Social Justice Identitarianism is the New Cosmology of Capital

Quotes

1.

"Social justice identity politics is functioning as a “successor” ideology to neoconservativism, and (I agree) with black Marxist Adolph Reed that it’s the core moral constellation of neoliberalism. Though coming from apparently different political traditions, they—and quite a few others—are essentially arguing the same thing: identity is how capitalism intends to perpetuate itself. This is really a change in cosmology. Identity relations are replacing class relations as the dominant field of political struggle, which mean we’re replacing functional and material relations with social characteristics. Formerly it was the capitalists against the working class, and everyone knew that these were functional positions (one owned, the other labored) rather than eternal or inherent characteristics. There was nothing inherent or intrinsic about the capitalist herself which made her the enemy, it was what she did and how she colluded with others to make sure she could keep doing it. There was nothing inherent or intrinsic to the working class that made them good or evil, but rather only a functional relationship of being exploited for their labor and the material state of having no access to land or the “means of production.” Within this newer cosmology, it’s because a person is cis-, or able-bodied, or male, or white that they are oppressive. None of these are functional relationships, but rather identity markers that point to something “inherent” about the oppressor. There’s also nothing functional about being black, or female, or trans, or disabled: they, too, are all identity markers pointing to an “inherent” victimization by the oppressors. In other words, in the older cosmology, a worker is exploited by a capitalist. In this successor cosmology, the black disabled trans woman is oppressed by the white cis heterosexual able-bodied man. Before, it was because of what a person did that injustice arose. Now, it is because of who a person is. This arrangement suits capitalism quite well, because it cannot challenge the exploitation of workers by the owning class. In fact, within it a capitalist can even claim to be oppressed and victimized by the people she exploits if she has more oppressed identity markers (black, trans, disabled, etc) than the people whose labor increases her wealth. It’s really an ideal situation for the capitalists. That’s why so many corporations, banks, and neoliberal politicians have readily adopted the language of identity and at least the aesthetic of diversity and equity in their hiring practices, management styles, and political platforms. They have every reason to be happy with this cosmological shift, since they still get to keep property relations intact as long as they offer more expression to identity concerns."

- Rhyd Wildermuth [1]

2.

"What happens when levelling is the only instinct left? When the culture is so empty, so purposeless, so uprooted, that it has forgotten how to do anything but deconstruct itself? More to the point: what happens when levelling is the instinct not of the poor, but of power? What happens when the destruction of borders, limits and boundaries benefits big tech, big money and those who drink from their spigot, rather than the small voices left thirsting in the fields? And what happens when big money uses the language of the small voices — the language of levelling — to tie up its work in pretty bows? This is where we are. The post-modern Left, which has seized the heights of so much of Western culture, is not some radical threat to the establishment: it is the establishment. Progressive leftism is market liberalism by other means. The Left and corporate capitalism now function like a pincer: one attacks the culture, deconstructing everything from history to “heteronormativity” to national identities; the other moves in to monetise the resulting fragments."

- Paul Kingnorth [2]