Class Unity

Welcome to Episode 11 of Class Unity Transmissions! In this episode, we are joined by Efraim Carlebach to discuss the 10-year anniversary of the publication of Mark Fisher’s seminal essay, Exiting the Vampire Castle.  Published on November 24, 2013, Fisher’s essay is remembered today as a powerful shot across the bows of what was known at the time as the “call out” left. In particular, the essay was a response to a recent controversy stemming from the appearance of “working class” comedian Russell Brand on the BBC’s Newsnight program. Feminists expressed outraged at the BBC’s choice to interview Brand at all, noting the sexually insensitive nature of his content. Fisher repudiated these critics as “PoshLeft moralizers” and witch-hunting scolds, leveraging Brand’s apparent deafness to the linguistic norms of the middle-class gender lexicon in exchange for online clout. In their insistence that Brand’s white male privilege made him one of the oppressors, they had blinded themselves to the foundational role of working-class culture in revolutionary politics.  Fisher’s defense of the working-class culture notwithstanding, his position on the priority of working-class politics was more ambiguous. In this discussion, we start by trying to situate Fisher as a left anti-capitalist. After his suicide in 2017, Fisher’s work on “capitalist realism” became something of a totem for the millennial left. However, as Carlebach argues, Fisher was never fully clear on what he meant by the term. On the one hand, he often referred to the idea — frequently attributed to Fredric Jameson — that we are so profoundly mentally stuck in within capitalist ideology that “it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” On the other, he would sometimes make the interesting move of saying that capitalist realism was specifically “a pathology of the left.”  Ultimately, the ambiguity was short-lived. Where Fisher has once posted approvingly of Adam Curtis’s documentary HyperNormalization, a pointed criticism of the counter-cultural left, the defeat of Jermey’s Corbyn’s leadership of the British Labour Party would see this theme would soon drop out of his work. The culturalist nature of Fisher’s defense of the working class folded easily enough into Fisher’s late-life return to the New Left, the politics of “consciousness raising,” and the idea of what he called “acid communism.” Here he embraced the idea that capitalism is essentially a problem caused by “modernity.” Capitalism as an economic system was a problem primarily insofar as it worked towards the subsumption of belief systems, cultures and “lifeworlds.” In this respect, the influence on Fisher’s work of British New Left thinkers such as Stuart hall and Raymond Williams is evident. The political question, for Fisher, concerned the repudiation and overcoming of bourgeois epistemology. As such, his work stands as a paragon example of why it is not enough to be merely an anti-capitalist.  For Carlebach, the goal of Marxism is not so much to tear down of bourgeois society but to transcend it, and to liberate it from the contractions of capitalism, the very mode of political economy that it itself created. Marx, seeing capitalism as the harbinger of our liberation as a species, eschewed the purely negative critique of capitalism as reactionary. The point of Marxist politics therefore is not to destroy the bourgeois revolution but to liberate it from capitalism, and make its fruits and rights available to all.  This episode was recorded on Friday, September 29, 2023. If you like this episode, kindly leave us a positive review on your podcast app! Your hosts for this episode are: Nicholas Kiersey: @occupyirtheory C. Derick Varn: @skepoet Noah LC Relevant links: Carlebach’s article, “Forgetting Mark Fisher,” in Platypus Review 115 (April 2019), https://platypus1917.org/2019/04/01/forgetting-mark-fisher/ Carlebach’s discussion about Fisher with the Association for the Design of History (January 17, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/live/Y-aOATKC4J0?si=idJ4NqGYfX-iSNQr   PRODUCTION NOTE: Due to a production error, the original version of this posted episode contained an “empty air” moment around the 14:30 mark. A corrected version of the episode was posted on January 9, 2024.

