File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9708, message 96


Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 12:39:41 +0100
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Between nation and race


Rakesh

It breaks my heart to see anti-working class prejudice dressed up as
anti-racism.

You're absolutely right to say that the concept of 'proletariate' is not
a positive identification, such as one finds in sociology, but a
negative one, that class that has 'nothing to lose but its chains'. But
ask yourself, from what perspective does it appear that the white
working class, whether in Europe or America, is privileged? Form the
standpoint of those elites that have sought over these last twenty years
to drive down their wages. The idea that the working class is reducible
either to its white or its black components is the victory of ruling
class ideology.

Look at what has been happening to the traditional white working class.
They have been turned over in no uncertain terms. Tragically, most
leftists have already turned their backs on this constituency as lost to
reactionary politics. It has been left to populists like Kevin Phillips
(Politics of Rich and Poor), or Barlett and Steele (America: Who Stole
the Dream?) to record the collapse of working class living standards.
Radicals seem to prefer to stoke up the campaign against this section of
the working class by denouncing them as inveterate racists - all of
which helps to justify the attack on their jobs and living standards.

Here in Britain the left has just succeeded in its campaign to have an
entire watch of the Eltham Fire Brigade disbanded on the pretext that
the firefighters are 'racist'. Doubtless some of them did hold racist
views - but only fool would imagine that the employers are motivated by
anthing but a desire to cut costs. When I worked for Haringey Local
Government it was common practice to cut jobs on the pretext of getting
rid of racists - and at the same time the Council singled out immigrant
workers for redundancies because they were employed on temporary
contracts.

Just a note on ideology. Ideologies are never just ideas or prejudices.
They must always have a real basis in society, or they would never take
hold. Racial ideology did indeed have a material basis: it arises out of
the self-conception of the ruling class as a 'race apart'. But its
generalisation throughout the white working class involves something of
a mutation of that original racial ideology. In the first instance the
possibility of generalising that racial outlook rests upon the mutual
interests of ruling class and ruled - insofar as capitalism does not
destroy its subject class but reproduces the conditions of its
existence. In practical terms, British and American workers identified
with the economic success of their nation, insofar as that corresponded
to their own well-being. Such an identification would be clarified in
opposition to migrant or black workers.

But it is a mistake to see that racial ideology as absolute. The
identification between ruling class and ruled is contingent on economic
success. The long term interests of the working class are opposed to
those of the ruling class - a truth that is all too obvious today. The
collapse of traditional rightist politics like Republicanism in the US
and Conservatism in the UK demonstrates that the traditional appeals to
race no longer cut much ice. These days Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, as
true representatives of their class, prefer the ideology of anti-racism,
with its potential for criminalising white workers. 
-- 
James Heartfield


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