END

NOTES
4

UNITY IN SEPARATION
 ENDNOTES/"0·4
October 2015

1 Editorial

10 Brown v. Ferguson

70 A History of Separation

86 Construction

106 Infrastructure

124 Fracturing

138 Strange Victory

152 Defeat

168 Afterword

194 Gather Us From Among the Nations

226 Its Own Peculiar Decor

Chris Wright

276 An Identical Abject-Subject?

 EDITORIAL

S ince the last edition of Endnotes in 201 3 , the global

economic train -wreck has juddered forward . N o real
recovery has taken p lace, but neither has there been a
return to depression-like conditions. It is unclear how
much longer this interim period wil l last. The wrapping-up
of extraordinary measures has been declared many times,
most recently i n September 201 5 , when the us Federal
Reserve was expected to raise its prime rate (this move
wou l d have ended a six-year stretch in wh ich the fed
fu nds rate was at zero). But this, too, was cancelled at
the last m i n ute. In a by-now fami l iar scene, technocrats
shuffled onto the stage, shuffled some papers, and then
shuffled off again. Another round of q uantitative easing
is antici pated. With l ittle chan g i n g , the h i g h - i ncome
countries' economies continue to tick over.

Meanwh ile, uncertainty and economic turbulence are

extending themselves from the h i g h - i ncome countries
to the low-income ones, which not so long ago were
thought to be the scene of a possible economic "delink­
i n g " . Today, the news from B razil l ooks grim, and the
news from China is gett i n g grimmer by the month . Th is
is already i m pacting economies across the low-income
world, so much of wh ich depends on C h ina's demand
for commod ities. Are we about to see another "Th i rd
World Debt Crisis" u nfold , as we did i n 1 9 8 2 ?

Editorial 1
Even more so than when we p u b l ished Endnotes 3, it
is hard to say what is l i kely to happen next. Complex
developments are taki ng place, which look q u ite d iffer­
ent when viewed from Ferguson, Missouri, or Athens,
G reece - or along the route of refugees fleeing Syria
on their way to Germany. In some places, new social
strugg les are taking place ; in others, there has been
a retu rn to cal m ; i n still others, there is unending civil
war. Some countries have seen the resu rgence of a
milquetoast parl iamentary left, yet the prevail i n g order
remains decidedly u nshaken.

T H E I N - F L I G H T T E A M W I L L B E CO M I N G A RO U N D I N A M O M E N T
W I T H A N OT H E R R O U N D O F D R I N KS ...

The world is apparently sti l l trapped within the terms of 1 See 'The H o l d i n g
the holding pattern that we described i n Endnotes 3. 1 Patte rn', Endnotes 3,
This pattern is defined by a partial petrification of class Septe m ber 2013.
struggle, attendant on a sim ilar petrification of the eco­
nomic crisis. This social stasis has been maintained
only by means of massive ongoing state i nterventions,
which have ensured that the crisis remains that of some
people, in some cou ntries, instead of beco m i n g gen­
eralised across the worl d . H ow long can this holding
pattern be maintained?

As they did i n the earlier years of the decade, states

continue to spend vast quantities of money in order to
stave off catastrophe. At the end of 2 0 1 4 , debt lev­
els as a percentage of GDP were sti l l rising across the
high-income countries, reach ing 9 0 percent i n the U K,
95 percent in France, 1 05 percent in the us, and 1 32
percent in Italy (the exception was G e rmany, where
debt levels fel l from 80 percent in 2 0 1 0 to a sti ll-high
73 percent i n 201 4). Yet all this state spend ing has not
led to economic recovery. Fol lowing an i n itial period of
growth in 2 0 1 0 - 1 1 , high-income countries' economies
have once again returned to a state of relative stagna­
tion. The main exceptions are the us and U K, where a

Endnotes 4 2
small measure of recovery has taken place. By contrast,
across continental Europe and in Japan - ECB manoeu­
vres and "Abeco n o m ics" notwit h stand i n g - g rowth
rates h ave remained low o r n egative. G reece's G D P
has, o f cou rse, shrunk significantly.

Such lackluster developments continue a trend that has

been in place for decades : in the high-income cou ntries
GDP-per-capita growth rates have been ever slower on
a decade by decade basis, fall i n g from 4.3 percent in
the 1 9 6 0s, to 2.9 percent in the 1 970s, to 2.2 percent
i n the 1 9 80s, to 1 .8 percent i n the 1 9 9 0s, to 1 .1 per­
cent i n the 2000s. The 2 0 1 0s seem set to cont i n u e
t h i s q uantitative trend, w i t h a g rowth rate of aro u n d
1 . 0 percent between 201 1 a n d 201 4. However, there
are signs at present that we are at a qualitative turning
point; the world economy is threatening to go down , i n
a Titan ic fashion. Pol iticians can be seen, everywhere,
trying to bail the i nflowi ng water out of the sinking ship.
But they are doing so with a set of hand pails which
are themselves leaking. As we arg u ed in 201 3 , these
politicians are locked i nto a dance of the dead , for the
fol lowing reasons.

States are taking out debt to p revent the onset of a

debt-deflation spiral ; however, their capacity to take out
this debt is based on the promise of future economic
g rowth. A com bination of slow g rowth and already high
debt levels has meant that government officials have
found themselves trapped between two opposed pres­
sures. On the one hand, they have needed to spend
huge q uantities of money to p revent recession from
becoming depression. On the other, they have already
spent so much over the past few decades that they
have l ittle left to g ive.

Th us, instead of spendi n g even more, governments in

the richer cou ntries engaged i n cam paigns of austerity :
to show their cred itors that they remained in control of

Editorial 3
their finances, they cut social services at the same time
as they handed out money to bankers. Austerity has had
devastating consequences for workers. Public employ­
ees fou n d themselves without jobs. The costs of educa­
tion and healthcare rose just as households' i ncomes
were pinched. Meanwh ile, without a boost to demand
for goods and services, private economies stagnated.
Creditor nations have been remarkably successfu l i n
preventing any departure from t h i s line among debtors.

A P R O B L E M OF C O M PO S I T I O N

T h i s contrad ictory logic, w e argued, shaped the u nfold­

i n g crisis and so also the struggles that eru pted i n
response t o it. Many people claimed that govern ment
officials were acting stu pidly or even crazily: shouldn't
they have been making the banks pay i n order to bail
out the people, rather than the other way arou nd? The
main explanation offered for this i rrational ity was that
governments had been captured by moneyed interests;
democracy had g iven way to oligarchy. It was i n this
way that the form of the crisis determined the form of
class struggle in this period : it became a contest of real
democracy against austerity. Real democracy cou l d ,
accord ing t o the log ic o f the protests, force the state
to intervene in the i nterest of the nation, rather than that
of crony capital ists.

In real ity, governments have few options available to

t h e m , regard less of who is at the h e l m , for t h i s cri­
sis is one not of "crony" or "neoli beral " cap italism but
rather of capitalism itself. The latter is beset by ever
slower rates of economic growth. As prod uctivity levels
continue to rise in this context, the result has been an
ongoing prod uction of surplus populations alongside
surplus capital, excesses which the economy has trou­
ble absorb i n g . The social order persists, but it is slowly
unraveling. The categories of our world are i ncreasingly
ind istinct. When protesters have come together i n this

Endnotes 4 4
context, they h ave typical ly found it d ifficult to locate a 2 See 'A r i s i n g t i d e l i fts
common g round on which to b u i l d their struggle, since a l l boats'. Endnotes 3,
they experience the crisis in such d iverse ways - some Septe m ber 2013.
worse than others. The perspectives of the old workers'
movement are d ead and gone, and thus unavailable as
a substantial basis for com mon action. How are we to
account for the fai l u re of that movement to revive itself
when workers everywhere are getting screwed?

I n this edition, we reconsider in depth the long emer­

gence and d issol ution of an affirmable worker's identity
(and, with it, the crisis of "the Left") in "A H istory of
Separation". European social ists and com m u n ists had
expected the accu m u lation of capital both to expand
the size of the industrial workforce and, at the same
time, to u nify the workers as a social subject: the collec­
tive worker, the class in-and-for itself. However, instead
of incu bating the col lective worker, capitalist acc u m u la­
tion gave b i rth to the separated society. The forces of
atomisation overpowered those of collectivisation. Late
capitalist civi lisation is now destabilising, but without,
as yet, cal ling forth the new social forces that m ig ht be
able, finally, to dissolve it.

An i ntake from C h ris Wri g h t , " Its Own Pec u l iar

Decor", looks at the same story t h rough the optic of
subu rban isation in the U n ited States. I n itial waves of
proletarianisation that gathered people in factories and
cities, constructing the collective worker, gave way to
never-ending suburban ism, where the absence of any
l i n k to the countryside was combined with a near fu l l ­
ach ievement o f atomisation. Th is was a suburbanisation
constructed on a rejection of the u n ruly poor, the non­
homeowner, and through the inevitable racialisation of
these categories.

In Endn o tes 3 we described this structu re of rejec­

tion and racial isation i n the context of the English riots
of 2 0 1 1 as a p rocess of abjection. 2 Both the 2 0 1 1

Editorial 5
British student movement and the US Occupy move- 3 T h i s text u p d ates o u r
ment - which were i n itially strugg les of a wh ite middle acco u n t of s u r p l u s
class fighting against an ongoing impoverishment - were p o p u l at i o n s i n ' M i s e ry
followed by strugg les on the part of racial ised popula­ and d e bt'. i n End­
tions whose i m poverishment and exclusion had long notes 2, A p r i l 2010.
been an everyday real ity. I n " B rown v. Ferg uson" , we
trace the unfolding of Black Lives Matter, situating this
movement in the history of race politics and struggles in
the u s . We look at the sh ifting meaning of black identity
in a context of g rowing surplus populations managed
by incarceration and police violence.

But it would be too hasty to deduce from such struggles

the emergence of some n ew, potentially hegemonic
fig u re of the "surplus proletarian " , or "the abjecte d " ,
to wh ich w e m i g ht h itch our revolutionary aspirations.
Rather than u n ifying all workers behind a specific sub­
ject, growing su perflu ity has meant a decomposition of
the class into so many particular situations - fragments
among fragments - pitting the i nterests of those with
stable jobs against precarious workers, citizens against
undocumented m i g rants, and so on. Proletarians thus
i n c reas i n g ly face a " c o m position proble m " , lack­
ing any firm basis for u n ity i n action. I n "An Identical
Abject-S u bject?" we consider the political mean ing of
surplus populations. 3

Struggles do not all try to solve this problem in the same

way. In "Gather Us From Among the Nations", we look
at a movement that received l ittle i nternational cover­
age : the February 201 4 protests in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
When workers from p rivatised factories - whose de­
mands had been ignored by authorities for years - were
attacked by police in Tuzla, thousands took to t h e
streets, storm i n g the Canton g overn ment b u i l d i ngs.
During the following months, citizens held large assem­
blies, where they rejected the eth n ic d ivisions that had
plagued the country for more than two decades. Partici­
pants in these assemblies tried to solve the composition

Endnotes 4 6
problem i n an u n usual way, by marshal l i n g an ever­
prol iferating m u ltipl icity of demands, so that nobody's
plight would be forgotten . But it remained u nclear to
whom these demands could be addressed and, above
all, who m ig ht be able to fulfi l l them. That raised key
questions about the protesters' relation to the state.

IY P I ZA I S G R E E K F O R D E S PA I R

If, in retrospect, 201 2 - 1 3 was the end of a h i g h point

i n the m ovement of squares, these movements d i d
not exactly d isappear in t h e fol lowi ng years. Stil l , their
development gave us no reason to be particu larly opti­
m istic. Sisi's coup in Egypt - shrouded in the mantle of
Tahrir - i ntroduced mass-shootings to the movements'
repertoire. The followi n g year saw another bloodied
square i n the Maidan, this time defended by fascist
grou ps. Shortly thereafter Occupy Bangkok, organised
by royal ist yellow shirts, succeeded in bringing about a
m i l itary coup in Thailand.

The conclusions of many social struggles were given by

geopol itical manoeuvring. Various powers succeeded
i n taki n g the gains of destabil ised situations. In the
Maidan, tensions between nationalists and pro-EU lib­
erals had been b rewing for months, but they did not
get much of a chance to play themselves out, for as
soon as Yan u kovych resigned, Russia - faced with the
prospect of EU and NATO extension to another country
in its " near abroad "- invaded the Crimea and began a
proxy war in Eastern U kraine. At that point, the rebel l ion
became a civil war. I n Egypt the confl icts between rad i­
cals and the Brotherhood , or Muslims and Copts, which
h ad developed in the aftermath of M ubarak's fal l , were
ulti mately submerged in a larger reg ional power game,
as Saudi financial support helped Egypt's deep state
to reestablish itself. Elsewhere, from Syria to Bahrai n ,
Yemen a n d Libya, t h e hopes o f t h e Spring were snuffed
out in civil war, m i l itary i ntervention or both.

Editorial 7
S i m i lar l i m its were encou ntered by l eft-wing parlia- 4 Yan i s Varoufakis,
mentarians in Europe. There too it was u ltimately the ' H ow I Became an
reg ional hegemon that wou l d decide the fate of social Erratic Marxist',
movements, whatever came of their assemblies and The Guardian, 1 8
govern ment refere n d u m s . To u n de rstand the tepid Febru ary 201 5 .
natu re of Syriza's proposals - cal l i n g for a primary sur­
plus of 3 rather than 3.5 percent - it is necessary to
recogn ise that Greece cannot feed itself without foreign
exchange. Moreover, any sign of unilateral defau lt wou ld
deplete the country of taxable revenue. This left Syriza
few options, such that their "modest proposals" could
easily be ignored by the troika of cred itors.

As we prepared this issue for publ ication, an analog ue

of the Syriza developments seemed to be in preparation
in the U K with the shock rise of a member of the Labou r
Party's long marg inal ised left-wing t o its leadership. The
pol itical d iscourses g reeting these developments have
busied themselves with empty rhetorical d istri butions
of the old and the new, but what is certain is that the
social forces and situation that propelled Jeremy Cor­
byn to victory are different to those that caused the
rise and fal l of Tony B e n n i n the early eig hties. The
institutional brakers have of cou rse stepped i n to halt
this upsurge, and are l i kely to be successful i n the short
term . But can a party that h as al ready been looking
cadaverous for years avoid sustai ning an even g reater
loss of legitimacy in the process? The key question for
the cu rrent strain of political anti-politics remain s : how
many instances of these vessels crashing on the rocks
will it take to produce something qualitatively d ifferent,
and what will that be?

I n reality, despite the offers of Marxist economists "to

save European capital ism from itself" , 4 states will con­
tinue to find that they have very little room for manoeuvre,
since they are beset by h i g h debt levels and slow
g rowt h . It will therefore be d ifficult for govern ments
to deal with the catastrophic events to come, whether

Endnotes 4 8
these are further economic crises, or the al ready emerg­
ing consequences of global climate change, regardless
of who is in charge. These pessim istic conclusions are
now beco m i n g common, in a way that was not true
in 201 1 - 1 2 , marking an i m portant transition in public
d iscourse. A g rowi ng, although sti l l small portion of the
population now understands that the state - even a real
democratic state - wi l l not be able to revive capital ist
economies. To bring this onwards-grinding wreck to
a halt, the passengers can only count on themselves.

Editorial 9
BROWN V. FERGUSON

10
 On 2 1 March 201 2 a crowd assembled in New York's 1 Thanks to C h i no,
U n ion S quare to h ear two bereaved parents speak: C h r i s , Danielle,
" My son did not deserve to die" ; "Trayvon Martin was I d r i s , Jason, M i ke and
you ; Trayvon Martin did matter" . 1 Summoning heaven ly Shemon.
powers to their aid, a p reacher led the crowd in prayer:
" Hallelujah we are Trayvon Martin ton ight..:' . The M i l l ion
Hood i e March - a reference to the M i l l ion Man March
called by Nation Of Islam leader Lou i s Farrakhan i n
1 9 95 - had been publicised o n social media with the
#Mill ion Hoodies hashtag by a New York activist and ad
agency worker alongside a change.erg petition. Trayvon
Martin's parents had themselves only found out about
it last m i n ute d u ring a chance visit to New York. But it
had gone sufficiently viral to bring out 5 ,000 to U n ion
Square, and 50 ,000 across the country, at short notice.
With i n d ays the meme would make it i nto the House
of Representatives. Bobby Rush, of Ch icago's South
Side, donned a hood ie for an add ress on racial p rofil­
i n g . H e was escorted from the cham ber by secu rity
w h i l e the chair d roned over h i m : "the member is no
longer recog n ised " .

T h e M i l l ion Hoodie March took p lace w h i l e Occu py's

flame was g uttering, and a residual Occu py presence
h ad been cl eared from U n ion Sq uare only the d ay
before. There was an overlap of personnel, resu lting in
some off-message chants -"we are the 99%"- and
the use of the people's mic. Along with the black nat­
ionalists and com m u n ity organ i sers who commonly
t u rned out for such events were mem bers of a you nger
crowd : Zuccotti freaks, anarch ists from B rooklyn , mem­
bers of Occupy the B ronx - many of whom wou l d go
on to form the Trayvon Martin O rgan izing Comm ittee.
After the speeches, the rally frag mented, with some
head i n g u p to Times Square, and another crowd head­
ing i n the opposite d i rection, for downtown Manhattan,
where one rode Wall Street's bronze bull, shouting " I am
Trayvon Martin". The accidental symbolic d issonance of
that gesture may be taken as marking a j unction-point

Brown v. Ferguson 11
i n the recent history of American strugg les. Five days
before, Occupy p rotesters had been rebuffed in an
attempt to retake Zuccotti Park, and th ree days later
they wou ld march from there to U n ion Square, demon­
strating against police brutal ity, but this was the waning
phase of that movement. Another was waxing.

