Skip to main content

Intersectional Black Power: CLR James on Capitalism and Race

Lawrence Ware and Paul Buhle Portside
To ignore race, C.L.R. James often said, in many contexts and many ways, was a disaster in any social understanding; only the ignoring of class would be worse. Or to put it in his own words: The race question is subsidiary to the class question, and to think of imperialism in terms of race is disastrous. But to neglect the racial factor as merely incidental, is an error only less grave than to make it fundamental.

tv

The Robots of Orphan Black

NOAH BERLATSKY The Atlantic
Throughout pop-culture history, clones and robots have served similar purposes, exploring anxieties about class and labor.

Chicago Progressives’ Mixed Results Against the ‘Money Machine’

David Moberg In These Times
Even as class appears to play a bigger role in Chicago politics, racial, ethnic and other identities will impact elections as long as keep impacting everyday life. But campaigns like those for Garcia and for many of the council members are already forging a shared progressive politics.

The Origins of Modern Policing

Sam Mitrani The Indypendent
The liberal way of viewing the problem rests on a misunderstanding of the origins of the police and what they were created to do.

The Entitlement of the Very Rich

Dean Baker Truthout
If the public has a clear understanding of the agenda of the Immelts of the world, and their political allies, it will be better positioned to protect the entitlements that workers depend on have paid for.

labor

In No One We Trust

Joseph E. Stiglitz The New York Times
Rising inequality means rising distrust: A study published last year by the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the upper classes are more likely to engage in what has traditionally been considered unethical behavior. . . Economic inequality, political inequality, and an inequality-promoting legal system all mutually reinforce one another. . . As always, it is the poor and the unconnected who suffer most from this, and who are the most repeatedly deceived.

Economic Opportunity Is Lowest In the Former Slave States

Eric Zuesse Op Ed News
New Dixie has replaced the aristocracy's black slaves of Old Dixie, by the local (white) aristocracy's institutionalized bigotry against poor people, now of all ethnic groups. What used to be their purely racist bigotry has, it seems, devolved into a crushing, pervasive, classist, bigotry in the South.
Subscribe to class