ON SOCIAL JUSTICE

4/19/22

The question of social justice can only be answered upon a foundation of economic justice. Only once the material basis of social inequality, only once the systemic incentives for all varieties of discrimination, only once class society itself has been abolished, only then will true social justice be realized. Moreover, only once the great majority of people, the proletarians, have wrestled political and economic power for themselves can this outcome be realized, and only then can the conditions which necessitate and reproduce all manners of chauvinism, oppression, and militarism be destroyed. Said another way, the question of social justice can only be answered by social revolution; only then can it exist for real and not just in rhetoric.

Therein lies the most fundamental deficiency of liberalism: any recognition of these problems which fails to properly explain them and the forces that reproduce them, and therefore fails to offer real solutions--any desire to abolish the consequence without abolishing the cause--manages to be nothing more than performative outrage, decrying "woe is that incurable injustice!"

The reverend Martin Luther King jr. said it well: "What good is the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford to buy a hamburger?" Here lies the central conceit of liberalism: any social equality before the law only manages to be bourgeois equality, a bourgeois right. That is to say, race, gender, sexuality, and so forth, only ceases to seriously matter for the wealthy. Bourgeois social justice is a class-collaborationist ideology which seeks to raise particular members of the oppressed populations to the ranks of the bourgeoisie, while doing nothing for the many but taunting them that "if they can do it, so can you!" The “equal opportunity” of assimilation changes nothing for the many already trapped within the confines of wage-slavery.

When, for instance, the slaves were finally freed from their bondage, they were promised land reform, 40 acres and a mule. Then, under Andrew Johnson, this promise was revoked, with land instead returned to their previous slave owners, and promising to the African Americans only the equal right to participate in wage labor (and only later still to political representation within the bourgeois state). Reconstruction, which had initially promised economic justice, instead ended on the basis of bourgeois social justice for black people, while fulfilling economic "justice" only for the white slave owners, who received reparations for their lost property. Of note, even the black bourgeoisie of the south, as much as it had existed, also had opposed land reform, aligning with their class interests. The continued poverty of African Americans today, their lack of intergenerational wealth, can essentially be traced back to this single injustice (not, of course, to downplay the various injustices and oppressions that followed thereafter). Formally, they have the same rights as anyone else, and yet, they are still subject to poverty and systemic violence at disproportionate rates. What has black political representation within the bourgeois state accomplished for African Americans? Why did BLM begin under Obama, the first black president, who went on, like any other liberal, to pay them lip service while having lunch with police officers to “hear both sides” and establish "peace"? Such identity opportunism swindles the masses with false appeals to solidarity across class lines, but we must remember that the interests of the working and ruling classes are necessarily opposed and antagonistic.

This disconnect is overwhelmingly obvious, generally speaking, to the masses of oppressed demographics (“identities,” if you must) who on the one hand see their self-appointed political representatives, the Democrats, simultaneously proclaiming virtues of human rights, justice, and equality, while, on the other hand, raising police and military budgets, or offering only those concessions which incentivize assimilation (gay marriage) or are otherwise tolerable to the ruling class (transsexual soldiers). Even the most cynical appeal to bourgeois equality falls flat when the “equal right” to participate in wage labor can not exist for all in an economic system which necessarily produces homelessness and unemployment. And yet those on the outside of these particular struggles, who only see the rhetoric but are unaffected by the consequences of legislation, mistake the performance for the reality. They see marketing materials with mixed race couples and rainbow flags and proclaim “equality!” (or, conversely, “degeneracy!”), certain that the forces of progress/globohomo must have truly wrestled control of the levers of power for good/worse, while, for the great majority, very little has actually changed, and in some cases, may have even gotten worse. Those disconnected from the realities of being black, gay, trans, etc, in America are shown, largely through targeted media engagements (and other instruments of hegemonic control), what they already believe is the case, whether that be a positive or negative spin on the invented reality. Fox News and CNN, in fact, sell the same lie, while merely staking opposite stances on it. In this way, “both sides” are swindled by a singular, manufactured dichotomy. This political theater, the so-called culture war, the outrage olympics if you will, is pushed by politicians and corporate media alike; it distracts and divides the masses, replacing a class-based politics capable of real, revolutionary change with a politics of essentially recreational engagement.

Racism, misogyny, homophobia, and so on, each finds their basis in class society, and so too finds their expression in class society in one way or another. The mode of production determines these social relations, and no attempt to alter them through alterations of the superstructure alone, be it culture, philosophy, education, or law, will meaningfully end these problems; the cause remains intact, and therefore so too do the effects. So I again reiterate: he who wishes to end social inequality for real, must at first take upon the task of liberating humanity from class oppression by championing the self-liberation of the proletariat, must abolish capitalist relations of production. There is this option only, or hypocrisy and performative outrage. Liberalism, which hitherto has alleged to have taken up the torch of addressing these issues, is a false prophet standing in opposition to our goals, shepherding the masses back into reformist politics, and must be left in the dustbin of history.