D E S C E N D I N G M O D U LAT I O N S

Wh ile pol itical composition had tended t o present itself 2 See 'A R i s i n g T i d e
as a fundamental , unsolvable riddle for the movements L i f t s A l l Boats' and
of the global 201 1 - 1 2 wave, they were not composi­ 'The H o l d i n g Pat­
tionally static. There had been a tendency to prod uce tern' in Endnotes 3,
descending modu lations, with the worse-off entering Septe m b e r 2013.
and transform i n g protests i n i tiated by the better-off:
occupations i n itiated by students or educated profes­
sionals over t i m e attracted g rowin g n u m bers of the
h o m e l ess and destitute ; u n iversity d e m o n strations
over fee h i kes g radually brought out kids who would
never have gone to un iversity in the first place. Later, the
U krai ne's Maidan protests, kicked off by pro- Eu ropean
l i berals and national ists, mutated i nto encampments of
dispossessed workers. In England, such modulations
had term inated with the crescendo of the 2 0 1 1 riots,
as the racial ised poor brought their anti-police fu ry to
the streets. 2

If such compositional descent cou l d bring q u estions

of race i nto play i n the strugg les of a country where
they are a largely post-colon ial development, where
less than 4% of the popu l ation identify as black, it was
unsurprising that such q uestions would soon press to
the fore i n the movements of a nation fou nded su bstan­
tially on the plantation, where the percentage is t h ree
times higher and the u rban ghetto a real ity. And if the
riddle of com position, for movements l i ke Occu py, had
stem m ed from the lack of any al ready-exist i n g com­
mon identity, " black"- i n this country more than any
other - seemed perhaps to offer one. Thou g h it was

Endnotes 4 12
an identity which many of the Occu piers of cou rse 3 Why Trayvon's death
could not share, it m ight at least offer a pole of att rac- in parti c u l a r trigg e red
tion, a lead i n g edge for mobilisations. Early activists such a react i o n , i n
within t h i s wave would t h u s consciously seek t o solve a cou ntry w h e re a
Occu py's "wh iteness" problem, wh ich many imagined black man i s k i l l ed
wou l d facilitate the development of either a b road alli- a l m o s t every h o u r, 1 s
ance of workers and the poor, or - for some - a new d iffi c u l t to u n d e r-
civil rights movement. stan d . Part of the rea­
son m ay be Trayvon's
1 7-year-old Trayvon M arti n had been shot and ki l led backgro u n d , h i s u n ­
on 2 6 February 201 2 d u ri n g a visit to the s u b u rban d o u bted 'innocence',
gated comm u n ity where his father's fiancee l ived. The m a k i n g h i m a safe
homeowners of The Retreat at Twi n Lakes i n Sanford , o bject of m i d d l e class
Florida had suffered massive losses of e q u ity i n the i d e ntificat i o n . B u t it i s
years i m mediately fol lowing the crisis, the value of their s u rely also the exag­
homes collapsing, and a couple of recent b reak-ins had g e rated sym b o l i s m of
heightened the anxiety. Neighbou rhood watch volunteer the scene: the 'wh ite
George Z i m merman was armed and patrolling the area, eth n i c ' covet i n g the
anticipating a return of the culprits. The appearance of an val u e of his h o m e ,
unrecognised individual, apparently fitting their racialised the m i rage of a b l ack
p rofile in Zim merman's m i n d , prom pted h i m to call the i ntruder whose very
police, before getting i nvolved i n some confrontation. presence seems to
That Trayvon had been armed with only a packet of S kit­ j e o pard ise it. Such
tles and an Arizona Ice Tea when shot, but had been s u b u rban fears h ave
clothed in a standard racial signifier - the hoodie - would l o n g been entwined
establ ish the sym bolic coord inates of the case. 3 with dynamics of
rac i a l i sat i o n i n the u s.
But old and new m e d i a were silent at fi rst ; then on See Ch ris Wright, ' Its
8 March the story broke i n the national p ress. A social Own Pe c u l iar Decor'
media trickle now began, wh ich would q u ickly become i n this i s s u e .
a torrent as outrage spread at racial p rofi l i n g and the
ki l l i n g of a teenager. Soon, local actions were being
organised : a ral ly at a ch u rch i n Sanford ; another out­
side the Seminole Cou nty courthouse. But these were
not red ucible to the spontaneous response of a local
com m u n ity : the fi rst was led by an evangel ical preacher
from Baltimore ; the second was organised by student
activists from a newly form ing leftist g rouping, " D ream
Defenders", at the historically b lack Florida Agricultural

Brown v. Ferguson 13
and Mechanical University 300 miles away in Tallahas­
see, the state capital. By 17 March, the family's calls
for Department of Justice intervention were making the
New York Times - calls swiftly answered, with Emanuel
Cleaver of the Congressional Black Caucus announc­
ing an investigation into the case as a possible "hate
crime". Four days later, with the Million Hoodie March,
the demonstrations too went national.

VERTICAL MEDIATIONS

The next day, Al Sharpton was on the ground in Sanford, 4 NAACP ( National
leading a demonstration. A TV host, ex-James Brown Association for the

manager, founder and president of the civil rights Advancement of

organisation National Action Network (NAN), Sharpton Colored People) : a

is one half of America's celebrity black activist duopoly. key African-American

The other - who was soon to follow, along with NAACP4 civil rights organisa-

president Ben Jealous- is Jesse Jackson: twice Demo­ tion formed in 1909
cratic presidential candidate, colleague of Martin Luther by a group including

King Jr., founder of the National Rainbow Coalition and WEB Du Bois, initially

Operation PUSH, as well as their current amalgama­ focused on overcom-

tion. Sharpton and Jackson are both ordained Baptist ing Jim Crow laws.

ministers, following a standard pattern that entwines

civil rights and organised religion; King too was a Bap- 5 Cedric Johnson,

tist minister. With the arrival of such figures and their Revolutionaries to
associated institutions, the nascent movement gained Race Leaders: Black
the imprimatur of long-standing civil rights figures and Power and the Making
present-day "race leaders".5 of African American
Politics ( University of
That most of its leaders were, in living memory, sub- Minnesota 2007).
jected to violent state repression has not prevented the
Civil Rights Movement from taking a special, sacrosanct 6 With the knowledge

place in national myth.6 Here, the nation's foundation in of presidents Ken-

the original sin of black chattel slavery is ritually subli- nedy and Johnson,

mated in the Christ-like figure of King- in whose blood the FBI under J. Edgar

Jackson literally anointed himself. For his speeches, Hoover-and its

King now sits in the American pantheon alongside murky co1NTELPR0

Lincoln and Jefferson, and like George Washington programme-perse-

he has a national holiday in his honour. For American cuted the movement

Endnotes 4 14
schoolchi l d ren, MLK day signals the approach of B lack and its leaders,
History Month, during which they are told of proud Rosa i n c l u d i n g the now­
Parks on the bus and subjected to newsreel footage of venerated K i n g .
Southern cops attacking peaceful p rotesters. Together D u r i n g N ixon's presi­
these furnish an airbrushed image of a social movement d e n cy it organised
which, fleetingly emergent from the m i re of American the assass i n ation of
history, all can safely applaud. In this firmament, Civil Fred H a m pton and
Rig hts appears as the ur-model for political action per oth e r m e mbers of the
se, its constel lations of h istoric leaders and events Black Panth e r Party.
the major points for orientation and aspi ration. It was
through that movement that part of the black population
managed to extricate itself from the descending fate
of those who remained in the ghetto. The movement
also left behind a sign ificant institutional infrastructure.

"Civil rights lead e rs" such as S harpton and J ackson ,

often p laced a t t h e front o f demonstrations, even have
sufficient political heft to reg u larly get the ear of the
President: at the time of writing, Sharpton had clocked
up more than 60 i nvitations to the White House since
2009. If the wave of struggles that wou l d later become
known as # B l acklivesMatter has often seemed an
exemplar of youthful hashtag activism, and if social
media - as lawyers on both sides of George Zimmer­
man's m u rder trial wou l d later agree - would be the
making of the Trayvon case, it wou l d thus be a mistake
to emphasise some putative horizontality at the expense
of these more vertical mediations, which were already in
gear wit h i n a month of Trayvon's death. Such vertically
i ntegrated coord ination is of cou rse a common place
of American history, in which the racial bonds among
whites have always been stretched over a g reater span.
Slave owner and yeoman farmer, postbe l l u m landlord
and poor wh ite sharecropper, WASP i n d u strialist and
I rish i m m i g rant had even less i n common than black
pol itical el ites have today with the predominantly poor
victims of racial violence. Yet the yeoman joined slave
patrols and fought to defend slavery in the Civil War ; the
wh ite sharecropper (after the brief interracial all iance

Brown v. Ferguson 15
of populism) wou ld h e l p to maintain J i m Crow seg- 7 Its f u n ct i o n as an
regation th roug h lynch terror; and the I rish i m m i g rant, asset h e re was, of
though in itially racial ised h i m self, would brutally police cou rse, rather m o re
black neighbourhoods on behalf of his protestant bet­ nove l , s u rely i n
ters. H istorically, the vertical mediations of wh iteness s o m e part a meas­
were able to span these g reat distances not because u re of the g rad ual
of the affin ity of culture or ki n , but because they were filterin g-thro u g h of
embodied in the American state itself. C i v i l R i g hts g a i n s . B u t
s u c h t h i n g s appear
Now however, that state was topped by someone d i sti n ctly a m b ivalent
ostensibly outside this construct. However tenuously, i n the context of
blackness too now seemed capable - at l east i n the rotti n g edifice
principle - o f span n i n g com parable social d i stances. o n which they are
Before a month was up, the reticent O bama had con­ perch e d . Th ere was
ceded to media pressure for a statement, with a lukewarm someth i n g d i sarm i n g ­
Rose Garden pronouncement that managed to q u ietly ly red e m ptive about
affirm a personal racial identification with Martin -"if I an extre mely u n equal
had a son, he would look l i ke Trayvon"- while s i m u l ­ a n d g rotesquely vio­
taneously brus h i n g t h i s u n d e r the rug o f a c o m m o n lent society selecti n g
American identity: " a l l o f us a s Americans are g o i n g t o a b l a c k man to be
take this w i t h the seriousness it deserves" . T h e rhetori­ Pre s i d ent.
cal tension here - racial particularity vs. the u n iversal ity
of national citizensh i p - reg istered the constitutive con­ 8 Data o n police s h oot-
trad iction of American society. This tension had beset i n g s are notoriously
Obama's campaign and presidency alike, with race both i n c o m p lete. The best
an asset and a liability. 7 Rhetorical oscillations between evi d e n c e o n tre n d s
these poles would thus consistently struct u re his reac­ ove r t i m e i s the FB1's
tions to the coming wave of struggles. charm i n g ly titled
'j ustifiable h o m i c i d e s
M E D I AT I O N AND CAUSAT I O N by law e nforcement'.
T h i s series s h ows
B u t t h e Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson-led demonstra­ peaks in 1980 and
tion after the ki l l i ng of another black person, typically 1 994. Alexia Cooper
at police hands, had been a fam i l iar fixt u re of the and Erica Smith,
American political landscape for decades; the rate of ' H o m i c i d e Tre n d s in
such deaths had been h i g h for years - and may have the U n ited States,
been even higher in the past. 8 The capacity for a sin­ 1980-2008', B u reau
gle fatal ity to set in motion what would - once it had of J u stice Statistics,
met with some powerful c ross-currents - becom e 2010, p. 32.

Endnotes 4 16
the most sign ificant wave of us struggles in decades
t h u s demands some explanation, and it is h e re that
the particu larities of hashtag activism become more
important, alongside other key factors. The recent mass
u ptake of easy-to-use d i g ital tools had lowered the
bar for political mobil isation, generalising capacities for
active production and d issemination of information. This
brought poss i b i l ities for countering or bypassi n g main­
stream news agendas, and facil itating p rocesses of
questioning the standard practice of sim ply reiterating
police reports with in popular media. Other narratives
cou l d now be collectively constructed on the basis of
relatively l ittle effort on the part of ind ividuals, p u l l i n g
togethe r particu lar i n stances that i n previous t i m e s
would n o t have been l i n ked. It was through s u c h media­
tions that a u n ified cause was to be constructed from a
l ist of geog raph ically and tem poral ly scattered killings,
and it is thus in part to these mediations that we must
look if we are to g rasp the articulation of this movement.

Also, having been more or less made taboo in the long

push-back that had started under N ixon , with the wave
of crisis-era struggles - and Occupy in particu lar - open
p rotest had again beco m e both visibly poss i b l e and
increasingly legitimate. Lastly, the past few years were
ones of political-econo m i c and social crisis, with a
dwi n d l i n g of prospects worse i n b l ack com m u n ities
than elsewhere : race is a marker for the most i nsecure
fractions of the us labour force, who are inevitably hit
disproportionately by generally decl i n i n g conditions. It
would be the combination of these conjunctu ral factors
with the pecul iar social and institutional structu res of
racial representation in the us that wou l d enable the
burgeon ing of a singu lar mass movement. The death of
Trayvon Martin was a signal flare i l l u m i nating a tortu red
landscape. There was thus noth ing idle about the com­
parisons that wou l d become commonplace between
him and Emmett Til l , the m u rdered 1 4-year-old whose
mutilated features helped spur the civil rig hts movement.

Brown v. Ferguson 17
 Martin's parents soon started to undertake their own 9 blacklifematters.org
campaigns over the Trayvon case and related issues, was reg i stered o n 18
while the demonstrations proliferated nationally and the March 2012, i n the
social media chatter continued to g row. A 24 March r u n u p to the M i l l i o n
201 2 Trayvon demonstration in Hol lywood seems to H o o d i e M arch, a n d
h ave been the occasion for the first deployment of appeared o n p l acards
" Black Life Matters" as a slogan and hashtag , perhaps at the H o l lywood
responding to Trayvon's father, Tracy Martin's assertion demo. This s ite l i n ks
just a few days before at the M i l l ion Hoodie March, that Trayvon act i o n s to
Trayvon did matter. In Martin's case it seems to have c h arter schools
been meant prog ramm atically: that Trayvon wou l d be a n d c h u rch-based
made to matter through a cam paign , in his name, for activi s m . # B l ac k l ife­
justice. S i m i lar performative i ntent may be perceived i n M atters re m a i n e d
t h e slogans that emerged a t t h i s t i m e . #BlacklivesMat­ m o re c o m m o n t h a n
ter appeared - perhaps as a corruption of the existing # B l ac k l ives M atter
slogan - in the response of @NeenoBrowne to the 1 2 t h ro u g h 2012. The
April announcement that Zim merman would be charged activists who wo u l d
with m u rder; the meme may well h ave an older p rov­ become known a s
enance than that. 9 Whether black people's l ives "matter" t h e o r i g i n ators of
is a question posed objectively i n a country where they the l atter trace t h e i r
are so perfunctorily expended : 6,454 killings in 2 0 1 2 , own story b a c k to the
a figu re o u t o f a l l p roportion t o t h e size o f t h e black str u g g l e s of s u m m e r
population. 1 0 Such memes surely catch on for a reason : 2 0 1 3 , after Z i m m e r­
they are thoughts al ready i n everyone's heads. m a n was acqu itted of
a l l c h arges.
H I TTI N G PLAST E R
1 0 Sou rce: FBI. Crime
O n 6 April D ream Defenders set out on a Civil Rights- in t h e U n ited States ,
model 40-mile m arch from Daytona Beach, Florida to 2012.
Sanford. Then from late April another case entwined
itself with Trayvon's, adding complexity and further out- 1 1 Accord i n g to the
rage. In Jacksonville, Florida, Marissa Alexander was prosecuto r, A n g e l a
being prosecuted for agg ravated assault after having C o rey, w h o also tried
fired a warn ing shot at her abusive h u sband - a shot t h e Z i m merman
that, u n l i ke Z i m m e rman's, h ad o n ly h it p l aster. Flori­ case, A l exan der's
da's version of the "Stand You r G rou nd" law - wh ich Sta n d Yo u r G ro u n d
authorises those who are u n d e r t hreat to d efen d d efence failed
themselves - seemed t o b e a t play i n both cases, with because s h e had left
d istinctly d ifferent prospective outcomes. 11 O n the one the h o u s e to retrieve

Endnotes 4 18
hand, a man who had killed an u narmed black teenager, a g u n from her car.
i nvoking the right of self-defence. On the other, a black Alth o u g h the Twi n
woman who had harmed no one wh ile defending herself Lakes police c h i ef
against the threat of violence, and who stood to spend a had i n itially cited
long time in prison. The bleak combination of these two Sta n d Yo u r G ro u n d
cases seemed demonstration enough - even before as a j u stifi cati o n for
the resu lts of the trials were in - of the racial (and releas i n g Z i m m e r­
gendered) character of the legal system. The 20 May man without charge,
sentencing of Alexander - g iven a mandatory m i n i m u m his lawyers did not
of 20 years in prison - only confirmed expectations. 1 2 actually appeal to
Stand Yo u r G ro u n d ,
The Trayvon case in particular had b y now become a o p t i n g f o r a standard
national media spectacle and, since Obama's statement, se lf-defe n s e plea.
had s u m moned fam i l iar reactions. From a straightfor­
ward nat i o nal v i l l a i n , Z i m merman was i ncreas i n g ly 1 2 Alexander was
celebrated as a folk hero by conservatives. A mediatised released o n appeal i n
battle over representation e n s u e d , with Z i m merman Jan uary 2015, h av i n g
clai m i n g he was being victim ised, while Trayvon was d o n e three years,
g iven the usual treatment meted out to that el ite class with two m o re to
of the racialised deceased whose deaths i g n ite signifi- serve under house
cant protest : his d i g ital presence m uckraked by media arrest, wear i n g an
for any ind ications he might have been anything less a n k l e m o n itor.
than an "angel " . That he was a middle-class kid from a
Florida suburb did not prevent such attempts - but it
l i mited their plausibility, and thus probably their efficacy.
The outcome wou l d almost certainly have d iffered had
Trayvon actually been a child of the g hetto - as would
Obama's capacity to conjure up a parental identification.
But sti l l , while the case waited , and Trayvon's fam i ly
kept plugging away at small-scale activism, the media
coverage gradually dropped off, and the social media
torrents reduced to a plaintive trickle.

Then on 23 N ovember another name was added to the

list: Jordan Davis, 1 7, shot and killed, also in Jacksonville,
Florida, by Michael Dunn. Davis's offense was that he
played loud h i p-hop in his car, for which he earned ten
shots from a 9mm handg un, three of which hit and killed
h i m . This was a random act of rage from someone with

Brown v. Ferguson 19
an antipathy to what he saw as "thug" culture, though 13 I n autu m n 2014, when
Dunn too would claim self-defence, having felt th reat- America was b o i l i n g
ened by a mysterious shotgu n that was never to be i n the aftermath of
fou n d . 1 3 With another, similar Floridian case in so many M i chael B rown's
months it was probably inevitable that # R I PJordan Davis s h ooti n g , D u n n wo u l d
w o u l d join #RI PTrayvonMartin. On 1 December, Dream be fou n d g u i lty of
Defenders staged a vigil for Davis a couple of hours t h ree counts o f at-
away in Tallahassee. And the Davis family soon joined tem pted m u rd e r and
the sad daisy chain of the cam paig ning bereaved, lin k­ sentenced to l i fe in
ing up with Trayvon's family for anti-gun-violence events prison without parole.
in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting .
They drew on family history associating them with civil 14 Ta- N e h i s i Coates, 'To
rig hts struggle, while Davis's mother would later tell a Raise, Love, and Lose
melancholy story linking the two fates : a Black C h i l d ' , The
Atlantic, 8 October
Jordan kept saying [of Trayvon Martin], " M o m , that 2014.
could have been m e . M o m , that cou l d have been
me." We talked at length. He said , "He didn't even
do anything wrong." And I told him, "J ordan , you don't
have to be doing anything wrong. You are a young
b lack male and t here are certain people who wil l
never give you respect:' 1 4

G u n control and Stand You r G round : these were the

tangible and im mediately prospectless campaig ning
issues at p l ay at this time, in the long months while
people waited for the Zim merman trial to begin . B ut,
of course, a generalised sense that there was some­
thing specifical ly racial at work in such things had
never gone away. A late December d e m o n stration
in Oakland , Califo rnia, d rew lin ks between Trayvon
and a local black man, Alan B l u eford , who had died
at the hands of the cops, while in January 201 3, JET
Magazine - which had published the original photos of
Emmett Til l - placed Davis's portrait on its cover with
the head lin e : Is your child next?

O n 9 M arch 2 0 1 3 , 1 6-year- o l d Kimani G rey was

shot and kil led by p lain clothes po lice in East

Endnotes 4 20
Flat b u s h , B rooklyn i n an event whose contrad i ctory 15 Flatb u s h m ay be
accounts - gu n-brandishing gang mem ber or unarmed seen as an i n stance
i n nocent executed i n cold blood while fleeing for his of an older trad ition
l ife - would never be reconciled. This brought New York of co m m u n ity ri ots
City the closest thing to an anti-police riot since the in res ponse to police
1 9 80s - a smashed pharmacy and cars i n flames a few s h ooti n g s - o n e
blocks from the site of the shooting, after teenagers also evidenced i n the
bro ke away from a vigil - with fu rther gatheri ngs o n 2009 Oscar G rant
su bseq uent n i g hts a s # B rooklyn Riot spread on Twit­ riots i n Oaklan d .
ter. Local council member J u maane Wil l iams showed There local 'com­
up with heavies to shut things down in the name of the m u n ity leaders' fo u n d
com m u n ity, accusing Occupy of sending outside agita­ them selves largely
tors. This was an early i nstance i n a pattern that wou l d outflan ked due to
become general, o f existing black organ isations claim­ t h e i r l o n gstand i n g
ing to represent the movement, their legitimacy in this alliances with mayor
respect a function of their abil ity to rei n i n the violence. Jean Quan. O n Flat­
But what distinguished protest for G rey from that for b u s h see F i re N ext
Trayvon and Davis was the confinement to a local ity and T i m e , 'The Rebel-
relative lack of mediation : though it was soon added to lion Conta i n e d : The
the hashtag memorials, actions i n Grey's name d iffered. E m p i re Stri kes Back',
I n l i e u of the solidarity protests of far-fl u n g activists 15 March 2013; N i c k
accom panied by waves of social media chatter i n the Pi nto, ' Everybody
weeks and months after an incident, the reaction to Wants a Piece of
G rey's death was near i n both time and space. 1 5 Such K i m a n i G ray', Village
formal d ifferences may be read as indexes of distinct Voice, 20 March 2013.
compositions.

