Peace Land and Bread Issue 4

N o 4 / MAY 2021 PEACELANDBREAD.
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................ EDITOR & CREATIVE DESIGNER
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................ Ben Stahnke
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................ MANAGING EDITOR
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EDITORIAL
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................ Ethan Deere
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................ SECTION EDITORS
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................ Jarrod Grammel
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STAFF
................ Christian Noakes
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................ Samuel Parry
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................ Joshua A. Hodges PEACE, LAND, & BREAD
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................ Talia Lux is a leading voice of international
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................ Suvij economics, literature, and
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Shane Lawrence Pick
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advancement of Marxist-Leninist theory in the modern world. ................
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FEATURES TALIA LUX
THE CASE FOR A
21ST CENTURY
NO. 4 / MAy 2020
PAGE 257 KUTV
CHRISTIAN
NOAKES
WAKING UP FROM THE
AMERICAN
DREAM
PAGE 103
PAGE 19
PAGE 126
WENDLAND-LIU
JOEL
AMAL SAMAHA
'INDIFFERENT HOW THE WEST IS
COMMODITIES'
& 'ABSTRACT
LABOR POWER'
UNDERDEVELOPING
ITSELF
DEPARTMENTS
IN MEMORIAM POIESIS & PHYSIS:
ZACK PATTERSON..................................................12 ART & THE
REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT
PEACE, LAND, & BREAD: JOSHUA A. HODGES...............173
THE REVOLUTION IS STILL UNDERWAY LYDIA KURTZ............................176
EDITORS..................................................................15 ANTONY LEROY......................177
JC GOVENDER.......................178
ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS: CHRISTIAN NOAKES................180
POLITICAL ECONOMY, LABOR, & SIDYAN...................................184
CAPITAL JOHN HOEL.............................186
AMAL SAHAMA......................................................19 KEVIN GREENE........................189
JOSH ZOLOTIN.......................................................48 CHRISTIAN NOAKES................191
SAM GLASPER........................................................64 HENRY GOTTSCHLICH.............192
THOMAS MCLAMB................................................86 JA CORTEZ..............................194
CONNOR BLACKBURN...........198
SPACE & SOCIAL REPRODUCTION RED STARR...............................199
IDEOLOGY, LEGITIMATION, & SOCIETY IAN MATCHETT........................200
CHRISTIAN NOAKES.............................................103 ZAYNE CHRYSANTHEMUM.....202
JOEL WENDLAND-LIU...........................................126 SOL CLARKE............................203
JUAN MANUEL AVILA CONEJO...........................150 BRIAN DOERING.....................205
IAN MATCHETT........................206
INK AND LETTERS: NIKOLAI GARCIA.....................208
CRITICAL CULTURAL ANALYSIS SONYA THORBJORNSEN........211
JACKSON ALBERT MANN....................................227 IAN MATCHETT........................212
VAN BLEVINS........................................................242 NATHANIEL RICKETTS..............214
IAN MATCHETT........................216
THINGS BEFORE: MICHAEL CULLEN...................218
HISTORY & MATERIALISM MS EVANS...............................220
TALIA LUX..............................................................257 HANNAH KASS........................224
BEN STAHNKE.......................................................268
DONALD COURTER..............................................296
CONTRIBUTORS
COMRADES
AMAL SAMAHA is a Lebanese- at the relationship between capi- who explores the beginnings
Australian writer living in talism and the built environment. of Capitalism through their
Aotearoa. They are currently He has contributed to several work in the Early Modern Peri-
writing a book of recollections publications including An od. Their areas of expertise are
from the Ihumātao campaign Spréach, Marxism-Leninism To- Economic, Queer, and Critical
against developments on confis- day, and Cosmonaut. Race theory. They are currently
cated Māori land, and study his- working on a forthcoming book
tory and politics at Victoria Uni- JOEL WENDLAND-LIU is the au- titled The Market of Eden for
versity, Wellington. thor of The Collectivity of Life: CCS’s Iskra Press.
Spaces of Social Mobility and the
C. KATSFOTER is is a revolution- Individualism Myth. He teaches JOSHUA CALEB GOVENDER is
ary, a member of the Party for at Grand Valley State University a member of the Economic Free-
Reclamation and Survival, and a in Allendale, Michigan, and is a dom Fighters in South Africa. He
co-host of that party's public former editor of Political Affairs. is passionate about social justice
news organ, the Plough and Stars. and has flare for history. His in-
JUAN ÁVILA CONEJO is a volvement in radical revolution-
SAMUEL GLASPER is a Marxist Ph.D. student in Comparative ary politics has earned him the
Leninist writer and organiser Literature at New York Univer- name ‘Lil Gandhi’ by his peers.
from County Durham in North sity. He is
East England. He holds a Bache- currently writing a dissertation SINDYAN is a Marxist-Leninist
lors degree in International Poli- on ecocriticism and Central and a medical science and biolo-
tics from Manchester Metropoli- American communist writers. gy student from the Middle East.
tan and a Master of Arts in Poli-
tics and International Relations JOSHUA A. HODGES is a Marx- JOHN HOEL is a New England
(Political Theory) from Durham ist-Leninist academic currently poet and critic. He has published
University. His main interests finishing his Ph.D. in fire ecology. poems and essays with Liverpool
and specialties are social move- They are an emergency services University Press, Black
ments, the conduct for emanci- volunteer born and raised in Lawrence Press, Cathexis North-
patory struggle and the history of country Australia—and are a pro- west Press, Lumina, paintbucket,
radical political thought. He is a lific poet, artist, playwright and and elsewhere. He has an MFA
member of the revolutionary author. They came to revolution- in poetry from Sarah Lawrence
communist organisation Red ary politics through their work College and is a Ph.D. student at
Fightback and a union member of with First Nations Australians— Duquesne University in Pitts-
the Industrial Workers of the and a love of their Catholic Irish burgh.
World. and Mancunian heritage. Their
work with focusses on eco-philos- KEVINE GREENE is a writer and
THOMAS MCLAMB is a ophy, language activism, de- high school English teacher from
Lebanese-American Marxist colonisation and Australian com- Brooklyn, NY. Their current
writer, historian, and graduate munist history. work focuses on democracy, rev-
student residing in the so-called olution, and ecology, always with
United States. Thomas has spent LYDIA KURTZ is an undergradu- an eye on literature. They com-
the past several years studying ate senior studying Civil and En- pleted a Master's in English at
historic wage movements, eco- vironmental Engineering with a NYU, focusing primarily on
nomic expansion, recession, and Minor in Religion. Her aim is to postcolonial independence
the currents of capitalism. attend graduate school with a fo- movements, especially in Ireland
Thomas’ field of study is the his- cus on Global Studies and Hu- and Iran, and 20th century litera-
tory of the Modern Middle East, man Rights. She is interested in ture. Additionally, they are a
specifically Lebanon and Syria. contributing to all things libera- proud member of DSA and
tory, from #LandBack to astrolo- IWW. In their free time, Kevin
CHRISTIAN NOAKES is an ur- gy to community care. likes to go to Prospect Park in
ban sociologist and geographer Brooklyn, and hang out with
whose work is grounded in his- ANTONY LeROY is an ASU their two cats, Tortellini and
torical materialism and anti-im- Ph.D. student in English Litera- Cannelloni.
perialism. Much of his work looks ture. They are a Critical Theorist
8 No. 4 / MAY 2021

HENRY GOTTSCHLICH, ZAYNE CHRYSANTHEMUM is a SONYA THORBJORNSEN bio
shenby, they/she, is a multime- poet currently located in the avaiable online.
dia Trans Non-Binary artist and Driftless Region of Southwestern
revolutionary Communist. Their Wisconsin (Meskwaki land) She NATHANIEL RICKETTS is a com-
art is dedicated to agitating the is currently unemployed, and munist poet from Pittsburgh,
masses and propagating the revo- studied History with an empha- PA. He is currently pursuing an
lution. sis in Medieval Studies in college, M.A. in English at Pennsylvania
where her focus was largely on State University.
J.A. CORTEZ is an art maker, a medieval monasticism and the
perennial student, and a worker lives of medieval Jews, particu- MICHAEL CULLEN is a young po-
of odd jobs. In his art, he loves to larly in Spain and France. Zayne et from Dublin, Ireland. Having
experiment with different tools is trans, poor and Jewish, all of studied History at Trinity Col-
and techniques, and is drawn to which are major parts of her lege he is currently teaching.
the use of collage, montage, and Marxism-Leninism. Michael has had various works
mixed media. He is passionate published and you can keep up to
about the liberation of the op- SOLOMON CLARKE is a 25-year date with him on twitter @mik-
pressed and exploited, and is in- old writer,living in west Hull eycD9.
terested in further exploring the- (Britain) with a partner of three
ories and methodologies for rev- years. Solomon works in a York- M.S. EVANS is a Pushcart nomi-
olutionary socialist cultural pro- shire pudding factory, and likes nated poet and visual artist living
duction. to write poetry and short fiction in Butte, Montana. Her work has
in their spare time. Clarke has a appeared in Fevers of the Mind
CONNOR R. BLACKBURN is a degree in history and their politi- Poetry, Ice Floe Press, Black
23-year-old working-class poet cal beliefs can best be described Bough Poetry, and Anti-Heroin
from England with no formal as Marxist. Chic, among others. She has
training in poetics but a political work forthcoming in Feral, and
charge and passion for language BRIAN DOERING is a Wisconsin Cape Magazine.
and poetry. My major themes are based Marxist-Leninist, musi- Twitter: @SeaNettleInk
social, political, creative and en- cian and lyricist in the black met- Instagram: @seanettleart
vironmental struggle. al subgenre. His interest lies in
combating the stigma of fascism HANNAH KASS is a joint Ph.D.
RED STARR is a 2018 Seminary within the “scene” while turning student in the Department of
Graduate. She experienced a so- its proclivity toward reactionary Geography and the Nelson Insti-
cialist response to COVID-19 spirit into something radical and tute for Environmental Studies
first hand living in Vietnam. just. Brian’s occupation is in so- at the University of Wisconsin.
Since then, she has returned to cial work and his background is
organize and educate in the US. in philosophy. JACKSON ALBERT MANN is a
Her research interests include: Ph.D. Candidate in Ethnomusi-
intersections of communism and NIKOLAI GARCIA sleeps in cology at the University of Mary-
theology, LGBT Issues, Ho Chi Compton, CA; works with homeland, College Park. He is a mem-
Minh Theory, and analyses of less youth in East Hollywood; ber of Democratic Socialists of
popular culture. and is an Assistant Editor for American and co-administrator
Dryland, a literary arts journal of the Democratic Socialists of
IAN MATCHETT is a 29 year old born in South Central Los Ange- America Leftist Music & Art
oil painter and student organizer, les. He has been published in var- Repository.
living in a co-operative house in ious literary journals, as well as in
Detroit, Michigan, and a student the anthologies: The Coiled Ser- VAN "VANYA" BLEVINS is an
of fine art and political science at pent (Tia Chucha Press), Ex- undergraduate at the University
the University of Michigan. Ian's treme (Vagabond Books), and No of Hawai i at Mānoa majoring in
paintings explore the connec- Tender Fences. His first chap- Second Language Studies, Rus-
tions between radical move- book, Nuclear Shadows of Palm sian, and Japanese as well as pur-
ments and individuals of the past Trees, was published in 2019 by suing a certificate in German. In
and present. DSTL Arts. addition to studying sociolinguis-
tics from a critical Marxist per-
PEACE, LAND, & BREAD 9

CONTRIBUTORS
COMRADES
spective, he actively participates M.A. in social and political phi-
in the movement against the cur- losophy and a M.S. in environ-
rent global trend towards fascism menal science, and his writing
and social chauvinism through has been featured with the
grassroots movements in Hon- CPUSA, the Hampton Institute,
olulu, Hawai'i as well as produc- Forward! Popular Theory and
ing both non-fiction and academ- Practice, Climate and Capital-
ic works that highlight capitalis- ism, Peace, Land, and Bread, and
m's inequities. elsewhere. Ben is the editor and
designer of Peace, Land, and
TALIA LUX has a Masters in Li- Bread, and one of the founding
brary and Information Science, doctoral fellows at the Center for
and a Bachelors in Art History. Communist Studies, where he
She studies Jewish history, with works as editor and art director.
an emphasis in anti-zionism, edi-
torial cartoons and their impact DONALD COURTER is an Amer-
on the working class, and com- ican 21st century Marxist-Lenin-
munist history overall. She has ist journalist, political analyst,
been speaking out against injus- and historian. He is living and
tices ever since she can remem- working in Moscow as RT Inter-
ber, and firmly believes in Fred national's youngest News An-
Hampton's statement that "theo- chor and Correspondent, and is
ry with no practice ain't shit." the host of TheRevolutionReport
Talia is a member of the Panther YouTube channel. Donald gradu-
Solidarity Organization, and the ated from Rutgers University –
Industrial Workers of the World. New Brunswick in New Jersey,
USA, where he completed a
BEN STAHNKE is a Ph.D. Candi- Bachelor’s degree in history, spe-
date of Political Ecology and a cializing in the late-Soviet peri-
doctoral fellow in the Department od, and another in Russian lan-
of Environmental Studies at Anti- guage and literature. He is origi-
och University, where he is cur- nally from East Brunswick, New
rently writing his dissertation on Jersey.
the intersection of climate migra-
tion, border militarization, and
dialectical theory. Ben holds a
10
"To accept anything on trust, to
preclude critical application and
development, is a grievous sin; and in
L
order to apply and develop, 'simple
interpretation' is obviously not
enough."
E
1
N
9
I
0
N
0
IN MEMORY OF OUR
FRIEND AND COMRADE
ZACK PATTERSON
THE REINFORCED
STRUCTURE OF MODERN
OPPRESSION
he Forces of Oppression to take the focus away from the rise of Black
T
now have many names: Americans against police brutality. They
Capitalism, Imperialism, want us to see these issues as unrelated, as
Colonialism, and Fascism. separate, so that our solidarity deteriorates.
In the years since the We, now more than at any time in the last six-
Third Reich, they have re- ty years, must be the vanguard and make sure
designed and sharpened their our fellow proletarians understand that we
model of deception. They furiously and effec- are all in this together; and together we shall
tively attack the psyche of the proletarian rise.
from multiple angles at once. They have con-
Before we can effectively do this, however,
vinced us that nationality, religion, language,
we must understand the conflict that lies
race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and
ahead. Our oppressors have evolved beyond
numerous other aspects of the human condi-
the simple fascist beasts battled by our ideo-
tion define us antagonistically—at odds both
logical ancestors. Where our forebearers
with ourselves and other people. The oppres-
slew dragons, we now face a hydra. This hydra
sors intentionally restrict certain qualities of
draws together all historical forces of oppres-
life in ways that impact only us, making us feel
sion (Capitalism, Imperialism, Colonialism,
isolated. They do this to all of us at once. As I
and Fascism), and snaps at our lives with its
write this, they are trying to chip away at our
many mouths. We must now combat these
recently activated solidarity by attacking the
heads simultaneously. If we do not, the hydra
rights of trans people, of the disabled, of the
will simply repair whatever damage is done,
poor, and of the rural proletarians, in an effort
12 No. 4 / MAY 2021

IN MEMORIAM
regrowing one severed head by feasting upon working class; as if I could possibly list all of
the others. This oppressive, cannabalistic the active injustices foundational to Ameri-
structure most clearly appeared after the can society. The fascists, the liberals, and the
American Civil War with the lease of prison oppressors want nothing more than for the
labor. Because slavery had been abolished proletariat to focus on singular, putrid heads
and slavocratic production had been taken of the hydra, instead of stabbing the heart of
from the early capitalists—but the proto- the damned beast from which the oppressors
fascist institution of white supremacy had scavenge their personal comforts.
never been genuinely challenged (Lincoln
Comrades, now is the time for unity. Now is
himself was a white supremacist; see the Lin-
the time for the various American socialist
coln-Douglas Debates)—individual states
and communist parties, which have long been
were allowed to immediately begin imple-
shattered and scattered by institutional
menting laws that were specific to freed
mechanisms like McCarthyism and COIN-
slaves (see: Mississippi Black Codes). Thus be-
TELPRO, to put aside their individual
gan the mass incarceration of Black Ameri-
prides, their egos, their insistences that their
cans, utilized, in part, to continue the ex-
interpretations of their own theoretical ten-
ploitation of forced labor at only slightly
dencies are the only correct interpretations;
more of a cost to the capitalist class than the
we must unite under one singular red banner.
previous costs of slave-ownership. This his-
torical turn negated, almost entirely, all pre- We must do this so that we can help the
vious material progress made by the aboli- American working class to break the chains
tionist movement while at the same time re- and to destroy once and for all the global
inforcing the burgeoning capitalist class. tyrant that is American Imperialism. For the
second time in all of American history we
Material circumstances like these present a
communists have a chance to become a true
unique challenge to the individual, and to the
beacon of justice and equality; but, first, we
proletarian movement more generally, be-
must work to pry America’s boot from the
cause we must watch in every direction as this
neck of the Global South. For without the
history continues to strike at us wherever we
support of American Imperialism, fascism
are weakest.
will crumble under our masses worldwide.
Now, more than ever, we must disrupt the
Rise, comrades, and unite, for the time that we
narratives of the fascists who call our escala-
have awaited and speculated upon for a cen-
tions destructive and barbaric, as well as the
tury has now come.
narratives of the liberals who cry out for rec-
onciliation, peace, and electoral reform. Ne-
oliberalism decries any discourse that does
not focus exclusively on electoralism and re-
form, as if we still do not have thousands of Zack Patterson
refugee children held indefinitely in danger-
1987-2021
ously inhumane detention camps; as if the
homeless and houseless have not been all but
forgotten by society during this pandemic; as
Zack—a war veteran, a communist, and a
if the houseless numbers aren’t about to grow
fierce advocate for racial equality and anti-
by multitudes in the coming months as land-
imperialism—submitted this piece of writing
lords begin evicting wage laborers who have
to us shortly before taking his own life. Rest in
been significantly impacted by the
power and in peace, Zack. We will miss you
COVID-19 pandemic; as if healthcare is not
dearly.
restricted for a significant portion of the

PEACE, land, AND
BREAD
THE
REVOLUTION
is still
underway
A Full Year of Peace,
Land, and Bread
An Introduction to Our Fourth Issue
Ben Stahnke, Editor
B
eginning a project like Peace, work of peer-reviewed publication.
Land, and Bread is never easy.
From this move, our parent research center, The
To do something that has not
Center for Communist Studies, was born, and we
been done since at least the days
set about quickly in working on the logistical in-
of the Comintern—that is, to
frastructure for the publication that would even-
produce, from the ground up, an
tually become Peace, Land, and Bread. We orga-
avant-garde, peer-reviewed, and rig-
nized our fledgling journal around several key
orous journal of multidisciplinary communist
principles: 1. that all materials must be freely avail-
scholarship—is indeed something of a Herculean
able to readers at no charge—in other words: no
task. As we kick off the present issue of Peace,
paywalls, ever—and that non-profit print sales
Land, and Bread, our fourth issue, and as we em-
would only exist for those who work better with
bark upon the second year of our publication, it
the print medium, 2. that the materials we publish
only seems natural to reflect upon not only the ori-
must be held to the highest standards of academic
gins of the journal, but upon the process of journal
rigor, peer-review, and avant-garde scholarship,
production more generally.
and 3. that our editorial board must reflect, to an
Back when several of our editors worked with the individual, our organizational principles of dedi-
now-defunct Marx Engels Lenin Institute, we pro- cated public scholarship, international solidarity,
duced a solitary issue of what might be considered and anti-imperial/anti-colonial/pro-communist
as the precursor-predecessor to Peace, Land, and action. Trusting fully in the intellectual capacity of
Bread—a journal we called Forward!: Popular our readers, and working to deconstruct the oft-
Theory and Practice. Forward! was fraught with impenetrable air of mystique and confusion that
editorial mismanagements and was met with a surrounds peer-reviewed scholarship, we worked
lukewarm reception; but the articles themselves to imagine Peace, Land, and Bread as a ranked aca-
were both critical and important. We realized, as demic journal made accessible to those outside of
Forward! flopped, that something as important as the academy as well.
a scholarly journal of communist theory and prac-
Responding to the debased, capitalistic, hyper-
tice needed not only a robust institutional and edi-
monetization of research, as well as to the growing
torial structure to support it, but that it needed a
inaccessibility of knowledge, the mission of Peace,
robust and a keen readership ready to engage with
Land, and Bread was, and still is, to make rigorous
the intellectual rigor of advanced proletarian theo-
academic scholarship both accessible and palat-
ry. Those several of us—Ember, Ethan, and my-
able with the interspersion of avant-garde design,
self—left the Marx Engels Lenin Institute due not
poetry, and art; to make it colorful and an actual
only to a crumbling internal infrastructure, but al-
joy to read—as opposed to the sterile and dry aca-
so due to an overwhelming desire to continue the
demic journals currently in circulation—and to

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
make a communist journal that refused, on ethical tute, Arizona State University, The Vanguard,
and geopolitical grounds, to engage in the ideolog- and the Michigan Writer’s Club, and it has, proba-
ical and institutional attacks on socialist states in bly most importantly, seen us on the Peace, Land,
the Global South. Several journals of communist and Bread editorial board grow as scholars, edi-
studies in fact exist, as well as the more popular tors, and as educators.
democratic socialist and social democratic jour-
What you hold in your hands now is the end of a
nals which align, in almost every case, with the an-
yearly cycle—the last, Herculean, eight and a half
ti-communist trope of the United States State De-
by eleven inch, three hundred (plus) page issue.
partment; we envisioned Peace, Land, and Bread
You also hold the herald of a new yearly cycle of
and a response to these anti-communist “social-
Peace, Land, and Bread. Our next issue will come
ist” journals which reflect, eerily, the many “so-
in much sleeker and much more accessible at a
cialist” (in name only) journals funded by the CIA
svelte one hundred and fifty pages, along with a
and the so-called Congress for Cultural Freedom
new seven by ten inch size, as well as a dedicated
throughout the 1950s and 1960s to polemicize
aesthetic style grounded in the communist avant-
against extant socialist and communist action.
garde. Our previous four issues were themed:
Peace, Land, and Bread was to respond to this by
spring renewal for our first issue, laborwave for
taking an explicit communist stance; a stance that
our second, constructivist and suprematist
fed the publication of rigorous and peer-reviewed
themes for our third, and now, here, Soviet sci-
materials supportive of extant socialist states.
ence-fiction and an avant-garde of the Soviet film
Further, we envisioned Peace, Land, and Bread as for our fourth issue. We’re excited for the future of
a scholarly journal that united communist action Peace, Land, and Bread, and we know you’ll love
within the Anglosphere toward the purpose of fur- what we have in store for the journal.
thering what is, in all actuality, the living political
The current issue is, in my opinion, our best (and
doctrine and thriving liberatory culture of Marx-
biggest) yet. We’ve brought back our readers’ fa-
ist-Leninist theory. Similar to the cultural com-
vorite authors—Christian Noakes, Jackson Al-
missions of the communist world in the 1930s,
bert Mann, and Amal Samaha, to name but a few
Peace, Land, and Bread would showcase the best
—and we’ve packed the pages with incredibly
visual arts and poetry alongside academic scholar-
critical, poignant, and important works from
ship.
Thomas McLamb, Talia Lux, Sam Glasper, and
What began in 2017 as a dream of three graduate more. Our arts and poetry section is more robust
students and educators has since grown into the than ever, and contains beautiful works of art from
journal you read today—a journal recognized Sindyan, Ian Matchett, M.S. Evans, and others.
with both ISSN and ISBN, cataloged in the various
This issue reflects the ethos and the character of
Libraries of State in the Anglosphere; a journal re-
Peace, Land, and Bread more generally: that is, it is
plete with hundreds upon hundreds of pages of full
robust, rigorous, poignant, relevant, and timely.
color graphic design, art and poetry; a journal
And it is emblematic of the iterative process of
overseen by a solidary and tight-knit editorial
journal production as well: we've taken what we've
board of just around twenty-six editors, readers,
learned over this last year and worked to make is-
and reviewers; and a journal that continues to re-
sue four the best and most comprehensive issue
ceive critical international praise for its work, for
yet.
its rigor, and for its adherence to the anti-imperial
political line abandoned by so many radical jour- We’re incredibly honored to be on this journey of
nals in the modern era. public scholarship and education with you all, in a
time where it is most sorely needed—perhaps
This past year of Peace, Land, and Bread has seen
more than ever. We would not be who we are with-
us publish close to a thousand pages of cutting
out our readers, our contributors, and without all
edge scholarship in the field of applied Marxist-
of the hands and voices that go into this project,
Leninist and communist theory, it has seen us in-
and it is to you all that we dedicate this, our fourth
terviewed for, and presenting upon, our work
issue.
through organizations like the Hampton Insti-
16 No. 4 / MAY 2021

E M
C
O
O
N N
O E
M Y
I
C LABOR
&
F
O C
U A
N P
D I
A T
T A
I L
I
O
S
N
M
S
ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS
HOW THE WEST IS

UNDERDEVELOPING
ITSELF
“[I]f ‘underdevelopment’ were related to any-
thing other than comparing economies, then
Amal Samaha the most underdeveloped country in the world
would be the U.S.A., which practices external
oppression on a massive scale, while internally
there is a blend of exploitation, brutality, and
psychiatric disorder.”
- Walter Rodney
he paradigm of “develop- through further investment and development,
T
ment” is the chief way but seemingly never go away.
through which western
Throughout all of this, it is implicitly under-
economists, internation-
stood that this “developing” world is counter-
al relations experts, and
posed against a “developed” one, which has
policy makers make pro-
long since achieved those elusive qualities
nouncements about the
which the remainder strive towards. That the
past, present, and future of the pe-
former cannot seem to achieve these qualities
riphery. Through them we are told that “devel-
is met with frustration, apathy, and sometimes
oping” nations are mired in problems that are
anger. Would it not be easier to simply force
simultaneously easily solved and insurmount-
the qualities of the developed nations onto the
able; the product of contradictions which are
underdeveloped—to intervene in their
first economic, then social, then political, and
economies, political systems, and cultural
which are simultaneously being solved
lives? Can they be shown the essential qualities

AMAL SAM,AHA
that will inevitably lead to development, like the economic doctors fails to find the parasite
liberal democracy, free trade, and, fundamen- at the root of the problems, cracks begin to ap-
tally, respect for those institutions? pear. These economic doctors present them-
selves as performing a form of precise and deli-
When such interventions inevitably fail, it only
cate neurosurgery, but after a while, they begin
serves to confirm the essential nature of what it
to take the form of the medieval surgeon-bar-
means to be “developing.” There must be some
ber, bleeding their patient with leeches in a
other variable, essential to either the people or
vain attempt to balance humors.
their environment, which has constrained de-
velopment. Perhaps it isn’t the fault of the peo- The problems with the “development”
ple; it is some microbe in the waters, some paradigm have been well-known, and often
tropical disease, or some bloodsucking insect. commented upon. As we will see, whole
Or maybe it is a parasite of a different kind, schools of criticism have come and gone.
some deeply-held tradition, or superstition, Nonetheless, relatively unreconstructed “de-
that prevents the efficient exploitation of this velopment” theories continue to crop up
forest or that wetland. Maybe it is a cultural among international relations wonks, leading
predisposition towards corrupt governance to, among other things, some increasingly de-
that breeds bureaucratic parasites. Only once rided headlines.1
the parasites are wiped out can development
More importantly though, perhaps the reason
go ahead unhindered.
outmoded conceptions of development con-
But what if all the parasites are eliminated, and tinue to dominate public discourse lies precise-
underdevelopment persists? Perhaps we have ly in the fact that they engender frustration and
missed another parasite contained in one of condescension when it comes to the perceived
the many differences between their culture failures of the periphery. After all, most west-
and ours. Maybe it is better to do away with the ern interventions have been justified through
inferior culture entirely, and transplant onto attempts to impose the kind of democratic in-
that nation a culture with a proven history of stitutions seen to best correlate with develop-
achieving development. ment. Development experts and the journal-
ists who take them seriously may be the thin
The paradigm of development is presented as a
end of the wedge, where the thick portion is
neutral, dispassionate way of looking at global
interventionist factions like the “foreign poli-
inequality, one only concerned with measur-
cy blob” dominating the US Federal Govern-
able outcomes that empirically improve the
ment.2
lives of all peoples. But when the diagnosis of
20 No. 4 / MAY 2021

Rodney’s work must be understood

as counterposed against this rigid,
economic definition of develop-
ment as relatively linear growth in
Gross Domestic Product.
But what if the spotlight of “development” to change our understanding by rejecting theo-
studies is instead shone on the core? Will we ries of a passively “developing” world, and in-
find, as studies of the periphery presume, the stead positing underdevelopment as an active
polar opposite of the “developing world?” process undertaken by western oligarchies.
Surely, in order for the intensely comparative
I further examine what has changed since Rod-
study of development to make any sense, there
ney’s assassination in 1980, what theories of
must be a standardised set of rules about what
development rose in his wake, and how the so-
constitutes a fully developed nation, be it a cer-
cieties he described changed or did not change.
tain level of Gross Domestic Product Per Capi-
In particular, I examine massive developmen-
ta, a certain standard of human personal devel-
tal changes that occurred in the core under ne-
opment and agency, or a certain level of pro-
oliberal regimes, using the example of New
ductive forces. Certainly it cannot be a stan-
Zealand. This includes the role of reflexive-un-
dard level of health security, as the COVID-19
productive workers in underdeveloping the
pandemic has exploded any illusions of west-
core, which I began to uncover in my previous
ern superiority in terms of healthcare out-
article for Peace, Land & Bread: “Innovators,
comes, such as existed on the eve of the out-
Bullshitters and Aristocrats.”5 Following
break. If there is ever a museum for artifacts of
Samir Amin, I explore the possibility of two
Western hubris, the 2019 Global Health Secu-
different kinds of development: one rooted in
rity Index3 for pandemic preparedness will
domestic exploitation of workers, and another
take up a whole wing.
in the exploitation of trade relationships.
Immediately we can see that many of the as-
Finally, I analyse more recent debates among
sumptions of the development paradigm no
Marxists on how we should think about devel-
longer hold, and instead it must be inverted to
opment, especially in regard to the develop-
make sense of the world. Turning the develop-
ment of productive forces across the periph-
ment paradigm on its head is no easy task, but
ery, as well as ecosocialist “de-growth” argu-
precedent has been set by Guyanese theorist
ments and Amin’s theory of de-linking. I come
Walter Rodney in his seminal How Europe Un-
to a conclusion that 21st century socialism
derdeveloped Africa.4 I will be examining how
cannot afford to be purely productivist, nor an-
Rodney defined development and how he per-
ti-growth, our only choice is to radically rede-
ceived differences between the developed and
fine what development means rather than un-
underdeveloped world. Crucially, I also exam-
critically accepting, or rejecting wholesale, its
ine how Rodney ultimately refused to reject
aims.
development as a concept, but instead hoped

AMAL SAM,AHA
Another orthodoxy Rodney thought neces-

DEVELOPMENT AND sary to combat was the then-progressive insis-
WALTER RODNEY tence that underdeveloped nations be called
“developing.” This, he said, implies that na-
tions in the periphery are capable of, and are in
Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped the process of, saving themselves entirely from
Africa may seem to be a strange place to start. conditions of underdevelopment, colonisa-
As we will see, very few development theorists tion, and imperialism.7 On this, Rodney can
in the core, even Marxist ones, have substan- only be considered to be entirely correct, as the
tially cited Rodney as a development theorist underdeveloped nations he describes continue
in his own right. Instead he is seen as having to have the same level of development relative
produced a serviceable analysis of African de- to the West to this day. No indicator of this
velopment, without innovating in terms of the could be more tragic than the fact that the
definition, cause, or purpose of development. I caloric intakes of average Africans Rodney
wish to challenge this by showing that Rodney cites, (some 1,870 to 2,290 calories per day) are
prefigured several later schools of develop- virtually unchanged, with sub-Saharan
ment discourse, and in fact the seed for a new Africans receiving about 2,100 calories per
development paradigm can be found in his capita per day,8 some 900 below the recom-
work. Rodney’s incredible prescience, and his mended level.9
pragmatism, are the reasons I base much of
this essay in his work. I will start by examining How then does Rodney define development, if
the orthodoxies challenged by Rodney. not as a linear process of increasing incomes?
Rodney begins by starting on a level of person-
In Rodney’s time, development was defined in al development: a many-sided process of in-
a purely economic manner as a certain level of creasing material and emotional wellbeing.
national income.6 This has changed consider- Much of this, he says, is a purely subjective pro-
ably in the intervening years as more sophisti- cess of being able to achieve certain ideals de-
cated bourgeois development theorists have termined by societal superstructures. The on-
come and gone, and we will return to this, but ly universal statement one can make about per-
for the time being, Rodney’s work must be un- sonal development, across all historical
derstood as counterposed against this rigid, epochs, is that its achievement depends entire-
economic definition of development as rela- ly on environmental and social conditions.10
tively linear growth in Gross Domestic Prod- Human agency, rather than any growth met-
uct. ric, lies at the root of Rodney’s work on devel-
22 No. 4 / MAY 2021

opment. many are prevented from doing so by either

the imperialist reallocation of surplus value
Next comes development on the level of social
away from the point of origin, or by their own
groups, which lies in the ability to negotiate
outmoded superstructural arrangements
conflicts between individuals, be it between
which prevent the efficient utilisation of re-
people within the group, with other social
sources.14 To be underdeveloped is therefore
groups, or with nature.11 On the societal level,
not a lack of development, but rather to pos-
it lies in the ability to free whole social groups
sess a greater number of impediments than
from the conditions imposed upon them by na-
other societies which seek dominance.15
ture, which is done through understanding na-
ture (science), developing tools (technology), This brings us to Rodney’s final innovation in
and organising labour as part of a mode of pro- defining development: it is essentially, intense-
duction.12 ly comparative. To speak of the development
of one nation makes no sense whatsoever un-
Neither of these higher levels of development
less it can be counterposed against the devel-
negate the need for improving conditions on
opment of another.16 Rodney’s analysis of
the level of individual development. On the
Africa’s underdevelopment therefore rests en-
contrary, for Rodney all development, no mat-
tirely on his analysis of Western development,
ter the scale, serves to increase the basic capac-
and the comparisons that can be made be-
ity for individuals to exercise agency, to
tween the two.
achieve their moral goals, and to construct new
societies. As we will see, this definition stands Rodney’s view of what constitutes a developed
apart from many others as it is transhistorical; nation is then particularly important to us in
put in the right terms, it would make as much understanding the shifting standards of devel-
sense to an Achaemenid satrap as a Bohemian opment through the years. To him, the Euro-
burgher or Indonesian planter. Other defini- pean and North American nations of the “de-
tions, such as those based in liberal freedom, veloped world” are typified by a few shared
often only hold true for the current era, and factors: “the developed countries are all indus-
even then it is debatable. trialised,” and “most of their wealth comes
from mines, factories and other industries [...]
This definition must be transhistorical be-
They have a high output of labour per man in
cause to Rodney, all societies have undergone
industry, because of their advanced technolo-
development, indeed they must have in order
gy and skills [...] Their agriculture has become
to exist at all.13 But this does not mean that all
an industry, and the agricultural part of the
societies are undergoing development, indeed
economy produces more even though it is

AMAL SAM,AHA
small.”17
MODERN THEORIES OF
What is so striking about this description is
how the West has utterly reversed course, or at DEVELOPMENT
least stagnated, in each of the points described.
The core has rapidly de-industrialised in the As Rodney identified, on some levels develop-
years since Rodney’s death, with some coun- ment is largely subjective, defined by individu-
tries such as the USA seeing the proportion of al moral goals and the limitations of societal su-
industrial employment shrink to levels unseen perstructures.21 This is the reason develop-
since the early 19th century.18 The core’s out- ment is so amorphous, and so easily distorted
put of labour per man in industry has also to advocate for purely ideological goals.
shrunk down through a process of ‘bullshitisa-
tion’, or the proliferation of non-productive A quick overview of the history of develop-
jobs, a concept to which I will return. The ten- ment studies allows us to identify a few domi-
dency towards automation of agriculture has nant tendencies among development theo-
also stagnated, if not exactly reversed, as agri- rists, as this will help us differentiate between
cultural capitalists across the West have the manifold definitions of development and
turned either to outsourcing or to greater re- the values underpinning each.
liance on imported labour rather than costly ● Economist approaches: In the mid-20th cen-
capital intensification.19 tury, all states measured their level of econom-
None of this is to say that Rodney was some- ic development against past levels through the
how wrong, these were indeed the shared char- use of unitary national accounting methods.
acteristics of “developed” nations in 1972, Between the 1944 Bretton Woods confer-
even if the overall trend towards deindustriali- ence22 and 1993,23 Gross Domestic Product
sation was already emerging. But if Rodney’s (the total value of final goods and services)
theory of development no longer holds true for gradually overtook both Gross National In-
the developed world, then what of the theories come (the total value of citizens’ income re-
of development that emerged after his untime- gardless of location) and the Material-Balance
ly death at the hands of a Guyanese govern- planning of socialist states (measurement of all
ment assassin?20 non-labour inputs vs. outputs). Economistic
methods have always been criticised as lacking
any direct link to quality of life, even by those
who helped formulate them24; however, these
methods are still used as shorthand for devel-
24 No. 4 / MAY 2021

opment in many circles. tifiable, data-driven models of the economistic

methods, with the concern for human wellbe-
● Holistic approaches: By the 1960s and 70s,
ing and agency of the holistic methods. In do-
many economists had become increasingly
ing so, they often settle upon a single metric
aware of the failures of economistic methods in
which best correlates with development in the
measuring development. These included
broadest sense. Such approaches have been
many loosely progressive figures like the social
championed by the Nobel laureate Amartya
democrat Gunnar Myrdal.25 These methods
Sen whose work led to the UN’s Human Devel-
were in part inspired by calls from underdevel-
opment Index (which combines health, educa-
oped nations at the UN to develop a “unified”
tion, and income into a standardised “score”)28
theory of development that could account for
and later to the “development as freedom”
the problems of diverse nations,26 and thus
thesis. These methods, and particularly Sen’s
these methods share a transhistorical, and
“capability approach” are by far the most influ-
sometimes decolonial emphasis.
ential among modern NGOs,29 rights groups,
● Radical approaches: Around the same time and the UN. The popularity of such theories in
many Marxist authors began writing on the US academic and policy making circles has led
subject of development theory, criticising the some to call these problem-solution oriented
liberal notion of permanent progressive devel- theories “American development dis-
opment, instead treating it as more of a zero- course.”30
sum game wherein one nation’s loss is anoth-
● Critical Development approaches: Gaining
er’s gain. Paul Baran, Paul Sweezy, and other
popularity in the mid 1990s to 2000s, several
writers of the Monthly Review magazine con-
European theorists have questioned the devel-
tributed to this trend, which was later enriched
opment paradigm entirely. Typically these
with Arghiri Emmanuel, Charles Bettleheims,
theorists seek to interrogate how development
and Samir Amin’s contributions to the study of
“works” or its rationality, following thinkers
unequal exchange and wage theories of devel-
like Cornelius Castoriadis, Alan Touraine, or
opment blockage.27 Such theories lost influ-
Zygmunt Bauman.31 Such thinkers have, natu-
ence for many years but have been revived
rally, gained little influence over policy, but
somewhat by Zak Cope, to whom I will refer
they have influenced modern development
later.
discourse considerably, and some of their cri-
● Diagnostic approaches: Methods which rose tiques of development discourse will be help-
to prominence in the 1980s and 90s share a ful later.
common emphasis upon combining the quan-

AMAL SAM,AHA
gree in American development discourse.34

THE DIAGNOSTICIANS While Sen’s definition of freedom is relatively
sophisticated, the “development as freedom”
Of the above, it is the diagnostic approaches thesis sometimes translated into little more
which have come to dominate modern dis- than support for a very American “liberal dog-
course around development. Each is centred matism,” already common in policy circles.35
around a preferred metric for development, or Had Walter Rodney been alive to see it, I imag-
their preferred method for deriving aggregate ine he would have levied many of the same crit-
scores from a number of different datasets. icisms he had of the economistic approach
Like the UNHDI these scores typically rely on against the American diagnosticians. These
the idea that social factors like education, po- are:
litical freedom, or healthcare correlate direct-
ly with human development. ● Diagnostic approaches mistake consequences
for causes: Rodney criticises Western “ex-
No development theorist is as widely cited as perts” (those who are not openly racist at least)
Amartya Sen, on whose work most modern defor “giving as causes of underdevelopment the
velopment scholarship is based. Underpin- things which really are consequences.”36
ning Sen’s work was his effort, begun in the late When groups such as the UN development
1970s, to synthesise different theories of programme list the educational, economic,
equality common in welfare economics into a and health outcomes of underdeveloped coun-
unified approach to equality that could inform tries, these factors are essentially given as
further studies into development. Sen posited causes of underdevelopment when they are
that rather than pure equality of opportunity the long-standing consequences of imperial-
(Benthamite equality), or a min-maxed ap- ism.
proach to welfare in which only the worst off
benefit (Rawlsian equality), welfare should be ● Underdevelopment is seen as self-perpetuat-
understood based on “basic capability equali- ing: If the consequences of underdevelopment
ty,” the real ability for people to undertake ba- are also their cause, the problem becomes a
sic actions in the interests of themselves and closed loop in which no development is possi-
their community.32 ble. Rodney criticises this as an ahistorical
claim which can serve to imply that underde-
Thus the American, diagnostic approach is velopment is a consequence of the innate infe-
based, like the holistic approaches, in human riority of underdeveloped peoples.37
agency. Later, Sen re-framed development as a
question of freedom,33 an idea with a long pedi- ● The effects of Imperialism are hidden: If un-
26 No. 4 / MAY 2021

The development paradigm changed

the underlying relations in the sys-
tems it described, molding the real
conditions of the world in its image;
in other words, the map became the
territory.
derdevelopment is its own consequence, then over the years. I will begin with the ways in
the widening gap between the underdevel- which the “developed” nations are superior.
oped and developed nations is seen as entirely
When it comes to industrial output, a strong
unrelated to the problem of underdevelop-
distinction between developed and underde-
ment. As Rodney says: “Mistaken interpreta-
veloped nations is clear, but shrinking. Devel-
tions of the causes of underdevelopment usu-
oped nations (here meaning the US, Europe,
ally stem...from the error of believing that one
and Japan) are typified by shrinking industrial
can learn the answers by looking inside the un-
employment, rising productivity, and a (seem-
derdeveloped country.”38 In modern develop-
ingly)41 high proportion of machinery to
ment theories this is often accidental rather
labour.42
than malicious, as can be seen in Sen’s work on
the Bengal famine wherein his narrow scope Developed nations also have extremely high
fails to take into account the actively genocidal average incomes, and high median incomes
policies of Churchill.39 Similarly, dependency compared to other nations.43 Many workers
and exploitation is often erased in the modern are employed in the “FIRE economy” of Fi-
vogue for “interdependent” theories of devel- nance, Insurance and Real-Estate, and em-
opment.40 ployment is shrinking in other sectors.
In addition to Rodney’s salient criticisms of Finally, developed nations score much higher
such theories I would add one other: The over- on the Human Development Index of the UN
riding focus on problems within the underde- Development Programme. This is calculated
veloped countries has masked not only imperi- using GDP, Education,44 and Health scores.
alism, but the ongoing underdevelopment of While “underdeveloped” nations sometimes
the so-called developed countries. No longer have a very high GDP, for the most part the
can it be said that the world is neatly divided developed nations have better education and
into camps, one of which unquestionably health outcomes, and thus a HDI score much
meets any and all definitions of development. higher than their GDP would indicate.45
Instead the question of “who is developing?” However there are some ways in which the de-
has become considerably more complicated. veloped nations are inferior, or the results are
Perhaps the easiest way to understand the quite mixed.
complexity of whether the West is “devel- Developed nations tend to score very highly in
oped” is to divide the question into a matter of metrics designed by development experts, but
whether the West meets the many different they often perform poorly in measures of a
quantitative criteria for development used

AMAL SAM,AHA
country’s success which depend on speaking to On the whole, it cannot be said that the quanti-
the people living there. Sometimes these re- tative aspects in which the West is lagging be-
sults are often written off as byproducts of hind outweigh the aspects in which it is truly
poor education systems, but I do not believe more developed, but there is also no clear stan-
this can be true of every one of these supposed dard for “mature” development.
anomalies. Developed nations often have the
In one sense the diagnostic theories of devel-
most unpopular governments,46 leading popu-
opment “work” in that they assist quantitative
lations who believe things are only going to get
comparisons between developed and under-
worse, in stark contrast to several underdevel-
developed nations, even if the quantitative gap
oped nations.47 These populations have next to
between the developed and underdeveloped
no political say, as hollowed-out democracies
nations is closing on a number of levels.
in which mass participation is obsolete are in-
creasingly the norm.48 Whether or not the re- But they also do not “work” in that they lack an
sponse is logical, relative deprivation domi- internal rationality. As Castoriadis suggests,
nates the psychic landscape of the developed the conventional understanding of develop-
world, and some of the most developed regions ment is defined through the actualisation of a
suffer the highest suicide rates, especially virtual state, implying some definition of “ma-
those countries which have only recently be- ture development” which simply doesn’t exist
come high-income information economies.49 in modern development discourse.52 Without
a definite end-point of development, develop-
Underdeveloped nations also have a higher
ment suggests the “injection of infinity into the
rate of profit,50 in part because they have his-
social-historical world,” as Karagiannis says,
torically had a much lower Organic Composi-
implying an eventual, absurd mastery of all
tion of Capital, and thus their industry has not
things: infinite growth.53
tended towards overproduction crises and loss
of profitability. Because of this, and because of This overriding, even absurd, focus on the
the need for developed nations to offload out- quantifiable aspects of development hides the
dated or surplus fixed capital, they have also qualitative, structural, and relational changes
had a higher rate of capital intensification. This that are taking place in the developed nations,
drastic change in capital intensity may mean and in-between the developed and underde-
that many peripheral countries have, or will veloped nations. The fact that the modern de-
soon have, a higher OCC than the core, espe- velopment theory holds true for certain quan-
cially as the latter artificially lowers its own tifiable changes does not indicate that it is not
OCC through unproductive workers.51 an increasingly obsolescent paradigm. The
28 No. 4 / MAY 2021

late cybernetician Stafford Beer was fond of

saying “absolutum obsoletum” (if it works, it’s
A SKETCH FOR A
out of date) in response to such systems.54 RELATIONAL MODEL OF
The development paradigm changed the un- DEVELOPMENT
derlying relations in the systems it described,
molding the real conditions of the world in its
image, in other words, the map became the ter- At certain points, Walter Rodney points to-
ritory. For a long time, developed nations did wards a new paradigm of development, with-
develop themselves precisely because they out necessarily discarding the previous one.
were developed nations, and underdeveloped Rodney was conscious of the utility that re-
nations lagged behind because they were un- mained in the conventional development
derdeveloped. Belief is a powerful thing, and paradigm, and the ways underdeveloped na-
through a number of mechanisms, from in- tions could use it despite its growing flaws. He
vestor confidence reinforcing existing trends, was explicitly conscious of the dangers of pre-
to racist ideas entrenching themselves, to de- maturely discarding the development
velopmental determinism becoming the paradigm entirely, saying he did not wish "to
norm, development analysis served as a self- remove the ultimate responsibility for devel-
fulfilling prophecy, reinforcing the status quo. opment from the shoulders of Africans.”
Nonetheless I believe the basis for a more rela-
The fact that some underdeveloped nations tional theory of development can be found in
are breaking through this mold signals a pro- his work. Five points in particular are key:
found shift in the winds. The quantitative mea-
sures will take some time to reflect the qualita- 1. Peripheral economies are fully integrated
tive shifts below the surface, and we can only into the economies of the core,55 and should be
understand these shifts by looking beyond a di- analysed as one system.
agnostic developmental paradigm. 2. The core and peripheral economies exist in a
dialectical relationship, and changes in one are
largely proportional to changes in the other.
One cannot develop without the underdevel-
opment of the other.56
3. Peripheral countries suffer the most when
the core countries they are linked to are under-
going hardship or are underdeveloping them-

AMAL SAM,AHA
While even bourgeois economists

are ringing the alarm bell, the ne-
oliberal states of the core live in
what Kelsey identifies as a state of
profound denial.
selves.57 This argument bears some resemblance to

Samir Amin’s formulation of autocentric ver-
4. In many cases, what is presented as develop-
sus extraverted accumulation, autocentric
ment is actually retrogression.58
meaning “accumulation without external ex-
5. Development and underdevelopment are pansion of the system”62 through a comple-
not fundamentally self-perpetuating,59 but mentary relationship between the means of
they have become this way through ideology. production and consumption,63 and extravert-
In summary, I believe one of the main failures ed meaning that which is forced into specialisa-
of previous development theories has been on tion to suit the needs of the core economies to
the question of “where is development gener- gain cheap goods and reap the rewards of un-
ated?” It does not occur in situ, instead a rela- equal exchange64 (poor nations selling the
tional development theory would examine the product of many labour hours in return for the
development that occurs in the space between product of very few).65 Amin’s theory is similar
nations, measured in the transfer of value and in that it posits “good” and “bad” forms of de-
power. This is a logical conclusion from Rod- velopment, but these are uncovered through a
ney’s assertion that development theory is an quite narrow focus on conditions within a
exclusively comparative study,60 and develop- country, and through accumulative quantities
ment’s measurable qualities in core and pe- within nations rather than transfers between
riphery rise and fall in proportion to one anoth- them. The autocentric/extraverted accumula-
er.61 tion dichotomy does not encompass changes
within the core, wherein there is now less evi-
In this relational model, I believe it is necessary dence for conventional autocentric accumula-
to identify two different forms of develop- tion.
ment. On the one hand, there is development
which represents an effort to synthesise and Amin’s theory also has a different internal ra-
overcome the core-periphery dialectic. This I tionality, in that it defines developmental ma-
will term autogenous development. Contrasted turity as a “delinked” country which has com-
with this is development which serves to exac- pleted the “sovereign project” of economics.
erbate the underdevelopment of other na- This sovereign project can be measured as a
tions, creating more specialised societies percentage, thus Amin says China is 50 per-
which exist only as parasites on the body of the cent determined by its sovereign project,
peripheral nations, which I will term parasitic South Africa is 0 percent determined by its
development. own, and so on.66 Amin also has very different
conclusions, to which I will return in the final
30 No. 4 / MAY 2021

section.
PARASITIC AND
Instead, the internal rationality of autogenic
and parasitic development, or, to draw from AUTOGENOUS
Castoriadis, the “definition of maturity” in DEVELOPMENT IN THE
each, reflects their relationship to the develop-
ment paradigm itself. Autogenous develop- CORE
ment in a society is mature once it sublates the
core-periphery dialectic (eg. development Parasitic development is certainly not new.
which is no longer proportional to underdevel- Colonialism in all its forms, from the mercan-
opment). Parasitic development achieves ma- tilist settler-colonialism of the early American
turity when it is consumed by the core-periph- colonies, to the more advanced imperialist
ery dialectic and produces paradoxical results colonisation of Africa, has involved a parasitic
(eg. a core country underdeveloping itself ). relationship of some sort. However, I would
As we will see, parasitic development is by its suggest that until relatively recently, all forms
nature autocannibalistic. It accounts, in part, of parasitic development were matched by a
for the logic of the neoliberal revolution in the degree of autogenous development in the core.
West, and the hollowing-out of the liberal- In the colonial and early imperialist stages,
democratic institutions and labour-aristocrat- these two forms of development were relative-
ic achievements consolidated in the era of class ly co-dependent, as parasitic development re-
compromise. Parasitic development will lead, lied on autogenously-produced military and
in the long run, to the underdevelopment of economic power to maintain a hold over the
the core, unless countervailing tendencies colonies, while autogenous development re-
emerge. lied on parasitic expansion in the colonies to
overcome European imperialist stalemates
and “export the contradictions” (overpro-
duced goods, surplus labour, etc.) produced by
domestic crises.
These are more-or-less historical truisms, but
the process deserves elaboration. The settler-
colony of New Zealand serves as a good exam-
ple as it has undergone four identifiable pro-
cesses which illustrate different aspects of par-

AMAL SAM,AHA
asitic and autogenous development, both as a tions for investment through interfering in the
core nation in the present day, and as a semi- colonial land market and raising land prices,70
peripheral colony in its early history: immiserating early settlers as part of a con-
scious effort to escape domestic “over-capital-
isation and revolutionary tensions.”71
1. It has relied on autogenous development
in Britain:
3. It has benefited from its own autogenous
The New Zealand state’s early history was
development:
marked by repeated appeals to Britain for set-
tlers, investment, and military support. The After considerable foreign capital investment,
industrial expansion occurring in Britain, it- the New Zealand economy became largely
self the product of both intensified exploita- self-sufficient from the 1900s to the 1970s,
tion of British workers and imperial profits dominating the world’s wool and refrigerated
from the creation of forced markets in India shipping markets and creating the world’s
and China, created the conditions for a British highest standard of living for the majority
military, economic, and population growth Pākeha population.72 This was dependent up-
that far outstripped any autogenous potential on, but never less than equal to, concomitant
in the colony. An enormous imperial force was parasitic development.
required to defeat the Māori Kīngitanga (itself
often militarily superior, but economically in-
4. It has benefited from its own parasitic de-
ferior)67 in the 1860s,68 which was maintained
velopment in the Pacific:
largely at the insistence of the Pākeha
colonists. In the 1870s, the colony expanded Since the Seddon Prime Ministership New
through a series of massive loans from British Zealand played the role of “junior imperialist”
banks, while encouraging British immigra- in the Pacific, subjugating island nations.
tion.69 It is deeply unlikely that the New These island economies, as well as the
Zealand colony would have established itself pre-1950s semi-independent Māori economy,
without considerable British aid. served as vast reserve armies of labour, creat-
ing a racialised wage hierarchy that enriched
Pākeha workers and “plugged gaps” in the
2. It has been hindered by parasitic develop-
main economy.73
ment in Britain:
At this point it is worth pointing out that none
Early in the colony’s history, British capitalists
of this is to suggest the co-dependence of auto-
conspired to create more favourable condi-
32 No. 4 / MAY 2021

genous and parasitic development in the colo- strata of society that identifies with finance, a
nial and early imperialist eras constituted growth not just in numbers but in political and
some sort of “interdependent” development social impact. This strata represents internally
with relatively equal trade-offs. At each stage the external appearance of financial markets
there were winners reaping the benefits of de- on a massive scale. Finance has its own culture
velopment, and losers who remained underde- and, through a process of osmosis, this culture
veloped, usually Māori and Pacific peoples. has spread throughout New Zealand society. It
Nonetheless, we can see from the New Zealand is the spread of this finance culture that has un-
example that autogenous development was derwritten the New Zealand transforma-
usually matched by some degree of parasitism, tion.”75
and vice-versa. Even if autogenous develop-
As Jane Kelsey and others have noted, the pro-
ment was unlikely to succeed without some de-
found shifts in New Zealand closely matched
gree of parasitism, most development which
global trends led by the financial centres of
took place in this era was the result of the intra-
New York, London, and Tokyo,76 and the zeal
national exploitation of workers from the ma-
and speed with which New Zealand govern-
jority national group (Pākeha), whereas para-
ments transformed the country make New
sitic development existed in a supporting role
Zealand the prototypical neoliberal state. In
to increase industrial outputs (eg. through Pa-
her book The FIRE Economy, Kelsey gives an
cific phosphate increasing farming output),
exhaustive list of the changes New Zealand un-
ensure a labour supply, or act as a “market of
derwent, and the global trends they reflected.
last resort” for New Zealand industry (in the
First the state transformed its relationship to
case of the Pacific, by providing a market for
the economy, becoming more intimate with fi-
huge quantities of low-quality corned beef ).
nance by bringing ideologically committed ne-
This was to change. On 26 July 1984 the ne- oliberals into the treasury, loosening restric-
oliberal revolution began in New Zealand. tions on finance, and setting up a bonanza of
Bruce Jesson captured the mood of the year in asset sales.77 Next the finance sector exploded
Only Their Purpose is Mad over a decade later: in size as state owned banks were sold off and
private banks reached record sizes, insurance
“[T]he economy was controlled by produc-
agencies were concentrated into a duopoly,
ers;74 these days the economy is run by fi-
corporate raiders rebranded as private equity
nanciers. A new èlite has evolved globally, and
firms cannibalised the retail sector, and pub-
the country is now run for the benefit of ren-
lic/private partnerships (PPPs) took over the
tiers, not producers. Within New Zealand,
infrastructure of the state, even running local
there has been a phenomenal growth in that

AMAL SAM,AHA
governments.78 Zealand demands a certain standard of living.

But much as societal development is now fund-
This financialisation of society had a profound
ed almost entirely through external debt, per-
effect upon the autogenous developmental po-
sonal, human development is now funded
tential of New Zealand in two main ways. Pro-
through household debt.82 With all forms of
duction was entirely hollowed out, with real
development in New Zealand now funded by
production falling from 35 to 22 percent of
unsustainable, often external debt, can we re-
GDP. This was largely because of shareholder
ally say that it is autogenously developing?
capitalism, in which each aspect of production
had to justify its existence to shareholders, and Perhaps if this debt-driven society had, at its
the state and boardrooms began to respond to base, an internal locus of value creation, then
underperformance by stripping away supports we could say that it is. The answer to this lies in
to create a “dynamic” economy, in other the class composition of such societies. This is
words, by instituting mass layoffs and off- a question I discussed at length in another arti-
shoring parts of the production chain.79 As cle,83 but suffice it to say that while the vast ma-
livelihoods began to suffer, and the cost of liv- jority of people in core societies are still wage
ing spiked, the state hoped that savings and labourers, the kinds of wage labour being per-
reinvestment would eventually fix most prob- formed have drastically diversified since the
lems. This never happened, instead there was mid-century height of industrial wage-labour,
next to no reinvestment of profits, as it was and many forms of wage labour which do not
nearly all paid out as shareholder dividends. actually produce use-values have proliferated.
Without savings, the economy came to be Jürgen Habermas hypothesised that such
funded through debt. This was not public debt, labourers would increase the productivity of
which would have likely alleviated the situa- other wage labourers,84 but David Graeber
tion, instead it was enormous external debt, a successfully argued that such workers really do
large part of which was intercorporate bank not produce value on their own, nor increase
debt, which contributed to a balance-of-pay- efficiencies elsewhere.85 These workers I
ments deficit and further lack of reinvest- called reflexive-unproductive labourers, which
ment.80 As the late David Graeber noted, fi- included think-tank employees, university ad-
nancialised economies really just act as cover ministrators, management consultants, data
for “colluding with government to create, and analysts, supervisors-of-supervisors, et
then trade and manipulate, various forms of cetera, all of whom now make up a large pro-
86
debt.”81 portion of core workers.87

As a Western, white nation, Pākeha New Of course value must come from somewhere,
34 No. 4 / MAY 2021

It is only natural that revolutionaries

are among the few to speak of a trans-
formational rupture in development, as
only revolution can provide the politi-
cal will necessary to overcome a totalis-
ing paradigm.
and as Zak Cope points out, unproductive this is savings, we can see that without parasitic
workers in the core cannot create values them- development the core nations would only have
selves unless there has been a proportional about two-fifths the wealth available for rein-
amount of productive labour undertaken else- vestment.
where.88 In other words, a core economy which
This seems to confirm Amin’s hypothesis that
is entirely reliant on labour which is not auto-
the periphery is now needed to support the
genously productive indicates a displacement
rate of profit in the core, mostly through un-
of the locus of value creation.
equal exchange.92 We can only conclude that
If we remember one of the maxims we arrived parasitic development has begun to complete-
at earlier, development takes place in the ly outweigh any autogenous development in
transfers between nations, and this is especial- the West.
ly true here. If a society seems to be developed,
Further confirmation of this comes from the
then we should expect to see signs of external
unlikeliest of sources. Even major financial in-
transfers due to parasitic development. In the
stitutions like the IMF have started to be criti-
case of the core countries in the 21st century,
cal of overreliance on parasitic development
most development is an expression of the Im-
over the last decade or so. A flurry of IMF doc-
perial Transfer of Value (ITV) identified by
uments with titles like “Too Much Finance?”
Cope, which is composed of direct value trans-
have been released, but as an institution bound
fers, illicit financial flows, and unequal ex-
by its own propaganda to a certain extent it can
change.89 Of these factors, unequal exchange,
hardly point out the contradictions of empire.
the inequities in the cost of peripheral labour
Instead they provide amusingly simplistic ex-
hours vs. those in the core, is the largest com-
planations for the phenomena identified, such
ponent of value transfers. Through an exhaus-
as that Finance becomes spontaneously unsus-
tive process of adding up various forms of ITV,
tainable after taking up a certain arbitrary per-
Cope arrives at a total peripheral-core transfer
centage of the economy.93 Reading between
of $5.2 trillion annually,90 of which over half is
the lines though, we can see that even arch-im-
the product of unequal exchange.91 This is
perial institutions are becoming dimly aware
three times higher than intra-core transfers of
of their own unsustainability and dependence
wealth.
upon a locus of value creation, even if they
This may not seem like much when we look at don’t know where or what that is.
the core nations’ (as defined by Cope) com-
While even bourgeois economists are ringing
bined GDP of about $44.8 trillion. But when
the alarm bell, the neoliberal states of the core
we consider the fact that only $8.87 trillion of

AMAL SAM,AHA
live in what Kelsey identifies as a state of pro- eties designed to absorb value from overseas
found denial. Every effort of the state, even vi- more effectively. This will likely include fur-
tal ones like crisis recovery, have been given ther financialisation, an even greater prolifera-
over to the preservation of the current finan- tion of reflexive-unproductive jobs, and a
cial regime’s credibility.94 In many ways, the greater reliance on debt to ensure standards of
continued employment of liberal develop- living than ever before. Fundamentally it must
ment rhetoric only serves to reinforce this de- include increases to the wages of workers in the
nial. Developed countries must be developed, as core as a means of perpetuating unequal ex-
their standard of living is all that separates change, however this is not to say that such
them from the peripheral hordes. workers will live in luxury. Household debt,
and an ever-higher cost of living will likely far
In reality, the core countries are more depen-
outstrip wages, and will in fact act to push
dent upon unsustainable wealth extraction
wages up by forever staying slightly higher
than ever before. Their expenses are manifold:
than people can afford.
debt servicing, maintaining a superior stan-
dard of living, maintaining just enough manu- But what of conditions in the periphery? Some
facturing to out-compete peripheral manufac- states will likely achieve a degree of autoge-
turers. All of this on a wafer-thin margin of nous development. States like China already
profitability, and as a downward trend be- have, even if their increased productive poten-
comes more and more apparent. tial enriches the core countries far more than
their own workers thanks to unequal ex-
But the trend towards parasitic development
change. This will likely only abate once wages
is only going to increase as the rate of profit in
increase beyond the global median wage.
the core countries falls. In the mid 19th centu-
ry, profitability hovered at around 40 percent Other states will not be so lucky, and will re-
return per unit of capital invested in the core main permanently underdeveloped, locked in
countries. Between 1974 and 2010 this figure place and time by external pressures from the
has hovered at around 10 to 15 percent. An op- core countries. I believe a vision of the periph-
timistic projection of this falling rate of profit eral countries’ future can be seen in the Pacific,
would have the core countries reaching 0 per- where island nations which have long since
cent profitability by 2054.95 been denuded of natural resources instead act
as vast reserve armies of labour for the nations
To make up the shortfall, core nations will
of the Pacific Rim,96 with the only relief coming
ramp up the rate of exploitation of the periph-
from small remittance incomes.97 The core
ery, creating more and more specialised soci-
countries watch keenly, ready to force the sig-
36 No. 4 / MAY 2021

nature of trade deals favourable to the core,98 say that development discourse is tyrannical,
rather than allowing the development of mul- as it takes over domains other than those as-
tilateral ties which might provide mutual relief cribed to it.99 It begins as economics, consumes
between peripheral nations. Any autogenous the social, the political, and does not finish con-
developmental potential is squeezed out suming until it has taken on a discussion of ev-
through a combination of competition with ery aspect of the human experience. The only
Western goods, and an overreliance on foreign way to negate the tyranny of this discourse, she
aid, which more often than not goes straight says, is to work through social and political ap-
back to the core in return for basic imports. proaches, and re-historicise the developmen-
tal paradigm, insisting that each theory of de-
velopment is a tool, open to a multiplicity of
outcomes.100
It is for these reasons that I have written this as
CONCLUSIONS: both a short history of development theories,
BEYOND DEVELOPMENT? while also rooting this in current and future
catastrophe, exploitation, and suffering in the
last section. Development discourse always
By this point I have discussed various theories serves to hide these facts, rendering them as
of development and whether or not they help small parts in a sterile whole. Perhaps this sani-
us explain our world, but there are other theo- tising quality of development discourse, com-
ries I have touched on which look past develop- bined with the naked horror of our world, is
ment, which question the rationality of devel- why “development” can appear as an inherent-
opment, or which reject development as an evil ly toxic concept.
in and of itself. It’s at this point that we traverse
the gap between simply analysing the world, At the intersection of these problems is the fact
and asking how we are to change it. that development discourse on the left has,
tragically, become reduced to a relatively
As Castoriadis reminds us, it is rare for devel- pointless debate about growth vs. degrowth.
opment theorists to speak of an endpoint. It is As Aaron Vansintjan points out, thanks to a
only natural that revolutionaries are among misreading of what exactly de-growth argu-
the few to speak of a transformational rupture ments are, a number of socialists have come
in development, as only revolution can provide out in favour of increased growth, even in
the political will necessary to overcome a total- terms of the crude metric of GDP.101
ising paradigm. Karagiannis goes so far as to

