A review of Spectre Issue 5 , Spring 2022
Racial Capitalism, Campism, Abolishing Work, Winning Abortion Rights
As always Spectre provides important contributions to developing revolutionary theory in the current period. Below are some comments on some of the articles in the current issue.
“ Where is the Left in a World of Crisis?” is an excellent examination of the perilous state of the world and the lack of a strong left movement. It goes through some of the most important crises the world faces and ends in the following appeal:
“ As war rages and the planet burns , we need a Left devoted to rekindling that spirit of street and workplace-based organizing. We need a Left that sets its sights on mass political upheaval from below as the only real foundation of socialist insurgence. That is what it means to say we have a world to win.”
The tone of the editorial is welcome, stressing struggle rather than reliance on elections and especially opposing support to capitalist parties . In the face of “Democratic Socialist” appeals from Jacobin and other reformist publications, this is an important counter .
The editorial however does not propose any solution to the weakness of the Left. It studiously avoids the question of revolutionary organization. As Trotsky noted History as such does nothing . The same is true of “the Left” or “the revolutionary left”. It does not exist apart from people especially revolutionaries forming organizations that can focus struggle and argue a set of politics. There are thousands of Marxists and more thousands of people open to Marxism that exist in the U.S. The crisis of the revolutionary left is a crisis of organization. Journals like Spectre make an important contribution in clarifying political issues . However, it takes actual revolutionaries intervening in struggle and debate in an organized way to rebuild the fighting capacity of the Left.
Capitalism: Naming the System Behind Systemic Racism by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor — is another brilliant example of this author’s ability to crystalize issues, especially around racism. Taylor notes that many authors have naturalized racism. Instead , she says “ its important to talk about racism specifically as a product of history, a social phenomenon with historical origins in the economic system of capitalism”. The article also contains an interesting discussion of the issue of “racial capitalism”. She says that “ My reluctance to use racial capitalism wantonly is that it’s no different than saying capitalism . All of what’s being described is a function of capitalism.” Keeanga touches on other important issues including the role of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and how is legacy is used today as well as an expose of the Democratic Party and racism. Overall , it is a provocative and stimulating interview. —
Quotidian Historic Irreverence, The Abortion Struggle in Argentina — — Especially in the face of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe vs. Wade, this is an important contribution. Too much of the abortion rights movement in the U.S. is dominated by electoralism. The cry from the Democrats is that voting in more pro-choice legislators is the key task of the movement. This article is an important antidote to that. It details how a mass militant movement was necessary to win abortion rights in Argentina. It reinforces the parallel lessons learned from the U.S. movement that won abortion rights in 1973
When My Enemy’s Enemy is Not My Friend: Capitalism in Dangerous Times — Anti-War activists in the U.S. are divided. Too many have become Putin apologists on the basis that the key division in the world is U.S. imperialism vs. its opponents. The conclusion is that leftists must support enemies of the U.S. even if they invade other countries and oppress their own people . The Marxist view of class conflict as the driving force of history is lost in geo-political considerations. John Clarke has been a major opponent of this pro-Putin campist view. This article is an important contribution to the reassertion of the Marxist call for activists to oppose ALL imperialist powers. “ The MAIN enemy is at home” — -but all capitalist states are enemies of the working class !
Working for Abolition Means Abolishing Work — -Marxists have always opposed the wages system. Marx’s goal was a society without exploitation , where the full value produced by workers went back to the population as a whole. No class would live off the labor of the vast majority. Marx criticized unions for demanding a “fair days work for a fair days pay” instead of abolition of the wages system. Yet Marx and Engels were strong proponents of unions. They saw them as schools of class war. They understood that workers had to strike and organize just to achieve wages that represented the value of their labor power. The author of this article calls for leftists to reassert the abolition of wage labor as a goal. She calls on prison/police abolitionists to take up this goal. Her call for the left to clarify its revolutionary goal is a good corrective to the reformism that dominates the left today. Too much of the left in fact supports the capitalist state. Its horizons are limited to relatively minor reforms rather than abolition of the system. Unfortunately, the author of this article creates too much of a dichotomy between fighting for reform and organizing for revolution. She implies that fighting for reform precludes the fight for revolution. The author says “ Abolitionists reject calls for reforms…reforms serve to legitimate the system..” In fact, not all abolitionists agree on this point. Each reform needs to be evaluated on its own merits. Removing qualified immunity of police, cutting funding of police departments and taking brutality settlements directly out of the police budgets would all weaken the police function. These reforms would be a step forward. Likewise, when workers unionize and strike and win better wages and conditions it can increase their confidence and ability to win more. A completely demoralized working class that has never won any reforms is unlikely to leap to revolution. In fact , every working class revolution begins as a reform struggle ! Of course revolutionaries have to intervene to try to convince the movement to go beyond its original reform goals. However revolutionaries can never influence the movement if they dismiss it as reformist and don’t participate in it. The author’s analysis leads to abstention not involvement in the movements for reform. As such it replicates a classic argument between Leninism and ultra-leftism on the ultra-left side. In spite of its conclusions , it is an interesting and provocative article.
Overall, Spectre continues its role of raising important political arguments for leftists to consider. It is well worth a serious read !!