THE P R E S I D E N T I S T R AYVO N M A R T I N

I n J u ne 201 3 - in the summer that marked the fiftieth

anniversary of the March on Washington - Black Life
Matters activists were in Chicago's South Side respond­
ing to gun violence by "collecting d reams". Then came
Z i m m e rman's 1 4 J u ly acq u ittal o n all charges. This
brought the bellows to bear again on 2 0 1 2 's em bers.
On 1 6 J u ly Dream Defenders started a several-week
sit-in at Florida's Capitol building, demanding a Trayvon
Martin Act to repeal Stand You r G ro u n d and outlaw
racial profi l i n g , and with Twitter and Tum b l r posts on

Brown v. Ferguson 21
the Zimmerman trial, the #BlacklivesMatter variant now 1& A l i c i a G arza, 'A
reared its head again, this time under the stewardship H e rstory of the
of activists - Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cul lors and Opal # B lacklives M atter
Tometti - who would later become leading fig ures in the M oveme nt', The Femi­
movement and assert ownership of this slogan. 1 6 Mean­ nist Wire, 7 Octo ber
while the state proffered carrot and half-concealed 2014.
stick: under Democratic p ressure, u s Senate hearings
on Stand You r Ground (at which Trayvon Martin 's and
Jordan Davis's families would testify) were annou nced
on 1 9 J u ly, while O bama now identified himself with
Trayvon - and as a victim of racial prej udice - speaking
at sig nificant length on issues of race, suggesting that
there m ay be some legislative reforms ahead , while
sim u ltaneously upholding the neutrality of the existing
law, and warning against violent protest. H ere was that
tension again : "black" and " p resident" in some ways at
odds; now, perhaps more than ever, the former rhetori­
cally encroaching on the latter, probably in reasoned
anticipation that the Trayvon Martin case wou l d not
q uietly die.

The n ext day, in customary fashio n , Al S harpton and

the N ational Action N etwork a n n o u n ced d e m o n stra­
tions in " 1 00 cities". The Martin , Alexander and Davis
protests had so far been centred on their home state of
Florida - with solidarity actions coming from America's
two activist metropoles, New York City and the B ay
Area. Demonstrations now spread to DC, Atlanta, Dallas,
Cincinnati, New O rleans, Min neapolis, and on, though
Florida remained a base, with protests in Jacksonvil le
and Miami. The Alexander case was still on the agenda,
with a Jacksonvil le rally called by Jesse Jackson . The
latter - who lent his physical support to the Tal lahas­
see sit-in - was also offering to mobilise institutional
force in aid of the younger demonstrators. Florida was,
said Jackson , an "apartheid state", and - singing from
the standard Civil Rig hts hymnbook -"the Selma of
our time". Though the standard power bro kers of black
po litics c o u l d o bviou s ly n ot fil l d e m o n stration s and

Endnotes 4 22
occupations all by themselves, n ow, as i n spring 201 2 ,
t h i s was evidently more than a spontaneous upsurge.

Indeed, the concerted push from student-led demon­

strations and occupations - and, later, riots - as wel l
as the i n stitutional and personnel holdovers of Civil
Rights activism, all the way u p to the legislative organs
of the American state, with d i p lomatic mediation and
concessions announced by the President, is one of the
most remarkable aspects of this wave of struggles. Set
against Occupy or the anti-globalisation movement, it
has had a peculiar social and institutional "depth"- one
only possi b l e , perhaps, i n a cou ntry beset by race's
constitutive contrad iction, where Civil Rights legacies
perform important social and ideological functions. With
a now-sizeable black middle class stil l prone to identify
along racial l ines before any other, and with an active
black presence in h i g h e r state i nstitutions, there i s a
social basis, it would seem, for su bstantially vertical
modes of movement composition which defy trad itional
storytel ling about rad ical u ps u rges and their inevitable
cooptation. This was the composition that "black" brought.

Before long even O p rah Winfrey - a Forbes rich l ist

member worth $3 b i l l i o n - was wad i n g i n , d rawi n g
parallels between Trayvon Martin a n d Emmett Til l . And
wit h i n a month came the med iatic spectacle of the
March on Was h ington anniversary and the " National
Action to Realize the Dream March" , bringing out the
O bamas, Bill C l i nton and J i m my Carter (but notably
no Bushes; Carter pointedly identified Democratic for­
tunes with Civil Rights gains) to glory in Civil Rights as
national myth. S harpton took a historic opportunity to
criticise black youth culture and its "sagging pants", to
much applause. But attendance estimates were much
l ower than anticipated - probably somewhere i n the
1 0,000s. Wh ile the sym bology of Civi l Rig hts is never
far away i n this wave of struggles, this was evidence,
perhaps, that the sentiments exposed by the Trayvon

Brown v. Ferguson 23
case were looking for something other than monuments
to a previou s generation 's heroism ; Luther dons the
mask of the Apostle Pau l.

FUCK THE FEDS

At this stage activist strategy remained largely con- 17 T h i s game plan h a s

fined to a Civil Rig hts playbook. First hig h light local been tacitly assumed
instances of racist violence or institutional discrimina­ by most actors in the
tion in order to draw in the federal government. Then cu rrent wave, from
use Department of Justice or FBI investigations into "civil D ream Defe n d e rs
rig hts violations" to extract concessions from state and and Organizati o n for
local officials. 1 7 This orientation to the federal govern­ Black Str u g g l e at the
ment might seem surprising - especially given its role local level, u p to NAN
in crafting policies that have adversely affected Afri­ and the NAACP at the
can Americans. But race and the us state have had a n ati onal leve l , wheth­
long and intimate relationship in which the latter's role er the i m m e d i ate
cannot sim ply be reduced to either abuse or accom ­ demand was repeal
modation, a n d it would b e a mistake t o read t h e function of Stand Yo u r G r o u n d
of the state here as a matter of the simple incorpora­ or police refo rm. As a
tion of a previous generation's insurgent black politics. strategy it was more
Black people in America have been continually exposed v i s i b l e i n the early
to hig h levels of arbitrary violence. This violence has d ays, but it would
often been inflicted directly by agents of federal, state retu rn to p ro m i nence
and m u nicipal governments ; at other times by private i n summer 2015, with
actors with the tacit or explicit approval of the state. the approach of the
But j u risdictional conflicts between different levels of Democrati c pri maries.
govern ment have also allowed b lack m ovements, in
certain periods, to play one off the other. Indeed their 18 L i s a M i l l er, Perils of
attempts to do so have shaped the existing division of Federalism (Oxford
powers in the U nited States. 2008).

Prior to the Civil War, tight restrictions on federal power 19 Federal s u pport
had been introduced into the Constitution explicitly to for C i v i l R i g hts was
forestall any potential for Congress to u n dermine or partly exp l a i n e d by
outlaw slavery in the Southern states, and federal legal the i n co m pati b i l ity
protection had been largely limited to slaveowners - the between Jim C row
Constitution 's Commerce and Fugitive Slave Clauses and the role of the
confined the federal e nforcement of property rig hts u s as ' l eader of the

Endnotes 4 24
to the kind of property that had a tendency to flee free world'. The key
across state l ines. But after the war the 1 4th and 1 5th pre-c o n d i t i o n for the
amendments, together with the Enforcement Acts, gave move m e nt's success
Congress u n precedented powers to overrule state law i n the South was that
in order to protect the former slaves from their former s h arecro p pers had
masters. These amendments, along with a beefed- u p been re p l aced by the
interpretation o f t h e Commerce Clause, sti l l u nderlie mechan i cal cotton
federal power over state judiciaries today. The question h arvester, and the
of race is thus bound intimately to the very structure of rigidly divided J i m
pol itical power i n America. Crow labour market
p roved a d raw back
But the intended beneficiaries of these developments to e m p l oyers i n
were abandoned a l m ost i m m ed iately by the newly b u rg e o n i n g Southern
empowered federal government amid a backlash against cities. The p r i n c i pal
Reconstruction, led by a revanchist Southern elite. A beneficiaries of the
series of Supreme Court decisions culminating in Plessy C i v i l R i g hts M ove­
v. Ferg uson ( 1 8 9 6) succeeded in depriving Southern ment m ay h ave been
blacks of their n ewfo u n d constitutional p rotections. the Southern white
And even as fed eral j u d icial oversight and interven­ e l ite, who experi­
tion expanded in the early twentieth century to cover e n ced an i n f l u x of
organised crime, auto theft, drug and prostitution rack­ reg i o nal i nvestment
ets - billed as "wh ite slavery"- the federal government i n its wake. See
consistently ignored the appeals of anti-lynch ing cam­ Gavin Wright, Sharing
paigners. 1 8 It was only after Brown v. Board of Education the Prize: The Eco­
( 1 954), when Jim Crow had become both u n p rofitable nomics of the Civil
and a national em barrassment, 1 9 that Southern blacks Rights Re volution
were finally able to discount these constitutional promis­ (H arvard 2013).
sory notes. 20 I n a sense, black people were both the first
and last to enjoy access to federal protection. 20 There was an i ro n i c
i nvers i o n h e re: t h e
Of course today, as i n the past, those p rotections 14th a m e n d m e n t ,
remain very l i m ited . The De partment of J u stice has o r i g i nally addressed
been inconsistent i n enforc i n g its civil rights man­ to the r i g hts of fo rmer
date, and no-one imagines the feds are comm itted to s l aves, h ad been re i n ­
racial equal ity. There is perhaps an analogy here with terpreted a s p rotect­
the role of the C h i n ese Com m u n ist Party i n maki n g i n g corporat i o n s from
a n exam ple o f corru pt local officials i n order t o q u e l l state reg u l at i o n a n d
protest a n d preserve t h e wider system of corru ption. w a s t h u s l a r g e l y over­
The role of Cong ress in establishing the basis of mass l o o ked i n the C i v i l

Brown v. Ferguson 25
incarceration (see addendu m , below) and the recent R i g hts Act, w h i c h
g utting of the Voting Rights Act by the S u p reme Court i n stead re l i ed o n t h e
leave n o i l l u s i o n s about the trustwort h i ness of the C o m m e rce Clause to
federal government i n this respect. But the history of make private race­
Reconstruction shows that there is nothing new in the based d i s c r i m i n at i o n
fact that the su pposed savio u rs of black people can a fed e ral offe nce.
often be their worst enemies.

B E I N G B LACK W H I L E S E E KI N G H E L P

On 1 4 Septe m ber 201 3 Jonathan Ferre l l , 24, crashed 21 I n t h i s case the

his car in Charlotte, North Carolina and went to a nearby NAACP actu-
house in search of help. The homeowner called 9 1 1 ally praised p o l i c e
and police officers soon arrived on the scene. Rather for promptly b r i n g i n g
than helping Ferrell, pol ice officer Randall Kerrick shot c h arges ag a i n s t Ke r­
h i m 10 times. 2 1 On 2 N ovem ber Renisha McBride, 1 9 , rick, t h o u g h the i n itial
crashed her car in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, in the i n d i ctment failed.
Detroit metropol itan area, and went i n search of help. A second G rand
Apparently intoxicated and confused , she knocked on J u ry i n d i cted him for
Theodore P. Wafer's front door i n the early hours of the v o l u ntary m a n s l a u g h ­
m o rn i n g . H e responded with a shotg u n b l ast to her ter o n 28 J a n u ary
face. The appearance of such strikingly repetitive pat­ 2014 - a fairly rare oc­
terns i n this story is probably i n part a product of the c u rrence in t h i s c h a i n
med iation of specific incidents : two cases that sepa­ of events. H owever, a
rately and with d ifferent timing might have d rawn l ittle m i strial was d e c l ared
attention i n themselves coming to resonate together, in A u g ust 201 5 , with
the latter case ampl ifyin g the former, and both sound­ a h u n g j u ry reflecti n g
ing out louder together. But it is surely also i n part an a b road e r n at i o n a l
artefact of generic structu res of American society : the polarisation over
black person deposited i n an u nfam i l iar neighbourhood the i s s u e of police
by a car accident, rousing fears on the part of the resi­ killings.
dent to whom they attempt to appeal for help, ultimately
lead ing to their death - the whole standard apparatus
of suburban anxiety, racialisation and arbitrary violence
towards black people shows itself.

Spokespeople for the McBride fam ily seem to have re­

sisted her insertion into the ongoing macabre narrative
of Trayvon et al., but with Michigan's Stand You r Ground

Endnotes 4 26
law potentially at stake, and Wafer's defence involvin g
the c l a i m that he thought his h o m e was b e i n g broken
i nto, the association was probably inevitable - as was
Al Sharpton 's prom pt appearance on the scene, making
the case. On the day of McBride's funeral, however, an
attem pt by Democrats to repeal Florida's Stand You r
Ground law was defeated b y overwhelming Republican
opposition. In the weeks following McBride's death, dem­
onstrations grew in Detroit, with vigils and rallies outside
a police station using the Black Lives Matter slogan,
while #J usticeForRenisha entered the national chatter.
But the lack of Trayvon-esq ue levels of m o b i l i satio n
was noted : did black women's l ives matter even less?

I n February 2 0 1 4 , t h o u g h J o rdan Davis 's ki l l e r was

convicted of 2nd d e g ree m u rder, a h u n g j u ry meant
that a fu ll-scale m u rder charge was left pending further
trial. This led to national outrage and Florida demon­
strations for Davis. These were fol lowed i n major cities
across the cou ntry by a new round of Trayvon Martin
actions. A 1 0 March demonstration at Florida's State
Capitol in Tallahassee, led by Mart i n 's and Davis's par­
ents, as well as the omnipresent Sharpton, demanded
repeal of Stand You r G rou nd. Yet at this point Florida's
Repu b l ican-d o m i nated legislatu re actually appeared
ready to extend this legislation - albeit with a view to
cases l i ke Marissa Alexander's where a warn ing shot is
fired . Wh ile the cou ntry's pu lse seemed to be palpably
qu ickening over issues related to these ki llings, and the
"New Civil Rights Movement" idea remained much in the
air, it seems conceivable that things might have fizzled
at this point i nto m i n o r Stand You r G ro u n d and g u n
control campaigns, had further events n o t intervened.

I CA N ' T B R EAT H E

B u t a t m id - s u m m e r, w h i l e D ream Defe n d e rs were

organ ising " Freedom Schools" across Florida - mod­
elled on the obligatory Civil Rig hts precedent - New

Brown v. Ferguson 27
York cops added another name to the l ist, while man- 22 It seems that the
ag i n g to bring pol ice brutal ity to the fore i n the m i x trigger f o r t h e clamp-
of l ive issues : Eric Garner, 43, ki l led i n a chokehold down on G arner's
on 1 7 J u ly 201 4 on Staten Island, New York City, by s pot in the To m p k i n ­
police officer Daniel Pantaleo. Garner apparently sold s v i l l e P a r k area of
" loosies"- ind ividual cigarettes purchased in neighbour­ Staten I s l a n d was the
ing states l i ke Pennsylvania or Delaware where taxes c o m p l ai nts of local
were lower - and had al ready been arrested m u ltiple s h o p keepers a n d
times in 201 4 for this minor misdemeanor. For the cops l a n d l ords, c o n c e r n e d
this was a matter of clam ping down not on crime but about customers
"d isorder", part of the "broken windows" policing strat­ and property val u e s .
egy made famous by the NYPD. 22 Garner's last arrest ' Beyo n d the Ch oke­
was captu red in a video which was released 6 hours h o l d : The Path to Eric
later to i m med iately go viral : Garner remonstrating with G arner's Death', New
the police officers, referri n g to the arrests as a pat­ York Tim es, 13 J u n e
tern of harassment, announcing that " it stops today" ; 2015.
Pantaleo throwing his arm around Garner's neck, while
five other cops dragged h i m to the grou nd, piling on
top of h i m . I n another video we see a crowd g ather­
ing while cops insist "he's sti l l breath ing" ; ambulance
workers arriving on the scene fai l to notice that he isn't.
Garner died on the sidewal k surrounded by his killers,
his dying words caught o n camera: "I can't breathe.
I can't breathe".

Perhaps because the ground had already been pre­

pared by preceding events ; perhaps because this event
was captu red so visceral ly; perhaps because it took
place in New York City rather than Florida or Michigan,
it became clear around this time that a momentum was
b u i l d i n g . On 1 9 J u ly demonstrations for Garner took
place on Staten Island and i n Harlem, with Al Sharp­
ton and NAN i nvolvement. I n a speech criticising the
police, Sharpton quickly announced a civil rights lawsu it
against the NYPD. On 29 J u ly Broadway stars staged
a flashmob demonstration for Garner i n Times Square.
Then a further name : John Crawford , 2 2 , shot and killed
by pol ice i n Beavercreek, Ohio on 5 August 201 4 after
picki n g up a toy gun i n a shop. Video of agg ressive

Endnotes 4 28
 police q uestioning of Crawford's girlfriend after the kil l­
ing would further stoke controversy.

And another: on 9 Aug ust, 1 8-year-old Michael Brown

J r. was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson
in Ferguson , Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, u narmed ,
and - witnesses claimed - with his hands u p in s u r­
render. If events in this wave of strugg les had hitherto
largely fol lowed the sanctioned Civil Rig hts standard of
non-violent direct action , now came a shift of key: this
was the Watts moment. And if actions had so far been
mostly convened and d riven by u niversity students and
professional activists, those descending modu lations
now kicked in again, bringing out a su bstantial cut of
Ferg uson's poor.

A D D E N D U M : O N MASS I N CA R C E RAT I O N

23 J a m i l a h K i n g , ' H ow With Ferg uson approaching the brin k, it probably made

t h ree f r i e n d s turned
a s p o ntaneous
Facebook post i nto a
g l obal p h e n o m e n o n ',
The California Sunday
Magazine, 1 March
2015.
24 S i d n ey M . W i l l h e l m ,
Who Needs the
Negro? (S h e n k m a n
1 970).
littl e d ifference to the overall pattern of events that
on 7 Aug ust Theodore P. Wafer, Renisha McBride's
killer, was fou n d g uilty of all charges and sentenced
to 1 7- 3 2 years. I ndeed, even some activists were
dou bting whether they could honestly chalk this u p as
a victory. Patrisse Cullars, an anti-incarceration activist
who had set up the B lack Lives Matter Network along
with Alicia Garza and O pal Tometi, began to worry that
the movement was celebrating the very thing she had
been cam paigning against ; she and Garza were actually
debating this when Michael B rown 's shooting rolled
across the television news. 23 Ferg uson would put this
q uestion on hold, but the fact that the first mass move­
ment against mass incarceration would have, as one of
its central demands, more incarceration (al beit only for
cops and racists) wou l d remain a point of contention.