If Marxism is a theory of history grounded in economics, how should Americans understand our own history from a Marxist perspective? What can the critique of political economy tell us about the major events of American life from the Revolution to the World Wars to today? What are the class dynamics animating the most crucial event of American military history, the Civil War? In preparation for our Fall 2023 Capital Reading Group, members of CU’s PoliEd Committee got together for a one-day discussion of Karl Marx’s writings on the American Civil War. Join them in this episode of PoliEdPod, as they discuss two brief articles written early in the War in 1861: ‘The North American Civil War’ and ‘The Civil War in the United States.’ They also discuss some of Marx’s statements on the political-economic function of racism. Both essays are available HERE.

In this episode, Jamal and Mehmed discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict, focusing on the left's perspective of Zionism. They delve into the objective material conditions in Gaza, the plight of the Palestinian population, and the brutal response of the Israeli state. They also analyze US and Israeli foreign policy, the influence of the Israel lobby, the shifting dynamics in the Middle East, and the potential for labor organizing. Overall, they explore the need for a class-first approach to the conflict.

Welcome to episode 5, of PoliEdPod. In this episode, we present our interview with author Prof. Brett Christophers, on his book Our Lives in their Portfolios; Why Asset Managers Own the World (Verso 2023). Our conversation covers the contemporary asset market, the rentier economy, and the changing nature of ruling class control over nearly all aspects of life in the 21st century, from basic infrastructure to real estate. We had a great conversation with Brett, and encourage everyone to give it a listen. Further References: Brett Christophers, “Class, Assets and Work in Rentier Capitalism”. https://drive.google.com/file/d/16nuh… If you like what you hear, please leave us a positive rating on your podcast app of choice. And follow us on Twitter/X: @class_unity

Hello friends! Welcome to this special episode of Class Unity: Transmissions. In this episode, we present you a discussion addressing two topics. First, the recent “statement from the DSA union,” complaining about how staffers are going to be laid off because of a lack of money (i.e., membership dues), whilst couching as a labor issue (“critical union jobs” must not be cut “in order to pay for non-union leadership salaries”!). Second, we discuss a recent interaction between Briahna Joy Gray and Chris Hedges about unions, strikes, and general strikes. The unifying thread in both these cases is the “magical thinking on the contemporary left.” The team discuss this all against the background of the massive UAW strike sweeping the US auto-manufacturing belt.

Adam Theron-Lee Rensch, writer of No Home For You Here: A Memoir on Class and Culture, discusses the struggles of the working class community in America. He challenges the liberal frameworks on class and politics, emphasizing the need for a politics that addresses the material conditions of the working class. Topics explored include writing the book during the pandemic, evolution of political consciousness, navigating privilege, deaths of despair, Christianity and the prosperity gospel, and the importance of inclusivity in personal politics.

Discussion on how Marxist theory understands modern history, exploring the economic origins of fascism, the concept of artificial effective demand in the market, the rise of fascism and its relationship with capitalism, the impact of the Great Depression on fascism, downward mobility and its ramifications, and common characteristics of fascism.