AMAL SAM,AHA
Mike Macnair has effectively argued for a nations would neither expand nor contract,
more nuanced position on growth in revolu- but would rather develop a “national law of val-
tionary societies, correctly pointing out that ue.” This would encourage qualitative shifts in
any socialist society cannot be based on max- the economy: agriculture would move away
imising growth, or even efficiency. He traces from export-oriented monocultures towards
the idea of socialism as a developmental regime gardens for food sovereignty, higher wages at
back to certain assumptions of Marx in Cri- the expense of export competitiveness and so
tique of the Gotha Programme, and their later on. Amin insisted that this was different to au-
adoption by Lenin. The idea of the socialist de- tarky, and that trade would still take place,103
velopmental regime, at least one based purely but I think we must explain this further, and
on increased efficiency of surplus value alloca- move beyond Amin’s sometimes nationalistic
tion, was flawed, not in that the goal was im- (or at least very nation-focused) formulation,
possible, but in that the best parts of the Soviet as evidenced by the kind of societies he held up
system were those which defied quantitative as excellent examples of delinking.104
developmental rationality.102
A relational view of development is incompati-
If we have learnt anything from the previous ble with the negation of either development or
sections, it should be that we have very little to relationality. The core-periphery dialectic
learn from purely quantitative theories of de- cannot be overcome by mere disengagement
velopment. There is nothing wrong with mea- by either core or peripheral nations. Rather it
surement, but such approaches tend to over- requires active efforts from both worlds to un-
look the less superficial, more qualitative and dertake autogenous development in different
relational changes which societies undergo. I areas. In the core, this means the de- financiali-
believe socialist economics should be funda- sation of societies, and a degree of re-industri-
mentally ambivalent to the question of growth alisation to compensate for a reduction in
or degrowth of total GDP, or efficiency. Much cheap goods gained through unequal exchange
more important is the degree to which differ- with the periphery. In the periphery, it would
ent kinds of development, autogenous or para- mean much of the same restructuring de-
sitic, are taking place within a society. Natural- scribed by Amin, but this can only be done suc-
ly, some sectors must shrink, others must grow cessfully if it is primarily performed through
in accordance with qualitative changes to the the proliferation of peripheral-to-peripheral
global system. transfers, or trade which does not involve un-
equal exchange. De-linking with the same em-
This argument is once again similar to one
phasis on autocentric accumulation Amin de-
made by Samir Amin decades ago. Delinked
38 No. 4 / MAY 2021

scribes simply would not work for nations their largely involuntary dependency on pe-
without natural resources, such as the Pacific. ripheral workers.
The necessity of further development in the I wish to return to Rodney for a moment to as-
core is evidence that we have moved past what sess whether I have kept to the key points out-
I described earlier as the root of the radical de- lined in my sketch for a relational development
velopment theories: that development is a ze- model. Peripheral economies are certainly in-
ro-sum game as argued by Baran. In contrast, tegrated into the core economies, and are in
Macnair argues that, “[C]apitalism cycles be- fact becoming more so every day as the Imperi-
tween positive-sum games, which make in- al Transfer of Value displaces the autogenous-
equalities tolerable and produce reformist ver- ly-derived wealth available for reinvestment.
sions of liberalism and technocratic progress The core-periphery dialectic is entrenched,
ideologies, and negative-sum games, in which and will continue to entrench itself until pe-
inequalities become increasingly intolera- ripheral powers gain the wage levels necessary
ble.”105 to combat unequal exchange (unless their lead-
ership chooses competitiveness over higher
While I am not sure at which point one cycle
wages). Under parasitic regimes, development
has overtaken the other, it is certainly true that
is closer than ever before to a zero-sum game in
both can exist under capitalism. Conventional
which each win and loss is entirely proportion-
development theory deludes itself into think-
al. As we can see, peripheral countries will suf-
ing that development is a positive-sum game,
fer more and more as the core becomes more
and if we select our data carefully that might
volatile, more dependent, more specialised,
seem true, but conversely radical development
and more insecure in their hold over the world.
theories’ zero-sum game almost seems to sug-
What is now seen as development, especially in
gest that the only route to global liberation is
the core, is actually greater debt, greater inse-
the wholesale collapse, even retrogression, of
curity, and greater reductions in human agen-
the core countries. This idea has a certain at-
cy. Development is not self-perpetuating, but
tractiveness for anyone on the receiving end of
rather too much of the wrong kind of develop-
imperial aggression and expansion, but I
ment will produce underdevelopment in the
would suggest that political collapse is not the
long run, even as those at the helm of society
same as developmental retrogression. Once
slip further into denial of this fact.
again it is the core’s capacity for parasitic
growth that must be eliminated, while some The core-periphery dialectic cannot be ig-
autogenous development is necessary to save nored. It cannot be disengaged from. As Huey
the captive populations of the core and end Newton once proclaimed, reactionary forms

AMAL SAM,AHA
of relationality must be transformed into revo- Unproductive Work” Peace Land & Bread 3
lutionary forms.106 Our task is qualitative (2020) 100-125.
transformation rather than quantitative incre-
6. Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped
mentalism, or worse, retrogression. We must
Africa, 4, 15.
reject the unbuilding of the world.
7. Ibid. 14.
8. Cornelia FA van Wesenbeeck, Michiel A
Keyzer, and Maarten Nubé, “Estimation of
Undernutrition and Mean Calorie Intake in
ENDNOTES Africa: Methodology, Findings and Implica-
1. See for example The Economist, “The tions,” International Journal of Health Geo-
tsetse fly and development: In the oint- graphics 8, no. 37 (2009) https://
ment,” January 17, 2015. https://www.e- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PM-
conomist.com/finance-and-eco- C2710326/.
nomics/2015/01/15/in-the-ointment? fs- 9. Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped
rc=scn%2Ftw%2Fte%2Fpe%2Fed Africa, 17.
%2Fhowaninsectheldbackacontinent.
10. Ibid. 3.
2. For the most comprehensive (albeit cer-
tainly not anti-imperialist) account of “The 11. Ibid. 3-4.
Blob” see Stephen M. Walt, The Hell of Good 12. Ibid. 4.
Intentions: America's Foreign Policy Elite and
the Decline of U.S. Primacy (Washington 13. Ibid. 4-5.
D.C.: Just World Books, 2018). 14. Ibid. 7-9.
3. GHS Index, “2019 Global Health Security 15. Ibid. 11-13.
Index” Accessed 21 January, 2021. https://
www.ghsindex.org. 16. Ibid. 13-14.
4. Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdevel- 17. Ibid. 16.

oped Africa, (Washington D.C.: Howard Uni- 18. John Rossik, “Who makes it?: Clark's
versity Press, 1974). Sector Model for US Economy 1850-2009,”
5. Amal Samaha, “Innovators, Bullshitters Accessed 22 January, 2020. http://
and Aristocrats: Towards an Explanation of www.63alfred.com/whomakesit/clarksmod-
el.htm.
40 No. 4 / MAY 2021

19. Kennith Culp and Michelle Umbarger, 30. Nathalie Karagiannis, Avoiding Responsi-
“Seasonal and Migrant Agricultural Work- bility: The Politics and Discourse of European
ers: A Neglected Work Force” American As- Development Policy (London: Pluto, 2004) 27.
sociation of Occupational Health Nurses Jour-
31. See for example Alan Touraine, Pour-
nal 52, no. 9 (2004) 383-390.
rons-nous vivre ensemble? Egaux et diffèrents
20. Kaieteur News, “The Grand Betrayal of (Paris: Fayard, 1997) 219-26; Zygamunt
Walter Rodney,” 16 June, 2012. https:// Bauman, “On the universal morality and
www.kaieteurnewsonline.- morality of universalism” European Journal
com/2012/06/16/the-grand-betrayals-of- of Development Research (EJDR) 10, No. 2
walter-rodney. (1998); Cornelius Castoriadis, “Rèflexions
sur le ‘dèveloppement’ et la ‘rationalitè’” Es-
prit, No. 5 (1976).
Africa, 3.
32. Amartya Sen, "Equality of what?", in The
22. Elizabeth Dickinson. "GDP: a brief histo-
Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ed. Ster-
ry." Foreign Policy. Accessed 23 January
ling M. MacMurrin (Cambridge: Cambridge
2021. https://foreignpolicy.-
University Press, 2010) 195–220.
com/2011/01/03/gdp-a-brief-history.
33. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom
23. Joan van Heijster and Daniel DeRock.
(New York: Anchor books, 2000).
“How GDP Spread to China: The Experi-
mental Diffusion of Macroeconomic Mea- 34. Karagiannis, Avoiding Responsibility,
surement” Review of International Political 29-32.
Economy. https://www.tandfonline.com/
35. Ibid. 31.
doi/pdf/10.1080/09692290.2020.1835690.
24. Simon Kuznets. "How To Judge Quality".
Africa, 21.
The New Republic, October 20, 1962.
37. Ibid.
25. Gunnar Myrdal. “What is Develop-
ment?” Journal of Economic Issues 8, No. 4 38. Ibid. 22.
(1974), 729-736. 39. Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An
26. Ibid. 735 Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 1981).
27. See generally Anthony Brewer. Marxist
theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey 40 Karagiannis, Avoiding Responsibility, 5.
(London: Routlege and Kegan Paul, 1980). 41 This is only true if we focus on industrial
28. United Nations Development Pro- workers, rather than all workers connected
gramme, “Human Development Index to industry, who effect the ultimate organic
(HDI)” Accessed 23 January 2021, http:// composition of capital, as I have discussed in
hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-develop- Samaha, "Innovators, Bullshitters, and Aris-
ment-index-hdi. tocrats," 112.
29. See for example Owen Barder, “What is 42. Darrell M. West and Christian Lansang,
development?” Center for Global Develop- “Global Manufacturing Scorecard: How the
ment, 16 August 2012 https://www.cgde- US Compares to 18 Other Nations” Brook-
v.org/blog/what-development,; see also So- ings Institution, 10 July, 2018. https://
ciety for International Development: Israel www.brookings.edu/research/global- manu-
Branch, “What is Development?” 11 March facturing-scorecard-how-the-us-compares-
2018, https://www.sid-israel.org/en/Devel- to-18-other-nations.
opment-Issues/What-is-Development. 43. The World Bank, “Adjusted Net Nation-

AMAL SAM,AHA
al income per capita (current US$)” Accessed acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-

27 January, 2021. https://data.world- ed5-00019539.
bank.org/indicator/NY.ADJ.NNTY.PC.CD?
most_recent_value_desc=true.
Africa, 25.
44. Rodney would suggest we should be wary
56. Ibid. 75.
of what kind of education we mean, as some
simply serves as a tool of control. See Rod- 57. Ibid. 168.
ney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 58. Ibid. 219, 231.
240.
59. Ibid. 21.
45. United Nations Development Programme,
“Human Development Report 2020,” ac- 60. Ibid. 13-14.
cessed 27 January, 2021. http://hdr.und- 61. Ibid. 75.
p.org/en/2020-report.
62. Samir Amin, Unequal Development: An
46. Gallup International, “Voice of the Peo- Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral
ple Government Index,” Accessed 27 Jan- Capitalism (Hassocks: Harvester Press,
uary, 2021. https:// www.gallup-interna- 1976) 76.
tional.com/surveys/voice-people-govern-
ment-index. 63. Ibid. 191.
47. Will Dahlgreen, “Chinese people are 64. Ibid. 191-197.

most likely to feel the world is getting bet- 65. Charles Bettelheim. “Appendix One:
ter,” 6 January, 2016. https://yougov.co.uk/ Theoretical Comments” in Unequal Ex-
topics/lifestyle/articles-re- change: A Study of the Imperialism of Trade
ports/2016/01/05/chinese-people-are- (1972) 271.
most-optimistic-world.
66. Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven. “A Depen-
48. See generally Peter Mair, “Ruling the dency Pioneer,” in Dialogues on Development
Void: The Hollowing of Western Democra- Volume 1: On Dependency, eds. Ushehwedu
cy.” New Left Review 42 (2006). Kufakurinani, Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven,
49. World Health Organisation, "2015 Sui- Frutuoso Santanta and Maria Dyveke Styve
cide rates per (100 000 population) Crude (New York: Institute for New Economic
rates Data by WHO region". Accessed 27 Thinking, 2017) 16.
January, 2021. https://www.who.int/data/ 67. Richard J. Taylor. British Logistics in the
gho/data/themes/mental-health. New Zealand Wars, 2004. https://mro.-
50. Esteban Ezequiel Maito, The historical massey.ac.nz/bitstream/ han-
transience of capital: The downward trend in dle/10179/1993/02_whole.pdf?se-
the rate of profit since XIX century, Universi- quence=1&isAllowed=y.
dad de Buenos Aires - Argentina. https:// 68. James Belich. The New Zealand Wars.
mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/55894/1. (Auckland: Penguin, 1986) 125-133.
51. Samaha, "Innovators, Bullshitters and 69. Keith Sinclair, A History of New Zealand
Aristocrats," 112. (England: Penguin, 1969) 152-153.
52. Castoriadis, “Rèflexions.” 70. Karl Marx, Capital Vol. I (London: Pen-
53. Karagiannis, Avoiding Responsibility, 2. guin, 1990) 931-932.
54. Oxford Reference, “Stafford Beer 1926– 71. Gabriel Piterberg and Lorenzo Veracini
2002,” accessed 28 January, 2021. https:// "Wakefield, Marx, and the World Turned In-
www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/ side Out." Journal of Global History 10, no.3
42 No. 4 / MAY 2021

(2015) 462. 91. Ibid. 81.

72. James Belich, Paradise Reforged: A Histo- 92. Anthony Brewer, “On Amin's Model of
ry of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the Autocentric Accumulation,” Capital & Class
Year 2000. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i 4, no. 1 (1980) 121.
Press, 2001) 44.
93. See for example Jean-Louis Arcand, Enri-
73. See for example Owen Gager, “Towards a co Berkes, and Ugo Panizza, “Too Much Fi-
Socialist Polynesia,” 1982. https://living- nance?” (Working Paper 12/161, IMF,
marxism.blog/ 2011/08/18/towards-a-so- Washington D.C., 2012) 4.
cialist-polynesia/; this is similar to a process
94. Kelsey, The FIRE Economy, 41.
described by Rodney, see Rodney, How Eu-
rope Underdeveloped Africa, 233. 95. Maito, The Historical Transience of Capi-
tal.
74. Of course, when Jesson says “producers,”
he means the capitalists at the helm of pro- 96. Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
duction, not workers. “Trade and Economic Cooperation.” Ac-
cessed on September 17, 2020, https://
75. Bruce Jesson, Only their Purpose is Mad:
www.mfat.govt.nz/en/aid-and-develop-
The Money Men Take Over NZ (Palmerston
ment/our-work-in-the-pacific/trade-and-
North: Dunmore Press, 1999) 39-40.
economic- cooperation.
76. Jane Kelsey, The FIRE Economy
97. John Connel. "Migration, Dependency
(Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2015)
and Inequality in the Pacific: Old Wine in
16.
Bigger Bottles? (Part 1)." In Globalisation
77. Ibid. 47-51. and Governance in the Pacific Islands: State,
Society and Governance in Melanesia, ed.
78. Ibid. 52-59.
Firth Stewart (Canberra: ANU Press, 2006)
79. Ibid. 59-65. 90-92.
80. Ibid. 71-75. 98. Radio New Zealand. “Watchdog Warns
81. David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs (New York: of 'Unbalanced' Pacer Plus Deal.” Accessed
Simon and Schuster, 2018) 151. on September 20, 2020. https://www.rnz.-
co.nz/international/pacific-news/410764/
82. Kelsey, The FIRE Economy, 83. watchdog-warns-of-unbalanced-pacer-plus-
83. Samaha, "Innovators, Bullshitters and deal.
Aristocrats." 99. Kargiannis, Avoiding Responsibility, 138.
84. Jürgen Habermas. Legitimation Crisis 100. Ibid. 139.
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1975) 56.
101. Aaron Vansintjan, “Let’s Define De-
85. See generally Graeber, Bullshit Jobs. growth Before We Dismiss It” Uneven Earth,
86. Samaha, "Innovators, Bullshitters and 21 December, 2015.
Aristocrats." 112. 102. Mike Macnair, “Socialism will not re-
87. Graeber, Bullshit Jobs, 6. quire industrialisation,” Weekly Worker, 14
May 2015. https://weeklyworker.co.uk/
88. Zak Cope, The Wealth of (Some) Nations: worker/1058/socialism-will-not-require-in-
Imperialism and the Mechanics of Value dustrialistion/? fbclid=IwAR2IRqJkjeJvEhd-
Transfer (London: Pluto Press, 2019) 66. j9m-uof15SqzN_1zYtg0kwtondFEasEe-
89. Ibid. 76-81. Hbaeac2GBmj8#12.
90. Ibid. 112. 103. Amin, Unequal Development, 191.

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Rendezvous with Death (Princeton: Princeton Inequality in the Pacific: Old Wine in Bigger
University Press, 2014) 246. Bottles? (Part 1)." In Globalisation and
Governance in the Pacific Islands: State, Society
105. Macnair, Socialism will not Require In- and Governance in Melanesia, edited by. Firth
dustrialisation. Stewart, 81-106. Canberra: ANU Press, 2006.
106. See generally John Narayan, “Huey P. Culp, Kennith, and Michelle Umbarger,
Newton’s Intercommunalism: An Unac- “Seasonal and Migrant Agricultural Workers: A
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(2004) 383-390
Dahlgreen, Will., “Chinese people are most likely
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2016. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/lifestyle/
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the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism. are-most-optimistic-world
Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1976
Dickinson, Elizabeth, "GDP: a brief history".
Arcand, Jean-Louis, Enrico Berkes and Ugo Foreign Policy Accessed 23 January 2021.
Panizza, “Too Much Finance?” Working Paper https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/03/gdp-a-
12/161, IMF, Washington D.C., 2012 brief-history/
Barder, Owen, “What is development?” Center The Economist, “The tsetse fly and development:
for Global Development, 16 August 2012 In the ointment,” January 17, 2015. https://
https://www.cgdev.org/blog/what-development www.economist.com/finance-and-
economics/2015/01/15/in-the-ointment?
Bauman, Zygamunt, “On the universal morality fsrc=scn%2Ftw%2Fte%2Fpe%2Fed
and morality of universalism” European Journal %2Fhowaninsectheldbackacontinent
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New Zealanders from the 1880s to the Year 2000. towards-a-socialist-polynesia/
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Brewer, Anthony, “On Amin's Model of Heijster, Joan van, and Daniel DeRock. “How
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"How To Judge Quality". The New Republic, 'unbalanced' Pacer Plus deal.” Accessed on
October 20, 1962 September 20, 2020. https://www.rnz.co.nz/
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Pioneer,” in Dialogues on Development Volume 1:
On Dependency edited by Ushehwedu Rodney, Walter, How Europe Underdeveloped
Kufakurinani, Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, Africa, Washington D.C.: Howard University
Frutuoso Santanta and Maria Dyveke Styve, New Press, 1974
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uof15SqzN_1zYtg0kwtondFEasEeHbaeac2GBm Unproductive Work” Peace Land & Bread 3
j8#12 (2020) 100-125
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Buenos Aires - Argentina. https://mpra.ub.uni- University Press, 2010
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46 No. 4 / MAY 2021

A PLANTER EMPIRE
AND THE LAND
QUESTION C. Katsfoter
THE U.S. AS A SLAVER OF NATIONS

he US Empire is ruled by the
t
so-called “white” nation.
This national formation is
composed of a more-or-less
unified Euro-American cul-
ture that includes formerly
oppressed nations such as
Italian and Eastern European Americans. This
construct is, of course, far from a monolith. It
orbits the central, oldest, and most powerful
formation: that of the Anglo-American nation.
Indeed, one often reads of “Anglo-American le-
gal tradition,” indicating a strong continuity be-
tween the old White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
nationhood at the heart of the US formation of
the ruling class, and the modern category of
whiteness. The white nation has absorbed wave
after wave of European immigration, but erect-
ed walls against the other subject nations within
the empire.1
There are other nations in the empire; there are
also national minorities.2 The other nations are
oppressed, to one degree or another. Some are
colonies. All have been caged and trapped with-
in the vast geographical territory of the empire
where they are super-exploited and where phe-
notype itself has come to serve as a marker for
nationality, and thus for the property-relations
embodied in national oppression. This bundle
of oppressions has come to be known as “race.”
But “race” issues are really national issues; they
are really issues of oppression based on pheno-
48 No. 4 / MAY 2021

The oppressed and the exploited have

been caged and trapped within the vast
geographical territory of the empire, a
symbol of super-exploitation and national
oppression.
type and expression of physical and linguistic

traits as identifiers of “racial” (really national)
boundaries. The exact moment in time when
racialization became a material force in the su-
perstructure is up for debate (although a credi-
ble argument traces it to the beginning of Euro-
pean colonialism in the 15th century), but the
fact remains that “race” preceded capitalist de-
velopment through the mercantile-colonialist
period, and likely found its full blossom in the
plantation system of the Caribbean, where the
race slave trade and genocide of Indigenous
peoples laid the groundwork for planter feudal-
ism.
WHAT IS A NATION?
“[A] nation is not a racial or tribal, but a histori-
cally constituted community of people… It
goes without saying that a nation, like every his-
torical phenomenon, is subject to the law of
change, has its history, its beginning and end.”3
Josef Stalin tackled this subject exhaustively in
his pamphlet “Marxism and the National Ques-
tion.” He demonstrated that there are a number
of factors that one must consider when deter-
mining whether an ethnicity comprises a dis-
tinct nation, and these are:
1. a common language
2. a common territory
3. a common economic life; economic cohesion
4. a common culture or psychological makeup (a
common superstructure)

C. KATSFOTER
A colony is a discrete geographic territory which is

governed by an imperial center for the benefit of the
empire. Colonial relations are typified by the
presence of a concentration of extractive industries
rather than industries that produce finished
commodities.
When we speak of colonized and oppressed na- Stalin, and the members of the Sixth Com-
tions, we have already determined that the intern of 1928 who voted in favor of the Black
membership of each discrete nation shares the Belt thesis, but it is a continuous refrain in the
four required traits of nationality. Most of the right-opportunist strains of communism inside
nations inside the empire possess English as a the United States empire—and no wonder!
common language, although the Black Belt has The relations of production are such that the
its own variation (AAVE, or African-American oppressed nations and colonized people pro-
Vernacular English) and the Indigenous na- vide a super-exploited workforce. White com-
tions have maintained or recovered their own munists who fail to see this ignore the beam in
languages. The Black Belt constitutes the terri- their eye because they refuse to see the benefit
tory of the oppressed Black or New Afrikan na- they derive from the subjugation of their fellow
tion inside the empire, while Indigenous na- countrymen.
tions retain territory shaped through treaties
with the settler state. It is critical to note that
the territory of the Black Belt was created by PROPERTY RELATIONS OF
colonial oppression. That is, the territory is not
the original territory of the Black nation, but THE COLONY
rather situated within the regions of Indige- A colony is a discrete geographic territory
nous peoples who were already subject to colo- which is governed by an imperial center for the
nization. Each of these nations has economic benefit of the empire. Colonial relations are
cohesion, that is, they are economically interre- typified by the presence of a concentration of
lated within their own bounds, and each of extractive industries rather than industries
these nations have their own common psycho- that produce finished commodities. A semi-
logical makeup, a common culture. colony is an ostensibly independent country
Identification of the imprisoned nations within whose politics are dominated by the interfer-
the empire has been a constant struggle against ence of an imperial country or a coalition of im-
white chauvinism. Anglo-Americans and Euro- perial countries, and which is therefore run,
Americans in particular have often held the materially, for the benefit of those imperial
viewpoint that, for instance, Black Americans countries. Colonies may have a settler pres-
are not a nation but an “ethnic minority” or “na- ence, or may remain majority indigenous.4
tional minority” and that the chief desire of this A colony is a super-exploited region in which
population is assimilation into the Euro-Amer- the normal productive forces of the bourgeoisie
ican nation. This chauvinist view flies in the face are inhibited. In a colony, the imperial power
of the works of Haywood, Nasanov, Lenin, seeks to dominate labor relations (for access to
50 No. 4 / MAY 2021

Industry in the colonies is in a direct, antagonistic

contradiction to the interests of the imperial
bourgeoisie. It is this antagonistic relationship that is
the primary contradiction of a colonial property
arrangement, and absent this relationship a region
cannot be said properly to be a colony.
cheap labor), extractive industries (for access to rial corporations. This is the most common
cheap raw material), land relations (to establish form of imperial domination in the age of neo-
colonial offices, and to give land to choice sup- colonialism, in which capital is sent into the
porters), and markets (to export finished goods colonies through private corporations, extrac-
and realize profits from manufactories in the tion occurs under the watchful eyes of com-
imperial core). In traditional colonies, the terri- prador-governments, and no hateful flag of the
tory is administered by the colonizing country. conqueror nation is ever seen flying over a gov-
This may take the form of imperial governors, ernment building.
boards of control, direct sovereign companies
Inside the US territorial empire, the Indige-
such as the VoC5 or the East India Company,
nous nations are administered as colonies.
etc.
While the empire pays lip service to the
Neo-colonies (or semi-colonies) are subject to sovereignty of these territories, they are not in-
the same types of exploitation, but these are dependent of US policy. They remain subject to
overseen by the comprador bourgeoisie who treaty annulment, land grabs, labor exploita-
belong to the colonized nation. That is, native tion, and extractive exploitation just as surely as
institutions are so wholly corrupted by imperial if they were colonies at a geographical remove.
interference that the native government acts in We can see the true nature of imperial exploita-
the interests of the imperial populations locat- tion of Indigenous territories in the Dawes Act
ed in the core, rather than for the native popula- of 1887 and the behavior of the Department of
tions in the colonized country. The compradors Indian Affairs. Indian agents have attacked for-
act as imperial overseers for the oppressor na- mal native sovereignty since the treaties were
tionalities; they are the agents of the empire, first signed, and the federal government has
even as they wear the appearance of the nation- been rapacious in its attempts to repossess
al bourgeoisie (bankers, business owners, and granted territory, cut services, and otherwise
politicians). The comprador bourgeoisie does under-develop Indigenous regions. Local
not have an incentive to develop industries that American Indian bourgeoisie are discouraged
compete with the imperial core, because they from building up industry.
receive the benefit of imperial aid to keep their
Industry in the colonies is in a direct, antagonis-
country pacified and line their own pockets.
tic contradiction to the interests of the imperial
The comprador bourgeoisie surrenders control
bourgeoisie. It is this antagonistic relationship
of their markets, their land administration
that is the primary contradiction of a colonial
schemes, and their industrial development in
property arrangement, and absent this rela-
exchange for a portion of imperial plunder
tionship a region cannot be said properly to be a
which is paid back to them as IMF loans, devel-
“colony.”
opment loans, foreign aid, even shares in impe-

C. KATSFOTER
The Antagonism of Industry. Why is industry in a

colonial region antagonistic to the imperial core?
This question is of great import. If we could say “it is
not,” then it would be possible for the imperial core
to develop the colonies as it claims to do, to raise
them up to the same standard of living as the imperial
core, and for imperialism to proceed in a friendly
manner to all nations, a rising tide that lifts all ships.
This is demonstrably not the case. We have merely to
look at the history of brutal colonial exploitation to
understand that this cannot be. But why?
In order to answer this question, we must substan-
tially understand the functioning of imperialism it-
self. Surplus capital is not directed to raise the stan-
dard of living of farmers, peasants, etc. in exploited
countries, but rather to make use of the higher rate of
profit in the “backward” colony. Of course, the
colony is only “backward” because it was intention-
ally underdeveloped – through embargoes, war, ex-
port of its chief goods, and concerted imperial at-
tacks on its home industries! Capital is not put to use
in granting the colonies actual development, but
rather in creating sites of extraction. These are loci
where profit is gathered and siphoned off by the im-
perial power and its bourgeois agents.
Let us, for example, examine the imperial conquest
of Iraq and its subsequent administration under the
servant-government of the US bourgeoisie. The
devastation of the imperial war reduced real wages in
Iraq, and turned over the key oil fields to US imperial
exploitation. The result:
In 2002, on the eve of the Second Gulf War, the GDP
of Iraq was $59 billion. Its per-capita purchasing
power was roughly $2,500. US exports comprised
46% of all exports, and US imports were less than 1%.
The country had $62.2 billion dollars of debt and re-
ceived $327.5 million dollars in economic aid. In
2004 the GDP had been reduced to $37.92 billion.
Per capita purchasing power was roughly $1,500.
US exports were 48.8% and US imports were 6.9% of
total exports and imports respectively. The debt had
ballooned to $93.95 billion dollars, and aid was an
amazing $33 billion, billions of dollars higher.6
52 No. 4 / MAY 2021

The complete destruction of Iraq and the influx of

“aid” and US capital, alongside a substantial (nearly
3%) increase in US exports and very substantial (7%)
increase in US imports represents the imperialist
underdevelopment of a colony. The invasion col-
lapsed the wage, transformed Iraq into a colony, and
permitted US capital to “develop” its key extractive
industry (oil). Crippling IMF loans, which are part of
the modern US/NATO colonial order, ensure con-
tinuing government compliance.
The interim government of Iraq, installed in 2004,
was headed by Jalal Talabani, a former organizer for
an independent Kurdistan. In 1990 he traveled to
the United States to offer his aid to the US imperial
forces in exchange for support for Kurdistan. In
1991 he worked closely with the imperial powers of
the US, UK, and France to establish a “safe haven” in
the Kurdish region. The fate of Kurdistan has been
repeatedly used as a wedge by the imperial powers to
develop its presence in that region; the Iraq war and
the subsequent establishment of a semi-colony was
no exception. Under the guise of “humanitarian aid
to the Kurds,” the US has kept its troops on the
ground in the region for 16 years.
The Indigenous Nations. Let us take a single Indige-
nous nation, the Mashantucket Pequots, as an exam-
ple so we can better understand how these internal
Indigenous colonies have been treated by the en-
croachment of capital.
At the time of the first colonists landing in the Pequot
area, the nation controlled 160,000 acres of territo-
ry. By 1855, the State of Connecticut had reduced
the Pequots’ holdings to 204 acres (a loss of 159,796
acres, 99.985% of the original territory). The land
left to the Pequots was mostly unusable swamp. The
Pequot Nation was essentially eradicated from its
former territory and suppressed from 1638 (the end
of the Pequot War) until 1983, when the nation was
recognized after a protracted struggle with the US
legal system. To this day, Anglo-Americans in Con-
necticut refer to the Pequots as a “fake tribe” who
were “just after the money.” The process of genocide
had almost been completed and its perpetrators had

C. KATSFOTER
forgotten about the Pequots, whose territory The new Pequot territory is a rump-colony; it is
had been given over to the settlers wholesale.7 politically isolated, its sovereignty is contin-
gent on the good will of capital, and it was com-
This created a federal land trust in the name of
pletely, physically colonized by settlers in the
the Pequots and allotted $900,000 to the tribe
recent past. This is the end result of settler colo-
to acquire territory. It also legally extinguished
nialism. “Territory is settler colonialism’s spe-
the claims of the Pequots on any territory other
cific, irreducible element.”8 The remainder of
than what it acquired by “normal”, settler land
the Pequot territory is administered by the Bu-
relations (purchase from Anglo-Americans)
reau of Indian Affairs, host to a pair of casinos,
henceforward. Of utmost importance is the fact
and without any productive industry. Gam-
that the Pequot territory is held in federal trust.
bling, by its nature, cannot valorize capital9;
These federal land trusts mark out a legal rather, the establishment of Indigenous gam-
regime instituted under the Indian Reorganiza- bling centers parasitically remove money from
tion Act and the Indian Self-Determination and other productive circuits. The Pequot casinos
Education Assistance Act. These trusts are ad- pay $228 million in taxes to the State of Con-
ministered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This necticut and the Federal Government each
trust is a form of “white man’s burden.” This year as a result of various agreements.
was articulated as late as 1942 as a “moral obli-
The unproductive labor in the Pequot casinos
gation[…] of the highest responsibility and
at one time produced a dividend per-capita
trust” toward Indigenous nations. Seminole
payout to each of the members of the nation (of
Nation v. United States, 1942. Although there
which there are some 1000). That was brought
is technically a fiduciary relationship between
to an end in 2010. There are no productive in-
the Bureau of Indian Affairs (as representative
dustries in the Pequot nation; rather, they are
of the US imperial government) and the nations
paid low wages to help extract profit from the
whose lands are placed into trust, it is possible
settler labor aristocracy and the petit-bour-
for Congress to “disestablish” any Indigenous
geoisie who visit the casino. These funds are di-
nation’s land trust by vote, and for the federal/
vided between the settler looter class in the
state judiciaries to do the same by interpreting
form of the Connecticut State Government and
treaties as “demonstrating a clear congression-
the Mashantucket Pequot Endowment Fund,
al purpose to disestablish or diminish” a reser-
of whom the tribal council serves as the board.
vation. City of Sherill, N.Y. v. Oneida Indian
Indigenous casinos are a method of discourag-
Nation of New York, 544 U.S. 197, 212 (2005).
ing productive labor on Indigenous land; they
This conditional right to self-determination do not serve to develop the capital of Indige-
(conditioned on the Congress’ continued nous people--the revenue, by law, must be used
recognition of that right and decision not to dis- to fund tribal operations and government pro-
establish the tribe) is only one of the many grams, to provide for general welfare of the
levers held over the Indigenous nations by the tribe, and to make donations to charitable orga-
colonizers. nizations, and these revenues must be dis-
The Pequots, like many of the tribes of the tributed by the Board of the Trust.
northeast region of the empire, have essentially The Mashantucket health services, post office,
no industry. Their livelihood is entirely depen- and transport services are all contracted out to
dent on the parasitic “Indian Casino” model. the Federal Government, meaning a portion of
The tribe is the 8th largest employer in Con- the tribe’s income through the casino is paid
necticut, serving as a locus of profit-extraction back into the settler government itself. The
from other states. Three quarters of the Pequot CEO of either casino makes somewhere on the
casino revenue is extracted from out-of-state order of $200,000 a year from their managerial
visitors. capacity, clearly a petit-bourgeois position.
This position has not historically been held by a
54 No. 4 / MAY 2021

Subject nations are distinguishable from colonies by the

fact that the development of industry in those nations is
not in direct contradiction with the development of
industry in the imperial core; the primary property
relationship is not a land relation but rather a complex of
judicial, legal, and property relations.
member of the tribe, although the current The US government was the sole purchaser of
chairman of the tribe, Rodney Butler, worked uranium within the empire from 1948 to
for a year from 2017-18 as the interim CEO of 1971.10 The existence of radiation poisoning
the Foxwoods Casino. was known and observed long before 1948; ura-
nium-bearing ores had been mined for cen-
Firmly integrated into the system of capital cir-
turies in Schneeberg Germany and Jachimov
culation, the casinos do not provide capital ac-
Czechoslovakia for metals and manufacture of
cumulation for the tribe; they provide money
uranium dyes. An association between these
directly into lawmakers’ pockets, and may in
mining sites and the prevalence of lung disease
fact have established a comprador bourgeoisie
was first reported in detail in 1879.11
among the tribal leadership (although this may
be mitigated by the fact that they are subject to Though the uranium mines in operation from
a radically democratic voting process every 1948 to the present within the empire were pri-
three years). This colony cannot develop indus- vate commercial concerns, the US government
try, and is prevented from developing produc- guaranteed purchase of the uranium ore and
tive industries; to do so would put it into direct was the sole available legal purchaser. The loca-
antagonistic conflict with the Connecticut An- tion of the ore was concentrated on the Col-
glo-American industries. orado Plateau in New Mexico, Utah, Colorado,
and Arizona.12 The Navajo reservation was lo-
While this is clearly tied to the material condi-
cated at the edge of the uranium mining belt.
tions of the Pequot people in the imperial
This drew Navajo men to work in the mines.
northeast and those conditions are not replicat-
The reservation had little industry of its own,
ed anywhere else, all colonized tribes are sub-
being a colony, and the cheap labor of the Nava-
jected to some forces that prevent them from
jo men was exploited in the grim, poisonous cir-
material self-determination, through a combi-
cumstances of the uranium mines.13
nation of purposeful underdevelopment (either
by the lure of casinos or through another mech- Miners were paid minimum wage or less. In
anism) and legal disenfranchisement through 1949 one Navajo miner was earning an hourly
trusts and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The wage of 81 cents.14 This is typical of the imperi-
same cannot be said of the Black Belt or the oth- alist exploitation of a colony. Here we see the
er subject nations. two major functions of imperial governance in
the colonies: the super-profits garnered from
Navajo Mining of Uranium. In 1990, the settler
low wages and the extraction of natural re-
government in the United States passed the Ra-
sources from the colonized territory into the
diation Compensation Act, formally and offi-
empire for the benefit of the imperial bour-
cially acknowledging its responsibility for the
geoisie.
historical mistreatment of uranium miners.

C. KATSFOTER
Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, now governed by a PROPERTY RELATIONS OF

strict Board of Control, is the archetypal geo-
graphically separated “external” colony of the
OPPRESSED NATIONS
United States empire. It was openly colonized The CPUSA expressed the national question in
under a US military governorship. The US pro- the words of Harry Haywood thusly: “[i]ndus-
vided it with a limited form of home gover- trialization in the Black Belt is not, as is general-
nance, but when, in 1914, the Puerto Rican ly the case in colonies properly speaking, in con-
House of Delegates (unanimously) voted for in- tradiction with the ruling interests of the impe-
dependence , the US Congress denied them. In rialist bourgeoisie, which has in its hands the
1917, the US Congress “granted” Puerto Ri- monopoly of all industry; but insofar as indus-
cans status as citizens (if they were born after try is developed here, it will in no way bring a
1898). The entire Puerto Rican House of Dele- solution to the question of living conditions of
gates voted against it, and warned that it was an the oppressed Negro majority, nor to the agrar-
imposition in order to draft Puerto Rican men ian question, which lies at the basis of the na-
into the army for a US entry into World War tional question. On the contrary, this question
One. Although Puerto Ricans can currently is still further aggravated as a result of the in-
vote for their own governor, Puerto Rico is now crease of the contradictions arising from the
under the real control of the Control Board, es- pre-capitalist forms of exploitation of the Ne-
tablished by PROMESA (H.R. 5278). The Con- gro peasantry and of a considerable portion of
trol Board is appointed by the president and can the Negro proletariat (miners, forestry work-
overrule all decisions of Puerto Rican public au- ers, etc.) in the Black Belt, and, at the same time,
thorities. owing to the industrial development here, the
growth of the most important driving force of
Puerto Rico is heavily in debt as a result of the
the national revolution, the Black working
US imperial government withdrawing federal
class, is especially strengthened.”15
subsidies and favorable tax laws in order to bet-
ter control the colony and open it further to Subject nations are distinguishable from
capital development. It had the intended effect: colonies by the fact that the development of in-
it destroyed the Puerto Rican government’s dustry in those nations is not in direct contra-
ability to issue bonds, sent the economy spiral- diction with the development of industry in the
ing into a depression, and has resulted in such imperial core. For example, Latin-American
neoliberal endeavors as the privatization of the and Black industry does not threaten the devel-
former state electricity monopoly. opment of Anglo-American industry. The pri-
mary property relationship between those na-
The lesson of the state electricity monopoly
tions and the Anglo-American nation is not a
perfectly demonstrates the contradiction be-
land relation (unlike the Indigenous nations)
tween the development of national industry in
but rather a series or complex of judicial, legal,
the colonies and the need for national industry
and de facto property relations.
to remain under-developed to provide cheap
labor, markets for imperial corporations, and The Black Nation. New Afrika, the Black Belt,
cheap natural resources. Using its colonial con- whatever name we wish to give it: there is, con-
trol measures, the US forced Puerto Rico to sell tained within the US settler empire, in the re-
its electrical monopoly to private bidders. gions of old planter domination, a cohesive na-
Rather than permitting the wealth of Puerto Ri- tion that remains in chains to this day. The legal
co to flow to its people, it is siphoned off forms have changed, but the material reality re-
through this and countless other destructive mains the same. Although the the Sharecrop-
actions by the US imperialists. per’s movement of the 30s and the Black Power
movement of the 60s both won concessions,
those gains are now being walked back and
overturned by the planter governments.16 The
56 No. 4 / MAY 2021

The specter of Black rebellion has driven Bourbon

planter reaction since the foundation of their class: the
ghosts of Nat Turner and Toussaint L’Ouverture weigh
heavy on the minds of the southern garrison-police.
oppression of chattel slavery has been substi- was the basis of Bostonian prosperity. Without
tuted by debt peonage, mass incarceration (and the slave trade, the settler colonies would have
the accompanying judicial slavery), uneven remained backward and undeveloped, mere
loan application/relief, uneven deployment of sites of resource extraction for their European
federal funds, ghettoization programs like masters.
redlining, and so on and so on. This new com-
This nation was historically constituted by the
plex of property relations replaces the slave re-
conditions of transplantation into the US
lation in form, but preserves the slave relation
south; forged from a dozen home nations, tem-
in function: to make Black property bear the
pered by the transport through the West In-
brunt of capital appropriation, to make Black
dies, and molded by the century and a half of
labor power cheap and bountiful for capital ex-
chattel slavery through which its people suf-
ploitation, and to keep Black communities
fered. This was the genesis of the Black nation,
from developing national consciousness and
which was a nation in chattel slavery’s chains.
rising in an empire-wide rebellion. The specter
Even after the end of chattel slavery, this nation
of Black rebellion has driven Bourbon planter
was singled out by the repressive apparatus of
reaction since the foundation of their class: the
the post-Reconstruction Jim Crow period and
ghosts of Nat Turner and Toussaint L’Ouvertu-
the new legal environment that now prevails.17
re weigh heavy on the minds of the southern
garrison-police. In 2017, 58% of Black Americans lived in the
south. Although this is substantially reduced
The Black Belt, a swathe of territory that de-
from the height of the Black Belt (during Re-
scribes a sickle-blade across the US south, is
construction over 2/3rds of the Black popula-
home to over half of the Black citizens of the
tion was concentrated in the Black Belt), it re-
empire. The original slave population was not a
mains the national territory of the Black nation.
nation when it was transported. Those slaves
Outposts in the north were established after
were the children of many African nations,
Reconstruction through migration away from
sharing no common language, culture, or geog-
the pervasive lynch terror of the Redeemers,
raphy. However, through the very act of bring-
the Klan, and their planter masters. These out-
ing these people into the US south, the old
posts were primarily industrial through the ear-
planters forged a new nation. It is through the
ly and middle 20th century, focused in New
shared hardship of the slave relation that dias-
York, Chicago, and California.
pora of disparate African nations were forced to
share a geographical territory, to develop a Race in the US empire is based on a phenotypi-
common language, to share their economic re- cal phenomenon; that is, the ruling powers
lations. The free labor of this new nation was want to know what you look like. Once they
used to raise huge plantations; the slave power have determined your phenotype, they can feel
was the foundation of the entire southern comfortable sorting you into a racial-legal cate-
planter way of life. In the north, the slave trade gory, which determines your property relation-

C. KATSFOTER
ships to other races. The racial-legal category hard-

ened after the end of overt racial slavery, integrated
directly in the superstructure of US law, rather than
the economic bondage of the slave, which exists in
the base. Throughout the period of judicial segrega-
tion, this was encoded in the law. Jim Crow was not
merely a psychological terror, but primarily an eco-
nomic terror designed to make the vast swathes of
“dangerous” former slaves into economic subjects of
the ruling planter class. In fact, the primary mode of
the economic terror exerted in the US settler empire
is racial terror, and the primary method of digestion
of recalcitrant populations is through colonial power
and the further subjection of oppressed and colo-
nized nationalities.
However, the efforts at stunting the development of
the Black nation and deforming its shape ironically
stimulated its cohesion. Jim Crow created a forced
economic interrelationship; slavery forced a com-
mon culture; redlining and predatory lending prac-
tices have forced the creation of a Black national ter-
ritory.
Why Is the Black Belt Not A Colony? What is the dif-
ference between the Black Belt and other Black na-
tional territories, and the colonized nations and se-
mi-colonized nations that the US holds as imperial
subjects? The Black labor force is not primarily used
in extractive labor; that is, there is no contradiction
between the development of industry in the Black
national territory and the interests of imperial capi-
talists in the rest of the US empire. In fact, Black la-
bor has been critical to spurring industrial develop-
ment in Alabama, Chicago, St. Louis, and elsewhere.
In a colony, the creation of industry controlled by the
national bourgeoisie is a revolutionary act. In the
Black national territories, the national bourgeoisie
have a much more complex relationship with the im-
perial bourgeoisie. They can not merely be divided
into those compradors who serve imperial interests
and the national bourgeoisie who can be harnessed
for revolutionary ends. In the Black national territo-
ry, the national bourgeoisie can be either progressive
or reactionary. There is a reactionary nationalism
58 No. 4 / MAY 2021

that flowered in Garveyism and other separatist

movements; these seek total withdrawal from the
imperial territory.
In an oppressed nation, national self-determination
must be safeguarded not only from right com-
pradors, but also from right national bourgeoisie.
Petty bourgeois nationalism is opposed to the prole-
tarian nationalism of the Black nation. Correct anal-
ysis and correct theory will allow us to identify the
most revolutionary tack to take in any given situa-
tion. Failure to adhere to correct analysis and failure
to produce correct theory will permit the retrench-
ment of reaction or “great nation” chauvinism. We
must fight both the assimilationist strain and the re-
actionary strain; these both arise from the relation-
ship between the Black petit-bourgeoisie and the
settler bourgeoisie.
THE CREATION OF INDUSTRY IS

REVOLUTIONARY IN THE COLONIES
The establishment of national industries and the na-
tional control of markets inside colonies are revolu-
tionary acts. This is because the national economy of
a colony is in direct contradiction with the driving
forces of the imperial economy. The imperial econo-
my cannot permit national economies to develop, or
else the profits the nation reaps will accelerate. Thus,
all national ownership of industry, all national bour-
geois accessions in colonies is inherently revolution-
ary because it challenges the world-imperial system
of capital. It is the function of imperialism to export
capital into the colonies in order to make use of the
cheap labor. The development of national sources of
capital challenge this, restrict markets for the impe-
rialists, improve the living conditions of workers
(and therefore raise the costs of operation within the
colony, as the socially average labor reproduction
cost rises). This, in turn, threatens the rate of profit.
Self-determination for the colonies includes control
of the markets, the labor force, and industries to re-
side in the national bourgeoisie and to be taken from
the compradors, foreigners, and imperial governors.

C. KATSFOTER
The same cannot be said for the oppressed na- class of people who would otherwise sell their
tions; because industry and commerce in op- labor for a wage. They are firmly proletarian.
pressed nations are not in contradiction with Their revolutionary potential is not only
the imperial order, but rather are under the present, but heightened, due to the subjection
constant threat of imperial appropriation, sub- of these groups (prisoners, unhoused, etc.) to
ject nations develop two strains of reactionary additional outside pressures in addition to
ideology: reactionary assimilationism and reac- class.
tionary nationalism. These must be counter-
Where apparent members of this class are not
posed with the one true revolutionary tack:
proletarian because they do not need to sell
proletarian nationalism and an answer to the
their labor, they belong to another class; power-
Agrarian Question.
ful criminals that operate many criminal enter-
prises are bourgeoisie. Mid-level criminals may
be petit-bourgeois. To classify all these groups
WHERE IS THE as “lumpen” is analytically incoherent, a rewrit-
LUMPENPROLETARIAT? ing of theory to fit an ideological purpose, to ex-
The classical Marxist category of the lumpen- clude these groups from those with revolution-
proletariat is analytically incoherent. It repre- ary potential. It is a form of begging the ques-
sents a misstep in the theory of Marxism that tion that damages the analytical capacity of the-
has inhered in analysis for a century. To contest ory that attempts to deploy it.
this, we must understand what we mean by This group is drawn overwhelmingly from the
class and quasi-class. A class is a group of people doubly oppressed proletarians of the colonized
who share common interests based on their re- and oppressed nations. Criminalization along
lationship to the means of production; a quasi- racial lines creates these conditions and acts as
class is a cross-class group that share common a radicalizing lever. The national proletarians
interests based on their property relationships are the heirs and inheritors of the national ques-
as they are codified in juridical and social struction – and it is their revolutionary nationalism
tures. Marx argued that industrial society had that must drive the progress of national self-de-
reduced the complex network of classes down termination in the oppressed and colonized na-
to three: the proletariat, the petit-bourgeoisie, tions.
and the haute bourgeoisie.18
The classes of prior economic modes persist
even in industrial capitalism and certainly tend THE AGRARIAN QUESTION IS
to dominate in the peripheral regions where REVOLUTIONARY IN THE
capitalism has, through its own actions in the OPPRESSED NATIONAL REGIONS
core, failed to develop. Slaves, serfs, peasants,
debt peons, all continue to exist, partially di- “The [Black Belt] Question in the United States
gested, within the capitalist world.19 is agrarian in origin. It involves the problem of
a depressed peasantry living under a system of
The lumpenproletariat was identified as that sharecropping, riding-boss supervision, debt
portion of the proletariat that is de-classed, slavery, chronic land hunger, and dependency
turned into a semi-permanent surplus popula- —in short, the plantation system, a relic of
tion, the standing ranks of the reserve army of chattel slavery.”20
the unemployed. To 19th and early 20th centu-
ry theorists, these included the disabled, the In the period following the Civil War, 14% of
unhoused, criminals, and other populations the farmland in the US was owned by the Black
that they believed could not develop class con- nation. Black ownership of farmland is less than
sciousness. This is essentially a racist, ableist, 2% throughout the US today.21 Most of the agri-
relic. These surplus populations are part of the cultural land in the Black Belt is owner-operat-
60 No. 4 / MAY 2021

The COVID pandemic has increased the level of

expropriation by disproportionately granting relief to
Euro-American businesses. In material effect, this
represents a massive shift in wealth.
ed.22 This statistic disguises what is essentially a factured and environmental) that beset Black
Euro-American petty bourgeois relationship to land ownership in the south. But since 1950,
the land, because these so-called owner-farm- 98% of Black landownership has been expropri-
ers, while they may be “operators,” employ ated by banks, planters, and governments.23
farmhands, harvesters, and a great deal of labor This represents the loss of 12 million acres of
outside of their own. The data provided by the farmland. This expropriation was begun by ille-
USDA does not distinguish between one-fami- gal USDA pressures and loans, as well as loan
ly farms, in which the majority of work is done denial by Euro-American controlled federal
by the owners, and large-scale planting opera- subsidy boards. By 2008, the process was com-
tions. These owner-operated farms make up pleted with the mass-purchasing of land by
62% of the farms of the Black Belt, with the rest enormous pension funds that put small farms
being landlord-owned farms. In both cases, out of business.
these form the basis of power of both a Euro-
There were one million Black farmers in 1914.
American petty bourgeois and a Euro-Ameri-
By 1992, that number had decreased to 18,000.
can corporate bourgeois planter class, respec-
Black Belt counties tend to be poorer than those
tively. The farmland is firmly in the hands of
around them, due to the expropriation, lack of
two strata of the imperial oppressor nation.
federal services, etc. The COVID pandemic has
The promise of Black land ownership may have increased the level of expropriation by dispro-
completed the bourgeois revolution in the portionately granting relief to Euro-American
south after the Civil War – this was certainly its businesses. In material effect, this represents a
intention. The promise of Black land ownership massive shift in wealth. Black and Euro-Ameri-
was never carried out. The Union Army can wealth has been fed into the government
promise of “40 acres and a mule” never materi- and then redistributed only to Euro-Ameri-
alized. The lack of access to land has created a cans. Nearly half of Black petit-bourgeois busi-
situation in which the Black nation cannot re- nesses have closed as a result of the crisis.24 The
produce itself without going directly to the op- number of total active business owners fell by
pressor nation for the viands upon which it 22%. Black business owners fell by 41%. Latinx
must live. It is cut off from the very lifeblood of business owners fell by 32%. Asian business
social reproduction. In order to strike at this owners dropped by 26%.25 This is the property
critical deficiency in the heart of the Black na- relation of race expressed by vicious action of
tion, we must support a program of land re- the US government in response to the COVID
form. crisis.
There was a minor shift in fortunes for the Black While the Black nation has been subject to vi-
nation, and some families did manage to retain cious expropriation like the Indigenous na-
their farmland through the worst of the share- tions, there has been no effort to liquidate the
cropper years, the Depression, the bull weevil Black population in the same settler colonial
infestations, and the other crises (both manu- manner. This is because Black labor is valuable

C. KATSFOTER
Self-determination is the rallying cry.
to the planters and their northern industrial al- economic life and culture by virtue of the defor-
lies. The use of Black labor to break white mations imposed on them from outside. But
strikes throughout the 20s and 30s is a histori- these nations are still occupying a territory that
cally documented source of racial tensions. De- is, or should be, under the sovereignty of In-
velopment of national industry and national digenous nations from whom it was stolen. This
control of markets is not revolutionary in the contradiction presents a point of tension that
oppressed nations; the oppressed nations are may yet prove to be non-antagonistic, but
not limited to extractive industry by the op- which must be carefully attended to.
pressors, and development of national markets
does not challenge the supremacy of the op-
pressor nation’s economy. While the op- ENDNOTES
pressed nations have their own economic life, it 1. The European immigrants of the end of the 19th
is not as subjected to the control of the oppres- and beginning of the 20th century comprised their
sor nation; while they are subject to oppressor own national minorities and even national enclaves
expropriation, that expropriation is not direct- until they were agglomerated into the Anglo-Ameri-
ed at extractive labor-power or direct land ex- can nation; they now form a single national identity
propriation. Instead, the revolutionary posi- with ethnic variation; that is, the Euro-American
tion is to demand self-determination and land nation.
distribution to the oppressed. 2. The difference between a nation and a national
minority is elaborated below, but turns on whether
The agrarian question can only be answered by
a cohesive common language, territory, economy,
giving soil to the tillers; the land within the na-
and culture exist for the national group. For exam-
tional territories must be turned over to the op- ple, Chinese nationals in the United States may be
pressed nations. This would likely come as a part of a coherent but vanishing nation in the form of
step prior to collectivization. The Black nation the old segregated Chinatowns of San Francisco,
and other oppressed nations must not be sev- New York, Boston, etc. Like the Black nation, the
ered from the support of the earth and its fruits, Chinese population in the west was imported for la-
or it can never know self-determination. bor purposes by big bourgeoisie, in this instance rail-
road barons.
3. J.V. Stalin, Marxism and the National Question
NATIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION (Rus. 1913, Eng. 1935)
FOR COLONIES AND OPPRESSED 4. The theory of semi-colonies was most fully articu-
lated during the Comintern sessions, and ultimately
NATIONS in the CPSU. See, e.g., J.V. Stalin, “Political Report
Self-determination is the rallying cry. Political of the Central Committee,” Fifteenth Congress of the
self-determination is the same among the CPSU.
colonies and oppressed nations, but how that 5. Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or the
political self-determination will be realized is Dutch East India Company.
not uniform across colonies and oppressed na-
6. Data taken from the CIA World Factbook.
tions. We must be careful to attend to the con-
tradiction inculcated by the actions of the US 7. The refoundation of the tribe was undertaken af-
empire as well; the Black nation, like the other ter the last member who lived on the old Pequot
oppressed nations (but not the colonized In- reservation died, and the Anglo-American settlers
of the northeast have a lot to say over whether her
digenous nations) was created by imperial op-
grandchildren, who refounded it, are “legitimately”
pression. These nations were given a common
62 No. 4 / MAY 2021

natives. No surprise that the settler nation wants to 20. Harry Haywood, The Negro Question, 11 (Inter-
litigate who actually belongs to the oppressed na- national Publishers, 1948).
tions and who’s “just faking.”
21. Leah Douglas, “African Americans Have Lost
8. Patrick Wolfe, Settler colonialism and the elimi- Untold Acres of Land Over the Last Century,” The
nation of the native, Journal of Genocide Research Nation. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
(2006), 8 (4), December, 388.
22. Data from the USDA.
9. To valorize capital, the capitalist invests an initial
23. "One Million Black Families in the South Have
amount to purchase labor power, the labor power
Lost Their Farms," Equal Justice Initiative, October
throws capital into motion, and then the product of
11, 2019.
that labor power is sold for more than combined ma-
terial costs, capital exhaustion, and wage paid, thus 24. Pedro Nicolaci da Costa, "The Covid-19 Crisis
taking into itself a portion of the value of the labor Has Wiped Out Nearly Half Of Black Small Busi-
power that it does not pay for. nesses," Forbes (Aug 10, 2020).
10. PH Eichstadt, If You Poison Us (Red Crane 25. Claire Kramer Mills and Jessica Battisto, Double
Books, 1994). Jeopardy: COVID-19’s Concentrated Heath and
Wealth Effect in Black Communities, Federal Re-
11. Doug Brugge, The History of Uranium Mining
serve Bank of New York (Aug., 2020).
and the Navajo People, Am. J. Public Health (Sept.
2002).
12. Id.
WORKS CITED
13. Id. Brugge, Doug & Rob Goble. “The history of urani-
14. Id. um mining and the Navajo people.” American
15. The Communist, Feb. 1931 Journal on Public Health. Vol. 92, no. 9, 2002.
16. The Voting Rights Act was recently made tooth- Communist Party, USA. “Resolution on the Negro
less by the removal of its pre-clearance provisions, Question in the United States.” The Communist,
for example. The garrison-police continue to terror- Feb. 1931.
ize Black communities across the country, but pri- Douglas. Leah. “African Americans Have Lost Un-
marily in the Black national territories.
told Acres of Land Over the Last Century.” The
17. Obviously, like any struggle, there has been an Nation. July 17-24, 2017, Issue.
uneven and staggered development in the Black
Eichstaedt, PH. If You Poison Us. Red Crane
Belt. The 60s saw an upsurge of revolutionary fervor
and national consciousness won critical reforms – Books, 1994.
the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Brown v. Equal Justice Initiative. “One Million Black Fami-
Board. However, those reforms have been systemat- lies in the South Have Lost their Families.” Oct.
ically stripped away as the national consciousness 11, 2019.
faded (or rather, was suppressed by the state murder
of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X., Fred Hamp- Haywood, Harry. The Negro Question. Internation-
ton, and countless other powerful Black nationalist al Publishers, 1948.
voices – the ghost of Nat Turner rising from the
Mills, Claire Kramer & Jessica Battisto. Double
grave!)
Jeopardy: COVID-19’s Concentrated Health and
18. Quasi-classes include race, sex, and sexuality. Wealth Effects in Black Communities. Federal Re-
19. The uneven development of capital means that serve Bank of New York, Aug. 2020.
modern configurations still hold remnants of past Stalin, Joseph. Marxism and the National Question.
classes that have yet to be fully integrated or prole- Marxists Internet Archive, 1913.
tarianized. The lessons of every successful revolu-
tion teach us this understanding: the USSR, PRC, Wolfe, Patrick. “Settler colonialism and the elimi-
Laos, Cuba, etc. all had more than the traditional nation of the native.” Journal of Genocide Re-
three Marxian industrial classes. search. Vol. 8, no. 4, 2006.

THE OFFSPRING OF
METROPOLITAN ANNIHILATION
ARMED STRUGGLE
AND THE 1960s
student movement
SAM GLASPER
64 No. 4 / MAY 2021
Components of Capitalist
Society in the United States
and West Germany and the
Armed Struggle of the 1960s
Student Movements
War is the Highest Form of Struggle for

Resolving Contradictions
n 1966, Chairman Mao Ze- groups were a distinct number of armed fac-
I
dong started what would be- tions, arising from the blossoming student
come known as the Cultural movements in West Germany and the United
Revolution. Calling upon States. Taking inspiration from depictions of
young students, formed into urban guerrilla war by Carlos Marighella and
militant Red Guard battal- the foco theory teachings by Che Guevara and
ions, Mao exclaimed that “to Régis Debray,3 these students would resort to
rebel is justified,” ordering the student youth violent protest as a way to incite proletarian
to “bombard the headquarters,” and to “op- forces towards a near-spontaneous revolt
pose the four olds,”1 breaking away from or- against capitalism in order to create the new
thodox Marxism-Leninism. These political socialist society.
developments in the communist student left,
Hung up in the dizzying sense of revolutionary
which ideologically ruptured from the old
possibility during the late 1960s (in the words
communist parties formed in the 1920s, would
of the former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Ja-
be mirrored across the world. This rupturing
mal, “[r]evolution seemed as inevitable as to-
of newly-formed radical leftist parties and
morrow’s newspaper”),4 two groups in West
their new ideological development would be-
Germany and the United States came to espe-
come known as the New Left: a youth-led revo-
cially emphasize the militant and violent
lutionary movement composed of numerous
struggle that was taking place between student
groups inspired by Mao’s Cultural Revolution,
leftists and the state. These two groups were
the fight for civil rights in the West, and the
known as the West German-situated Red
struggles for national liberation taking place
Army Faction (RAF) and the U.S. based
across the Third World.2 Amongst these new

SAM GLASPER
How and why do white, force that employed violence as a practical use
for change, came into fruition by the late
formally educated, and 1960s. This piece further strives to investigate
the nature of violence between leftists against
typically middle-class opposing forces within capitalist society and
the continued political relevance of these
students living in struggles beyond the late 20th century, at a time
of rising neo-imperialist war and fascist power.
similar liberal In order to contextualise and investigate the
democratic capitalist armed struggles of these two groups, this arti-
cle means to analyse three key components of
countries, turn to the capitalist society in the late 1960s that helped
push white leftist students living in liberal
gun? democracies to use violent protest. Precisely
how these components of Western capitalism
came to influence the student’s propensity to-
wards violence, and help create the conditions
for armed struggle and its advocation by stu-
dent activists, shall be the primary investiga-
tion of the essay.
The first section seeks to look upon the influ-
ence of Third Worldist ideology on the RAF
Weather Underground Organisation (also and the WUO during a decade of imperial war-
known as Weatherman or the WUO)—two fare, most emphatically seen in the Vietnam
groups who made the transition from open le- War. The section means to analyse the vicious-
gal student action organisations to insurrec- ness of imperialism on colonised peoples, their
tionary underground factions influenced and response via the means of armed national lib-
guided by Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong eration struggle, and how these events came to
Thought (ML-MZT). affect the white student left’s own position on
the use of violence. Besides the Vietnam War,
Through an evaluation of the aims, goals, and
issues such as the Palestinian liberation strug-
ideological makeup of the RAF and the WUO,
gle and the internal colonisation of black popu-
the following article seeks to establish how and
lations in America will also be explored in or-
why white, formally educated, and typically
der to gauge how the white student left posi-
middle-class students living in similar liberal
tioned itself in this global conflict and came to
democratic capitalist countries, turned to the
confront its own society’s white supremacy.
gun. The key question of this piece seeks to not
only explore revolutionary violence on the left, The second section of the article shall analyse
but also how nominally young white students the tendencies of anti-communism in West
can come to resort to, and empathize with, the German and U.S. societies and how the violent
same violent struggles of colonised peoples reaction by the forces of the state apparatus in
against their oppressors. The question means both countries came to push the white student
to analyse how the ideological lens and materi- left underground. The section will inquire into
al conditions of a young and vibrant left-wing questions such as the collusion between U.S.
66 No. 4 / MAY 2021

state forces and far right groups and the legacy The Wretched of the World:
of Nazism in West Germany, in order to ex-
plain the rhetoric of prevalent anti-fascism in Imperialism and Third
both countries’ student movements and how World Revolution in the
this came to prompt their turn to violence. As
well as analysing the RAF’s and WUO’s own Western Radical Left
readings on neo-fascism post-World War II, Major political developments in the Global
the section will explore the crossover between South would come to have a decisive impact on
surviving fascist structures in the post-war the new generation of leftists coming into
West and decaying capitalist forms of reaction fruition by the 1960s. In terms of creating the
in response to times of crisis. conditions for violent struggle amongst the
The third and final section examines the im- student left, one of the most important devel-
pact of consumerist, mass media society in the opments was U.S. involvement in the Vietnam
post-World War II West and how the “specta- War. Regarding the war and its highly destruc-
cle” of post-industrial capitalism impacted the tive elements, Students for a Democratic Soci-
thinking of New Leftists and influenced their ety (SDS) president Paul Potter stated that:
actions. The relationship between armed stu- [T]he people in Vietnam and the people
dents and the media will also be scrutinised in in this demonstration are united in much
order to analyse the role consumer society more than a common concern that the
plays in creating the conditions for “spectacu- war be ended. In both countries there are
lar” acts of terror. people struggling to build a movement
The article shall then conclude that although that has the power to change their condi-
the two groups no longer exist, and indeed tion. The system that frustrates these
failed in their short-term goals, their legacy is movements is the same. All our lives, our
still prevalent post-Cold War due to the con- destinies, our very hopes to live, depend
tinuation of national liberation struggles and on our ability to overcome that system.5
the endurance of the aforementioned compo- The system Potter is referring to is imperial-
nents of capitalism that first led to the armed ism, the policy of extending the rule or authori-
rebellions of the white student left.