I n 1 970 an obscure sociologist from Galvesto n , Texas,

Sid ney M. Wil l h e l m , published a book with the incendi­
ary title Who Needs the Negro ?. 24 In it he arg ued that

Brown v. Ferguson 29
25 Automat i o n has
long been a central
topic among black
revo l utionaries and
n at i o n a l i sts i n the
us. C .f. James B o g g s ,
The American Revolu-
tion: Pages from a
Negro Worker's Note­
book ( Monthly Review
Press 1963)
26 Bruce Weste r n ,
Punishment and
Inequality in America
( R u s s e l l Sage Fo u n -
d at i o n 2006).
27 These reforms, along
with new c o n s p i racy
charges that c o u l d b e
used to t u r n any as-
sociate i nto a state's
witness, effectively
g ave sente n c i n g
p o w e r to prosecutors.
M i c h e l l e A l exa n d e r,
The New Jim Crow:
Mass Incarcera tion in
the Age of Colorblind-
ness ( New Press
2010). H owever, a s
J a m e s F o r m a n J r.
p o i nts out, A l exan ­
d e r ' s backlash t h e s i s
ove rlooks the s u p port
of black politicians for
this same l e g i s l at i o n .
J a m e s Forman J r. ,
Endnotes 4
a b itter i rony was facing black America: j u st when the
Civil Rig hts Movement was promising to l iberate b lack
people from d iscrim ination in the workplace, automation
was killing the very jobs from which they had previously
been exc l u d e d . Wi l l h e l m painted a dystopian future
that has proved eerily prophetic. He warned that Afri­
can Americans were in danger of sharing the fate of
American Indians: heavily segregated, condemned to
perpetually high levels of poverty and dwi n d l i n g birth
rates - an "obsolescent" population doomed to demo­
g raphic decline. At the time, i n the heady days of Civil
R i g hts s u ccess, Wi l l h e l m was d i s m i ssed as a kook.
Today h i s book is remembered only within some small
b lack national ist circles. 2 5
I n retrospect m a n y o f Wil l h e l m 's pred ictions bore out,
but even h i s bleak vision failed to anticipate the true
scale of the catastrophe i n store for b l ack America.
He wrote that "the real frustration of the 'total society'
comes from the d iffic u lty of d i scard i n g 2 0 , 000,000
people made s u p e rfl u o u s t h ro u g h automat i o n " , for
"there is no possi b i l ity of resu bj u g ating the Negro or
of jailing 20,000,000 Americans of varying shades of
' black'." Nowhere in his dystopian i m ag ination c o u l d
Wil l helm envisage an increase i n the prison population
of the scale that actually occu rred i n the two decades
after h i s book was publ ished. Yet this was the eventual
solution to the problem that Wi l l h e l m perceived : the
correlation between the loss of man ufacturing jobs for
African American men and the rise in their incarceration
is u n m i stakable.
Today in the us one in ten black men between the ages
of 1 8 and 35 are behind bars, far more than anything
witnessed i n any other time or place. The absolute n u m ­
b e r h a s fal len in recent years, b u t t h e cumulative i mpact
is terrifying. Amongst all black men born si nce the late
1 970s, one in four have spent time in prison by their
m id-30s. For those who didn't complete high school,
30
 ' Racial Critiques of
Mass I n carcerat i o n :
Beyo n d the N e w
J i m Crow' N YU L a w
Review, v o l . 87, 2012.
28 For most of the 20th
centu ry, the b l ac k i n ­
carceration rate was
m u c h l ower in the
South, for J i m Crow
lynch terror d id n ' t
req u i re j a i l s . W i t h
S o u t h e r n u r b a n i sa­
tion and the advent
of c i v i l r i g hts this rate
began to rise (strik­
i n g ly it fi rst reached
N o rthern levels in
1 965, the year of the
Civil R i g hts Act). B u t
alth o u g h today t h e
b l ac k i n carceration
rate i s higher i n the
South, raci a l d i s parity
i s lower, for the wh ite
i n carcerat i o n rate has
g rown even faste r
(Data: BJS H i sto rical
Statistics o n Prison­
ers i n State and
Federal I n stitutions).
Brown v. Ferguson
incarceration has become the norm: 70% have passed
through the system. 2 6 They are typically caged in ru ral
prisons far from friends and fami ly, many are exploited
by both the prison and its gangs, and tens of thousands
are cu rrently rotting in solitary confinement.
How to explain this modern hel lscape? Wilhelm g ives
us an economic story : capital ists no longer have the
capacity or mot ive to exploit the labo u r of these men ;
u n necessary for capital, they are made wards of the
state. M ichelle Alexander, i n The Ne w Jim Crow, g ives
us a pol itical one : fear of black insurgency (a backlash
against the successes of the Civil Rig hts Movement)
l ed white voters to support " law and order" policies,
l i ke i n c reased mandatory m i n i m u m sentences and
red u c e d opport u n ity for parole. 2 7 Alexander u nder­
plays the i mpact of a very real crime wave beg i n n i n g
in the late 1 9 6 0s, b u t it is t r u e that these policies were
fi rst cham pioned by a Republ ican "Southern strategy"
that did l ittle to conceal a core racial a n i m u s , a n d
t h e y began to receive b ipartisan support i n the 8 0 s ,
w h e n the crack e p i d e m i c u n ited the country i n fear o f
black cri m inal ity.
However, if wh ite politicians had h oped to specifi­
cally target b l acks with these p u n itive policies then
they failed. From 1 970 to 2000, the incarceration rate
for whites increased j u st as fast, and it continued to
increase even as the black incarceration rate began to
decl ine after 2000. Blacks are stil l incarcerated at much
higher rates, but the black-wh ite disparity actually fell
over the era of mass i ncarceration. Th is is partly a mat­
ter of wider demog raphic trends, such as u rbanisation
and i nter-regional m i g rati o n , but it means that b l ack
people are far from being the only victims of the prison
boo m . 28 Even if every black man cu rrently i n jail were
m i racu lously set free, in a sort of anti-racist raptu re,
the u s would sti l l have the highest incarceration rate
in the worl d .
31
A M E R I CA N BAN L I E U E

Ferg uson is a picture o f pleasant suburbia, a town 2 9 I n 1974 a panel of

of tree-lined streets and wel l - kept homes, many of federal judges con­
them b u i lt for the middle class at mid-century. But cluded that 'segre­
Ferg uson is in north St. Louis Cou nty, and the area g ated h o u s i n g i n the
is suffering from one of the reg i o n 's weakest real St. L o u i s metropol itan
estate markets. area was . . i n large
- St. Louis Post Dispatch, 1 8 August 201 3 measure the re s u l t
o f d e l i b e rate racial
St. Lou i s has a long history of state mandated racial d i scri m i nati o n i n the
seg regation in the form of red l i n i n g , seg regated pub­ h o u s i n g market by
lic housing, restrictive covenants and so on. 2 9 Out of the real estate i n d us­
u rban engineering and "sl u m su rgery" there came the try and by ag e n c i e s
1 95 6 Pru itt-Igoe project, which housed 1 5,000 people of the federal, state,
i n North St. Louis. Modelled partly on Le Corbusier's and local g overn­
principles by M inoru Yamasaki , the architect who would m e nts.' R i c h ard Roth­
g o on to design the World Trade Centre, this project ste i n , 'The M a k i n g
became notorious almost i m med iately for its crime and o f Ferg u s o n : P u b l i c
poverty. 3 0 Local authorities solved the problem - and Pol i c i e s a t the Root
that of Pru itt-lgoe's large-scale rent stri ke - by s i m ­ of its Tro u b l es'. Eco­
p l y demolishing it i n the early 1 970s i n an event that nomic Policy Institute,
Charles Jencks famously identified as "the d ay mod­ 15 October 2014.
ern architectu re died" . 31 North St. Lou i s has remained
heavily i mpoverished and racialised to the present, with 30 See the 201 1 docu-
9 5 percent of the population identifying as black, and m e ntary film d i rected
unemployment among men in their twenties approach- by C h ad Fre i d r i c h s ,
ing 5 0 percent i n many neighbourhoods. 'The Pru itt- I g o e Myth'.
f o r an exp lorat i o n of
An i ncorporated city close to the northern edge of St. the social h i story of
Louis, Ferg uson had been an early destination for white t h i s proj ect.
flight, as both workers and jobs moved out of the city i n
the 1 950s and 60s, to escape the desegregated school 31 With a certa i n h i stori-
system and benefit from the lower taxes of subu rban St. cal i rony, some w o u l d
Lou i s Cou nty. But many of the refugees of the Pru itt­ l ater view the other
Igoe d isaster too fled n o rth to p l aces l i ke Ferguson fam o u s d e m o l i t i o n
when other wh ite suburbs blocked the construction of o f M i noru Yamasaki
m u lti-fam ily housing, enforced restrictive covenants, or b u i l d i n g s as the day
simply proved too expensive. 32 This was the beg i n n i n g postmodern ity d i e d .

Endnotes 4 32
of another wave of out-migration - this time b lack - as 32 See Anthony F l i nt,
crime and poverty swept the d e i n d u strialised c ity 'A Failed P u b l i c-
thro u g h the 1 9 8 0 s and 9 0 s . Wh ites now began to H o u s i n g Project
leave Ferg uson, taki n g i nvestment and tax reven ues Could Be a Key to St.
with them, and the local govern ment started to al low for Louis' Futu re', City/ab,
the construction of low- and m ixed-income apartments 25 A u g u st 2014; R . L .
i n the southeastern corner of the town . 33 These devel­ ' I n exti n g u i s hable
opments fit a general pattern of spatial polarisation and Fire: Fe rguson A n d
local homogen isatio n , as segregation has occu rred Beyo n d ', Mute, 1 7
between blocks of increasing size - town and suburb Nove m b e r 2014.
rather than neighbo u rhood. 3 4 Th rough such dynamics,
the popu lation of Ferguson has become increasingly 33 See C h r i s Wright, ' Its
black over recent decades: from 1 % i n 1 970, to 25% O w n Peculiar Decor',
i n 1 9 9 0 , to 6 7 % i n 2 0 1 0 . But the local state ru l i n g in t h i s i s s u e for an
over t h i s popu lation has lagged sign ificantly behind its analys i s of s u c h
rapidly sh ifting racial profi l e : in 201 4 only about 7.5% dynamics.
of police officers were African-American , and almost all
elected officials white. M eanwh i l e the gender balance 34 See D a n i e l L i chter
has changed j u st as rapid ly, with Ferg uson displaying et al., 'Toward a N ew
the highest n u m ber of " m issing black men" i n the us : M acro-Seg regation?
o n ly 60 black men for every 1 00 women ; thus more Deco m p o s i n g Seg re­
than 1 in 3 black men absent, presu m ed either dead g at i o n w i th i n a n d be­
or behind bars. 3 5 tween M etro p o l i tan
C ities a n d S u b u rbs',
A further influx to Ferg uson - and specifically Canfield American Sociologi­
G reen , the apartment complex in the southeast where cal Review, vol. So, n o .
M ichael B rown l ived and d i e d - came from another 4, A u g u s t 2015.
mass demolition of housing stock: n e i g h bo u ri n g Kin­
loch, a m uch older African American neig h bo u rhood, 35 The national ave rag e
had also been suffering from the general dynamics f o r w h i tes i s 9 9 m e n
of decl i n i n g popu lation and h i g h crime until m uch of for 100 women, 83
the area was razed to make way for an expansion of for blacks. Wailers et
Lambert-St. Louis I nternational Airport. Wh ile Kinloch al, ' 1.5 M i l l i o n M i s s i n g
and Ferg uson may together form a continuous picture of B l a c k M e n ', N e w York
racialisation, urban decay and brutalisation at the hands Times, 20 A p r i l 2015.
of plan ners and developers, viewed at other scales it
is the polarisations that start to appear: a couple of
kilometers from Ferg uson's southern perimeter l ies the
small townlet of Bellerive. B o rdering o n the camp u s

Brown v. Ferguson 33
of the U niversity of M issou ri-St. Louis, Bellerive has a 36 J i m G a l l a g h e r, ' B l a m e
median fam ily income of around $ 1 00,000. pove rty, age for weak
N o rth C o u nty h o m e
Indeed, Ferg uson itself remains relatively i nteg rated by market', St. Louis
the standards of St. Lou i s Cou nty, with a q u ite prosper­ Post Dispa tch, 1 8
ous wh ite island around South Florissant Road . Thus A u g u st 2013.
both crime and poverty are l ower than in neighbouring
suburbs l i ke Jennings and Berkeley. But it is a suburb
in transition. If in the 1 9 6 0s and 70s the racial d ivisions
of St. Louis Cou nty were largely carved out by public
policy, as well as sem i-public restrictive covenants, i n
t h e 1 990s a n d 2000s they tended to fol low a more d is­
crete and spontaneous pattern of real estate valuations.
Ferguson, l i ke Sanford , Florida, was i m pacted heavily
by the recent foreclosure crisis. More than half the new
m o rtgages i n N o rt h St. Louis Cou nty from 2004 to
2007 were subprime, and i n Ferg uson by 2 0 1 0 one
i n 1 1 homes were i n foreclosure. Between 2009 and
201 3 N o rth Cou nty homes lost a third of their value. 3 6
Landlords and investment companies bought u p u nder­
water p roperties and rented to m inorities. White flight
was now turning into a stampede.

Because property taxes are l i n ked to val uations, the

Ferguson city govern ment had to look elsewhere for
fu n d i n g . Between 2004 and 2 0 1 1 c o u rt fines net­
ted $ 1 . 2 m i l l ion, or around 1 00/o of the city's revenue.
By 201 3 this fig u re had doubled to $ 2 . 6 m i l l i o n , o r a
fifth of all reven ues. The c ity's annual b u d g et report
attributed this to a " more concentrated focus on traf­
fic enforcement". In that year the Ferg uson M u n icipal
Court d isposed of 2 4 , 5 3 2 warrants and 1 2 , 0 1 8 cases,
or about 3 warrants and 1 . 5 cases per household. A
Department of J u stice report would soon reveal that
these had been far from evenly d i stri buted across the
population :

African Americans accou nt for 85% of vehicle stops,

9 0% of citations, and 93% of arrests made by FPD

Endnotes 4 34
 officers, despite comprising only 67% of Ferg uson's 37 ' I nvestigati o n of the
popu lation. [They] are 6 8% less l i kely than others to Ferg u s o n Police
have their cases dism issed by the court [and] 50% Departme nt', U n ited
m o re l i kely to have their cases lead to an arrest States Department of
warrant. 37 J u stice, C i v i l R i g hts
D i v i s i o n , 4 M arch
In high poverty areas l i ke Canfield Green, non-payment 2015. The very exi st­
of fines can easily lead to fu rther fines as well as jail ence of a DoJ report
time, and the report found that "arrest warrants were tak i n g notice of these
used almost exclusively for the pu rpose of compelling i s s u e s i n Ferg u son
payment through the th reat of i ncarceration". Here the i s itself an outcome
disappearance of wh ite wealth and the destruction of of the stru g g l e s that
black had led to a mutation in the form of the local state: happened in large
revenue collected not through consensual taxation but part because of t h e m .
by outright violent p l u nder.

M I K E B ROWN 'S B O DY

For fou r and a half hours M i ke Brown 's body lay mould­
ering on the hot tarmac. By the time the cops finally
d ragged it away - not even i nto an a m b u lance but
m e rely the back of an S U V - the pool of blood had
t u rned from red to black. They l eft the body o n the
street for so long because they were busy "securing
the crime scene", which meant d ispers i n g the large
angry crowd that was gathering as residents poured
out of surrounding apartments. As local news report­
ers arrived o n the scene, shaky c e l l p h o n e footage
of Brown 's body was already begi n n i n g to c i rcu late.
Dorian Johnson, a friend of Brown 's who was with h i m
a t t h e t i m e o f t h e fatal incident, told interviewers that h e
h a d been "shot l i ke an animal " . Cops reported g u nfire
and chants of "kill the police". " Hands u p , don't shoot"
and "We are M i chael B rown " would soon be add ed
to the chorus, while someone set a d u mpster on fire;
signs al ready that an anti-police riot was i n the offing.
The exposed body, doubled over, blood flowing down
the street, had seemed to say: you matter this much.
As if to reinforce the point, more cops arriving on the

Brown v. Ferguson 35
scene d rove over a makesh ift memorial of rose petals 38 Anonymous test i m o ny
where Brown 's body had lai n ; a pol ice dog may also posted o n D i alectical
have been allowed to urinate on it. D e l i n q uents website.

At a d ayt i m e v i g i l the next d ay, 10 A u g u st 2 0 1 4 , a 39 The scorched fore-

black leader of the County govern ment tried to cal m c o u rt of t h i s place
the m o u n t i n g u n rest, but was s h o uted down. M e m ­ wo u l d become a cen-
bers o f the N e w Black Panther Party chanted " Black tral g ath e r i n g p o i n t
Power" and " ram bled nonsensically about that devi l for protests o v e r the
rap m u sic, the Moors, etc" . 38 As day tilted i nto even­ com i n g weeks.
ing, the large, restive crowd met with massive pol ice
presence - a conventional proto-riot scenario. Con­
frontations ensued : a cop car and a TV van attacked ;
shops looted ; a O u i kTri p gas station the first t h i n g
aflame. T h i s acted a s a beacon , d rawing more people
out. 39 And rather than the myth ically random object of
"mob rage", it was a deliberately selected target : rumour
had it that staff had cal led the cops on Brown, accusing
him of shoplifting. The Qu ickTri p was followed by some
riot standard s : parked vehicles set alight; looting on
West Florissant Avenue - plus a l ittle festivity, music
playing, people handing out hotdogs. The cops backed
off for hours, leaving that odd sort of pseudo-liberated
space that can appear in the m idst of a riot.

As the eyes of the nation turned to watch, people joined

i n on social media with the #lfTheyG u n ned MeDown
hashtag, mocking the media selection of the most gang­
sta possible victim portraits. Activists from St. Louis,
some of whom had been i nvolved i n a spontaneous
march the year before through the city's downtown in
response to the Zimmerman verdict, began to descend
o n the s u b u rb . Meanwh i l e standard mechan i s m s
sprung i n t o actio n : o n 1 1 Aug u st the FBI o p e n e d a
civil rights investigation i nto B rown 's shooting, while
NAACP President Cornell Wi l liam Brooks flew i nto Fer­
guson, calling for an end to violence. Obama intervened
the next day with a statement offering condolences to
the Brown fam ily and asking for people to calm down.

Endnotes 4 36
Faced with an immed iate wave of rioti ng, it was pre- 40 P h i l A. N e e l , ' N ew
d ictable which way the constitutive tension would now G h ettos B u r n i n g ',
be resolved : Obama eschewed any racial identifica­ Ultra, 17 Aug 2014.
tion with Brown or his fam ily, in favou r of "the b roader
American comm u n ity" .

B u t t h e rioting rolled on over days ; action necessarily

diffuse i n this subu rban landscape, pol ice l ines strain­
ing to span subd ivisions. 40 Away from the front l i nes
stri p malls were looted w h i l e carnivalesq u e refra i n s
lingered in the air: protesters piling o n t o slow driving
cars, blasting h i p-hop, an odd sort of ghost rid i n g . In
altercations between cops and protesters the latter
sometimes threw rocks or molotovs. But they were also
often hands-up, shouting "don't shoot'' . I n retrospect,
this may look l i ke an early instance of the theatrics of
this wave of stru g g l e , and it wou l d soon become a
fam i l iar m e m e . But it was also apparently a sponta­
neous response to the im med iate situation, right after
B row n 's shooti n g , before the med ia-savvy activists
rol led into town at the end of the month - for it had
an im med iate referent, n ot o n ly sym bol ical ly, in Brown
himself, but also practical ly, as protesters confronted
the d iverse tool kit of the American state: SWAT teams,
tear gas, rubber b u llets, pepper bal ls, flash g renades,
bean bag rounds, smoke bombs, arm o u red trucks . The
nation was aghast as images scro l l ed across screens
of this m i l itary hardware, of a cop saying " Bring it you
fucki ng animals"- coverage which police attempted at
points to shut down.