Welcome to Episode 7 of Class Unity “Transmissions.” In this episode we are joined by Doug Lain, Commissioning Editor at Sublation Media. Lain is a real veteran of the left podcast scene. From his old philosophy podcast “Diet Soap,” which ran from 2009 through 2014, to his work as host of the Zero Books podcast, Zero Squared, Lain’s impact as a formative voice on the contemporary socialist left cannot be understated. In this show we cover a wide range of topics, including Lain’s recent ban from Elon Musk’s newly “pro-free speech” Twitter (for a joke about RFK Jnr). However, the real purpose of the interview is to revisit an old Tweet of his, from April this year. On April 15, Lain posted three priority issues that, he said, “an independent left” should be focused on right now: Ending the conflict in Ukraine by opposing the very dangerous continuing escalation; Protecting the working class from the consequences from the continuing financial and fiscal crisis that has been expressed through inflation and the banking crisis; Opposing the war on disinformation and the expansion of the security state into the “whole of society.” In recent months, Lain has been particularly strident on the first and the third of these priorities. However, his arguments have not been especially well received (his recent encounter with the Majority Report’s Matt Binder offers a fairly representative example of the disdain many progressives have for Lain’s views). Noting the vehemence of this response, we were curious. And so we decided to invite Lain for a chat. We start by asking Lain what he means by the phrase “an independent left”? We then move onto the first of his priorities, the war in Ukraine. The US left has been strangely quiet on this conflict. Where it has addressed the issue, it has usually been in handwaving fashion, arguing that it is a case of “imperialism on both sides.” We put it to Lain that this is kind of an inversion of Trump’s infamous “very fine people on both sides” comment. Perhaps the imperialism on both sides argument had some empirical application in the lead up to World War I. But Russia has a GDP close to that of Italy. Equally, US foreign policy insiders like Former Ambassador to USSR Jack Matlock, George Kennan, William Burns warned DC policymakers for decades about eastwards NATO expansion, saying in no uncertain terms that Ukraine would be the hardest of red lines for Russia. Moreover, now, as Lev Golonkin reports in The Nation in June, the US is openly funding and arming the Ukrainian military despite the presence in its ranks of openly fascist regiments. It seems clear therefore not only who started this war, and why, but that its moral costs and risks for future catastrophe are unacceptable. So why is the left so adamant in its avoidance of this topic? Lain’s second priority is protecting the working class from the continuing financial and fiscal crisis. Lain argues “there was never any chance to transform the democratic party into a vehicle for socialism.” But where does that now leave us, on the question of socialist strategy? Does he think the Bernie wave is over, and the left is now basically done with parliamentary politics for another couple of generations? As he surveys the landscape of the contemporary left, what hope does he see for a revolutionary politics? The third priority issue for Lain essentially stems from his commitment to a left defense of “bourgeois rights.” Notably, Lain was especially vocal about revelations in the “Twitter Files” earlier this year. The Files were published by Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger, who were denounced as Trump-aligned “so-called journalists” by Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett (D) for their trouble. They contain countless leaked internal documents, including emails between management at Twitter and various US intelligence agencies. They indicate that the state agencies were putting extensive pressure on the social media company in order to suppress public criticism on topics ranging from the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, to the efficacy of Covid lockdowns, to the involvement of Russia in the 2020 US presidential election. For Lain, the Twitter Files serve only to affirm arguments made recently by Jacob Siegel in Tablet Magazine, that we were witnessing the birth of a “whole of society” censorship apparatus. Strangely, the left has been practically unanimous in diminishing the Twitter Files, with commentators like Carl Beijer declaring “we already knew this,” and countless others describing it as a “nothing burger.” How does Lain explain the strident resistance of so many of the left to taking the Twitter Files seriously? To answer this question, we turn to a recent letter by Lain in Cosmonaut Magazine, “UFOs, Russiagate, and the Spectacle,” where he presents one of his most favored quotes from the French Situationist Guy Debord: “Never has censorship been more perfect. Never has the opinion of those who are still led to believe, in several countries, that they remain free citizens been less authorized to make themselves known whenever it is a matter of choices affecting their real lives. Never has it been possible to lie to them with a perfect absence of consequences. The spectator is simply supposed to know nothing and deserve nothing.” Clearly, censorship has long been an obstacle to the advancement of socialist strategy. It is especially remarkable therefore that, in the moment of this generation’s equivalent of the Valerie Plame affair — that is, the moment where the scale and scope of a political deception becomes so staggeringly obvious that even ordinary folks can see it plainly — the left has been found so wanton in its disregard for basic bourgeois rights. Your host for this episode is Nicholas Kiersey. He can be followed on Twitter @occupyirtheory

“Those who own the country ought to govern it.” (John Jay) “…if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. […] our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. […] [it] ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. […] The Senate ought to represent the opulent Minority…” (James Madison) “…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” (5th Amendment to US Constitution) Welcome to Class Unity PoliEd Episode 2. In this episode, Christian Parenti joins members of Class Unity to discuss his recent article, “Diversity is a Ruling Class Ideology.” We discuss the relation between oligarchy, minoritarianism, and identity politics. Read Parenti’s article in Compact, here: https://compactmag.com/article/diversity-is-a-ruling-class-ideology Along with Class Unity Transmissions, CU’s podcast stream also includes episodes from CU’s PoliEd programing. For more from Class Unity, please see https://classunity.org/. Enjoy the show!