SAM GLASPER
ty of a capitalist empire or nation over foreign

countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies
and dependencies as part of the final and high-
est stage of capitalist development in order to
ensure greater profits for the bourgeois class.
In the industrialised and developed part of the
world, banks are merged and industrial cartels
are formed as monopolies are created in order
to expropriate capital from the underdevel-
oped nations’ economies. Taking inspiration
from Vladimir Lenin’s writings on imperial-
ism, New Left students would come to see the
Vietnam War (as Lenin saw the First World
War) as "an annexationist, predatory, plun-
derous war".6 Whilst many students believed
their organisations to be the vanguard agent of
change under the Leninist concept, a New Left
understanding of the situation broke with or-
thodoxy and came to regard imperial warfare
in a specifically Western context. Imperial war
was seen largely as a symptom of the degenera-
tion of Western civilization, of the futility of
bourgeois rationality, which had become the
same as technological rationality. Antiwar
protest, direct violent confrontation with the
enablers of the imperialist bloodshed, was thus
Student organizing in the US a politics of redemption according to New Left
organized itself around activists.7 From this basis, the student left in
opposition to the war of the US and West Germany would begin to de-
aggression in Vietnam velop their own ideological understandings of
the war and how best to oppose it.
As the war in Vietnam dragged on throughout
Pictured above, a Weatherman the 1960s, the student left in both West Ger-
poster announcing the Days of many and the U.S. began to escalate the scale of
Rage protests in 1969 its opposition to the war. By 1965, United
States B52’s had begun bombing cities in
North Vietnam as well as surface-bombing ru-
ral districts in South Vietnam. In response, on
Feb. 5, 1965, 500 students split off from an an-
ti-war demonstration through West Berlin
and attacked the U.S. embassy. In the attack’s
aftermath, posters went up stating “For how
much longer will we tolerate mass murder
committed in our name?”8 This early action
68 No. 4 / MAY 2021

and its reasoning would come to define the Vietnam War. Through seeing themselves as
newly formed anti-imperialist struggle of part of a planet-wide revolution, Weatherman
armed actors within the student left in the U.S. were to be regarded as part of an international
and Germany. American and West German anti-imperialist army. WUO leader Bill Ayers
New Left communists in this era were united, had set out this global perspective in both the
above all, by their mutual commitment to a Weatherman Manifesto of June 1969 and the
revolutionary brand of anti-imperialism, “Strategy to Win” pamphlet in September of
whose defining principle was that the prosper- the same year. This formulation of anti-impe-
ity of advanced industrial societies depended rialism as a core tenant of Weatherman philos-
on the economic exploitation of developing ophy would push the group into a position that
countries, evident in the intensity with which underground resistance would best serve to
the imperialist nations of the First World bat- defeat imperialism at home, in support of the
tled left-wing rebellions in the Third World. colonised masses.
Che Guevara’s global call to “create two, three,
Weatherman’s view that they were bringing
many Vietnams!”9 succinctly conveyed that
the war directly to the heart of the empire
the greatest contribution First World radicals
would go on to guide the groups bombing cam-
could make to Third World struggles would be
paign against various institutions the WUO al-
to bring the war for socialism home to their
leged contributed to global imperialism and
own nations.10
the subjugation of Third World peoples. Cit-
Through analysing Weatherman’s own coming historical examples from the Third World
muniques and writings, it becomes clear that such as the success of terrorism in the Algerian
this strain of revolutionary anti-imperialism Revolution, the National Liberation Front’s
heavily influenced the groups turn to violent executions of government officials in Vietnam
action. When commenting on the Days of Rage and the Tupamaros in Uruguay, Weatherman
(a militant protest in which Weatherman-led justified their insistence on violence with “the
working-class youths would, armed with 2x4’s historic rationales behind our political theo-
and other weapons, attack police and destroy ries.”12 These theoretical justifications would
property in the affluent Gold Coast neighbour- go on to lead to the bombings of the Pentagon
hood), Weatherman leader John Jacobs be- on May 19th 1972 (the birthday of Ho Chi
lieved that: Minh and Malcolm X), of the New York head-
quarters for IBM, Mobile and General Tele-
Weatherman would shove the war down
phone and Electronics (accusing them of prof-
their dumb, fascist throats and show
iting “not only from death in Vietnam but also
them, while we were at it, how much bet-
from Amerikan imperialism in all of the Third
ter we were than them, both tactically
World”)13 and the Oakland offices of Anacon-
and strategically, as a people. In an all-
da Copper (a financial supporter of the U.S.
out civil war over Vietnam and other fas-
backed Pinochet regime in Chile). These
cist U.S. imperialism, we were going to
bombings and the WUO’s rationale behind
bring the war home. 'Turn the imperial-
them, give credence to the view that Third
ists' war into a civil war', in Lenin's
World revolt and the ideology of anti-imperi-
words. And we were going to kick ass.11
alism had pushed New Left students towards a
As can be seen, Weatherman’s propensity for position of violent struggle. Weatherman rea-
street fighting and further armed actions was soning and theoretical writings from the group
shaped by their anti-imperialist reading of the further support this argument that Western

SAM GLASPER
student leftists had found themselves allying grievances with NATO and Vietnam in the stu-
with Third World revolutionaries in a violent dent left and take them into a position of fully
struggle against imperialism. fledged armed struggle against imperialism.
Insights into the West German student left Through their visits to Vietnam in the
and the RAF also displays the influence of anti- mid-1960s, German student leftists based
imperialism in moulding the student move- their affinity with the Vietnamese rebels on
ment towards more violent means of action. what they saw as the close parallels between
The RAF co-founder and first generation lead- West Germany and South Vietnam. Both
er Andreas Baader would expand upon this in countries had occupying U.S. armies and gov-
his remarks on the group’s turn to armed ernments whose true purpose—behind the
struggle, articulating in one communique that rhetoric of defending liberalism against Soviet
“The colonised European comes alive, not to backed agents—was to contain indigenous re-
the subject and problem of the violence of our volts. The poet Erich Fried starkly asserted
circumstances, but because all armed action this connection with the following poem:
subjects the force of circumstances to the force “Vietnam is Germany/its fate is our fate/The
of events… I say our book should be entitled bombs for its freedom/are bombs for our free-
‘THE GUN SPEAKS!’”14 Taking inspiration dom/Our Chancellor Erhard/is Marshall Ky/
from Maoist teachings that "Political power General Nguyen Van Thieu/is President
grows out of the barrel of a gun,"15 and that Lübke/The Americans/are also there the
“the triumph of the revolutionary Third Americans.”17 From this relationship came
World over the reactionary First World de- first solidarity with the Vietnamese people
pended on bringing the battle from the mar- and, later on, active involvement in their strug-
gins to the centre of the empire,”16 the Red gle. This involvement came to fruition when in
Army Faction would build upon existing May 1972, the RAF bombed two U.S. bases
70 No. 4 / MAY 2021

killing 4 soldiers and injuring 18 others in re- Cong.”21 This ideological development in the
sponse to recent U.S. bombings in North Viet- West German student left would go on to de-
nam which the RAF denounced as “…geno- termine joint RAF-PLO armed actions which
cide, the slaughter of a people, Auschwitz.”18 included the armed hijacking of Lufthansa
The violent praxis of a group of white student Flight 181.
leftists in solidarity with the Vietnamese com-
Likewise, the WUO’s armed actions in con-
munists was rationalised by RAF fellow trav-
junction with black militants (such as the
ellers on the left as a way in which to strike out
Brink's robbery of 1981 which left three police
against an imperialist army wherever they may
dead) were influenced by a belief that the white
reside. The leftist legal aid group Rote Hilfe,
skin privilege of the white working class virtu-
gave the very same defence of the bombings ex-
ally precluded the possibility of an alliance
plaining that “If imperialism is a worldwide
with oppressed blacks living in the internal
system, and that it is, then the struggle against
colonies of ghettos. The black colony within
it must be waged worldwide. It will and must be
the U.S. would thus have to carry out the war of
a violent and armed struggle, or it will not be
liberation on its own, with aid from only a few
waged at all.”19 Furthermore, the first genera-
enlightened white revolutionaries, specifically
tion RAF leadership’s defence lawyers at trial
the Weathermen who would act as a van-
argued that the US government had violated
guardist white fighting force against racism.
international law with its military intervention
This view of supporting black resistance by any
in Indochina and because West German air
means was expressed by one anonymous
bases were used, they could be considered as
Weatherman who asserted that “We under-
legitimate targets for international retribu-
stood that to say we dug the Black Panthers and
tion.20
yet not be willing to take similar risks, would
Further violent actions by the RAF and the make us bullshitters and racists.”22
WUO can also be attributed to the strain of an-
This section contends that the rise in anti-im-
ti-imperialist thought within each group. The
perialist thought processes in the student
WUO’s affiliation with America’s black power
movements of West Germany and the U.S. had
groups (the Black Panthers specifically) and
come to influence the acts of violent protest by
the RAF’s relationship with the Palestinian re-
the RAF and the WUO. The chapter’s investi-
sistance groups can both be looked at as delib-
gation thus offers the view that it is the white
erate acts of engagement in a worldwide strug-
student left’s greater affirmation of solidarity
gle against imperialism, with colonised armed
with Third World resistance groups that em-
organisations at the helm. The West German
boldened the white radicals to partake in acts
New Left looked at the Palestinian struggle in
of violence against the institutions of global
increasingly positive terms as the '60s dragged
imperialism. It is precisely because of this turn
on, seeing the Palestinian Liberation Organi-
to anti-imperialism that the student left used
sation (PLO) and its secular leftist armed fac-
the tactics of bombs and bullets as a means of
tions as engaging in an emancipatory struggle
change.
against an aggressive settler colonial state. By
1968, “Radical anti-Zionism and solidarity
with the Palestinian liberation struggle be-
came in the eyes of Sozialistischer Deutscher
Studentenbund (SDS) a revolutionary duty,
equally as much as support for the Viet

SAM GLASPER
Decaying Reaction: courts, which enable the ruling classes to en-

sure their domination over the working class)26
Anti-Communism and would likewise be heralded by the student left-
Fascist Repression in the ’s armed organisations as a fascist monolith
that dominated Western society. In the U.S.,
Post-World War 2 West the Weather Underground would see this in
As the New Left grew political power in the terms of America’s history of white supremacy
West, so too did the counter-revolutionary and the way in which institutions repressed
role of the state within these capitalist soci- minorities and communists through violent
eties. The New Left theorist Herbert Marcuse and covert operations. Within West Ger-
catalysed this moment as the time when the many, the Red Army Faction outlined the fas-
state abandoned the “repressive tolerance” cism in their nation simply as a continuation of
that Marcuse said was at the heart of liberal Nazi ideology that had been allowed to resur-
democracies such as the U.S. and West Ger- face in order to counter the country’s New
many, which gave way for repression pure and Left. These definitions of fascism in society al-
simple.23 Given the historical role of white lowed the student leftists to justify their vio-
supremacy in the U.S. and Nazism in Ger- lence as a moral response to fascist brutality
many, this repression would come to be seen unleashed upon their movements.
by the New Left students as a form of fascism The Red Army Faction’s armed struggle
that sought to crush their burgeoning move- against the West German state itself was seen
ments by any means necessary. The Black by the group as a way in which to physically
Guerrilla Family (BGF) founder George Jack- confront Germany’s Nazi past and its contin-
son defined this fascism in capitalist society as ued presence in the post-war years. The
the following: “Fascism must be seen as an group’s very name was a use of situationist de-
episodically logical stage in the socio-econom- tournement, combining the names of the Sovi-
ic development of capitalism in a state of crisis. et Red Army and the British Royal Air Force in
It is the result of a revolutionary thrust that a facetious nod to what both did to the original
was weak and miscarried — a consciousness German Nazis.27 In their fight against the
that was compromised.”24 Jackson developed West German state, and detailed in the
this New Leftist understanding of fascism as a group’s communiques, the RAF equated the
form of capitalist repression further, stating: political and judicial custodians of the Federal
The purpose of the chief repressive insti- Republic with the Nazis. This reading of West
tutions within the totalitarian capitalist German fascist continuity found material
state is clearly to discourage and prohibit manifestations in the makeup of high-level po-
certain activity, and the prohibitions are litical society within the nation. As of 1965, 60
aimed at very distinctly defined sectors percent of West German military officers had
of the class–and race–sensitized soci- fought for the Nazis, and at least two-thirds of
ety. The ultimate expression of law is not judges had served the Third Reich. In addition,
order–it’s prison.25 some high-ranking officials in the Federal Re-
public had been Nazis. Most notorious was the
These repressive institutions (which the Christian Democratic Union’s (CDU) Kurt
French Marxist Louis Althusser would distin- Kiesinger, who years before becoming federal
guish as the Repressive State Apparatus, i.e. chancellor in 1966 had held an important posi-
the institutions of the police, the army, and the tion in the Nazi propaganda ministry.28 The
72 No. 4 / MAY 2021

absence of a complete break with Nazism in

West Germany affected the young leftist stu-
dents in a profound way, leading them to a path
of violence that sought to compensate for the
virtual absence of violent resistance in Ger-
many to the Nazi regime. In this capacity,
lethal violence promised to liberate RAF mem-
bers from the psychological and political bur-
dens of the past and break the chain of German
guilt.29
The Red Army Faction’s anti-fascist struggle
against the state was thus informed by the be-
lief that Nazism had never truly been purged
from German society and it would be up to the
militant youth to do what their parents could
not do and expunge fascism from society. The
second-generation RAF leader Hans-Joachim
Klein outlined this armed anti-fascism stating:
From the beginning the RAF has always
said: the important thing is to exacerbate
contradictions in such a way that the sit-
uation becomes more and more openly
fascist. The important thing is to make
the latent fascism that’s predominant in
West Germany clearly visible. After that
the masses will rally round.30
The role of the RAF’s armed campaign sum- The RAF, De-Nazification, and
marised here suggests that through violent ac- the German Student
tions the group would awaken the German Movements
people to the realities of fascism felt by the stu-
dents through making it more prominent, due
to the inevitable excesses of repression by the
state apparatus. This brutality was already felt
by the students on two prominent occasions Pictured above, the RAF
that served as a catalyst for the radical stu- publication, The Urban Guerilla
dents’ turn to violence. One such event was the Concept—written by RAF co-
police shooting of student demonstrator Ben- founder, Ulrike Meinhof.
no Ohnesorg during a protest against the state
visit of the Shah of Iran. In response to the
killing, future RAF founder Gudrun Ensslin
exclaimed ominously: “This fascist state
means to kill us all. ...Violence is the only way
to answer violence. This is the Auschwitz gen-

SAM GLASPER
eration, and there’s no arguing with them.”31 shaped from the outside and imposed internal-
ly.”34 Likewise, the assassination of Supreme
The killing and its reaction would develop an
Court President Günter von Drenkmann by
atmosphere amongst the student left that they
New Left students was justified by his Nazi
were being targeted in much the same way as
past, a line of thinking exemplified in the New
Jewish people during the reign of the Nazis.
Left tract Revolutionärer Zorn who wrote in
This view became ingrained in the minds of the
response to the killing that “fascism comes as
most radical students when the second promi-
the punishment when one fails to advance the
nent event of fascist reaction occurred to the
revolution.”35 These major events in West
student left. On April the 4th, 1968, the distin-
German radical history focus upon the rele-
guished New Left student leader Rudi
vancy of fascism in the students’ struggle and
Dutschke was critically wounded in a shooting
further show precisely why New Left students
by the far-right fanatic Josef Bachmann, an
strayed towards violence.
avid reader of the notoriously anti-communist
Springer press who had ran a Red Scare cam- The Weather Underground meanwhile had a
paign against Dutschke. Amidst the violent re- similar understanding on the legacy of fascism
action by the students (which included the fire- from the previous generation and the need to
bombing of Springer press news vans and the exterminate it through militant means, in the
beating of Springer affiliated journalists)32 the same regard as the West German student left-
Berlin Evangelical Student Union also re- ists. For example, in an act of international sol-
leased the following statement relating to the idarity with their fellow student leftists, ac-
Springer press: “Since the Third Reich, the ob- tivists in New York (including future Weather-
ject of attack has been switched: the hooked men David Gilbert and Jim Mellen) called for
Jewish nose in Der Stürmer has been replaced emergency demonstrations against the local
in the cartoons in BILD and BZ by the beard of office of the Springer press affiliated Der
the student, considered subhuman like a goril- Spiegel. The event would turn into a riot after
la.”33 an anarchist collective from New York’s Low-
er East Side called “Up Against the Wall Moth-
These events and the lack of adequate de-Nazi-
erfucker” burned a German flag which gave
fication in West Germany would go on to
both Mellen and Gilbert their first violent con-
prompt and justify numerous anti-fascist RAF
frontations with the police.36 The link between
actions. The most infamous of these violent ac-
the West German students’ fight against fas-
tions was the kidnapping and execution of
cism and the Weather Underground would be
Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the president of the
furthered during the events and analysis of the
Confederation of German Employers’ Associ-
Weatherman’s Days of Rage. Before the riot,
ations and former SS officer under Holocaust
Weatherleader Bernadine Dohrn stated to the
architect Reinhard Heydrich. Through this ac-
group: “We are not going to be good Germans
tion, the RAF had wished to confront the state
in a Fascist State.”37 hinting at the lack of ac-
with its own contradictions and highlight the
tion by the Germans against the Nazi regime, a
fascist reaction felt by members of the group as
sentiment shared by the RAF.
students and communists. In a communique
regarding the action, the RAF stated: “By tak- Further impressions on the Days of Rage by
ing Schleyer prisoner, we confronted the FRG the student left provided more insight into the
state with its problem of legitimacy—using anti-fascist rhetoric of the WUO. The Seattle
this bureaucrat from the Third Reich and its Weatherwoman Susan Stern described the po-
successor state, a state which was entirely litical impact of potential deaths during the ri-
74 No. 4 / MAY 2021

ots as the following: “Mr. and Mrs. America

would . . . see our bodies being blasted by shot-
guns, our terrified faces as we marched trem-
bling but proud, to attack the armed might of
the Nazi state of ours.”38 The Yippie student
"What is a policeman?
activist Stew Albert provided another anti-fas- He is the active servant
cist narrative that justified the moral impulse
of the violent event, stating: of the commodity, the
What if you picked up a history book and
read that in 1938 a thousand University
man in complete
of Berlin students ran through the submission to the
streets on behalf of the Jews in the con-
centration camps, breaking car win- commodity, whose job
dows, knocking over fat old German
ladies, and beating up members of the it is to ensure that a
Gestapo? The Pope would bless them,
Mao would write an essay on them, given product of
Nehru probably would have liked them,
trees would be planted in Israel for them,
human labour remains
even Nixon would have dug them. On a
moral level, they’re perfect.39
a commodity, with the
The view that the U.S. was similarly fascist to magical property of
Germany would be explained, and used as a ba-
sis for violence, by the WUO when it came to
having to be paid for,
examining U.S. white supremacist violence
and an akin anti-communist agenda which
instead of becoming a
gave the pretext for Weatherman to turn to vi- mere refrigerator or
olent protest.
Weatherman’s shift to the armed under-
rifle — a passive,
ground was also strongly influenced by the re-
pressive measures of the state, specifically
inanimate object,
against communists and Black Power activists. subject to anyone who
One such measure was the targeted killings of
activists by law enforcement which was to have comes along to make
a decisive impact on the WUO’s turn to a
bombing campaign against the police. A key use of it."
example of these killings was the 1969 murder
of Fred Hampton, a 21-year-old leader of the
Chicago Black Panther Party who was
drugged, shot at, and then finally executed at -Guy Debord
point blank range whilst he slept next to his
pregnant girlfriend in his apartment.40 The as-
sassination of such a renowned figure in the

SAM GLASPER
Black Power movement greatly impacted the to be militantly confronted.

left and Weatherman specifically as they had
The investigations within this section posit
worked with Hampton within Chicago. Speak-
that both the WUO and the RAF’s analysis of
ing on the murder, Weatherman David Gilbert
post-war fascism had provided both groups
would go on to say that “It was the murder of
with a moral incentive to target members of
Fred Hampton more than any other factor that
the repressive state apparatus that they saw as
compelled us to feel that we had to take up
no different to the Nazis before them. This
armed struggle.”41 However, a second act of
thought process would be realised in the final
repression would further highlight links be-
words of RAF commando Holger Meins on his
tween white supremacy, state institutions and
deathbed from hunger strike with his defining
fascism in the United States. In Greensboro,
statement that “In the final analysis, you’re ei-
on November 3rd, 1979, five members of the
ther human being or pig.”43 Similarly, a leader
Communist Workers' Party were killed in a
of the White Panthers—a group allied with
drive by shooting by members of the Ku Klux
Weatherman—issued the following public
Klan and the American Nazi Party. It would
statement on violence against agents of the
later be revealed that FBI informants and Bu-
state: “I don’t want to make it sound like all you
reau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents
got to do is kill people, kill pigs, to bring about
had colluded with the far-right shooters in or-
revolution, but … it is war, and a righteous rev-
der to put a stop to Maoist organising within
olutionary war.”44 These statements, and the
the black community in Greensboro.42 This re-
analysis provided in this chapter, illustrate
pression from the state apparatus and collu-
why a perceived atmosphere of fascist repres-
sion with far-right forces highlight the similar
sion in the West provided the vindication for
feeling within the U.S. left that fascism had in-
the student left to use violent means.
grained itself within the nation and would need
76 No. 4 / MAY 2021

Obey, Consume, Conform: By the end of the armed

Consumer Capitalism and
campaigns, most of both
Culture in the Late 20th
Century groups’ membership
In the post-war years following the destruction were either dead, in
from World War Two, a new economic era for
Western nations began as a result of the rising prison, or had turned
hegemony of the United States and its corpo-
rations through the Marshall Plan. With new-
their backs on armed
found markets becoming established and
goods now flowing through Euro-America, a
resistance in favour of
form of advanced capitalism would come to be becoming functioning
entrenched within the West. The writer
Fredric Jameson defined this society as “New members of capitalist
types of consumption planned obsolescence:
an ever present an ever more rapid rhythm of society.
fashion and styling changes, the penetration of
advertising, television and the media generally
to a hitherto unparalleled degree throughout
society.”45 The analysis of this new post-indus-
trial form of capitalism, which emphasised the
role of products, signs, and individual con- ationists, expanded upon Marx’s writings on
sumers in society, was to be a key segment of alienation and the fetishism of commodities by
New Left thinking and would go on to influ- stating that the hardening of the role of com-
ence the countercultural views of young mili- modities in advanced capitalism had placed
tant students. This line of thinking would be the need by state forces to protect consumer
best outlined and explained by the Situationist products far above the protection of working
International founder Guy Debord who dia- people. It was a view to be shared by both the
grammed the new functions of the capitalist Red Army Faction and the Weather Under-
state in consumer society, commenting: ground who aspired to overcome the individu-
alism and decadence they saw as integral to
What is a policeman? He is the active ser- consumer capitalism through cultivating an
vant of the commodity, the man in com- appreciation of the collective enterprise and of
plete submission to the commodity, the kinds of discipline required for their dan-
whose job it is to ensure that a given prod- gerous political work.47 The attempt to form a
uct of human labour remains a commodi- counter to consumer society would direct both
ty, with the magical property of having to groups to use violent protest as a way in which
be paid for, instead of becoming a mere to bring down the cultural commodity-driven
refrigerator or rifle — a passive, inani- values that governed advanced capitalism.
mate object, subject to anyone who However, the spectacle of mass media, now in-
comes along to make use of it.46 grained as a part of consumer society, would
This belief, articulated by Debord and the Situ- also subtly influence the armed student

SAM GLASPER
“We must move to a groups’ use of armed actions as the relation-

ship between the students and capitalist mass
place beyond all known media developed further and further with each
passing armed attack. This rapport would dis-
issues […] What we want play the ways in which the society of the spec-
tacle would only come to increase the spectac-
is salvation from a ular nature of both groups violent acts and thus
displays, as this chapter shall argue, that the
meaningless proliferation of mass media (and the media’s
attempts to commodify and profit from spec-
annihilation. To not be tacular violent acts and even the students own
cremated for Coka-Cola violent deaths) would come to increase the mil-
itants’ tendencies to use violence as a tactic.
and plastic flags [...] on The development of the Red Army Faction’s
anti-consumerist and anti-materialist ideolo-
the moon.” gy began with what was to be the group’s very
first destructive action. On April 2, 1968, fu-
ture RAF leaders Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas
Baader set fire to two department stores in
-Sam Melville Frankfurt. Whilst the action ostensibly
protested the Vietnam War, the choice in tar-
get was a specific one that targeted the con-
sumer mindset of modern West Germany in a
deliberately militant way that sought to under-
mine the whole system. Future RAF leader Ul-
rike Meinhof would convey this very point,
writing in support of her future comrades that
“The progressive moment in the burning of a
department store doesn’t lie in the destruction
of commodities but in the criminality of the
act, its breaking of the law."48 This anti-con-
sumerist notion would be intrinsic to RAF ide-
ology that developed into believing that the
West German superstructure represented a
repressive totality, rooted in a commodity
fetishism that exerted a pervasive “Con-
sumterror” (“terror of consumption”).49 The
RAF would collectively detail this develop-
ment, writing in 1972:
The system in the metropolises has man-
aged to drag the masses so deeply into its
own filth that they seem to have largely
lost the feeling for their position as ex-
ploited and oppressed, of their situation
78 No. 4 / MAY 2021

as object. So much so, that for a car, a pair Larkin and Daniel Foss summarised this posi-
of jeans, life insurance, and a loan, they tion stating that to be “real” in the face of mass
will easily accept any outrage on the part consumer capitalism meant “being what one
of the system. In fact, they can no longer becomes upon rejection of the conventions”
imagine or wish for anything beyond a learned through one’s mainstream socializa-
car, a vacation, and a tiled bathroom.50 tion. “From one’s current perspective,” these
“amounted to ‘bullshit,’ ‘lies,’ ‘brainwashing,’
The communiques of the RAF highlight a key
a ‘phony mindfuck,’ etc.”54 In other words, in
component of the group’s armed struggle
order to triumph over consumerism, one
which consciously rejects the narrow pursuit
would have to reject the cultural conventions
of self-interest and superficial comfort
through militancy against the very system and
through ever-expanding consumption that
forge one’s own authentic self through con-
was alleged to be at the heart of advanced capi-
frontation. This viewpoint would come to be
talist culture. Another RAF communique
epitomised by the Weather Underground fel-
linked the group’s violent struggle directly
low traveller and New York Collective leader
with consumer society stating that “Those who
Sam Melville whose group bombed numerous
don’t defend themselves die, those who don’t
corporate buildings and U.S. army offices. In
die are buried alive in prisons, in reform
his communiques to the world explaining his
schools, in brand new kitchens and bedrooms
actions, Melville stated that “…corporations
filled with fancy furniture bought on credit.
have made us into useless consumers, devour-
START THE ARMED RESISTANCE NOW!
ing increasing quantities of useless credit cards
BUILD UP THE RED ARMY.”51 Through
and household appliances. Jobs are mindless.
these visceral and eye-catching communiques,
Vast machines pollute our air, water and
combined with their spectacular armed ac-
food.”55 Writing from prison, he would further
tions, the group borrowed methods from An-
state that “We must move to a place beyond all
tonin Artaud’s theatre of cruelty that (like the
known issues…What we want is salvation from
RAF) sought - through transgressive and hor-
a meaningless annihilation. To not be cremat-
rific theatrics – to shock an audience out of
ed for Coka-Cola and plastic flags . . . on the
their cultural desensitization from mindless
moon.”56 These actions and writings display
consumerism.52 These communiques and ac-
the influence that consumer society played in-
tions all point towards an underlying view-
to driving New Left students further into mili-
point of the RAF that sought to directly con-
tant actions.
front consumerism through militant actions
and violence. The shared aims and views between Melville,
the WUO and other militant students,
The Weather Underground meanwhile also
presents how the turn to armed actions oc-
faced a similar quandary confronting con-
curred due to the desire (in a culture that pro-
sumer culture within the United States.
duced floods of shoddy and “plastic” com-
Deeply rooted within this quandary was the is-
modities) to be authentic in one’s life (that is, to
sue of being authentic in an atmosphere of
be authentic revolutionaries) and to demon-
alienation from the rise of product-based sign
strate this authenticity in the most militant
value.53 This belief in authenticity held by the
fashion (first by street-fighting, then by bomb-
Weather Underground was shared across the
ing).57 Weatherman’s anti-consumerist agen-
U.S. New Left and especially within the coun-
da was further evidenced when the group
tercultural student bodies that inhabited left-
sprung out counterculture figure and LSD gu-
ist spaces at the time. The New Leftists Ralph

SAM GLASPER
ru Timothy Leary in a jailbreak, stating that that “The revolution won’t be built through
“He was a political prisoner, captured for the political work, but through headlines,”60 a be-
work he did in helping all of us begin the task of lief which epoused that the media’s highlight-
creating a new culture on the barren wasteland ing of spectacular actions such as bombings
that has been imposed on this country by and hijackings could wake the masses up to
Democrats, Republicans, Capitalists and their own alienation. By the end though, in
creeps.”58 For the WUO, the jailbreak empha- both the US and West Germany, the most vio-
sized not only the need for militant action in lent and spectacular New Left student groups
getting results but also the need to create a new would end up becoming products themselves
authentic culture which breaks completely in the commodified news cycle of mass media.
with the alienating, capitalist and consumerist In the words of Debord, the revolutionary
society felt in America. A view best sum- groups “became fodder for the media ma-
marised most simply by WUO leader Berna- chine.”61 and in spite of trying to create an anti-
dine Dohrn who once commented that “After spectacle through bombings (which were sup-
the revolution there won’t be any commer- posed to interrupt the spectacle of everyday
cials.”59 life) the eventual deaths of many student mili-
tants in armed actions would end with the
However, advanced capitalist culture in the
commodification of the students’ corpses.
West would also have a unique effect on the
armed actions of the militant student groups For the RAF, this moment would be the deaths
by the time of the late '60s. The spectacle of of founders Ulrike Meinhof, Andreas Baader,
mass media in both the US and West Germany Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe in
would play into numerous groups’ praxis when Stammheim prison and the public display of
considering violent actions of a spectacular na- their bodies for the press to capture. The use of
ture. This was demonstrated by Baader’s belief mass media was deliberate and was used to un-
80 No. 4 / MAY 2021

derline the defeat of the RAF’s first generation The End of the Rule of the Pigs
by the state in a spectacular fashion. In the
U.S., this moment would be best captured not is in Sight:
by the Weather Underground but by the Sym- Concluding Comments
bionese Liberation Army (SLA) another New
Left armed organisation with roots in the stu- In answer to the question of capitalism and
dent movement which engaged in dialogue youth violence, the analysis offered in this in-
with Weatherman. Like the RAF, the SLA ex- vestigation of student revolutionary violence
plicitly used media orientated strategies (such in the late 1960s proposes that key compo-
as the kidnapping of Patty Hearst and her nents of Western capitalism did influence the
eventual active participation, caught on cam- student leftist’s propensity to use armed
era, in an SLA bank heist) and were also por- protest. Examinations on both discussed
trayed as ‘folk devils’ by the mass media. Final- groups offer key insights into the thought pro-
ly, like the RAF, they were to die spectacularly cesses of the most radical student leftists. The
in a shootout with police that ended with the lines of thinking convey a sense of great convic-
firebombing of the group’s base. Their charred tion to not only make revolution in the First
corpses were, like the RAF founders, captured World, but also to confront the flagrant injus-
and put on display by the nation’s news me- tices committed in the name of capitalist ideol-
dia.62 Both events show how, despite the New ogy. In confronting this ideological force, the
Left students’ attempts to use the media spec- groups happily committed themselves to a
tacle to their own advantage, the group’s mem- process of revolution that emphasized vio-
bers would remain little more than commodi- lence in the overthrow of the ruling class. For
ties in the eyes of mass media society. Both the example, Weatherman once prophesied that
media and the student’s usage of each other as “Our humble task is to organize the apoca-
tools though did increase the propensities for lypse!”63 and, in confronting the heavy re-
violence to occur from both state and leftist ac- sponse from state forces, stated that “If it takes
tors and thus shows the role consumerism a bloodbath, let’s get it over with.”64 Similarly,
played in driving spectacular violence for- the Red Army Faction delved into violence fur-
ward. ther and further as the struggle continued,
once stating that:
Within this section, consumer society’s alien-
ating aspects (as well as its spectacle in the form …the apologists for the hard line will find
of news media) have been analysed as major out that they are not the only ones with
reasons for the turn to more violent and atten- an arsenal at their disposal. They will find
tion-grabbing armed actions by the most radi- out that we are many, and that we have
cal New Left students. The investigations in enough love—as well as enough hate and
the section have offered up the conclusions imagination—to use both our weapons
that the rise of commodities, the need to be au- and their weapons against them, and that
thentic and militant in a ‘hyperreal’ society and their pain will equal ours.65
the influence of mass media all contributed to These statements encapsulate both groups’
rising violence from the New Left students’ or- struggle against the capitalist state. A struggle
ganisations. In the end, both the society of the which led both groups down a path that relied
spectacle and the fetishization of the commod- on violence more and more as either a means
ity incited alienated students to use militant for survival or for reprisal against what they
acts in their struggle against the state. saw as further injustices committed on the
world stage.

SAM GLASPER
Neither the Red Army Faction nor the Weath- brutality and the more demeaning the
er Underground’s campaigns of armed actions trial, the more violence becomes impera-
brought about the immediate end to imperial- tive and necessary. The more destructive
ism, fascism, or consumerism in the capitalist the brutality, the more the violence
West. By the end of the armed campaigns, which is life will require heroism. As An-
most of both groups’ membership were either dreas Baader has said ‘Force is an eco-
dead, in prison, or had turned their backs on nomic power.’ We owe it to Andreas
armed resistance in favour of becoming func- Baader, to Ulrike Meinhof, to Holger
tioning members of capitalist society. The Meins, to the Red Army Faction in gen-
campaigns did, however, confront these key eral, to have made us understand not on-
components of capitalism and may have acted ly by their words but by their actions out-
as an embryonic form of what further resis- side and inside prison that only violence
tance could look like in other times of revolu- can stop human brutality. More or less
tionary possibility in the First World. The unconsciously, everyone knows that be-
lessons learned from the 1960s New Left stu- hind these two words – trial and violence
dents by today’s revolutionary left will be im- – is hidden a third one. Brutality. The
portant to study, as capitalism further devel- brutality of the system.67
ops into its late-stage format. With poetic opti-
The statement by Genet best epitomises the
mism for this potential future of new left-wing
meaning behind the New Left’s struggle
armed actors, the RAF concluded in their final
against capitalism. It was a violent one but one
statement that “The revolution says/I was/I
that was motivated by imperialist bombing in
am/I will be again.”66
Vietnam, fascist murderers in Greensboro and
When concluding on the violence, struggle consumerist alienation in the Western
and repression felt in the New Left students’ metropolis. It was precisely this brutality that
campaigns against capitalism, the position of led to New Left student violence.
the radical and revolutionary left and the rea-
soning behind the violence would be best reca-
pitulated by the artist Jean Genet in his state-
ment to the world: Endnotes
Violence and life are more or less synony- 1. Cheek, Timothy. The Intellectual in Modern
mous. The grain of wheat which germi- Chinese History. p. 198
nates and breaks through the frozen soil, 2. Bacciocco, Edward. The New Left in Ameri-
the beak of the chick which cracks the ca: reform to revolution. p. 21
eggshell, the fertilization of the female 3. The strategy of foco theory posits that a ded-
and the birth of the young can all be ac- icated band of revolutionaries can launch very
cused of being violent. Yet no one would small-scale, roving semi-guerrilla warfare at
put on trial the child, the women, the any time, which will serve as a focus and inspi-
chick, the bud, or the grain of wheat. The ration for the rapid growth of more general
charges brought against the Red Army guerrilla warfare and/or a general uprising ca-
Faction and the trial of its violence are pable of seizing political power. The theory is
real enough. But Germany, accompa- that these paramilitary roving bands can them-
nied by the rest of Europe and America, selves create the necessary conditions for revo-
are trying to fool themselves, and the tri- lution through their vanguard actions and
al against the violence is precisely what moral example.
that brutality consists of. The greater the 4. Abu-Jamal, Mumia. We Want freedom: A
82 No. 4 / MAY 2021

Life in the Black Panther Party. p. 105 tion, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties
5. Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, and Seventies. p. 110
Days of Rage. p. 177 23. Berger, Dan. Outlaws Of America: The
6. Lenin, Vladimir. Imperialism and Capitalism. Weather Underground and the Politics of Soli-
p. 33 darity. p. 61
7. Aronowitz, Stanley. When the New Left Was 24. Jackson, George. Blood in My Eye. p. 137
New. p.34 25. Ibid p. 99
8. Vague, Tom. Televisionaries: A Red Army 26. Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy and
Faction Story. p. 8 Other Essays. p. 92
9. Guevara, Che. Message to the Tricontinental. 27. Vague, Tom. Televisionaries: A Red Army
p. 9 Faction Story. p. 32
10. Varon, Jeremy. Bringing the War Home: 28. Varon, Jeremy. Bringing the War Home:
The Weather Underground, the Red Army Fac- The Weather Underground, the Red Army Fac-
tion, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties tion, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties
and Seventies. p. 7 and Seventies. p. 33
11. Gillies, Kevin. The Last Radical. p. 7 29. Ibid p. 13
12. Stern, Susan. With the Weathermen: The 30. Goldsworthy, Rupert. CONSUMING//
Personal Journal of a Revolutionary Woman. p. TERROR: Images of the Baader-Meinhof. p. 92
210 31. Sánchez-Cuenca, Ignacio. The Historical
13. Berger, Dan. Outlaws Of America: The Roots of Political Violence: Revolutionary Ter-
Weather Underground and the Politics of Soli- rorism in Affluent Countries. p. 209
darity. p. 131 32. Drake, Connor. Terrorists' Target Selection.
14. Vague, Tom. Televisionaries: A Red Army p. 156
Faction Story. p. 50 33. Goldsworthy, Rupert. CONSUMING//
15. Zedong, Mao. Problems of War and Strate- TERROR: Images of the Baader-Meinhof. p. 38
gy. p. 224 34. Moncourt, The Red Army Faction, A Docu-
16. Goldsworthy, Rupert. CONSUMING// mentary History: Volume 2: Dancing with Impe-
TERROR: Images of the Baader-Meinhof. p. 3 rialism. p. 298-299
17. Varon, Jeremy. Bringing the War Home: 35. Gassert, Philipp. Coping with the Nazi past:
The Weather Underground, the Red Army Fac- West German Debates on Nazism and Genera-
tion, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties tional Conflict. p. 266
and Seventies. p. 34 36. Varon, 2004, Jeremy. Bringing the War
18. Moncourt, Andre. The Red Army Faction, A Home: The Weather Underground, the Red
Documentary History: Volume 1: Projectiles for Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the
the People. p. 178 Sixties and Seventies. p. 36
19. Varon, Jeremy. Bringing the War Home: 37. Ibid p. 85
The Weather Underground, the Red Army Fac- 38. Ibid p. 76
tion, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties 39. Ibid p. 86
and Seventies. p. 213 40. Churchill, Ward. Agents of Repression: The
20. Vague, Tom. Televisionaries: A Red Army FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther
Faction Story. p. 67 Party and the American Indian Movement. p.
21. Martel, Christoph. Nur die besten Absicht- 69-70
en: Das prekäre Verhältnis der deutschen 68er 41. Berger, Dan. Outlaws Of America: The
zu den USA und Israel. p. 25 Weather Underground and the Politics of Soli-
22. Varon, Jeremy. Bringing the War Home: darity. p. 120
The Weather Underground, the Red Army Fac- 42. Waller, Signe. Love and Revolution: A Politi-

SAM GLASPER
cal Memoir : People's History of the Greensboro Faction. p. 32

Massacre, Its Setting and Aftermath p. 475. 62. Goldsworthy, Rupert. CONSUMING//
43. Goldsworthy, Rupert. CONSUMING// TERROR: Images of the Baader-Meinhof. p.
TERROR: Images of the Baader-Meinhof. p. 179
110 63. Buhle, Paul. The New Left Revisited. p. 230
44. Eckstein, Arthur. Bad Moon Rising: How 64. Varon, Jeremy. Bringing the War Home:
the Weather Underground Beat the FBI and Lost The Weather Underground, the Red Army Fac-
the Revolution. p. 115-116 tion, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties
45. Jameson, Frederic. The Cultural Turn: Se- and Seventies. p. 309
lected Writings on the Postmodern. p. 19 65. Moncourt, Andre Daring to Struggle, Fail-
46. Debord, Guy. The Decline and Fall of the ing to Win: The Red Army Faction's 1977 Cam-
Spectacle-Commodity Economy. p. 3 paign of Desperation. p. 19
47. Varon, Jeremy. Bringing the War Home: 66. RAF. “The Urban Guerrilla Is History…”:
The Weather Underground, the Red Army Fac- The Final Communiqué From The Red Army
tion, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties Faction. p. 20
and Seventies. p. 9 67. Burns, Tim. Against the Grain: More Meat
48. Ibid p. 41 than Wheat.
49. Ibid p. 42
50. RAF, The action of Black September in Mu-
nich - on the strategy of the anti-imperialist strug-
gle. p. 6 Works Cited
51. Vague, Tom. Televisionaries: A Red Army Abu-Jamal, Mumia. 2020. We Want freedom: A
Faction Story. p. 21 Life in the Black Panther Party. Common No-
52. Goldsworthy, Rupert. CONSUMING// tions.
TERROR: Images of the Baader-Meinhof. p. 18
Althusser, Louis. 2001. Lenin and Philosophy and
53. A term made popular by Jean Baudrillard
Other Essays. NYU Press.
which showed how the use of the commodity as
a form of communication in contemporary cul- Aronowitz, Stanley. 1984. When the New Left
ture and society has come to the point in which Was New. Duke University Press, 11-43.
the real has disappeared and is replaced by
Bacciocco, Edward. 1974. The New Left in Amer-
models “more real than the real”.
ica: reform to revolution. Hoover Institution
54. Larkin & Foss, Lexicon of Folk-Etymology.
Press.
p. 363
55. Pickering, Leslie James. Mad Bomber Berger, Dan. 2006. Outlaws Of America: The
Melville. p. 35 Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidari-
56. Ibid p. 73 ty. AK Press.
57. Eckstein, Arthur. Bad Moon Rising: How
Buhle, Paul. 2008. The New Left Revisited. Tem-
the Weather Underground Beat the FBI and Lost
ple University Press.
the Revolution. p. 50
58. Berger, Dan. Outlaws Of America: The Burns, Tim. (Director). 1981. Against the Grain:
Weather Underground and the Politics of Soli- More Meat than Wheat [Motion Picture].
darity. p. 139
59. Ibid p. 158 Cheek, Timothy. 2016. The Intellectual in Mod-
60. Goldsworthy, Rupert. CONSUMING// ern Chinese History. Cambridge University
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Situationniste. A Documentary History: Volume 1: Projectiles for
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Drake, Connor. 1998. Terrorists' Target Selec-
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KRITIKE, 45-49.

Title:
International Capital and the Imperial Periphery:
A Marxist Case Study of the Tendency of the Rate of
Profit to Fall and its Conditions in Lebanon 1997-2018
Thomas McLamb
Author:
Marx’s Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall provides a theoretical foundation
for calculating the economics of the social condition of the proletarian-capitalist relationship
under capitalism. This study examines the tendency of the rate of profit in Lebanon,
1997-2018, for the purposes of identifying the place of Lebanese profitability within the
schema of international capital, specifically that of the dominant Western capitalist
economies. The author finds that the existing data on the Lebanese economy challenge the
existing Western-centric thought on the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Additionally, the
author finds that the restorations and declinations of the Lebanese rate of profit appear as
mirrored inversions of the world rate of profit.
This article argues that an examination of the rate of profit in Lebanon can provide a more
thorough empirical understanding of the role of Lebanon in the schema of international
capitalism. In its examination, this article utilizes a slew of orthodox and contemporary
Marxist economic methods to study the rates of exploitation, rates of profit, and tenden-
cies of imaginary spheres of capital to serve Western imperial capital prior to
capital in the imperial periphery. The tendency of the rate of profit in
Lebanon is examined in relation to the tendencies of imperial capital for
the purposes of illuminating the oft-ignored mechanisms that surround
the Lebanese crises of capital. The primary sources consulted and uti-
lized for this article have been gathered and appropriated from the
World Bank economic databases. These data are appropriated and
serve as functional variables in a series of Marxist formulae from Marx’s
Capital Vols. I-III.
88 No. 4 / MAY 2021

International Capital and the Imperial

Periphery: A Marxist Case Study of
the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to
Fall and its Conditions in Lebanon
1997-2018
The tendency of the rate of profit (ROP) to fall case study on the Lebanese ROP from
is the fundamental observation to any signifi- 1997-2018 as a means of confirming the thesis
cant application of Marx’s theoretical works that the imperial ROP enjoys temporary
onto the crises of capitalism. Marx’s work on restorations through externalizing crises onto
this tendency posits that the profit mechanisms the periphery; in the case of this analysis,
that sustain the expansion of capital itself are Lebanon.
not infinite; or, capital cannot enjoy endless
This article will serve as an empirical Marxist
growth. Where the rate of profit is in decline,
analysis of the rate of profit in Lebanon. This
investment in imaginary capital increases
case study will examine the international capi-
alongside the rate of exploitation in the imperi-
talist economic conditions that saturate the
al periphery. Through the cycles of expansion
movements of profitability as well as the exist-
and contraction of profitability, the general rate
ing tendencies of Lebanese profitability within
of profit over time can be observed to be in
the greater context of international capital. The
steady decline in the imperial core. The rate of
primary documents of reference in support of
profit is often temporarily restored or stagnat-
these theses on Lebanese profitability are al-
ed in the West through social-democratic re-
most exclusively data series adapted and re-
forms, i.e., the welfare state, or through the ne-
framed from the World Bank data collections
oliberal programme of allowing the economy to
on Lebanon from 1997-2018. The primary
‘bottom-out.’ Underneath these Western
method of presentation utilizes the interpreta-
restorations of the rate of profit are the process-
tions of calculating rate of profit from Michael
es by which capital externalizes its crises onto
Roberts’ means of measuring surplus value
the peripheral developing economies of the
from large-scale national data series.
world. Despite the temporary imperial restora-
tions of the ROP, it remains in decline with its This article utilizes in its analysis the concrete
restorations lasting only a few years at most be- form of measure in Marx’s Volume III of Capi-
fore dropping lower than previously. This arti- tal whereby money is the unit of measure rather
cle examines the process of imperial restoration than the previous form of measure via. labor-
by externalizing crises onto the periphery in a time in Volume I. The existing literature on the

THOMAS MCLAMB
V.I. Lenin’s general thesis on imperialism and the

export of capital from the dominant capitalist
economies is that capitalist economies, within their
home borders and in search for greater degrees of
profit, must rectify their unsustainable national
projects with the expansion of their spheres of
capital into the underdeveloped world.
appropriation and rectification of these two profit it can extract before it resorts to the gam-
forms is best described in J.S. Szumski’s The bling of imaginary capital, but that capitalism
Transformation Problem Solved where Szumski finds a limit in the ways that it can extract profit
asserts that the Labor Theory of Value proper in in a democratic society.3 Streeck’s work is uti-
Volume I is best understood as an abstract form lized in the following research as a means of ex-
of the empirical money-measured form of Vol- amining the ways in which democratic capital-
ume III. Szumski concludes that while the LTV ist societies within the imperial core external-
serves as an explanation for the nature of prof- ize their internal contradictions of democracy
its, the formulae relating to the rate of profit in and profit by exporting misery to the periphery
Volume III serve as empirical tools for under- through mass external debt stocks. This paper
standing the processes of commodity produc- finds its place in the scholarship as a specific
tion in capitalist economic form.1 case study on the role of Lebanon in the crises of
international capital during the Long Depres-
The literature on the falling rate of profit is im-
sion as well as a confirming thesis on the ten-
mense with little consensus to be had even
dency of imperial capital to project its crises on-
amongst so-called Marxist economists, but of
to the imperial periphery.
most note for the purposes of this article are the
works from British economist Michael Roberts
as well as the works on crisis by Wolfgang
Streeck. Roberts’ work serves as the proof-of- The Rate of Profit in
concept work for measuring rate of profit utiliz-
ing principally bourgeois data series. The Long Lebanon
Depression by Roberts demonstrates the mech- From 1997-2002, Lebanon enjoyed a steady
anisms and symptoms of the declining rate of increase in profitability with little to no stagna-
profit within the imperial sphere of capital as tion or decline (See Figure 1). The rate of profit
well as the means by which it restores itself tem- from 1997-2018 presents a different process,
porarily.2 Streeck’s arguments in Buying Time showing the typical stages of expansion and
are much more compatible with the general contraction identified in Ernest Mandel’s Late
theses of this article. Streeck’s work on the oc- Capitalism in his work on the long and short-
casional recent crises of capital posits that capi- waves of capitalism.4 Wages in Lebanon fluctu-
talism not only has a limit on the amount of ated year-to-year while fixed capital ownership
90 No. 4 / MAY 2021

Rate of Profit in Lebanon, 1997-2018
3.5
2.5
1.5
0.5
0
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Figure 1. Source: Author’s Calculations via. World Bank, Lebanon Data
Series. Rate of Profit Calculated utilizing Marx’s orthodox formula and
Roberts’ interpretation, S/C+V. 6
in this period experienced multi-year contrac- 1997-2018. The cycles of Western capital and
tion leading into revitalized increases in owner- their consequences in the periphery develop a
ship over the means of production from ripple effect of long-term development of ex-
2000-2008. Somewhat expectedly, and despite ternalizations of crisis.
the cycles of expansion and contraction in both
Figure 1 displays a far different tendency in the
wages and capital goods’ ownership, nominal
ROP than the world rate of profit calculated by
GDP increased at steady rates with little-to-no
British economist Michael Roberts. Roberts’
contraction.5 The rate of profit in Lebanon has
work is certainly the most orthodox of contem-
gone through a general stage of decline from
porary Marxist economic analyses, though un-
2002-2018 but a general incline from
like other contemporary Marxists, Roberts at-

THOMAS MCLAMB
One need not observe for long to see that where the
imperialist rate of profit is in decline, the rate of
profit inclines in Lebanon. Where the Lebanese rate
of profit is in decline, the rate of profit experiences
incline in the imperialist economies, though to less
significant and far more temporary degrees.
tempts to understand the functional crises of sion of their spheres of capital into the underde-
capital as an international phenomenon. While veloped world.7 One-hundred years after
Roberts’ work on calculating a world rate of Lenin’s works the spheres of capital in the
profit is well deserving of praise for its signifi- Western imperialist world have more-or-less
cance in analyzing the profitability and ex- subsumed each other into one dominant sphere
ploitative processes of imperial capital, of capital comprising all of the G7, arguably the
Roberts does not, nor do any of the prominent G20, economies. These economies have woven
Marxists of the 21st century, attempt to mea- a web of interconnectedness by which the eco-
sure rate of profit in the imperial peripheries. nomic processes of one affect the processes of
Roberts’ work is derived from calculating a the other. Just as these economies affect one an-
world rate of profit comprised of only the G7 other, they too subjugate the economies of the
and G20 spheres of imperial capital. In the case developing spheres of capital, certainly includ-
of the imperialist accumulation of capital, ing the economic processes of Lebanon.
Western capital externalizes its internal crises
From 1997 to present the G7 economies have
onto the imperial periphery. In the case of the
experienced a declining rate of profit that pro-
United States, this process has presented itself
ceeds immediately from the neoliberal austeri-
in the form of the endless wars, economic sanc-
ty programme of ‘83 - ’86. Where the rate of
tions, proxy wars, and state-funded terrorisms
profit is then in decline in these imperialist core
in the Middle East and elsewhere. The subject
economies, the rate of profit has a general pat-
to observe then in this case study is the relation-
tern of incline in the periphery, again in this
ship of the rate of profit in Lebanon with the
case, Lebanon. Until roughly 2002, during the
international rates of profit.
period of the Long Depression, empire’s ROP
V.I. Lenin’s general thesis on imperialism and remained in a general tendency of decline.8 It is
the export of capital from the dominant capital- this moment when one can observe the tempo-
ist economies is that capitalist economies, rary restoration of the ROP from 2002-2004,
within their home borders and in search for coinciding with the end to Lebanon’s steady in-
greater degrees of profit, must rectify their un- cline in the ROP. As expected, the restoration
sustainable national projects with the expan- of the imperialist ROP lasted only a few years
92 No. 4 / MAY 2021

G7 ROP %
11.0
10.0
NEOLIBERAL
9.0
RECOVERY
GOLDEN AGE
8.0
7.0
6.0
PROFITABILITY LONG
1
CRISIS DEPRESSION
5.0
1950
1953
1956
1959
1962
1965
1968
1971
1974
1977
1980
1983
1986
1989
1992
1995
1998
2001
2004
2007
2010
2013
2016
Figure 2. Source: Michael Roberts’ calculations of a World Rate of Profit.
Alternatively, data are available in Michael Roberts, “The Long Depression:
How it Happened, Why it Happened, and What Happens Next.” (Chicago:
Haymarket Books, 2016).9
before sinking to a rate at nearly the same level icant and far more temporary degrees. Because
of the profitability crises four decades prior these imperialist economies are far more devel-
during the international crash of ’08 (See both oped than that of the periphery and their
Fig. 1 and Fig. 2). spheres of capital are far more accumulated to-
wards-monopoly, the fluctuations in the rate of
One need not observe for long to see that where
profit are far more exaggerated with restora-
the imperialist rate of profit is in decline, the
tions occurring over shorter periods of time
rate of profit inclines in Lebanon (See Figures 1
than in the peripheral developments.
and 2). Where the Lebanese rate of profit is in
decline, the rate of profit experiences incline in The period of decline of the ROP in Lebanon
the imperialist economies, though to less signif- remained after the imperial restoration largely

Trade in Lebanon, 1997-2018 (% of GDP)
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Figure 3. Source: World Bank national accounts data, and OECD National
Accounts data files.11
due to the Israeli invasion, occupation, and cupation while profitability experienced im-
bombarding of Lebanon in 2006 and subse- mediate contraction and subsequent long-term
quent universal recession of 2008. While slow growth in Lebanon, the imperial periph-
Ernest Mandel’s discoveries on war economies ery.
in Late Capitalism present a thesis that mass
In addition to the obvious circumstances of the
production during these eras oft encourage
impacts of imperialist occupation and military
short-term restorations in profitability for the
bombarding of Lebanon, trade indicators
imperialist country, the reality of this imperial
1997-2018 illuminate the involvement of out-
restoration is that the hinders of profitability
side spheres of capital on the general exploita-
are merely externalized and projected onto the
tion of Lebanese production. Trade in Lebanon
imperial subject.10 Crisis cannot be simply
has only exceeded the GDP twice between
erased within the imperial core, rather it is
1997 and 2018; first in 2008 at 106.63% of
pushed outwards onto developing economies.
GDP, second in 2011 at 102.14% (See Figure
Take the Israeli invasion of Lebanon; Prof-
3). Where the rate of profit experiences steady
itability is generated in either function or at-
inclines from 1997-2002, a declining rate of
tempt in the Israeli imperial core during the oc-
94 No. 4 / MAY 2021

Rate of Exploitation in Lebanon, 1997-2018
20
18
16
14
12
10
0
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Figure 4. Source: Author’s Calculations via. World Bank, Lebanon Data

Series. Rate of Exploitation calculated using S/V.12

Percent of External Debt to GDP in Lebanon, 1997-2018
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Figure 5. Source: Author’s Calculations via World Bank, Lebanon Data Series.
Calculated using Ext. Debt/GDP.14
profit correlates directly with rapid increases in direct and proportionate pattern of higher rates
foreign trade, nearly double from ’03-’04. This of exploitation of Lebanese proletarians (See
process suggests that the declining rate of profit Figure 4).
is certainly tied to contradictions of production
Just as trade in Lebanon with foreign spheres of
rather than consumption as many bourgeois
capital follows an inverted form of the cycles of
economists suggest today. Regardless, prof-
declination and inclination of the Lebanese rate
itability suffers within the Lebanese sphere of
of profit, it follows the restorations of imperial
Lebanon while it serves to restore imperial cap-
capital of its own tendencies. Exploitation is
ital. Where foreign trade increases, there is a
thus in a general upwards trend where trade in-
96 No. 4 / MAY 2021

creases in Lebanon displaying confirmation of The declining rate of profit makes necessary the
the thesis that restorations in the rate of profit speculative gambling of finance capital where-
in the Western world are not simply the prod- by they substitute profit-extraction from com-
uct of insular economic policy in the imperial modity production for profit-extraction
core but rather the product of externalizing through accumulation of imaginary capital.
crises onto the periphery. Crises are external- Lebanon is not exempt as a subject to this spec-
ized onto Lebanon for the purpose of serving ulative gambling of imperial capital. While the
imperial restoration. rate of profit has not been in decline in Lebanon
from 1997-2018, it has certainly experienced
The data series on the rate of exploitation in
inclines in trade, exploitation, and investment
Lebanon show two things. First, the confirma-
from foreign capital gamblers during periods of
tion of a near identical percent increase over the
imperial decline (See all previous figures). As
21-year period of exploitation and increases in
shortly as possible, where empire is in decline,
trade. Second, the series shows the tendency of
debt, or engagement in imaginary capital, is on
exploitation to increase where restorations in
the rise in Lebanon. The consequences of the
the imperial rate of profit occur. There is the
declining ROP within the spheres of empire
elephant in the room that is the 2008 economic
take the form of imaginary moneyed invest-
crisis that resulted in a near universal decline in
ments into Lebanon resulting in higher degrees
the rate of profit in the core and peripheries of
of exploitation with each passing year. These
empire. Despite this fluctuation, the tendency
moneyed investments are attempts, and often
of trade to increase in Lebanon as capital is ac-
successes even if temporary, to restore the rate
cumulated in the imperial core alongside the
of profit by artificially increasing the rates of ex-
rate of profit to follow a mirrored path of the
ploitation and consequently profit in the impe-
rate of profit in the imperial core allows one to
rial periphery. For Lebanon, these speculative
see the process that crises are externalized onto
gambles by the imperialist are exhibited in the
the periphery by the core during the long-term
data series examining external debt in Fig. 5.
decline and crises of imperial capital.
This external debt places the imperial periph-
Trade and exploitation are only functional as- ery in a capitalist sphere of rent-owing econo-
pects of the greater processes of externalizing my indefinitely to the imperial core when the
crises from the imperial core onto the periph- external debt (money owed through imperial
ery. The crises of late capitalism in the Western gambling) surpasses the GDP.
imperial core largely result in the form of imagi-
Figure 5 displays the historic increases in the
nary capital. Imaginary capital is most succinct-
levels of external debt to GDP in Lebanon. As
ly descried as the moneyed processes of capital-
shown, in 2004 the percent of external debt to
ism built solely from speculation or gambling.
GDP exceeds 100%. These levels of external
These imaginary spheres of capital are most of-
debt are indicative of the general health of the
ten observed as stocks, bonds, shares, or debt
imperial spheres of capital though they secon-
stocks.13 The observations and analyses pre-
darily indicate the general tendency of prof-
sented thus far have established the mirrored
itability in Lebanon.
relationship that Lebanese capital experiences
under the subjugation of imperial capital. The Profitability will increase in the imperial core
means by which this happens is less clear, until it can no longer extract value through sim-
though observing the processes of external debt ple commodity production within the national
accumulation in the periphery can illuminate borders. This failure to extract profit further
far more. signals the decline in national profitability and

THOMAS MCLAMB
the initial stage of capitalist crisis. The crises some way as a reference point for the work con-
faced by Lebanon at present then are two-fold. tributed in the future on the condition of capital
First, Lebanon is subject to the endless exter- in the periphery.
nalization of crisis onto its economy by the in-
sufferable gambling of imperialist capital. Sec-
ond, Lebanon is subject to its own development
of crises through mass accumulation of debt
Endnotes
and the exploitation of its own commodity and 1. J.S. Szumski, “The Transformation Crisis
value production by empire. Empire’s enjoy- Solved?” in Cambridge Journal of Economics,
ment of the fruit of imaginary capital has merely Vol. 13 No. 3. (Oxford: Oxford University
been through the partial replacement of its own Press, 1989), Pg. 431-452.
exploitation via commodity production with
2. Michael Roberts, “The Long Depression:
the exploitation of peripheral spheres of capi-
How it Happened, why it Happened, and
tal, all of which have been party to the continu-
What Happens Next,” (Chicago: Haymarket
ous process of the accumulation of capital to-
Books, 2016).
wards-monopoly of the few richest capitalists
in the world. 3. Wolfgang Streeck, “Buying Time: The De-
layed Crises of Democratic Capitalism, 2nd
Edition.” New York: Verso Books, 2017.
Concluding Remarks 4. Ernest Mandel, “Late Capitalism, 2nd Edi-
tion.” New York: Verso Books, 1999. And
The rate of profit in Lebanon indicates a mir- Ernest Mandel, “Long Waves of Capitalist
rored relationship with the international rate of Development.” New York: Verso Books,
profit calculated in Roberts’ work from 1995.
1997-2018. This mirrored relationship illumi-
nates the patterns by which the imperialist 5. World Bank National Accounts data,
countries of the world externalize their crises OECD National Accounts data files, and In-
onto the Lebanese economy. Imperial capital ternational Monetary Fund Government
cannot endlessly extract profit from its own Statistics Yearbook and data files. All listed
core, it must engage in international expansion data series aggregated an accessed via. World
of its processes of production. Lenin’s observa- Bank data visualization tools through data.-
tions in Imperialism allow us to understand the worldbank.org.
theoretical means by which this happens, 6. Rate of Profit in Lebanon, 1997-2018. Cal-
though Marx’s work in Capital Vol. III allow us culated by Author. Calculated using World
the tools to calculate these processes ourselves. Bank National Accounts data, OECD Nation-
The rate of profit is certainly not in decline in al Accounts data files, International Monetary
Lebanon, though where it experiences decline, Fund Government Finance Statistics Year-
profitability is temporarily restored within the book. All listed data series aggregated and ac-
imperial core. There is at present a rapidly in- cessed via. World Bank data visualization
creasing level of wealth inequality alongside an tools through data.worldbank.org. Also of
ever-increasing rate of exploitation within note, see Michael Roberts’ formulations of
Lebanon’s sphere of capital, though these de- the world rate of profit for clarification on ap-
velopments are not isolated, they are subject to plication of formulae.
the movements and unsustainable nature of in-
ternational capital. It is my hope that these data 7. V.I. Lenin, “Imperialism: The Highest
presented, and the analysis provided, serve in Stage of Capitalism.”
98 No. 4 / MAY 2021

8. Michael Roberts, “The Long Depression.”

Bibliography
9. Michael Roberts, “A World Rate of Profit:
A New Approach.” Accessed via. https:// Lenin, V.I. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of
thenextrecession.wordpress.- Capitalism. Penguin, 2010.
com/2020/07/25/a-world-rate-of-profit-a- Roberts, Michael. The Long Depression: How
new-approach/ it Happened, why it Happened, and What
10. Ernest Mandel, “Late Capitalism.” Happens Next. Haymarket Books, 2016.
11. World Bank National Accounts data and Roberts, Michael. A World Rate of Profit: A
OECD National Accounts data files. See [6]. New Approach. Self-Published. Accessed via.
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.-
12. Formula used to calculate rate of exploita- com/2020/07/25/a-world-rate-of-profit-a-
tion is again an orthodox Marxist formula, S/ new-approach/
V. Where S = Surplus value and V = Variable
Capital. See previous notes for clarification on Streeck, Wolfgang. Buying Time: The Delayed
calculating surplus value in the S/C+V formu- Crises of Democratic Capitalism, 2nd Edition.
la. Data series utilized via. World Bank Na- Verso Books, 2017.
tional Accounts, OECD National Accounts Szumski, J.S. “The Transformation Problem
data files, International Monetary Fund, Gov- Solved?” Cambridge Journal of Economics.
ernment Finance Statistics Yearbook. See [6]. Vol. 13, No. 3. Pp. 431-452.
Formula used appropriated via. both Marx’s
World Bank data visualization tools. Accessed
Capital and Michael Roberts interpretation
via. data.worldbank.org.
thereof. See also; Michael Roberts, “Marx
200: A Review of Marx’s Economics.” (Lulu.-
com: 2018). See also; Michael Roberts, “A
World Rate of Profit: A New Approach.”
13. Michael Roberts, “The Long Depression,”
Ch. 6.
14. World Bank, International Debt Statis-
tics; and World Bank National Accounts data
and OECD National Accounts data files. See
[6].

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100 No. 4 / MAY 2021

Space and social reproduction
LAND,
LEGITIMACY,
AND THE
POLITICS OF
CONTROL
SPACE AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION
WAKING UP
FROM THE
AMERICAN
DREAM
NIGHTMARE
A Marxist Critique of
Christian Noakes Homeownership and the
Accumulation of Wealth
p
opular conceptions of private Jeffersonian ideas of property in the foundations
property and ownership are of America, the American Dream and mobility
shaped by ideological forces through ownership, and patriotism/nationalism.
which lend themselves to the To the latter we can add anti-communism, which
structural stability of capital- was intimately linked with the moralizing of own-
ism. As a fundamentally bour- ership and the prevailing jingoism of the early 20th
geois concept, private property century. One of the key component that set the
“appears as an inner part of the indi- modern ideology attached to private property
vidual, one of his fundamental ‘rights’, something apart from its Jeffersonian roots was the prefer-
his freedom is founded on.”1 To possess is seen as a ence by both government and private industry to-
means to self-improvement and self-realization. ward small-scale homeownership in industrial
This is particularly true with regards to home own- cities and surrounding suburbs.3 Following the
ership in the U.S. Vale2 identifies three interwo- Second World War, a reinvigorated middle class
ven strands of national homeownership ideology: and widespread suburban development spurred a

wealth
housing boom that cemented However, many of the material or

homeownership at the center of economic benefits of homeown-
1975
the American Dream. ership are prematurely assumed
to be inherent outcomes. Given
The American Dream is a national
its ideological construction under
narrative of equality and excep-
capitalism, and in the U.S. more
tionalism—one which claims
specifically, there is an uncondi-
that economic mobility, and ulti-
tional acceptance or “blind neces-
mately happiness, are simply a
sity”6 that homeownership is an
matter of personal perseverance,
effective means of upward mobil-
property optimism, and investment.
ity and equality. However, such
While it has developed over time,
views lack empirical justification.
it is foundational to the collective
While assessing the validity of
conception of freedom, equality,
concepts as subjective as the
opportunity, and healthy citizen-
American Dream or freedom can
ship. This spiritual component is
be problematic, there are several
complimented by a materialistic
ways of measuring the complex
1965 drive of ownership which is con-
relationship between the owner-
sidered the means of attaining the
ship of property and wealth accu-
American Dream. Rooted in capi-
mulation on which such amor-
talist values, this national narra-
phous concepts are built.
tive is “the spiritualization of
property and consumption, the This paper contributes to the un-
investment of joy and dignity in derstanding of how the accumu-
consumption and property own- lation of housing-based wealth is
status ership.”4 A core assumption of contingent on who the owner is
the American Dream is that and the context of where the
equality of opportunity provides property is located. In more gen-
an avenue for the working class to eral terms its aim is to shed light
accumulate wealth and therefore on how private property—much
improve their quality of life. In like education and occupation—
the 1920s, home ownership be- can be used as a means to perpetu-
1955 came a central component and ate, intensify, and structure social
has persisted to this day as one of stratification. I argue that home-
the primary embodiments of the ownership intensifies inequality;
American Dream.5 Due, in part, it does not reduce it. This is
to the blossoming of the credit in- counter to popular beliefs sur-
dustry, a nascent mass-consumer rounding the ownership of pri-
economy, and an increase in vate property as an egalitarian
housing investment and land means of economic mobility and
happiness speculation, the ability to own as an avenue for the most disad-
one’s home became synonymous vantaged to achieve higher so-
with American ideals of self-cre- cioeconomic status. By compar-
ation and moral citizenry. The ing the housing values for Black,
single-family home has since white, and Asian homeowners in
been regarded as the sturdiest of different contexts, I move beyond
socioeconomic ladders. the assumption of property as a
1945 unilateral means to opportunity
15 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

dream
and social mobility. While may therefore actually rein- gories impacted during the last
homeownership can provide force structural inequality. major U.S. housing crisis? How
the opportunity to accumulate Contrary to the view of crises as were patterns of appreciation
wealth, promoting access to failures of the housing system, and depreciation of housing val-
ownership under resilient this paper considers how crises ue affected by location (urbanic-
structural inequality does not provide structural maintenance ity and region)? How did the
adequately address the dispari- and the creation of new mar- housing crisis, and the Great
ty in housing value or wealth kets. In this light, the 2008 crisis Recession it spawned, change
more generally. If the outcomes represents the latest stage of a patterns of accumulation? By
of ownership vary significantly built-in process that reoccurs in answering these questions, I
by place and race then home- order to maintain capitalism aim to address the implications
ownership can reinforce social through mutation. By looking of building wealth through
stratification. Capturing this at housing values during the last ownership. Further, I also aim
variability is central to decon- major housing crisis, I hope to to provide greater insight into
structing popular assumptions better understand patterns of the role of crises in the processes
of ownership and addressing accumulation at the national of accumulation and the re-
persistent inequality. and regional level and the impli- structuring of housing markets.
cations of ownership in the
The volatile nature of the na-
post-crisis housing market.
tion’s housing industry also
complicates matters. In times of This paper is organized around
crisis, the bottom drops out, but the following questions: How
some fall further than others. were the housing values of own-
These “boom and bust” cycles ers from different racial cate-

CHRISTIAN NOAKES
adequately addressing the persistent

racial wealth gap in the U.S.
Patterns of access to home ownership
are highly racialized. Sykes9 shows that
region, age, and income affect both non-
married Black and white women simi-
larly while the effects of education and
labor force participation increase the
likelihood of ownership more for white
women. Overall, non-married white
women are more likely to own their
homes compared to their Black coun-
terparts. Charles and Hurst10 also ob-
serve a disparity in ownership which
they attribute, in part, to Black-white
disparities in both applying for and hav-
ing mortgage applications accepted.
Access to the credit necessary for many
inequality
to own their homes make banks a cen-

tral institution which people rely upon
to build wealth.
However, the long-established public-
private partnership of government, pri-
vate lenders, and real estate have creat-
ed a housing market that codifies the
exclusion of Black communities from
housing-based accumulation—a core
The Literature component of the American Dream.