Social contestation i n the us has l o n g faced m uch

g reater th reat of physical violence than i n other com pa­
rable countries - indeed, those protesting i n Ferg uson
would also at points be shot at with l ive a m m u n ition by
unidentified g u n men, and sometimes get hit. (This is
surely one reason why such contestation often seems
markedly m uted, g iven c o n d itions.) Police violence
against u narmed black people was thus not a simple

Brown v. Ferguson 37
content of these protests, an issue for them to merely 41 S e n ator Rand Pau l ,
carry along, l i ke any other demand. It was also i m p l i - ' We M u st D e m i l itarize
cated in the natu re of the protests themselves, where the Poli ce', Time, 14
everyone out on the streets those days was a potential A u g ust 2014.
M i ke B rown . There was, we m i g ht say, a peculiar pos­
sibility for movement un ification presenting itself here; a 42 J u l i e B o s m a n , ' Lack
u n ity one step from the g raveyard , g iven by the equal ity of Leaders h i p and
that the latter offers ; a u n ity of the potentially killabl e : a G e n e rati o n a l S p l i t
hands up, don't shoot. A n d a s the country looked on, H i n d e r Protests i n
t h i s performance of absol ute v u l n e rabil ity com m u n i ­ Ferg uson', N e w York
cated something powerfu l ; something with which police Times, 1 6 A u g u st 2014.
were i l l-eq u i pped to deal : Wil l you even deny that I am
a living body?

Such messages, b roadcast o n the national stage,

seemed to pose a threat to police legitimacy, and raised
practical questions about the continuing management of
the Ferg uson unrest. Criticism of the mil itarised policing
came even from the m idst of the state - albeit its l i ber­
tarian wing. 41 On the 1 4th the Hig hway Patrol - a state
police force, less i m p l icated in the i m med iate local ity,
with a much higher ratio of black officers and distinctly
non-mil itaristic style - was ordered in as an alternative,
softer approach with a view to easing tensions, appar­
ently with some success. In the evening hours, a captain
even walked with a large peacefu l demonstration. At "an
emotional meeting at a ch u rch", clergy mem bers were
despai ring at "the seemingly u ncontrollable natu re of
the p rotest movement and the flare-ups of violence
that older people in the group abhorred :' 42 Meanwhile,
Canfield G reen turned into a block party.

After 5 days of protests often violently d ispersed , the

name of B rown's ki l l e r, Darren Wilson, was finally
annou nced, along with a report that Brown had stolen a
pack of cigarillos from Ferguson Market & Liquor - not
the QuickTrip gas station - the morn i n g of his death.
The timing of this identification of cri m i n al ity was prob­
ably tactica l ; it was soon fol lowed by an ad mission

Endnotes 4 38
that Wi lson had not stopped B rown for t h i s reason . 43 S o l i d stati stics o n
That night, Ferguson Market & Liquor received s i m i larly part i c i pat i o n seem
poi nted treatment to the OuickTrip : it was l ooted. The to be u n avai lable at
next day a state of emergency and curfew was declared. present, but arrest
There were now a small but sign ificant n u m ber of guns fig u res c h i m e with
on the streets, often fired i nto the air, and pol ice were l o g i c a l read i n g s of
getting increasingly nervous. On 1 2 August Mya Aaten­ the eve nts: in its first
White, g reat-g randdaughter of local jazz singer Mae phase, Ferg u s o n was
Wheeler, was shot w h il st leaving a protest ; the b u l ­ clearly a c o m m u n ity
l e t pierced h e r sku l l b u t missed h e r brain , lodg ing in anti-po l i ce riot, and
her sinus cavity. O n 1 7 August an anarch ist from St. its social character
Louis was shot in the kidney, the bul let grazing his heart. m ay thus be j u d g e d
Both s u rvived and refused to cooperate with police i n p a r t by u s i n g the
investigations. p l ace itself as a
p roxy. A n n O ' N e i l l ,
Wh ile some came i n from neighbouring areas, those 'Who w a s arrested i n
out on the streets in the early days remained predomi­ Ferg u s o n ?', CNN, 23
nantly local residents. 4 3 But a mass of creepers was A u g u s t 2015.
al ready climbing over Ferg uson's surface, forming veg-
etal tangles, trying to g rasp some mason ry: Ch ristian 44 Vari o u s , ' Reflect i o n s
m imes, prayer and rap circles, wingnut preachers, the o n the Ferg u s o n
Revolutionary Comm u n i st Party, " people who wou l d U p r i s i n g ', Rolling
wal k between t h e riot cops a n d t h e crowd j u st saying Thunder #12, s p r i n g
'J esus' over and over agai n " ; a general ised recru itment 2015.
fai r. 44 Bloods and Grips were out, participating i n con­
frontations with cops as wel l as apparently protecting 45 Bosman, ' Lack of
some stores from looters. Nation of Islam members too Leaders h i p and a
took to the streets attem pting to g uard shops, arg u­ G e n e rational S p l it'.
ing that women should leave ; others called for peace
in the name of a new Civil Rig hts Movement; J esse
Jackson was booed and asked to leave a local com­
m u n ity d e m o n stration when h e took the o p port u n ity
to ask for donations to his church ; "African-American
civic leaders" in St. Louis were said to be "frustrated
by their inabil ity to guide the protesters " : a rift seemed
to be open ing. 45

This riot could easi ly have remained a local affai r l i ke

those in Cincinnati 2001 , Oakland 2009 or Flatbush

Brown v. Ferguson 39
the year before. Yet it happened to coincide with a high 46 For p rofi les of the
point in a national wave of activism , and it managed to new activists, see
shake free of local mediators, opening u p a space for 'The D i s r u ptors', CNN,
others to interpret and represent it at will. Soon social 4 A u g u s t 201 5.
med ia-organised b u s l oads of activists descended
on M i ssouri from aro u n d the cou ntry - Occupy and
Anonymous apparently identities at play here, plus a
scattering of anarch ists. I n the fol lowi ng month " Free­
d o m Rides"- another Civil R i g hts reference - were
organised under the Black Lives Matter ban ner: it was
at this point that this really emerged in its own right
as a pro m inent identity with i n these movements. Fer­
guson was m utating from a terrain of com m u n ity riots
into a national centre for activism. Key fig u res began
to emerge, often identified by their n u m ber of Twitter
fol lowers : some local , l i ke Johnetta Elzie (" Netta") and
Ashley Yates, others who had made the pilgri mage, l i ke
DeRay McKesson from M i n neapolis. 46

T H E N EW RACE L EA D E RS

It's more than a hashtag - it's a civil rights movement. 47 Special thanks to
- YES! Magazine, 1 May 201 5 C h i n o for h e l p on t h i s
sect i o n .
All the pieces were now i n place. What appeared as
one movement was actually two : media-savvy activ- 48 The i c o n i c p h oto o f
ists and proletarian rioters, for the most part d ivided m e n carry i n g s i g n s
both socially and geographically. 47 But in Ferg uson's read i n g 'I am a man'
aftermath this divide was spanned by a shared sense is of stri k i n g garbage
of u rgency; by the d iverse resonances of a hashtag ; by workers i n M e m p h i s ,
developing institutional bridges ; and perhaps above all 1 968. That slogan can
by the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement itself, with i n turn be l i n ked back
its abil ity to conj u re black u n ity. The s i m ilarities were to the 18th century
many: "black l ives matter" evoking the older slogan " I abo l i t i o n i st slogan
am a man " ; 48 t h e faith a n d religious rhetoric o f many 'am I n ot a man and a
activists ; the tactics of nonviolent civil disobedience b roth er?', w h i c h was
and media v i s i b i l ity - contrasted with the far m o re echoed by Soj o u r n e r
opaque riots ; not to mention the d i rect involvement of Truth's 'ain't I a
Civil Rig hts organ isations and veterans themselves. woman?'.

Endnotes 4 40
The key to this encou nter is the s i m p l e fact that the 49 A s i m p l e measure
h istoric gains of the Civil Rig hts Movement failed to i s the rat i o o f t o p
improve the l ives of most b lack Americans. Today racial to bottom i n come
disparities in i ncome, wealth, schooling, unemployment q u i ntiles with i n the
and i nfant mortal ity are as high as ever. Segregation black p o p u lat i o n . In
persists. Lynching and second class citizensh i p have 1966 t h i s was 8-4 (the
been replaced by mass i ncarceration. The fight against richest 20% blacks
a New J i m Crow would thus seem to req u i re the kind had about 8 times the
of movement that overth rew the O l d . But something i n co m e of the bottom
fundamental has changed and therefore trou bles this 20%) ; by 1996 it had
project : a small fraction of African Americans reaped d o u b l e d to 1 7 The
sign ificant benefits from the end of de Jure discrimina­ co rres pond i n g fig­
tion. I n 1 9 6 0 , 1 i n 1 7 black Americans were i n the top u res for wh ites were
q u i ntile of earners ; today that n u m ber is 1 i n 10 (for 6.2 and 10. C e c i l i a
wh ites it is 1 in 6). Ineq ual ity in wealth and income has C o n rad e t al., African
risen sign ificantly among African Americans, such that Americans in the u s
today it is much higher than among whites. 4 9 Economy ( Rowman
a n d Littl efi e l d 2006),
For some Marxists, the participation of the black middle pp. 1 20-124.
class in anti-racist movements is seen as a sign of their
l i m ited, class-col laborati o n i st character. When such 50 See, e.g., A d o l p h
people become leaders it is often assumed they will R e e d J r. , ' B lack Par-
attend only to their own interests, and betray the black t i c u l arity Reco n s i d ­
proletariat. 50 It is true, as such critics point out, that ered', Te/os 3 9 , 1979;
the i nstitutional and pol itical legacy of Civil Rig hts has Keeang a-Yamahtta
more or less been monopol ised by wealthier blacks. 5 1 Taylor, ' Race, class
However, these critiq ues tend to run u p agai nst notori­ and M arxi s m ', Social-
ous problems with defi n i n g the middle class, problems ist Worker, 4 J a n u ary
that are particu larly acute when it comes to the black 201 1 .
middle class. I n American pol itical ideology "the middle
class" consists of everyone except the poorest mem- 5 1 F o r exa m p l e , affi rma-
bers of society. For mainstream sociology it is the centre tive action has been
of a spectru m of income or wealth , a variously wider largely restricted
or narrower range around the median. Weberians add to wh ite collar
certain status markers to the defi n ition, such as su per­ p rofe s s i o n s a n d e l i te
visory roles i n the workplace, "white collar" professions, u n ivers ities. C .f. the
or college education. Final ly, Marxists tend to s i m ply 1 978 ' Bakke' stru g g l e
add, i n an ad hoc manner, the mainstream or Weberian over q u otas i n m e d i ­
defi n itions to a two-class model based on owners h i p cal schools.

Brown v. Ferguson 41
or non-owners h i p of the means of production. None of 52 13% of b l ac k e m -
these approaches provide us with a consistent class p l oyees were 'wh ite
s u bj ect bearing a coherent set of i nterests. c o l l ar' in 1967, 40% i n
1984 a n d 51% i n 2010
These problems of definition are amplified with the black (c o m pared to 62% of
middle class. We know that there has been an influx w h ites) . Bart Land ry,
of black people, women i n particu lar, i nto "white col­ 'The Evo l u t i o n of the
lar" professions, but this occu rred j ust when m u ch of New Black M i d d l e
the higher status associated with this work was being C l ass', Annual Review
5 2
stripped away. We know that many more black peo­ of Sociology 37,
ple today have a college ed ucation, but also that the n o . 1 , 2011 .
value of a college education has fal len sharply i n recent
decades. (One m i g ht reasonably surmise that these 5 3 O f those born i nto
things may be connected ... ) The transformation i n the the botto m q u i nt i l e ,
i ncome d istribution, both between blacks and whites o v e r g o % of both
and among b lacks, t h u s seem s more reveal i n g than b l acks a n d wh ites
these Weberian measures. However, the rising incomes earned m o re than
experienced by certain fami lies since the 1 9 60s have their parents, b u t only
not always been d u rable. The i ntergenerational trans­ 66% of b l acks born
m ission of wealth is less assu red for African Americans, i n the second q u i nt i l e
whose h istorical exclusion from real estate markets s u rpass t h e i r parents'
has meant that m i d d l e i ncome earners typically pos­ i n come, com pared
sess much less wealth than white households i n the with 89% of wh ites.
same income range. As a resu lt, those born i nto middle Pew Trusts, ' P u rs u i n g
income fami lies are more l i kely than whites to make less the American D re a m :
money than their parents. 5 3 Downward m o b i lity was Eco n o m i c m o b i l ity
ampl ified by the recent crisis, which negatively affected across g e n e rati o n s',
black wealth m u ch more than wh ite. 54 g J u ly 2012

Partly because available measu res of social structu re 54 From 2005 to 2009,
are so shaped by this notion, partly because there really the ave rage black
are strata whose m ost salient structural trait i s their h o u s e h o l d ' s wealth
fal l i n g - h owever vag uely - betwee n true el ites and fel l by m o re than half,
those unambiguously identifiable as poor, it is i m pos­ to $5,677, w h i l e wh ite
sible to do away with the concept of the " middle class". h o u s e h o l d wealth fell
Here, and in what follows, we use "m iddle class" i n the o n l y 16% to $11 3,149.
mainstream sense, to mean middle i ncome earners. But Rakesh Kochhar et
one m u st remain on guard about the ambigu ities and al, '20 to 1: Wealth
potential traps l u rking i n this term. I n the case of the G ap s Rise to Record

Endnotes 4 42
" black middle class" the fundamental problem is that it H i g h s Between
tends to conflate two different layers : ( 1 ) those who Wh ites, B l acks and
made it i nto stable blue-collar or public sector profes­ H i s pa n i cs', Pew So­
sions, and who thus achieved a l ittle housing equity, but cial & D e m o g rap h i c
who general ly l ive close to the ghetto, are a paycheck Tre n d s 201 1 .
away from ban kru ptcy, and got fucked by the subprime
crisi s ; a n d ( 2 ) a smaller petit-bourgeois a n d bourgeois 5 5 A l i c i a Garza, co-
layer that made it into midd le-management positions or fo u n d e r of the
operated their own companies, who moved into their B l ac k Lives M atter
own el ite suburbs, and who are now able to reproduce network, g rew up i n
their class position. pred o m i nantly wh ite
M a r i n C o u n ty, CA,

Many of the new activist leaders fal l i nto one or another where the m e d i a n
of these layers. 55 This in itself is nothing new. The old household income
Civil Rig hts leaders also tended to come from the "black i s o v e r $100,000.
elite". Yet that elite was relatively closer to the black DeRay M c Kesson, by
proletariat in income and wealth, and was condemned co ntrast, g rew up i n a
by J i m Crow to l ive alongside them and share their poor n e i g h bo u rhood
fate. It consisted of rel i g ious and pol itical leaders, as of Baltimore. Yet he
wel l as professionals, shopkeepers, and man ufactu r­ earnt a s i x-fi g u re sal­
ers who monopolised racially segmented markets - the ary as the d i rector of
"ghetto bourgeoisie". Although many helped to build Jim h u m an capital for the
Crow segregation, acting as "race managers", they also M i n neapolis School
had an interest in overcom i n g the barriers that denied D i strict, where h e
them and their children access to the best schools and developed a reputa­
careers, and thus i n the Civil Rig hts Movement they tion for ruthlessness
adopted the role of "race leaders", taking it as their task i n f i r i n g teachers . J ay
to " raise up" the race as a whole. 56 Caspian Kang, ' O u r
Dem and I s S i m pl e :
The new activists d isti ngu ish themselves from the pre­ Stop K i l l i n g U s',
vious generati o n along tech nolog ical, i ntersectional New York Times, 4
and organisational l i nes. They are suspicious of top­ M ay 201 5.
down organ ising models and charismatic male leaders.
But this is less a rejection of leaders h i p per se than a 56 O n the h i story of
reflection of the fact that - i n an age of social media ' race manageme nt',
n iches - almost anyone can now stake a claim to race see Kenneth w.
leaders h i p , to b roker some i m a g i n ary constitu e n cy. Warre n , ' Race to
They strain against the hierarch ical structures of trad i­ Nowhere', Jacobin 18,
tional NGOs, although many are staff members thereof. summer 2015.

Brown v. Ferguson 43
 They identify more with the inspiring prison break of 57 Many are from e l ite
Assata Shakur than with the careful behind-the-scenes u n ivers ities, i n c l u d i n g
coalition-building of Bayard Ruskin. They want to shake N y l e Fort a t Prince­
off these stu ltifying mediations in a way that aligns them ton, and the Black
with the you nger, more dynam ic Ferguson rioters, and Ivy Coal i t i o n . De Ray
social media seems to g ive them that chance. M c Kesson, a l u m of
an e l ite M a i n e l i beral
But despite their good intentions and radical self-image, arts college, was re­
and despite the real unity that Ferguson seemed to offer, cently h i red by Yal e .
differences between the new generation of race leaders
and the previous one only rei nforce the gap between 58 Patri c k Sharkey,
the activists and those they hope to represent. Those 'Spatial segmentation
d ifferences can be described along three axes: and the b l ac k m i d d l e
c l ass', American
Firstly, most of the activists are college-educated. And Journal of Sociology
u n l i ke the previous generatio n they have not been 119, no. 4, 2014.
57
restricted to all-black colleges. This doesn't mean
they are g uaranteed well-paid jobs, far from it. But it 59 Karyn Lacy describes
does mean that they have a cultural experience to which the 'excl u s i o n ary
very few people from poor neighbourhoods in Ferguson b o u n d ary work' with
or Baltimore have access: they have i nteracted with which the b l ac k
many wh ite people who are not paid to control them, m i d d l e class d i st i n ­
and they will typically have had some experience of g u i s h e s i t s e l f from
the trepid, cautious dance of campus-based identity the b l ac k poor in the
pol itics, as well as the (often u nwanted) advances of eyes of w h i te author­
"white all ies". Thus although their activism isn't always ity fig u re s . Blue Chip
d i rected at wh ite l iberals, their social and techn ical Black: Ra ce, Class,
abi l ities i n this respect often exceed those of ski l l ed and Sta tus in the New
med ia-man ipulators l i ke Sharpton. Black Middle Class
(u c Press 2007).
2 Second ly, u n l i ke the previous generati o n , many of
them did not themselves g row up in the ghetto. This is 60 Tod ay wh ite men with
perhaps the single biggest legacy of the Civil Rights n o h i g hschool e d u ca-
Movement: the ability to move to the suburbs, for those tion are i n carcerated
who could afford it. In 1 970, 5 80/o of the black m i d - a t three t i m e s the
die class l ived i n poor majority-black neighbourhood s ; rate o f b l a c k m e n
today the s a m e percentage l ive i n wealthier majority- with a c o l l e g e e d u c a-
white neighbourhoods, mostly in the s u b u rbs. 58 Th is t i o n . Weste rn, Punish-
means that they have much less personal experience of ment and Inequa lity.

