What the Current Moment Tells Us about Revolutionary Politics

https://www.leftvoice.org/what-the-current-moment-tells-us-about-the-importance-of-revolutionary-politics

Written by

Thomas Hummel

The past three months of social unrest have highlighted the need for broad social change. But we cannot achieve a better society through a reformist approach. A revolutionary alternative is needed. 

For years, we have been hearing that anything but the most modest social democratic politics are impractical given the material realities of the present moment. According to this argument, the degree to which capitalism has a stranglehold upon our ways of thinking, the low level of struggle, and the power of the state, all make revolution look like a romantic and impractical goal. 

But in the past three months, we have seen a nationwide rebellion against the police and racism. By some estimates, it has been the largest protest movement in U.S. history. We have seen ordinary people spontaneously embrace militant tactics with street fighting across the country. Police stations have been raided and, in some cases, burned to the ground. The early days may have been the most militant, with 10,000 being arrested in the first ten days, but that militancy has sparked up again periodically, most recently in Kenosha. What does this development say about the view that we should focus on building socialism through social democratic strategy and elections within the Democratic Party?

The (Incomplete) List of U.S. Companies and Universities That Benefited from Black Slavery

 Posted by Collectivist

https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/06/11/the-incomplete-list-of-us-companies-and-universities-that-benefited-from-black-slavery/

Written by agabond

"Americans tend to think that only the South or only slavetraders and slave owners benefited from slavery."

But it was not that simple. Slaves and land were the main forms of wealth in the US before 1860. Therefore slaves figured in insurance policies and bank loans. Therefore universities turned to slave owners and slave traders to raise money. Industry in the North and in Britain made money processing slave-grown tobacco, cotton and sugar from the South and the Caribbean. Railway companies used slave labour. The most profitable activity on Wall Street was – the slave trade.

Can A Socialist Revolution Be Peaceful?

https://socialistparty.ie/2010/11/can-a-socialist-revolution-be-peaceful/

Author Not Transferred, Nov 1, 2010 

The question of violence and whether we can change the world through peaceful means is a question asked often of socialists. People are generally put off by the idea of conflict, and can find talk of revolution unsettling. It conjures images of armed struggle, civil war and chaos, things that any sane person would find distressing.

So how should socialists relate to the question of violence? Understanding the role of violence in social change requires an explanation of the forces that exist in capitalist society.

Race Is More Than About Discrimination

Posted by Collectivist:

https://monthlyreview.org/2020/07/01/race-is-about-more-than-discrimination/

By Bill Fletcher Jr.

Though almost a cliché, it is worth reminding ourselves that “race” is a sociopolitical construct and not a scientific concept. This, however, does not make it any less real—it is the name for a system of oppression and social control, the origins of which date back at least to the Reconquista in Spain, the invasion of the Western Hemisphere, the slave trade in Africa, and the English subjugation of Ireland in the 1500s.

The construction of “race” and “racism” was the construction of a system of total subjugation that was integral to the development of capitalism. It was never a system of prejudice alone. Various forms of prejudice appear to have been with homo sapiens throughout recorded history. But the creation of “race” as ideology and oppression (and later pseudoscience) was necessary as a means of constructing capitalist nation-states and introducing what would later be identified as class collaboration in order to ensure the relative permanence of the system.1

The invasion and subjugation of Ireland introduced a new element in the construction of race that had not taken form with the completion of the Reconquista in Spain. The English subjugation of Ireland turned out to be far more than the capture and absorption of a territory or kingdom, a practice with which humans were familiar since the commencement of class society. It was also different, in important respects, from the European invasion of the Western Hemisphere (which, until 1607, was largely about conquest, enslavement, and annihilation on the part of the Spanish and Portuguese). It was the development of the settler colony and, ultimately, the settler state.

The English totally subjugated the Irish, rendering unlawful their political system, language, and land control. They also began a process of moving in settlers from England, Wales, and Scotland who were given the best land, control of their own weapons, and an overall privileged status vis-à-vis the indigenous Irish.2 Central in the construction of this settler colony was the notion of “race” that the English used not in descriptive terms but as a way of designating allegedly superior populations (English) versus allegedly inferior populations (Irish). The settler state, then, was racially constructed from its inception, but was linked to the idea of displacement/expulsion of the indigenous population. This is what made settler colonialism different from other variants of colonialism where the Europeans (or later the United States) occupied territory, frequently ruling through local compradors and agents.