Encouraged in part by appraisals and
maps from the Home Owners Loan
of Inequality Corporation, lenders have excluded
communities deemed undesirable—
While income inequality remains a seri- often informed by racial or ethnic
ous concern for social scientists and pol- makeup—from cycles of reinvestment
icymakers alike, ethnic and class strati- in a practice known as redlining.11 While
fication appears to be even starker when many working-class white communi-
one considers wealth.7 Wealth serves as ties also received the lowest possible
a more precise measure of socioeco- grade due to their low appraisal value,
nomic status than income because it virtually all Black communities (as well
considers all assets owned by individu- as other neighborhoods with ethnic mi-
als or families. Home equity accounts norities) were “redlined” and thus de-
for roughly 60 percent of the wealth for valued and stigmatized regardless of
the nation’s middle class.8 This makes class composition or housing condi-
questions of access to ownership and tions.12 The Federal Housing Adminis-
the accumulation of wealth attributable tration (FHA) adopted this practice
to ownership vital to understanding and when appraising neighborhoods with
No. 4 / MARCH 2021

The long-established public-private partnership of

government, private lenders, and real estate have
created a housing market that codifies the
exclusion of black communities from housing-
based accumulation—a core component of the
American Dream.
federally backed mortgages. Despite the hegemonic persis- ue, there are two levels to con-
This federal agency also encour- tence of the assumption that sider: the effects of being a per-
aged—and in some cases re- homeownership is a means to son of color and the effects of
quired—racially restrictive both the American Dream and living in neighborhoods where
deeds for properties receiving social mobility, the considera- the majority of residents are
the agency’s mortgage back- tion of how housing and struc- people of color. This distinction
ing.13 These racial covenants tures of ownership may perpet- can be difficult in the U.S. due to
prohibited the sale or occupa- uate social inequality is not a the persistence of segregation in
tion of properties to Black peo- particularly novel approach. In which Black people are far more
ple and other minorities. Be- fact, Friedrich Engels15 took a likely than other minority
tween mortgage lending prac- similar position against the groups to live in isolation from
tices and restrictive covenants, French socialist Pierre-Joseph the rest of the population. Isola-
the government, private Proudhon. Proudhon asserted tion and hypersegregation have
lenders, and real estate system- that enabling every individual facilitated predatory lending in
atically devalued Black neigh- (or family) to own their home predominantly Black commu-
borhoods and prevented Black was adequate to address issues nities17; and as segregation in-
people from moving to areas of housing disparities. Reject- creases, the Black-white racial
with better access to credit and ing this thesis, Engels pointed gap in housing values also
rates of value accumulation— out that equal access under a widens.18 Segregation and
thereby excluding those with system built from capitalist neighborhood racial composi-
the least from pursuing the class relations and the division tion can also have a significant
American Dream. While many of town and country only inten- impact on the housing values of
lenders avoided areas with mi- sifies class inequality. Engels’ entire neighborhoods.19 Re-
nority populations, others of- radical critique of housing has search suggests that current
fered subprime mortgages with since been supported by several home value decreases for homes
higher interest rates, lower studies that have considered in neighborhoods when there is
loan-to-value ratios, and short- fundamental class and geo- an increase in minority popula-
er terms.14 Such strategies of ex- graphic disparities in U.S. tion—especially for Black pop-
clusion likewise impeded the housing-based wealth.16 ulations. This trend applies to
accumulation of value and both whites and Blacks in both
In the U.S., race is a key factor in
housing-based wealth in minor- suburban and urban contexts.20
the patterns of wealth accumu-
ity communities. However, what Rusk21 refers to
lation. Regarding housing val-

CHRISTIAN NOAKES
into25 urban centers, urbanicity

can also have a large influence on
housing-based wealth. Commute
time to-and-from work has also
been shown to be a strong indica-
tor of negative equity.26 One can
therefore expect to see deprecia-
predatory
tion increase further away from
major cities and industrial cen-
ters. This effect of urbanicity can
also vary by region. City proper-
ties can have higher values or
higher rates of accumulation in
the West or Northeast than those
in the Midwestern cities, like De-
as the “segregation tax” appears troit. Such variations could also
to impact Black homeowners make homeownership in urban
more than it does for others— centers either more or less eco-
with this tax being particularly nomically beneficial when com-
steep in the Midwestern region pared to surrounding suburban
of the U.S. and rural areas.
In addition to race, place is inte- Given the volatile nature of the
gral to patterns of housing value speculative housing industry,
and wealth accumulation. Re- crises are also a key component of
gion of the U.S. (West, Mid- understanding the processes of
west, Northeast, and South) can capital accumulation. The
be particularly consequential 2007-2009 housing crisis precipi-
for homeowners. Research tated an international recession
shows a consistent pattern in that has had serious political, so-
which housing values are high- cial, and economic implications
est in the West and lowest in the still felt to this day by many both
South and Midwest.22 Living in within the U.S. and abroad.
the South has also been shown While it would eventually devel-
to have a significant negative op into a general financial crisis
impact on housing equity when known as the Great Recession, its
compared with non-Southern roots lie in the deregulated and
property. While housing values highly speculative housing mar-
appear to be significantly higher ket, the growth of the high-risk
in the West, this region was also subprime lending industry, and
hit particularly hard by the the practice of predatory lend-
housing crisis.23 The region in ing.27 By giving people loans with
which a property is located is higher interest rates, fluctuating
key to both property values and interest rates, and other negative
the potential wealth generated terms of agreement, banks could
from these values. guard against the loss of profits
while making these mortgages
Given capital flow out of24 and
harder to maintain, thereby caus-
108 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

ing widespread default, foreclosure,

and devaluation.
Predatory lending refers to the prac-
creative destruction—an inherent tendency of capitalism to increase

tice of targeting communities of col-
capital to the point of overproduction, which then destroys markets

or, working class communities, and
in periods of depression or crises. By periodically destroying its old

the elderly with subprime mort-
markets and spurring widespread social disruption through this

gages. Predatory lenders depleted
process, capitalism creates the new markets necessary for the

housing equity and crushed many
The crisis subjected both renters and owners to a process of

low-income homeowners. For ex-
ample, $6.7 trillion of housing equity
was lost nationally between the years
of 2006 and 2011.28 Working-class
neighborhoods saw a significant de-
cline in housing values around fore-
expansion of greater profits. Creative destruction is

closed properties while there was lit-
tle to no impact on surrounding
housing values in more affluent
neighborhoods.29 With the deple-
tion of housing value came the in-
creased concentration of negative
equity and foreclosures. Patterns of
foreclosures were uneven and varied
by market. Central cities saw a dis-
proportionate amount of foreclo-
fundamental to the maintenance of
sures in many areas that were experi-

encing growth in foreclosures prior
to 2007 while stronger markets that
experienced more volatility of the
housing bubble tended to see fore-
closures concentrated in suburban
neighborhoods.30 The impact was al-
so uneven across regions. After the
housing bubble popped, states in the
capitalist economies.
West and South saw a collapse in the

housing market while states in the
Midwest were burdened by high un-
employment during the Great Re-
cession. States such as Florida, Cali-
fornia, Michigan, and Georgia saw a
disproportionate amount of foreclo-
sures.31
The crisis subjected both renters and
owners to a process of creative de-
struction—an inherent tendency of
capitalism to increase capital to the
point of overproduction, which then

CHRISTIAN NOAKES
destroys markets in periods of depression or sures and the drop in housing values, real estate
crises. By periodically destroying its old markets companies were able to buy properties at a signifi-
and spurring widespread social disruption cantly reduced price. In cities like Atlanta, in-
through this process, capitalism creates the new vestors responded to the foreclosure crisis by buy-
markets necessary for the expansion of greater ing up property in distressed low-income commu-
profits.32 Creative destruction is fundamental to nities where foreclosures were high and median
the maintenance of capitalist economies. Accord- housing values low.36 In the social disruption and
ing to Marx33: economic hardship of the recession came opportu-
nity for speculation and investment as well as a
[T]he highest development of productive pow-
boom in Real Estate Owned (REO) properties.37
er together with the greatest expansion of ex-
isting wealth will coincide with depreciation of The functional role of crises lies in their tendency
capital…These contradictions lead to explo- to increase inequality. Hendricks38 considered the
sions, cataclysms, crises, in which... momenta- changing relationship between race, place, and
neous suspension of labor and annihilation of a property-based wealth within the context of the
great portion of capital... violently lead it back previous housing crisis. Using data from the 2001
to the point where it is enabled [to go on] fully and 2010 U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income
employing its productive powers without and Program Participation (SIPP), they found that
committing suicide.34 the housing crisis widened the racial gap in equity.
Compared to identical models for homeowners in
In other words, the capitalist tendency to increase
2001, racial disparities became highly significant
profitability creates the conditions for devalua-
by 2010, and Black and Latino/a respondents saw
tion which in turn renew the ability of increased
a steep decline in home equity when compared to
profit through new markets and other investment
Whites—implying one’s race became more
opportunities. This contradictory characteristic
salient an indicator of equity after the housing cri-
in which crises serve as structural maintenance
sis. They concluded that the impact of the housing
creates a “temporal and geographical ebb and flow
of investment in the built environment.”35 The
burdens of crises are not evenly distributed. As
such, development and the accumulation of capi-
tal following crises become even more uneven—
a condition which lends itself to profit. This
y
process provides opportunity for investors
t
while creating a barrier to economic mo-
i l i
bility (or stability) for large segments of
homeowners. During the Great Reces-
b
sion, following on the tide of foreclo-
fi t a
p ro
15 No. 4 / MARCH 2021
crisis was unevenly distributed, West42—it is only part of the accumulation.47

thereby causing a “multiplier ef- picture. The persistence of in-
This research contributes to the
fect” in which ethnic inequality equality penetrates down to the
growing body of work around
in housing value and wealth was patterns of accumulated hous-
housing and inequality by con-
exacerbated. Thomas et al.39 al- ing values upon which equity is
sidering national and regional
so observed an increase in the built.
trends during the housing crisis.
racial disparities in housing val-
Research provides plenty of evi- In doing so, it becomes clear how
ues after the crisis. Their find-
dence to suggest that the eco- “the post-crisis stage of accumu-
ings suggested that Black home-
nomic benefits of homeowner- lation inherits a geographical
owners considered to have high-
ship are highly contingent on the space that is highly differentiat-
er socioeconomic status (SES)
characteristics of the owner and ed by crisis.”48 By grounding the
experienced growth of a larger
the neighborhood in which analysis of the present paper in a
gap to high-SES white owners
property is situated. However, critique of capitalist hegemony,
than lower-SES Blacks to low-
more is needed to better under- this study addresses the contra-
SES whites. The intensification
stand patterns of housing-based dictions between structural
of racial segregation following
wealth. Some studies have fo- housing disparities and the own-
the crisis40 likely played a key
cused on particular areas,43 ership ideology at the heart of
role in widening the racial
thereby overlooking broader na- the American Dream. It also
wealth gap in housing values.
tional trends and differences sheds light on more contempo-
Such findings are contrary to the
among regions. Other relevant rary conditions of wealth in-
often-implicit assumption that
studies are limited to either equality and uneven develop-
the opportunity to accumulate
metropolitan44 or suburban ar- ment which the crisis helped fos-
wealth is in itself a means of pro-
eas45 or else they do not consider ter.
moting equality. The intensifi-
urbanicity at all.46 Few consider
cation of racial disparities dur-
how crises influence patterns of
ing cyclical crises repeats the
damage of an inequitable hous-
ing system and systematically
excludes people from “realizing
the American Dream.”
Recovery has also been highly
uneven. In the Southeast, Ray- Hypothesis
mond41 found that rates of nega-
tive equity, post-crisis, were sig- H1 There are significant racial disparities in
nificantly higher in predomi-
nantly Black zip codes. This pat- patterns of housing values
tern persisted when subprime
lending was controlled for, H2 There are significant spatial disparities in
which suggests that structural patterns of housing values
inequality goes deeper than
high-risk or predatory lending. H3 Spatial disparities are compounded by racial
While this practice no doubt se-
riously undermined people’s inequality
ability to reap any benefits from,
and in many cases maintain, H4 Spatial and racial disparities are compounded
ownership—particularly in by crisis
communities of color and in the

CHRISTIAN NOAKES
race
for a cross section of the nation’s hous-
ing. Unlike surveys that follow house-
holds (people/families) from year to
year, the AHS follows housing units
(property), therefore making it ideal to
track fluctuations in property values.
The 2007 and 2009 data includes
31,565 and 35,119 homeowners re-
spectively. The apparent increase in
ownership is reflective of an increase in
overall responses. Reported ownership
rates actually fell from 32% in 2007 to
31% of respondents in 2009.
Construct Measurement
The primary analytical concept of inter-
est is wealth attributable to housing val-
ue. This will allow us to consider how
homeownership may affect economic
opportunity, a central feature of both
the American Dream and bourgeois
disparity
conceptions of freedom more generally.

To test the assumption that homeown-
ership is an effective means of wealth ac-
cumulation, I consider how patterns of
value are influenced by race and space.
The former is limited to the three (3)
racial categories with the highest fre-
quencies of homeownership: White on-
Data and ly (N₀₇=25,650, N₀₉=27,884), Black on-

ly (N₀₇3,835, N₀₉=4,450), and Asian on-
ly (N₀₇=1,203, N₀₉=1,852). Analysis is
Methods limited to these three categories due to
the low response rates of other cate-
How do patterns of housing value vary gories—many of which combined sev-
by race and place? How has the recent eral categories (i.e. White and Black).
housing crisis influenced such patterns While there is a separate variable for
of accumulation? My analysis uses 2007 Hispanic respondents, this categoriza-
and 2009 microdata from the American tion is somewhat incoherent when com-
Housing Survey (AHS). The AHS is a paring housing values for white home-
national longitudinal survey conducted owners to housing values for other
by the U.S. Census Bureau biennially. races, as the Hispanic category does not
Its purpose is to collect information on distinguish between Spanish and Latin
housing and demographics that may American. The latter also does not con-
then be used to capture housing trends stitute a single race.
and needs. Information was compiled With regard to spatial disparities, the
No. 4 / MARCH 2021

present analysis addresses regional and urban than 60% of its residents commuted out of the city
variation in housing value. Using the U.S. census for work. Areas were designated as suburbs if they
regions, I am able to assess the spatial distribution were in a metropolitan area but not in any central
of the housing crisis burden. The regions are as fol- city. Urban areas were those consisting of and sur-
lows: West, Midwest, Northeast and South. rounded by high-density neighborhoods that col-
Whether or not a property is located in an urban or lectively had a population of at least 50,000 (see
rural area, in a central city, or a Metropolitan Sta- the 2007 AHS National Definitions for further de-
tistical Area (MSA) may also impact the ability for tails on the distinctions between cities and suburbs
owners to reap financial benefits. The AHS pro- and urban and rural areas).
vides such a measure of urbanicity and population
Given their potential influence on wealth, I will
density. Respondents were categorized as living in
control for homeowner age and income. The latter
(1) the central city of an MSA, (2) inside an urban
variable is calculated by combining the respon-
section of an MSA but not in the central city, (3)
dent’s wages and salaries. The mean age of home-
inside a rural section of an MSA but not in the cen-
owners remained constant at 37 years old while
tral city, (4) outside an MSA in an urban location,
the mean income increased from $23,448 to
or (4) outside an MSA in a rural location. The AHS
$25,668 from 2007 to 2009. This is to be expected
defines central cities as those with populations of
given the rise of foreclosures in low-income and
at least 250,000 or at least 100,000 people work-
working-class communities. See Table 1 for fur-
ing within its limits. Smaller cities were also in-
ther homeowner demographics in 2007 and 2009.
cluded if they had at least a population of 25,000,
jobs for three out of four residents, and no more
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of Homeowners

Mean Mean
%(N) 2007 %(N) 2009 2007 2009
Race
White Only 81.3 (25,650) 79.4 (27,885)
Black Only 12.1 (3,835) 12.7 (4,450)
Asian Only 3.8 (1,203) 5.3 (1,852)
Region
Northeast 18.4 (5,827) 22.0 (7,710)
Midwest 24.7 (7,808) 27.0 (9,484)
West 20.2 (6,364) 17.8 (6,268)
South 36.7 (11,572) 33.2 (11,652)
Metropolitan Status
Central City of MSA 21.8 (6,893) 22.5 (7,914)
Inside MSA (Not in Central City, Urban) 33.3 (10,508) 40.0 (14,036)
Inside MSA (Not in Central City, Rural) 16.0 (5,056) 16.3 (5,716)
Outside MSA (Urban) 10.9 (3,430) 6.1 (2,154)
Outside MSA (Rural) 18.0 (5,678) 15.1 (5,299)
Age 37 37
Income (USD) 23,448 25,668

CHRISTIAN NOAKES
There are of course limitations with the present tual interval/ratio values by creating a line of best
analysis. Due to limitations of the data, for exam- fit to minimize residual sum of squares (that is, the
ple, I cannot consider the effects of neighborhood difference between estimated and observed val-
racial composition or segregation on housing values). Using this method, I can thus check for linear
ues. Given the fact that the housing crisis peaked relationships between housing value and several
after 2009, I also likely underestimate the severity predictor variables. Comparing regressions from
of the crisis. Likewise, limiting my analysis to own- 2007 and 2009 should also help capture the role
er-occupied property means this study excludes the housing crisis played in driving wealth inequal-
those who shouldered the heaviest burden— ity in the U.S. Each year’s samples of homeowners
those who lost their homes. However, these limi- have been obtained through list-wise deletion.
tations also mean that the specific findings of the
Where dummy variables are used, homeowners
present analysis can contribute to a greater under-
categorized as “white only” serve as the reference
standing of the severity of minimum impact and,
group for Black and Asian homeowners. The
in so doing, reveal some of the pervasive contra-
Northeast serves as a reference group for other re-
dictions between our current housing system and
gions. For the urbanicity variable, I use suburban
the American Dream.
(inside MSA, not in central city) urban classifica-
tion as a reference group to compare with property
in the central city, rural suburbs, and outside of an
Method MSA. I will control for the interval-ratio level vari-
In this section, I will construct a repeated cross- ables of age and income. Due to its highly skewed
sectional analysis to better compare housing situa- distribution, the log of the latter is used to create a
tions at two points in time. Using Ordinary Least more even distribution in order to adhere to the
Squares regression, this research assesses the vari- assumption of normality. The following regres-
ability of change based on race, place, and other sion equations, listed below, will be used to predict
owner characteristics between time one (2007) housing value for homeowners in 2007 (Ŷ₁) and
and time two (2009). OLS regression estimates ac- 2009 (Ŷ₂).
Equations
Eq. 1: Ŷ= β₀ + β₁(Black Only) + β₂(Asian Only) + β₃(Midwest) + β₄(South) + β₅(West) + β₆

(Central City) + β₇(Rural Suburb) + β₈(Outside MSA Urban) + β₉(Outside MSA Rural) +
β₁₀(Age) + β₁₁(Income)
Eq. 2: Ŷ[Race]= β₀ + β₁(Midwest) + β₂(South) + β₃(West) + β₄(Central City) + β₅(Rural
Suburb) + β₆(Outside MSA Urban) + β₇(Outside MSA Rural) + β₈(Age) + β₉(Income)
Eq. 3: Ŷ[region]= β₀ + β₁(Black Only) + β₂(Asian Only) + β₃(Central City) + β₄(Rural
Suburb) + β₅(Outside MSA Urban) + β₆(Outside MSA Rural) + β₇(Age) + β₈(Income)
114 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

Results
To better understand racial and spatial disparities,
I use three equations. The first regression (Eq. 1)
will provide a broad view of housing value trends.
The second regression (Eq. 2) is split by race to as- Standard OLS Regression
sess regional and urban disparities in isolation
from the effects of racial inequality—it will also The crisis caused widespread devaluation. How-
serve to distinguish how different races experi- ever, the severity of the crisis was highly uneven.
ence spatial disparities. The final regression (Eq. Homeowners in the Northeast tended to have sig-
3) is split by region to assess racial disparities with- nificantly higher housing values than homeown-
in regions and to compare the intraregional pat- ers in the South and Midwest in both 2007 and
terns between regions. 2009, while they also tended to have lower housing
values than owners in the West from the same
Table 2: 2007 Housing Values

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5
Race
Black -3,316.11 -5,802.97
Asian 7,704.60 -1,817.43
Region
Midwest -148,379.09*** -129,097.61***
South -108,598.24*** -87,046.41***
West 139,254.50*** 144,995.50***
Urbanicity
Central City -61,485.47*** -60,950.57***
Inside MSA (Rural) -70,355.62*** -44,543.16***
Outside MSA (Urban) -135,065.15*** -114,021.68***
Outside MSA (Rural) -181,207.06*** -144,139.98***
Income (USD) 0.03 0.02 0.01 0.043 0.023
Age -37.10PEACE, LAND,

-37.28
& BREAD
-50.20 10.17 -13.92
15
Constant 279.601.26*** 279,740.01*** 331,089.53*** 350,512.42*** 375,928.40***
R2 0.000 0.000 0.109 0.043 0.136
*** p-value = < 0.001

CHRISTIAN NOAKES
time. Homeowners in urban MSAs likewise saw significant regional disparities persisted from
significantly higher housing values than owners in 2007 to 2009 for homeowners in each racial cate-
all other categories of urbanicity in both 2007 and gory. However, in 2007 Black homeowners in the
2009 (H₂). Overall disparities appear to decrease, Midwest and South experienced the largest dis-
however, the disparities between the Northeast parities with their Northeastern counterparts. By
and the South and between MSA urban and non- 2009, Asian homeowners in the Midwest and
MSA urban increase by 2009. South saw the largest disparities with Northeast-
ern counterparts (see H₃).
There was a significant disparity between white
and Black homeowners in 2009 (H₁). However, ev- The MSA urban-outside MSA urban disparity in-
idence of a persistent gap in housing values disap- creased across all racial categories from 2007 to
pears when geographic variables are introduced. 2009. However, Black owners saw the sharpest in-
This implies that racial inequality is partially facili- crease in the gap between housing values in urban
tated by geographic disparities. See Table 2 and MSAs and urban property located outside of an
Table 3 for patterns of housing values in 2007 and MSA (followed by Asian owners). This suggests
2009 respectively. that racial inequality compounds geographic in-
equality (see H₃). Asian and white homeowners al-
so saw significant widening of the Northeast-
OLS Regressions Split by Race South gap during the crisis. In both 2007 and
2009, Asian homeowners experienced the largest
Owners in all three racial categories experienced disparities between MSA urban and all other cate-
large gains in the West relative to their Northeast- gories. In contrast to the pervasive effects of geog-
ern counterparts. By 2009, this gap shrank dra- raphy, age, and income were non-significant for
matically—implying that the West was hit harder owners in all racial categories. See Table 3 and Ta-
than the Northeast. Asian homeowners saw the ble 4 a full breakdown of housing value disparities
largest decline in Western housing values. Highly within each racial category.
spatial
disparity
116
Table 3: 2009 Housing Values

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5
Race
Black -117,71.12*** -7,913.84
Asian -11,122.43 -12,651.98
Region
Midwest -153,823.17*** -120,431.65***
South -115,460.05*** -95,359.65***
West 54,865.06*** 64,042.39***
Urbanicity
Central City -41,045.55*** -39,478.36***
Inside MSA (Rural) -51,926.45*** -34,870.97***
Outside MSA (Urban) -147,446.21*** -126,475.63***
Outside MSA (Rural) -128,272.98*** -101,402.25***
Income (USD) -0.08 -0.08** -0.06 -0.07 -0.05
Age 158.69PEACE, LAND,

143.40
& BREAD
189.95 181.17 190.78*
15
Constant 240,262.73*** 243,084.41*** 304,807.40*** 285,902.31*** 331,987.86***
R2 0.000 0.001 0.077 0.035 0.100
*p-value = < 0.05, **p-value = < 0.01, *** p-value = < 0.001
decline
CHRISTIAN NOAKES
Table 4: 2007 Housing Values Split by Race

White Black Asian
Region
Midwest -127,363.48*** -143,797.99*** -141,201.45***
South -87,334.51*** -97,843.19*** -72,4000.70*
West 149,588.39*** 113,189.80*** 151,007.20***
Urbanicity
Central City -63,720.45*** -45,623.28** -85,525.19**
Inside MSA (Rural) -44,285.60*** -44,013.44* -45,042.70***
Outside MSA (Urban) -113,199.58*** -112,931.93*** -133,954.44***
Outside MSA (Rural) -141,726.37*** -144,677.77*** -208,913.14***
Income (USD) 0.03 -0.17 -0.06
Age -72.43 -541.18 -640.30
Constant 377,965.52** 359,535.28*** 417,510.96***
R2 PEACE,0.136
LAND, & BREAD 0.132 0.167
OLS Regressions Split by Region self characterized by stark disparities that became
more widespread during the crisis (see H₄).
In the West, there was a significant disparity be-
tween white and Asian homeowners by 2009 (H₁). The Northeast also saw an increase and expansion
This might be explained, in part, by the prevalence in geographic disparities. What appeared to be
of ethnic enclaves that segregate certain Asian na- mainly an urban-rural disparity in 2007 became a
tionalities throughout much of the region. The disparity between MSA urban and all other cate-
West had the largest MSA-outside MSA (both ur- gories. This may be, in part, due to the fact that
ban and rural) disparities. By 2009, it also saw the some white-owned properties in this region that
largest MSA urban disparities across all categories were located in an urban MSA appear to have actu-
of urbanicity. This implies that patterns of accu- ally accumulated value between 2007 and 2009.
mulation in the West—the region typically asso- Patterns of accumulation in the South appear to
ciated with the highest property values—was it- become more even by 2009. However, this is not
necessarily a positive change given the fact that the
118 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

Table 5: 2009 Housing Values Split by Race

White Black Asian
Region
Midwest -123,337.65*** -99,226.20*** -130,449.53***
South -98,014.52*** -75,067.86*** -115,264.39***
West 67,713.68*** 67,156.57*** 13,770.41***
Urbanicity
Central City -39,197.84*** -33,773.42** -48,037.57*
Inside MSA (Rural) -33,870.33*** -33,553.32* -67,105.54**
Outside MSA (Urban) -125,532.37*** -128,654.86*** -148,519.92***
Outside MSA (Rural) -101,894.20*** -89,329.29*** -116,934.09***
Income (USD) -0.05 -0.01 -0.07
Age 254.19* -91.66 -142.60
Constant 330,504.15*** 318,542.85*** 367,730.66***
R2 PEACE,0.102
LAND, & BREAD 0.08 0.098
Northeast-South disparity is large in 2007 and be-

comes even larger by 2009. This suggests that the
South was hit hard as a region. In 2007, age and
income were non-significant in all regions. How-
ever, both of these variables became significant in
the West by 2009.
foreclosure PEACE, LAND, & BREAD 119

CHRISTIAN NOAKES
Table 6: 2007 Housing Values Split by Region

Northeast Midwest South West
Race
Black 10,129.36 -8,918.28 -282.79 -28,449.33
Asian -2,523.63 -17,990.90 8,360.65 -5,917.72
Urbanicity
Central City -21,522.15 -73,382.82*** -74,408.62*** -61,401.65***
Inside MSA (Rural) -64,073.15*** -33,322.65*** -32,424.26*** -38,835.22
Outside MSA (Urban) -48,295.50 -80,927.59*** -83,147.04*** -239,472.97***
Outside MSA (Rural) -163,689.35*** -93,714.62*** -125,865.05*** -275,934.02***
Income (USD) 0.122 0.02 0.043 -0.50
Age 331.99 -160.09 -193.01 161.87
Constant 351,315.81*** 240,417.85*** 287,858.38*** 457,052.87***
R2 0.028 0.043 0.033 0.052

PEACE, LAND, & BREAD
Conclusion
plummet drastically. Black and Asian homeown-
ers in particular felt the acute geographic dispari-
ties. In excluding foreclosures—i.e. the complete
As indicated in the above regression results for loss of ownership and housing-based wealth—
2007, there were stark disparities in housing- these conservative results reveal highly significant
based wealth prior to the crisis. These fundamen- and pervasive structural barriers that exclude
tal inequalities helped shape the crisis by concen- many from “realizing the American Dream”
trating the most severe losses in central cities and through homeownership. Due to the uneven dis-
areas outside of MSAs. Homeowners in the tribution of the effects of the crisis, areas with the
Northeast and in urban MSAs tended to be better most depressed values—and highest foreclosure
protected against the worst of the crisis. In con- rates—became highly attractive to developers
trast, owners in the South and West, as well as and real estate companies. By investing in markets
owners outside of MSAs, saw their housing values in the West and South companies have been able
120 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

Table 7: 2009 Housing Values Split by Region

Northeast Midwest South West
Race
Black -20,455.12 1,721.47 -549.56 -23,295.90
Asian 11,263.21 1,364.30 -11,499.60 -65,746.44*
Urbanicity
Central City -42,467.76*** -40,356.57*** -31,559.80*** -43,456.36**
Inside MSA (Rural) -51,815.40*** -27,901.07*** -13,841.51*** -58,718.18**
Outside MSA (Urban) -181,177.09*** -95,889.37*** -84,050.75*** -225,676.20***
Outside MSA (Rural) -157,186.55*** -78,356.73*** -69,483.06*** -173,389.64***
Income (USD) -0.033 -0.005 -0.013 -0.293*
Age -63.08 88.04 76.54 868.84**
Constant 352,831.08*** 205,795.06*** 223,854.38*** 394,141.96***
R2 0.030 0.035 0.019 0.038

to maximize their profits. Investors also convert- that have been assumed in the American Dream.
ed many foreclosed properties into rentals there- Instead, I have argued that the primary function of
by creating new rental markets out of the ruins of the U.S. housing system is not to promote eco-
the crisis. nomic mobility and equal opportunity but rather
to increase profitability. This is done through a
The modern American Dream asserts that the
cyclical process of crises and the creation of new
working class simply needs to invest in homeown-
markets which are then made profitable by the ef-
ership to experience economic mobility and, ulti-
fects of the former. My analysis of the 2007-2009
mately, happiness. As such, this national narrative
period illustrates one particular instance of the cri-
serves to bolster the belief in American exception-
sis of capital accumulation in the built environ-
alism by veiling capitalist class relations in an own-
ment, and also how such crises serve to maintain
ership ideology which asserts the equality of op-
structural inequalities essential to the U.S. hous-
portunity. This paper empirically invalidates the
ing system.
material or economic benefits of homeownership

CHRISTIAN NOAKES
Given the fundamentally unequal nature of the 18. Thomas, Moye, Henderson, and Horton
distribution of housing based-wealth, homeown- 2018
ership as it currently stands is inadequate to ad- 19. Denton 2001, Rusk 2001, Flippen 2004,
dress structural wealth inequality more generally. Anacker 2010, Raymond et al 2016
Until capitalist class relations are abolished,
homeownership is bound to reproduce wealth dis- 20. Denton 2001, Flippen 2004, Anacker 2010
parities. Rather than being an inclusive avenue ca- 21. 2001
pable of promoting equality, homeownership in 22. Flippen 2004, Anacker 2010, Thomas et al.
the U.S. reinforces wealth disparities. It is there- 2018
fore essential to consider how the ideologically
23. Hall, Crowder, and Spring 2015, Schwartz
dominant conception of the American Dream as
2015
self-improvement through ownership obscures
these structural inequalities for the benefit of a 24. Jackson 1985
highly mobile upper class rather than the working 25. Smith 1979
class at whom this narrative is aimed.
26. Thomas et al. 2018
27. Schwartz 2015, Immergluck 2011
Endnotes
28. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System 2013
29. Schwartz 2015
1. Lefebvre 1947: 194
30. Immergluck 2011
2. 2007
31. Schwartz 2015
3. Vale 2007
32. Schumpeter 1947
4. Kimmage 2011: 27
33. 1993
5. Archer 2014
34. 750
6. Lefebvre 1947: 194
35. Harvey 1978: 120
7. Oliver and Shapiro 1990, 1995
36. Immergluck and Law 2014a, 2014b
8. Shapiro 2004
37. Immergluck 2010
9. 2005
38. 2015
10. 2002
39. 2018
11. Jackson 1985, Freund 2007
40. Hall et al. 2015
12. Freund 2007
41. 2018
13. Rothstein 2017
42. Hall et al. 2015
14. Hillier 2003
43. Denton 2009, Raymond et al 2016, Ray-
15. 1872 mond 2018
16. Denton 2001, Rusk 2001, Flippen 2004, Kri- 44. Rusk 2001
vo and Kaufman 2004, Anacker 2010, Hendricks
2015, Raymond, Wang, and Immergluck 2016, 45. Anacker 2010
Raymond 2018 , Thomas, Moye, Henderson, 46. Krivo and Kaufman 2004
and Horton 2018 47. Hendricks 2015, Thomas et al 2018
17. Massey and Denton 1993, Rugh and Massey 48. Smith 2008 173
2010
122 No. 4 / APRIL 2021

american
nightmare
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124 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

JOEL WENDLAND-LIU
ES A B STR
IT I
D
AC
O M MO
TLABOR
T C
&
IND EREN
IF F
ANGELA DAVIS on
RACIAL CAPITAL
“Indifferent Commodities”
and “Abstract Labor-Power”:
Angela Davis’ Critique of
White Supremacy and U.S.
Racial Capitalism
n 1951, W.E.B. Du Bois, writing diction and enabled the democratic reforms enact-
I
for the National Guardian, warned ed subsequently during the Kennedy and Johnson
of the danger of U.S. fascism. “Ei- administrations. These radical, sometimes revo-
ther in some way or to some de- lutionary movements gained so much traction that
gree,” he cautioned, “we must so- African American Communist Party leader
cialize our economy, restore the Claude Lightfoot, one of many imprisoned for his
New Deal and inaugurate the welfare state, or we political commitments, surmised confidently that
descend into military fascism which will kill all the “the [B]lack revolt [could] be complemented by a
dreams of democracy.”1 Today, Du Bois’s com- general social revolution.”3 In what appears to be a
ments register as prophetic. Writing at the height significant departure from Du Bois’s apparent
of the McCarthyist repression of the Communist pessimism, Lightfoot affirmed, “I believe that ob-
Party and its allies, during which the ascendant jective conditions are maturing that can in time
U.S. right-wing sought to end New Deal reforms produce a radical shift in white America.”4 Among
and to protect Jim Crow Laws, Du Bois offered his the leading lights of the revolutionary movement
dire warning of the choice between fascism and so- lauded by Lightfoot stood Angela Davis, as a light-
cialism. An insurgency of the Black freedom ning rod figure in the Communist Party, and close-
movement2 forestalled the worst option in his pre- ly associated with the Black Panther Party.

JOEL WENDLAND-LIU
Angela Davis argued that Marisol Lebron, and Michelle Alexander fol-
lowed in Davis’s footsteps by exploring these
historically specific white links with varied emphases.7 In addition to the
supremacy in the U.S., like closure of an era of Black revolt and working-class
struggle, the wave of politically and racially moti-
the development of vated repression was an opening for the neoliberal
capitalism, and like all social project. The four-plus decades since that transi-
systems, was made and is tion saw Du Bois’s prediction of fascist domina-
tion threaten to manifest, and it opened new
remade by people and forms of resistance.8 The confluence of these mo-
institutions developed within mentous events in the early 1970s suggests that
the foundation of neoliberalism—framed as a
historically concrete successful effort by the U.S. ruling class to restore
conditions of existence. white supremacy—achieved hegemony, in part,
by gaining the willing consent of a multi-class for-
mation of mostly white social actors. White
supremacy, always foundational to U.S. capital-
ism, dovetailed with the emergence of neoliberal-
ism, rearticulating the operations of capitalism
and systemic racism anew. In this interactive pro-
cess, exploitative class processes and oppressive
social systems like racism, patriarchy, and impe-
Lightfoot’s optimism would not endure as an rialism recur as constitutive elements. This new
atmosphere of state and police repression dew- moment affirms racism’s role, as Nikhil Pal Singh
cended. Scholars regard this period surround- has argued, as “an infrastructure” of U.S. capital-
ing Angela Davis’s 1971 trial as the beginning of ism, rather than merely a tool or an ideology of the
the end of the Black Power moment.5 latter, and its persistence in ongoing state-mak-
ing projects.9 In this essay, I argue against the ne-
Navid Farnia and Judson L. Jeffries highlight
oliberal elision of exploitative class processes in
the “ruthlessness [of] the government repres-
capitalist and imperialist formations, as well as its
sive apparatus” in working to destroy radical
determined effort to obscure systemic white
Black organizations such as the Black Panther
supremacy behind claims that racist actions are
Party.6 This ruthlessness drove the hunt for
individual choices and that denying the systemic
Davis, her arrest, and subsequent trial, and
role of race renders it inoperative. Davis’s 1971
combined with threats to her life and livelihood
prison writings indexed an antidote to these fea-
by some of the most powerful men in the coun-
tures of the neoliberal project, and they also, by
try. The assault on her freedom, however, was
asserting the dialectical interaction of these sys-
not merely an arbitrary abuse of power or dema-
tems, provided a Marxist-Leninist antecedent to
goguery enacted by angry white men, like
contemporary ideas such as “intersectionality”
Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon. For Davis,
and “racial capitalism.”10 Davis’s work provided a
the battle for personal freedom served as the
corrective to the “retreat from race” that marks
opening of a career-long scholarly and activist
neoliberal colorblindness as well as some Marxist
struggle to make visible and counter the role of
attempts to dismiss “identity politics”—a ges-
the criminal justice system as a pillar of inter-
ture that reads as dismissive of the concept of
secting systems of exploitative class processes,
“race,” the central organizing principle of U.S.
white supremacy, heteronormative patriarchy,
historical development.
and imperialism. Present-day scholars such as
Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Elizabeth Hinton,
128 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

Class, Race, Neoliberalism, The political-economic

and White Supremacy policies of U.S. neoliberalism
In Class, Race, and Marxism, historian David
are inseparable from racial
Roediger criticized Marxist and Marxism-influ- politics in the form of white
enced radical scholars who have in the past two or
three decades led a “retreat from race” in ways
supremacy and capitalist
that unfortunately parallel neoliberal racial log- imperialism.
ics. An impulse for universalism situated suppos-
edly in class processes and what some theorists
call an attempt to “stabilize sameness,” motivat-
ed this retreat.11 Central to this debate about the
role of race or class is the supposed Marxist sepa-
ration of “identity politics” and anti-capitalism.12
This divergence appeared in Ellen Meiksins
Wood’s influential book Democracy and Capital-
ism. Her work, for the most part, successfully de-
fended Marxist theoretical positions from anti-
Communist, neoliberal erasures of capitalist class
processes found in postmodern cultural theories.
In Democracy against Capitalism, however,
Meiksins Wood made a staggering claim about
the relationality of “extra-economic” questions
like racism with the more fundamental questions
of economic class. She wrote that political strug-
gles around “extra-economic goods” (like racial
equality) “remain vitally important, but they have
to be organized and conducted in the full recogni-
tion that capitalism has a remarkable capacity to
distance democratic politics from the decisive
centres of social power and to insulate the power
of appropriation and exploitation from demo-
cratic accountability.”13 The structure of this ar-
gument opened a disciplinary (political and eco-
nomic) space that elevated exploitative class pro-
cesses above and beyond racism. She trans-
formed racism into a separate problem that
marginally impacts capitalism and its develop-
ment, positioning racism and other forms of op-
pression that are said to center on identities as pe-
ripheral to the primary and universal problem of
class exploitation. Thus, in this view, identity-ori-
ented politics serve only as distracting particu-
larisms that enable capitalist power.
To survive, U.S. capitalism

JOEL WENDLAND-LIU
could not abandon its forms historically specific white supremacy in the U.S.,
like the development of capitalism, and like all so-
of oppression cial systems, was made and is remade by people
and institutions developed within historically
concrete conditions of existence.14 Specifically,
white supremacy cannot be remade without the
actions of white people to defend their particular
relationship to it, framing Blackness as the object
of their scorn, even as the cause of their own suf-
fering. Yes, some white people are more powerful
than others, but this power difference is obscured
by a general relation to whiteness, delivering
what Du Bois called the “psychological wage of
whiteness.”15 The blueprints for those structures
have been passed down like blue eyes, trust funds,
and despair.16 Thus, Davis’s direct experience
with the criminal justice system, registered a sys-
temic significance for the development of a theo-
ry of racial capitalism in her prison writings. This
theory helped to frame how we understand ne-
oliberalism—from a Marxist-Leninist perspec-
tive—as a hegemonic, multidimensional strate-
gy for maintaining white supremacy and capital-
ist class rule.
Davis described the “mutual interpenetration”17
of major social phenomena such as white
supremacy, patriarchy, and exploitative class
processes. This meant that systems of exploita-
tion and oppression operate semi-autonomously
and simultaneously in an overdetermined fash-
ion.18 If one applies Davis’s theoretical frame-
work to U.S. neoliberal capitalism in the late 20th
and early 21st century, it should complicate how
scholars deploy the term neoliberalism and char-
acterize its origins and goals. Neoliberalism,
within the specific context of the U.S., was the
political-economic strategy developed in the lat-
ter third of the 20th century designed to restore
white supremacy and the fullest power of the U.S.
capitalist class. This restoration involved coordi-
nated attacks on organized labor, the civil rights
movements, and civil rights laws, in favor of the
restructuring of economic activity to enhance
precarious work, the implementation of massive
funding cuts to public institutions, the opera-
In contrast to an abstract universalist tendency tionalization of ideological attacks on the use of
in some Marxisms, Angela Davis argued that public institutions to deepen an array of social in-
130 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

equalities, the militarization of the economy and A Theory of Racial

coercive apparatuses, and the systematic integra-
tion of local and regional markets into global com- Capitalism
modity chains through instruments of free
In her essay, “Women and Capitalism: Dialec-
trade.19 Neoliberal policies, taken together, con-
tics of Oppression and Liberation,” Davis de-
stitute a racial project20: a white supremacist re-
ployed a Marxist analysis of Marxist theory it-
sponse to Black liberation, Brown liberation, In-
self to understand the intersection of systemic
digenous sovereignty movements, and global an-
oppressions. Her essay touched on the racist di-
ti-colonial struggles.21 Davis’s arrest and trial
mensions of capitalist development, but it
were egregious maneuvers in that project.
mainly focused on how a gendered division of
The urgency of restoring white supremacy during labor helped to shape capitalism’s develop-
an upsurge in Black liberation struggles, similar ment. Reading the logic and movement of
to the post-Reconstruction restoration constitut- Davis’s argument unearths how she crafted
ed neoliberalism. The latter was rooted in U.S. useful theoretical and practical tools for under-
systems of white supremacy and capitalism but standing U.S. neoliberalism as a racist project
altered and reconfigured in new contexts. Racial and for imagining and enacting revolutionary
slavery thus constituted the structure of U.S. cap- struggle and liberation. Davis built that theory
italist primitive accumulation, but also the con- by making a case for understanding “the mutual
stant operation of racist dispossession that has interpenetration of ostensibly unrelated modes
operated in the U.S.: Slavery in the pre- and early of oppression,” such as heteronormative patri-
industrial era, Jim Crow in the industrial era, and archy, racism, imperialism, and class exploita-
“the new nadir” or Apartheid 2.0 in the neoliberal tion.25
era of the “New Jim Crow.”22 Struggles for libera-
Following Marx, Davis asserted that in the ear-
tion shaped each period and were framed by
ly stages of capitalist development, i.e., primi-
structural modes of dispossession legitimized in
tive accumulation, people who had usually been
no small part by racist claims to white superiori-
organized in localized households or communi-
ty.23 The political-economic policies of U.S. ne-
ties found themselves separated from the
oliberalism are inseparable from racial politics in
means of subsistence in favor of social produc-
the form of white supremacy and capitalist impe-
tion organized within a space controlled and
rialism. Instead, these systems should be regard-
owned by capitalists. To survive, workers sell
ed as semi-autonomous processes that are made
their labor power for a wage based on the “so-
to operate jointly in what Davis now, borrowing
cially necessary labor time” needed to produce
the term from Cedric Robinson, calls “racial capi-
the commodities they make. If this abstract
talism.” Thus, to render neoliberalism as only or
process mirrored real-life precisely, capitalism
primarily an economic project is to participate in
should have produced an egalitarian effect on
the colorblind racial project that neoliberalism
the working class. Davis writes:
initiated in the first place.24
[a]s a person, [the worker] would be super-
fluous to production; only his26 abstract
ability to work would be pertinent. Even in
this contingency, he could also discover
beneficial features, for, with the notable ex-
ception of racism, caste-like distinctions
should not interfere when he sold his labor-
power on the market. The capitalist com-
modity is totally indifferent to the origins of
the labor which produces it; labor becomes

JOEL WENDLAND-LIU
“abstract labor-power,” and each worker of cumulation, not merely tools of U.S. capitalist
similar skills should always be equal to the class rule. They made it possible. The distinction
next.27 here is one of theory and political strategy. For
Wood, capitalism was an economic process of
This leveling of workers to units of abstract la-
class exploitation, despite enduring non-eco-
bor should have resulted in a process of “equal-
nomic processes like racism. The strategy for rev-
ization” where distinctions of gender or racist
olutionary transformation, then is an economic
discrimination associated with types and prod-
class struggle against capitalist class processes
ucts of labor should have reduced to inconse-
which will subsequently resolve non-economic
quential.28 Even in this formulation, Davis’s no-
inequalities. For Davis, political struggles against
table exception of racism (to the concept of ab-
white supremacy constituted elemental features
stract labor) highlighted her skepticism toward
of U.S. class struggle and necessitated multi-
this theoretical concept and its worth for under-
faceted revolutionary strategy that mirrored this
standing how people experience capitalist pro-
reality.
cesses in real life.
To survive, U.S. capitalism could not abandon
If exploitative class processes determined this
these forms of oppression.30 Notably, women’s
process solely, why do we find racism and white
oppression defied the logic of abstract labor be-
supremacy prevalent in real life? Why do racist
cause “their oppression is indeed a result of criti-
and gender-based discriminations (as well as
cal social forces in whose absence the mode of
citizenship-based discriminations) in labor
production could not effectively be sustained.”31
markets, political centers of power, financial
In other words, the necessities of material rela-
markets, policing systems, and educational in-
tions outweighed the rigors of abstract logic. Be-
stitutions ensure that one subordinate group
cause the family as a unit of production in pre-
earns less income and accumulates less wealth
capitalist relations tended to divide labor by gen-
than the next? Why are massive groups of peo-
der, Davis argued, that division was preserved in
ple segmented into structurally determined
the industrial capitalist era to create a separate
subordinate workforce positions, and secure
domain apart from social production, tying wom-
fewer public resources for socially necessary
en to the domestic sphere in the new period as
goods and benefits, if capitalist development
well (or, in the case of working women, to the dual
supposedly produces abstract labor and cares
worlds of publicly and privately exploited la-
nothing for the worker’s social identities? To
bor).32 All of this was justified by ideological
answer questions such as these, Davis pointed
proclamations of a natural order that considered
to “a peculiarly society phenomenon” apart
gendered labor as part of the biological identity
from capitalist development, which expresses
and role of particular human bodies, and primari-
itself as “an extra economic determinant” that
ly relegated to function as biologically extending
had created the possibility and necessity of
from the male anatomy and masculine identity.
racism and sexism to condition and determine
This material and ideological system did not ac-
the value of labor. While “[t]he capitalist mode
count for and, thus, systematically erased the re-
of production outstrips all previous modes in
ality of non-gender binary individuals or non-het-
transcending virtually all extra-economic de-
eronormative familial relations. Thus, capitalism
terminants,” in the cases of these two social sys-
adapted gender to organize the labor and produc-
tems, it could not do so for specific “socio-his-
tion process, as well as an ongoing ideological,
torical” reasons.29 In contrast to Meiksins
cultural, and political project to link men in a
Wood’s complete separation of the “extra eco-
chain of heteronormative patriarchal power over
nomic” from class processes, Davis theorized
the bodies of women. That this project sublimat-
systems of oppression as technologies that con-
ed processes of capitalist exploitation should not
dition the terrain of value, exploitation, and ac-
cause theorists to dismiss it as simply illusory. Pa-
132 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

triarchal power is real, Davis argued. It functions White Americans perpetually

for capitalist accumulation and the political re-
alignment of social forces in reactionary forms. feared victimization, believed
The concept of necessity within capitalist rela- criminal perpetrators arose
tions, e.g., the necessity of capitalism to retain inevitably from specific
gender hierarchy to function, and the simultane-
ity of a materialist process and an ideological one populations, and accepted
seems eminently transferable from this argument the delusion of individualism.
to one about the nature of the relationship of
racism to capitalism. How then does the sup-
They, thus, were more likely to
posed production of abstract units of labor ex- support policies that
plain racism? If commodities do not care who
makes them, why would the racial identity (or cit-
promoted militarized police
izenship status or religious affiliation) of the per- presence, the expansion of
son making them matter so intensely? Thinking the privatized prison-industrial
about Davis’s essay in relation to the emergence
of neoliberalism, we can apply a new focus on the complex, and the
relationship of racism (white supremacy) with generalized criminalization of
capitalism.
unemployment,
Davis did not address the origins of the relation of
racial slavery to capitalist development in the houselessness, poverty, or
same way she explored the connection of gender diminished educational
oppression and capitalism’s origins, but she did
draw out how African-descended people were access.
structured within capitalism as enslaved laborers
and excluded from the idealized familial relations
intended to serve the reproduction of the laborer
and the system. Davis more carefully analyzed
this aspect of the development of heteronorma-
tive patriarchy under capitalism in her essay (also
written in jail) “Reflections on the Black Wom-
an’s Role in the Community of Slaves.” Her analy- mative patriarchal model of man-headed
sis of this process began by identifying an origi- households echoed in what Davis calls the “var-
nating neoliberal logic: the definition of the ied, often heroic responses” of African Ameri-
African American family as a pathologically failed can women to “the slave-holder’s domination”
social institution, a thesis first published in the and to the inherent inequality within the patri-
now infamous 1965 Moynihan Report. That archal model of family idealized under modern
study, with its veneer of academic scholarship, es- capitalism.33
tablished the myth of the “black matriarch” as the
The managers of U.S. neoliberal policies target-
source of that failure, driving subsequent stereo-
ed African Americans in concrete ways. African
types of African American women as domineer-
American responses in the 1970s and 1980s to
ing on the one hand and as welfare cheats on the
de-industrialization, rising unemployment, an
other. Underlying this ideological appeal to
urban crisis fueled by “white flight,” cuts in re-
African American cultural inferiority lay the
sources for public education, unevenly devel-
white denial of agency to Black women and men
oped healthcare systems, massive influxes of
who refused to accept the traditional heteronor-
drugs, diseases, and other public health crises

JOEL WENDLAND-LIU
and healthcare funding along with massive tax

To produce new sources of cuts for the 1% and powerful corporations ex-
accumulation, capitalist ploded the crisis suffered by millions of working-
class people to restore the hegemonic power of
thinkers and philosophers the 1%.
created an ideology of the In this crisis, the idealized family became an ideo-
privatized Self yearning for logical tool of the powerful. Heteronormative,
patriarchal familial forms under capitalism con-
mastery, a discourse of stituted an institutional myth to preserve the
power rooted in the institution haven for the idealized working male.35 This fan-
tasy supported the adherence to patriarchal prac-
of slavery and systemic white tice, which, as Davis later illustrated in Women,
supremacy. Capitalism—as Race, and Class, has historically ensured cross-
class solidarity among whites, aimed at the dehu-
the most advanced form of manization of the entirety of African American
social pathology disrupting people, worked to preserve slavery and its subse-
quent forms of anti-Blackness, not merely as a
human identity and relations production system but as a system of white
—creates conditions in which supremacy.36 The cultural role of the family dove-
“the human being has been tailed well with neoliberalism, continuing the
white supremacist practice of dehumanizing
severed from nature and Black people while attacking public institutions
thus, from [their] own that fought poverty. This role fostered contempt
in the dominant culture for material kinship rela-
‘inorganic body,’... giving rise tions among African Americans and encouraged
to a non-identity between the elimination of public institutions that could
be blamed as a cause of those relations (like wel-
[humanity] and [its] fare). Individuals and families of color, in the
essence.” dominant political discourse, became the cause of
economic and social crises, rather than their ef-
fect. Furthermore, “family values” concepts
proved useful in sustaining the projection of a
myth of African American cultural breakdown, a
are nothing short of heroic. In an essay co-au-
source of criminality and crisis generally, and to
thored with her sister Fania Davis, they refer-
promote the expansion of mass incarceration fa-
ence a study showing that in addition to the per-
cilities and the school-to-prison pipeline.
manent loss of more than 11 million jobs in in-
dustrial production, which working-class Black The white voting public’s response to the struc-
households depended on in the period leading tural crisis of capitalism and the neoliberal agen-
up to the mid-1980s, the militarization of the da, in embracing the political figures and policies
U.S. federal budget and the economy cost Black of the neoliberal agenda, has proven truly patho-
people “thirteen hundred jobs for each increase logical. While the managers of the neoliberal poli-
of $1 billion in the military budget.”34 The mili- cies and structures gained traction in power, a
tary budget exploded with the escalation of the slate of democratic and working-class leaders and
war in Vietnam and subsequently with Rea- movements offered alternatives to that direction
gan’s intensification of the Cold War. Mean- of political-economic development. As a leading
while, rollbacks in welfare, education spending, Communist Party figure and political candidate,
134 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

Angela Davis supported and campaigned on be- mentally altered how workers view themselves.
half of many of these programs, laws, and policies. According to Davis, “social relations as the
Whites—especially those who formed and still nexus of exchange binding commodity to com-
form the overwhelming majority of the right- modity” operated as the only way for one indi-
wing voting bloc in the U.S.—responded by re- vidual to associate with other community
jecting the social-democratic economic policies members.42 Identities appeared often as a con-
of Jesse Jackson in both of his 1980s presidential sequence of commodity acquisition and con-
campaigns,37 the fundamentally economically spicuous display: white middle-class nuclear
oriented Income and Jobs Action Act of 1985 families purchase houses in suburbs, cars, big
sponsored by Reps. John Conyers and Charles TVs, furniture, and send their children to good
Hayes, a 1989 proposed Constitutional Amend- schools all of which must be paid for with pri-
ment guaranteeing jobs for every adult American vate resources, usually on credit. They worried
authored by Rep. Major Owens, or similar pro- about crime, bought security systems and as-
posals in 1994 by Rep. Ron Dellums, in 1995 by sault rifles, demanded politicians lower their
Rep. Matthew Martinez, and in 1999 by Rep. taxes, and expressed anxiety about the creeping
Barbara Lee.38 Too often, majorities of white vot- dangers of the inner cities—mainly to contrast
ers resisted those economic solutions to the crisis their own lives with urban others, codewords
of capitalism in favor of aligning with heavily for Black, Latinx, or people of color communi-
racialized appeals to “family values,” individual- ties. In this way, insidious individualism regis-
ism, suburban life, segregation, middle-class cul- tered fundamentally as a constitutive compo-
ture, and law and order. In other words, broadly nent of white racial identity. Individualist
social-democratic—even socialist—economic mythology as whiteness renders collective so-
solutions to neoliberalism did not win hegemony lutions founded on inter-racial political al-
as a multi-class alliance of whites (and occasional- liances as marginal, expensive, or inefficient—
ly fractions of minoritized communities) re- or even as un-American and racially and cultur-
forged white supremacy built around ideological ally “other.”43 State monopoly capitalism pro-
configurations of racial hierarchy, colorblind duced obvious social problems, but only the
racism, but deeply rooted in anti-Blackness.39 costs and risks socialized for the people were
those that offered new avenues for capital accu-
mulation.
“Insidious Individualism,” Davis explored developments such as these,
Intersections, and connecting international events with localized
patterns of behavior, arguing that current
Revolutionary Praxis structures and practices of oppression are made
possible because they have their origins in slav-
At the heart of the neoliberal racial project lies the
ery laws, institutional racism, and the U.S. Con-
cancer of “insidious individualism.”40 Nurtured
stitutional regime.44 While the present is not
on the capitalist mythology of the abstract unit of
identical to the past, there survived a continuity
labor, the pathological “society composed of frag-
of structural and ideological racism in those in-
mented individualism lacking any organic or hu-
stitutions of oppression. Writing from the
man connection” is held as ideal.41 As capitalist
Marin County jail in 1972, Davis argued that
social relations of production ensnared workers,
the racist structure of law enforcement should
they became “transfigured into an isolated pri-
be linked directly to the super-exploitation of
vate individual—isolated from the means of pro-
Black people as workers. In other words, the de-
duction (hence from the means of subsistence)
scendants of slaveholders had produced a new
and equally isolated from the community of pro-
reality in which “Blacks are imprisoned in a
ducers.” This individualistic alienation funda-
world where our labor and toil hardly allow us to

JOEL WENDLAND-LIU
eke out a decent existence.”45 This function of law

enforcement institutions mocks the hypocrisy of
U.S. democracy as it “becomes the grotesque car-
icature of protecting and serving the interests of
our oppressors and serving us nothing but injus-
tice.”46 Today, even though dominant social insti-
tutions present themselves as colorblind, they re-
main inextricably tied to the history of slavery
and white supremacy. Indeed, a majority of U.S.
whites can be called upon to act with appeals to
racism, especially if coded in non-racist terms.
Within this web of connections and the historical
recurrence of new articulations of white
supremacy was the relation between profits and
the popular cultural obsession with insecurity,
fear, and terror. White Americans perpetually
feared victimization, believed criminal perpetra-
tors arose inevitably from specific populations,
and accepted the delusion of individualism.
They, thus, were more likely to support policies
that promoted militarized police presence, the
expansion of the privatized prison-industrial
complex, and the generalized criminalization of
unemployment, houselessness, poverty, or di-
minished educational access.47 Though they
rarely saw themselves as racists, they still blamed
the victims of social problems as the cause of
those problems. They accepted the profitability
of private corporations and the logic of growing
Working-class people should mass incarceration, because they consented to
the notion that private corporations run prisons
prioritize the creation and better than the government and that large
recreation of identities that in swathes of racially “othered” people simply need-
ed to be locked up. As some researchers found in
part foster behaviors a recent study of whiteness and the 2016 election,
culturally associated with white Trump supporters voted for him precisely
those yearnings for identity, because he effectively communicated about the
groups he despised, which groups he planned to
humanity, and its true punish on their behalf, and the normalization of
essential nature undivided, intense intolerance for people deemed not a pro-
totypical American (white, Christian, native-
unalienated by born, etc.).48 In lending Trump their support,
heteronormative patriarchy they followed a scripted white identity that linked
them across social class with whites who domi-
and capitalist social relations nate political and economic processes in the U.S.
of production. Such performances of white racial identity served
as glue for the hegemonic coalition of forces that
136 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

undergirded the power of the U.S. ruling class.