Endnotes 4 44
 crime. Of course, they stil l experience racist policing, are 61 On the g row i n g g a p
stopped by cops far more than wh ites and are s u bj ect between prol etar-
to all manner of humiliations and indignities, but they are ian and m i d d l e class
much less l i kely to be th rown in jail or kil led. 5 9 I ndeed black i d e ntity, see
the l i ke l ihood of ending u p i n jail has fallen stead ily for Ytasha L. Wo mack,
the black middle class si nce the 1 970s even as it has Post Black: How
skyrocketed for the poor, both black and wh ite. 60 a New Genera­
tion is Redefining
3 Finally, and perhaps most sign ificantly, activism is for African American
them, u n l i ke the previous generation, in many cases a Iden tity (C h icago
professional option. Today an expectation of " race lead­ Review Press 2010) ;
ership" is no longer part of the upbringing of the black To u re , Who's Afraid
elite. Identification with the victims of police violence of Post-Blackness?:
is generally a matter of elective sym pathy among those Wha t It Means to
who choose to become activists, and of course many Be Black Now ( Free
do not make that choice. 6 1 But for those who do, tra­ Press 2011).
d itional civi l service jobs and vol u ntary work have been
replaced by career opportun ities i n a professional ised 62 See e.g., O b a m a's
non-profit sector. These jobs are often temporary, allow- stint in a c h u rc h -
ing college g raduates to "g ive back" before moving on based com m u n ity
to better things. 62 DeRay McKesson, before he became organi sati o n on C h i ­
the face of the new activis m , had been an am bassa- cago's S o u t h S i d e .
dor for Teach for America, an organisation that recruits
el ite college g raduates to spend two years teach i n g 63 DeRay i s n o t the o n l y
in poor inner-city schools, often as part of a strategy Teach for America
to promote charter schools and bust local teacher's (TFA) leader i nvolved.
u n ions. 6 3 I n general the "com m u n ity organ ising" NGOs, C E O M att Kramer

whether they are primarily rel igious or pol itical, are often s h owed u p at the Fer­
funded by large fou ndations such as Ford , Rockefel ler g u son protests, and
and George Soros' Open Society. An i ntegral aspect Brittany Pac k n ett, ex­
of the privatisation of the American welfare state, they ecutive d i rector of St.
can also function as "astroturf" : su pposedly g rassroots L o u i s TFA, l a u n c h e d
pol itical movements that are actually fronts for lobby Campaign Zero along
g ro u ps (e.g. school reform) and the Democrats. with DeRay and N et­
ta. Anya Kamenetz,
Th us, in the aftermath of Ferg u s o n , along with the i n ­ 'A # B lacklives M at­
flux o f activists from around t h e cou ntry there came an ter Leader At Teach
i nflux of dollars. Wh i lst existing non-profits com peted For A m e r i ca', NPR,
to recruit local activists, fou ndations competed to fu nd 12 M ay 201 5.

Brown v. Ferguson 45
 new non-profits, picking winners. 64 N etta was i n itially 64 The O p e n Society
recru ited by Amnesty International, and she and De Ray Fo u n dati o n c l a i m e d
would set u p Campaign Zero with backi ng from O pen to h ave ' i nvested $2.5
Society. 65 Su bseq uently DeRay gave u p his six-fi g u re m i l l i o n to s u p port
salary to "focu s on activism fu l l t i m e " . 66 S o m e local frontl i n e c o m m u n ity
activists were not so lucky. Many lost their jobs and groups i n Ferg uson'
became dependent on small, crowd-fu nded donations. i n c l u d i n g O rgan iza­
I n January 201 5 Bassem Masri , who livestreamed many tion for B l ac k Stru g­
of the original protests, was outed by a rival l ivestreamer g l e and M i ss o u r i a n s
as an ex-j u n kie. 67 O rgan i z i n g f o r
Refo rm and E m pow­
R E F O R M R I OTS erment. See ' H e a l i n g
the Wou n d s i n
On 1 8 August M issouri Governor Jay N ixon called i n Ferg uson a n d Staten
t h e National G uard to e nforce t h e cu rfew. Two days I s l a n d ', Open Society
later Attorney General Eric Holder traveled to Ferg u­ Fo u n d at i o n s b l o g , 19
son, where he met with residents and B rown's fam i ly. December 2014.
In nearby Clayton, a g rand j u ry began hearing evidence
to determ ine whether Wi lson should be charged. O n 65 Darren Sands, 'The
23 August at least 2 , 5 00 tu rned out for a Staten Island Su ccess A n d C o ntra-
Garner demonstration, led by Sharpton , with chants of versy O f #Cam-
" I can't breathe", and "hands up, don't shoot" , picking p a i g n Ze ro A n d Its
u p the meme from Ferg uson. A g ro u p called J ustice Su ccessfu l , Contra-
League NYC, affi liated with H arry Belafonte, demanded versial Leader, DeRay
the fi ring of Officer Pantaleo and the appointment of a M c kesson', Buzzfeed,
special prosecutor. The next day, B rown 's funeral in St. 1 4 Sept 201 5.
Louis was attended by 4,500, including n ot only the
ubiquitous Sharpton and Jackson, and Trayvon Martin's 66 DeRay also sits o n
fam ily, but also White House representatives, Martin the board o f J u stice
Luther King 111, and a helping of celebrities: Spike Lee, Together, a new
Diddy, and Snoop Dogg. I n the name of B rown 's par­ n o n - p rofit d e d i c ated
ents, Sharpton's eulogy disparaged rioting : to ' e n d i n g p o l i c e
brutal ity', along with a
Michael B rown does not want to be remembered for d i rector of t h e Rocke­
a riot. He wants to be remembered as the one who fe l l e r Fo u n d ation and
made America deal with how we are going to police several S i l icon Val l ey
in the U n ited States. I i beral-1 i bertarian s .
See Tarzie, ' M eet The
N ew Po l i ce Refo rm

Endnotes 4 46
But these were, of course, not m utually exclusive, as the B o sses', The Rancid
history of riot-driven reform testifies. Wh ile riots gener­ Honeytrap, 25 J u n e
ally consolidate reaction against a movement - with the 2015.
usual pund its baying for punitive measures, while others
jostle to conj u re from the events a more reasonable, law- &7 This appears to h ave
abid ing "comm u n ity" with themselves at its head - they been m otivated by
also tend to shake the state into remed ial action. Only com petition over po­
days later the Justice Department announced an enquiry tential f u n ders. Sarah
i nto policing in Ferguson. Shortly after, large-scale re­ Kenzior, ' Ferg u son
forms to Ferg uson's pol itical and legal institutions were I n c.', Politico Maga­
annou nced. By the e n d of Septem b e r the Ferg uson zine, 4 M arch 2015.
pol ice chief had publ icly apolog ised to the Brown fam ­
i ly, who were also i nvited to t h e Congressional Black
Caucus convention, where Obama spoke on race. From
the single national comm u n ity invoked against the im­
med iate i m pact of rioti ng, he again ceded sign ificant
ground to the particularity of racial questions, speaking
of the " u nfinished work" of Civil Rig hts, while s i m u ltane­
ously presenting this as an issue for " most Americans".

Unrest was still ongoing through September, overstretch­

ing Ferguson's police force, who would soon be replaced
agai n , this time by St. Louis Cou nty pol ice. With the
th ickets of organ isations and professional activists on
the ground, other, more theatrical and non-violent forms
of action were n ow tending to replace the comm u n ity
riot, such as the 6 October interru ption of a St. Louis
classical concert with the old Depression-era class strug­
gle hymn "Which side are you on?". O n the same day
a federal judge ruled on the side of peaceful activists
and against police, over whether demonstrations could
be req u i red to " keep moving " . Meanwhile, Eric Holder
announced a general Department of J ustice review of
police tactics, and from 9 October Senate heari ngs
began on the question of m i litarised policing. Ferg uson
actions stretched on through October, under the aeg is
of many d ifferent groups, including " Hands U p U n ited " ,
which had been formed locally after Brown's death, while
more protesters rolled in from around the country.

Brown v. Ferguson 47
G R I DLOCK

Elsewhere, d e m o n stration s for J o h n Crawford were 68 I n the us, a G rand

o n g o i n g , with the occu pation of the p o l i ce station J u ry p l ays a filte r i n g
i n Beavercreek, O hio, and rallies at the O hio state­ r o l e i n relation t o n o r­
house. Out of these, a draft "John Crawford Law" was mal c o u rt proceed­
to emerge, a bold bit of legislation requ iring toy guns i n g s , determ i n i n g in
sold in O h i o to be identifiably marked as toys. After all, secret whether c r i m i -
Ohio police did seem to have a pecul iar d ifficu lty with nal charges s h o u l d be
differentiating toys from real weapons - at least when brought. They are led
in the hands of black people - for another name was by a prosecutor, and
soon to be added to the list : Tamir Rice, 1 2, shot and the defence presents
killed i n Cleveland, O h i o o n 2 3 Nove m ber 2 0 1 4 by no case. The lack
police officer Timothy A. Loehmann while playing with of acco u ntab i l ity
what the 9 1 1 cal ler had al ready identified as a toy. Two here makes them a
days later, Tam i r Rice protesters would bring grid lock preferred option i n
to downtown Cleveland. these sorts o f c i rc u m ­
stances. Alth o u g h
I n mid - N ovem ber, as the G rand J u ry decision o n u n d e r n o r m a l circum­
Brown 's killer drew near, M issouri Governor Jay N ixon stances the absence
had once again declared a state of emergency, bring­ of d efence typically
ing in the National Guard in antici pation of the usual i n creases the l i ke l i ­
non-ind ictment and a new round of rioting. 68 On 24 hood of i n d ictment, if
November these expectations were fulfilled. As the non­ the prosecutor who
ind ictment was annou nced, Michael Brown's mother leads the j u ry i s h i m ­
was caught on camera yelling "They' re wrong ! Every­ s e l f re l u ctant t o i n d i ct
body wants me to be cal m . Do you know how those (d u e to i n stitutional
bullets h it my son?". As she broke down in grief, her ties with the p o l i ce),
partner, weari ng a shirt with " I am Mike Brown" written then n o n - i n d i ctments
down the back, hugged and supported her for a while, are m o re or less
before tu rning to the crowd , clearly boiling over with g u aranteed , and can
anger, to yell repeatedly "burn this bitch down ! " ; if M i ke always be blamed on
Brown 's l ife mattered little to the state, it might at least the G rand J u ry itself.
be made to. As looting and g u n sh ots rattled around
the Ferg uson and St. Louis area, protests i g n ited in 69 See, e . g . , ' Presbyte-
New York, Sanford , Cleveland , Los Angeles, Seattle, rian C h u rc h Stated
Washington and on - reported ly 1 70 cities, many using C l e r k res p o n d s to
the tactic of obstructing traffic. After a "die-in" and rov­ Ferg uson g rand j u ry
ing traffic-blocking in the perenn ial activist hotspot of d e c i s i o n', pcusa.org,

Endnotes 4 48
 Oakland , riots spread , with looting, fires set, windows 24 N ov 2014: 'We
smashed. In the m idst of the national u n rest, church cal l the c h u rc h to
g ro u ps made interventions criticising the G rand J u ry p ray that G o d w i l l
decision and s u p p o rt i n g peaceful d e m o n strations. g i ve u s the cou rag e
Ferguson churches brought a newly rel igious twist to and strength to h ave
activist "safe spaces" d iscourses, offering themselves as honest conversat i o n s
"sacred spaces" for the protection of demonstrators. 6 9 about race w h e r e w e
l i ve, w o r k , and wor­
In the following days, as the National Guard presence s h i p . We p ray for safe
in Ferg uson swe l l e d , d e m o n strations were o n g o i n g s paces in Ferg uson
across t h e country - and beyo n d . O utside a t h o r­ and i n a l l com m u n i -
oughly bulwarked us Embassy in London, around 5 ,000 t i e s f o r people to
assem bled i n the dank autumn evening of 27 Novem­ voice t h e i r v i ews.'
ber for a Black Lives Matter demonstration, before this
precipitated i n a roving " hands up, don't shoot" action 70 For an acco u n t of the
down Oxford Street and confrontations with cops in D u g g an case, and
Parl iament Square - an event that d rew l i n ks between t h e riot wave that
B rown and Totten h a m 's Mark D u g g a n , whose own followed it, see 'A
7 0
death had i g n ited England's 2 0 1 1 riot wave. I n cit­ R i s i n g T i d e Lifts A l l
ies across Canada, too, there were Ferg uson solidarity Boats', Endnotes 3,
actions. 71 On 1 December Obama i nvited "civil rig hts Septe m b e r 2013.
activists" to the Wh ite House to talk, while the St. Lou is
Rams associated themselves with the B rown cause, 71 Early on, Palest i n i a n s
wal king onto the field hands-up. h ad sent messages
of s o l i d arity with
Then on 3 December 201 4 came the second G rand Ferg u s o n , i n c l u d i n g
J u ry n o n - i n d ictment i n j u st over a week : the officer t i p s f o r d e al i n g with
whose chokehold had kil led Eric Garner, in fu l l vision riot p o l i c e - an echo
of the cou ntry at large, predictably cleared of wrong­ of the i nternational
doing. Cops, of course, are almost never charged for l i n kages that had
such things, and are even less l i kely to be convicted , once characte rised
in the us or elsewhere ; the executors of state violence t h e Black Power
cannot l iterally be held to the same standards as the cit­ move m e nt. In A p r i l ,
izenry they police, even though their credibil ity depends as Balti m o re w a s re­
upon the impression that they are. Due process will be cove r i n g from its own
performed, stretched out if poss i b l e until anger has riot wave, Eth i o p i an
subsided, until the inevitable exoneration ; only in the I s rae l i s w o u l d also
most blatant or extreme cases will i n d ividual officers d raw connections
be sacrificed on the altar of the pol ice force's general between t h e i r own

Brown v. Ferguson 49
legitimacy. Nonetheless, it seems in some ways remark­ stru g g l e s against po­
able that such petrol would be poured with such timing, l ice v i o l e n c e and the
on fires that were already rag ing. 7 2 B l ac k Lives M atter
movement, u s i n g the
The following d ay thousands protested i n New York ' h a n d s up, don't s h oot'
City, with roving demonstrations blocking roads, around m e m e . See Ben
the Staten Island site of the killing, along the length of N o rton, ' Baltimore
Manhattan, chanting " I can't breathe. I can't breathe". Is H e re': Eth i o p i an
Die-ins happened in Grand Central Station, m irrored on Israe l i s protest p o l i c e
the other side of the country in the Bay Area. Sign ificant brutal ity i n J e r usa­
actions were happening almost every day now, typically lem', Mondoweiss, 1
called o n Facebook o r Twitter, with g ro u ps blocki n g M ay 2015.
traffic in one corner o f a city receiving l ive updates of
groups i n many other areas, sometimes run n i n g i nto 72 The prosecutor w h o
them with g reat delight. I n the coastal cities the recent s u pervised the grand
experience of Occupy lent a certain facil ity to spontane­ j u ry i nvesti g at i o n ,
ous demonstration. Police appeared overwhelmed, but D a n i e l D o n ovan, was
i n many cases they had been instructed to hold back s u b s e q u ently e l ected
for fear of fann i n g the flames. to represent Staten
Island, a boro u g h
Then o n 1 3 Dece m ber large scale d e m o n strations heav i l y p o p u l ated
were called i n various cities : New York, Was h ington, with p o l i c e offi cers,
Oakland , C h icago. The Was h ington d e m o was lead i n t h e U n ited States
by the inevitable Sharpton, and the Garner and B rown C o n g ress. The
fam i l ies, t h o u g h speakers were disrupted by young city l ater settled a
Ferg uson activists - fu rther sign of a rift. Tens of thou­ wrong f u l - d eath c l a i m
sands came out i n New York, but this was a traditional b y pay i n g $ 5 . 9 m i l l i o n
stewarded march , the energy of the p revious weeks to G arner's fam i ly.
either contained or spent. A few days later, two Brook­
lyn cops were executed by lsmaaiyl B rinsley ostensibly 73 T h i s , as well as the
i n revenge for Garner and Brown, with the pol ice union s u bsequent ' p o l i ce
blam ing the left-leani n g Mayor, B i l l de Blasio, for tak­ stri ke', turned out
7 3
ing a soft l i n e on the protestors. Meanwh ile Obama to be an open i n g
announced a further institutional response : a comm is­ g a m b i t i n contractual
sion o n pol ice reform, "Task Force o n 2 1 st Century n e g ot i ati o n s between
Policing" to " exam i n e how to strengthen public trust the city and the Pa­
and foster stro n g relat i o n s h i p s between local l aw trol men's B e n evolent
enforcement and the com m u n ities that they protect, Associati o n .
while also promoting effective crime reduction."

Endnotes 4 50
Wh ile u n rest simmered down in the cold winter months,
it was not extin g u ished. I n early January 201 5 a small
camp was formed outside the LAPD headquarters, publi­
cised with both #OccupyLAPD and #BlacklivesMatter
hashtags, to protest the killing of Ezell Ford, a mental ly­
i l l 25-year-old who had been shot by LA police in 201 4,
and whose death had already formed the focus of
several demonstrations. I n February Black Lives Mat­
ter memes were going strong in celebrity circles, with
Beyonce's and Common's backing dancers and Pharrell
Wi l l iams all perform i n g " hands up, don't shoot" ges­
tures at the G ram mys. Such celebrity involvement has
been another remarkable aspect of a wave of struggles
characterised by some forms of action that must hor­
rify pol ite American society - from the N ovember 201 3
Trayvo n fu n d raiser that Jamie Foxx th rew in h i s own
home, to Snoop Dogg's associations with the Brown
and Davis fam i l ies, to Beyonce and Jay-Z's bailing-out
of Ferguson and Baltimore protesters, to Prince's 201 5
" ral ly4peace" and protest song, " Baltimore".

I n early M arch came the D e partment of J ustice

a n n o u ncement that Darren Wi lson would not be
charged at the federal level for civil rig hts violations i n
t h e shootin g o f Brown , citing a lack o f evidence. But
this was in concert with more carrot proffering, presum­
ably in antici pation of further u n rest : on the same day,
the same department issued a damning report on the
racial bias of policing i n Ferguson, evidenced in emails
contain i n g racist abuse and a systematic use of traf­
fic violations to boost state coffers. The local police
chief would resign with i n days. The i n itial fi ndings of
the "Task Force on 2 1 st Century Pol icing" were also
released the same day, to further underline prospects
for reform - and, by i m p l ication, the efficacy of riot i n
ach ieving this. But the next d ay riotless Cleveland 's
legal fi lings managed to blame 1 2-year-old Tam i r Rice
for his own shoot i n g , somet h i n g o n which the city
was q u ickly to backtrack after the scandal broke. I n

Brown v. Ferguson 51
Ferguson, protests continued, in the context of which a
further two cops were shot, though not killed, leading to
demonstrations of support for police and confrontations
between pro- and anti-pol ice actions.

