Anti-Identity

Class War is my Love Language

Morning Comrades.

It didn’t take all that long after Monday’s dispatch for several upset people to write angry emails about identity and identity politics. Honestly, I was pretty happy with, if only for hitting a nerve. I did go through the archive on here afterwards believing that after 5 years on substack, I must have written a rebuke of identity politics to send them, but alas, I had not. Not clearly in any case, so without much further ado, here we are.

In short, identity politics refers to the ways in which social groups based on race, gender, sexuality, and other axes of identity mobilize for recognition, rights, and resources within the capitalist system. Marxists acknowledge the validity of these struggles but argue that identity politics can fragment the working class, diverting attention from class struggle and the overarching capitalist exploitation.

Identity politics is a dead end for the oppressed and anyone looking to seriously challenge injustice.

It is particularly useful for powerful people, who can use their identities to make their power or class position seem less relevant. For example, Kamala Harris has staked out a political career by pursuing law and order campaigns, defending neoliberal economic policies and championing US imperialism. As the vice-president of the United States, she now occupies one of the most overtly political and powerful offices in the world, yet the liberal media frequently present her identities as Black, a woman and of immigrant parents as her most significant qualities and as reason to champion her regardless of her politics.

While most proponents of identity politics refer to multiple identities, including class, in practice some are clearly considered more important than others. In all of the glowing tributes to Harris in the liberal media, her ruling-class position is mostly ignored. It is typical for discussions of identity to brush over class. Where it is mentioned it is presented as a source of historic disadvantage or privilege, yet rarely incorporated as a dynamic or dominant influence over behaviour and attitudes. The one exception to this, proving the liberal nature of identity politics, is the “white working class” which has become a stand-in term for white racists.