To produce new sources of accumulation, capital-
ist thinkers and philosophers created an ideology
of the privatized Self yearning for mastery, a dis-
course of power rooted in the institution of slav-
ery and systemic white supremacy. Capitalism—
as the most advanced form of social pathology dis-
rupting human identity and relations—creates
conditions in which “the human being has been
severed from nature and thus, from [their] own
‘inorganic body,’...giving rise to a non-identity
between [humanity] and [its] essence.”49 The na-
ture of capitalist production generally invited
fragmentation and isolation and shifts the natural
human “yearning for non-reified human rela-
tions” from the arenas of social production and
civil society to privatized spheres and inner life.50
Neoliberalism offered only a more intense ver-
sion of this privatization: “the insularity is virtu-
ally complete.”51 Instead of solutions that redis-
tribute power, empowering communities collec-
tively, Davis wrote, “[n]eoliberal ideology drives
us to focus on individuals, ourselves, individual
victims, individual perpetrators.”52 Individual-
ism encouraged a belief in the primacy of self-con-
trol over one’s life and destiny, that the context
within which the free individual moves and oper-
ates—and their social status—derive from their
singular efforts, moral uprightness, intelligence,
and merit.53 Abstract individuals, as such, believe
in their power of choice and will, even to the point
of self-delusion and the distortion of public policy
that must address systems, populations, and col-
lectivities. Within the racist logic of white
supremacy and despite the abstract universalism
implied within capitalist ideologies of the Self,
however, only white individuals are masters of
themselves.
Contrary to this racialized and punishing individ-
ualism, the practice of non-reified human rela-
tions, the pinnacle of human connection, bond-
ing, community, solidarity—the presumed
essence of the idealized familial life—can only ex-
ist in a rationed form in an isolated space. Here,
Davis argued, capitalism provided this momen-
tary, “distorted” respite to sustain the psychic

JOEL WENDLAND-LIU
and material life of the individual worker. It tied archal relations demanded by capitalist develop-
white women to this privatized life, but still of- ment and be “liberated herself as woman.”55 In
fered a means of understanding human needs other words, recognize the socially constructed
for solidarity. The racial logic of neoliberalism and ideologically enforced nature of gender bina-
denied access to this privatized fear of social au- ry and adapt to a revolutionary, anti-racist work-
tonomy to Black men and women, however. As ing-class politics and culture.
discourses, exemplified by the Moynihan Re-
Davis resisted delinking a radical critique of het-
port, on Black families and Black women
eronormative patriarchy from anti-capitalist and
showed, Black cultural practices served as the
anti-racist radicalism. Her 1981 book Women,
source of radical difference from whites that
Race and Class traces the evolution of white femi-
blocked their ability, for the most part, to par-
nism, as a specific reaction against Black libera-
ticipate consistently in hegemonic power sys-
tion in the closing decades of the 19th century
tem that sustains capitalist rule.
through the present.56 Many white feminists ex-
In a heteronormative patriarchal order, femi- plicitly argued that white supremacy would be
ninity and masculinity— the behavior patterns preserved through the extension of their voting
gendered as associated with women and men, or rights. Davis’s historical account of this dimen-
more precisely with people who possess partic- sion of U.S. feminism mirrors the emergence of
ular genitals and body parts—are divided and what scholar Eda Ulus calls “neoliberal femi-
assigned.54 This process might be operational- nism,” which denies the reality of systemic racial
ized in the demand for individuals assigned as inequality and capitalist exploitation in favor of
female to display femininity, submissiveness to the individualist logic of representation. Ulus de-
male power, self-denial of public forms of pow- scribes a feminist orientation that embraces
er, and adherence to circumscribed and deval- white supremacy (in its colorblind neoliberal cod-
ued participation in the labor regime. Feminini- ing) and exploitative class process in exchange for
ty, Davis asserted, assumes the mantle of ideo- “vicarious power” through a “psychic invest-
logical naturalness assigning emotion, nature, ment” in the presence of some women in power-
communion, spirituality—to the exclusion of ful positions.57 Neoliberal feminisms have pro-
rationality—to people with specific body duced a spate of advice books like Sheryl Sand-
shapes and with certain organs. Masculinity— berg’s Lean-in and Angela Duckworth’s Grit.
the individualized reification of domination, si- Each emphasize individualist actions and morali-
lence, modernity, emotionlessness, rationality ty in urging adherence rather than resistance to
—designates the supposedly binary opposite existing systems of inequality.58
body shape. The former should be exhibited on-
Davis calls for the revolutionary notion that peo-
ly in the private domestic sphere as a means of
ple can resist the dominant constructs of U.S.
sustaining the private life of the masculinized
capitalism. For example, working-class men can
body. Activists in the women’s liberation move-
practice gender roles, behaviors, and affects asso-
ment who argued for the erasure of the feminin-
ciated with women and femininity. Because our
ity principle in people with bodies assigned and
actions are imbricated in the process of recreating
experienced as female and feminine in favor of
oppressive systems, a revolutionary and collec-
adopting masculinized behavior patterns did a
tive transformation of our actions offered a mode
disservice to the women’s movement as well as
of resistance to racialized individualism and the
to people with male assigned bodies. Some fem-
production of new forms of non-exploitative rela-
inists taught that women should seek “non-
tionships with other workers. Workers, as a re-
emotional, reality-affirming and dominating”
sult, may come to expect and demand new forms
behavior patterns to gain liberation. Davis re-
of social relationships in general. Those behav-
sisted this urge, arguing, instead that they
iors elevated to conscious practice—commu-
should break from the heteronormative patri-
138 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

nion, solidarity, unity, connection—too often are An unalienated revolutionary

practiced as “the false, back-slapping type.”59
Dominant cultural regimes embedded in the
process that seeks the
racist logic of capitalism created not only racially dismantling of the “nexus of
segregated public space, but also did so in ways
that enforce isolation and deny the closeness and
commodity exchange” will
solidarity needed to help working-class people not be automatic or
“surmount many insurmountable barriers before inevitable but will emerge
[they] can become aware that [they] and all other
producers are the wellspring of society.” Davis from struggle. Strategic aims
added, “the achievement of solidarity, thus of a by necessity must
revolutionary class consciousness, has never been
so difficult as during the present era.”60 However, “transcend” the immediate
the constructed-as-feminine yearning for com- goals implicated at the point
munion, solidarity, connection, and love allow
working-class people to recreate a basis for that of production.
revolutionary consciousness. Working-class
people of diverse national, racial, and ethnic
backgrounds, especially when they have strong
ties to the labor movement or radical movements,
locate themselves, their identities, their personal
histories in a collective identity and material his-
tory tied to practices of solidarity, unity, and com-
munity.61 In other words, the notion that work-
ing-class conditions of solidarity and community
(invigorated by a non-racist and non-patriarchal
ethos and practice) are necessarily constitutive of
non-exploitative class processes such as social-
ism.
Working-class people should prioritize the cre-
ation and recreation of identities that in part fos-
ter behaviors culturally associated with those
yearnings for identity, humanity, and its true es-
sential nature undivided, unalienated by het-
eronormative patriarchy and capitalist social re-
lations of production. As Davis puts it, “the posi-
tive qualities of femininity must be released from
their sexual exclusiveness62 from their distorted
and distorting forms.” This cultural-ideological
struggle must be wedded to a “practical revolu-
tionary process,” however, to avoid slipping into
“impotent” utopianism. While “the personal re-
lations which cluster around women contain in
germ, albeit in a web of oppression and thus dis-
tortedly, the premise of the abolition of alien-
ation, the dissolution of a compulsive perfor-
mance principle, thus ultimately, the destruction

JOEL WENDLAND-LIU
of the whole nexus of commodity exchange,” mative patriarchy—that constituted the ex-
current practices alone promise little in the way ploitative class process of U.S. capitalism. At the
of the subversion of capitalism.63 In this formu- same time, that class process needed those modes
lation of the kinship between cultural practices of oppression to function as both a system of accu-
and relations of production, Davis argued that a mulation and a technology of cultural, political,
revolutionary struggle for a fuller human exis- and ideological hegemony. Davis’s broader con-
tence (specifically over the nature of gender, ceptualization of class struggle as foundational
gender identities, and racism) offer the work- for anti-capitalist and revolutionary conscious-
ing-class as a whole valuable guidance for struc- ness, thus, required a movement of movements
turally transforming class processes from ex- (which could be best articulated in the form of a
ploitative to non-exploitative ones. revolutionary party) to address the immediate
and the long-term, the sufficient and the neces-
An unalienated revolutionary process that
sary, the ideological and the structural.
seeks the dismantling of the “nexus of commod-
ity exchange” will not be automatic or in- There are good reasons for Marxists, today, to
evitable but will emerge from struggle. Strate- compensate for decades of economic dismissal
gic aims by necessity must “transcend” the im- from the politics and strategic thinking of the an-
mediate goals implicated at the point of produc- ti-fascist popular alliance; this can occur by at-
tion. Thus, the class struggle in the U.S. itself tending to the productive, site-specific dimen-
includes and extends beyond this particular fo- sions of exploitative class process, and to the ne-
cus of traditional engagement by Marxists. At cessity of social progress in long, regressive peri-
the center of the class struggle is the struggle ods which demand a strategic theoretical, and
against the oppression of women, against het- practical balance of civil society, ideology, econo-
eronormative patriarchy generally. A unified my, and space. Each of these terrains of struggle
revolutionary working-class movement wages offers openings through which resistance to rul-
“the assault on institutional structures which ing-class hegemony and the dominance of its po-
perpetuate the socially enforced inferiority of litical bloc may be sustained. To take the work-
women.” If heteronormative patriarchy is a ing-class fight to white supremacy and het-
necessary condition of capitalist development, eronormative patriarchy is to create the condi-
the struggle against it—a broadly democratic, tions in which the ruling class is no longer able to
cultural, ideological, and civil society-based po- rule in the old way. It is simultaneously an estab-
litical movement—could produce a more fun- lishment of the possibility that the majority of
damental social change than a struggle isolated people refuse to be ruled in the old way, opening
to the spaces of production aimed at the inclu- space for transformation. Davis offered a revolu-
sion of women. Further, a movement that cen- tionary theory that advances a comprehensive
ters the liberation of African American women struggle against the institutional and structural
workers from triple oppression that more reproduction of capitalism and white supremacy,
deeply constituted the conditions for capitalist as well as the slipping, but still dangerous role of
development suggests something possibly U.S. imperialism.
more dangerous to the present capitalist “nexus
It is thus worth returning to Davis’s theoretical
of commodity exchange.”64
contributions in a sustained manner to recapture
At the opening of the neoliberal project to re- the full potential of Marxist critiques of neoliber-
configure U.S. capitalism and imperialism, alism and white supremacy.
Davis’s “prison writings,” rooted in Marxist-
Leninist theory, posited the interpenetration of
overlapping and semi-autonomous systems of
oppression—white supremacy and heteronor-
140 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

Endnotes tra El Crimen and Premature Death in Puerto,”

in Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led
1. Quoted in Manning Marable, How Capitalism to Black Lives Matter, eds. Jordan T. Camp and
Underdeveloped Black America (Boston: South Christina Heatherton (New York: Verso, 2016),
End Press, 1983), 16. 95-107; Michelle Alexander, The New Jim
2. Soon followed by movements of workers, other Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Era of Jim Crow
communities of color, women, LGBTQ communi- (New York: Free Press, 2010); Ruth Wilson
ties, and antiwar constituencies. Gilmore, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis,
and Opposition in Globalizing California (Uni-
3. Claude M. Lightfoot, Ghetto Rebellion to Black versity of California Press, 2007).
Liberation (New York: International Publishers,
1968), 60. 8. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “Back Story to the
Neoliberal Moment,” Souls 14, 3-4 (2012):
4. Lightfoot, Ghetto Rebellion, 60. 185-206; See also, Michael Omi and Howard
5. David Roediger, Class, Race, and Marxism Winant, Racial Formation in the United States,
(New York: Verso, 2017), 56. Roediger does not 3rd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2014), 211;
identify the “declining Black Power movement” Roediger, Class, Race, and Marxism, 33-46. Ed-
with these exact events, but he does date it even a uardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists:
year or so before the trial took place. See also, Colorblind Racism and the Persistence of Racial
Manning Marable, Race, Reform, and Rebellion: Inequality in America (Lanham, MD: Rowman
The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black and Littlefield, 2014).
America, 1945-2006, 3rd ed. (Jackson: University 9. Nikhil Pal Singh, “Race and America’s Long
Press of Mississippi, 2007); Brenda Gayle Plum- War: An Interview with Nikhil Pal Singh,” Sal-
mer, In Search of Power: African Americans in the vage, 11 March 2020. Accessed 30 June 2020.
Era of Decolonization, 1956-1974 (New York: https://salvage.zone/articles/race-and-ameri-
Cambridge University Press, 2013). cas-long-war-an-interview-with-nikhil-pal-
6. Navid Farnia, “State Repression and the Black singh; See also, Grace Kyungwon Hong, “Specu-
Panther Party: Analyzing Joshua Bloom and Wal- lative Surplus: Asian American Racialization
do E. Martin’s Black Against Empire,” Journal of and the Neoliberal Shift,” Social Text 36, 2 (June
African American Studies 21 (2017): 172-179; 2018): 107-121. Significantly, almost a decade
Judson L. Jeffries, “Black Radicalism and Political after Davis’s acquittal, Cedric Robinson coined
Repression in Baltimore: The Case of the Black the term “racial capitalism” in an attempt to
Panther Party,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 25, 1 capture portions of the systemic critique Davis
(2002): 64-89. See also studies of repression of had already offered. See, Charisse Burden-Stel-
radical Chicano activists in Ian F. Haney Lopez, ly, “Modern U.S. Racial Capitalism,” Monthly
“Protest, Repression, and Race: Legal Violence Review, 1 July 2020. https://monthlyre-
and the Chicano Movement,” University of Penn- view.org/2020/07/01/modern-u-s-racial-
sylvania Law Review 150, 1 (November 2001): capitalism/.
205-244; Edward J. Escobar, “The Dialectics of 10. Leninist characteristics include his rejection
Repression: The Los Angeles Police Department of economism, or the elision of so-called non-
and the Chicano Movement, 1968-1971,” The economic structures from special consideration
Journal of American History 79, 4 (March 1993): by the working-class leadership of the revolu-
1483-1514. tionary movement. Additionally, a special inter-
7. Elizabeth Hinton, From the War on Poverty to est in imperialism and the national liberation
the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarcera- struggles as significant sites of global class strug-
tion in America (Cambridge: Harvard University gle are special features of Marxist-Leninist
Press, 2016); Marisol LeBrón, “Mano Dura Con- thought. For discussion of the latter, see Timo-

JOEL WENDLAND-LIU
thy V. Johnson, “‘Death to Negro Lynching: The Press, 2015), 29. Also, Omi and Winant, Racial
Communist Party USA’s Position on the African Formation in the United States; Joe Feagin, Racist
American Question,” American Communist His- America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future
tory 7, 2 (2008): 243-254. Reparations, 3rd ed. (New York: Routledge,
2014).
11. Roediger, Class, Race, and Marxism, 33-46;
Vivian M. May, Pursuing Intersectionality, Un- 15. W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in Amer-
settling Dominant Imaginaries (New York: Rout- ica, 1860-1880 (New York: Touchstone, 1992),
ledge, 2015), 130. For some, a focus on “race” 700-701.
means to study an invented, non-scientific cate-
16. See Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists,
gory, while class experiences are a matter of sci-
chapter 1 and 4; Eda Ulus, “White Fantasy, White
ence. Others emphasize class as part of an honest
Betrayals: On Neoliberal ‘Feminism’ in the U.S.
critique of corporate multiculturalism. For an
Presidential Election Process,” Ephemera, 18, 1
example of the former, see Adolph Reed Jr. and
(2016), 163-181.
Merlin Chowkwanyun, “Race, Class, Crisis: The
Discourse of Racial Disparity and its Analytical 17. Angela Davis, “Women and Capitalism: Di-
Discontents,” Socialist Register 48 (2012): alectics of Oppression and Liberation,” in The An-
149-175; see also, Joe Feagin and Sean Elias, gela Davis Reader, ed., Joy James (New York:
“Rethinking Racial Formation Theory: A Sys- Blackwell Publishing, 2000), 162.
temic Racism Critique,” Ethnic and Racial Stud- 18. For a thoughtful definition of overdetermina-
ies 36, 6 (2012): 931-960. For her critique of cor- tion, see Anjan Chakrabarti, “Historical Material-
porate multiculturalism see Angela Y. Davis, ism,” in Contemporary Readings in Marxism, ed.
“Gender, Class, and Multiculturalism: Rethink- Ravi Kumar (New Delhi: Aakar Books, 2016),
ing ‘Race’ Politics,” in Mapping Multicultural- 1-79.
ism, eds., Avery Gordon and Christopher New-
field (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota 19. Robert J. Antonio, “Plundering the Commons:
Press, 1996), 40-48. The Growth Imperative in Neoliberal Times,”
The Sociological Review 61, 2 (2013): 21-22; Ravi
12. See Teresa L. Ebert, “Rematerializing Femi- Kumar, Education and the Reproduction of Capital:
nism,” Science and Society 69, 1 (2005): 39; Ellen Neoliberal Knowledge and Counterstrategies (New
Meiksins Wood describes class as “the single York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), 64-66; Gérard
most universal force capable of uniting diverse Duménil and Domonique Lévy, The Crisis of Ne-
emancipatory struggles.” “Introduction: What oliberalism (Boston: Harvard University Press), 7;
is the Postmodern Agenda?” in In Defense of His- David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism
tory: Marxism and the Postmodern Agenda, eds., (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 1-5;
Ellen Meiksins Wood and John Bellamy Foster Vijay Prashad, Keeping Up with the Dow Joneses:
(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997), 13. Debt, Prison, Workfare (Boston: South End Press,
13. Ellen Meiksins Wood, Democracy Against 2003), xvi-xxi.
Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism. 20. Racial project in the sense that Omi and
Kindle edition. (New York: Verso, 2002), Kindle Winant use the term.
Locations 5413-5415. Similar kinds of dis-
missals of “identity politics” can be detected in 21. Taylor, “Back Story”; Hong, "Speculative Sur-
the work of Marxist thinkers such as Slavoj Zizek plus," 111; Also, Grace Kyungwon Hong, “Ne-
and Jodi Dean. oliberalism,” Critical Ethnic Studies, 1, no. 1
(Spring 2015): 56; John D. Marquez and Junaid
14. Moon-Kie Jung, Beneath the Surface of White Camp, “Black Radical Possibility and the Decolo-
Supremacy: Denaturalizing U.S. Racisms Past nial International,” South Atlantic Quarterly 116,
and Present (Stanford: Stanford University 3 (2017): 522; Chandra Talpade Mohanty,
142 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

“Transnational Feminist Crossings: On Neoliber- this theoretical work.

alism and Radical Critique,” Signs 38, 4 (Summer
27. Davis, “Women and Capitalism,” 172.
2013): 970; Jordan T. Camp, “‘We Know this
Place’: Neoliberal Racial Regimes and the Katrina 28. Davis, “Women and Capitalism,” 173.
Circumstance,” American Quarterly 61, 3 (Sept. 29. Davis, “Women and Capitalism,” 173. A co-
2009): 701-702. gent analysis that expresses a similar skepticism
22. Sundiata Cha-Jua, “The New Nadir: The Con- about the concept of abstract labor can be found
temporary Black Racial Formation,” The Black in Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Universalism and Be-
Scholar, 40, 1 (2010): 38-58; Alexander, The New longing in the Logic of Capital,” Public Culture,
Jim Crow; Koritha Mitchell, “No More Shame!: 12, 3 (2000), 653-678. He suggests that Marx’s
Defeating the New Jim Crow with Antilynching account of abstract labor is a representation of
Activism’s Best Tools,” American Quarterly, 66, 1 “capital’s logic” rather than a description of real-
(2014): 142-152. ity. He does not cite Davis.
23. Here I rely on Harvey’s deployment of the 30. Davis’s argument is echoed in Hong, Rup-
term “dispossession.” See, David Harvey, A Com- tures of American Capital, 113.
panion to Marx’s Capital (New York: Verso, 31. Davis, “Women and Capitalism,” 173.
2010). Kindle e-book Loc., 5782-5793. Roediger cites the more recent work of
24. See Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists. economist Michael Lebowitz (rather than
Davis) to argue that this “production of differ-
25. Davis, “Women and Capitalism,” 162. This es-
ence,” which Davis is describing here in terms of
say affirmed an intersectional framework of analy-
how social identities of workers (as opposed to a
sis. This framework refused simplistic, individual-
purely abstract form of labor), are needed and
ist frameworks for exploring identity. It is a pro-
coopted in class processes and are essential to
posal for understanding the overdetermination of
capitalist relations of production. Roediger,
the social relations of production and practically
Class, Race, and Marxism, 121-122. In his dis-
designing radical alternatives to those relations.
cussion of the relationship of race to class in the
Occasionally scholars forget to associate this theo-
U.S., sociologist Maurice Zeitlin argues that
retical move with Davis. See, for example, Nikhil
“[w]orkers everywhere in the capitalist world
Pal Singh, “On Race, Violence, and So-Called
must decide how to deal with competition in the
Primitive Accumulation,” Social Text 34, 3
labor market” that is typically premised on dif-
(September 2016): 27-50. By contrast, Grace
ferences of skill, location, and identity (such as
Kyungwon Hong’s analysis of the intersections of
race). Capitalism makes the issue of race (and
capitalism and racism, heteronormative patri-
closely related concepts like skin color and eth-
archy, national identity, etc., leans on Davis’ work.
nicity) universally significant to the class pro-
Hong, The Ruptures of American Capital: Women
cess of exploitation and the extraction of maxi-
of Color Feminism and the Culture of Immigrant
mum absolute or relative surplus-value. Zeitlin,
Labor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
“On the ‘Confluence of Race and Class’ in Amer-
Press, 2006).
ica,” Political Power and Social Theory 15 (Jan-
26. The context suggests that Davis used the gen- uary 2002): 287.
dered pronoun to reference workers and abstract
units of labor as a comment on the nature of eco-
nomic theory generally and Marxism specifically 33. Angela Davis, “Reflections on the Role of
as imbued with sexist preferences for language. Black Women in the Community of Slaves,” in
Nowhere does she ever indicate that she thinks all The Angela Davis Reader, ed., Joy James (New
workers are men. She was conscious of this contra- York: Blackwell Publishing, 2000), 112.
diction and pointed to the ideological afflictions of 34. Angela Davis and Fania Davis, “Slaying the

JOEL WENDLAND-LIU
Dream: The Black Family and the Crisis of Capi- 41. Davis, “Women and Capitalism,” 172.
talism,” Women, Culture, and Politics (New
York: Vintage, 1990), 86.
43. Scholar Charisse Burden-Stelly has mapped
35. Susan Coontz, The Way We Never Were:
this intertwining of antiradicalism with anti-
American Families and the Nostalgia Trap (New
Blackness in the post-World War 2 period. See,
York: Basic Books, 1992). Coontz explores and
Charisse Burden-Stelly, “Constructing De-
documents the contradictions between the his-
portable Subjectivity: Antiforeignness, Antiradi-
torical mythology of family and gender in the ne-
calism, and Antiblackness during the McCarthy-
oliberal logic and the lived experiences of most
ist Structure of Feeling,” Souls 19, 3 (2017):
Americans.
342-358.
36. Angela Davis, Women, Race, and Class (New
44. Davis, Women, Race, and Class; “Women and
York: Vintage Books, 1981), 121-122.
Capitalism”; “Reflections on the Role of Black
37. Abdulkadir N. Said, “The Challenge of a Women”; and Davis and Davis, “Slaying the
Black Presidential Candidacy (1984) An Assess- Dream.”
ment,” New Directions 12, no. 3 (1985): 27-28;
45. Angela Y. Davis, “Political Prisoners, Prisons,
John Zipp, “Did Jesse Jackson Cause a White
and Black Liberation,” in If They Come in the
Backlash Against the Democrats?: A Look at the
Morning...Voices of Resistance, ed. Angela Y. Davis
1984 Presidential Campaign,” in Jesse Jack-
(New York: Verso, 2016), 38.
son’s 1984 Presidential Campaign, eds. Lucius J.
Barker and Ronald W. Walters (Urbana: Uni- 46. Davis, “Political Prisoners,” 39.
versity of Illinois Press, 1989), 213. 47. These themes are explored in research on
38. Jack Stone (with Joe McGraw), Unemploy- racialized policing and surveillance in contempo-
ment’s Shocking Truth: Its Outrageous Causes rary settings by Natalie P. Byfield, “Race Science
and Consequences and its Solutions, Tafford Pub- and Surveillance: Police as the New Race Scien-
lishing, 2008. Kindle e-book, Loc. 1295-1317. tists,” Social Identities 25, 1 (2019): 91-106; Brian
(Significantly, all of these bills and the ideologi- Jordan Jefferson, “Predictable Policing: Predic-
cal positioning of their authors foreshadow tive Crime Mapping and Geographies of Policing
Bernie Sanders’ nearly successful campaign for and Race,” Annals of the American Association of
the Democratic nomination in 2016 and some- Geographers, 108, 1 (2018): 1-16.
what less successful effort in 2020. This fact sug- 48. David Norman Smith and Eric Hanley, “The
gests the role that the embodiment of heteronor- Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in
mative whiteness plays in campaigns for social the 2016 Election, and Why?” Critical Sociology
change, as much as suggests an emergent crisis of 44, 2 (2018): 197.
neoliberalism and white supremacy.
39. See a similar discussion of how non-elite
whites “identify overwhelmingly...with the very 50. Davis, “Women and Capitalism,” 177-178.
social forces that maintain and benefit from 51. Davis, “Women and Capitalism,” 180.
these structures [of economic exploitation].”
Samir Gandesha, “‘Identifying with the Aggres- 52. Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle, 137.
sor’: From the Authoritarian to Neoliberal Per- 53. The relation of this individualized merit to the
sonality,” Constellations, 25 (2018): 159. whiteness of the body of white people is explored
40. Angela Davis, Freedom is a Constant Strug- in research by Claudine M. Pied, “The Problem
gle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a People and the Hard Workers: Whiteness and
Movement (Chicago: Haymarket, 2015), 4. Small-town Response to Economic Decline,”
Identities 26, 1 (2019): 33-50.
144 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

54. For a discussion of clusters of behavior pat- 60. Davis, “Women and Capitalism,” 180-181.
terns associated with gendered bodies, see, Aaron
61. Joel Wendland, The Collectivity of Life:
H. Devor, Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits
Spaces of Social Mobility and the Individualism
of Duality (Bloomington: Indiana University
Myth (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016).
Press, 1989), 43-65. Additional discussion of be-
haviors, traits, and affects linked in the dominant 62. This term should be read as meaning some-
cultural, ideological, and material relations of pro- thing closer to current uses of gender and gender
duction system to binary gender categories of fem- identity.
inine and masculine, see, Cecilia L. Ridgeway, 63. Davis, “Women and Capitalism,” 179-180.
Framed by Gender: How Gender Inequality Persists
in the Modern World (New York: Oxford Universi- 64. Davis, “Women and Capitalism,” 183-184.
ty Press, 2011), 32-55; Allan Johnson, The Gender
Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy, 3rd ed.
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014), Works Cited
73-91.
Antonio, Robert J. “Plundering the
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example.
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow:
57. Ulus, “White Fantasy, White Betrayals,” 166, Mass Incarceration in the Era of Jim Crow.
168. New York: Free Press, 2010.
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da are of a piece with business advice literature.
Without Racists: Colorblind Racism and the
See, for example, Kristin Munro and Chris
O'Kane, ‘The Artisan Economy and the New Spir- Persistence of Racial Inequality in America.
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Decolonization, 1956-1974. New York: (2012): 185-206.
Cambridge University Press, 2013. Ulus, Eda. “White Fantasy, White
Prashad, Vijay. Keeping Up with the Dow Betrayals: On Neoliberal ‘Feminism’ in the
Joneses: Debt, Prison, Workfare. Boston: U.S. Presidential Election Process.”
South End Press, 2003. Ephemera, 18, 1 (2016), 163-181.
Reed Jr., Adolph, and Merlin Wendland, Joel. The Collectivity of Life:
Chowkwanyun. “Race, Class, Crisis: The Spaces of Social Mobility and the
Discourse of Racial Disparity and its Individualism Myth. Lanham: Lexington
Analytical Discontents.” Socialist Register Books, 2016.
48 (2012): 149-175. Wood, Ellen Meiksins. “Introduction: What
Ridgeway, Cecilia L. Framed by Gender: is the Postmodern Agenda?” In In Defense of
How Gender Inequality Persists in the History: Marxism and the Postmodern
Modern World. New York: Oxford Agenda. Edited by Ellen Meiksins Wood and
University Press, 2011. John Bellamy Foster. 1st ed. New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1997, 1-12.
Roediger, David. Class, Race, and
Marxism. New York: Verso, 2017. ———. Democracy Against Capitalism:
Renewing Historical Materialism. Kindle
Said, Abdulkadir N. “The Challenge of a
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edition. New York: Verso, 2002. To take the working-class fight

Zeitlin, Maurice. “On the ‘Confluence of to white supremacy and
Race and Class’ in America,” Political Power heteronormative patriarchy is
and Social Theory 15 (January 2002):
397-402. to create the conditions in
Zipp, John. “Did Jesse Jackson Cause a
which the ruling class is no
White Backlash Against the Democrats?: A longer able to rule in the old
Look at the 1984 Presidential Campaign,” in way.
Jesse Jackson’s 1984 Presidential Campaign,
eds. Lucius J. Barker and Ronald W. Walters
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989,
208-226.

JOEL WENDLAND-LIU
ON
HOBBES, LIBERALISM AS THEORIES
LEVIATHAN, & OF
& FASCISM THE
BEHEMOTH: STATE
Juan Manuel Ávila Conejo

15 No. 4 / MARCH 2021
Hobbes’ work is often viewed as central to

the development of liberalism and liberal
theories of the state. In this essay, I
examine the relation between fascism and
liberalism as two aspects of the capitalist
state, and particularly of fascism as a
failed liberal state. I argue that the
symbiotic relation between liberalism and
fascism can be found in Hobbes’ theory of
the state and, therefore, in all subsequent
versions of the liberal state. I go on to
suggest that the perpetual threat of
fascism is a contradiction produced by the
liberal state to justify itself and that
escaping the liberalism-fascism
dichotomy is a crucial step towards the
establishment of communism.

JUAN MANUEL ÁVILA CONEJO
Hobbes uses a materialist

theory of violence based
around the problem of
distribution of property, and
then proceeds to build a
state theory around the
problem of this very violence,
the violence of property.
T
he biblical myth of Leviathan tarian liberalism following from the model de-
and Behemoth1 has had a spe- scribed by Thomas Hobbes in the eponymous
cial place in political theory book. The fascist state corresponds to Behemoth,
since the publication of which I describe following the state theory of Carl
Thomas Hobbes’2 Leviathan in Schmitt in Land and Sea (1942) and Benito Mus-
1651. Centuries later, Carl solini in The Doctrine of Fascism (1932), as well as
Schmitt’s3 Leviathan (1938) following the works of Franz Neuman, Michael
embraced again the image of warring monsters to Parenti, and others. I also take into account
formulate his theory of the state. Since then, much Hobbes’ own Behemoth (1668) on the outcome of
has been written on the relation between these two the English Civil War. Against the notion of
interpretations of the myth and its consequences Hobbes as a natural predecessor to Schmitt and of
for political theory.4 This essay examines this fascism, I propose that Hobbes recognizes the
myth through a Marxist lens that attempts to looming danger of a reactionary crisis of the ‘An-
bring together Marxist historians of the English cien Régime,’ that is the feudal-theocratic politico-
Civil War with more recent work on 20th Century economic system, and, in opposition, proposes
fascism. To this end, I propose an analysis of the Leviathan as a foundation and defense of the
relation between liberalism and fascism as the po- nascent liberal state and capitalism. Additionally,
litical forms of the capitalist state—that is, to un- I delve into the contradictory and dialectical rela-
derstand them as theories of the state correspond- tion between capitalism, as the primary engine of
ing to different historical phases of capitalism. The liberalism, and fascism, as a reaction against the
tension between these two state theories has been very erosion of traditional authority caused by
represented mythologically as the war of capitalism, while showing that this superficial op-
Leviathan and Behemoth. The liberal state corre- position serves a very specific political purpose: to
sponds in the myth to Leviathan, a form of authori- uphold the regime of private property—the back-
152 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

bone of capitalism—during times of crisis. propose a general definition of fascism, and reveal
its permanent relation to the liberal state and capi-
The methodology of this essay follows from a pas-
talism.
sage of T.S Eliot’s Tradition and the Individual
Talent (1919) that reads: “In any work the past The German playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote in
should be altered by the present just as the present 1935 that “Fascism is a historic phase of capital-
is directed by the past.”5 Eliot creates this thesis as ism; in this sense it is something new and at the same
a formula for aesthetic interpretation, meaning time old.”6 In order to fully understand this defini-
that a work of art is in dialectical relation with the tion, we must take into account that Brecht was
art that came before it—both as its result and as its writing at the historical dawn of what we now call
reinterpretation. In historiographical terms, and capital-f Fascism: the right-wing authoritarian
for the purposes of this work, Eliot’s thesis corre- states of Germany and Italy in the 1930s and
sponds to a form of recursive history, which means 1940s. However, Brecht rejected the narrow view
we must consider history as a description of past that fascism was a new and unique phenomenon;
events that retroactively affects our understand- he considered a “capitulation to Fascism” the no-
ing of the present and modifies our understanding tion that it “is a new, third power beside (and
of the past. Specifically, this means considering above) capitalism and socialism” because the no-
how the origins of fascism might be found by ex- tions of supremacy and a break with modernity are
amining the much older Leviathan in its historical part of the mythos of fascism. Thus, in order to
context while also examining its history in the light understand fascism in the broader context of the
of a modern understanding of fascism. Consider- development of capitalism, we must engage in the
ing liberalism and fascism as phases of capitalist seemingly anachronistic move proposed by
development, as opposed to specific moments in Brecht: to consider fascism as something very new
time, permits us to trace back from Schmitt and and very old at the same time, both as a reaction of
Mussolini to the proto-fascism of Hobbes’ time, ancient power structures and as a phase in the his-

The great beast that Hobbes

posits is the result of the
forces of nature and human
artifice.
tory of capitalism.
This article examines the relation between the
mythical war of Leviathan and Behemoth, and the
effect it has had on western notions of the state
since the publication of Hobbes’ eponymous
books in the 17th Century, focusing on how the
myth has articulated the relation between the lib-
eral and the fascist theories of the state. The myth
of the warring beasts has roots in Ancient Near
Eastern mythology, in which sea serpents feature
prominently, under the name Lotan.7 The myth
itself derives from Jewish and Christian genealogy
in the books of the Torah, Job, Psalms, and Isaiah,
which describe the sea monster by saying: “Be-
hold, the hope of him is in vain; shall not one be cast
down even at the sight of him?”8 In modern politi-
cal theory, the myth is most closely associated to
the relation between Hobbes and Carl Schmitt,
the principal intellectual of Nazi Germany. The
myth relates the battle of the Leviathan and Behe-
moth with the history of the liberal state and fas-
cist states, and it suggests a false genealogy be-
tween Hobbes’ authoritarian liberalism and
Schmitt’s fascism. In this work, we track the rela-
tion between the myth and the corresponding the-
ories of the state in order to explain how it both
structures and relates the ideologies of liberalism
and fascism in our current understanding of the
state. The purpose of this analysis is to historicize
the myth and the seemingly antagonistic relation
between these theories of the state, thus demysti-
fying the origins of fascism and the liberal state
while showing the ideological content within the
myth that continues to structure our politics
around the allegedly inevitable confrontation.
154 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

Leviathan or Liberalism limbs, the beginning whereof is in some princi-

pal part within, why may we not say that all au-
What is Leviathan? Hobbes’ theory of the state be- tomata... have an artificial life?... Art goes yet
gins with a mythological image of a great chimera, further, imitating that rational and most excel-
a monster: part animal, part man, part machine, lent work of nature, man. For by art is created
part god. “Nature,” Hobbes writes, that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-
WEALTH, or STATE.9
is by the art of man, as in many other things, so
in this also imitated, that it can make an artifi- The great beast that Hobbes posits is the result of
cial animal. For seeing life is but a motion of the forces of nature and human artifice; it is not
supernatural nor a preordained form, like that of

Without a centralized monopoly of

force, Hobbes thinks, individuals
will be compelled to use force
against each other.
absolute monarchy. Instead, it is a construct com- authority of the sovereign. [Hobbes’] position
posed of human beings, structured by the combi- combined an authority whose commands could
nation of reason and what Hobbes claims to be nat- not be challenged with individual rights and free-
ural or divine laws in what effectively constitutes a dom as the means of establishing and conditioning
form of social contract. This construct of reason that authority.”11 From this, we can say that
and natural creatures produces a political body “in Hobbes' theory of the state is authoritarian, but
which the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving not absolutist, because sovereignty is not present-
life and motion to the whole body.” This image of ed as external to society but as immanent in the
the state breaks with the permanent and unchang- state itself. The immanence of power in Hobbes
ing structure of the absolute monarchical power of does not mean, however, that sovereignty is a nec-
the Ancien Régime by posing that power is imma- essary condition for society to exist; it means only
nent in power structures; that is, that the power of that power is equivalent to the effective control of
the state stems from its members. Hobbes’ theory society and thus not bestowed by supernatural
of the state is a materialist theory inasmuch as it forces. This materialist turn in Hobbes’ analysis of
considers sovereignty a consequence of the social power does not mean a limitation on the exercise
interactions between material creatures and not as of power, so even if the liberal state’s power is root-
the result of supernatural forces nor symbolic ined in society, it is not necessarily limited by it nor
stitutions. This view of political power, as histori- by an individual’s rights. That is to say, individual
an Quentin Skinner points out, was strongly re- rights are limited by the factual powers of the state
jected by his religious compatriots but was re- because the rights of the state are absolute and
ceived favorably by some in the continent, particu- they are, in fact, coeval with its power. That is, for
larly in France.10 the Hobbesian state, might is right. As such,
Hobbes' characterization of the liberal state as au-
The immanence of power in Hobbes is incompati-
thoritarian is not a matter of the author’s political
ble with any tyrannical form of hierarchy—both
leanings but an early pragmatist, materialist un-
the divine right of kings and the reactionary au-
derstanding of politics. In this sense, the Hobbe-
thoritarian leader. For Hobbes, sovereignty be-
sian state is close to Schmitt inasmuch as it is in
longs to the social construct (or contract) that is
permanent antagonism with anything outside it-
Leviathan; power resides in one political body but
self, and it is precisely this permanent antagonism
not in any one person. In the article “Hobbes and
that gives the liberal state its mythological justifi-
Schmitt,” the historian Tim Stanton posits that
cation.
Hobbes is “a proponent of absolute and unlimited
sovereignty” while at the same time claiming “that Sovereignty, for Hobbes, first and foremost means
it was the consent of subjects that constituted the the monopoly of violence. Beginning with the
156 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

Sovereignty, for Hobbes, first and

foremost means the monopoly of
violence.
mythological image, Hobbes says that the raison state, and it dissolves when the liberal state is in
d’etre of Leviathan is the “protection and de- crisis, giving way to reactionary forces within soci-
fence”12 of individuals in order to assure peace. ety.
Peace here ought to be understood in the narrow
The structure of Leviathan is organized around
sense of the absence of war and the stability of the
the principle of war. Hobbes organizes the state as
state. In other words, for Hobbes, the sovereign is
a rational response to what he calls the state of “na-
whomever controls the power to make war and de-
ture,” a time when “men live without a common
clare peace. As he writes later in the book, “...be-
power to keep them all in awe.”15 Without a cen-
cause the end of this institution is the peace and
tralized monopoly of force, Hobbes thinks, indi-
defence of all, and whosoever has right to the end
viduals will be compelled to use force against each
has right to the means, it belongeth of right to
other. In a central passage of the book, Hobbes de-
whatsoever man or assembly that hath the
scribes the state of war:
sovereignty to be judge both of the means of peace
and defence, disturbances of the same, and to do In such condition there is no place for industry,
whatsoever he shall think necessary to be done.”13 because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and con-
Hobbes continues: “it is annexed to the sovereign- sequently, no culture of the earth, no naviga-
ty the right of making war and peace with other tion, nor use of the commodities that may be
nations and commonwealths, that is to say, of War, imported by sea, no commodious building, no
and Peace, as judging when it is for the public good, instruments of moving and removing such
and how great forces are to be assembled, armed, things as require much force, no knowledge of
and paid for that end, and to levy money upon the the face of the earth, no account of time, no
subjects to defray the expenses thereof.”14 It is arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst
clear that, for Hobbes, the first prerogative of the of all, continual fear and danger of violent
state is the monopoly of violence, or the power of death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty,
war and peace, and also that from this first prerog- brutish, and short.16
ative stems the second: in order to command mili- A common reading of this passage, particularly of
tary power, the sovereign must have the power of the well-known last sentence, proposes that
the purse; that is, the prerogative to impose and Hobbes has an exceedingly pessimistic view of hu-
levy taxes on society. As such, the Leviathanic man nature in itself. As Curley and other histori-
state is structured around the separation of inter- ans have pointed out, this common misinterpreta-
nal and external space; that is, civil society and tion of the state of nature takes it to mean the state
peace (and taxation) on the inside and the state and of life of early humans, but it is clear that Hobbes is
war on the outside. This separation of civil society not referring to a specific time but to any political
and the state is a constitutive feature of the liberal

the passage, Hobbes highlights the political eco-
The state of war

nomic consequence of war noting that in this state
there can be no industry, no agriculture, and no
commerce. Consequently, we can say that the
begins when the state of nature is neither an idealist claim on hu-

man nature nor simply a consequence of a human
proclivity to violence; on the contrary, it refers to
state is no a real crisis in the material conditions of existence
of society. The state of nature is, thus, a politico-
longer able to economic crisis which begets the most reactionary

forces in society: gangsterism, and the degenera-
tion of the rule of law into coercion by force.
assure From this crisis in the conditions of life, the “state

of nature” also begets a crisis of faith in Leviathan’s
individual social contract. The state of war begins when the

state is no longer able to assure individual security
and property. In the state of war, “Force and fraud
security and are in war the two cardinal virtues,” and thus,
“there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and
property.
thine distinct, but only that to be every man's that
he can get, and for so long as he can keep it.”17 Fun-
damental to the Hobbesian state of war is not only
the loss of personal security, but also the loss of
property as a key factor in the crisis of faith in liber-
alism. Property, in the Hobbesian state of war, is
reduced to force, and this makes it fundamentally
incompatible with the liberal premise of property
moment in which the state has failed. As such, we
as a political right. But more important for this dis-
must discard here the hypothesis that Hobbes
cussion is the fact that Hobbes finds in this crisis of
considers humans to be predetermined to war or
property the origin of violence in the state of war
evil or that the state of war refers simply to anarchy
and, as we have indicated, not in an essentialist no-
in general.
tion of human nature.
If, instead of essentializing the human condition to
In chapter XIII of Leviathan, writing on the condi-
any particular notion of human nature, we pro-
tions of “felicity and misery” of mankind, Hobbes
ceed with a materialist reading of Hobbes, we find
notes the fundamental equality of human beings,
that the state of nature refers to a particular histor-
saying “when all is reckoned together the differ-
ical moment in which the material conditions of
ence between man and man is not so considerable
society have become miserable. In the last sen-
as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any
tence, Hobbes writes that life in the state of nature
benefit to which another may not pretend as well
is nasty, brutish, and short—three conditions
as he.”18 Hobbes was not a communist, but this
which refer to violence in the absence of personal
quote suggests that he adheres to some form of
security. However, he first says that life in this
economic equality, discarding the notion that eco-
state is solitary and poor, two conditions which re-
nomic inequality is a fact of life. From his historical
fer to changes in the political economy of society:
framework, however, it is clear that here Hobbes is
the first, in which the relations of production have
arguing for the bourgeois form of property, that is
been interrupted; and the second one, in which
private property, and against monarchical forms
production itself has stopped. In the first part of
158 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

of property like nobility titles. Also, Hobbes here Marxist historian Norah Carlin notes when dis-
presents an early critique of the concept of proper- cussing the complicated class struggles that took
ty in general, arguing against property as a power place before and during this period, “there is no
hierarchy and for some fundamental equality of doubt that the gentry did play the leading role in
power over material wealth. Hobbes continues ex- the preliminary crisis of 1640: they dominated the
ploring the consequences of property, saying: House of Commons, and the concessions they de-
manded of Charles I – the ‘constitutional revolu-
From this equality of ability ariseth equality of
tion’ and the execution of his chief ministers –
hope in the attaining of our ends. And therefore
were major ones, resulting from the bitterness of
if any two men desire the same thing, which nev-
the opposition to the King’s policies that had
ertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become ene-
grown up during his eleven years’ rule without
mies; and ...endeavour to destroy or subdue one
another [italics added].19
Hobbes’ argument here
comes full circle to mark the
starting point of violence, and
by doing so, it reveals a funda-
mental contradiction of
Leviathan: property is both
the consequence of the
monopoly of violence by the
state and the cause of the vio-
lence that destabilizes it. It is
not just that life becomes poor
in the state of war but that the
immiseration of life itself
might bring forth the state of
war. By placing the condition
for wellbeing (and peace) in
the satisfaction of economic
needs, Hobbes links the emer-
gence of violence to the com-
petition for the means to satis-
fy those needs. As such, the
state of war is in no way a natu-
ral state; on the contrary, it is
the result of the breakdown of
the politico-economic sys-
tem.
We must turn now to the his-
torical framework in which
Hobbes writes Leviathan, that
is, the English Civil War
(1642–1651). Now the ques-
tion is: what were the politico-
economic conditions at the
historical roots of this war? As
The dual political structure of

Leviathan and Behemoth,
although first presented as
antagonism, reveals itself in
history as one of strategic
alliances.
Parliament.”20 The gentry—composed of the a landless peasantry large enough to threaten the
landed aristocracy and the landed bourgeoisie— landholding class. This produced a new landless
became representative of the national interests of proletariat and a reactionary royalist aristocracy,
the bourgeoisie as it amassed political power. This both of which now posed a threat to the emergent
accumulation of political power was in itself the liberal state from the left and the right, respective-
result of what Marx calls the process of primitive ly. Thus, in the period preceding the war, the
accumulation, the historical phase of capitalism in poverty of a growing sector of the population
which land is transformed into private property, threatens to undermine the very model that the
which was well underway in England by this point gentry seeks to impose; that is, the liberal capital-
in time. ist state. And this is precisely what we see happen
in the context of the war: initially, the landless sec-
On the period leading to the Civil War, Carlin
tors of the populations organized under proto-so-
notes: “There is also no doubt that the previous
cialist organization seeking forms of communal
hundred years had seen a major redistribution of
ownership of land, specifically the Diggers and the
landed property, which had benefited the gentry
Levellers. These left-wing movements were elimi-
at the expense of both the peasantry, and of the
nated in 1649 as the gentry consolidated the pow-
Crown and peerage, and that this had put the gen-
er of the state under Oliver Cromwell. This finally
try in a very strong position to challenge Charles
permits us to examine the dialectical role of Oliver
I’s ham-fisted attempts at establishing an absolute
Cromwell in the revolution; as Carlin notes, “what
monarchy.” As a consequence, poverty and in-
the bourgeoisie needed in 1648–9 was an arbiter
equality rose in this period: “The number of prop-
to save it from royalist restoration on the one hand
ertyless was even greater than the number of actu-
and revolution from below on the other.” (italics
al wage-earners, for unemployment, underem-
added).
ployment and the destitution of small producers
were widespread.” We see here how Hobbes’ po-
litical theory relates to his historical situation. The
accumulation of land into fewer and fewer aristo-
crats led to both the emergence of a property-own-
ing class strong enough to resist the monarchy and
160 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

Under fascism, force is both the

prime philosophical and ethical
justification. Might is both truth
and right.
Behemoth, or Fascism ethnic cleansing and transforming the politico-

economic structure of the island into agrarian cap-
The alliance between authoritarian liberalism and italism, completing the primitive accumulation of
fascism and the dual political structure of revolu- Irish soil and labor under British imperial capital-
tion and reaction become clear when we examine ism.
the historical period of the English Civil War. The
The dual political structure of Leviathan and Be-
principal result was, in form, the triumph of liber-
hemoth, although first presented as antagonism,
alism over monarchism and the establishment of
reveals itself in history as one of strategic alliances.
parliamentary rule over absolute rule: in a limited
In a time of crisis, the liberal state fails to uphold its
way, a democratic triumph. However, in practice,
end of the deal, the liberal social contract, and
the result was much different. In order to establish
property and security are no longer assured. In
hegemony, the Cromwellian regime made many
spatial terms, this means the collapse of the dis-
alliances with the monarchical and ecclesiastic
tinction between the inside and the outside, public
forces of reaction.21 Early in the war, the parlia-
and private, and thus the lack of a clear demarca-
mentarian side had the support of the ethnona-
tion between the space of peace, controlled by the
tionalist English Puritans, which provided the pre-
state, and the space of war. In political terms, this
text to persecute the Scottish, Irish, and royalist
alliance entails the fusion of the state into civil life.
sides, on the charge of suspected Catholicism and
This does not entail the disappearance of the state,
‘Popery.’ Cromwell was also responsible for the
which would be the communist end goal; on the
suppression of left-wing political formations cen-
contrary, this constitutes the expansion of the
tered around land redistribution and most promi-
state into every aspect of social life, not unlike the
nently a large campaign of settler colonialism and
military structure of the army does unto its troops.
subsequent genocide in Ireland which killed up to
The consequence of the crisis is the total mobiliza-
five-sixths of the island’s population.22 Through
tion of society itself, because as war permeates ev-
the Act for the Settlement of Ireland of 1652,
ery aspect of internal life, the only security remain-
Cromwell and the Parliament confiscated large
ing is in gangsterism. If the giant Leviathan is the
amounts of land from Irish Catholics and gave it to
assurance of perpetual peace, Behemoth is of war.
English Protestants settlers, thus committing an
In this condition of crisis, the state becomes

brutish, that is, no longer based on reason and the crisis and civil war such as Hobbes’ own state of
social contract, but purely on gangsterism and op- nature. This is the historical function of fascism: to
portunism. Under the Leviathanic state, only se- uphold capitalism during times when its liberal
curity and property are assured. Therefore, all the state form is in crisis.
forms of illiberal political oppression (such as un-
In Behemoth (1681), the sequel to Leviathan which
equal voting rights, slavery, the subjugation of
remained unpublished until after Hobbes’ death,
women and children as tools) are not only permis-
the author describes the period of the Civil Wars as
sible but also legal. Consequently, Leviathanic
a time where, if someone “as from the Devil’s
capitalism, or minimally-regulated capitalism, is
Mountain, should have looked upon the world and
completely unimpeded by the most illiberal forms
observed the actions of men, especially in Eng-
of government, and thus is promptly co-opted by
land, might have had a prospect of all kinds of in-
these. Capitalism, as any economic system, pro-
justice, and of all kinds of folly, that the world
duces political systems modeled after itself; thus it
could afford, and how they were produced by their
can be stripped of its own liberal political form by
hypocrisy and self-conceit, whereof the one is dou-
the forces of reaction and thrive under tyrannical
ble iniquity, and the other double folly.”23 In this
forms of government, particularly during times of
book, Hobbes’ opposition to reaction (and
162 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

Capital will seek

alliances with
all the
sedimentary
leftovers of
previous modes
of production, in
order to keep
control of the
state.
Leviathan’s position as a defense of the liberal any inner beauty. The style of its living writers is
state) become clearer, as he rejects the political op- abominable, the constructions confused, the con-
portunism as well as the religious nationalism that sistency nil. Every pronouncement springs from
characterizes the state that results from the war. the immediate situation and is abandoned as soon
For Hobbes, as the passage makes clear, this peri- as the situation changes.”24 Neumann makes it
od of reaction is characterized by injustice, folly, clear that fascism has a completely “immediate
hypocrisy, and self-conceit; in a word, gangster- and opportunistic” relation to reality and there-
ism. Clearly, this is not a situation of war fought fore its ideology is purely reactionary and not
under romantic notions of ‘honor’ or ‘duty,’ with based on any set of principles. This opportunism
well-defined sides and aims, but a devolvement in- also points to the larger condition of failed judicia-
to a state of statelessness and of might as right. A ry, meaning that right again has devolved into
similar political climate of gangsterism and chaos might; this is when gangsterism takes the role of
is noticeable in Franz Neumann’s Behemoth: The the social contract. Under fascism, force is both
Structure and Practice of National Socialism. When the prime philosophical and ethical justification.
analyzing the ideology of Nazism, the author Might is both truth and right.
writes: “National Socialist ideology is devoid of
It is of no consequence to ponder on whether the

Cromwellian regime should be called fascist. The ety. Conservation of the old modes of produc-
noteworthy fact here is that every crisis of the lib- tion in unaltered form, was, on the contrary,
eral state unleashes the forces of reaction present the first condition of existence for all earlier in-
in the foundational antagonism within the liberal dustrial classes. Constant revolutionising of
state itself which, as we have seen, is property. It is production, uninterrupted disturbance of all
also around property that the forces of reaction ag- social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and
glomerate and form hegemonies. Under fascism, agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from
right ceases to be based on reason and instead is all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations,
based on force, which under capitalism corre- with their train of ancient and venerable preju-
sponds to property. Therefore, under fascism, dices and opinions, are swept away, all new-
which is always also capitalist, property becomes formed ones become antiquated before they can
causa sui, its facticity becomes its own justifica- ossify. All that is solid melts into air...25
tion. As such, this state form provides the optimal
Capitalism constantly erodes at the basis of tradi-
politico-economic environment for primitive ac-
tional power hierarchies because it constantly rev-
cumulation, which is always carried out by force.
olutionizes social relations of production. As Marx
As we have seen, this was the case in Ireland in
notes here and elsewhere, capitalism has an un-
1652; the case of the Third Reich’s Lebensraum,
matched emancipatory power to dismantle an-
Imperial Japan’s conquest of China and Greater
cient hierarchies of oppression: religious, politi-
East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, the United
cal, sexual or of any symbolic kind, and refashion
States’ Manifest Destiny and the conquest of the
these social relations after its own image. In gener-
west, provide similar historical examples. The al-
al, fascism struggles to uphold these symbolic
liance between the ruling class of capitalism and
structures of the past, but this is a tragic struggle,
the forces of reaction, as we have said, is one of
a lost cause in the fullest sense, because under capi-
strategy: absent the state to assure property and
talism all that is solid melts into air: capitalism is
security, the capitalists must turn to the tradition-
able to abstract any traditional symbolic structure
al power hierarchies to maintain control of proper-
into the general form of representation, namely
ty. In practice, this means that capital will seek al-
capital. In other words, this means that there is no
liances with fundamentalist religion, patriarchy,
hallowed temple of Western Civilization that can-
nationalism, and monarchism; that is, all the sedi-
not be bought and sold, no sacred Indigenous ritu-
mentary leftovers of previous modes of produc-
al that cannot be made into a Broadway show. But
tion, in order to keep control of the state. Thus, as
capitalism, which constantly erodes the founda-
the foundation of sovereignty changes from rea-
tions of all traditional societies during times of
son (contract) to fact (force) the liberal state ceases
peace, also provides the means for the forces of re-
to be and the fascist state rises.
action to uphold traditional power structures, pri-
In principle, but only in principle, fascism is op- marily property, during times of crisis.
posed to capitalism, as the primary engine of liber-
What is fascism? In order to produce a general def-
alism. To understand the fundamental antago-
inition of fascism, we take several sources, refer-
nism between fascism and liberalism we must con-
ring to different historical manifestations. First,
sider the inner workings of capitalism. Marx ex-
fascism is idealism: according to Mussolini & Gen-
plains this process in a well-known passage from
tile, in The Doctrine of Fascism, “The Fascist con-
the Communist Manifesto, which we quote at
ception of life is a religious one,” which rejects the
length:
“superficial, material” view of the world and in-
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without con- stead proposes a worldview based around “com-
stantly revolutionising the instruments of pro- mon traditions and a mission which suppressing
duction, and thereby the relations of produc- the instinct for life closed in a brief circle of plea-
tion, and with them the whole relations of soci- sure, builds up a higher life, founded on duty, a life
164 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

Fascism rejects democracy and

consequently rejects the liberal
foundation of political equality as
well as completely rejecting
communism.
The liberal state comes here to a

fatal contradiction: by ensuring
peace and property, it assures
the violence of property.
Leviathan, thus, creates and
recreates Behemoth as
justification for its own existence.
free from the limitations of time and space, in fundamentally a rejection of democracy and a bid
which the individual, by self sacrifice, the renunci- for elitism, which in practice under capitalism
ation of self-interest, by death itself, can achieve means oligarchy. The fascist political and econom-
that purely spiritual existence in which his value as a ical state provides the conditions for what we
man consists.”26 could call in politico-economic terms War Capital-
ism, a system where economic inequality justifies
Second, fascism is war: for fascism, war is the natu-
political inequality. Under such an economic sys-
ral state of human society. “War alone keys up all
tem, no social contract is possible, and thus fas-
human energies to their maximum tension and
cism must rule by direct coercion of the majority.
sets the seal of nobility on those peoples who have
The oppression of a majority and the upkeep of
the courage to face it. All other tests are substitutes
strict vertical hierarchy is thus fundamental to fas-
which never place a man face to face with himself
cism, and it is also this which necessarily leads
before the alternative of life or death. Therefore all
fascistic states to imperialism.
doctrines which postulate peace at all costs are incom-
patible with Fascism"27; a direct consequence of In Franz Neumann’s Behemoth, the author makes
this is the total militarization of society, that is the clear that “...the fundamental goal of National So-
expansion of the state’s security apparatus until it cialism [is] the resolution by imperialistic war of
becomes one with civil society: “For Fascism the the discrepancy between the potentialities of Ger-
State is absolute, individuals and groups relative. many’s industrial apparatus and the actuality that
Individuals and groups are admissible in so far as existed and continues to exist.”31 According to
they come within the State. Instead of directing Neumann’s definition, fascism is the violent reso-
the game and guiding the material and moral lution to the economic tension between internal
progress of the community, the liberal State re- existing capital and external space, that is, the ten-
stricts its activities to recording results. The Fas- dency of capitalism to expand, by any means nec-
cist State is wide awake and has a will of its own.”28 essary. In the German case, fascist economic poli-
The fascist state is here reacting against the cy included widespread use of slavery and settler
Leviathanic state, and the relative, immanent colonialism abroad, as well as strategic alliances
power of a social contract; instead holding that for with the industrial and financial bourgeoisie, in-
the state to be sovereign, it must also be absolute, cluding the largest banks and corporations in Ger-
or all-encompassing. As such, for fascism, those many. In the English case, the Cromwellian
outside the state are acting against the will of the regime was supported by the landed aristocracy at
state and vice versa. Here, the state and the will of home, composed by the bourgeoisie and nobility,
the state become one. This point is expanded by while imposing slavery and colonialism on Ireland.
Schmitt in The Concept of the Political when he de- Genocide was common to both regimes, as was
clares: “The protego ergo obligo is the cogito ergo ethnonationalism and religious fundamentalism.
sum of the state,” meaning that the protection af- The dialectical relation present between
forded by the state demands unconditional obedi- Cromwell’s historical roles is that of authoritarian
ence from its subjects.29 liberalism and fascism, mythologically corre-
sponding to the war of Leviathan and Behemoth.
Third, fascism is inequality: fascism rejects democ-
racy tout court and consequently rejects the liberal According to Schmitt, the myth of Leviathan
foundation of political equality as well as com- comes from the Book of Job, as a “strongest and
pletely rejecting communism. “In rejecting most tremendous sea monster” endlessly crossing
democracy, Fascism rejects the absurd conven- the oceans.32 Schmitt in his 1942 Land and Sea,
tional lie of political egalitarianism, the habit of however, develops more fully the Jewish kabbalis-
collective irresponsibility, the myth of felicity and tic interpretation from the Psalms, in which
indefinite progress.”30 The radical inequality of “World history appears as a battle among hea-
political subjects under fascism means that it is thens. The leviathan, symbolizing sea powers,

fighting the behemoth, representing land powers.

The latter tries to tear the leviathan apart with his
Perpetual War and the
horns, while the leviathan covers the behemoth's Emancipation of
mouth and nostrils with his fins and kills him in
that way. This is, incidentally, a fine depiction of Humanity
the mastery of a country by a blockade.”33 The
The article “Behemoth and Leviathan: The Fas-
mythological framework here poses the two theo-
cist Bestiary of the Alt-Right” by Harrison Fluss
ries of the state in antagonist relation, associated
and Landon Frim describes the mythological
to different politico economic formations: land
framework of Leviathan and Behemoth in the in-
powers, which in Schmitt’s formulation corre-
ternational wave of reactionary political move-
sponds to Germany, and sea powers, which corre-
ments that began the second decade of the 21st
sponds to England. This antagonism also refers to
Century. The authors present a contemporary
two contradictory economic forces: the impera-
reading of the myth in the following terms: “These
tive to accumulate agrarian economies and the im-
beasts are a pair of opposites: Behemoth is au-
perative to expand commercial economies. It also
tochthonous, representing the stable order of
refers to the cyclical nature of crises under capital-
earth-bound peoples. Leviathan is thalassocratic,
ism and consequent bourgeois-fascist effort to re-
embodying the fluid dynamism of seafaring peo-
turn to a form of capitalism in which the social con-
ples. Behemoth signifies terrestrial empires, while
tract was intact. The Schmittian mythological
Leviathan suggests commercial trade and explo-
framework of an endless war between monsters is,
ration. The former stands for traditional, divinely
thus, a part of both the liberal and fascist state ide-
sanctioned state authority, the latter for the spirit
ology inasmuch as it presents a dualistic political
of pirate-capitalist enterprise (what Schmitt calls
world trapped between the perpetual peace of
‘corsair capitalism’).” In the article, they proceed
Leviathan and the perpetual war of Behemoth.
to associate the thalassocratic and autochthonous
The Hobbesian mythological framework corre-
ideologies to neo-fascist writers Nick Land and
sponds to liberal ideology in that it posits the final
Alexander Dugin, reiterating Schmitt’s theory of
victory of Leviathan, and the possibility of a per-
land and sea powers, which these writers also rely
petual peace, which keeps the state of war forever
on.
on the outside.
However, as we have proposed from the historical
The permanent outside of war is, thus, the justifi-
comparison with Hobbes, liberalism’s expansive
cation of the liberal state, without which it has no
thalassocracy is fundamentally linked with the
purpose. For Hobbes, this condition is permanent
worldwide expansion of capitalism and the com-
because war is not a particular violent event, it is
pletion of what Marx calls the world-market, or the
political condition in which the state has lost the
process of globalization, while Behemoth corre-
monopoly of violence: “For WAR consisteth not
sponds to the collective response of the forces of
in battle only, or the act of everyone, fighting, but
premodern reaction against this seemingly un-
in a tract of time wherein the will to contend by
stoppable advance. In late capitalism, this mytho-
battle is sufficiently known. ...so the nature of war
logical war continues to fuel the ideology of an an-
consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known
tagonistic relation between liberalism and fascism
disposition thereto during all the time there is no
as superficially competing, yet in reality inter-
assurance to the contrary. All other time is
twined, theories of the state. In late capitalism, the
PEACE.”34 The time of peace corresponds here to
ideological function of the myth is to perpetuate
a situation in which the social contract, and thus
the idea that reactionary or fully fascist crises are
the state, are firmly in place. Consequently, peace
inevitable, that the Hobbesian ‘state of nature’ is a
can exist only under the sovereignty of the state
fact of the world and not a logical consequence of
and the condition for the maintenance of peace be-
the liberal capitalist state itself. It is a properly ide-
comes the perpetuation of the state.
168 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

The ideological trick of myth has

been in presenting the ideal
antagonism as natural and
inevitable, presenting the fall into
fascism as a failure of human
nature, instead of as alternating
phases in the historical
development of capitalism.
alist position that naturalizes the state of war as the litical apparatus. Marx noted in the Eighteenth
world in-itself; and then naturalizes the liberal Brumaire of Napoleon Bonaparte comparing the
state as the only possibility of peace within this weak French autocrat to the Lord Protector, that
world. Instead, historicizing these moments of cri- history repeats itself, “the first time as tragedy, the
sis permits us to see the structural causes that lead second time as farce.” This statement also points
to the transformation of the liberal state into fas- to the failure of the proletarian revolution to take
cism, beyond particular considerations of each it- power in times of crisis and, at least in the cases
eration, beyond the ideological formations of fa- that we have examined, and the subsequent tri-
talism and pessimistic narratives about ‘human umph of reaction both over the left as well as over
nature’. liberal capitalism. The tragedy of a failed revolu-
tion leads to the farce of an oligarchic takeover.
Slavoj Žižek, paraphrasing Walter Benjamin,
Marx understood that the cyclical historical pat-
writes “that every rise of fascism bears witness to a
tern of the forces of reaction is explained by the
failed revolution.”35 Regardless if Benjamin actu-
very cyclical nature of crises under capitalism and,
ally said this, the statement remains true: every
thus, as capitalism continues suffering crises, the
crisis of the liberal state is an opportunity for a left-
liberal state will continue falling into fascism.
wing revolution, that is to change the regime of
property and other power hierarchies; which is fol- Hobbes uses a materialist theory of violence based
lowed by right-wing reaction to reinforce all tradi- around the problem of distribution of property,
tional power hierarchies, primarily property be- and then proceeds to build a state theory around
cause it is also the source of factual power under the problem of this very violence, the violence of
fascism in absence of the liberal social contract. property. Thus, it is clear that liberalism, from its
Thus, the rise of fascism is always a sure indicator very foundations, depends on the perpetuation of
of the condition for revolution, or at the very least, peace only in opposition to the threat of perpetual
for civil violence. But the triumph of fascism can war. The liberal state comes here to a fatal contra-
only take place when it successfully crushes left- diction: by ensuring peace and property, it assures
wing resistance and takes over the whole of the po- both the violence of property and the freedom

from violence. Leviathan, thus, creates and recre- 10. Skinner, Quentin. “The Ideological Context of
ates Behemoth as justification for its own exis- Hobbes’s Political Thought.” The Historical Journal,
tence. The ideological trick of myth has been, thus vol. 9, no. 3, 3, 1966. 288.
far, presenting this ideal antagonism as natural 11. Stanton, Timothy. “Hobbes and Schmitt.” Pact
and inevitable, presenting the fall into fascism as a with the Devil: The Ethics, Politics and Economics of
failure of human nature, instead of as alternating Anti-Machiavellian Machiavellism, vol. 37, no. 2, June
phases in the historical development of capital- 2011. 163.
ism. 12. Hobbes 3.
13. Ibid. 113.
Endnotes 14. Ibid 114.

15. Ibid. 76.
1. The myth describes two monstrous creatures per-
petually at war with each other: Leviathan, a sea ser- 16. Ibid.
pent; and Behemoth, a land animal sometimes depict- 17. Ibid. 78.
ed as a water ox or a hippopotamus. The mythical
beasts have historically been used in political theory 18. Ibid 74.
and other related fields to represent sea and land 19. Ibid 75.
powers, respectively.
20. Carlin, Norah. “Marxism and the English Civil
2. Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) War.” International Socialism, vol. 10, 1980, pp.
was an English philosopher, widely considered a 106–28. https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/
founding figure of modern political philosophy and writers/carlin/1980/xx/civilwar.html
liberalism.
21. On the rationale for Puritan support of Cromwell,
3. Carl Schmitt (11 July 1888 – 7 April 1985) was a see Lamont 349.
German legal scholar and political theorist, as well as
the most prominent intellectual figure of the Nazism. 22. Prendergast, J. P. The Cromwellian Settlement of
Ireland. P.M. Haverty, 1868. 177.
4. See: Tralau “Thomas Hobbes and Carl Schmitt:
The Politics of Order and Myth”; Tralau “Order, the 23. Hobbes. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of
ocean, and Satan: Schmitt's Hobbes, National Social- Malmesbury. J. Bohn, 1839. 165.
ism, and the enigmatic ambiguity of friend and foe.”; 24. Neumann, Franz. Behemoth: The Structure and
Weiler “From absolutism to totalitarianism: Carl Practice of National Socialism, 1933-1944. Oxford
Schmitt on Thomas Hobbes”; Ette “Carl Schmitt's University Press, 1944. 37.
Radical Democracy: Schmitt, Hobbes and the Return
to Political Identity”; Springborg “Hobbes's Biblical 25. Marx, K., and F. Engels. Economic and Philosophic
Beasts: Leviathan and Behemoth”; Dean “A political Manuscripts of 1844 and the Communist Manifesto.
mythology of world order: Carl Schmitt's nomos” Prometheus Books, 1988. 212.
5. Eliot, T. S. Selected Essays, 1917–1932. Houghton 26. Gentile, G., and Mussolini, B. “The Doctrine of
Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. 5 Fascism” Encyclopedia Italiana vol. 14. 1932. http://
www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Ger-
6. Brecht, Bertolt. Writing the Truth: Five Difficulties. many/mussolini.htm
Syracuse University Press, 1935. 2
27. Ibid.
7. Uehlinger. Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the
Bible. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999. 515. 28. Ibid.
8. Psalm 74 29. Schmitt, C. The Concept of the Political: Expanded

Edition. University of Chicago Press, 2008. 52.
9. Hobbes, T. Leviathan: With Selected Variants from
the Latin Edition of 1668. Hackett Publishing, 1994. 30. Gentile, G., and Mussolini, B.
3. 31. Neumann, Franz. Behemoth: The Structure and
Practice of National Socialism, 1933-1944. Oxford
170 No. 4 / MARCH 2021

University Press, 1944. 66. 1997.

32. Schmitt, C. The Leviathan in the State Theory of Prendergast, J. P. The Cromwellian Settlement of Ire-
Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political land. P.M. Haverty, 1868.
Symbol. University of Chicago Press, 2008. 6.
Ross, A. R. Against the Fascist Creep. AK Press, 2017.
33. Schmitt, C. Land and Sea: A World-Historical
Schmitt, C. Land and Sea: A World-Historical Medita-
Meditation. Telos Press Publishing, 2015. 8.
tion. Translated by R.A. Berman and S.G. Zeitlin, Telos
34. Hobbes. Leviathan 76. Press Publishing, 2015.
35. Zizek, S. Living in the End Times. Verso, 2011. ---. The Concept of the Political: Expanded Edition. Uni-
152. versity of Chicago Press, 2008.
---. The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes:
Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol. Translated by
Works Cited G. Schwab, University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Brecht, Bertolt. Writing the Truth: Five Difficulties. Stanton, Timothy. “Hobbes and Schmitt.” Pact with the
Syracuse University Press, 1935. Devil: The Ethics, Politics and Economics of Anti-Machi-
avellian Machiavellism, vol. 37, no. 2, June 2011, pp.
Carlin, Norah. “Marxism and the English Civil War.” 160–67.
International Socialism, vol. 10, 1980, pp. 106–28.
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/car- van der Toorn, K., et al. Dictionary of Deities and
lin/1980/xx/civilwar.html Demons in the Bible. Eerdmans Publishing Company,
1999.
Eliot, T. S. Selected Essays, 1917–1932. Houghton Mif-
flin Harcourt, 2014. Skinner, Quentin. “The Ideological Context of
Hobbes’s Political Thought.” The Historical Journal,
Fluss, Harrison, and Landon Frim. “Behemoth and vol. 9, no. 3, 3, 1966, pp. 286–317. JSTOR.
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Latin Edition of 1668. Hackett Publishing, 1994.
---. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmes-
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Parenti, M. Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and
the Overthrow of Communism. City Lights Publishers,

ART AND THE
POIESIS
&
REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT
PHYSIS
JOSHUA HODGES
The Big Man

of History
Joshua Hodges
Everyone knows the big man of history, smiling after overcoming

massive odds.
He has risen above poverty, drugs and circumstance—they cry.
He must be of the gods.
But no one knows the workers—fighting everyday to stay alive.
For them there is no grand ending, no mountain or tape to cross.
There is only the crushing weight of a system, that doesn’t give a
toss.

JOSHUA HODGES
Ghosts
Joshua Hodges
The snowgums emerge

from the fog like
shadowy pillars—
headstones for a people
that now haunt the forest.
Long ago they were driven

from this place—by a people
that came in ships.
The white man used the land for

profit, a land of sheep and steeds.
But this was not a place for sheep—this

was a place of ice and smoke. But now heat
and steeds have overcome this place—and
the ice is all but gone.
The snowgums are greying corpses—but they

are not grotesque.
They are a sign of what was once here—and what

can be again.
174 No. 4 / MAY 2021

JOSHUA HODGES

LYDIA KURTZ
POSSIBILITIES
Lydia Kurtz
Aching, aching for the feeling of freedom.

What is freedom but the chance to love with abandon?
To feel, deep within, the motions uninhibited, the seas balancing,
The sky preparing for none other than dawn.
Who are we but pinpoints, pinpoints of hope peering into
The abyss of the present?
Together, together with our strength, our hope, our conviction,

We might achieve the impossible.
The impossibility of possible love, of possible weights lifted,
Of the crushing waves to recede to mere laps.
Are we ready to be without the death, the horror, of the present?
To feel, really feel, the depth of emotion, of the human experience,

Without contradictory externalities clouding the waking, the dreaming moments,
Who are we to believe in such a possibility?
We are human, a force only reeled in by ourselves, a constant evolution
Of Spirit.
Let us lighten the Spirit, lighten the day, the night, to the source.
The source of our love, our hope, our dream, is within us, the orb
Of light blackened by the few waiting to be uplifted by the many.
We are waiting, waiting for ourselves to realize the immense
Power of Us. Recognize this power, feel this power,
This communal reach for the impossible will not be faltered,
For we are many, and they are few. Believe in the
Possibility of impossibility.
176 No. 4 / MAY 2021

ANTONY LE ROY
CARLOS MARCOS
Antony LeRoy
I recall every bit of paper I had read up and down

From different books. Their covers in leather, red and brown
Feeling like continents, with their ridges and valleys.
Shuffling my feet from working my hours at Sally’s
I turn back to the front, and see his name once more,
Carlos Marx, Obras Completas and then look at the door.
A proletarian panoply passes proudly by, holding banner
And sign. They chant and sing in a res'lute manner,
As the villainous ones come from the depths of hell.
Each wearing their POLICE vests, smooth as a bell.
A shot rings out and the masses march on
“We won’t stop 'til the last devil is gone!”

J.C. GOVENDER
little fatima meer

J. C. Govender
I looked at the European children in the pool

They splashed and played,
They smiled and laughed
I asked mommy why we weren’t allowed in the pool?

She looked down at me
I saw in her face, her eyes
Pain, anger, sadness
She told me,

Europeans are candidates for hell.
Heaven is for non-Europeans
She reached for my hand, and squeezed it
As we walked past
the sign that read
‘Europeans only’
178 No. 4 / MAY 2021

j.c. govender
nineteen fifty-six 1956
It is 1956
The atmosphere is electric.
Fists strike the air, the government is frantic.
There congregated,
Our mothers and sisters
Refusing injustice,
demanding dignity and equality.
In thundering unison they shout
“You strike a woman,
You strike a rock”

CHRISTIAN NOAKES
180 No. 4 / MAY 2021

PANTHER AND THE PLOUGH

CHRISTIAN NOAKES
182 No. 4 / MAY 2021

INLA FREEDOM FIGHTERS

SINDYAN
Little Fatima Meer
184 No. 4 / MAY 2021

SINDYAN
Nineteen Fifty-Six

JOHN HOEL
WIT
H
MAUVE
SKY
E MB E
John Hoel
RS
Ladybugs immolate
in the forest fire
frantic and ricocheted.
Devastated nature
almost empty, all awash
in death or panicked flight
to safety. Limbs of language
hard to define; nobody
had to write about so many
trees caught in so much flame
before now. Silkworm moths
bright coals to the air. The chaste
of the world before poisons
that defoliate and deforest.
Agent Orange comes to Brazil.
The cleansing smoke carried up
through the clouds to rest.
Now we are bereft from
the heat on the killing floor.
186 No. 4 / MAY 2021

JOHN HOEL
grolar bear
John Hoel
There is an animal approaching

dragging her paws. She carries
her emaciated frame like a child.
Her movements never accidental,
they heave in a breathless way,
a way that I do not understand,
(but I do want to understand.)
She is fading into the woods now.
Meanwhile I am lacquering mouseholes
on the porch, it is five in the morning
and the morning sun is not welcoming.
Sprinklers spring to life and spray water
on my sunk face. I wince at the sun
and dry myself. When I close my eyes,
I see the sun through the lids.
It is so humid already,
another hottest summer
of hottest summers.
This weather has me wanting
to care more intentionally, like
the animal teetering on the filament.
Well, hold a fist to punch through
the embers of light—that is what
they say to do, isn’t it? Direct action.
I sink my teeth into the skin of the
ripest fruit I have tasted all summer
and its juices run down the corners
of my mouth and chin, and down to
the hot pavement below. I take my time
walking to the bus stop. The routine
is comforting and boring. At the end
of the day, the bus home is the same,
and I will always find myself there,
on the bus, sipping lemonade from
Styrofoam, unnoticed except when
without bus fare. I find myself
here again, inspecting the mouseholes.
I see the recycling bin hurled and broken,
bits of blue plastic and cardboard
strewn. I don’t pick anything up. I walk inside.