ROUGH RIDE

Then t h e beg i n n i n g o f April added another n a m e to 74 ' R o u g h ride': a

the list: Walter Scott, 50, shot and killed while fleeing, p o l i c e tech n i q u e for
by pol ice officer M ichael Slager, in North Charleston, i nflicting violence o n
South Carolina. This was another case caught on cam­ arrestees i n d i rectly,
era - footage soon released with the assistance of a throu g h the m ove­
Black Lives Matter activist. When Anthony Scott saw ments of a ve h i cle,
the video he echoed B rown 's friend Dorian Johnson in t h u s remov i n g them
remarki ng "I thought that my brother was g u nned down from the c u l pa b i l -
l i ke an animal�' M u rder charges were brought against i t y of m o r e d i rect
Slager within days, as activists arrived on the scene and ag g res s i o n . Manny
small Walter Scott demonstrations kicked in at N o rth Fernandez, ' Fred d i e
Charleston 's City Hal l . Like Renisha McBride's, Scott's G ray's I nj u ry and the
fam ily seem to have initially resisted his incorporation Po l i ce "Rough R i d e",
into the chain of deceased and the associated media New York Times, 30
spectacle. Nonetheless, the story had soon made the A p r i l 201 5 .
cover of Time magazine, photos of Scott's blatant m u r­
der deployed on a blacked-out cover under a large bold 75 Wh ite O ri o l es' fans
type " B LACK LIVES MATIER". And another blast of party i n g outside the
oxygen would soon hit the movement's sti l l smouldering stad i u m clashed with
embers : the day after Scott's fu neral, Baltimore police d e m o n strators, p o l i c e
arrested Freddie G ray, 25, and took him for a " rough i nterve ned v i o l e ntly,
ride" i n the back of a police van , i n the course of which and a 7-1 1 was l ooted .
his neck was broken. 74

During G ray's su bsequent d ays of coma, before h i s

1 9 A p r i l death, demonstrations h a d al ready started in
front of the Western District pol ice station. On 2 5 April
Black Lives Matter protests h it downtown Baltimore,
bringing the fi rst signs of the u n rest to come. 75 The 27
April fu neral, l i ke Brown's, was attended by thousands,
including White House representatives, the Garner fam­
ily, "civil rig hts leaders" etc. A confrontation between

Endnotes 4 52
 cops and teenagers outside Baltimore's Mondawm in 76 Police s h u t down the
Mall was the trigger event for the massive rioting that m a l l in response to
would now engulf Baltimore for days, causing an esti- a flyer c i rc u lat i n g on
mated $9m of damage to property. 76 Tweets declared social m e d i a cal l i n g
"all out w a r between kids and p o l i c e " and " straight for a ' p u rge' - a
com m u n ist savag e " . 77 A fam i l iar riot-script fol lowed : ho rror-movie refe r­
cal ls for calm and condem nations of "thugs", allocating ence to a d ay of
blame to a selfish m i n o rity and upholding peacefu l pro­ lawlessness. Doze ns
test i n contrast ; the N ational G uard called i n ; a cu rfew of high school stu­
announced , mass gatherings to clean up the riot area; d e nts s h owed u p for
a discipl inarian parent puffed u p into a national heroine t h i s , but many m o re
after being caught on camera giving her rioting child a were trapped in front
clip round the ear; suggestions that gangs were behind of the mall by p o l i c e
it al l ; some people spyi ng an i nflux of outside agitators ... w h o s h u t d own the
b u se s that were s u p­
But the archetypes th rown by the light of the flames posed to take them
m u st of course not b l i n d u s to each riot-wave's spe­ h o m e , and f i red tear
cificities. I n the English riots early claims about gang gas i nto the g ather­
involvement later proved unfounded. In Baltimore, gangs i n g crowd. J u stin
seem to have performed the exact opposite function to Fento n , ' Baltimore
that claimed early on. Pol ice had issued warn ings of a riot i n g k i c ked off with
truce betwee n Bloods, Grips and the B lack Guerilla r u m o rs of " p u rge"',
Fam ily with the intention of "team ing up" against them. The Baltimore Sun, 27
But it was soon revealed that the truce, brokered by the A p r i l 2015.
N ation of Islam, was i n fact to suppress the riot. Bloods
and Grips leaders released a video statement askin g 77 The 2015 Baltimore
for calm and peaceful protest in the area, and joined Uprising: A Teen
with police and clergy to enfo rce the c u rfew. On 2 8 Epistolary ( Research
April news cameras recorded gang mem bers d ispersing and Destroy, New
"would-be troublemakers" at the Security Square Mal l . 7 8 Yo rk City 2015).

HARD TI M ES I N TH E CITY 78 ' G a n g s call for calm in

Baltimore'. Baltimore
The best image to sum u p the unconscious is Balti­ Sun, 27 A p r i l 2015;
more i n the early morn i n g . - J acques Lacan Garrett H aake, 'Gang
m e m bers help p re­
The s i m ilarities between Balti more and St. Louis are vent riot at Baltimore
stri king. B oth h ave been s h ri n ki n g for d ecades as a m a l l '. WUSAg, 28
result of deindustrial isation, with rou g h ly half the inner A p r i l 201 5.

Brown v. Ferguson 53
city below the poverty line. Both were epicenters of 79 Balti m o re was the
state-mandated segregation u p to the 1 970s, and sub- first city to adopt a
prime lending in the 2000s. 7 9 And w h i l e i n most US res i d e ntial seg reg a-
cities crime rates have fallen sharply since their 1 9 90s tion ordinance ( i n
peak, in St. Louis and Baltimore they have stayed h i g h , 1 g 1 0). R i c h ard Roth-
w i t h both consistently i n the t o p t e n f o r violent crime ste i n , ' From Ferg uson
and homicide. 80 Yet while trad itional black subu rbs of to Baltimore', Eco-
St. Louis, such as Kin loch, have been g utted, those in nomic Policy Institute,
81
Baltimore have th rived and prol iferated. Situated at 2g A p r i l 2015.
the nexus of the wealthy tri-state sprawl of Maryland,
Vi rginia and DC, Baltimore's suburbs contai n the largest 80 They also s h are a d i s-
concentration of the black middle class in the us. Prince t i n ctive h i story: both
George's County is the wealth iest majority black cou nty were border state cit-
in the country, often cited as the q u i ntessential black ies where s l avery had
middle class suburb, and its pol ice force has a special a te n u o u s foot h o l d .
reputation for brutality. 82 I n his m ost recent memoir Ta­ See Barbara F i e l d s ,
Nehisi Coates cites h i s d iscovery of this fact as the Sla very and Freedom
source of his d i s i l l usionment with black nationalism. on the Middle Ground
Coates' fellow student at H oward U n iversity, Prince ( Yal e 1 g85).
Jones, was ki lled by a black P.G . County officer who
mistook h i m for a burglary suspect. At the time Coates 81 In 1 970 there were 7
devoted an article to the questions of race and class c e n s u s tracts in the
raised by this kil l i ng : Balt i m o re area that
were m aj ority black,
Usual ly, police brutal ity is framed as a racial issue : relatively wealthy,
Rodney King suffering at the hands of a racist wh ite and far from the
Los Angeles Police Department or more recently, an conce ntrated poverty
unarmed Timothy Thomas, g u nned down by a wh ite of the i n n e r c ity. In
Cincin nati cop. But i n more and more com m u n ities, 2000 there were
the pol ice d o i n g the brutal ising are African Ameri- 1 7. Sharkey, 'Spatial
cans, supervised by African-American police ch iefs, s e g m e ntat i o n and the
and answerable to African-American m ayors and b l a c k m i d d l e class'.
city councils.
82 P.G . Cou nty p o l i c e
I n tryi n g to explain why so few s howed up for a w e r e a m o n g the fi rst
Sharpton-led march in the wake of the Jones shooting, to descend on Balli-
Coates pointed out that "affl uent black residents are more i n response to
j u st as l i kely as wh ite ones to t h i n k the victims of police the riots.
brutal ity have it com i n g " . 8 3

Endnotes 4 54
For decades these s u b u rbs h ave incu bated a black 83 Ta- N e h i s i Coates,
political establ ishment: federal representatives, state ' Black and B l u e : Why
senators, l ieutenant governors, aldermen, police com­ d o e s A m e r i ca's rich-
missioners. Th is is another legacy of Civil Rig hts. 84 It est b l ac k suburb h ave
meant, as several commentators have n oted, that Bal­ s o m e of the cou ntry's
timore was the first American riot to be waged against most brutal cops?',
a largely black power structure. 85 Th is was in marked Washington Monthly,
contrast to Ferguson , and it raised a significant problem J u n e 2001 .
for simplistic attempts to attribute black deaths to police
racism : after all, three of the six cops accused of kil l i n g 84 I n 1 970 t h e re were 54
G rey were black. 86 It seemed, that is, that events were black l e g i s l ators in
starting to force issues of class back onto the agenda. t h e u s . By 2000 t h e re
Blackness had for a wh ile presented itself as the solu­ were 610. M ost are
tion to a p revious composition problem, supplanting i n state houses, but
the weakly i n d eterm i nate class pol itics of the 9 90/o the B l ac k Caucus has
with something that seemed to possess all the social become a powerful
actuality that Occu py did not. But j ust as descend i n g force i n C o n g re s s ,
compositional modulations h a d produced that change with o v e r 40 m e m -
of key, they now raised the q uestion of whether the be rs.
new black u n ity could hold along its hitherto extremely
vertical l ines. Was class the rock on which race was 85 C u rtis Price, 'Sai-
to be wrecked, or its social root, by which it might be t i m o re's " F i re N ext
rad icalised ? At this point, the former prospect seemed T i m e"', Brooklyn
the more l i kely. Rail: Field Notes, 3
J u n e 201 5 .
LOO K I N G DOWN
86 4 4 % of Baltimore's
On 2 8 Apri l , as FBI d rones circled the skies over Balti­ police are b l ack,
more, Obama gave his statement, interrupting a summit compared to 60% of
with S h i nzo Abe. Th is seemed markedly less scripted its p o p u l at i o n , b u t t h e
than those h itherto, stepping gingerly from p h rase to w i d e r metro p o l i tan
phrase, balancing statements of support for police with area from w h i c h
those for the G ray fam ily; noting that peaceful demon­ p o l i c e a r e recru ited
strations never get as m uch attention as riots ; fumbling i s 30% black. See
a description of rioters as "protesters"- before recog­ J e remy A s h kenas,
nising the faux pas and q uickly swapping i n "criminals'' , 'The Race G a p in
then escalating a n d overcom pensating with a racialis­ A m e rica's Police De­
ing "thugs" ; l i n king Baltimore to Ferguson and l ocating partme nts', New York
the ongoing chain of events i n " a slow-ro l l i n g crisis" Times, 8 A p r i l 2015.

Brown v. Ferguson 55
that had been "going on for decades" ; cal ling on police 87 ' Rem arks by
unions not to close ran ks and to acknowledge that "this Pre s i d e nt O b a m a and
is not good for police". Prime M i n ister Abe of
Japan i n J o i nt Press
But m ost notably, the race contrad iction which had Conference\ Wh ite
described the polar tensions of O bama's rhetoric now H o u s e , 28 A p r i l 201 5.
receded into the background, while the problem over
which "we as a country have to do some soul search ing" 88 ' It's t i m e to e n d the
became specifically one of poor blacks, im poverished era of mass i n car-
com m u n ities, the absence of formal employment and ceration', 29 A p r i l
its replacement with the i l l icit economy, cops called in 2 0 1 5 , s p e e c h avai l -
merely to contain the problems of the ghetto ; this was able o n h i l laryc l i nton.
the real problem, though a hard one to solve political ly. 87 com. Even Tea Party
H i l lary Clinton too was fal ling over herself to express Re p u b l i can Ted Cruz
an understanding of core social issues at play i n these has joined the anti-
struggles. 88 The conservative Washington Times d e­ i n carcerat i o n chorus.
clared Baltimore's problem to be a matter of class, not
race, and spoke sympathetically of how " residents in 89 Kellan Howe l l ,
poorer neigh bourhoods feel targeted by a police force ' Balti m o re riots
that treats them unfairly". 8 9 Mainstream opinion seemed s parked n ot by race
to be shifti ng, with Democrats and Rep u b licans trad- but by class tensions
ing shots over Baltimore, while often tacitly sharing the between p o l i ce, poor',
premise that the problem was inner-city poverty. The Washington Times, 29
contrast with the 1 960s was striking : where ultra-l iberal A p r i l 201 5 .
Joh nson once saw black riots as a commun ist plot, now
the entire pol itical class seemed to ag ree with the riot- 90 S i m i larly stri k i n g i s
ers' grievances : black l ives did indeed matter, and yes, the co ntrast to the
ghetto conditions and i ncarceration were problems. 9 0 reacti o n of the British
state and m e d i a to
As well as the relatively low level of property destruction the 2011 English riots,
i n com parison to 60s riots (see table), the surprising which was u n iformly
d e g ree of e l ite acceptance h e re m ig h t perhaps be authoritarian and
attributed to the very d ifferent possibilities facing these u n c o m pre h e n d i n g .
two Civil Rig hts Movements, old and new. Where the
fi rst th reatened su bstantially transformative social and 91 S e e ' A State ment
pol itical effects, challenging structu res of racial oppres­ from a C o m rade and
sion that dated back to Reconstruction's defeat, and Baltimore N ative
brought the prospect of dethron ing some racist el ites About the U p r i s i n g '
along the way, the new politics of black unity seemed to o n S I C webs ite.

Endnotes 4 56
 LA Detroit Baltimore LA Baltimore
1 9 65 1 96 7 1 9 68 1 99 2 201 5

Days or rioti n g 6 4 6 6 3
Buildings looted/burnt 977 2,509 1 , 200 3,767 285
People killed 34 43 6 53 0
Arrests 3,438 7,200 5,800 1 1 ,000 486
Damage (millions of $) 40 60 1 3 .5 1 00 9.2

Ta b l e : I m pact of selected US riots (sou rce : Wikiped ia)

be kicking at an open door that led nowhere. Where the 92 For exam ple, ' B i g
first c o u l d offer the prospect o f incorporation o f a t least B rothers B i g S i sters',
some parts of the black population i nto a growing econ­ and O b a m a's ' M y
omy, the new movement faced a stagnant economy with B rother's Keeper'
diminishing oppo rtu n ities even for many of those lucky i n itiatives.
enough to have al ready avoided the g h etto, let alone
those stuck in it. 9 1 Aspirations to solve these problems 93 See Anto n i a B l u m ­
were good American pipe d reams, easily acceptable berg and Carol Kuru­
precisely because it was hard to see what reform might v i l la, ' H ow The B l ac k
actually be addressed to them beyond anodyne steps Lives M atter M ove­
such as req u i ring more pol ice to wear bodycams. ment C h a n g e d The
C h u rch', Huffington
The existing b lack elite is willing to embrace the " N ew Pos t, 8 A u g ust 2015.
J i m Crow" rhetoric as long as it funnels activists i nto
NG Os and helps to consol idate votes - but always within 94 Also this time it was
a frame of paternalism and respectability, s p ri n kled the NAACP, h e ad q u ar­
with Moyn i h an-style invocations of the dysfu nctional tered in Balti m o re ,
black fam i ly. Here lame i n itiatives focus on such things that blamed 'outs i d e
as mentoring to i m p rove i n d ividual p rospects, thus ag itators'. Aaron
sidestepping social problems. 9 2 Meanwh ile churches M o r r i s o n , ' NAACP con­
function both as substitutes for the welfare state and as d e m n s l ooti n g and
organs of com m u n ity representation - roles they have violence i n Balti m o re',
proved willing to embrace and affirm in the context of International Business
this movement. 93 Elites in Baltimore have capital ised on Times, 28 April 201 5 .
the mood, for exam ple by ind icting all the cops i n the
G rey case - something that will win State's Attorney
Marilyn J . Mosby accolades whatever the outcome. But
it is p robably sign ificant that the word "th ug" was first
deployed here by those same e l ites - and Obama. 9 4
Wh ile people across the s pectrum of black American

Brown v. Ferguson 57
society and beyond could easily affi rm that all those
l ives from Trayvon Martin onwards certainly did matter,
what could they say to rioters from Baltimore's ghettos?
Could the thin un ity of b lack identity sti l l hold when the
stigma of criminality pushed itself to the fore?

G R AC E

On 8 J une a police officer on one of the most prom inent

cases was ind icted : M ichael Slager, for the m u rder of
Walter Scott. We might reasonably anticipate that, here,
fi nally, a cop is l i kely to be sacrificed to the g reater
legitimacy of the police. Surely they can hardly do oth­
erwise : this case seems as clear-cut as they come, and
any other outcome would be an outright admission of
d o u b l e standards. But, as we've recently seen with
Randall Kerrick - killer of Jonathan Ferrel l - even clear­
cut cases typically fail to produce convictions; much like
with civilian Stand Your Ground cases, the police officer
needs only to say that they felt "threatened"- even if
the victim was unarmed.

The cell n e i g h bouring S l ager's would soon be occu­

pied by another South Carolina man : Dylann Roof, 2 1 ,
executioner, o n 1 7 J u ne, of 9 black c h u rchgoers i n
Charlesto n . H i s was a white supremacist's reaction t o
t h e post-Trayvon events. With the demand for indict­
ment of cops final ly met (more were to be indicted over
the next month, i n Cincinnati), the reaction to the mas­
sacre appeared m uted. No angry protests, only shock
and g rief. At Roof's pre-trial hearing fam ily members of
his victims s howed u p and publ icly forgave him. It was
this Christian "grace" that gave Obama the opportun ity
to final ly present h i mself as a Civil Rig hts president, at
the funeral of state senator Reveren d Pinckney, who
had d ied i n the massacre. The lam b l i ke i n n ocence of
the victims and the civil response of the c o m m u n ity
allowed h i m to invoke an image of blackness clothed
i n that most American trad ition : Christian fait h .

Endnotes 4 58
Appropriat i n g the rhetorical vernacular of the black 95 No other states fly it,
ch u rch , h e could finally put aside his equ ivocations but it is i n corporated
over race and racism : "we' re g uarding against not just in M is s i s s i p p i's state
racial s l u rs but we' re also guard i n g against the sub­ flag, s u p ported by a
tle im pulse to call Johnny back for a job i nterview but recent 2-1 p o p u l a r
not Jamal:' Cue u proarious cheers : " Hallelujah ! " Roof's vote.
revanchist Southern nationalism meant that righteous
black rage could now be targeted not at killer cops but 96 At the end of J u n e
at a symbol: the Confederate flag, which had flown from a m o re ancient
the statehouses of Alabama and South Carolina ever and anonym o u s
since George Wal lace led a wh ite backlash against m e m e w a s revived
Civil Rights in the 1 9 60s. On 2 7 June Bree N ewsome, i n response: e i g ht
a black Ch ristian activist, tore down the flag from the Southern b l ac k
South Carolina statehouse. By the following week the c h u rches w e r e b u rnt
Republican governors of both states had ordered the i n o n e week.
flag removed from official buildings. 9 5 For a wh ile videos
of attacks on people, cars and buildings flying the flag 97 Darren Sands, 'The
became a popu lar internet meme. 9 6 Success A n d Con­
troversy of #Cam-
With summer came the interventions of Black Lives Mat­ pai g n Zero'.
ter activists into the Democratic primaries : i nterruptions
of su rprise leftist contender Bernie Sanders' speeches
that would be construed as confrontations between
" race first" and "class first" left i s m s ; an i m promptu
meeting with H i llary Clinton , foll owed by a denuncia­
tion of "her and her fami ly's part i n perpetuating white
supremacist violence i n this cou ntry and abroad ". Ten­
sions began to emerge at this point between Campaign
Zero , identified with DeRay, and the Black Lives Matter
Network, led by Garza, Tometi and Cul lors, in large part
over the question of whether they should accept the
tender embrace of the Democrats. 97 Th is g uardedness
is not without j ustificatio n : after all, as American left­
ists are fond of saying, the Democratic Party is where
social m ovements go to die. In August the Democratic
National Committee passed a " Black Lives Matter" res­
olution, only to be rebuffed in a statement by the Black
Lives Matter Network; senior Democrats com peted to
endorse the more obedient pupil, Cam paign Zero.

Brown v. Ferguson 59
Receiving less coverage, but perhaps more sign ificant, 98 Darren Sands, 'The
the summer also saw an open confrontation with the NAACP A n d B l ac k

Civil Rig hts old g uard at the NAACP. A large part of the L ives M atter Are
rift here is defined by the issue of "black-on-black" crime: Tal k i n g Past Each
accord ing to the Bu reau of J u stice Statistics, 93% of Othe r', BuzzFeed, 17
m u rders of black people are at the hands of other black July 2015.
people - as Rudy G i u liani was keen to point out at the
peak of the Ferguson unrest. For NAACP figures such as
Roslyn Brock, the pressing question is thus: " H ow do
we g ive l ife to the narrative that Black Lives Matter when
we are doing the ki l l i n g ?" 9 8 For the new activists, such
d iscourses let "white supremacy" off the hook, placing
the blame on black people themselves, and amount to
black leaders " policing" their own com m u n ities as part
of a general ised " respectabi l ity politics".