Hello comrades! Welcome to our sixth episode of Class Unity Transmissions. In this episode, we open with a quick check-in with our comrade Jamal, from CU Chicago, who has been studying the recent strikes in France. Then we move to our interview recorded earlier this year with Armand M, one of the authors of our article from last September, “Gay Particularity, Reconsidered.” In the interview, we discuss some main points from Armand’s piece. We look at how, in the late 80s and 90s, activist organizations such as ACT UP participated in civil disobedience actions against insurance rate increases and worked to expand universal Medicaid benefits to include AIDS treatment. In 1990, when Congress refused to release funds already earmarked for AIDS services, claiming that patients with other conditions were more deserving, ACT UP called for national health insurance. What was it about the ACT-UP era that made the gay rights movement so capable of articulating universalistic political demands? We also look at the struggle for gay marriage, and how it effectively diverted financial resources and political energy away from organizations prioritizing healthcare and employment. Given that the gay liberation movement has not always supported this demand, what changed? Armand discusses the role of “respectability politics” in diverting the struggle from a more traditional leftist perspective. Notwithstanding the importance of access to health insurance and spousal inheritance for partners, Armand suggests that the shift toward gay marriage should be viewed as a conservative turn in queer politics. Next we turn to the historical emergence of queer identity. Postmodern theorists like Judith Butler tend to see politics as essentially a question of identity, and thought. In this light, politics for them is necessarily the question of a slow, patient struggle to change unconsciously held ideas. However, notes Armand, while homosexual behavior has always been present in human societies, “queer” identification is only a very recent phenomenon and its emergence, as we will see, cannot be understood apart from its specific socio-economic conditions of possibility. We also discuss some wider literature around this topic (see links below). For example, we address Roger Lancaster’s piece in Jacobin, “Identity Politics Can Only Get Us So Far.” Lancaster raises the question of how today’s “identity” version of gay liberation struggle orbits this idea of a certain quest for one’s subjective essence. Earlier versions, to the contrary, saw “coming out” as an “indispensable means” for building a political movement. Among other things, this means that earlier liberationists generally took a dialectical approach to sexual categories. We ask Armand how this “pre-Stonewall” idea of a subjective labeling understood from the outset as something eventually to be cast aside connects with Marx’s notion of the eventual self-abolition of the “proletariat.” Other key points raised include the relation of identity-based struggle to CU’s concept of the iron triangle, the limits of aesthetic struggle (“psychosocial emancipation),” and the extent to which Armand’s critique of the limits of contemporary gay liberation struggle might be expanded to other cases. Your hosts for this episode are Nicholas K, Steph K, and Jamal. Here is a list of the readings mentioned in the article: Andrew Davis (2010), “Queer writers/activists criticize marriage-equality movement at forum; discussion with Yasmin Nair and Ryan Conrad,” Windy City Times, http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=29057&ref=nf. John D’Emilio (2020), Capitalism Made Gay Identity Possible. Now We Must Destroy Capitalism, Jacobin, https://jacobin.com/2020/08/gay-identity-capitalism-lgbt. David Faes (2018), “Transgender liberation? A movement whose time has passed,” Platypus Affiliated Society, https://platypus1917.org/2018/11/02/transgender-liberation-a-movement-whose-time-has-passed/. JacksonLewis (2001), “Union Avoidance Training,” JacksonLewis , https://www.jacksonlewis.com/resources-publication/union-avoidance-training. Roger Lancaster (2017), “Identity Politics Can Only Get Us So Far,” Jacobin, https://jacobin.com/2017/08/identity-politics-gay-rights-neoliberalism-stonewall-feminism-race. For more from Class Unity, please see https://classunity.org/. Enjoy the show!