JOHN HOEL
whaleteeth
John Hoel
Morning doesn't come

your form void of all
nutrients it will be here
shrunken and hard
to the touch
but with no life force
it yields nothing
in the shell
of the shell of what it means
to be human you are limp
moments of severe weakness
withdrawal from exterior life
the steady ground beneath it
be absent remain without
porous entry sedentary place
for the people in your life
with enough love to knife you.
how they remove your mouth fluids
to string you around their beady necks.
188 No. 4 / MAY 2021

KEVIN GREENE
Kevin Greene
En révolution:
a poem in one (1) hour
There was always something about
revolution that inspired me.
Its possibility, the
dream of
what’s
to come,
as well as the
impossibility and the
nightmare of what could or couldn’t follow.
Thousands march in the streets to the aural backdrop of La Marseillaise. Sometimes in Paris. Sometimes
elsewhere. Always of the People. The People. We the People.
Always the revolutionary justification to take from the some and give to
the others.
Never getting old—always something
new. Taxes, despotism, warmongering, intolerance. Security. Tolerance, peacemongering,
decentralization, undergovernmenting. A limited number of the causes and effects of revolution. Moving
things around, breaking them down, building them up, leaving things as they are.
All those people in the street manifest of the will of that inveterate
goo
sloshing around beneath, above, within, and about that is the strangely vapid collective human
consciousness. From time to time, as it boils and shifts, it
erupts,
and one sees while walking through the streets blood boiling variously while heads of States
rrrrrrrrrrrollllllllllll about
to the cheer and shout of those still
headed, headed where, headed where,
headed where they nor anybody knew in what is evidently the constant grinding gears of history, as they
say, perpetuating a work-in-progress
but on those streets in the Sun glaring gloriously glistens the moistened brow of those, seated and
unseated, moving and shaking the ground of
cobbled stones
pavement
concrete

KEVIN GREENE
forest floor et
cetera
But, the Fellowship of Men shall endure, however many tribulations it may have to wear
through.
So there you have it.
But now I wonder, Is Revolution just a habit? If not, what?
I’ve been reading a lot about habit lately (and also about revolution) and it seems we all agree: habits
matter. And they are engrained. But also they can be changed. And some might make the observation that
revolution is equal to breaking those bad habits, those habits of States which we find abhorrent, disrupting
the
cuehabitreward
cycle which riddles them with occasional efficiency and constant offensity. But now I wonder,
Is Revolution just a habit.
If not, what?
Injustice happens (everyday). People stand up to injustice (somedays). Things change (fewdays). Le Terroir
has become revolution's magnum opus, that measuring stick against which all future proceedings would be
viewed and would view themselves. But is this not the worst thing for what we call revolution? Would not
it be better for acts of revolution to be derived purely from their own contexts than an over-Romanticized
few years designed for a time and a place never repeated but oft sought. Because what I fear now is that
revolution has itself become a habit, a process with a
cue
(oppression),
habit
(taking to the streets),
and a reward
(?).
We revolt because we care. We revolt because we can. We revolt because thousands are glued to their TV
sets, watching the rich ridicule the poor as they beg on CNBC. We revolt because Black people are dying in
the street alarmingly often.
But what do we do?
We fall into the same old habits, is what we do. It is somewhat frustrating, no? Don’t get mad. Get eTrade,
how about? But in all seriousness, it is sometimes hard to think. There is something to be done though,
perhaps: Revolt against Revolution. Our holy worshipped mother.
190 No. 4 / MAY 2021

JOHN BROWN CHRISTIAN NOAKES

HENRY GOTTSCHLICH UNNAMED
192 No. 4 / MAY 2021

UNNAMED HENRY GOTTSCHLICH

J.
A.
C
O
R
T
E
Z
J.
A.
C
O
R
T
E
Z
CONNOR BLACKBURN
IRON LUNGS Connor Blackburn
Scorched trees atop the scolded scalp of Mother Nature point to those with
red thumbs and green wallets
canaries in the coalmines and minors in cages
stockings filled with soot, complete wish lists of tycoons.
Inhale of the worker…
Exhale of the rich
Silence of the hammers, then the marching stops.

Tongues cut from struggles exacerbate the violence of laboured breath.
Exhale of the rich
Automation without autonomy and enforced private property

Chain our wrists to conformity, attempts to sink our comradery
Exhale of the rich
When Prometheus handed us fire, he lit the wick of doomsday.

Strike the match and hold your breath.
198 No. 4 / MAY 2021

RED STARR

IAN MATCHETT JOHN BROWN LIVES
200 No. 4 / MAY 2021

TWILIGHT IAN MATCHETT

ZAYNE CHRYSANTHEMUM
Visiting the
Payday Loan $
Place $
Zayne Chrysanthemum
Rage stings my nostrils

Like AA coffee acid reflux
The styrofoam cup suffocating in my grip
Landlord wants his pound of flesh

And the cash store is the great flesh monger
Know damn well i'll choke on this interest
Like my father on a five dollar whore
I am the digambara, the Catherine of Siena

Fasting on nothing but slices of bologna
Praying a rich old man comes and wraps a foreskin of gold
On this trembling finger.
A choir of heavenly angels
Pulling out the landlord's stinger.
202 No. 4 / MAY 2021

SOL CLARKE
l C l a r k e
S o
e aponis
W e d Water
One day it occurred to me Exalting the billions

The world is a murder scene Ending Capitalism
And I can’t let inertia be Defending Socialism
Another source of adversity Then bring Communism
As death stalks the skylines Address the homeless

Vignettes soar through my mind And bless the faithless
Impossible and awkward Embrace the hopeless
As I try to fight a thought for Land, bread, and no fuzz
Every life caught up Ignore the provokers
In the web of lies brought up Jokers poking us
For borders to divorce us All to evoke in us
From thoughts of Inadequacy masquerading as apathy
Marauders and hoarders
Who’ve weaponised water Apathetic by design
Against refugees fleeing Not apoplectic at the swine
Mechanised slaughter Ushering suffering
Vast networks of those with net worth
A high price on human rights Bury us in debt as they beget dearth
Incites a heist on the zeitgeist Worry us to death ‘til we regret birth
Before we wither Using any leverage they can get
Unite and consider So let’s protect Earth
Dissolving the prisons
Resolving our schisms C-I-A-O, fuck them and NATO
Halting emissions Serial killers in the imperial quiver

SOL CLARKE
Destroying entire cultures Awaiting deportation to a similar situation

For vampires and vultures Trapped in a cycle of unending devastation
Breezing through slaughter At the festering heart of Capital’s machination
Seizing oil, food, and water Ask yourselves how we reached this situation
With such visible hands Plunders labelled blunders, or interventionist
salvation
Yet individual strands
Another use of human rights as an excuse for fights
Of the grasping institutions
Providing opportunities to equip one or both sides
Fear no lasting retribution
Any long-term repercussions
It’s THERE IN LIES the truth
Aren’t a feature of discussions
To de-radicalize the youth
Every wilful decision
Make proof subjective
Awaits skilful revisions
And fake truth reflexive
Lies disseminated
So fuck live and let live
And discourse degraded
Let’s get collective
Until it’s hardly debated
Avoid being defeatist
How societies sustained on blood
Or remiss
Could ever be a force for good
We need bliss
And heed this
Killing with impunity
We’re gonna win
Granted immunity
Create our haven
By an international community
Negate the negation
Cultivated through cruelty
Replace civilisation
A threat to reality
In the fight of our lives
In its totality
For our rights
Without patience
We can’t ignore the way they treat the poor
Or that protesting it is against the law
Cisterns are stalling
Nor the people in camps
Crisp with a warning;
Whether arid or damp
Capitalists have gone all in
So many beautiful souls
Hard rain’s a-falling
Behind fences and walls
Don’t hold your breath!
Torn from their families
The waters will rise
And shorn of humanity
As the number of deaths
Subjected to every form of depravity
204 No. 4 / MAY 2021

BRIAN DOERING
wake of coup
c fall of bloc
belies
o engorged with the fats and oils

of consumption and myth
r core of mouths
b
e free to feast
trough r
brimmed with labor and blood
all turned to mammon i
a
stately wind a
n monied zephyr
banks n
d wildfire hunger
dividing spoils of toil
w
imperial
capital
d
i
owner
unseen but surely felt
o
in every dry well, in every broken back
n e
reckon
d for we say r
prevailing winds hold sway
so i
each of us must sanction that gust
in mind, in hand, in hardened labor n
for the doubt was in me, but never in we
to line a sight or clasp a hilt of saber
so that this gale will shift in our favor
g

IAN MATCHETT FIDEL
206 No. 4 / MAY 2021

LENIN IAN MATCHETT

NIKOLAI GARCIA
marigolds
Nikolai Garcia
“He’s there in case I want it all”

–Nirvava
“Marigold is just a dirty shade/of yellow”

–Amaud Jamaul Johnson
Mounds of marigolds lifted

from the trunk of a car. We tiptoe My father worked every day
around the dead, to my father’s of his life; worked hard—the lives
gravestone. A sibling, who didn’t help of five children depended on him.
pay for flowers, wants to leave He saved money where he could;
right away. But, my sister—dad’s only enough to build a house back in his
daughter—takes her time. She places one birth town in Mexico. His intentions
flower on his gravestone for every year to go back, buried with him.
that she’s lived without a father.
On the ride home, I look at all the flower
Walking around the cemetery, I meet shops along the way. I wonder
a man who tells me about his brother, if this is the life my father wanted
how he hated this country. But, he visited for me. I wonder if all we have
once, got sick, died—and is buried here. to look forward to are marigolds.
208 No. 4 / MAY 2021

NIKOLAI GARCIA
morning commute
Ni
ko
lai
Ga
rc
ia
I want to get off the sound of waiting

the train, escape and the stink
its daily hums of sweat from deadlines
and screeches. Being and unpaid bills. Unhoused
stuck in a tunnel people curl up to become
is not ideal. I want mounds of sleep and litter
to join outside, where while the rest of us
earth and sky meet try to remember we are
to create hills, and not ghosts. I want
rivers, and to breathe. I want
dogs that stay to wear a crown
at home and nap of flowers, drink hibiscus
all day. Inside water and meet the bees
the subway there’s before they disappear.

NIKOLAI GARCIA
Poetry is Subjective
Nikolai Garcia
We don’t plant We smile when

flowers on the page, newspapers gift us photos
or whisper words of police stations on fire.
unto empty streets. We We find poetics in the arm
discriminate. We of a young woman; her
like the poems gloved hand cradling,
where the landlords and hurling back,
collect their deaths. a tear-gas canister.
We don’t hesitate We write poems

to hurl these poems at the barricades,
at bank windows. We during lunch
kick-in the door, breaks. We hold
roll out the guillotine the open-mic atop
to the writer’s con- a burning cop car.
ference as metaphor We feed the flames
and direct action. with ink and gasoline.
210 No. 4 / MAY 2021

NOTHING TO LOSE SONYA THORBJORNSEN

IAN MATCHETT
212 No. 4 / MAY 2021

PKK

NATHANIEL RICKETTS
Song for Inherited Teeth

Nathaniel Ricketts
Our mythologies are in our mouths. In mine,

old-world famine, four walls for whole families,
stories nestled between cracked, crooked teeth.
The dentist reads me through a microscope

and asks about flossing. Look, my teeth
aren’t just mine. Whole histories hide in my mouth,
the one I inherited from my father and his mother

who testifies I’ll never lose my sight but I’ll pay
for my teeth, stained and crooked
like the family dentist who double-dipped

on our two union insurance plans,
history that rotted in my father’s mouth
and died in his throat. Now I have my own plastic card,

courtesy of the university. I’ve quit the candy and Coke
to keep at least a few crooked teeth,
so when the new dentist asks about flossing again,

I’ll tell him yes, then wonder if he can read
the stories between these crooked teeth,
the genealogies I own in my mouth.
214 No. 4 / MAY 2021

NATHANIEL RICKETTS
My Father the Foreman

Nathaniel Ricketts
I knew him first as the apprentice whose wage

wasn’t much, so he drove home with buckets
of scrap from the jobsite in his rusted truck’s bed.
It was the union way. The journeymen
didn’t forget. Something to supplement
the new-truck fund. When I was at his hip
he taught me to strip wire, to grip a razor tight
and always cut away from the body.
We strip less wire now. He drives a hatchback
to work, gives the copper to kids with kids
at home. He says he orders more
than the company needs, that it’s easier
to cut wire than to extend it. Plus,
sons should learn to use a knife.

IAN MATCHETT
216 No. 4 / MAY 2021

SHOULDER TO SHOULDER

MICHAEL CULLEN
Lamentation of the
American Dream
Michael Cullen
Watch your tv, eat carcinogenic fast food

Work in the office with aircon and coffee
Enjoy the illusion that they imbue
Into society that tells us we’re free.
The ‘comforts’ provided to keep us docile
Afforded to us by circumstance of birth
Passive consumers keep up with the style
Who gives a fuck if we’re destroying the earth?
Democracy keeps the façade afloat

But who do politicians really represent?
If it changed anything they wouldn’t allow us to vote
The media promotes the agenda to keep us subservient.
Taught how to do but not how to think,
Whitewashed history drilled in to the youth
The past is the past there is no link
Lies have become a universal truth.
A generation enslaved but not in chains

Enslaved to a market, an insidious ideology.
Enslaved by a wage, always chasing gains,
Do we truly believe we’re free?
Nature has been commodified,
218 No. 4 / MAY 2021

MICHAEL CULLEN
Our dreams and hopes washed on the tide,

Is it for the flag or the dollar that soldiers died?
And all the while the suits lied and lied.
Opulent glistening palaces of gold adorned the city's landscape,

Sky meeting towers of fluorescent glass windows watch the sheep race
But from the pot pandlers and sleeping bags beneath there is no escape
And the people pass by, head in the sky, rushing always, can’t look them in the face.
Judged on our clothes, cars, house, and our phone
Always chasing that elusive fulfilment
But with every new acquisition they begin to own
A piece of us, and not just money, but more time spent.
Dreams sold out for comforts and immediate pleasures,

A world of feigned smiles, soul destroyed forlorn 8am bus stop dwellers,
All bought into the dream of chasing false treasures
Beguiled and manipulated by TV fortune tellers.
‘Fake news’ has become the new truth
Information has never been more available yet never so ignored,
Money is the branch and greed is the route
And the earth's wealth and resources—the 1% hoard.
The disparity between rich and poor grows,

Prejudices played on to keep us disconnected
They don’t care of the common man's woes
Their apathy is an attitude to be expected.
For if the system works for the few, the few who have the power,
Why should we expect change to come from there?
When the time comes we shall not cower
The world can change but first to do, we must care.

M.S. EVANS
M.
S.
Be Like Che E
courageous, bold, V
fair.
A
Take risks; follow your heart.
Be moved.
N
Let only the worthy
S
walk beside you.
May you always have

good comrades.
Believe in your purpose.

Take action.
220 No. 4 / MAY 2021

M.S. EVANS
M.S. EVANS
Marx in the Snow

M.S. EVANS
222 No. 4 / MAY 2021

HEADFRAMES FROM COPPER STREET

HANNAH KASS
No. 4 / MAY 2021


A
IST
N
MU
IN
AN K, L
CO
CU D C ET
AN LT RI TE
AL UR TIC RS
A
YS AL AL ,
UR
IS
T
RA
TE
LIT
LITTERATURA COMUNISTA
Jackson Albert Mann
Nationalism, Populism,
and Internationalism in
the Lyrics of the Little
Red Songbook
(1909-1917)1
Joe Hill and the

Defense of Song
On February 20th, 1913, a short article entitled such as those invoked by Connell, had been
“The People” appeared in the pages of the In- used by U.S. politicians to deceive working
dustrial Worker, the main publication of the class citizens.3 After moving on to a humorous
Spokane, WA, local of the U.S.-based interna- anecdote meant to highlight how populist dis-
tional industrial labor union the Industrial course in mainstream politics almost always
Workers of the World (IWW). In a few brief refers to those of the middle class, the author
paragraphs, the author attacked the continued ends the article by stating “it is about time that
inclusion of James Connell’s British labor an- every rebel wakes up to the fact that ‘the people’
them “The Red Flag'' within the pages of the and the workingclass [sic] have nothing in com-
Little Red Songbook (LRS), the IWW’s flagship mon,” a play on the opening lines of the IWW’s
cultural initiative. The author cited the song’s famous preamble.4 5
opening line, “the people’s flag is deepest red,”
The author of this article was none other than
as grounds for its exclusion or possible rewrit-
Joe Hill, the most famous of whom labor orga-
ing.2 “Who are the people?” the author asks be-
nizer and historian Daniel Gross has called the
fore going on to demonstrate through a number
IWW’s “worker-scholar-poets”—members of
of comical examples how populist gestures,

JACKSON ALBERT MANN
Many of Hill’s songs the union who constantly switched between

roles as rank-and-file workers, organizers, the-
went a step further than orists, administrators, and artists.6 Hill, a
Swedish immigrant, was born on October 7th,
his contemporaries, 1879 as Joel Emmanuel Hägglund in the coastal
openly denouncing the town of Gälve, Sweden. By all accounts, he was
a talented musician from a young age. Both of
particularities of his parents had some musical training, teaching
him and his siblings to play organ “as soon as
religion, nationalism, they could reach the keys.”7 According to Ester
and racism in the U.S. Dahl, his only surviving sibling by the time
scholarly inquiry into his life began, Hill started
composing what she called “teasing songs” as a
child, as well as contrafacta of popular Swedish
Salvation Army hymns.8 In an interview in
1956, Dahl recalled Hill beginning to compose
his own original music in his late teens, around
the mid-1890s.9 In 1902, he and his older
brother Paul immigrated to the United States.
They arrived in New York City, where Hill
worked part-time as a professional pianist and
janitor, before leaving to find better work else-
where.10
Like much of the U.S. working class in the early
20th century, Hill became a full-time migrant
laborer, taking whatever small jobs he could get
before moving on. By late 1905, he had arrived
on the West Coast.11 A short article that he pub-
lished in the Industrial Worker reveals that he
joined the IWW sometime in 1910.12 After
moving to San Pedro, California, he quickly be-
came a dedicated member of the local organiza-
tion as a rank-and-file longshore worker. He al-
so began to publish numerous articles, songs,
poems, and cartoons in the union’s national
multilingual press, mostly in the pages of the
Industrial Worker and the LRS. By 1913, Hill
had become the best known songwriter in the
IWW, as well as moderately famous within the
larger U.S. labor movement, as a result of his
witty contrafacta. Many of these lyrics were
written for specific organizing drives, labor ac-
tions, and strikes undertaken by the union. Af-
ter a decade on the West Coast, in January of
No. 4 / APRIL 2021

1914, Hill began to make his way back East with tion, an “examination of the language used in
the intention of settling in Chicago.13 newspapers, pamphlets, books and speeches of
the IWW, reveals ideas, concepts and theories
Hill’s 1913 article was not the last time he
(although not all tactics) that are almost indis-
would become involved in debates regarding
tinguishable from those espoused by European
the role of music and song in the IWW. On
union militants who described themselves as
November 19th, 1914, a few months after he
syndicalists.”16 The union was also internation-
was arrested and imprisioned in Utah as a sus-
al, officially dedicated to the construction of
pect in a Salt Lake City murder, an article of
“one big labor alliance the world over.”17 Al-
Hill’s was published in the IWW journal Soli-
though its institutional backbone always re-
darity, in which he defended the growing use of
mained in the United States, by 1911, the IWW
songs by the union as educational material. Af-
had small national chapters in Canada, the
ter mentioning a number of suggested correc-
United Kingdom, and Australia.18 It main-
tions to the LRS, Hill argued that “a pamphlet,
tained global affiliations with other syndicalist
no matter how good, is never read more than
labor unions, such as the Spanish Confederación
once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated
Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), and even briefly
over and over.”14 He continued, asserting that:
joined the Soviet Union-initiated Red Interna-
...if a person can put a few cold, common tional of Labor Unions (RILU) in the early
sense facts into a song, and dress them (the 1920s.19 20 While the IWW was never officially
facts) up in a cloak of humor to take the dry- anti-nationalist, the global revolutionary
ness off of them, he will succeed in reaching project the union was founded to support was,
a great number of workers who are too unin- by default, opposed to U.S. nationalism. The
telligent or too indifferent to read a pam-
phlet or an editorial on economic science.15
Why did Hill feel the need to voice his opinions
on the IWW’s use of song around this time? Al-
though he had been writing short articles for the
IWW press for over three years, he had never
felt the need to publicly defend his work before.
Revealing how these
In many ways, Hill’s songs were not particularly tensions played out within
different from other anglophone labor music. the cultural discourse of
The majority of his lyrics contained the typical
invocations of working class power, as well as the IWW is important,
the classic critiques of capitalism, bad working
conditions, low wages, and hypocritical em-
not only because it is
ployers. However, many of Hill’s songs went a historically interesting,
step further than his contemporaries, openly
denouncing the particularities of religion, na- but because it holds
tionalism, and racism in the U.S.
lessons for communist
Hill was not breaking with any official positions
of the union in making such direct critiques. Al- organizers engaged in
though no union leaders ever described the similar work today.
IWW as a revolutionary syndicalist organiza-

JACKSON ALBERT MANN
ideological orientation of Hill’s songs was well-

aligned with this project, and this may be why
The Development of the
his lyrics were particularly popular with the Little Red Songbook
membership. Yet, he still felt it necessary to de-
Although the IWW was founded in 1905, the
fend what he was doing.
union suffered a series of early setbacks which
Despite the ideological positions of the IWW, I postponed the construction of a functioning
believe that the particularly explicit anti-na- administration. Between 1905 and 1906, polit-
tionalist, anti-religious, and anti-racist ele- ical confrontations exploded between cliques
ments of Hill’s lyrics were disturbing to a num- jockeying for the power to affiliate the union
ber of fellow members, especially those who with competing socialist political parties,
had previous experience in earlier anglophone specifically Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor
left-wing politico-cultural movements. Simi- Party (SLP) and Eugene V. Debs’ Socialist Par-
larly to how Benedict Anderson contends that ty of America (SPA). The “comic opera circum-
“official nationalism” over-determined the stances of the [1906] second convention,”
ways in which 20th century revolutionary anti- which included physical confrontations, politi-
colonial leaderships could imagine the post- cal intrigue, and even the arrest of IWW leaders
colonial future, I argue that earlier anglophone Bill Haywood and Charles Moyer, led the
left-wing working class discourses may have Western Federation of Miners (WFM), the
over-determined the parameters of acceptable union’s original institutional spine, to slowly
discourse within the cultural production of the back out of the IWW between 1907 and 1908.22
IWW.21 Though I have found no evidence of di-
Following this debacle, another year-long po-
rect attacks on Hill’s lyrics, there is evidence
litical confrontation took place when DeLeon,
that implicit critiques were made of his music
who, having politically survived the previous
by other IWW members in the union’s press, as
convention, attempted to affiliate the IWW to
well as further possible proof that continuing
his SLP in 1908. However, DeLeon was outma-
inclusion of Hill’s songs in the LRS initiated a
neuvered. A delegation of West Coast mem-
struggle for editorial control of the Songbook.
bers led by organizer J.H. Walsh formed a coali-
The work of developing an international work- tion with DeLeon’s former political ally, Vin-
ing class culture among a diverse population cent St. John. This coalition voted to oust
with a multiplicity of national, cultural, and DeLeon from the union’s leadership. With
ethnic loyalties is complex. In the early 20th DeLeon gone, there was very little incentive to
century U.S., this complexity was made even affiliate with any political party and one of the
more difficult by the presence of multiple in- IWW’s most famous principles, non-affiliation
surgent anglophone discourses derived from with political parties, was born as an accident of
the dominant national culture and which often this political maneuvering.
carried over the implicit white supremacist and
By the end of the 1908 convention, the IWW
nationalist sentiments of that culture, imped-
had fought through most of the major political
ing the work of building international, multi-
differences within its leadership and was ready
racial solidarity. Revealing how these tensions
to begin organizing. This included the rapid
played out within the cultural discourse of the
construction of an unprecedentedly large
IWW is important, not only because it is histor-
print-media infrastructure. The unparalleled
ically interesting, but because it holds lessons
size and scope of this project was not without
for communist organizers engaged in similar
purpose. Anticipating a later statement by Rus-
work today.
No. 4 / APRIL 2021

sian Revolutionary V.I. Lenin, Haywood ar-

gued in 1905 that the IWW’s primary goal was
Joe Hill, born Joel Emmanuel
to go “down into the gutter to get at the mass of Hägglund and also known as
workers,” referring to the tens of millions of im- Joseph Hillström, was
migrant and Black working class citizens that
had been ignored by the U.S. Government and executed on November 19th,
the American Federation of Labor craft 1915, most likely as a result
unions.23 24 A print-media infrastructure of ex-
traordinary size would be necessary to reach of his prominence in the
and educate the multicultural, multiethnic, IWW. Hill’s execution
multiracial, and, most importantly, multilin-
gual mass of U.S. workers. By the early 1910s, propelled him to national,
the union was publishing newspapers in at least and later international, fame
twelve languages.25
as the U.S. labor movement’s
Saying that the IWW encouraged member par-
ticipation in its publications is an understate-
most prominent martyr,
ment. Print-media was such an integral part of musician, and songwriter.
life in the union that when members were ar-
rested for striking, as they often were, it was
common for them to “set up their own circulat-
ing prison libraries [and] publish a handwritten
I.W.W. prison newspaper.”26
The IWW began publishing lyrics in its print-
media early on. Additionally, the practice of
selling “song cards,” small pocket-sized cards
on which were printed witty IWW-themed
contrafacta, had begun as early as 1908, when it
was suggested by J.H. Walsh as a promotional
and educational strategy.27 28 Walsh, who, dur-
ing the first years of the union had been charged
with establishing an IWW presence in Alaska,
was relocated to the rapidly growing Spokane
local as National Organizer. He arrived just af-
ter the end of the 1908 convention.29
Spokane was “the job-buying center for thou-
sands of migratory workers who labored in the
agricultural, mining, and lumber industries” of
the Pacific Northwest.30 The critical mass of mi-
grant workers attracted all sorts of shady opera-
tors, often called employment sharks, who
would prey on workers' desperation by promis-
ing non-existent jobs for a fee. One of the prima-
ry goals of the IWW in Spokane was to warn

JACKSON ALBERT MANN
“incoming workers of the treachery of the

sharks.”31 Soon after arriving, Walsh “orga-
nized a red-uniformed I.W.W. band to [...]
compete [with the Sharks] for the attention of
the crowds.”32 Combining two good ideas,
Walsh also began to sell song cards containing
contrafacta that the band performed around
the city.33 It was these song cards that “blazed
the trail for the larger songbook [the LRS] to
come, a songbook of lasting fame, and one that
would make the I.W.W. known in all corners of
the earth.”34
Inspired by Walsh’s project, the General Exec-
utive Board of the Spokane IWW voted to draft
plans for the publication of an official union
songbook, organizing a Songbook Committee
in December of 1908. The Committee, headed
by songwriter Richard Brazier, quickly com-
piled a set of songs with a focus on “local talent,”
developed a distinctive red graphic design, and
agreed on a print run of 10,000 copies.35 The
first edition of the LRS was published in Jan-
uary 1909 and “sold out in under a month.”36
The LRS went on to become one of the best-
selling pieces of IWW literature. For instance,
by “the mid-1910s, the usual [yearly] print-run
was 50,000 copies; by 1917 it was up to
100,000.”37
"Don’t sing ‘My Country, 'tis of thee,'

But sing this little chorus:
Should I ever be a soldier,
'Neath the Red Flag I would fight."
No. 4 / APRIL 2021

Populism, Nationalism, tion,

Strike for it now or your liberties die.41
Internationalism, and the
In the first example, ‘the people’ invoked by the
Struggle for the Little Red author are held down through illegal means, im-
Songbook plying that authority over the definition of le-
gality can be claimed by ‘the people’ as, in the
While Hill’s 1913 article focuses specifically on words of historian Eric Hobsbawn, a “right by
the first line of the first song included in the custom from time immemorial.”42 As will be
original LRS, he was most likely responding to demonstrated, Hill interprets workers’ notion
the first edition as a whole, which was dominat- of ‘legality’ as a progressive concept as naïveté.
ed by the songs of the aforementioned Richard According to Hill, the concept of legality is a
Brazier. Out of twenty-four songs, fifteen were tool to be used by capitalists to dominate the
composed by Brazier. His lyrical style is typical working class.
of anglophone labor songs, imploring the work-
ers to “unite, unite / in one union grand” in or- While the second set of lyrics are less trustwor-
der to “overthrow their masters’ might.”38 39 thy of ‘the people’s’ ability to claim any legal
rights, it invokes another concept that is later
However, Brazier and his fellow committee ridiculed by Hill: the nation. The chorus argues
members also included a number of anony- that the nation, implicitly made up of the peo-
mously composed lyrics, two of which invoke ple and their liberties, is in danger, but can be
‘the people.’ For example, “Walking on the saved through cooperative ownership. Accord-
Grass,” a contrafacta of the Irish ballad “The ing to this conception, the nation is not a tool of
Wearing of the Green,” begins with these lines: the ruling class, but a living body of citizens that
In this blessed land of freedom where King has been sickened by capitalist’s corrupt behav-
Mammon wears the crown ior. It can be rejuvenated, however, if the peo-
ple rid it of the traitor class.
There are many ways illegal now to hold the
people down40 A third song of interest in the first edition is
another anonymously authored contrafactum,
The second set of lyrics, titled “A Song for this one using the melody of “The Star Spangled
1910” contains this verse-chorus set: Banner” and titled “The Banner of Labor.” The
Long in their bondage the people have wait- song does not invoke ‘the people.’ However, it
ed. Lulled to inaction by pulpit and press; attempts to reclaim U.S. nationalism for ‘the
people’ by mobilizing one of its most potent
Hoping their wrongs would in time be abat-
musical representations:
ed, Trusting the ballot to give them redress,
Oh say, can you hear, coming near and
Vainly they trusted; a high court’s decision
more near
Swept the last bulwark of freedom away;
The voice of the people is met with derision, The call now resounding: “Come all ye
But a people in action no court will gainsay. who labor?”
Chorus: The Industrial Band, throughout all the
land
Then up with the masses and down with the
classes, Death to the traitor whom money Bids toilers remember, each toiler’s his
can buy. Co-operation’s the hope of the na- neighbor.

JACKSON ALBERT MANN
Come, workers, unite! ‘tis Humanity’s However, I agree with historian Kaitlyn Bylard,
fight; who asserts that the song is “less a parody of
‘The Star Spangled Banner’” than “a continua-
We call, you come forth in your manhood
tion of the martial and unifying sentiments of
and might.
the [original] song.”45 While “The Banner of
Chorus: Labor” lyrically beseeches workers to fight for
And the Banner of Labor will surely soon themselves and excoriates the evils of the capi-
wave talist parasites, it also invokes the progressive
revitalization of the nation musically by fram-
O’er the land that is free, from the master ing the laborers battle within a potent national
and slave musical expression.
The blood and the lives of children and Although all three of these songs were pub-
wives lished anonymously, there is a distinct possibil-
Are ground into dollars for parasites’ ity that they were authored by the Songbook
pleasure; Committee collectively. Why did Brazier and
his colleagues include such songs? The IWW,
The children now slave, till they sink in from the very beginning, was an explicitly inter-
their grave nationalist working-class organization and its
That robbers may fatten and add to their official positions were highly anti-populist. It
treasure. refused membership to anyone who owned
property and, in a conscious repudiation of
Will you idly sit by, unheeding their cry? common sense practice in early 20th century
Arise! Be ye men, see, the battle draws U.S. left-wing organizations, even denied ten-
nigh. ant farmers entry.46
Long, long has the spoil of labor and toil The most likely explanation for the highly pop-
ulist and progressive nationalist tone of the
Been wrung from the workers by parasite
LRS’ first edition is Brazier’s own background.
classes;
Born and raised in Birmingham, England, he
While Poverty, gaunt, Desolation and was deeply influenced by the Chartist hymns
Want still sung by workers’ choirs and street musi-
cians in the late-19th century.47 Although he
Have dwelt in the hovels of earth’s toiling
had immigrated to North America sometime in
masses.
the 1910s, Brazier’s lyrical style remained
Through bloodshed and tears, our day star rooted in the “spiritualized nationalism” of En-
appears, glish Chartism.48
Industrial Union, the wage slave now While Hill had already published a number of
cheers.43 songs in the IWW press, his first song to be fea-
In his notes to these lyrics in the IWW song an- tured in the LRS was in the Songbook’s fourth
thology, The Big Red Songbook, folklorist edition, published in July 1911. “The Preacher
Archie Green described “The Banner of Labor” and the Slave,” a contrafactum of the well-
as a “parody,” going on to say that “most IWW known gospel tune “Sweet Bye-and-Bye,” is
songwriters freely used gospel, national, or pa- one of Hill’s best known songs. Although earlier
triotic numbers as sources for caricatures.”44 editions of the LRS had begun to feature some
No. 4 / APRIL 2021

"Don't mourn. Organize."
lyrics that tepidly critiqued Christian institu- And Block he thinks he may
tions, “The Preacher and the Slave” goes a step
Be President someday52 53
further, castigating the hypocrisy of the “star-
vation army.”49 In fact, one verse goes so far as Exasperated by Block’s gullible nationalism,
to implicitly compare Jesus Christ with the no- Hill implores him to:
torious employment sharks: Tie a rock on your block and then jump in
Holy Rollers and jumpers come out, They the lake,
holler, they jump, and they shout Give your Kindly do that for Liberty’s sake54
money to Jesus they say, He will cure all dis-
eases today50 In “John Golden and the Lawrence Strike,” a
song written for the now-legendary 1912
Interestingly, in his 1969 monograph on Hill, IWW-led strike of textile workers in Lawrence,
Gibbs M. Smith discovered that this particular Massachusetts, Hill points out that the enemies
verse was deleted by subsequent LRS editors, of workers wear “stars and stripes” and are
though he was unable to ascertain why.51 May it “sent by Uncle Sam.”55
have been that this comparison went a step too
far for the Spokane Songbook Committee? Finally, in his anti-war ballad “Should I Ever Be
a Soldier,” Hill literally absolves IWW mem-
Within the next year, however, Hill’s populari- bers of their loyalty to the United States, invok-
ty as a songwriter exploded. Out of the seven- ing a counter-loyalty to the red flag as a symbol
teen songs added to the next two editions of the of socialist internationalism:
LRS, published in July 1912 and March 1913
respectively, thirteen were authored by Hill. Don’t sing ‘My Country, ‘tis of thee,’
These lyrics contained some of Hill’s most But sing this little chorus:
scathing attacks on U.S. nationalism. In “Mr.
Block,” the title character’s nationalism is sar- Should I ever be a soldier,
castically equated with ignorance and naïveté: ‘Neath the Red Flag I would fight.56
Please give me your attention, I’ll intro- Importantly, it is within the period between
duce to you 1911 and 1913, just after Hill’s lyrics began to
A man who is a credit to ‘Our Red, White, dominate the pages of what had become the
and Blue,’ IWW’s most important cultural initiative, that
concerns regarding the LRS began to emerge
His head is made of lumber, and solid as a within the union’s press. For instance, in Jan-
rock; uary of 1912, an article written by F.W. Horn
He is a common worker and his name is appeared in Solidarity “belittling the growing
Mr. Block. acceptance of songs in I.W.W. organizational

JACKSON ALBERT MANN
"My body? Oh, if I could work,” to which another member, Fred Isler,
replied in the following issue with a passionate
choose defense of the promotional and educational
function of the songs.57 58 Another article ap-
I would to ashes it reduce peared in the same publication two years later
defending the LRS from those who believed it
And let the merry breezes to be “irreverent, coarse, and crude.”59
blow Additionally, editorial control of the LRS itself
became an issue of contention. At the 1913
My dust to where some General Convention, delegate Walker C.
Smith, a ‘decentralizer’ in the growing political
flowers grow." split around the level of executive power held
by the Chicago headquarters, had forced a “ref-
erendum vote to take away [control of] those
songbooks from the Spokane locals.”60 Editori-
al control of the LRS was successfully removed
from Spokane and given to the Cleveland, Ohio
branch, which published three editions before
the Chicago headquarters took control of the
Songbook in 1917.
Were the power struggles around control of the
LRS related to the recent debates on the value
of the songs contained within? Another possi-
bility is that it was merely an outgrowth of the
general popularity of the Songbook, which led
competing delegations to attempt to mobilize
its wide appeal for their own particular political
goals. However, it is interesting to note that in
the first edition published by the Cleveland
branch, which included ten new sets of lyrics,
Hill’s songs are entirely absent.61 It was only af-
ter Hill was arrested and imprisoned on suspi-
cion of murder in Salt Lake City that his songs
reappeared in a Joe Hill Legal Defense Fund
edition, and then after his conviction and exe-
cution on famously circumstancial evidence, in
a Joe Hill Memorial Edition of March 1916.
Other IWW members who were active in the
union’s print-media held very different views
from both the union leadership and Hill. For
instance, Covington Hall, a longtime IWW or-
ganizer who also wrote a wealth of original po-
etry and song for the union, was dedicated to a
No. 4 / APRIL 2021

particular “brand of [progressive] Southern na-

tionalism” heavily influenced by the ideology
A Premature Conclusion
and strategy of the U.S. Populist Party.62 Hall Despite interventions by President Woodrow
was the descendent of a minor Southern Planta- Wilson and the Swedish embassy in Washing-
tion family of Mississippi. However, in the ton, D.C., Joe Hill was executed for the murder
wake of the Civil War, the family fell on hard of Salt Lake City grocer and former police offi-
times and, by 1891, they had lost everything. cer John G. Morrison on November 19th, 1915.
Hall experienced rapid downward mobility and Because his conviction was based entirely on
within a year was a fully proletarianized dock circumstantial evidence, many believed that
worker in New Orleans. Hill, whether innocent or guilty, was probably
executed as a result of his prominence in the
As an active supporter of the Populist Party in
IWW. Hill’s execution propelled him to na-
the 1890s, he witnessed the rise and collapse of
tional, and later international, fame as the U.S.
radical left-wing populist leader William Lam-
labor movement’s most prominent martyr,
b’s struggle to build a multi-racial coalition be-
musician, and songwriter. However, it most
tween Southern farmers and “the organized
likely ended a developing debate between
workers of the Knights of Labor.”63 Despite the
IWW members involved in the union’s print-
implosion of the Populist Party in 1896, Hall
media on the use of song in union activities and
continued to cling to the notion that a multira-
how these songs represented union ideology.
cial farmer-labor coalition was necessary for
Importantly, this debate may have been a proxy
the success of any radical left-wing political
for a larger dispute regarding IWW ideology it-
project in the U.S. To no avail, he continued to
self, specifically with regard to issues of U.S. na-
implore the IWW to organize Southern “small
tionalism, populism, and working-class inter-
farmers as well as tenant cultivators” until his
nationalism.
death in 1951.64
However, it was not only Hill’s execution that
Interestingly, the first edition of the LRS pub-
ended these intra-organizational debates. An
lished by the Cleveland branch included a con-
intense campaign of repression aimed at labor
trafacta of the Confederate anthem “Dixie,”
organizing within both urban immigrant com-
entreating Southern workers to “live and die for
munities and migrant worker circles was initi-
Dixie” by organizing against “the boss.”65
ated by the U.S. Government in 1917. At the
While there is no explicit attempt to invoke
center of these attacks was the IWW, which was
multi-racial unity, the lyrics do imply that white
forced into virtual non-existence. On Septem-
and Black Southerners share a common exis-
ber 5th, 1917, the Department of Justice
tence in which both “work away, day by day,
“staged simultaneous raids on forty-eight
nary pay” in “Dixie land.”66 Rather than repudi-
IWW local halls across the entire nation, seiz-
ating Dixie itself, the song states that the South-
ing five tons of... documents” and destroying
ern nation can be restored along more egalitari-
most of the union’s records in the process.68 69
an lines if ‘the boss’ is forced out from the com-
Over one-hundred IWW leaders, including Bill
munity.67 Just as Brazier’s lyrical style had been
Haywood, Vincent St. John, Ben Fletcher, and
deeply shaped, and even possibly confined, by
Ralph Chaplin, were charged and convicted of
the nationalist discourse of English Chartism,
“sabotage and conspiracy to obstruct [U.S. in-
so was the style of Hall and others constricted
volvement in] the [First World] War.”70 Al-
by the discourses of earlier left-wing nationalist
though the union was able to survive this peri-
political projects in the United States.
od, rebuilding in the early-1920s, the repres-

JACKSON ALBERT MANN
sion broke the continuity of its print-media 2. Archie Green, The Big Red Songbook, ed. By
and, as a result, the development of these de- Archie Green, David Roediger, Franklin Rose-
bates. mont, and Salvatore Salerno (Chicago, IL:
Charles H. Kerr Publishing, 2007), 38.
The IWW was a revolutionary organization of-
ficially committed to building an international 3. Joe Hill, The Letters of Joe Hill, ed. By Philip
working-class alliance. However, in its day-to- S. Foner (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books,
day organizing the union confronted the messy 2015), 80.
multiplicity of cultural, ethnic, and national
4. Ibid.
loyalties of the United States’ diverse working
population. As we have seen, these tensions 5. The preamble, first promulgated in 1905,
emerged within the debates around the LRS states that “the working class and the employ-
and the widespread use of songs in the union’s ing class have nothing in common.” The pream-
educational work. In fact, it was the anglophone ble was amended and updated in 1908 but the
left-wing discourses of Populism and Chartism opening line remained the same. Both versions
that seemingly determined the cultural param- can be found in: Joyce Kornbluh, Rebel Voices:
eters that were being both contested and de- An IWW Anthology (Oakland, CA: PM Press,
fended within the context of the union’s music. 2011), 12-13.
Developing a clearer picture of how the IWW 6. Daniel Gross, “Preface,” Rebel Voices: An
confronted these cultural parameters is not on- IWW Anthology, ed. by Joyce Kornbluh (Oak-
ly important from a purely historical perspec- land, CA: PM Press, 2011), x.
tive, but as an example for communist organiz-
ers confronting similar situations today. 7. Franklin Rosemont, Joe Hill: The IWW &
The Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass
Counterculture, (Oakland, CA: PM Press,
2015), 50.
8. Ibid., 50-51.
Endnotes
9. Ibid., 48.
1. The following article is not meant as an attack
on the Industrial Workers of the World 10. Ibid., 45.
(IWW), but rather an explication of the difficul- 11. Hill, The Letters of Joe Hill, 73-75.
ties in constructing an international working
class culture. As the only historical example of a 12. Rosemont, 46.
“genuinely proletarian... mass labor organiza- 13. Rosemont, 103.
tion” in the United States, the IWW is one of
the best examples of the struggle to develop in- 14. Hill, 11.
ternational working class consciousness for 15. Ibid.
U.S. communists. Additionally, the author
16. Ralph Darlington, Syndicalism and the
hopes that in the coming years archival re-
Transition to Communism: An International
search will lead to a more developed argument
Comparative Analysis (Hampshire, UK: Ash-
built on the initial evidence presented herein.
gate Publishing Limited, 2008), 6.
See: J. Sakai, Settlers: The Mythology of the White
Proletariat From Mayflower to Modern (Oak- 17. Thomas Hagerty, “Father Hagerty’s
land, CA: PM Press, 2014), 154. ‘Wheel of Fortune’: The Structure of the Indus-
trial System,” in Rebel Voices: An IWW Antholo-
No. 4 / APRIL 2021

gy, ed. by Joyce Kornbluh (Oakland, CA: PM 35. Ibid., 100.

Press, 2011), 11.
36. Ibid.
18. Patrick Renshaw, The Wobblies: The Story of
37. Rosemont, 481.
the IWW and Syndicalism in the United States
(Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee Publisher, 1999), 38. Brazier, “If You Workers Would Only
222-232. Unite,” The Big Red Songbook, ed. by Archie
Green, David Roediger, Franklin Rosemont,
19. Rosemont, 26.
and Salvatore Salerno (Chicago, IL: Charles H.
20. Renshaw, 199. Kerr Publishing, 2007), 40.
21. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communi- 39. Brazier, “Workingmen, Do You Hear?,”
ties, (London, UK: Verso Books, 2006), The Big Red Songbook, 43.
155-162.
40. The Big Red Songbook, 41.
22. Renshaw, 61.
41. The Big Red Songbook, 46-47.
23. The 1916 statement by Lenin is “and there-
42. Eric Hobsbawm, “Introduction: Inventing
fore it is our duty, if we wish to remain socialists,
Traditions,” The Invention of Tradition, ed. by
to go down lower and deeper, to the real mass-
Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cam-
es.” From: V.I. Lenin, “Imperialism and the
bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
Split in Socialism,” in Lenin’s Collected Works
1992), 2.
(Moscow, RS: Progress Press, 1964), 105-120.
24. Rosemont, 7.
25. Gibbs M. Smith, Joe Hill, (Salt Lake City,
UT: Peregrine Smith Books, 1984), 8-9. 45. Kaitlyn Bylard, “‘We Will Sing One Song’:
American Fears, Revolution, and Solidarity in
26. Ibid., 9.
the Music of the Industrial Workers of the
27. Ibid., 19. World,” ExPostFacto 24 (2015), 89-90.
28. Walsh claimed that his delegation had sold 46. Rosemont, 219.
4,000 Spokane IWW-produced song cards to
47. Rosemont, 63.
interested workers during their trip to the dele-
gation, making a profit of $200. From: Smith, 48. Peter J. Gurney, “The Democratic Idiom:
19. Languages of Democracy in the Chartist Move-
ment,” The Journal of Modern History 86, no. 3
29. Richard Brazier, “The Story of the I.W.W.’s
(September, 2014), 593.
‘Little Red Songbook,’” Labor History 9, no. 1
(1968), 92. 49. The Salvation Army was often ridiculed by
IWW members. However, this was the first
30. Smith, 16.
time an attack was made on that organization
31. Smith, 17. within the pages of the LRS.
32. Ibid. 50. The Big Red Songbook, 99.
33. Ibid. 51. Smith, 21.
34. Brazier, 92. 52. The Big Red Songbook, 116.

JACKSON ALBERT MANN
53. The Mr. Block character was based on a 65. The Big Red Songbook, 151-152.
well-known IWW comic of the same name,
66. Ibid., 151.
penned by IWW member Ernst Riebe, which
detailed the adventures of a naively nationalis- 67. Ibid., 152.
tic migrant worker. Riebe’s cartoon debuted in 68. Renshaw, 174.
early 1912 and ran continuously until 1917,
when the union was the subject of intense re- 69. Rosemont, 46.
pression by the U.S. government, leading to a 70. Renshaw, 177.
temporary pause for most of the IWW’s opera-
tions. The cartoon reappeared in the
late-1910s and continued sporadically
throughout the 1920s. Though it is unlikely Works Cited
that the two met in person, Riebe and Hill often Brazier, Richard. “The Story of the I.W.W.’s
took influence from one another. For instance, ‘Little Red Songbook.’” Labor History 9, no. 1
Riebe published a comic in the January 1913 (1968): 91-105.
issue of the Industrial Worker based on Hill’s
song “Everybody’s Joining It.” See: Rosemont, Bylard, Kaitlyn. “‘We Will Sing One Song’:
185-187. American Fears, Revolution, and Solidarity in
the Music of the Industrial Workers of the
54. The Big Red Songbook, 117. World.” ExPostFacto 24 (2015): 82-103.
55. The Big Red Songbook, 110. Darlington, Ralph. Syndicalism and the Transi-
56. The Big Red Songbook, 111. tion to Communism: An International Compara-
tive Analysis. Hampshire, UK: Ashgate Publish-
57. Smith, 18. ing Limited, 2008.
58. “F.W.” is probably short for “Fellow Work- Goodwyn, Lawrence. The Populist Moment: A
er.” Members of the contemporary IWW con- Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America.
tinue to address one another in this manner. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1978.
59. Smith,18-19. Green, Archie; Roediger, David; Rosemont,
60. The Big Red Songbook, 16. Franklin; Salerno, Salvatore, eds. The Big Red
Songbook. Chicago, IL: Charles H. Kerr Pub-
61. Although no songs of Hill’s were included, a lishing, 2007.
short poem by Hill titled “Liberty Forever”
was. See: The Big Red Songbook, 148. Gurney, Peter J. “The Democratic Idiom: Lan-
guages of Democracy in the Chartist Move-
62. David R. Roediger, “Covington Hall: The ment.” The Journal of Modern History 86, no. 3
Poetry and Politics of Southern Nationalism (September, 2014): 566-602.
and Labour Radicalism,” History Workshop 19
(Spring, 1985), 162. Foner, Philip S., ed. The Letters of Joe Hill.
Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2015.
63. Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment:
A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in Ameri- Hobsbawm, Eric; Ranger, Terence. The Inven-
ca (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, tion of Tradition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
1978), 39. University Press, 1992.
64. Roediger, 163. Kornbluh, Joyce, ed. Rebel Voices: An IWW An-
thology. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2011.
No. 4 / APRIL 2021

Lenin, V.I. Lenin’s Collected Works. Moscow, "Perhaps some fading

RS: Progress Press, 1964.
flower then
Renshaw, Patrick. The Wobblies: The Story of
the IWW and Syndicalism in the United States. Would come to life and
Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee Publisher, 1999.
bloom again.
Roediger, David R. “Covington Hall: The Poet-
ry and Politics of Southern Nationalism and This is my Last and final
Labour Radicalism.” History Workshop 19
(Spring, 1985): 162-168. Will.
Rosemont, Franklin. Joe Hill: The IWW & The Good Luck to All of you."
Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Coun-
terculture. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2015. Joe Hill
Sakai, J. Settlers: The Mythology of the White
Proletariat From Mayflower to Modern. Oak-
land, CA: PM Press, 2014.
Smith, Gibbs M. Joe Hill. Salt Lake City, UT:
Peregrine Smith Books, 1984.

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giou s the s l Amer
e a
imiz e glob
e g r e
d
VAN BLEVINS
R e a l
Capitalist Realism
in Academia
c a
The scholarly acceptance of 'World
Englishes' within the Anglosphere is a
byproduct of capitalist-realist
ideology which works to oppress the
peoples and nations of the Global
South.
The age of globalisation has lectual influence and have questionably considered a
given rise to an unprecedented proven to shape a warped view form of imperialism.
"reinvigoration of Western of 'progress' that discludes the
While much of the work on the
imperialism,"1 proving it to be most exploited peoples from
subject of neoliberalism’s
one of the most trying times discussions concerning issues
complacency with capitalis-
for the development of na- that warrant sociological in-
m's seemingly never-ending
tions in the Global South quiry. These sociological in-
reach focuses on environmen-
which have been subject to a quiries can only be "correctly
tal and economic repercus-
relentless "creative destruc- solved by the application of a
sions, the social and cultural
tion" of their home cultures scientific theory of the work-
implications are often over-
through ruthless economic ing class,"4 that is, Karl Marx's
looked; moreover, "scholars in
and political repression spear- theory of historical-material-
cultural globalization general-
headed by the American war ism. It should be said that the
ly show a relatively modest in-
machine and its unremorseful broader history of English's
terest in language-related is-
capitalist agenda.2 Moreover, spread and propagation is ex-
sues," thus there exists very
the prevalence of neoliberal tremely complex and multi-
little literature specifically fo-
ideology in academia presents faceted with some instances
cussing on the link between
perspectives that often lead to that could be considered less
second language adoption and
"loss of control and political evasive, but here there will be a
its impact on individual soci-
agency"3 for those outside of primary focus on modern con-
eties.5 In an act of resistance
the realm of political or intel- texts where it can almost un-
and preservation, many peo-
No. 4 / APRIL 2021

i s
l alism m
t
d of
i
e a
spr here
p
h e
i n d t lity w eir
a
be h rea for th d
u s h e d
f t he p imagin region ustifie
u c h o m this tain e r s j
b r i ng
e h i nd m em fro f a cer ean pow ing to istic
o r i c b to st ople o Europ c l aim -lingu ing
e r het seems the pe o how ury by d non to br e
Th
g l i sh en' to arly t h cent ustifie iming e n tir
En s 'giv simil
i h e 2 0t
h a v e j by cla ciding gain.
g l i sh rment, m in t icans e East y geno apital
En bette
n i a lis d Amer Middl neousl for c
own colo tion an in the simulta lations
i v i lisa rialism while popu
c impe ocracy
dem
ple the world over now "seek to protect national Literature Review
cultures, ethnic identities, indigenous peoples,
and local knowledge"6 from the expanding The Marxist perspective on issues regarding so-
sphere of western (American) influence. Lan- cio-historical development, such as language
guage spread that has been a result of this West- spread and the development of history, primar-
ern expansionism is of particular interest in the ily concerns itself with the material conditions
field of applied linguistics where a new term, from which they arise. The perspective of
World Englishes, has sought to normalize the 'World Englishes' is thus first problematic be-
spread of the cultural influence of western na- cause it attempts to divorce the English lan-
tions by normalizing and promoting it. This ne- guage from the material circumstances which
oliberal rationalisation of western imperialism led to its spread and in so doing attempts to
can only be described as a side effect of capitalist claim that it is 'neutral.'8 This approach has
realist ideology which has limited the general proven problematic as it spreads the "hegemon-
"capacity to imagine alternative futures" after ic and ideological influence" of English while si-
"more than two decades of neoliberal hegemo- multaneously claiming that English is divorced
ny."7 from cultural practices and can be adapted to

VAN BLEVINS
express any identity.9 The degree to which a nation has

same linguists who have once adopted globalisation has in
claimed that culture and lan- fact been frequently used as an
guage are intrinsically tied are indicator of 'societal
anglosphere
now claiming that this same progress,'14 pointing to the im-
rule doesn't apply to English, plied role it has in the late-cap-
or that English has spread so italist nation-state from the
far beyond its home continent perspective of the globalist. So
(s) by way of colonisation and then, it only follows that, from
the adoption of capitalism that this standpoint, the homo-
it no longer matters because geneity of a population’s profi-
Western culture now consti- ciency in world languages
tutes world culture.10 would also be a measure of this
progress. "Four percent of the
The spread of English and En-
world’s languages are spoken
glish media are "both vehicles
by 96% of the population,"15
of [Anglo-American] culture,
thus the adoption of these sec-
and contribut[ors] to the an-
ond languages in the 4% is a
glicization of global culture"11
natural goal of the capitalist-
and thus it is irresponsible to
globalist movement. If this is
separate English from its ori-
true, and we're treating all lan-
gins because it plays a pivotal
guages as equals, then why is it
role in forming (inter)national
that English has become the
character. The departure from
most sought after second
the classical understanding of
tongue of so many people?
relations between language
and culture posits the idea that The fact remains that the rate
our current understanding of at which a language is spread
circumstances in how world as a second language is primar-
languages interact is particu- ily driven by "the economic
larly hermetic. Globalists who strength of its speakers." In
take this perspective are ac- the case of Spanish for exam-
tively aiding in the destruc- ple, though being more widely
tion of cultural diversity, a nat- spoken, Spanish speakers
ural goal of capitalism, by jus- amount to "a fourth of what
tifying it through subversion English amounts to" in GDP
and deflecting to seemingly al- and thus Marx’s theory of his-
truistic intentions.12 torical-materialism once
again proves to be the driving
Although all evidence points
factor in socio-historical
to the fact that "globalization
change.16 In the minds of the
is, essentially, western [...] cul-
perpetrators and some recipi-
tural imperialism,"13 the influ-
ents of its spread, "English
ence of capitalist realism
provides access to power, in-
refers to this as a norm and
fluence and wealth" or in other
promotes it as progress; the
No. 4 / APRIL 2021

capitalosphere words, provides an ideological
access to a similarly imagined
international community.17
modities the "extension and in-

tensification [of markets] in-
volve[s] the expansion of new
This should naturally bring markets and products" con-
the question of 'why?' to the stantly in such a way that lan-
forefront of discussions on the guage learning has also be-
adoption of English as a lingua come a commodity to be sold,
franca but the hegemonic in- thus it can be reasoned that
fluence of Western culture English itself is a product and
seems so innate to our present the concept of 'World English-
condition that often it isn't es' can be considered a mar-
even considered. keting strategy.21
"[T]he use of English as a com- The rhetoric behind much of
modity, exported particularly the push behind the spread of
by the [nations of the Anglo- English seems to stem from
sphere]"18 has also taken on a this imagined reality where
capacity for meta-economic English is 'given' to the people
criticism as the use of English of a certain region for their
has been propagated heavily, own betterment, similarly to
especially directly following in how European powers justi-
the post-colonial period by the fied colonialism in the 20th
state-sponsored British century by claiming to bring
Council and United States In- civilisation22 and Americans
formation Service.19 Despite have justified non-linguistic
this, within liberal literature imperialism in the Middle
there is a "near total neglect of East by claiming to bring
the political economy of En- democracy23 while simultane-
glish(es) under conditions of ously genociding entire popu-
neoliberal global capitalism" lations for capital gain. The
due to the inability of these lib- globalist essentially manufac-
eral thinkers to be self re- flec- tures consent for non-native
tive in their theoretical analy- English speaking populations
sis of how English has spread.20 by claiming to be missionaries
The commodification of the of the English language and
English language directly re- thus disarming arguments
lates to the concept of these against the spread of English,
'World Englishes' as it demon- stripping them of agency. The
strates another capital gain spread of English functions as
that the nations who propa- "a bridgehead for Western in-
gate English are a benefactor terests, permitting the contin-
of. In addition, due to the cur- uation of marginalization and
rent state of late capitalism, exploitation" through justifi-
with an increasingly high de- cation that aids "U.S. corpo-
mand for informational com- rate and military dominance

o o k s
a g e s l umber
g u e n
y l a n
a t t h
5 0 as
o r it g th by 20
n
mi porti n l f
r e o f r e l l h a
g u a ge o re
u s
fut ource arth w cal la i n en m
h e s b e
l y , t
o m e o n E
c r i ti n e v er
n
Plai with s spoken tion of ts has
l e a k g es d op inguis
b ng u a he a l
l a d t i e d
of
0 1 7; an y appl
of 2 ogies b
l
ideo tant. describes as "extrinsic" motivation. This ex-
28
r
impo
trinsic motivation is characterized as instru-
mental, where English is only seen as a tool to
accomplish a goal, which in most cases can be
linked to the previously mentioned imagined
communities, and research on L2 English
speakers attitudes reflect that.29 30 In some cases
this is overwhelmingly so, with almost 90% of
english learners claiming to be learning English
worldwide and the neoliberal economy [that] primarily for its practical (capital) benefits.31
constitute[s] a new form of empire that consoli- This extrinsic motivation to learn English with
dates a single imperial language."24 This is not the combined lack of intrinsic motivation links
even mentioning economic factors that are ben- back to the pervasiveness of American capital-
eficial to the private capitalist, as the spread of ism due to cultural imperialism and the per-
English opens up smaller markets to the anglo- ceived notion that English is needed to compete
sphere and can drive down the cost of interna- in international terms. By regarding English as a
tional production. The altruistic motives be- 'world language' it is implied to stratify the
hind EFL instruction seem to be a thinly veiled speakers' first language by reducing its status to
guise for pushing the increased influence of the only carrying local functionality and relegating
Anglo-American world into the perceived non- it to only personal spheres of life.
political space of education.
"The more widely this 'global English' spreads,
In discussing the similarities in neoliberal and the more likely it is to drive other languages to
colonial ideologies on the topic of language, it extinction"32 and with that knowledge in mind,
becomes important to also examine the agency the continued propagation of English becomes
and consent of populations affected by the a moral dilemma. There have been attempts
spread of English in the context of the ideolo- from proponents of 'World Englishes' to inte-
gies. Many influential texts exist that aim to grate speaker identity into ESL pedagogy by
train the reader in fostering a friendly attitude ESL instructors in order to promote a sense of
towards the English language among other peo- 'ownership' of the language,33 34 but this
ple, particularly students.25 26 27 This very fact method, in terms of broader sociological
indicates that communities have shown a resis- change, is cosmetic and does not address the
tance to adopt English as a second language or stratification of the speakers' native language
have only taken up english for what Elyildirim which is taking place. Moreover, in societies
No. 4 / APRIL 2021

g u a A N C a
i
l Fn R
pening by forming an argument around speaker
identity for its continued spread. The aversion
towards adoption of a critical Marxist view-
point on this topic may very well be that within
the capitalist-realist neoliberal framework,
where the native tongue holds little value to its "unwelcome theoretical ideas may be discount-
respective society, "language learning and use is ed simply on account of being un welcome theo-
often subtractive: proficiency in the imperial retical ideas."38
language and in learning it in education involves
its consolidation at the expense of other lan-
guages."35 Despite the claim that language
learning is typically additive, empirical evi-
dence concerning the constant death of lan-
Future Prospects
guages every day, at the hand of English in par- Plainly, the future of minority languages looks
ticular, points to the exact opposite conclu- bleak with some sources reporting that the
sion.36 number of languages spoken on Earth will half
by 2050 as of 201739 and the adoption of critical
The idea that English can be 'owned' by anyone
language ideologies by applied linguists has
only serves as an argument to spread it further in
never been more important. Unfortunately, as
this case, and while the general premise is per-
we have seen, the broader academic community
missible when it is isolated in a language class-
is not immune to the detrimental effects of capi-
room, it cannot be used to mitigate the histori-
talist ideology which have blurred the vision of
cal context in which the classroom itself exists
many scholars who see no end to the capital-mo-
—a context in which English is the dominant
tivated tyranny of western powers. The capital-
language of power and prestige. This underly-
ist system creates and recreates systems of op-
ing side effect of accepting English as a (or more
pression and exploitation in every facet of the
often 'the') world language and its variants can
societies that it plagues, even academia.40 Liber-
be attributed to the tendencies of ideologies be-
al ideology, which has had a monopoly on all
ing "largely covert, so that their nature and
realms of higher thought post-Cold War, has
function and the injustice they entail are often
dominated in order to justify systems of oppres-
unnoticed and uncontested."37 The mindset of
sion while simultaneously claiming to fight
capitalist realism can make sense of the English
against them.41 42 It doesn't help that the influ-
language hierarchy by positing that the adop-
ence of English has become "so strong that [aca-
tion of English into the identity of second lan-
demics] could not exercise their creativity in
guage learners will eliminate the existing dis-
their mother tongues" and be taken as serious
parity in power; but, in fact, it only normalizes
theorists that use English as their medium of ex-
stratification and ensures that it will keep hap-

VAN BLEVINS
pression43 Moreover, the liberal ideology of the Marxist theorist often credited as one of the
West actively discourages self-critical analysis original critical pedagogues, rightly said that
so that it can continue subverting its self-con- "every relationship of hegemony is necessarily a
tradicting narratives on democracy.44 The de- pedagogical relationship."51 Thus, the best
velopment of 'World Englishes' has become a thing we can do in order to work past capitalist-
prime example of this subversion; it is a poor realist ideology is to better educate ourselves so
excuse to continue propagating English as a tool that we might accurately raise our own con-
to further expand Anglo-American capital and sciousness for the betterment of those suffering
allow Western culture to permeate further into due to the current paradigms in place. Better
the norms of other peoples. education that enables "more complex dialecti-
cal perspectives [which] reject and neglect op-
While self-critical and scientific approaches to
pressive or false features of a position"52 is clear-
the spread of language such as the Marxist
ly the solution to dispelling problematic notions
method of analysis are not popular in the West
such as 'World Englishes.'
due to the reactionary tendency of liberals to
self-justify their own exploitation, we can only
hope that the material conditions will present
themselves in such a way that the existing Conclusion
paradigms regarding human rights, linguistic or While the world continues to become increas-
otherwise, will shift towards actual non-cos- ingly small, the ever expanding influence of the
metic progress. There should be no doubt that English world seems to only grow as missionar-
"the spread of the English language and English ies of capitalism and bourgeois democracy at-
language teaching (ELT) serves the interests of tempt to infiltrate every world market. Mean-
Anglo-American hegemony."45 There is cur- while, the normalization of capitalist imperial-
rently a dire need to develop a system of educa- ism has made the task of imagining a world with-
tion that considers "the importance of critique out it difficult to the point where this ideology of
of ideology and situating analysis of a topic like never-ending neoliberal exploitation has
education within the dominant social relations seeped into academic theories. Even those
and system of political economy"46 that is aimed paradigms that claim altruistic and mutually
around raising the class consciousness of the beneficial intentions, such as 'World Englishes,'
masses in order to develop non-reactionary sci- have the subverted intention to spread or main-
entific theories and solutions beyond the capi- tain the current hierarchy where the Anglo-
talist mode of production. American world dominates global affairs.
Current theories, including 'critical pedagogy,' 'World Englishes' are a cosmetic rebranding of
allow the capitalist system to reproduce itself linguistic imperialism and actively contribute
because rather than embracing the Marxist the- to this system of Western domination, as the
ories of class-conflict and historical material- language carries culture and influence with it.
ism on which critical pedagogy was founded,47 The agency of non-native English speakers is ac-
modern liberal educators have reduced the con- tively stripped away and their linguistic hu-
cept into performative activism48 49 or in some man rights are violated in the framework of this
cases have "varied definitions of critical peda- paradigm because it generates an argument
gogy which are both overlapping and contradic- against resistance to adopting English. The only
tory" due to liberalism’s tendency towards solution to combating harmful theories in our
holistic praxis that aren’t grounded in any form current neoliberal society is to educate our-
of theory.50 Antonio Gramsci, a linguist and
No. 4 / APRIL 2021

selves in critical theory in order to better see the 10. Pells, Richard. Modernist America: Art, Music,
subverted intentions of linguistic ideologies. Movies, and the Globalization of American Culture.
Let it be clear that although "it has become cus- 11. Hjarvard, Stig. Mediatization and Cultural and
tomary in defences of 'English as a Lingua Fran- Social Change: An Institutional Perspective. p.75
ca' that its detractors are accused of misinter-
12. Philipson, Robert. Globalizing English: Are Lin-
preting and misunderstanding 'English as a Lin- guistic Human Rights an Alternative to Linguistic
gua Franca'"53 there is no misunderstanding Imperialism?
here, only logical conclusions that anyone could
make with a truly critical analysis based on the 13. Boli, John. Contemporary Developments in
World Culture. p. 396
enduring science of Marxism-Leninism.
14. Iapadre, P. D. Statistics, Knowledge and Policy
2007: Measuring and Fostering the Progress of Soci-
Endnotes eties.
1. Jones, RJ Barry. Globalisation and Interdepen- 15. Crystal, David. Language Death. p. 19
dence in the International Political Economy: 16. Ammon, Ulrich. World Languages: Trends and
Rhetoric and Reality. p. 24. Futures. p.102
2. Cowen, Tyler. Creative Destruction: How Global- 17. Philipson, Robert. English Language Spread
ization is Changing the World's Cultures. p. 11. Policy. p.13
3. Fowler, Kris. Tessellating Dissensus: Resistance, 18. Schmitz, John Robert. English as a Lingua
Autonomy and Radical Democracy. p. 56 Franca: Applied Linguistics, Marxism, and Post-
4. Bukharin, Nikolai. Historical Materialism: A Marxist theory. para. 7
System of Sociology. p. x 19. Swales, John M. English as Tyrannosaurus Rex.
5. Kuppens, An H. Cultural Globalization and the 373-382.
Global Spread of English: From Separate Fields, 20. O’Regan, John P. On Anti-Intellectualism,
Similar Paradigms to a Transdisciplinary Approach. Cultism, and One-Sided Thinking. p.2
6. Boli, John. Contemporary Developments in World 21. Simpson, William. Producing the Eikaiwa En-
Culture. p. 397 glish Language Lesson: A Dialectical Approach to the
7. Boli, John. Contemporary Developments in World Contradictions of Commodity Production. p. 3
Culture. p. 110 22. Adas, Michael. Imperialist Rhetoric and Modern
8. Bailey, Richard W. Gorlach, Manfred, and Ann Historiography: The Case of Lower Burma Before
Arbor. English as a World Language. and After Conquest. 175-192.
9. Nieto, Guerrero. English as a Neutral Language 23. Philipson, Robert. English Language Spread
in the Colombian National Standards: Constituent of policy.
Dominance in English Language Education. p. 1 24. Hellinger, Marlis., Pauwels, Anne. Handbook of

