any coercive or oppressive system, for it is defined as the absence of those things.
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If we want to achieve communism and defeat oppressive systems we need working-class solidarity
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The working class includes BIPOC, Women, Disabled people and LGBT people
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Working class solidarity means having solidarity with all of these people and uniting our struggles together.
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All of the major successful revolutionary movements understood this.
What happened to the class reductionists? Did they achieve anything? Did they get any advancements for the working class they claimed to represent? They did not, because in being reactionaries they cut off important allies, limited the scope of their struggles, and would sooner side with the bourgeoisie than with other oppressed groups.
So to conclude, intersectionality and trans liberation are good and necessary, and anyone who still believes in class reductionist ideas can fuck off. You are a nothing more than a crypto Strasserite and will wreck the movement if not dealt with properly.
It is not politics' job to tackle racism or sexism. Ideas are immaterial concepts, and thus immortal. Politics is simply not equipped to fight ideas. Are racism, sexism, transphobia and the like important topics? Yes. However, despite what the always-online crowd is telling you, posting is not praxis. You don't change a damn thing by being outraged and memeing about it. You gotta actually do something. Asking people to focus their finite amount of political engagement on the fight against ideas instead of materially improving people's lives is counter-productive and a waste of everyone's time.
While the revolution will not happen without black, female and trans workers, it also won't happen without ~40% arch-conservative/outright fascist ideologues among us, either. Make no mistake, these people will not get the wall, and they won't suddenly see the light, either. They're not going anywhere. Focusing on class solidarity is the correct way if you understand that revolutions can be won with a dedicated minority, but can only be kept alive non-violently through legitimacy and a unifying cause.
A rock band needs a guitar, a bass, a singer with a mic, etc. It is not reductionist to point out that, in order to make them stop, you don't have to turn off their instruments one by one, but instead could simply turn off the amp. It doesn't deny the existence of the different instruments. Similarly, the cacophony of oppression is much easier to deal with if we turn off the great amplifier -class- first. That is not reductionist, either, it's simply prioritizing the bigger evil. While it is critical to understand the intersectional oppression of, say, a black woman, it is just as critical to understand that something like racism is only minimally amplifying the sexism. A racist is not going to be any more racist towards a black woman than to a black man. That is not the same for the class struggle, which amplifies all the other forms of oppression manifold. By calling it reductionist, you already deny anyone the ability to point towards class as the great magnifier of all these minorities' struggles without fear of being labeled. This is a great disservice to the cause.
I suggest to be more careful and nuanced with your language, comrade.
Ideas are based on the material conditions in which they are originally thought of, created, etc. So many of the biases we have are through capitalist exploitation in order to keep the working class fighting amongst themselves, rather than the minority ruling class.
Sure, ideas are immortal in the sense that as long as someone carries the message, it will never die. We don’t have the ideas of those who lives hundreds or centuries ago.
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What does this even mean? Racism and Sexism are political topics, they cant be anything else
Ideas are dependent on material in that they depend on people being able to think of them, store them and understand them, if you remove those things then the idea is lost forever. Think about how knowledge is lost when books are burned.
If it wasn't for online posting I would not have the political literacy to be able to have this conversation with you, that is how important this stuff can be.
Right-wingers cannot be a part of the revolution unless you want a civil war after it is over. The differences are just too great.
Are you a black woman? If not can any black women or black people in this thread vouch for what this person is saying because I don't buy it.
My problem is with the class struggle - identity struggle dichotomy in the first place they are so interlinked with each other that it's really really ridiculous to make arguments for one over the other. Given this class reductionism is really just woke bigotry if you will.
Really? I'm here because a few years ago chapos were dunking on libs and getting righteously outraged. On. Line.
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