VAN BLEVINS
Language and Communication: Diversity and 40. Marx, Karl. Capital: Critique of Political Econo-
Change. p. 495 my.
25. Benson, Malcom J. Attitudes and Motivation 41. Horton, John. Rawls, Public Reason and the
Towards English: A Survey of Japanese Freshmen. Limits of Liberal Justification.
26. Elyildirim, Selma., Ashton-Hay, Sally. Creat- 42. Schlag, Pierre. The Empty Circles of Liberal
ing Positive Attitudes Towards English as a Foreign Justification. 1-46.
Language.
43. Basu, Bijoy Lal. The Global Spread of English,
27. Fageeh, Abdulaziz Ibrahim. EFL Learners Use “Linguistic Imperialism”, and the “Politics” of En-
of Blogging for Developing Writing Skills and En- glish Language Teaching: A Reassessment of the Role
hancing Attitudes Towards English Learning: An of English in the World Today. p. 187
Exploratory Study.
44. Hill, Dave. Global Neo-Liberalism, the Defor-
28. Elyildirim, Selma., Ashton-Hay, Sally. Creat- mation of Education and Resistance.
ing Positive Attitudes Towards English as a Foreign
45. Corcoran, James. Linguistic Imperialism and
Language. p. 3.
the Political Economy of Global English Language
29. Al Muman, S. A. et al. Students Attitudes To- Teaching. p. 3
wards English: The Case of Life Science School of
46. Kellner, Douglas. Toward a Critical Theory of
Khulna University.
Education. p. 3
30. Elyildirim, Selma., Ashton-Hay, Sally. Creat-
47. Brookfield, Stephen. Putting the Critical Back
ing Positive Attitudes Towards English as a Foreign
into Critical Pedagogy: A Commentary on the Path
Language.
of Dissent.
31. Ahmed, Shameem. Attitudes Towards English
48. Fischman, Gustavo E., and McLaren, P. Re-
Language Learning among EFL Learners at UM-
thinking Critical Pedagogy and the Gramscian and
SKAL.
Freirean Legacies: From Organic to Committed In-
32. Mufwene, Salikoko S. Globalization, Global tellectuals or Critical Pedagogy, Commitment, and
English, and World English(es): Myths and Facts. p. Praxis.
31.
33. Norton, Bonny. Language, Identity, and the Education.
Ownership of English. p.409-429.
50. Breuing, Mary. Problematizing Critical Peda-
34. Saeki, Takuya. Exploring the Development of gogy. p. 3
Ownership of English through the Voice of Japanese
51. Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison
EIL Users.
Notebooks. p. 666.
35. Hellinger, Marlis, Pauwels, Anne. Handbook of
Language and Communication: Diversity and
Education. p. 3
Change. p. 499.
53. O’Regen, John P. On Anti-Intellectualism,
36. Crystal, David. Language Death.
Cultism, and One-Sided Thinking. p. 2.
37. Philipson, Robert. Globalizing English: Are
Linguistic Human Rights an Alternative to Linguis-
tic Imperialism? p. 104.
38. O’Regen, John P. On Anti-Intellectualism,
Cultism, and One-Sided Thinking. p. 1.
39. Crystal, David. Language Death.
No. 4 / APRIL 2021

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Similar Paradigms to a Transdisciplinary Ap- Imperialism?" Language Science, 20(1), 1998.
proach." Globalizations, 10(2), 2013.
Saeki, Takuya. "Exploring the Development of
Marx, Karl., Capital: A Critique of Political Econo- Ownership of English through the Voice of
my. Chicago, IL: Charles H. Kerr & Company, Japanese EIL Users." Asian Englishes,, 17(1), 2015.
1915.
Schlag, Pierre. "The Empty Circles of Liberal Jus-
Mufwene, Salikoko S. Globalization, Global En- tification." Michigan Law Review, 96(1), 1997.
glish, and World English(es): Myths and Facts. The
Schmitz, John Robert. "English as a Lingua Fran-
Handbook of Language and Globalization, 29-55,
ca:: Applied Linguistics, Marxism, and Post-Marx-
2010.
ist Theory." Revista Brasileira de Lingustica Aplica-
Nieto, C. H. "English as a Neutral Language in the da, 17(2), 2017.
Colombian National Standards: A Constituent of
Simpson, William. "Producing the Eikaiwa En-
Dominance in English Language Education." Pro-
glish Language Lesson: A Dialectical Approach to
file, 11(2), 2009.
the Contradictions of Commodity Production."
Norton, Bonny. "Language, Identity, and the Journal of Sociolinguistics, 2020.
Ownership of English." TESOL Quarterly, 31(3),
Swales, John M. "English as Tyrannosaurus Rex."
1997.
World Englishes, 16(3), 1997.
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B O O K S
H
THINGS BEFORE
I
S
T
O
R
Y
&
M
A
T
E
R
I
A
L
I
S
M
THE HISTORY OF
THE SOVIET UNION'S
KUTV
Коммунистический университет трудящихся Востока
BY TALIA LUX
COMRADES ARMED
WITH
THE MIGHTY WEAPON OF
LENINISM
TALIA LUX
The task of the University of the Peoples of the East is

to make them into real revolutionaries, [...] capable
of carrying out the immediate tasks of the liberation
movement in the colonies and dependent countries
with all their heart and soul.
READING THE late American In 1921, the Comintern, created

communist Harry Haywood’s the KUTV. In Stalin’s speech to the
book, Black Bolshevik, readers KUTV class of 1925, he laid out
are given a glimpse into Hay- exactly what he wanted colo-
wood’s time at the Soviet Union’s nized peoples to gain from the ed-
Communist University of the Toil- ucation, “The task of the Universi-
ers of the East (KUTV). What ex- ty of the Peoples of the East is to
actly was taught at the KUTV? make them into real revolutionar-
Who were its students? What was ies, armed with the theory of
the Communist International Leninism, equipped with practical
(Comintern) hoping to achieve by experience of Leninism, and capa-
creating this university? This pable of carrying out the immediate
per provides a brief overview of tasks of the liberation movement
the history of the KUTV. In this in the colonies and dependent
piece, I will outline the history of countries with all their heart and
the KUTV and its lasting impacts soul.”1 Two years later, Stalin
on the communist world. made another speech to the uni-
258 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
versity’s students. He reiterated

the importance of Leninism, stat-
The Soviet
ing that students should be
“armed with the mighty weapon
of Leninism” and, when graduat-
ed, would “devote all their ener-
gies and knowledge to the cause
of emancipating the toiling peo-
ple of the East from imperialist op-
East
pression.”2
Ranging from China to the US,
and as far abroad as Palestine,
the university accepted op- aim of creating cadres capable of
pressed peoples from all over the serving the needs of the Soviet re-
world.3 Stalin spoke to what the publics of the East, and the other
definition of “East” was and who line having the aim of creating
the KUTV accepted: “The first cadres capable of serving the rev-
group consists of people who olutionary requirements of the
have come here from the Soviet toiling masses in the colonial and
East, from countries where the dependent countries of the East.”5
rule of the bourgeoisie no longer
Stalin went on to explain the spe-
exists, where imperialist oppres-
cific goals for each cadre, speak-
sion has been overthrown, and
ing directly to the unique condi-
where the workers are in power.
tions of demography and geogra-
The second group of students con-
phy. For the KUTV’s Soviet East
sists of people who have come
cadre, Stalin listed five overarch-
here from colonial and dependent
ing goals. He wanted students to:
countries, from countries where
capitalism still reigns, where impe- 1. “Create industrial centers in the
rialist oppression is still in full Soviet republics of the East to
force, and where independence serve as bases for rallying the
has still to be won by driving out peasants around the working
the imperialists.”4 class.
Further expanding on the impor- 2. Raise the level of agriculture.
tance of separating the KUTV’s 3. Start and further promote the
students into two groups, Stalin organization of co-operatives.
stated that, “one line having the
4. Bring the Soviets closer to the

TALIA LUX
Ultimately, the overall goal of

bringing these student groups to-
gether was to create a “proletari-
an culture” that informed each
group's “national culture” and, ul-
timately, to foster international
solidarity.8
The KUTV’s first-year class repre-
sented over 60 different ethnic
groups, and included both male
and female party members.9 To
be admitted, students were re-
quired to be between the ages of
masses. 18 and 32 and to have organized
with a communist party for at least
5. Develop national culture.”6 2 years.10 Throughout the years,
For the KUTV’s colonized cadre, some of the admission standards
Stalin’s five goals for them were: would change, but involvement
with a party remained a key prior-
1. "To win the best elements of the ity. For example, a 1932 letter to
working class to the side of com- the Communist Party of the United
munism and to create indepen- States of America (CPUSA) laid
dent Communist Parties. out even stricter guidelines for
2. To form a national-revolution- those members coming from impe-
ary bloc of the workers, peasants rialist nations: “Candidates must
and revolutionary intelligentsia be selected from the most valu-
against the bloc of the compromis- able, staunch and mature ele-
ing national bourgeoisie and im- ments of the party and the work-
perialism. ing class [...] All selected com-
rades must be of good health such
3. To ensure the hegemony of the
as would enable them to sustain a
proletariat in that bloc.
lengthy period of intellectual
4. To fight to free the urban and study in the climatic conditions of
rural petty bourgeoisie from the Moscow [...] Candidates must be
influence of the compromising na- fully literate either in their native
tional bourgeoisie. or in one of the European lan-
5. To ensure that the liberation guages and should know arith-
movement is linked with the prole- metic at the level of whole num-
tarian movement in the advanced bers.”11
countries.”7
260 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
In 1924, while at the KUTV, Ho Chi Minh wrote that, “the

Russian Revolution is not satisfied with making fine platonic
speeches and drafting 'humanitarian' resolutions in favor of
oppressed peoples, but it teaches them to struggle, and
helps them materially and morally, as proclaimed by Lenin in
his theses on the colonial question."
to meet international comrades,

but they also learned practical as-
pects of communist theory. In
Black Bolshevik, Harry Haywood
described his time at KUTV in
great detail. Haywood wrote,
“We students studied the classic
works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and
Stalin. But unlike the past school-
ing we had known, this whole
Throughout its short existence, the body of theory was related to
KUTV included many famous practice. Theory was not regard-
alums, such as Vietnamese lead- ed as dogma, but as a guide to
er, Ho Chi Minh; Chinese leader, action.”12 Haywood illustrated
Deng Xiaoping; American com- this by noting that, “We used to
munist and author of Black Bolshe- attend workers' cultural clubs and
vik, Harry Haywood; leader of do volunteer work, like working
the Mau Mau uprising and first Saturdays to help build the
President of Kenya, Jomo Kenyat- Moscow subways. Education for
ta; and founder of the Communist us was not an ivory tower, but a
Party of the Philippines, Crisanto true integration into the Soviet so-
Evangelista. If the purpose of the ciety, where we received first-
KUTV was the training of future hand knowledge from our experi-
communist leaders, it can, in retro- ences.”13 Echoing Haywood’s
spect, be generally regarded as a sentiments, Ho Chi Minh wrote in
success. 1924, while at the KUTV, that,
“the Russian Revolution is not sat-
KUTV left a lasting impact on its
isfied with making fine platonic
students. Not only were they able

TALIA LUX
Examples of courses that were offered by the KUTV

included: Political Economy, Leninism, Work among
Women, Underground Work, Party Construction,
and Historical Materialism.
speeches and drafting 'humanitar- if students could attend the entire-

ian' resolutions in favor of op- ty of the university’s program, the
pressed peoples, but it teaches full course of study would be
them to struggle, and helps them about three years. The students’
materially and morally, as pro- time would include learning lan-
claimed by Lenin in his theses on guages, discussing theory, mili-
the colonial question."14 tary work, and interning in facto-
ries, in addition to free time to ex-
The KUTV effectively helped its
plore the country.16 Examples of
students learn how to take the the-
courses that were offered by the
ory they were learning and put it
KUTV included: Political Econo-
into practice by going out into the
my, Leninism, Work among Wom-
local communities and talking
en, Underground Work, Party
with the workers. One could ar-
Construction, and Historical Ma-
gue this was a precursor to the
terialism.17 Additionally, while at-
popular education pedagogy;
tending these classes, students
that is, according to Walter Rod-
could participate and work in its
ney, a “method of teaching that is
research department and write
overtly political and rooted in the
for their own research journal enti-
struggles of ordinary people in-
tled, Revolutionary East.18 While
tent on bringing about social
Revolutionary East has not yet
change.”15
been translated into English, some
The KUTV’s educational courses important articles published in its
were highly structured and the stu- pages were: “Land Reform in Cen-
dents’ itineraries were thoroughly tral Asia,” by E. Zel’kina,19 “From
planned out for the year. Ideally, the Experience of the Syrian Up-
262 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
KUTV’s legacy lives on in Vietnam

today.
With this brief historical overview
of the KUTV, it is the concluding
hope of this article that, as commu-
nists, we might continue this dis-
cussion of the importance of both
the KUTV and communist educa-
tion more generally. There exists,
to date, no study or book released
in the English language about the
rising,” by Palestine Communist students of the KUTV, the general
Party member, Elie Teper,20 and impacts of the university, or the
“The Development of National changes KUTV students made in
Scripts Among the Eastern Peo- the world after attending the uni-
ples of the Soviet Union and the versity.
Origin of Their National Alpha-
There exist, however, millions of
bets," by N. F. Yakovlev.21
untranslated documents in the So-
Due to an eventual restructuring viet Archives concerning the
of the Comintern’s multiple univer- KUTV and the other schools of the
sities, which included the Commu- Comintern—documents sorely in
nist University of the National Mi- need of translation.
norities of the West, the Interna-
The KUTV, in its brief span of exis-
tional Lenin School, and the Sun
tence, fulfilled its potential to unite
Yat-sen Communist University of
indigenous and colonized peo-
the Toilers of China, the Com-
ples, to build a truly international
intern voted to dissolve the univer-
socialist movement , and to assist
sity, and it was subsequently
in the fight against fascism, colo-
closed in 1938.22 Although they
nization, and imperialism.
might not have known it at the
time, the Soviet Union’s KUTV had The KUTV also reminds us that an
a meaningful and lasting impact organized educational and peda-
on its alums. Notably, Ho Chi gogical approach to communist
Minh led Vietnam’s successful political practice is essential in the
revolution, defending the country struggle to create a better and
against French, Japanese, and US more just world.
imperialism. Ho Chi Minh fulfilled
every goal that Stalin laid out for
the colonized cadre, and the

TALIA LUX
Sample Courses Endnotes

from the KUTV
1. Political Economy - 200 hours 1. Stalin, J.V. J.V. Stalin Works,

Volume 7. p. 153.
2. History of the All-Union
Comintern 230 - 240 hours 2. Stalin, J.V. J.V. Stalin Works,
Volume 9. pp. 319-320.
3. Leninism - 280 hours 3. Kirasirova, Masha. "The
“East” as a Category of
4. Historical Materialism - 120 Bolshevik Ideology and
hours Comintern Administration: The
Arab Section of the Communist
5. Party Construction - 330 hours University of the Toilers of the
East." p. 9.
6. Military Science - 120 hours
4. Stalin, J.V. J.V. Stalin Works,
7. Current Politics - 80 hours Volume 7. pp. 135-136.
8. English Language - 160 hours-
Volume 7. p. 136.
Volume 7. pp. 137-138.
Volume 7. p. 151.
Volume 7. p. 140.
9. McClellan, Woodford.
"Africans and Black Americans
in the Comintern Schools,
1925-1934." p. 374.
264 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
Endnotes
10. Filatova, Irina. 16. Filatova, Irina.

"Indoctrination or Scholarship? "Indoctrination or Scholarship?
Education of Africans at the Education of Africans at the
Communist University of the Communist University of the
Toilers of the East in the Soviet Toilers of the East in the Soviet
Union, 1923-1937." p. 5. Union, 1923-1937." p. 6.
11. Filatova, Irina. 17. Filatova, Irina.
"Indoctrination or Scholarship? "Indoctrination or Scholarship?
Education of Africans at the Education of Africans at the
Communist University of the Communist University of the
Toilers of the East in the Soviet Toilers of the East in the Soviet
Union, 1923-1937." p. 5. Union, 1923-1937." pp. 11-12.
12. Haywood, Harry. Black 18. Filatova, Irina.
Bolshevik: Autobiography of an "Indoctrination or Scholarship?
Afro-American Communist. p. Education of Africans at the
157. Communist University of the
Toilers of the East in the Soviet
13. Haywood, Harry. Black
Union, 1923-1937." p. 4.
Bolshevik: Autobiography of an
Afro-American Communist. p. 19. d’Encausse, Hélène Carrère.
161. Islam and the Russian Empire:
Reform and Revolution in
14. G. Gafurov, Bobodžan.
Central Asia. p. 251.
Lenin and National Liberation in
the East. p. 258. 20. Menicucci, Garay.
"Glasnost, the Coup, and Soviet
15. Vaught, Seneca.
Arabist Historians." p. 576.
"'Grounding' Walter Rodney in
Critical Pedagogy: Toward 21. Weinreich, Uriel. "The
Praxis in African History." p. 4. Russification of Soviet Minority
Languages." p. 48.

TALIA LUX
Endnotes Works Cited
22. Ravandi-Fadai, Lana. "’Red d’Encausse, Hélène Carrère.

Mecca’—The Communist Islam and the Russian Empire:
University for Laborers of the Reform and Revolution in
East (KUTV): Iranian Scholars Central Asia. University of
and Students in Moscow in the California Press, 1988.
1920s and 1930s." p. 723.
Filatova, Irina. "Indoctrination or
Scholarship? Education of
Africans at the Communist
University of the Toilers of the
East in the Soviet Union,
1923-1937." Paedagogica
Historica. Vol. 35, no. 1, 1999,
pp. 1-23.
doi:10.1080/00309239903501
04.
Gafurov, Bobodžan G. Lenin
and National Liberation in the
East. Progress Publishers, 1978.
Haywood, Harry. Black
Bolshevik: Autobiography of an
Afro-American Communist.
Liberator Press, 1978.
Kirasirova, Masha. "The 'East' as
a Category of Bolshevik
Ideology and Comintern
Administration: The Arab Section
of the Communist University of
266 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
Works Cited
the Toilers of the East." Kritika: 1920s and 1930s." Iranian

Explorations in Russian and Studies. Vol. 48, no. 5, 2015,
Eurasian History. Vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 713-727.
2017, pp. 7-34. doi:10.1353/ doi:10.1080/00210862.2015.1
kri.2017.0001. 058640.
McClellan, Woodford. "Africans Stalin, J.V. J.V. Stalin Works,
and Black Americans in the Volume 7. Foreign Languages
Comintern Schools, 1925-1934." Publishing House, 1954.
The International Journal of
Stalin, J.V. J.V. Stalin Works,
African Historical Studies. Vol.
Volume 9. Foreign Languages
26, no. 2, 1993, pp. 371-390.
Publishing House, 1954.
doi:10.2307/219551.
Vaught, Seneca. "'Grounding'
Menicucci, Garay. "Glasnost,
Walter Rodney in Critical
the Coup, and Soviet Arabist
Pedagogy: Toward Praxis in
Historians." International Journal
African History." South. Vol. 1,
of Middle East Studies. Vol. 24,
no. 1, 2015, Article 1. https://
no. 4, 1992, pp. 559-77.
digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/
doi:10.1017/
south/vol1/iss1/1.
s0020743800022340.
Weinreich, Uriel. "The
Ravandi-Fadai, Lana. “’Red
Russification of Soviet Minority
Mecca’—The Communist
Languages." Problems of
University for Laborers of the
Communism. Vol. 2, no. 6,
East (KUTV): Iranian Scholars
1953, pp. 46-57.
and Students in Moscow in the

vallum
antonini
aelium
vallum
Towards an Anti-Imperial Political
Ecology of the Imperial Border
The Roman Limits in

Britannia
A
n analogy might be drawn be- Yet imperialism is not simply the annexation of
tween the geographical limits of land, resource, and labor. Lenin warned us against
the imperialist state and the lifes- clinging to this over-simplistic understanding of
pan of a pathogen. In both cases the phenomenon by noting that while imperial-
there is, at first, a period of nascen- ism indeed entails annexation, violence, and reac-
cy and immediate local consolidation,2 the most important characteristic feature of
tion, followed by a period of rapid growth, con- the phenomenon itself is the question of finance
sumption, and geographical expansion, a period capital—that is, the question of retained earnings
of eventual ossification and delimitation, and and monies generated by investment from the cap-
then, finally, a period of withdrawal and collapse. ital of the financial (and thus social) élite. Simply
Imperialism, we might imagine, is a virus; and one put, the defining feature of imperialism is the
which subsists by devouring cultures, resources, wielding of state power in the service of finance
and land. In the modern era, imperialism presents capital for the accumulation of real capital.
itself as the highest stage of capitalism—a period The geographical borders of the imperial state
in which the interests of finance capital dominate must, by extension, represent this impetus; they
the geopolitical interests of the state. On this, must exist in service of this logic—to control the
Lenin wrote that: flow of material goods, resources, and people for
Imperialism is capitalism at the stage of devel- the purposes of finance capital. In the modern era,
opment at which the dominance of monopo- national imperial borders, such as those of the
lies and finance capital is established; in which United States, function as consummate and so-
the export of capital has acquired pronounced phisticated manifestations of this logic. In the an-
importance; in which the division of the world cient world, while the technologies of border con-
among the international trusts has begun, in trol were more simplistic, the logic of the imperial
which the division of all territories of the border itself remained the same. If an ancient
globe among the biggest capitalist powers has state is said to be imperial, its border must then
been completed.1 reflect the economic motivations of imperialism.
That is, the border must be a signifier of economic
control, of violence and reaction, and exist in ser-
By Ben Stahnke
BEN STAHNKE
"The study of border walls as

representations of waning imperial
state sovereignties is particularly
important in the modern
The Border Walls of Empire

vice of finance capital for the purpose of generat- state—that is, I work to better understand the
ing real capital for the imperial state’s social and ways in which the Roman state controlled its
ruling élite. A political ecology of the imperial metabolic circulation of capital, goods, and peo-
border, if it is to remain both historically sound ple in relationship to both geography and social
and centered upon the real-world circulation of class. And, further, I seek to understand what the
resources in the service of class society, must take construction of a fortified and militarized border
into account not only the intersection of politics wall means for the imperial state—that is, what
and environment more generally, but also the in- the wall says about the past, the present, and the
terplay of class, finance, and the social future of the state itself. To achieve this, I lean into
metabolism of the state itself. the material dimensions of the environmental
and political histories of Rome, as well as the ways
In the north of England, near the present-day bor-
in which the class society endemic to the Roman
der of Scotland, the ruins of Hadrian’s Wall per-
state manifested itself in imperial Roman border
sist along the Tyne-Solway firth—a reminder of
management. In short, I hope to uncover the ways
imperial Rome’s geographical limits on the isle.
in which the reactionary and violent Roman slav-
These ancient borderlands are home to the stony
ocracy, in service of Roman financial capital and
and earthen vestiges of an explicitly imperialist
class society, fed Rome’s border management
strategy of border management from a time long
strategy in Britannia. My rationale for doing so is
before ours; a once-fortified space of occupied land
to better understand imperial border strategies
where the Roman state utilized a continuous, mil-
more generally—especially where the imple-
itarized wall to control the flow of goods and peo-
mentation of border walls is concerned.
ple across the limits of its northern-most jurisdic-
tional region in Britannia. Often thought to act in My argument in this paper will follow along the
a strictly defensive capacity, the wall—on close lines that imperial border walls do not arise
investigation—reveals itself as a tool of Roman amidst the ascendency, growth, and expansion
economic control: an imperialistic device in ser- periods of the empire; but that they emerge dur-
vice of capital. ing a period of imperial ossification and delimita-
tion—at the end of what I will call a metabolic
In this paper, I work to construct an explicitly an-
amalgamation, where all the spheres of nature,
ti-imperial political ecology of the fortified Ro-
production, society, and political heterogeneity
man frontiers in Britannia as they relate, specifi-
are swept up into a great and imperial homoge-
cally, to the social metabolism of the imperial
nization—a great and uniform dominion under
270 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
neoliberalized and globalized era,

where national and local border
walls are being constructed at an
increasing rate."
The Pretense of Power

an imperial financial singularity—and that, by Thus the meaning of fortified borders themselves
necessity, border walls not only foreshadow the must entail the features and characteristics of the
eventual withdrawal, decline, and collapse of the societies in which they emerge. This is the onto-
empires in which they emerge, but that their use is logical essence of a material conception of the bor-
also tied tightly to environmental and climatolog- der: matter itself is imbued with import by and
ical change as well. In specific, border walls seem, through the social formations we inhabit.
by their own implication, to permanently prob- “Borderlands,” Hastings Donnan and Thomas
lematize what we might imagine to be unwinnable Wilson observed, “are sites and symbols of pow-
imperial frontiers. As Wendy Brown observed: er. Guard towers and barbed wire may be extreme
Rather than emanating from the sovereignty examples of the markers of sovereignty which in-
of the nation-state, then, [walls] signal the scribe the territorial limits of state, but they are
loss of nation-state sovereignty’s a priori sta- neither uncommon nor in danger of disappearing
tus and easy link with legal authority, unity, from the world scene.”7 Where the modes of re-
and settled jurisdiction. This condition is evi- source extraction, production, distribution, and
dent in the fact that the new walls codify the consumption of present-day empire find them-
conflicts to which they respond as permanent selves in a world increasingly no longer able to
and unwinnable.3 sustain them, the upswing of border wall con-
structions at such an auspicious time in history
The study of border walls as representations of
have much to tell us about the future of modern
waning imperial state sovereignties is particularly
day empire.
important in the modern neoliberalized and glob-
alized era, where national and local border walls However, to speculate on—and better under-
are being constructed at an increasing rate.4 In the stand—the future, we must also look to the past.
last 220 years 62 unique border walls have been
constructed, with 28 of those instances occurring
since the year 2000 alone.5 Yet, as Wendy Brown ROMAN LIMITS AND IMPERIALISM
noted, “Walls are consummately functional, and As a—if not the—precursor to the modern west-
walls are potent organizers of human psychic ern imperial state, the Roman state has much to
landscapes generative of cultural and political tell us regarding the western imperial conception
identities. [...] A wall as such has no intrinsic or of the border, the frontier, and the limit—as well
persistent meaning or signification.”6 as the border walls which often grow upon them.

BEN STAHNKE
Roman Limits and Imperialism

Historian David Shotter, in The Roman Frontier Walls.”10 Rome’s early utilization of the limit for-
in Britain noted that: tification was threefold. It was used to:
Like so many things in Rome, the concept of 1. demarcate Roman territory,
frontier (limes) had its origins in a long-distant 2. preserve territorial integrity, and
agricultural past; a limes was a bank or path,
usually of stone, which separated property 3. exercise military, political, and economic con-
from property and field from field. This clear- trol over the traffic of the lower Tiber Valley.11
ly in its turn derived from a simpler bank While the argument might be counterposed that
formed by the turning of a furrow in a manner the Roman conception of the limit is one which all
still kept ceremonially alive in the days of em- civilizations and state-forms share, state borders
pire.8 and limits in fact reflect unique environmental ge-
The Roman conception of the limit—informed ographies, minor and dominant modes of produc-
by this early agricultural peculiarity—was, by ex- tion, and the peculiar social and environmental
tension, one which arose from the unique agricul- histories endemic to the state itself. Where pre-
tural metabolism of the Romans on the Italic Roman Britannia is concerned, for example, the
peninsula; a concrete political representation of native Briton notion of the limit was quite differ-
Rome’s agricultural metabolism, later emblema- ent. On this, Strabo, in the Geographiká, observed
tized as the demarcated conceptions of the impe- that, for the pre-Roman Britons:
rial state limit. As a society which had grown from The forests are their cities; for they fence in a
the unification of scattered hill-top villages along spacious circular enclosure with trees which
the Tiber River in the early sixth century BCE,9 they have felled, and in that enclosure make
the city of Rome itself emerged from the unifica- huts for themselves and also pen up their cat-
tion of these villages and from the resultant encir- tle—not, however, with the purpose of stay-
cling of the nascent municipality by an earthen ing a long time.12
bank—“a precursor of the so-called Servian
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272 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
Imperialism and Finance Capital

Following Rome’s political and economic expan- cy which has extended without hindrance to
sion—first across the Italic peninsula, and later territories unseized by any capitalist power,
over the larger Mediterranean region—it was the to a colonial policy of monopolist possession
Roman conception of the border, the limit, and of the territory of the world, which has been
the frontier which defined not only Rome’s en- completely divided up.13
forcement of its own jurisdictional sovereignty, While we must be careful not to engage in a reduc-
but the local sovereignties of the states and peo- tive historical analysis in which we conflate the
ples neighboring Rome. imperialism of the Roman era to the imperialism
The Roman state, both in the economic and the of the modern era, similarities indeed abound
geopolitical sense, is an historical example of a ra- where imperialism is the de facto—and driving—
bid imperialism—that is, the Roman state existed political theory and metabolic function of the
metabolically by way of conquest, annexation, state. A uniting theme for imperialism in all eras is
and a great gathering-up of all surrounding lands, the great gathering up of the varying methods and
resources, and peoples for the purposes of Roman forces of production, rabid geographical expan-
finance capital: an existential phenomenon which sion and conquest, and the unique relationship of
seems to be shared by all imperial polities. On this, capital to the state itself. Lenin wrote that imperi-
Lenin wrote that: alism—specifically in the capitalist era, but which
may also be applied to the Roman era—must en-
If it were necessary to give the briefest possi-
tail the following five points:
ble definition of imperialism we should have
to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage 1. the singular concentration of production and
of capitalism. Such a definition would include capital, leading to a series of monopolizations
what is most important, for, on the one hand, which in turn impact the economic life of the
finance capital is the bank capital of a few very state;
big monopolist banks, merged with the capi- 2. the coalescence of bank and industrial capital as
tal of the monopolist associations of industri- finance capital, which in turn supports a powerful
alists; and, on the other hand, the division of financial oligarchy;
the world is the transition from a colonial poli-
"Imperialism is capitalism at that

stage of development at which
the dominance of monopolies
and finance capital is
established."
BEN STAHNKE
3. the export of capital—as distinguished from a result of the First Punic War (264-41 BCE), and
the export of commodities—acquires, for the demonstrated two methods of direct Roman
state, an exceptional importance; provincial control: “direct rule by a Roman magis-
trate, and indirect administration by using an ex-
4. “the formation of international monopolist
isting king,”18 where, at this stage in Roman histo-
capitalist associations which share the world
ry, Rome had demonstrated “little inclination to
among themselves,”14 and
rule directly.”19 As Rome’s political, social, and
5. the rabid territorial division of the known world economic influence spread outward from the Ital-
among competing powers ic peninsula and into the surrounding lands of the
Lenin went on to note that, “Imperialism is capi- Mediterranean, and as new political and econom-
talism at that stage of development at which the ic opportunities for exploitation began to open up
dominance of monopolies and finance capital is in Spain, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria, Gaul,
established; in which the export of capital has ac- Africa, and the Balkans, Rome’s reluctance for di-
quired pronounced importance; in which the divi- rect rule began to wane. The Roman reliance on
sion of the world among the international trusts native home-rule by kings—kings who often held
has begun, in which the division of all territories of the ceremonial title of socius et amicus Romani
the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has populi—also began to wane as the use of direct,
been completed.”15 Interestingly, and for our pur- Roman-appointed administration began to rise.20
poses here, what we can extract from Lenin’s anal- Yet the borderlands were, for Rome, always an
ysis is the unique process in which the concentra- overdetermined phenomenon, driven by the exi-
tion of production and resources feeds the state’s gencies and necessities of imperialism itself. The
financial oligarchs, who then come to dominate limit was not simply—in the case of early Repub-
the state’s geopolitical processes of expansion lican, later Imperial—a line, an easily-defined
and continued consumption. We need not con- space, or a demarcation reducible to a single quali-
flate the imperialism of the modern capitalist era ty. Rather, the Roman limites represented both
with the peculiarities of Roman capital to come to ideological and material factors: factors which
understand that imperialism itself emblematizes were determined directly by the individuals who
a specific formation of the social metabolism, enacted them —and also by those who contested
driven by the greed and rabidity of the state’s fi- them. The historian Hugh Elton noted that:
nancial elite, and entailing a geopolitical—and
In the Roman World there were a number of
thematic—movement of expansion, consolida-
overlapping frontier zones. These frontier
tion, conquest, amalgamation, and, ultimately,
zones might be defined by four groups of peo-
collapse.
ple: Roman soldiers, Roman civilians, local
natives, and barbarians. Each group had their
ROMAN EXPANSION own boundaries of different types: political,
social, ethnic, religious, linguistic, economic
“By the time Augustus came to power,” the histo- and military. These could, but did not have to,
rian Stephen Dyson observed, “the Romans had coincide with those of other groups. It was
been dealing with frontier problems in Italy and this mixture of boundaries which together
the west for nearly four hundred years.”16 These made the frontier.21
four hundred years saw the growth of the nascent
Roman Republic from “a mosaic of cities orga- For Rome, the British frontier was one which
nized into the provinces which made up the [even- emerged only after Rome’s own immediate
tual] Empire”17 to a complex series of administra- Mediterranean growth; a growth which quickly
tional jurisdictions, divided into interior and spread to western, and finally northwestern Eu-
frontier provinces for—ultimately—the sake of rope. The attempt at British conquest, at a Roman
Roman senatorial control. The first Roman Britain, was one which, for the Romans, reached
provincial acquisition—Sicily (Sicilia)—came as toward that far, quasi-mythic, Thulean north: a
region on the cusp of the known world, qua ultima
274 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
Thule—a land which was, as Pliny the Elder imag- tant from it as Britain is from Gaul. [...] in ad-
ined, “The farthest of all [...] in which there be no dition it is thought a number of smaller is-
nights at all, as we have declared, about mid-sum- lands are close by, in which, according to some
mer, namely when the Sun passes through the writers, there are thirty days of continuous
sign Cancer; and contrariwise no days in mid- darkness around midwinter. [...] Thus the
winter: and each of these times they suppose, do whole [British] island is 2,000 miles in cir-
last six months, all day, or all night.” cumference.25
For the Romans, however, the British Isles— Thus was Britannia known to the Romans, to their
more so than the Orkneys, the Shetlands, and oth- cartographers and geographers, and to their his-
er less accessible spaces—were far from mythical torians, yet it was not until Caesar’s 55-54 BCE
and were, in fact, quite well-known. The Romans military excursions onto the British Isles that Ro-
held surprisingly sophisticated geographical in- man political and economic interest in—and its
formation about the world in which they dwelt, exploitation of—Britannia began in earnest.
and the British Isles were no exception. Yet, for
the Romans, an air of mystique still hung upon the
British Isles and their peoples—upon the forest THE ROMAN CONQUEST
and hill-dwelling peoples whom the Romans Rome’s involvement with the British Isles—Bri-
knew as the Brigantes, the Durotriges, the Catu- tannia specifically—spanned, following Caesar, a
vellauni, the Iceni, the Silures, the Atrebates, the period of nearly five centuries.26 Britannia, as the
Cantii, the Trinovantes, the Cornovii, the Parisi, historian Adrian Goldsworthy noted:
and the Ordovices.22 North of the narrow British
median, in modern day Scotland, the Romans was a late addition to the Roman Empire, con-
knew only those tribes whom they collectively quered at a time when expansion was becom-
called the Caledonians. ing rare, but the actual conquest in AD 43 was
not the first military contact between the em-
In his Natural History (IV), Pliny the Elder noted pire and the Britons. Almost a century before,
that the region of what would later come to be Julius Caesar, then proconsul (or governor) of
known as Britannia, “was itself called Albion, Gaul, landed in the south-east [of Britain] in
while all the islands [...] are called the British 55 BC and again in 54 BC. He beat down the
Isles.”23 Pliny also went on to note that: fierce resistance of the local tribes and accept-
The historian Timaeus says that six days’ sail ed their submission, but did not choose to stay
up-Channel from Britain is the island of Mic- over the winter and never returned.27
tus (Wight) in which tin is produced. Here he The historian David Breeze noted that, for the
says the Britons sail in boats of wickerwork Romans, “Britain lay on the very edge of the Ro-
covered in sewn leather. There are those who man empire. It would have taken a traveller two to
record other islands: the Scandiae, Dumna, three months to journey from Rome to Hadrian’s
the Bergi, and Bernice, the largest of them all, Wall.”28 Following the Octavian pacification dur-
from which the crossing to Thyle (Thule) is ing the Roman civil wars of the first century, and
made. One day’s sail from Thyle is the frozen as Roman imperial administration began to move
sea called by some the Cronian Sea.24 towards direct governorship—by either imperial
In the mid-first century BCE Gallic War (V), or senatorial appointment—Octavian (Gaius Oc-
Julius Caesar (Gaius Iulius Caesar) wrote that the tavius Thurinus), the Emperor Augustus after 27
largest of the British Isles was: BCE, began a series of excursions and acquisitions
to gain more territory in Europe along the
triangular in shape, with one side opposite Danube—acquisitions which led to the creation
Gaul. [...] The length of this side is about 500 of new frontier provinces such as Illyricum, Pan-
miles. Another side faces Spain and the west. nonia, and Moesia.
In this direction lies Hibernia (Ireland), half
the size of Britain, so it is thought, and as dis- Augustus, the historian Hugh Elton noted, “re-

BEN STAHNKE
"Not unlike the Americans, the

Romans had a particular
worldview: the gods had given
them the right to rule the world."
Invasion, Occupation, and Withdrawal

garded the advance of the border with pride,”29 upland, with the low-lying areas of the east
and the rapid expansion of Rome’s territorial con- and west coastal plains separated by the broad
trol in Europe, along the imperial nature of Ro- spine of the low-lying Pennine mountains and
man politics, were buried deeply not only in the Cheviot hills. The mountains, along with the
political psyche of the Julio- Claudian dynasty— passes, crags, dales, and valleys between
Rome’s earliest imperial family—but in the polit- them, were probably difficult to pacify, and
ical economic mode of Roman acquisition as well. the long-term occupation of forts throughout
“The Romans,” commented historian David the Roman period across the north of Eng-
Breeze: land may suggest a situation in which the local
population was never completely subjugated.
had a particular worldview: the gods had giv-
Alternatively, the distribution may suggest a
en them the right to rule the world. The con-
desire to control strategic points in the land-
tinual success of Roman arms demonstrated
scape for purposes of supply and communica-
the validity of this assertion. As the empire
tion, including natural resources such as lead.
would continue to expand, there was no need
One does not preclude the other.33
for frontiers. This was the situation in Britain
during the decades after the conquest.30 The driving historical and political themes of the
Roman excursions into Britannia were, as David
It was this political Weltanschauung, along with
Breeze observed in Roman Scotland, invasion,
the military, political, and economic logics en-
conquest, occupation, withdrawal, and external
demic to imperialism, that led the emperor
relations.34 We might shorten this thematic anal-
Claudius (Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus
ysis by noting that Rome’s interest in Britain fol-
Germanicus) to land an army on the shores of Bri-
lowed its own financial oligarchs’ interests in the
tannia in 43 CE to “win [himself ] a triumph”31 and
resources of Rome—a signifier of Roman imperi-
to secure such rich British resources as tin, lead,
alism itself.
and lumber. Historian Peter Salway noted that,
“When Emperor Claudius landed a Roman army Where the previous century’s incursions of Julius
on the [British] south coast in A.D. 43 a process Caesar had less to do “with a long-term strategy
was begun which was to transform the face of for Britain than with the security situation in Gaul
Britain and give a new direction to its history.”32 and with Caesar’s own political position in Rome
itself,”35 the invasion of the Claudian army was in-
Environmentally, Britain in the first century CE,
deed meant to establish permanent occupation.
as Rob Collins observed, could best be described
While such an invasion might have been fore-
as:
276 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
t
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l d
terna icati
on
1. In a t i f
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D e mise
and
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9 . and grat of
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an ol, c
exp en
ans
ion d to

BEN STAHNKE

shadowed by those in Rome’s imperial circle of of Cunobelinus (“strong dog”), a southern Briton
political élites during the reign of Octavian,36 the king allied with Rome as socius et amicus Romani
British conquest in fact went against the firm ad- populi, or “king and friend of the Roman people.”
vice of Octavian to his successor Tiberius The ensuing power struggle between Cunobeli-
(Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti filius Augustus), nus’ sons—Adminius, Caratacus, and Togodum-
who exclaimed that the Empire “should be kept nus—and their driving out of the chief Roman al-
within its current boundaries.”37 ly in Britain, King Verica of the Atrebates, all ex-
acerbated what became an increasingly fractious
Historian Stephen Dyson noted that, “Rome was
political atmosphere. After the assassination of
often drawn to a frontier because the local cultural
the emperor Caligula (Gaius Julius Caesar Augus-
and political dynamics affected their interests
tus Germanicus) in 41 CE, the new emperor,
[and] [...] once the decision to intervene had been
Claudius, “had to give Britain considerable
made, Roman success depended on a shrewd
thought.”39 Claudius, to reassert control of the
analysis of the nature of local conditions and of
Roman tributes on southern Britain, and to gain
those forces that might favor Rome, as well as
further control of land and resources in the north
those that would oppose it.”38 And in the period
of Britain, organized an invasion force to reinstate
between Tiberius’ succession (14-37 CE) and the
the exiled King Verica of the Atrebates.
succession of his nephew Claudius in 41 CE, Ro-
man foreign relations with the vague British fron- As David Shotter recorded, “The invasion force of
tier became increasingly strained due to a growing 43 CE consisted of four legions—II Augusta, IX
cross-Channel economy between Britain and Hispania, XIV Gemina Martia Victrix, and XX
Gaul which saw many of the southern British in- Valeria Victrix, with detachments at least from
habitants seek to become “Romanized”—a move others, including VIII Augusta.”40 Cunobelinus’
which became increasingly frictive for many old capital city at Camulodunum (modern-day
northern British inhabitants—and a growing po- Colchester) was quickly captured within the first
litical hostility emblematized by the 40 CE death warring season, and Claudius himself visited the
HADRIANUS
TRAIANUS
CAESAR
OPPRESSOR
278
THINGS BEFORE

city to revel in the triumphal entry. From Colch- The historian Richard Hingley noted that during
ester, Roman invasions were launched north- the British conquest, “A large Roman army
wards towards present-day Lincoln, north-west- crossed the Channel from Gaul and Lowland
wards towards Wroxeter, westwards towards Britain was gradually subdued during the middle
Gloucester, and south-westwards towards Ex- and late first century AD. This conquest occurred
eter. On the Isle of Wight, the future emperor through the use of diplomacy and armed violence
Vespasian (Titus Flavius Vespasianus) waged war directed against some of the people of Britain.”43
against Cunobelinus’ son Caratacus—a chief op- During the middle and late first century CE, the
ponent of the Roman occupation until he was Romans engaged in the logistics of military occu-
handed over in 51 CE by Queen Cartimunda of pation by way of road-building, fort-building, and
the Brigantes.41 The Roman historian Cassius Dio continued campaigns against the indigenous pop-
recorded that the native Britons were unfortu- ulations in efforts of subjugation and forced sub-
nately ill-prepared for the initial invasion: mission.
For the Britons as a result of their inquiries During the reign of the emperor Vespasian from
had not expected that they would come, and 69 to 79 CE, the military exploits of Agricola
had therefore not assembled beforehand. (Gnaeus Julius Agricola)—a Gallo-Roman gener-
And even when they did assemble, they would al who would, in 77 CE, be appointed as consul
not come to close quarters with the Romans, and governor of Britannia—were largely respon-
but took refuge in the swamps and the forests, sible for the pacification44 of southern and central
hoping to wear out the invaders in fruitless ef- Britannia, as well as many of the unsuccessful ex-
fort, so that, just as in the days of Julius Caesar, cursions into the British-Scottish (then-Caledo-
they should sail back with nothing accom- nian) north. Having participated in the quelling of
plished.42 the Boudiccan uprising in 61 CE where he served
as a junior officer (tribunus militum),45 Agricola
The ensuing century of occupation, however, was
went on, under his governorship, to pacify the
not to be a simple wash, and the Romans dug in for
Brigantes where he “swept right through Brigan-
what was to be an occupation of continued—and
tian territory—and beyond”46 without a great
oppressive—military and political maneuvering.
deal of fighting, being able to:
"Native Britons were forcibly

relocated, and the indigenous
social, cultural, and linguistic groups
were split down the middle by the
feature that would come to be
known as Hadrian’s Wall."
BEN STAHNKE
play groups off of one another—perhaps tier region along the Tyne-Solway narrows. His-
groups such as the Carvetti and Setantii in the torians William Hanson and Gordon Maxwell
northwest, and others such as the Tec- noted that:
toverdii, Lopocares, and Corionototae who Shortly after the beginning of the second cen-
have tentatively been assigned the territory in tury AD the Roman frontier in Britain seems
the northeast—indicating that the major mil- to have rested on the Tyne-Solway isthmus,
itary blows had already been struck [by the the most convenient east-west route south of
Romans] in this area.47 the Forth-Clyde line. [...] The primary ele-
Following Agricola’s campaigns, continued mili- ments of the Trajanic frontier were the Fla-
tary efforts at both pacification and control, and a vian forts Carlisle and Corbridge, situated
growing emigration of Roman citizens to the astride the two main routes into Scotland, to-
British frontier, the military infrastructure of the gether with the east-west road which con-
Roman army in Britain had, from the initial land- nects them, known to us as the Stanegate.50
ing of 43 CE until the onset of the second century, As the land around the burgeoning wall began to
grown unabated; and by the time Hadrian (Pub- be cleared for construction, surveyed and read-
lius Aelius Hadrianus Augustus) succeeded Trajan ied, the native Britons were forcibly relocated,
(Marcus Ulpius Traianus) as Emperor of Rome in and the indigenous social, cultural, and linguistic
117 CE, the logistical infrastructure for what groups were split down the middle by the feature
would soon become Hadrian’s Wall was largely that would come to be known as Hadrian’s Wall.
already in place. Hanson and Maxwell noted that the significance
of the political apartheid enforced by the newly-
constructed Wall would not have been lost on the
THE WALL(S)
local tribesman, where “the newly-built barrier
Rob Collins noted that, “By AD 88, the Roman seems to have cut across tribal territory belonging
troops were withdrawn from northern Scotland to the Brigantes, isolating a considerable portion
to the Forth-Clyde isthmus, and by the early 2nd of the tribe’s lands lying in the lower dales of the
century, troops had been withdrawn from lower Rivers Esk and Annan.”51 Further, the historian
Scotland to the Tyne-Solway isthmus.”48 Roman Richard Hingsley also observed that:
military presence began to coalesce around the
The homes and settlements of the local peo-
fortressed region of the Tyne-Solway isthmus,
ple have been recognized and excavated in
and, as Collins went on to note, “Upon withdraw-
some numbers [...] but the relationship be-
ing from Scotland, the northernmost concentra-
tween these people and the Roman army and
tion of garrisons was along the road connecting
administration remains unclear. Substantial
Corbridge to Carlisle, known since the Middle
areas of land will have to be confiscated dur-
Ages as the Stanegate Road.” The Stanegate road,
ing the construction of the Roman military in-
a road that ran more or less parallel to the current
frastructure. Roman roads, camps, and forts
location of Hadrian’s Wall, was, as Richard
were enforced without discussion or negotia-
Hingsley noted, a “fortified military road [which]
tion [and the] [...] Roman army did very much
was constructed just to the south of the line on
whatever it wanted across this landscape, pri-
which the Wall was later to be built.”49 In the nar-
or to, during, and after the construction of
row region from what is now Browness to South
[Hadrian’s] Wall.52
Shields, England, where the present day A69 and
B6318 highways run from Newcastle upon Tyne The Roman frontier zone that was to become
to Carlisle, much of the Roman army in Britain Hadrian’s Wall was, however, and as is the course
was garrisoned in a series of forts—forts which with most things, an overdetermined phe-
were supported by a heavy infrastructure of roads nomenon—and one which, at different periods of
and towns which, coupled with the Caledonian time, could be located in different regions of Bri-
withdrawals, created a de facto militarized fron- tannia. Stephen Dyson recorded that:
280 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
Though Hadrian’s Wall is a conspicuous lin- assumed that he gave the order after visiting the
ear feature, it did not mark the course of the area, so that the surveying and construction be-
frontier. Generally speaking, the Roman gan no earlier than 122.”58 Goldsworthy offered
frontier occupied the middle of the island of the caveat that since we know so little about the
Britain, with the Roman province (and later imperial planning processes surrounding large-
diocese) of Britannia only occupying the scale works like the Wall, that construction may
southern half of the island. Throughout the have started earlier than 122, and Hadrian’s trip
Roman occupation, then, the territory north to the frontier that year was simply to inspect the
of the Wall and Ireland to the west should be Wall’s construction.
considered barbaricum.”53 The anatomy of the Wall itself was such that the
Yet, as the historian Stephen L. Dyson observed, stone curtain wall was not the primary feature—
in The Creation of the Roman Frontier, for most of although arguably the most visible—but part of a
us: larger wall complex which included a wall ditch, a
military road, and a sub-complex known as the
Hadrian’s Wall symbolizes the Roman fron-
vallum which contained a series of mounds and
tier. Massive and permanent, it separates the
ditches. While the original height of the stone cur-
world of Rome from that of the barbarian [...]
tain wall is unknown—as no section survives to-
Yet walls and forts were only part of a larger
day at its original height—recent estimates sug-
diplomatic, military, political, social, and eco-
gest an approximate 3.6 meter height.59 Given
nomic system that embraced both sides of the
that the upper portion of the stone curtain wall is
frontier and created a gradual transition from
also unpreserved, it is, as Hinglsey observed, “un-
Roman to non-Roman society.54
clear whether there was a walkway along the top
The decision during the reign of Hadrian to con- or crenellations to defend those Roman soldiers
struct a large scale wall just north, and parallel to, who may have patrolled its line.”60 The Wall, and
the Stanegate Road followed closely with the ex- the complexes that surrounded it, were built by
tant garrison in the region, the series of support- three Roman legions: the II Augusta, the VI Vic-
ive forts across the isthmus, and Hadrian’s own trix, and the XX Valeria Victrix. Help was likely
efforts at imperial consolidation, rather than ex- levied from the local populations—from the
pansion. “When Hadrian came to power,” Rob towns (vici) which grew up along the Wall region
Collins noted, “his apparent desire to stabilize im- to support the soldiers and their families—and
perial holdings led him to consolidate existing from the Romanized indigenous populations.
frontiers rather than initiate further conquest. The stone curtain wall, while initially begun at a
The emperor visited Britain in AD 122, and the width of 2.9 meters was, in places, reduced to 2.4
construction of Hadrian’s Wall commenced, meters in width. The overall length of the wall
quite possibly following a plan designed by the was, from Segedunum to the shores of the Solway
emperor himself.”55 Richard Hingsley also noted Firth, 80 Roman miles—117.5 km, or 73 stan-
that, “The Wall formed part of Hadrian’s policy of dard miles. Adrian Goldsworthy noted that:
bringing the expansion of the Roman empire to an
The western section for thirty-one Roman
end; fortifications were also being built along the
miles (c. forty-six km) from Bowness-on- Sol-
German frontier at this time.”56 The Wall’s con-
way was built of turf, timber, and earth, with
struction took eight to ten years to complete,57
a rampart some twenty feet wide (six m) at its
and might not have been fully finished until the
base. The line was then continued by a stone
reign of Antoninus Pius (Titus Aelius Hadrianus
wall for forty-nine Roman miles (c. seventy-
Antoninus Augustus Pius) in 138 CE. Indeed, the
three km) to the east, eventually ending at
Wall is thought to still have been under construc-
Wallsend on the Tyne.61
tion at the time of Hadrian’s passing. The histori-
an Adrian Goldsworthy noted that, “Hadrian’s Forts also punctuated the stone curtain wall, al-
personal involvement in the decision to construct though this decision had not been planned from
the Wall and in its design is clear. It is generally the wall’s beginning. On this, Hingsley recorded

BEN STAHNKE
"The border limites of the Roman

frontiers in Britain were not the
historical limits of the Roman
people themselves, but an
Stone and Earth

that: the milecastles.64
It was not originally intended to place the Hadrian’s Wall, known in its day as the Vallum
forts on the line of the Wall but to maintain Aelium, was, functionally, a tool of Roman border
the pre-existing forts along the Stanegate in management. While defense was of course im-
the hinterland as the main bases for the plied by the very nature of the wall itself, its pri-
troops. However, prior to AD 126 it appears mary goal was not defensive in nature, but rather
that a decision was made to construct forts at to control the flow of people and goods in and out
regular intervals along the Wall’s course and of Roman territory. It was, at root, a territorial
to transfer the garrisons onto the Wall.62 demarcation and was used in many of the same
ways that modern states today utilize their border
This decision, Hingsley observed, is known today
fortifications. John Collingwood Bruce, an early
amongst Wall scholars as “the fort decision.”
pioneer of Wall scholarship, and author of the
Regular gateways and through-ways occurred on
seminal text The Roman Wall, made the argu-
the line of the wall, primarily at the mile-castles
ment, early on, that “the curtain Wall was de-
and forts, but as Hingley noted, “at least two addi-
signed at first to indicate where Roman territory
tional gateways at Port Gate and the Maiden Way
ended, but this was supplemented by the ‘sec-
are known.”63 Cross-boundary trade, immigra-
ondary function [...] of being an obstacle to smug-
tion, travel occurred through these ports. The
glers, or robbers, or other undesirables.”65 And
wall forts, or mile castles, and, by extension, the
further, in his influential text Roman Britain,
gates, were often associated with civilian exten-
Collingwood also argued that:
sive settlements known as vici. William Hanson
and Gordon Maxwell noted that: In spite of the impressive appearance of this
huge fortification [...] it was not in the ordi-
The channels of movement open to the mili-
nary sense a military work. It was not intend-
tary were, of course, also applicable to the
ed to stop invading armies of Caledonians,
control of civilian traffic, and we must re-
while Roman soldiers lined the parapet and
member that the close supervision of this was
repelled attempts at escalade [...] The Wall
probably the main day-to-day function of the
was an obstacle, but an obstacle not so much
running barrier. Passage across Hadrian’s
to armies as to smugglers [...] If we want an
Wall was possible for all persons going peace-
analogy in modern times, we shall find one not
fully about their lawful business, but only
in the continuous lines of trench warfare but
with the permission of the troops occupying
282 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
artificial extension of the imperialist

state predicated upon warfare,
resource extraction, and a social
subjugation of the native Britons."
Trade and Subjugation

in the Indian ‘customs-hedge’ built by the En- its economic characteristics. In Hadrian’s Wall
glish in 1843 for prevention of smuggling in we see glimpses of the U.S.-Mexico border wall,
salt.66 with not only a similarity in management strate-
gy, impetus, and purpose; but in meaning, signifi-
Hadrian’s Wall, like the imperial border walls of
cation, and implication as well—hints of an impe-
the twenty-first century, was a tool of border
rialism in ossification, written in stone and earth
management—a tool intended to create easily-
and metal.
regulated choke points in cross-territorial trade
and immigration where the army could enforce
Roman border policy. The primary historical
THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS
themes of Hadrian’s Wall were thus bound up
with Roman finance capital, economy, immigra- “The right of landownership,” a young Karl Marx
tion, regulation, management, and—secondarily once rightly observed, “has its source in rob-
—defense. As with its early 4th century BCE Ser- bery.”68 The same could be said for the ways in
vian Wall (Murus Servii Tullii), Rome’s far-flung which Rome engaged in its own methods of land
border wall in northern Britannia represented acquisition and legal notions of land ownership.
three similar motivations: The border limites of the Roman frontiers in
Britain were not the historical limits of the Roman
1. to demarcate Roman territory,
people themselves, but an artificial extension of
2. to preserve territorial integrity, and the imperialist state predicated upon warfare, re-
3. to exercise military, political, and economic source extraction, and a social subjugation of the
control over cross-border traffic67 native Britons. On this, the political scientist Em-
manuel Bruent-Jailly noted that:
Hadrian’s Wall was not only a fortified demarca-
tion—a limit set in stone and earth—but it repre- [T]he history of the Roman Empire is testi-
sented, also, the Roman imperial conception of mony to the fact that conquest was central to
the border as one which required consummate the differentiation between barbarism and
economic control, regulation, delimitation, and civilization. Boundaries organised the Ro-
soldiering. Hadrian’s Wall thus represents a man Empire according to a hierarchy of
model for border studies in the twenty-first cen- spaces—territories of varied dimensions and
tury, especially where the border fortifications of functions, which included settlements, cities,
imperial polities are concerned, precisely due to provinces and regions.69

BEN STAHNKE
284 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
"As an early template for the

western imperialist state, Rome’s
notion of the border offers political
ecology insights into present-day,
imperial border regimes."
Imposition and Foreign Rule
The Stanegate region of the Tyne-Solway isthmus As an imperialist polity, Rome’s engagement with
—the location of the Vallum Aelium—was, as ref- the border was one which lay upon a material
erenced by Claudius Ptolemy’s 150 CE map of the foundation of economic and political exploitation
region, the territory of such tribes as the Brig- of lands which did not, a priori, belong to Rome.
antes, the Votadini, and the Selgovae; and the The heretofore autonomy of Roman Britannia
short-lived Antonine Wall seventy miles to the was thus a subjugation to foreign rule, and the Ro-
north on the Forth-Clyde isthmus was, as noted man notion of the border can be derived from the
on the same map, peopled by the Damnonii. ways in which the Romans engaged in border
When empires such as Rome engaged in expan- management and territorial occupation. As an
sion, they did so not into uninhabited, depopulat- early template for the western imperialist state,
ed lands, but lands which were rich in both re- an analysis of Rome’s material maintenance of
source and indigenous populations; lands which their border limits offers the political ecologist
had to be robbed and taken over from their prior much in the way of evidence for analysis; an analy-
inhabitants on the order of finance capital, in the sis of Rome’s border regime, for example, directly
quest for the development—and robbery—of re- feeds an analysis of the present day border regime
al capital. Thomas Nail observed that, “In partic- of the United States. Imperialism, and the logic of
ular, the border is defined by two intertwined so- finance capital, emerge from the worst aspects of
cial motions: expansion and expulsion.”70 Hadri- human greed—imperialism, in essence, is greed
an’s Wall was similarly defined by such motions. and rapaciousness made manifest in the repres-
Where border fortifications such as the military sive state apparatus.
and economic installations of the Antonine and In “Hadrian’s Wall: Embodied Archaeologies of
Hadrian’s Walls are concerned, the Romans en- the Linear Monument,” the archaeologists Claire
gaged both in the forced displacements of the na- Nesbit and Divya Tolia-Kelly observed that:
tive inhabitants as well as direct political and eco-
nomic control by governorship and military occu- The Romans’ barrier could be seen as an ideo-
pation. The primary historical themes of the Ro- logical division, which may have become en-
man dominion over the southern half of Britain trenched in the psyche of the people on either
then could thus be labeled as displacement, artifi- side of the Wall, creating an invasive/ defen-
ciality, and militaristic imposition. sive mindset. As Ahmed [...] asserts: “the pol-
itics of fear as well as hate is narrated as a bor-

BEN STAHNKE
der anxiety: fear speaks the language of Emperor domineered only, and could not be
‘floods’ and ‘swamps,’ of being invaded by in- said to rule; for the equitable and moral medi-
appropriate others, against whom the nation um between the sovereign and the subjects
must defend itself.”71 was wanting—the bond of a constitution and
organization of the state, in which a gradation
Similar themes of invasion, floods, and swamps,
of circles of social life, enjoying independent
for example, are ubiquitous—and not- shocking-
recognition, exists in communities and
ly familiar—in the contemporary right-wing dis-
provinces, which, devoting their energies to
course around border security in the United
the general interest, exert an influence on the
States in 2021. For example, the reactionary, dis-
central government.75
graced demagogue Donald Trump “repeatedly
warned that America was under attack by immi- Hegel’s fabulously romanticized vision of the Ro-
grants heading for the border. ‘You look at what is mans, however, could not be further from the
marching up, that is an invasion!’ he declared at truth. As an exploitative imperial polity, Rome
one rally. ‘That is an invasion!’”72 engaged in a foreign strategy of conquest and ex-
pansion, subjugation and domination, and ram-
A political ecology of the imperial border, howev-
pant economic imperialization —a material cen-
er, must turn this idealism on its head. While the
tralization which led to the construction of border
rhetoric of civilization/barbarism or of “migrant
walls on Rome’s far-flung borders, imperial ossifi-
caravans” is often used to sell the militarization of
cation, and, eventually, to the decline and dis-
the border to the public, the real reason remains,
memberment of the state itself.
in every case, the imperial machinations of fi-
nance capital which require—at the stage of im- Thus, it is important to demystify Rome to under-
perial development where delimitation and ossi- stand it. Michael Parenti, in The Assassination of
fication occur—that economic controls exist on Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Rome, noted
the border to not only annex territory and exert that:
militaristic dominance, but to control the flows of Rome’s social pyramid rested upon the backs
goods and people, and to secure real and working of slaves (servi) who composed approximately
capital for the imperial society’s financial élite. one-third the population of Italy, with proba-
The romanticism of imperialism stands to be de- bly a smaller proportion within Rome proper.
constructed by those who not only seek to under- Their numbers were maintained by con-
stand it, but by those who also seek to dismantle quests, piratical kidnappings, and procre-
its oppressive logics. ation by the slaves themselves. Slavery also
In the Marxist tradition, when we seek to both de- was the final destination for individuals con-
throne and subvert this problematic idealism victed of capital crimes, for destitute persons
used by the state to legitimize imperialism’s ma- unable to repay debts, and for children sold
terial efforts, we often return to the great Hegel. off by destitute families. War captives were
On the Romans, Hegel once remarked that, with- worked to death in the mines and quarries and
in the bounds of the empire, “individuals were on plantations (latifundia) at such a rate that
perfectly equal (slavery made only a trifling dis- their ranks were constantly on the wane.76
tinction), and without any political right. [...] Pri- Rome was not an egalitarian society, where pri-
vate Right developed and perfected this equali- vate citizens enjoyed unequalled sovereignty and
ty.”73 Hegel went onto contend that the individual political freedom; rather, it exemplified an oppres-
private rights enjoyed by every Roman citizen in sive social stratification which we may take as the
some way represented a logical extension of bur- sine qua non of imperialist society, where a mon-
geoning Roman property rights—along with the eyed and dominant social élite exercise their own
resultant political individualization of the citizen social and political freedoms at the expense of a
—and that such a collection of individuals in fact predominant class of working poor (proletarii)
operated as a sort of decentralized political organ- and slaves (servi). And, further, where this domi-
ism,74 where the:
286 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
nant social élite— the financial élite—direct the ally addressed as puer or “boy.” A similar de-
foreign policy of the state towards bloodshed, grading appellation was applied to slaves in
conquest, and rabid consumption. ancient Greece and in the slavocracy of the
United States, persisting into the postbellum
The class injustice, social oppression, and slavery
segregationist South of the twentieth centu-
endemic to Roman society were all harsh realities
ry. The slave as a low-grade being or subhu-
suffered by not only the Roman servi and prole-
man is a theme found in the writings of Plato
tarii, but by the bullied and subjugated peoples
and Aristotle. In the minds of Roman slave-
along Rome’s frontiers as well. The romantic view
holders, the servi—including the foreigners
that the Pax Romana offered a material peace
who composed the larger portion of the slave
(pax) to its subjects or its neighbors is, simply,“the
population—were substandard in moral and
self-serving illusions that any imperialistic sys-
mental capacity, a notch or two above ani-
tem has of itself.”77 The foreign policy that
mals. Cicero assures us that Jews, Syrians, and
emerged from the imperial state of Rome was a
all other Asian barbarians are “born to slav-
policy which emerged from a stratified, oppres-
ery.”79
sive, and not-unfamiliar social organization
where: Where an imperialist state seeks to engage in such
firm social distinctions—the social superstruc-
as in any plutocracy, it was a disgrace to be
ture of its oppressive economic organization—
poor and an honor to be rich. The rich, who
there, too, does it relate to land, to economy, and
lived parasitically off the labor of others, were
to the foreign Other in an analogous fashion.
hailed as men of quality and worth; while the
Rome’s utilization of the militarized and fortified
impecunious, who struggled along on the pal-
borderline in northern Britannia is a key demon-
try earnings of their own hard labor, were
stration of this social-geographical relationship.
considered vulgar and deficient.78
And thus, from this, we can also contend that
Such a society—emblematic of all imperialist so- Rome’s border regime—its strategy of border
cieties—could only develop a border strategy management—entailed a firm relationship to the
laden with themes of expansion, exclusion, hier- Roman economy; i.e., the ways in which Rome
archy, and economic servitude. As an imperialist regulated its workforce and organized the state in
slave society, Rome relied upon the influx of for- service of finance and real capital. The politics of
eign servi for the bulk of its internal labor force; for the cross-border movement of Roman labor
the rest it required only that the proletarii remain forces are thus reflected both in Rome’s socio-po-
immiserated and in a precarious economic posi- litical organization as well as its economic and la-
tion in rank service to the financial and social élite. bor structures. On this, Etienne Balibar contend-
Such a society represented not only Rome’s eco- ed that:
nomic strategy, but also provided a model for lat-
Borderlines which allow a clear distinction
er imperial states. The racism endemic to Rome’s
between the national (domestic) and the for-
socioeconomic policy could only manifest itself in
eigner express sovereignty as a power to at-
not only the social-hierarchical segregation, but
tach populations to territories in a stable or
in the physical, geographical segregation of Rome
regulated manner, to “administrate” the ter-
and the external Other as well. Thus did the Ro-
ritory through the control of the population,
man notions of separation— emblematized by
and, conversely, to govern the population
the Roman notion of the border—both emerge
through the division and the survey of the ter-
from and represent such a social structure.
ritory.80
Michael Parenti observed that:
And as Claire Nesbit and Divya Tolia-Kelly ob-
All slavocracies develop a racist ideology to
served, “[Hadrian’s Wall scholars] Breeze and
justify their dehumanized social relation-
Dobson [...] argue that the number of gateways
ships.
through the monument indicate that the Wall was
In Rome, male slaves of any age were habitu- designed to control movement across the border

BEN STAHNKE
"Parasitism, Lenin noted, is

characteristic of imperialism. The
parasitism emblematized by the
imperialist border wall is reflected in the
fact that the imperial border wall is one
Stone and Earth

rather than to prevent it.”81 Simply put, every em- provinces of Germania Inferior, Germania Supe-
pire requires both mobile and cheap labor forces rior, and Raetia)—fulfilled the following func-
where its reproduction and expansion is con- tions: 1. Rome’s border walls not only demarcat-
cerned. Economies of imperial expansion and an- ed Roman territory and preserved Rome’s alleged
nexation, predicated on themes of both exploita- territorial integrity, but they 2. provided a mate-
tion and expulsion, commodification, growth, rial base of operations for the Romans to exercise
and domination, thus require border regimes military, political, and financial control over their
which control the flow of goods, capital, and provinces which abutted non-Roman territory.
forces of labor. To these, we add the important third point that
Rome’s border regime also allowed the Roman
The Roman imperial model is the template for
state to create a series of economic and immigra-
present-day border regimes in the imperialist-
tory choke-points through which the Romans
capitalist era. On this, Balibar commented that:
could then monitor and control the cross-border
And perhaps this should be no complete sur- flow of goods and labor forces. As Collingwood
prise if we remember that the idea of a capital- argued,83 the wall itself was not, as commonly be-
ist world system (beginning with the discus- lieved, a defensive structure; its primary purpos-
sions on Weltwirtschaft and world economy) es, as covered in the previous section, were both
was first elaborated as a “determinate nega- economic and immigratory in nature. And Nail,
tion” (as Hegelians would say) of the idea of a too, observed that:
world empire (i.e., an empire which claims to
The primary function of Hadrian’s Wall was
represent the sovereign source of power,
not to defend against barbarian invasion but
peace, civilization, amid less civilized popula-
to regulate the ports of entry into the empire
tions, whose prototype, in the West, was the
and collect taxes from those who wanted to
Roman Empire).82
pass across its numerous gates built at each
The story of Hadrian’s Wall tells us several dis- milecastle. [...] This had at least three intend-
tinct things about the ways in which the Roman ed effects: (1) to retain skilled or educated
state utilized its border walls. Hadrian’s Wall— colonial subjects from defecting to the other
along with the early republican Servian Walls side, (2) to make new colonial subjects “enjoy”
(Murus Servii Tullii), the Antonine Wall (Vallum being Roman by restricting their movement,
Antonini), and the various wall fortifications and (3) to restrict the flow of information
along the Limes Germanicus (within the Roman across the wall to the barbarians so that they
288 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
which is constructed on occupied and

conquered land: land which is not only
exploited and oppressed, but
demographically and environmentally
shattered by the wall."
Trade and Subjugation

did not learn the location of camps or supply line political fantasy (or fallacy) of mastery:
lines.84 Penetration, pluralization, or interruption
are its literal undoing.85
Where capital, class, and exploitation come to-
gether in the key apparatuses of the imperialist When an imperial polity is unable to accept a fluid
state, there too must the bordering strategies fol- geographical border, and the indigenous popula-
low suit. The Roman state, and its economic and tions who dwell within and upon those geogra-
militaristic border regimes, provide an enduring phies, there must it erect a fortification to stem
model for the modern imperialist state —to bet- such fluidity and indigeneity. And when a state
ter understand Rome is to better understand im- must erect an extremely expensive, large-scale
perialism in the modern era, especially where the border wall—expensive both in terms of man-
oppressive implementation of border walls are power, military and police presence, surveillance,
concerned. and physical materials—there too does the state
seem to implicitly admit that its eventual decline is
nigh; that it has reached its material limit; and that
TOWARDS A POLITICAL ECOLOGY it can expand no more. It admits by implication
OF THE IMPERIAL BORDER that it can no longer tolerate the free travel of
“Sovereign power,” observed Wendy Brown in goods and people across its limits, but that these
Walled States, Waning Sovereignty: limits must in fact become highly regulated via a
series of forced choke points. All of this, the state
carries the fantasy of an absolute and enforce- does in the service of capital—for the state is a
able distinction between inside and outside. weapon wielded by its ruling élite. The ruling fi-
This distinction in turn depends upon nancial élite of the imperialist state wield the state
sovereignty’s defiance of spatial or boundary for the purposes of imperial capital.
porousness and of temporal interruption or
multivalence. Political sovereignty, like that The real expression of imperialist power—its
of God, entails absolute jurisdictional control apex reached in the imperial state—thus re-
and endurance over time. The sovereign can quires, at root, absolute jurisdictional and eco-
be attacked, but not penetrated without being nomic control over its frontiers. It can accept no
undone, challenged, but not interrupted less.
without being toppled. In this respect, “Ruined walls,” the historian David Frye noted in
sovereignty appears as a supremely mascu- Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick,

BEN STAHNKE

“appear all over the world. The materials—some- similarly encircled so-called “civilized” lands.
times brick, sometimes stone, sometimes simply The answer, simply, is that those with the re-
tamped earth—vary with the locale, but every- sources to produce and reproduce their material
where we find the same pattern: obscure barriers, existences seek to not only retain these resources
adorned only by their colorful nicknames, nearly for themselves but to also prevent the pervasive
always facing desolate wastes.”86 Frye went on to “Other” from access to those resources. Border
note, wrongly, that “Civilized folk had erected walls were, and are, built by the wealthy as a bul-
barriers to exclude them [barbarians] in an aston- wark against the poor and as a strategy of wealth
ishing array of countries [...] Not a single textbook extraction from abutting poorer nations—a
observed the nearly universal correlation be- strategy of economic control by which cross-bor-
tween civilization and walls.”87 Yet recent schol- der migration, capital, and economy is regulated
arship by political scientists Ron Hassner and Ja- in such a way as to benefit the rich at the expense
son Wittenberg has easily solved this riddle: of the poor.
Why do states erect fortified boundaries? We The fortified Roman limits of the Hadrian and
conclude that most are built by wealthy states Antonine Walls were no different. Rather than
to keep out unwanted migrants, particularly viewing the historical world through a lens of
those originating from Muslim- majority “civilized man” and “barbarian”—as the Romans
states. Contrary to conventional wisdom, did—we must, contra Frye, salvage what Hegel
states that construct such barriers do not tend called a philosophical approach to history, as op-
to suffer disproportionately from terrorism, posed to a narrative one; a philosophical ap-
nor do they tend to be involved in a significant proach in which:
number of territorial disputes. The primary Thought must be subordinate to what is giv-
motivation for constructing fortified barriers en, to the realities of fact; that this is its basis
is not territory or security but economics.88 and guide: while Philosophy dwells in the re-
It is no great mystery then why the great border gion of self-produced ideas, without refer-
walls of history—Hadrian’s Wall notwithstand- ence to actuality. [...] [I]t is the business of his-
ing—have faced so-called “wastes,” and have tory simply to adopt into its records what is
t~
Conques
ession~
Disposs
tion~
Destruc
LE of
the CYC
lism
imperia
290 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE

and has been, actual occurrences and transac- centives to illegally transport people or move
tions; [...] as it strictly adheres to its data [...]89 goods readily available in the poorer country
but highly regulated and relatively expensive
Our analysis of the past must rely upon the mate-
in the richer country. We find that economic
rial reality of what was, coupled with the nuance of
disparities have a substantial and significant
present-day data analysis where material reality is
effect on the presence of a physical wall that is
concerned. Thus, when we do the history of bor-
independent of formal border disputes and
der walls, we must admit that their history will by
concerns over instability from civil wars in
necessity entail economic entanglements; and we
neighbors.90
must avoid the idealistic notion that walls
emerged to separate “civilization from bar- Even the disgraced ex-President of the United
barism,” as such a notion will always ever entail States, failed reality show star and exploitative re-
classist and racist connotations. al estate mogul Donald Trump, hinted at this fact
by noting that, in relationship to the U.S.- Mexico
Border walls as a focus of political ecological study
border wall:
are thus implicitly entangled with the impetus of
their construction. Economically, border walls Some have suggested a barrier is immoral.
are, and have been, primarily erected by those Then why do wealthy politicians build walls,
wealthy and “civilized” few to exclude those sub- fences, and gates around their homes? They
altern, “barbarian,” and poor many. And those don’t build walls because they hate the people
very same walls exist to control the cross-border on the outside, but because they love the peo-
flow of goods and people in an effort to maintain ple on the inside. The only thing that is im-
control over the internal and external economy of moral is the politicians to do nothing and con-
the walled state. Political scientists David Carter tinue to allow more innocent people to be so
and Paul Poast further emphasized this fact by horribly victimized.91
noting that: As border walls in the current imperial American
Wall construction is explained by cross-bor- era entail this timeless imperialist and economic
der economic disparities. Significant eco- quality—a reflection of the Roman strategy—
nomic disparities between states create in- and, where border walls also reflect not only a
"The physical division of labor forces

by way of a great walling-off—while
side-stepping the national question—
not only divides demographic
cohesion but devalues labor itself
outside of the wall."
BEN STAHNKE
waning sovereignty but a potential future collapse rich countries, [making] it economically possible
and withdrawal from the border region altogeth- to bribe the upper strata of the proletariat, and
er, it serves political ecology well to examine the thereby fosters, gives shape to, and strengthens
ways in which the imperial Roman state utilized opportunism.”94 Imperialism requires a great
its border fortifications in Britannia. carving-up of heretofore autonomous and indige-
nous lands; it entails, by its very nature, their par-
titioning and exploitation. The great border walls
CONCLUSIONS of the imperialist state not only act as material
“Parasitism,” Lenin noted, “is characteristic of partitions, they “create privileged sections also
imperialism.”92 The parasitism embodied by the among the workers, and to detach them from the
imperialist implementation of the border wall is broad masses of the proletariat,”95 as Lenin ob-
one which is reflected in the fact that the imperial served of imperialism more generally. The physi-
border wall is one which is constructed on occu- cal division of labor forces by way of a great
pied land; a land which is not only exploited but walling-off—while side-stepping the national
also demographically and environmentally shat- question—divides the international proletariat
tered by the wall itself. The imperial border wall in ways which both create and devalue labor
reflects imperialism in this way—it exists as a tool forces outside of the wall; it creates a siphoning
in service of capital extraction and control. The effect where labor forces are compelled by eco-
imperial border wall is not a wall of defense or of nomic inequalities and devaluations to seek em-
ideological protection; it is not a wall in the way ployment inside the wall at a wage far lower than
the Antifaschistischer Schutzwall of the German the labor forces inside the walled territory. The
Democratic Republic was a wall. The imperial border walls of imperialism contribute to the ex-
border wall is a wall which serves exploitation, extraction of super-profits for the financial élite and
traction, and the control of goods and labor forces for the state—one and the same—and contribute
—it serves these, in every case, for the benefit of more widely to environmental destruction, habi-
the financial élite and for financial capital more tat fragmentation, and biodiversity loss.
generally. In short, the border walls of imperial- An explicitly anti-imperial political ecology of the
ism serve the state, which itself serves the state’s imperial border—the goal to which this paper
ruling class. humbly contributes—is one which does not seek
Lenin wrote that the deepest economic founda- a reform of the imperial border, but a destruction
tion of imperialism is monopoly. In the capitalist thereof. The reform of such a system is, as Lenin
era, “[t]his is capitalist monopoly, i.e., monopoly noted, “a deception, [and] a ‘pious wish,’”96 di-
which has grown out of capitalism and which ex- vorced from all material reality and from the actu-
ists in the general environment of capitalism, al oppression of those peoples and lands imperial-
commodity production and competition, in per- ism claims as its own. “Imperialism is the epoch of
manent and insoluble contradiction to this gener- finance capital and of monopolies, which intro-
al environment. Nevertheless, like all monopoly, duce everywhere the striving for domination, not
it inevitably engenders a tendency of stagnation for freedom. Whatever the political system, the
and decay.”93 The border walls of the imperialist result of these tendencies is everywhere reaction
state—Hadrian’s Wall, the Antonine Wall, and and an extreme intensification of antagonisms in
now the US-Mexico Border Wall, similarly en- this field.”97 It is a system which, in the efforts of a
gender a tendency of stagnation and decay— they great global partitioning, oppression, and ex-
emblematize and foreshadow these in the same ploitation, must not be allowed to flourish—its
way that the imperialist state emblematizes and walls and its partitions must in every case be op-
foreshadows its own decay. Imperialism, Lenin posed. For while the walls of imperialism both im-
contended, “means the partitioning of the world, ply and foretell their own breaking-apart, they of-
and the exploitation of other countries [...] which ten need a push.
means high monopoly profits for a handful of very
292 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
ENDNOTES 25. Qtd. in Ireland, p. 15.

1. Lenin, V.I. Imperialism. p. 67. 26. Ireland, S. Roman Britain: A Sourcebook. p. 1.
2. Ibid. 68 27. Goldsworthy, Adrian. Hadrian’s Wall. p. 1.
3. Brown, Wendy. Walled States, Waning 28. Breeze, David. Roman Frontiers in Britain. p.
Sovereignty. p. 98. 11.
4. Hassner, Ron E. & Wittenberg, Jason. "Barriers 29. Elton, Hugh. Frontiers of the Roman Empire. p.
to Entry: Who Builds Fortified Boundaries and 15.
Why?" p. 157.
30. Breeze, David. Roman Frontiers in Britain. p.
5. Carter, David B., and Paul Poast. "Why Do 29.
States Build Walls? Political Economy, Security,
31. Ibid., p. 29.
and Border Stability." p. 240.
32. Salway, Peter. The Frontier People of Roman
6. Brown, Wendy. Walled States, Waning
Britain. p. 1.
Sovereignty p. 86.
33. Collins, Rob. Hadrian’s Wall and the End of
7. Donnan, Hastings, and Thomas Wilson. Bor-
Empire: The Roman Frontier in the 4th and 5th
ders: Frontiers of Identity, Nation, and State. p. 1.
Centuries. p. 9.
8. Shotter, David. The Roman Frontier in Britain:
34. Breeze, David. Roman Scotland. p. 12.
Hadrian’s Wall, the Antonine Wall, and Roman Pol-
icy in the North. p. 3. 35. See, generally: Shotter, David. The Roman
Frontier in Britain: Hadrian’s Wall, the Antonine
9. Ibid. 3
Wall, and Roman Policy in the North.
10. Ibid. 3
36. Ibid. p. 15.
11. Ibid. 3
37. Ibid. p. 16.
12. Strabo. Geōgraphiká. p. 257 .
38. Dyson, Stephen L. The Creation of the Roman
13. Lenin, V.I. Imperialism. Ch. 7. Frontier. p. 5.
14. Ibid. 39. Shotter, David. The Roman Frontier in Britain:
15. Ibid. icy in the North. p. 17.
16. Dyson, Stephen L. The Creation of the Roman 40. Ibid. 17
Frontier. p. 3.
41. Ibid. 18
17. Elton, Hugh. Frontiers of the Roman Empire. p.
11. 42. Dio, Cassius. Roman History. p. 417.
18. Ibid. 11 43. Hingley, Richard. Hadrian’s Wall: A Life. p. 14.
19. Ibid. 12 44. A loaded term, as the occupation itself was a vi-
olent and reactionary affair.
20. Ibid. 12
45. Shotter, David. The Roman Frontier in Britain:
21. Ibid. 5 Hadrian’s Wall, the Antonine Wall, and Roman Pol-
22. Ireland, S. Roman Britain: A Sourcebook. p. xvi- icy in the North. p. 28.
ii. 46. Ibid. p. 31.
23. Qtd. in Ireland, p. 13. 47. Ibid. pp. 31-32.
24. Qtd. in Ireland, p. 14. 48. Collins, Rob. Hadrian’s Wall and the End of

BEN STAHNKE
Empire: The Roman Frontier in the 4th and 5th Monument." p. 371.
Centuries. p. 12.
72. Aratani, Lauren. "'Invasion' and 'Fake News':
49. Hingley, Richard. Hadrian’s Wall: A Life. p. 14. El Paso Manifesto Echoes Trump Language." Ac-
cessed from: https://www.nytimes.-
50. Hanson, William, and Gordon Maxwell.
com/2019/08/04/us/politics/trump-mass-shoot-
Rome’s Northwest Frontier: The Antonine Wall. p.
ings.html
48.
73. Hegel, GWF. The Philosophy of History. p. 316.
51. Ibid. 54
74. Ibid. p. 317.
52. Hingley, Richard. Hadrian’s Wall: A Life. p. 15.
75. Ibid. p. 317.
Empire: The Roman Frontier in the 4th and 5th 76. Parenti, Michael. The Assassination of Julius
Centuries. p. 9. Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome. p. 27.
54. Dyson, Stephen L. The Creation of the Roman 77. Ibid. p. 205.
Frontier. p. 3.
78. Ibid. p. 31.
79. Ibid. p. 35.
Centuries. p. 13. 80. Balibar, Etienne. “Europe as Borderland.” p.
192.
81. Nesbitt, Claire, and Divya Tolia-Kelly. "Hadri-
57. Ibid. p. 17.
an’s Wall: Embodied Archaeologies of the Linear
58. Goldsworthy, Adrian. Hadrian’s Wall. p. 18. Monument." p. 371.
59. Hingley, Richard. Hadrian’s Wall: A Life. p. 18. 82. Balibar, Etienne. “Europe as Borderland.” p.
198.
60. Ibid. 19
83. Qtd. in Hingley, p. 247.
61. Goldsworthy, Adrian. Hadrian’s Wall. p. 20.
84. Nail, Thomas. Theory of the Border. pp. 86-87.
62. Ibid. 18
85. Brown, Wendy. Walled States, Waning
Sovereignty. p. 131.
64. Hanson, William, and Gordon Maxwell.
86. Frye, David. Walls: A History of Civilization in
Rome’s Northwest Frontier: The Antonine Wall. p.
Blood and Brick. p. 4.
53.
87. Ibid. p. 6.
88. Hassner, Ron E. & Wittenberg, Jason. "Barri-
ers to Entry: Who Builds Fortified Boundaries and
67. Shotter, David. The Roman Frontier in Britain: Why?" p. 158.
89. Hegel, GWF. The Philosophy of History. p. 9.
icy in the North. p. 3.
90. Carter, David B., and Paul Poast. "Why Do
68. Marx, Karl. “Rent of Land.” p. 103.
69. Brunet-Jailly, Emmanuel. "Theorizing Borders: and Border Stability." p. 240.
An Interdisciplinary Perspective." p. 634.
91. Accessed from: https://www.theguardian.-
70. Nail, Thomas. Theory of the Border. p. 21. com/us-news/2019/jan/09/donald-trumps-bor-
der-wall-speech-in-full
71. Nesbitt, Claire, and Divya Tolia-Kelly. "Hadri-
an’s Wall: Embodied Archaeologies of the Linear 92. Lenin, V.I. Imperialism. p. 75.
294 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
93. Ibid. p. 75. Frye, David. Walls: A History of Civilization in

Blood and Brick. Scribner, 2018.
94. Ibid. p. 78.
Goldsworthy, Adrian. Hadrian’s Wall. Basic
95. Ibid. p. 80. Books, 2018.
96. Ibid. p. 83. Hanson, William, and Gordon Maxwell. Rome’s
97. Ibid. p. 90. Northwest Frontier: The Antonine Wall.
Edinburgh University Press, 1983.
Hassner, Ron E. & Wittenberg, Jason. "Barriers
WORKS CITED to Entry: Who Builds Fortified Boundaries and
Aratani, Lauren. "'Invasion' and 'Fake News': El Why?" International Security, vol. 40 no. 1, 2015,
Paso Manifesto Echoes Trump Language." New pp. 157-190.
York Times. Accessed from: https:// Hegel, G.W.F. The Philosophy of History. Dover,
www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/us/politics/ 1956.
trump-mass-shootings.html
Hingley, Richard. Hadrian’s Wall: A Life. Oxford
Balibar, Etienne. "Europe as borderland." University Press, 2012.
Environment and Planning: Society and Space.
Ireland, S. Roman Britain: A Sourcebook.
Vol. 27, no. 2, 2009, pp. 190-215.
Routledge, 1986.
Brown, Wendy. Walled States, Waning
Lenin, V.I. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of
Sovereignty. Zone Books, 2010.
Capitalism. International Publishers, 1969.
Breeze, David. Roman Frontiers in Britain.
Marx, Karl. “Rent of Land.” Early Writings.
Bristol Classical Press, 2007.
McGraw Hill, 1964.
Breeze, David. Roman Scotland. Historic
Nail, Thomas. Theory of the Border. Oxford,
Scotland, 1996.
2016.
Brunet-Jailly, Emmanuel. "Theorizing Borders:
Nesbitt, Claire, and Divya Tolia-Kelly.
An Interdisciplinary Perspective." Geopolitics.
"Hadrian’s Wall: Embodied Archaeologies of the
Vol. 10, no. 4, 2005, pp. 633-649.
Linear Monument." Journal of Social
Carter, David B., and Paul Poast. "Why Do Archaeology. Vol. 9, no. 3, 2009, pp. 368-390.
Parenti, Michael. The Assassination of Julius
and Border Stability." Journal of Conflict
Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome. The
Resolution. Vol. 61, no. 2, 2017, pp. 239-270.
New Press, 2004.
Collins, Rob. Hadrian’s Wall and the End of
Salway, Peter. The Frontier People of Roman
Britain. Cambridge University Press, 1965.
Centuries. Routledge, 2012.
Shotter, David. The Roman Frontier in Britain:
Dio, Cassius. Roman History. University of
Hadrian’s Wall, the Antonine Wall, and Roman
Chicago. Accessed from: http://
Policy in the North. Carnegie Publishing, 1996.
penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/
Texts/Cassius_Dio/60*.html#19. Strabo. Geographiká. University of Chicago.
Accessed from: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/
Donnan, Hastings, and Thomas Wilson. Borders:
Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/4E*.html.
Frontiers of Identity, Nation, and State. Oxford,
Accessed 20 June 2019.
1999.
Dyson, Stephen L. The Creation of the Roman
Frontier. Princeton University Press, 1985.
Elton, Hugh. Frontiers of the Roman Empire.
Indiana University Press, 1996.

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296 No. 4 / APRIL 2021

THINGS BEFORE
The Nina
Andreeva
Affair
Part Two:
The Ensuing Political Struggle
Concluded from the Third Issue of Peace, Land, and Bread
Immediately following the publication of the Andreeva letter, planning-oriented

reform regained popularity with the Soviet citizenry and a number of significant
Donald media outlets. Although ominously labeled the "three weeks of stagnation" in
liberal periodicals, this brief moment encompassed a revival of party dedication
Courter to Andropovian-style reform and a media campaign against the slandering of So-
viet history.1 Interviews with Andreeva were broadcast on television, and her
criticism of contemporary Soviet historical discourse inspired a renewed defense
On July 24th, 2020, a little of socialist principles.
known yet profoundly important
hero of the global socialist
As Andreeva’s popularity grew, Yegor Ligachev, who supported Andreeva’s let-
movement, Nina Aleksandrovna ter and had himself consistently criticized the anarchic handling of information,
Andreeva, passed away at the was also invited for several interviews in prominent media outlets. These inter-
age of 81. Andreeva was a views mostly encompassed topics and policy Ligachev had discussed and agitated
chemistry professor in
Leningrad, who became a
for since 1986 and little overt relevance to the specific content of the Andreeva
leading voice of scientific letter. Ligachev often spoke of "the question [he] had raised in Elektrostal and in
socialism at a time of the report at the Central Committee plenum"—namely, the necessity of a bal-
widespread ideological anced analysis of historical figures regardless of the taboos that had come to sur-
confusion, liberal subversion of
the media, and historical self-
round them.2 Considering that Gorbachev and his supporters took little initiative
flagellation in the Soviet Union.. to attack Ligachev’s politics prior to the publication of the Andreeva letter, the
interviews should not have been seen as politically threatening.

DONALD COURTER
glasnost
Nevertheless, Yakovlev quickly accused Lig- tives of the affair, Ligachev, who was in charge of
achev and Andreeva of causing "perplexity and allocating letters to ideological screeners, men-
confusion in the face of the complex and acute tions the numerous letters responding to Andree-
questions that life poses."3 Compelled to defend va’s polemic in his memoirs. According to an offi-
the market reformers against allegations of ideo- cial investigation referenced by Ligachev, out of
logical revisionism, Yakovlev anonymously pub- the "380 responses [that] were received," there
lished the Pravda article "Pravda Rebuts Antire- were "only 80 condemning Andreeva while 300
structuring Manifesto." In it, he argued against supported her."5 The fact that all of the responses
claims that the market reformers were "subject- were written by independent citizens demon-
ing the principles of Marxism-Leninism to revi- strates that the Andreeva letter did not cause a
sion" and blamed such accusations on the ideolog- fracture within Soviet society as Yakovlev
ical "confusion and perplexity" aroused in "some claimed, but was consistent with the supposed
people" by Andreeva and her supporters.4 It ap- spirit of glasnost.
pears that the market reformers took direct ac-
But for the market reformers, Andreeva’s insis-
tion only after the opposition was platformed and
tence that the official attacks on the achievements
legitimated in the wider media. Ligachev and An-
of Soviet history were antithetical to glasnost itself
dreeva’s open criticism of the defamation of Sovi-
posed a serious problem. The highly selective re-
et history emboldened those who had previously
porting by liberal elements in the official media
feared challenging the liberalization of the state
undercut the kind of openness seemingly
media, and thus formed a capable threat to the
preached by the market reformers. Such prac-
hegemonic control the market reformers held
tices did not promote fair and civil exchange be-
over the highest levels of the Soviet government.
tween the proponents of different ideas; rather,
The Soviet people's support for Ligachev’s poli- they served to secure the ruling faction’s political
tics and the Andreeva letter manifested itself in objectives.
the hundreds of supportive letters written by av-
Although the market reformers accused Ligachev
erage citizens but left unpublished during
of conspiring to reprint the Andreeva letter dur-
Yakovlev and Gorbachev’s swift purge of anti-
ing his meeting with media officials on March 14,
market elements in the party. Although these let-
outright support for the letter came only from a
ters are generally omitted from western narra-
298 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
few media representatives and manifested itself meeting on March 25 that excluded Ligachev,
without a unified directive. Valentin Chikin, who was unable to attend due to the pressing na-
Chief Editor of Sovetskaya Rossiya and original ture of his immediate party duties. Gorbachev im-
publisher of the Andreeva letter, was the first me- mediately issued a test of loyalty, firmly stating, "I
dia representative to publicly challenge liberal am asking all of you to declare yourselves" in re-
tendencies in the larger media. Immediately after gard to participation in a conspiracy against pere-
the March 14 meeting, Chikin defended Andree- stroika and support for the Andreeva letter.10
va and the storm of sympathetic letters that fol- Threatening the Politburo with his resignation
lowed "as a reaction to the turbid stream of anti- and an investigation into each Politburo mem-
historical, anti-Soviet materials in [their] press."6 ber’s activities, Gorbachev eventually turned ev-
Victor Afanasyev, Chief Editor of Pravda, sup- eryone present at the meeting against Ligachev.
ported Chikin’s appraisal of the Andreeva letter, The coercion of the Politburo at the March 30
publishing letters from ordinary Soviet citizens in meeting resulted in the authorization of an official
the party’s main periodical. When Yakovlev at- response to the Andreeva letter to be written by
tempted to publish his rebuttal in Pravda, Yakovlev and prepared the market reformers for
Afanasyev opposed its publication until Gor- the April 14 & 15 Politburo meeting in which they
bachev threatened him with removal from the ed- would eliminate all official party support for the
itorial board, once more revealing Gorbachev’s political line advanced by Ligachev and Andree-
opportunistic notion of a "free press."7 Other pe- va.
riodicals such as Kommunist and Komsomolskaya
Yakovlev’s anonymously published letter to
Pravda published letters with similar themes as
Pravda, "Pravda Rebuts Antirestructuring Man-
those advanced in the Andreeva letter, but were
ifesto," condemned the Andreeva letter and its
spared by Gorbachev and Yakovlev during the lat-
supporters, reflecting the tactics utilized the mar-
er Politburo purges. In the cases of Afanasyev,
ket reformers against the planning-oriented fac-
Chikin, and many others, support for the plan-
tion at the April 15 & 16 Politburo meeting. After
ning-oriented tendency resulted in purging dur-
criticizing Andreeva’s polemic for impersonating
ing the final campaign to permanently solidify the
the party line and confusing the masses, Yakovlev
liberal takeover of the Soviet state.
wrote the anonymous rebuttal without ever clear-
While supporters of a planning-oriented recali- ly establishing that the letter represented the con-
bration of perestroika gained support in the initial crete party line. Western historians who labeled
weeks following the publication of the Andreeva the Andreeva polemic an "authoritarian docu-
letter, these successes were cut short by the back- ment" fell silent on Yakovlev’s ambiguous pro-
lash following Gorbachev’s return to Moscow. nouncement.11 Moreover, Yakovlev and the mar-
The campaign began with two Politburo meetings ket reformers followed the exact course of action
chaired by Gorbachev and organized by Yakovlev which they wrongly claimed characterized the al-
in late March and early April. Gorbachev’s sud- leged conspiracy between Ligachev and Andree-
den change from situational moderate to market va: attempting, as a minority faction, to hijack
reformist manifested during a preparatory meet- party mechanisms with the intent of manipulat-
ing with Yakovlev upon his return. Yakovlev ing mass opinion.
framed the situation surrounding the Andreeva
In order to achieve a political victory and carry out
letter as if Ligachev was prepared to orchestrate a
Yakovlev’s "strike from above," the market re-
coup d’etat, claiming they should "strike back
formers had to intimidate or purge the majority of
from the highest level."8 Yakovlev’s calls for au-
the Politburo and publish an authoritative denun-
thoritative action indicate the market reformers
ciation of Andreeva in the mass media. Ironically,
lacked confidence that they could rely on citizens
western historian Archie Brown notes "how little
at "a lower level" to defend Gorbachev’s style of
reliance could be placed at this time on democrat-
perestroika.9
ic pressure from below to combat attempts by
Gorbachev and Yakovlev forced a Politburo party conservatives to launch a counter-reforma-

DONALD COURTER
tion."12 Yakovlev stood against the mass support many Politburo members supported the content
for the strengthening of socialism and the end of of the Andreeva letter, Gorbachev and Yakovlev
self-flagellation the market reformers had intimidated all dissenting members into submis-
brought upon the country. sion by calling for the defense of unity. One by
one, Politburo members who sympathized with
The political maneuvering of the market reform-
Andreeva ceded their arguments under the threat
ers came to a climax with the commencement of
of purging. For Yakovlev and Gorbachev, this
the Politburo’s final meeting regarding the Nina
meeting successfully silenced support for plan-
Andreeva affair. The April 14 & 15 Politburo
ning-oriented reform in the media, permanently
meeting of 1988 was a landmark moment in the
marginalized Ligachev for his history of opposi-
collapse of socialism in the USSR and throughout
tion to market reform, and did away with all
the Eastern Bloc—marking the triumph of the
politicians who continued to oppose the pro-mar-
market reformers against the defenders of social-
ket orientation of perestroika. Furthermore, the
ism within the CPSU. The meeting was preceded
liquidation of the planning-oriented reformers
by a Central Committee commission under
from the CPSU consolidated the market reform-
Yakovlev’s direction "raid[ing] the offices of
ers’ control over the Soviet media, ending the
Sovetskaya Rossiya looking for evidence of a con-
short period in which both planning and market-
spiracy" which, unsurprisingly, yielded nothing
based perspectives circulated throughout Soviet
aside from an abundance of unpublished letters
publications.
supporting Andreeva.13 Even without the evi-
dence he hoped to procure in the raid, Gorbachev As a result of the campaign against planning-ori-
began the Politburo meeting by voicing his frus- ented party members, Soviet media outlets were
tration with the unverifiable rumor that "several pressured to cease publishing letters in support of
comrades called for the reprinting of the article in the Andreeva letter and instead publish letters of
different periodical organs" and that the article dubious origins opposing the so-called "three
itself contained "information about which [only] a weeks of stagnation." Hardline Marxist-Leninist
tight circle of people" knew.14 After hearing that publications, such as Sovetskaya Rossiya, Pravda,
and Kommunist, were "categorically forbidden to
publish letters in support of Andreeva and or-
dered to print only condemnatory letters."15 Out
of 380 letters received from citizens concerning
the Andreeva letter, all 300 supportive letters
were confiscated from Ligachev’s office. In fact,
all supportive letters received by other periodi-
cals "were taken from the editorial offices" in or-
der to impose artificial "unanimous condemna-
tion of the article."16 Government agents seized
the letters as evidence for a supposed political
conspiracy against Gorbachev’s perestroika, al-
though none of the letters or any other "suspi-
cious materials'' provided the liberals with suffi-
cient evidence to suggest an anti-perestroika con-
spiracy existed in the first place. While perestroi-
ka and glasnost had stemmed, in part, from public
demand for the curbing of the arbitrary use of
state power, reforms instead depended upon and
reinforced the intensification of official attacks on
the historical legacy of the Soviet project as a
whole, the very practice that Andreeva and many
300 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
perestroika
other citizens spoke out against in the spirit of spite its members having bowed to their authori-
glasnost itself. ty. By the 19th Party Conference, "Gorbachev
[had] removed all the Politburo leaders who sup-
In the end, the USSR would come to appear vastly
ported the Andreeva letter, except Anatoly
different from the promised changes that pere-
Lukyanov, Gorbachev’s friend from student
stroika would supposedly bring. First and fore-
days."19 And of course, Gorbachev demoted Lig-
most, Yakovlev’s unsigned article, published on
achev to Secretary of Agriculture, while promot-
the front page of Pravda, artificially redirected
ing Medvedev, one of Yakovlev’s closest allies, to
public opinion towards an undemocratically-es-
Secretary of Ideology. This exertion of power
tablished party line, in the exact manner that Lig-
startled even the most supportive western histo-
achev and Andreeva stood accused. Gorbachev
rians, prompting one, Joseph Gibbs, to observe
and Yakovlev had to force a resistant Victor
that "the only acceptable use of glasnost was in
Afanasev, editor in chief of Pravda, to publish
promoting perestroika as Gorbachev directed
Yakovlev’s article, which Afanasev saw as an af-
it."20 Finally, with the arrival of the 19th Party
front to Marxist-Leninist principles. Ligachev re-
Conference, Gorbachev, Yakovlev, and the mar-
calls Afanasev claiming, "They twisted my arm
ket reformers could celebrate their consolidation
and forced me to put the article into the paper. I
of party unity, achieved through the ruthless sup-
will never in my life forgive myself for that."17
pression of the general political tendency that had
Sovetskaya Rossiya was also forced to print "a re-
dominated since 1917.
traction of the original [Andreeva] letter and self-
criticism" on April 15 against the will of the edito- The 19th Party Conference of 1988 marked the
rial board and chief editor Chikin.18 The Politburo final political defeat of the opposition forces and a
publicly condemned Chikin for publishing the turning point in the path towards the complete
Andreeva letter and nearly forced his resignation overthrow of socialism in the USSR. Gorbachev
from Sovetskaya Rossiya. As if the intimidation of recalls in his memoirs that "the forthcoming con-
major publications did not suffice in the crusade ference" was "a test of strength between the re-
against the political opposition, Gorbachev and form and conservative wings of the party" follow-
Yakovlev carried out a purge of the Politburo de- ing the planning reformers’ near destruction in

DONALD COURTER
mid-June.21 Notwithstanding the idealistic righ- all our reforms."25 The 19th Party Conference
teousness Gorbachev conceived around his strug- brought peaceful dissent against market reform
gle, the 19th Party Conference more closely re- to a close, leading to the unfettered liberalization
sembled a victory rally than a political battle- of Soviet society and the restoration of capitalism,
ground. In his opening speech, Gorbachev, assist- interrupted only momentarily by a later KGB at-
ed by Yakovlev beforehand, announced the cur- tempt to overthrow Gorbachev.
rent necessity for "implementation of radical eco-
nomic reform, activation of the spiritual potential
of society, reform of the political system, [and] de-
mocratization of international relations," which
Two Faces of Soviet
all amounted to the restoration of market forces, Liberalism
dismemberment of Soviet democracy, and un-
conditional surrender to the West’s demands.22 Throughout the implementation of perestroika in
While circumstance forced the only remaining the late 1980s, Gorbachev consistently reiterated
supporters of the Andreeva letter, Ligachev and the necessity for an indiscriminate democratic
Lukyanov, to be virtually silent, Gorbachev hu- political framework when publicly confronted by
morously recalls: "The party had not known such demands for the liquidation of dissenting politi-
an open and lively debate since its first post-revo- cians. Chernyayev, who viewed most of Gor-
lutionary congresses."23 Many of the "issues" at bachev’s policies as too moderate, often voiced
the conference consisted of topics such as purging support for arbitrary political measures in dealing
"anyone who in former times actively carried out with the political enemies of market reform. Dur-
the policy of stagnation."24 For the market re- ing the Politburo purge of June 1988, Gorbachev
formers, any discussion outside of opposition to responded to Chernyayev’s demand to dismiss
planning and the liberalization of the economy the entire editorial board of Sovetskaya Rossiya
represented a desire to revive so-called Stalinist for publishing Andreeva’s polemic, stating
tendencies within the party. The victors that reformers must operate
concluded that "direct sabotage by a "within the framework of a
significant number of the party democratic process."26
secretaries of the party appa- Although Gorbachev
ratus," although realisti- granted amnesty to
cally quite imaginary, Chikin for imple-
had been overcome and menting glas-
wished to use the 19th nost in a dis-
Party Conference as agreeable
"the springboard for manner, his
arbitrary
THINGS BEFORE
demotion and/or purging of political opponents

who could actually divert perestroika down a plan-
ning-oriented path, i.e., Ligachev and sympathet-
ic Politburo members, illustrates how Gorbachev
relied on democratic processes as a tool to im-
prove the reputation of his reforms. Many exam-
ples of Gorbachev touting democratic language to
improve the image of market reform took place at
his mass meetings with workers of different re-
gions across the USSR. In Norilsk, near the Arctic
Circle, Gorbachev publicly asserted that "every-
thing must be done democratically" when
charged by a market-oriented local party member
to purge comrades who "were holding back re-
form."27 Gorbachev’s democratic terminology
deeply resonated both with the West and Soviet
citizens who genuinely wished to improve Soviet
socialism, but this language served only to dis-
guise the imposition of capitalist reform.
Despite Gorbachev’s promise to work within a
democratic framework for all affairs carried out
by the liberalized Soviet state, many genuine so-
cialists, who initially supported Gorbachev’s as-
cension to power, fell prey to a contradictory cam-
formist allies opposed the original framework of
paign against neo-Stalinism which used so-called
perestroika as presented by Andropov and used
Stalinist political tactics. Ironically, it was the
the concept as a means to marginalize their oppo-
market reformers who first described their au-
sition when it was convenient. Yet another exam-
thoritarian tactics as part of an "Iron Hand" strat-
ple of such political opportunism emerged when
egy in dealing with the perceived threat of "neo-
"the same radicals who later left the party and
Stalinism."28 Fantasies about a social crusade
proceeded to attack communists", i.e., market re-
against the final remnants of the Stalinist system,
formers who trumpeted perestroika and socialism
therefore, took a form not unlike the Great Purges
throughout the late 20th century, began to attack
of the 1930s. Throughout the Great Purges, the
"those who continued to defend the ideas of the
state sought to liquidate kulaks, supporters of
27th Congress" into the 1990s.30 The authoritari-
Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin, and others
an measures of the market reformers in response
labeled "enemies of the people" from the party
to reformists of a different tendency directly con-
and positions of state power. Likewise, market re-
tradicted their stated democratic principles,
formers of the late 1980s directed their own cam-
which were nothing more than an opportunistic
paign against "enemies of perestroika" who al-
political tool.
legedly wanted to go back to the times of Josef
Stalin; the difference here was that no "enemy of Nina Andreeva understood that the policies of the
perestroika" supported the vague concept of market reformers and media slander had "to do
"Stalinism" or even opposed perestroika.29 Pere- not so much with [Stalin’s] historical personality
stroika simply means restructuring—its so-called itself" as it did with political opportunism.31 In
"enemies" opposed Gorbachev’s market devia- 1949, Ligachev, one of the most infamous "Stalin-
tions and instead sought to modernize economic ists" of the Nina Andreeva affair, was persecuted
planning, as well as further democratize party under "suspicion of being a Trotskyist ‘enemy of
rule. In reality, Gorbachev and his market re- the people’ and fired as chief of the Novosibirsk

DONALD COURTER
Komsomol organization."32 Moreover, Ligachev seized power. Although it is unlikely that a thor-
has always echoed Gorbachev in defending one of oughly developed plan for 1986 onwards existed,
Stalin’s primary political enemies, Nikolai Gorbachev describes his ultimate intent as "the
Bukharin, as "a wrongfully persecuted, honest establishment of a fully operative socialist mar-
person" who deserved to be posthumously ac- ket" and the removal of CPSU jurisdiction over
quitted of the crimes of which he was accused.33 the state.36 Gorbachev’s later criticisms of un-
Nina Andreeva’s relatives, too, were repressed, masked liberals who denounced the 27th Party
and both her father and sister died in World War Congress after defending it throughout the 1980s
II. Nevertheless, despite the repression Andree- illustrates the significance of the divide between
va’s family and Ligachev himself faced during the these two tendencies of market reformism. It is
1930s and 40s, the market reformers labeled true market reformers were eventually divided
planning-oriented reformers as the notorious into their own hostile camps, but the outcome of
leaders of a Stalinist conspiracy and attempted to both factions’ plans was clear: the removal of the
form a false historical narrative to support their CPSU’s political hegemony, the liberalization of
political objectives. economic planning to the benefit of capitalist ele-
ments, and, as a consequence, the collapse of the
Market-oriented politicians and media represen-
Soviet Union.
tatives did not simply take advantage of the
events that were transpiring to disenfranchise The consistent conflict between Gorbachev’s re-
their political opponents; they were actively ma- iteration of the necessity for party unity and the
nipulating events to produce conditions favorable ease with which he divided and conquered his own
to the purging of the opposition. Market reform- comrades throughout the Nina Andreeva affair
ers like Yasovlev and Chernyaev had decided it offers a stark example of opportunism in practice.
was necessary to purge anti-market forces from Throughout the affair, denunciations of party
the party long before the Nina Andreeva Affair. In members who breached "party unity" had im-
the spirit of market reformism, Chernyaev recalls paired the political activities of reformers who
that their brand of reform required "avalanche of genuinely sought to improve socialism through
anti-Stalinism" to compensate for its lack of pop- the established means of democratic centralism.
ularity within the party, concluding that "if there Gorbachev continued to reiterate that "[we] had
had been no Nina Andreyeva, [they] would have unity in the past...new unity was born out of the
had to invent her."34 While radical market-orient- development of a new political course, which we
ed reformers like Chernyaev touted overtly now call—perestroika," causing dedication to
machiavellian sentiments of political deception, party unity to overshadow suspicion that Gor-
Gorbachev more naively mentions how vital the bachev’s perestroika was contributing to the over-
Nina Andreeva affair was to the conviction that throw of the Soviet Union.37
their political opposition was planning a coup and
Gorbachev may not have acted with the same ma-
to the reinforcement of market reformer power.
licious intent as the market reformers who sup-
Gorbachev’s belief that "without knowing it, Ni-
ported him prior to the collapse of the Soviet
na Andreeva helped us," when cross-analyzed
Union, but his inability to stop events from spiral-
against Chernyaev’s statements regarding the af-
ing out of control only played into their hands.
fair, suggest that the market reform bloc had a
generally uniform plan for the political future of Amidst the political chaos of the Nina Andreeva
the USSR before the publication of Nina Andree- affair and the economic catastrophe that devel-
va’s letter and that Gorbachev was to be their ve- oped as a result of market reforms, Gorbachev
hicle of political power.35 The conflicting post- continued to defend perestroika and its policies as
Soviet memoirs of different market-oriented CP- necessary for the maintenance and improvement
SU members further indicate that Gorbachev of Marxism-Leninism in the Soviet Union. The
conceived of a distinct Soviet future that differed Andreeva letter’s title, "I Cannot Forgo My Prin-
from the vision of the politicians who ultimately ciples," even took inspiration from Gorbachev’s
304 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
public statement at a February plenary session of Union. The state, under the leadership of the par-
the CPSU Central Committee, at which he ty, had owned nearly all capital and productive
claimed, "We must be guided by our Marxist- property across the multinational country. The
Leninist principles. Comrades, we must not forgo party’s guidance of economic forces attempted to
these principles under any pretexts."38 And yet, encourage socialist development while party and
Gorbachev’s actions and principles were in obvi- state mechanisms provided a degree of political
ous contradiction. However, Gorbachev was not representation at every level of society. But this
likely consciously betraying his Marxist-Leninist system of Soviet democracy refused the establish-
principles, instead falling victim to the influences ment of private property necessary for the real-
of hardline market reformers like Chernyaev and ization of market reform. For this reason,
Yakovlev. These reformers frankly recall how Chernyaev ominously told Gorbachev that
Gorbachev’s policies never satisfied them, as "the "[maybe] an operation to clean out the Politburo
system would have remained the same" if they could have been undertaken [...] but what then?
had not eventually bypassed him to break up the [...] the system would have remained the same"
Soviet Union.39 Unlike his former advisors, Gor- and property relations would remain socialized.41
bachev still asserts that the market reformers "The party-state monolith was still in place" and
made an error in breaking up the Soviet Union would have been strengthened under planning-
and that "with every passing day, it becomes more oriented reform policies, leading market reform-
and more obvious that what the country needs is a ers like Chernyaev and Yakovlev to attack it as the
new balance of political forces."40 Although Gor- only means to dismantle socialism.42 These mar-
bachev may not have intended to precipitate the ket reformers convinced Gorbachev to dismantle
collapse like his more extreme comrades, his poli- party power over the state on the grounds that all
cies undercutting party power and economic encompassing state power was inherently un-
planning effectively destroyed the social and eco- democratic, soon bringing him into the effort of
nomic infrastructure of the Soviet Union. "drawing a line between the functions of the party
and the state."43 Because these elections allowed
Gorbachev’s capitulation to the liberal demand
campaigning and private funding, candidates fell
for the weakening of party control over the state
under the influence of wealthy black marketeers
and economy demonstrates that the radical mar-
and liberal politicians who had been snatching up
ket reformers were ultimately interested in over-
state property since the Brezhnev era. Gor-
throwing Marxism-Leninism in the Soviet
bachev’s democracy, therefore, did not work in

DONALD COURTER
favor of working class people; on the contrary, it

dismantled the party political structure that once
Liberal Ramifications,
assured capital could not overpower the worker’s the Destruction of
vote. The overthrow of party power in the Soviet
Union disarmed the socialist system and opened Socialism, and the
it to attacks on its economic framework—plan-
ning. Dissolution of the USSR
Gorbachev’s liberalization of the economy The political struggle that ensued from the publi-
caused near-hyperinflation, chronic shortages of cation of the Andreeva letter conclusively ended
basic necessities, an end to working class partici- opposition to market reformism within the Polit-
pation in economic planning, and reinforced buro of the CPSU and marked a turning
forces that would ultimately overthrow socialism. point in the trajectory of pere-
For Gorbachev, defending a "movement towards stroika towards eco-
market reforms" unconditionally meant "defend- nomic and politi-
ing perestroika and confirming [their] plans" for a cal liberal-
reversal of nearly a century of socialist construc- ization.
tion.44 His vision of a "market socialist" Soviet
Union, although purportedly different from the
liberal attempts to mass privatise the means of
production, served as a halfway house for liberals
to take advantage of a weakened state and over-
turn its socialist property relations.45 The move-
ment towards these market reforms meant the
disenfranchisement of working people from a for-
merly democratic economic process and the scat-
tering of organized state resources into the anar-
chy of private ownership. Surprisingly, it seems as
though Gorbachev’s move towards market liber-
alization resulted more from a failure to under-
stand the significance of economic planning on
the development of socialism rather than an op-
portunistic attempt to claim state property. In his
memoirs, Gorbachev claims that he saw no con-
tradiction between socialist development and
"the establishment of a fully operative socialist Through
market"; on the contrary, he viewed it as the nec- the purges in
essary conclusion of his reformation of Marxism- May 1988, market
Leninism.46 Gorbachev’s incorrect projection of reformers successfully
the effects market policies would have on socialist eliminated opposition from near-
development directly contrast the more predato- ly all state apparatuses, with just enough time
ry claims of reformers like Chernyaev and to announce thorough liberalization at the 19th
Yakovlev, who, in their memoirs, blatantly admit Party Conference. Ligachev, the only planning-
their early wishes to restore the prevalence of pri- oriented reformer given ample time to speak,
vate property. The naivety of Gorbachev, eradi- mourned the death of democratic centralism
cation of political opposition, and economically within the party while criticizing Gorbachev’s
predatory aspirations of market reformers culmi- idealistic and optimistic projections for perestroi-
nated into a perfect formula for a reintroduction ka at the 19th Party Conference. He also stated
of markets and the ultimate destruction of the So- that the course of perestroika had been deter-
viet Union. mined through backdoor Politburo battles and
306 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
that "history [could have] taken a different imposition of market reforms after the 19th Party
course" if the Marxist principle of open discussion Conference.49 Interestingly enough, no high pro-
was truly upheld within the party.47 Glasnost and file party members were dismissed or reprimand-
freedom of discussion were weaponized by the ed directly under the pretense of being a neo-Stal-
market reformers, leaving purges and suppres- inist; their crimes were of breaking party unity or
sion within the bounds of legality. Gorbachev re- lacking party discipline, only vaguely correlating
calls having "succeeded in defending perestroika to the fabricated neo-Stalinist tendency de-
and confirming our plans" immediately following scribed by the liberal press. Ligachev accurately
the 19th Party Conference, "including the move- criticises these occurrences as "a phenomenon of
ment towards market reforms" against which no the manipulation of mass consciousness: people
party member dared to oppose.48 As a result of do not know the essence of the matter but they
the defeat of the political opposi- have been inculcated with a firm stereotype, with
tion, perestroika became the help of which opponents can be labeled with-
an unobstructed out any explanations, elucidations, or argu-
process of lib- ments."50 In essence, calls for a balanced historical
eralization appraisal of the successes and failures of Soviet
begin- history created too great a possibility for the pub-
ning lic to reject Gorbachev’s market-oriented and po-
in litically pluralistic reforms. Although history pro-
vided the Nina Andreeva the market reformers
needed, their victory against Andreeva, Ligachev,
and their supporters would have been impossible
without their fabrication of the neo-Stalinist
boogeyman.
Despite the original claim that the purpose of per-
estroika served to perfect socialism in the 20th
century, the progressively right-wing political
trend driving perestroika aimed to restore capital-
ism in the Eastern Bloc. The clearest indication of
their opportunistic intent surfaced with the offi-
cial dissolution of the Soviet Union—the near
unanimous rejection of the 27th Party Congress
July
as too conservative. Immediately before his resig-
1988.
nation as President of the Soviet Union, Gor-
The hunt bachev recalls that, "[T]here were no farewells.
for neo-Stalin- None of the leaders of the states of the CIS tele-
ists among the ranks phoned me, neither on the day of my departure
of the party served as a justi- nor since" and that his former comrades were
fication for the attacks on the politi- "thrown into a rage" by his critical farewell
cal opposition, as the campaign continued with- speech.51 The market reformers who once acted in
out exposing a single "neo-Stalinist" in a position the name of "democratic socialism" and struggled
of party leadership. Nonetheless, Gorbachev be- in favor of Gorbachev’s policies of perestroika and
gan removing Politburo members and other na- glasnost had, in an instant, rejected the political
tional leaders who supported the Andreeva letter, principles of class struggle and workers’ democ-
replacing them with his own hand-picked under- racy upon which their homeland was founded.
lings until official debate about the course of pere- Without a strong planning-oriented faction with-
stroika ceased. Gorbachev recalls that "no signifi- in the party, the political shift of the market re-
cant political force spoke out openly" against the formers came as a surprise to many who believed

DONALD COURTER
liberal politicians at their word. However, the lat-

er writings of many market reformers reveal the
inner thoughts which guided them through the
late 1980s. Chernyaev’s various descriptions of
Ligachev as "a slave to the old ways" and someone
who "personalizes the gross output, slave-driv-
ing, shock work approach" embody the contempt
with which Chernyaev viewed Ligachev’s defense
of the positive aspects of socialist society.52
Chernyaev, in several instances, revealed his de-
sire to overthrow the system as a whole, claiming
that the planning- oriented reformers "demon-
strated a complete bankruptcy in misunderstand-
ing the essence of perestroika" as a means to re-
form socialism. Chernyaev saw a political course
in which "the system would have remained the
same" as inherently backwards and Stalinist.53 Al-
though market reformers initially defended pere-

stroika as an improvement upon socialist con-
struction, their actions following the fall of the So-
viet Union revealed their interest in complete sys-
tem change since before the 27th Party Confer-
ence.
The most significant conundrum of perestroika
emerges from the fact that market reform policies
made the Soviet, and eventually Russian, political
system far more undemocratic than even during
the Brezhnev years. The first western-style par-
liamentary elections took place in the Spring of
1990 and retained a relatively unchanging politi-
cal character until electoral modifications of the
early 2000s, but for Gorbachev these elections
varied in their authenticity. In reflecting upon the
liberalized elections of 1990, Gorbachev recalls
308 No. 4 / MAY 2021

THINGS BEFORE
that "this time the communists indeed held gen- tions as combating the resurgence of commu-
uine elections, under the eye of a watchful nism, spawning an unstable political atmosphere
press"—a press that at this point was completely not seen since the October Revolution of 1917.
predisposed against opponents of the party’s lib-
Similar to the devastating political consequences
eral policies.54 These elections brought the for-
of removing the party from political authority in
merly-defeated Boris Yeltsin back into politics as
the Soviet Union, the restoration of markets in
Chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet and ini-
the Eastern Bloc sowed ruinous outcomes for mil-
tially as Gorbachev’s political ally. Although Gor-
lions of workers and outlandish fortunes for a se-
bachev believed the 1990 election to be genuine,
lect few. Economic planning in the 1980s, al-
he rejected future elections as one among many
though it required reform and was plagued by in-
factors that have prompted the necessity for “a
efficiencies, continued to provide the Soviet peo-
new balance of political forces and a new policy”
ple with guaranteed employment, healthcare, ed-
after Yeltsin betrayed him and he was rendered
ucation, and housing among other socialist pro-
powerless as the president of a country that no
grams and privileges. Not only did the Soviet state
longer existed.55 Gorbachev’s conception of a
continue to provide these invaluable services to
genuine election, therefore, does not provide an
the populace amidst increasingly worrisome eco-
accurate measure for authenticity, as it only de-
nomic stagnation, but Soviet industry even main-
scribes elections in which candidates favorable to
tained an impressive 3.2% annual growth rate
his policies are elected. No Russian presidential
throughout the early 1980s—a large figure even
election from 1990 onwards would be considered
for the United States at the time.57 Soviet citizens
genuine and fair, even by western standards, if the
actually enjoyed the highest living standards ever
parties involved were not concerned with de-
experienced in the history of the multinational
stroying socialism at any cost. The supposedly
federation, leading many polls to suggest that sat-
first genuine election of 1990, as Gorbachev re-
isfaction with the quality of Soviet life was compa-
calls in his memoirs, took place under the supervi-
rable to that of the United States in 1985.58 How-
sion of the radically anti-communist press and in
ever, the ruinous mass privatization campaigns of
a completely homogenous political atmosphere
the 1990s quickly converted complaints about
that resulted from the purges leading up to the
party corruption and faltering labor productivity
19th Party Conference of 1988—an election that
into fears regarding losing one’s home and the in-
essentially amounted to thoroughly liberal ap-
ability to afford food.
pointment. Later elections became more blatant-
ly corrupt starting with the 1993 parliamentary Throughout the latter years of perestroika
elections in which "extensive ballot rigging prob- (1989-1991), market reforms had already caused
ably took place" and a communist rebellion, significant monetary inflation and actually ham-
known as "Black October," projected the voices of pered labor productivity in the state economy by
those who had been betrayed by the triumph of purposely weakening the government’s attempts
liberalism back into the political discussion.56 The to control private economic interests, measures
degree to which corruption and election-rigging Gorbachev defended in his final "Address to the
was widespread in the post-Soviet Russian politi- Soviet Citizens" as "historically justified" because
cal system is incomparable with the politics typi- "society has acquired freedom; it has been freed
cal of the Soviet period. Western criticisms of the politically and spiritually."59 For the average Rus-
Soviet political system mostly amounted to de- sian worker, this "freedom" did not end the ram-
nunciations of the one party system and internal pant inflation which made the previously afford-
elections of party functionaries—neither of able prices of food and other commodities sky-
which are objectively undemocratic practices as rocket; in fact, it served only to expedite mass pri-
they were practiced within the limits of estab- vatization under Boris Yeltsin and other liberals
lished Soviet legality. Ultimately, perestroika en- who ultimately betrayed Gorbachev for his "far
couraged politicians to navigate the political sys- left" approach to market economics. Gorbachev
tem through illegal methods and justify their ac- described Yeltsin’s disastrous and predatory eco-

DONALD COURTER
nomic policies, often called "shock therapy," as "a ment in the Soviet Union primarily stemmed
‘cavalry attack’ on our economy [which] brought from the immense privileges the workers’ state
enormous hardships for the people of Russia. offered its people relative to western liberal
Power was in the hands of irresponsible, incom- democracies. By disenfranchising workers from
petent people, who were both ambitious and the political process and inviting the new oli-
ruthless."60 While the responsibility for this "cav- garchical class into the highest organs of govern-
alry attack" lies with the market reformers, Gor- ment, Russian liberals converted the previously
bachev is correct in emphasizing the outlandish socially-minded workers’ state into a vehicle for
consequences these policies wrought for the Rus- capitalist megaprofits. According to Stephen F.
sian people. According to the World Bank, Rus- Cohen, media correspondent for The Nation, cor-
sian’s GDP fell by nearly 1 trillion dollars between ruption within the new Russian state was "so ex-
1990-1998 with some yearly growth rates falling tensive that capital flight exceeds all foreign loans
as low as -14%.61 With the combined effect of hy- and investment"—a result of Soviet productive
perinflation and economic collapse, Russia strug- property ownership passing from common prop-
gled through the greatest national economic erty of its workers to the new class of capitalists
hardship since post-WWII reconstruction—and who hyper-profited from capital’s sale overseas.62
many soon realized which economic policies were Pillaging Russia of productive capital, while pro-
truly responsible for the nation’s utter collapse. ducing riches for a few, yielded destructive conse-
quences for the livelihoods of the vast majority of
The dismantling of the socialist planned economy
Russian people. By 1992, 75% of Russians lived at
and the liberalization of the one-party state appa-
or below the poverty line when only three years
ratus wrought a dramatic decrease in standards of
earlier, even with the disastrous effects of pere-
human development.
stroika on working class people, Soviet citizens
High standards
continued to enjoy paid vacations, union wages,
of human
guaranteed employment, and socialised educa-
devel-
tion and healthcare.63 Yeltsin’s dissolution of the
op-
All Union Central Council of Trade Unions, a
trade union incorporating all Soviet citizens, and
crackdown on post-Soviet unions brought these
programs to a close, ending decades of high work-
ing class living standards and causing life ex-
pectancies to plummet as low as 59.64 The de-
struction of socialism in Eastern Europe failed to
produce the democracy, freedom, and end to cor-
THINGS BEFORE
ruption that market reformers and Western liber- the most rapid economic development and high-
als had promised since the early days of perestroi- est living standards in the region’s history. On the
ka. Privatisation instead dismantled the many other hand, the triumph of liberalism in the region
positive qualities of the Soviet socialist system has brought economic devastation to Eastern Eu-
and most workers in extreme poverty. rope’s working classes. Even as many in the West
continue to superficially and mistakenly view the
The Nina Andreeva affair, its place in the histori-
Soviet Union as a totalitarian state, the 21st cen-
cal process that ended with the dismantling of the
tury will bring to fruition a generation distanced
Soviet Union, and the West’s interpretation of
from the 20th century’s anticommunist ideologi-
the events which preceded and followed its col-
cal conditioning as well as new historians who will
lapse, provide a number of lessons regarding the
once more reassess the legacy of the Soviet
machiavellian nature of politics, how socialist
project.
countries should conduct and reform themselves
in the 21st century, and how ideological influence
can be as formidable of a weapon as the military
industrial complex. The ease with which liberal-
ism entered mainstream Soviet media by means
of top-down party appointments should remind
historians how significant a role control over in-
formation plays in modern geopolitics as well as
prompt scholars to reanalyse the political reper-
Endnotes
cussions of Gorbachev’s perestroika. While the 1. Current Digest of the Soviet Press, XL, No. 15, 1988, p. 9.
fact that liberal party members were able to create 2. Ligachev. Inside Gorbachev’s Kremlin, p. 301.
radical systemic changes without working
through Soviet democratic channels revealed in- 3. Current Digest of the Soviet Press, XL, No. 14, 1988, p. 3.
herent problems with the system of political ap- 4. Current Digest of the Soviet Press, XL, No. 14,1988, p. 2.
pointments, their opportunistic usage of these
5. Ligachev. Inside Gorbachev’s Kremlin, p. 309.
flaws in Soviet democracy and later authoritarian
measures against Marxist-Leninists indicate that 6. Ligachev. Inside Gorbachev’s Kremlin, p. 301.
the political struggle leading to disintegration of 7. Ibid., p. 310.
the Soviet Union was not between the forces of
democracy and autocracy; instead, the disinte- 8. Joseph Gibbs. Gorbachev’s Glasnost: The Soviet Media in the
First Phase of Perestroika, p. 68.
gration of the Soviet Union was the final struggle
between Western capitalist values and Eastern 9. Ibid.
socialist values of the 20th Century. Both sides of 10. Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny, Socialism Betrayed: Behind
the conflict attempted to defend their own con- the Collapse of the Soviet Union, p. 119.
cepts of freedom and democracy, rooted in pri-
11. Brown. The Gorbachev Factor, p. 172
vate property ownership against social property
ownership, respectively. At its conclusion, pri- 12. Ibid., p. 174.
vate property triumphed in Eastern Europe 13. Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny, Socialism Betrayed: Behind
through political deception and wreaked such the Collapse of the Soviet Union, p. 119.
havoc in the ex-Soviet countries that most
14. Gorbachev, Годы Трудных Решении, p. 99.
economies have only recently recovered from its
effects. But even now, the benefits afforded to the 15. Ibid.
working class during Soviet times are almost en- 16. Ligachev, Inside Gorbachev’s Kremlin, p. 309.
tirely absent. In comparing these systems and
17. Ibid., p. 310
considering the immense poverty and devasta-
tion Eastern Europe has faced through much of its 18. Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny, Socialism Betrayed, p. 119.
history, the Soviet period undoubtedly marked 19. Ibid.

DONALD COURTER
20. Gibbs, Gorbachev’s Glasnost, p. 71. 55. Ibid., p. 672.
21. Gorbachev, Memoirs, p. 253. 56. "Leading Article: Russia’s Opportunity for Democratic Re-
form," The Independent, June 18, 1996.
22. Ibid., p. 256.
57. Anders Aslund, How Russia Became a Market Economy, p.
23. Ibid. 13.
24. Ibid. 58. Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny, Socialism Betrayed, p. 211.
25. Ibid., p. 259. 59. Gorbachev, Memoirs, p. xxvii.
26. Chernyayev, My Six Years with Gorbachev, p. 159. 60. Gorbachev, Memoirs, p. 672.
27. Gorbachev, Memoirs, pp. 354-355. 61. http://www.multpl.com/russia-gdp-growth-rate/table/
by-year
28. Ligachev, Inside Gorbachev’s Kremlin, p. 303.
62. Stephen F. Cohen, "American Journalism and Russia’s
29. Ibid., p. 302.
Tragedy."
30. Ibid., p. 303.
63. Ibid.
31. Nina Andreeva, "I Cannot Forgo My Principles," p. 290.
64. Ibid.
32. Ligachev, Inside Gorbachev’s Kremlin, p. xv.
Works Cited
33. Ibid., p. 298.
34. Chernyaev, My Six Years With Gorbachev, p. 156.
35. Gorbachev, Memoirs, p. 253. Andreeva, Nina. "I Cannot Forego My Principles."
Sovetskaia Rossiia.1988, p. 3.
36. Ibid., p. 373.
37. Gorbachev, Годы Трудных Решении, p. 102. Aslund, Anders. "How Russia Became a Market
Economy." Long Range Planning. Vol. 29, no. 3, 1996),
38. Nina Andreeva, "I Cannot Forgo My Principles," p. 296. pp. 433-433.
Brown, Archie. The Gorbachev Factor. OUP Oxford,
40. Gorbachev, Memoirs, p. 672. 1997.
Cohen, Stephen F. "American Journalism and Russia's
42. Ibid. Tragedy." Nation. Vol. 271, no. 9, 2000, pp. 23-25.
43. Gorbachev, Memoirs, p. 372.
Current Digest of the Soviet Press, XL, No. 14, 1988.
44. Ibid.
Keeran, Roger, and Thomas Kenny. Socialism
45. Keeran & Kenny, Socialism Betrayed, p. 194. Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union.
46. Gorbachev, Memoirs, p. 373. iUniverse, 2010.
47. Chernyaev, My Six Years With Gorbachev, p. 163. Chernyaev, Anatoly C., and Anatoly S. Chernyaev. My
Six Years with Gorbachev. Penn State Press, 2012.
48. Gorbachev, Memoirs, p. 372
49. Ibid. Gibbs, Joseph. Gorbachev's Glasnost: The Soviet Media

in the First Phase of Perestroika. Texas A&M
50. Ligachev, Inside Gorbachev’s Kremlin, p. 298. University Press, 1999.
Gorbachev, Mikhail. Memoirs. Doubleday, 1996.
Ligachev, Yegor. Inside Gorbachev's Kremlin: The
53. Ibid., p. 156.
Memoirs of Yegor Ligachev. Routledge, 2018.
312 No. 4 / MAY 2021

reconstructioN
dissolutioN
"We are accustomed to holding a gross and narrow
anti-philosophical view on life as a result of
random play of only Earth-bound forces. This is,
most certainly, wrong. Life as we see now is, to a
far greater extent, a cosmic phenomenon, rather
than only Earth-based. It was created by the
influence of creative dynamics of cosmos onto
inert material of Earth. It lives through the
dynamics of those forces, and each and every beat
of this organic pulsation is aligned with the pulse
of the Cosmic Heart—this grandiose totality of
nebulae, stars, the Sun, and the planets."
—Alexander Chizhevsky
Les Epidemies et les Perturbations Electro-Magnetiques du
Milieu Exterieur
1938

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N o 4 / MAY 2021 PEACELANDBREAD.

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HOW THE WEST IS

he paradigm of “develop- through further investment and development,

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Rodney’s work must be understood

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Another orthodoxy Rodney thought neces-

22 No. 4 / MAY 2021

opment. many are prevented from doing so by either

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opment in many circles. tifiable, data-driven models of the economistic

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gree in American development discourse.34

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The development paradigm changed

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late cybernetician Stafford Beer was fond of

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While even bourgeois economists

selves.57 This argument bears some resemblance to

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governments.78 Zealand demands a certain standard of living.

debt.”81 portion of core workers.87

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It is only natural that revolutionaries

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4. Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdevel- 17. Ibid. 16.

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al income per capita (current US$)” Accessed acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-

47. Will Dahlgreen, “Chinese people are 64. Ibid. 191-197.

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(2015) 462. 91. Ibid. 81.

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sequence=1&isAllowed=y Walt, Stephen M., The Hell of Good

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THE U.S. AS A SLAVER OF NATIONS

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The oppressed and the exploited have

type and expression of physical and linguistic

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A colony is a discrete geographic territory which is