C R I M I N G W H I L E B LACK

The q uestion of " black cri m i nal ity" is overdetermined 99 For a s u m mary of the
by decades of l i beral vs. conservative acrim ony, dat­ report and s u bse­
ing back to Moyn ihan's 1 9 65 lament over the state of quent debates, see
the "negro fam ily". 99 Approximately three distinct sets Ste p h e n Ste i n berg,
of d iagnoses and prescri ptions stake out the rhetori­ 'The M oyn i h a n Report
cal perimeter of this triangu lar debate. Conservatives at Fifty', Boston Re­
condemn cultural pathologies and a lack of stable two­ view, 24 J u n e 2015.
parent fam i l ies, seeing this as the source of h i g h crime
i n black n e i g h bourhoods; the solutions thus become
promotion of relig ious observance and black fatherhood,
paired with condem nation of rap music. Liberals defend
rappers and single mothers from patriarchal conserva­
tives, and condemn racist cops who exaggerate black
criminal ity by over-policing black neigh bourhoods; thus
the solution becomes police reform and fighting racism.
Finally, social democrats wi l l agree with conservatives
that black crime is real but point to structu ral factors
such as h i g h unem ployment and poverty, themselves
driven i n part by present and past racism ; the solution
thus becomes a Marshall Plan for the ghetto.

Endnotes 4 60
 Many in the black middle class are sceptical of l iberal 100 Ste p h e n Ste i n berg,
denials of b lack cri m inality; many have family mem bers 'The L i beral Retreat
or friends who have been affected by crime. Often open From Race', New
to structural arg uments, they are also tired of waiting Politics , vol. 5, no. 1,
for social democratic panaceas wh ich seem ever less s u m m e r 1 g94.
l i kely. Noting their own capacities for relative advance-
ment, it's easy for them to contrast the condition of the 101 For contem porary
black poor to the supposed success of other racialised evidence of the struc-
i m m i g rant groups. They are t h u s d rawn to conserva­ t u ral d eterm i n ants
tive conclusions : there must be something wrong with of crime see Ruth
their culture, their sexual mores, and so on. Th is is not Pete rson and Krivo
just a matter of the B i l l Cosbys and Ben Carsons. It Lauren, 'Seg regated
is the position of i nfluential l iberal academics l i ke Wil­ Spatial Locat i o n s ,
l iam J u l ius Wi lson and Orlando Patterson. It has also Race-Eth n i c Com po­
increasingly become the position of many supposed sition, and N e i g h ­
rad ica l s : Al S h arpton rag i n g against sag g i n g pants, borhood Violent
Corne! West decrying the " n i h ilism" within black cu lture C r i m e', Annals of the
and identifying religion as a solution. 1 0 0 Th i s is what A merican A ca demy,
Black Lives Matter activists mean when they object to no. 623, 2009.
"the pol itics of respectabi l ity" .
102 Drug offe n d ers make
S u c h objections are, o f course, essentially correct : i t up a much h i g h e r
is stu pid to blame crime on culture. 1 0 1 M ichelle Alex­ proportion o f federal
ander's The Ne w Jim Crow is a key reference point for prisoners , but o n l y
these activists. Alexander poi nts to racial d i s parities 6% o f prison ers a r e i n
i n d rug-related incarceration : b lacks and wh ites use f e d e r � prisons. See
d rugs at s i m i lar rates, but blacks are arrested far more Fo rman J r. , ' Rac ial
often, and sometimes receive longer sentences for the Criti q u e s of Mass
same offence, with the implication that these disparities I n carceration'.
are the work of racist cops and j u d ges. Such l iberal
responses to conservative arg u m ents tend, h owever,
to come with a b l i n d spot. By concentrat i n g on low
level drug offenders - who even many conservatives
agree s h o u l d n ' t be servi n g t i m e - Alexand e r avoids
some thorny issues. Among i n mates, violent offenders
outnumber drug offenders by more than 2-to- 1 , and the
racial disproportion among these prisoners is as h i g h
a s a m o n g d r u g offenders. 1 02 But w i t h these crimes i t

Brown v. Ferguson 61
 is hard to deny that black people are both victims and 1 03 If we l o o k o n l y at
perpetrators at m uch higher rates. 1 03 Here the explana- h o m i c i d e s ( g e n e r-
tion of the structural ists is basically right, even if their ally the most re l i a b l e
solutions look implausible : black people are much more d ata) , from 1980 to
l i kely to l ive in urban ghettos, faced with far hig her levels 2008 blacks h ave
of material deprivation than whites. been 6-10 t i m e s
m o re l i kely t h a n
With t h e i r e n d e m i c violence, these places are t h e wh ites to be v i c t i m s
real b a s i s f o r the h i g h " black-on-black cri m e " statis­ and perpetrators.
tics that conservatives l i ke to trot out as evidence that Cooper and S m i t h ,
responsibil ity for the violence to wh ich black people ' H o m i c i d e Tre n d s i n
are su bjected lies with black com m u n ities themselves. t h e U n ited States'.
Understandably reacting against such arg uments, lib-
erals have pointed out simi larities between i ntra-racial 1 04 J a m e l l e B o u i e , 'The
m u rder rates : 84% for wh ites and 93% for blacks. 104 Trayvon M artin K i l l -
This seems a p o l e m i cally effective p o i n t : s h o u l d n 't i n g and the Myth
w h ite com m u n ities t h u s take m o re res p o n s i b i l ity for of Black- o n - B l ac k
"wh ite-on-white crime" too? But agai n , someth i n g is C r i me', Daily Beast, 1 5
being obscured : accord i n g to the B u reau of J u stice J u ly 201 3 .
Statistics, black people kill each other 8 times more
often. It is not necessary to accept the rhetorical logic 1 0s I n d eed, i n q u estion-
by which acknowledging this appears a concession to ing the reality of
conservative moral ising. Aren't high crime rates to be c r i m e , l i berals s u g -
expected i n the most unequal society in the developed gest that the most
world? And isn't it entirely predictable that violent crime d i s possessed are
should be concentrated i n u rban areas where forms o b e d iently acq u i e sc-
of e m ployment are prevalent that d o not enjoy legal i n g to t h e i r c o n d i t i o n .
protections, and wh ich therefore must often be backed
u p with a capacity for d i rect force? Arg u ments that 1 0& For exam p l e , M ichael
avoid such things often i nvolve impl icit appeals to an M c d owe l l , of B l ac k
unrealistic notion of i n nocence, and therefore seem to Lives M atter M i n n e ­
have the perverse effect of rei nforcing the stigma of a p o l i s , has advocated
cri m e ; here the critics of " respectabi l ity pol itics" repro­ m a k i n g 'com m u n ity
duce its founding premise. 1 05 Wh ile the prospect of the leaders' p o l i c e offic­
u nderlyi ng problem being solved t h ro ug h a g i gantic ers. Waleed S h a h i d ,
Marshall Plan for the g h etto looks l i ke the m ost forlorn 'The I nterru pters',
of hopes, many policy proposals from Black Lives Mat­ Colorlines, 1 4 Au­
ter activists merely amount to some version of "more g u st 201 5.
black cops" . 1 06 The history of police reform in places

Endnotes 4 62
l i ke Baltimore, where the police and "civil ian review 101 See A l ex Vitale, 'We
boards" h ave long m i rrored the faces of the wider D o n ' t J u st N e e d
population, clearly demonstrates the insufficiency of N i cer Cops: W e N e e d
these responses. But those who make the more rad ical Fewe r Co ps', The
claim that the demand should be less rather than better Nation, 4 December
policing, are in some ways just as out of touch. 1 07 The 2014.
tro u b l i n g fact - often cited by the conservative right,
but no less true for that reason - is that it is precisely 108 Coate s , Between
i n the poorest black n e i g h bo u rhoods that we often th e World and Me
find the strongest support for tougher policing. When (S p i e g e l & G rau 201 5),
Sharpton, in his eulogy for Brown, railed agai nst the p. 85. Coates f u r t h e r
abject blackness of the gangster and the thug, some describes t h i s a s
of the activists were h o rrified, but h i s message was ' rag i n g against the
warm ly received by many of the Ferg uson resid ents c r i m e i n your g h etto,
present. This is because Sharpton was appealing to a because you are
version of "respectabil ity pol itics" that has roots in the powerless before the
ghetto. Ta-Nahesi Coates, who g rew u p i n West Bal- g reat c r i m e of his-
timore, has acknowledged that many residents "were tory that brought the
more l i kely to ask for police support than to complain g h ettos to be.'
about brutality". This i s not because they especially
loved cops, but because they had no other recourse :
while the "safety" of wh ite America was in "schools,
portfol ios, and skyscrapers", theirs was in "men with
guns who could only view us with the same contempt
as the society that sent them" . 1 08

PO L I C I N G S U R P L U S P O P U LAT I O N S

A t t h e most abstract level, capital is colour-bl i n d : sur­

plus val ue produced by wh ite labour is no d ifferent to
that produced by black, and when racist laws i nterfere
with the buying and sel ling of labour, as they ultimately
did in the J i m Crow South, capitalists w i l l tend to
support the overturn i n g of those laws. Yet when the
demand for labour falls and the question arises of who
must go without, workers can generally be rel ied u pon
to discover the requ isite divisions amongst themselves,
typically along l i nes of kinship, eth n icity and race. Capi­
tal ists thus benefit from racism even if they don't create

Brown v. Ferguson 63
it, for in periods of g rowth these d ivisions undermine 109 See C h r i s C h e n ,
any collective bargai n i n g power that workers m i g ht 'The L i m i t Point of
otherwise be able to ach ieve. H istorical ly, rigid racial Capital i st Equal­
hierarchies have been the work not of capital, but of the ity' i n Endnotes 3,
state - especial ly, though not exclusively, wh ite-settler Septe m b e r 2013.
and other colonial states. State racism is epitomised
by anti-miscegenation laws, which aim to red ise racial
d ifference by outlawing racial mixing ; the nation-state
became a racial state. D u ring times of economic crisis,
racial states could be cou nted on to i ntervene in labour
markets - w h i ch contingent ly assign workers to the
e m p l oyed and the u n e m ployed - i n order to ass i g n
these determinations methodically, a l o n g racial l ines.

I n the mid-twentieth century this state-orchestrated pro­

ject of race-making broke down at a global level. On
the one hand, exposure of the Nazi genocide and the
success of decolonisation movements de-legitimated
explicit state racism. On the other, rapid post-war growth
led to tight labour markets, red ucing com petition for
jobs between racial ised g roups. This was thus an era of
assimilation, evinced by the partial victories of the Civil
Rig hts Movement. What put this process i nto reverse
was the reassertion of capital ist crisis tendencies i n
the 1 970s. Fall i n g profits l e d to a fal l i n the demand for
labo u r. Recently ach ieved formal equal ity did noth ing
to stop real economic inequalities being reinforced by
heig htened com petition for jobs. H ere the state would
find for itself a new race-making role, this time not as
arbiter of legal separation, but rather as manager of
racial ised surplus popu lations. 1 0 9

As the reg u lation of social relations by the labour market

began to break down with the slowing of the economy,
p roletarians were ejected from t h e i n d u strial sector,
leading to rising unemployment and under-employment,
and g rowth in l ow-wage services. Pop u lations fled
towards su bu rbs, leaving behind decaying inner cities.
This brought a fraying of the social fabric, alongside

Endnotes 4 64
a fiscal crisis of the state. Across b ipartisan divides,
g overn m e nts from Reagan o nwards took this as
an opportun ity to force the end of a whole range of
al ready meagre social prog ra m m es. Previously exist­
ing com m u n ities began to b reak down. This had a
cultural d i mension : p rivate i n - h o m e consu m ption of
media, g rowi ng atom isation and so on. But most of all,
existing solidarities h ad been premised on a g rowing
economy. Com m u n ities that were supposed to achieve
autonomy in the context of the Black Power Movement
fou n d themselves riven with crime and d esperation.
H ere the police stepped i n as a l ast resort form of
social mediation, manag i n g a g rowin g social d isorder,
beco m i n g u b i q u itous across the social fabric. When
people entered altered m ental states t h ro u g h some
breakdown or another, for example, the state increas­
ingly d ispatched not "mental health professionals" but
cops, who would subdue by force and frequently kill
i n the process.

In this precarious world one m ust survive with l ittle help,

and any accident or run of bad luck can result in los­
ing everything. It is no su rprise that people get sick or
turn to crime when they fall down and can't get back
up. The police are there to ensure that those who have
fal len don't create fu rther d istu rbances, and to h a u l
t h e m away to prison if they do. People who are thereby
snared are not just those nabbed by the cops, but peo­
ple - not angels - caught in the vectors of a spread ing
social disinteg ration. At the same time, broader popu­
lations - fearful of looking down - develop their own
cop mentalities. This g ives the lie to anti-police slo­
gans that present the police as an i mposition on the
com m u n ity, that h i n g e o n assu m pt i o n s that t hese
com m u n ities wou l d do just fine if the police stopped
interfering : where com m u n ity and society are t h e m ­
selves i n states o f decay, the police offers itself a s a
stand-i n ; bringing a sem blance of order to l ives that no
longer matter to capital.

Brown v. Ferguson 65
For m uch the same reason , it is more or less i mpossible
for the state to resolve the problem by chan g i n g the
fundamental character of the police. A fu ll-scale reform
that did away with the present function of the pol ice as
repressive, last-resort social mediation, wou l d req u i re
a revival of the social democratic project. But with its
d i m i n ished economic resou rces, the state lacks the key
to that door. Meanwhile the softer reforms around which
B lack Lives Matter activists can u n ite with a bipartisan
political el ite - things l i ke decarceration for l ow-level
d rug offenders and "justice reinvestment" in comm u n ity
policing - only raise the prospect of a more surg ically
targeted version of the carceral state. The brutal polic­
ing of b lack America is a forewarni n g about the g lobal
futu re of surplus human ity. Escaping from that future will
req u i re the d iscovery of new modes of u n ified action,
beyond the separations.

C O DA

Drawing in people from across a vast span of American

society under the head i n g of " black" , to p rotest over
issues deeply entwined with racialising structures, this
wave of strugg les has displayed a pec u liar vertical i nte­
gration. The content of this un ifying term has suggested
a certain weightiness when set against the orientation­
less groping towards u n ity of other recent m ovements
such as Occu py. It is a rare movement that can seem
to unite the ghetto-dweller, the m u lti-millionaire star and
the political power-broker behind a su bstantive social
cause. But there's the rub. Stretched across such an
unequal span, it was inevitable that the u n ity at play
here would be correspondi n g ly t h i n . If the content of
identity is n u l l without it, at extremes of d ifference the
positing of identity reverts to the merest formal ity, while
the content escapes.

That blackness can seem to offer something more sub­

stantial is an effect of its peculiar construction : a social

Endnotes 4 66
content forcefu lly g iven by its role as marker of subordi­
nate class, but also an identitarian u n ity enabled by its
ultimate non-correspondence with class. These poles
i n tension have long identified the specificity of black
struggles: proletarian insu rgency or " race leadership" ;
blackness as socio-economic curse or as culture. But
as the divide between rich and poor gapes ever wider,
and as the latter sink fu rther i nto misery and crime, ges­
tures at holding the two poles together m ust become
ever em ptier. To reach towards the social content one
must loosen one's hold on the identity ; to embrace the
identity one m ust let go of the content. It is practically
i mpossible to hold both at once. Is the core demand to
be about pol ice reform? Or is it to be about ameliorating
ghetto conditions in which police violence is more or
less the only check on other kinds? If blackness seems
to offer itself as a space in which these demands might
not actually be at odds, this is only by the ind istinct light
from the g l oam of older capacities for solidarity, when
the black middle class too l ived in the ghetto and shared
its fate; when the black working class could reasonably
hope to see better days.

Though it is clear that blackness has been in large part

evacuated of consistent social content, from its evident
capacity to induce such large-scale dynam ic mobil isa­
tions i n the American population it is equally clear that
it would be prematu re to annou nce its dem ise. And in
its tensions there sti l l l ies an unstable if unaffi rmable
moment, at the social root of racialising logics, where
capital ist social relations are rotting into nothing, and
where the most pressing problems of surplus h u man ity
lie. If race could present itself as the solution to one
com positional riddle, conj u ri n g a new u n ity t h ro u g h
descen d i n g m o d u lations, that u n ity itself issues i n
another com positional i m passe a s a further d escent
th reatens to undo it. Now the g hetto has red iscovered
its capacity to riot, and to force change by doing so, will
other, larger components of America's poor - wh ite and

Brown v. Ferguson 67
latino - stand idly by? And what role, in such moments,
will the new race leaders play? One must bend one's
ear to pick out the new compositions into which these
modu lations are resolving.

E P I LO G U E

The bodies have not ceased to pile up. On 1 6 J u ly 201 5, 1 1 0 These fi g u res from
Black Lives Matter activist Sandra Bland, 28, was found the G u ard ian's ' T h e
hanged in a police cell in Wal ler Cou nty, Texas - an Cou nted' p roj ect,
event ruled suicide, but with many of course suspect­ started i n response
ing fou l play. Those who enter the macabre pantheon to t h i s wave of stru g ­
of this movement are the tip of an iceberg. As we laid g les, which aims of
down these words, 8 9 1 people had been killed so far k e e p trac k of those
this year by us police, of which 2 1 7 were identified killed by u s p o l i ce. A
as black, more than double the rates for whites and s i m i l ar count by the
h ispanics. 1 1 0 Though exact fig u res aren't avai lable, in Was h i n gton Post, re­
the years si nce this wave of strugg les began, tens of stricted to s h ooti n g s ,
thousands of black people will have been m u rdered i n repo rts 759 death s , o f
the us. 1 1 1 Though t h e total would be o n l y slightly less w h i c h 1 90 w e r e black.
for wh ites, they represent 63% of the us popu lation, Accessed 9 October
while black people are only 1 3%. 2015.

O n 9 A u g ust, the ann iversary of B rown's shoot i n g , 111 For 2000-2010 the
250 people gathered i n Ferguson d u ri n g the day. In f i g u re was over
the evening there was some shooting at police, l oot- 78,000, more that the
ing, and a j o u rnalist was robbed, w h i l st armed men total n u m ber of us

guarded Ferguson Market & Liquor. Tyrone Harris J r. , m i l itary casualties

1 8 - apparently a close friend o f M i ke Brown's - was during the Vietnam
shot by fou r plain-clothed pol ice officers, after suppos­ War.
edly being involved i n a g u nfight between looters. On
1 9 August another St. Louis teenager, Mansur Ball- Bey,
1 8, was shot in the back by police after running from
a search of his home. Large crowds gathered i n North
St. Lou is, to be tear-gassed by pol ice ; rocks thrown,
cars bu rned, looting ... A video went viral of Peggy H u b­
bard , a black g randmother who g rew up in Ferguson,
attacking B lack Lives M atter for support i n g "thugs"
l i ke Ball-Bey - and her brother and son, who were in

Endnotes 4 68
jail - wh ilst ignoring the trag ic death of Jamyla Bolden,
9, killed by a stray bullet from a d rive-by as she lay i n
h e r mother's bed. On 24 August a newly appointed Fer­
g uson judge annou nced that all arrest warrants issued
prior to 201 5 would be cancelled, and the M i ssouri
leg islature capped court fees in St. Louis County at
1 2.5% of m u n icipal revenues. Although the slaug hter
shows no sign of abating, collective bargaining by riot
is once again leverag ing concessions.

Brown v. Ferguson 69
A H ISTORY OF SEPARATION

The rise and fall of the

workers' movement,
1 8 83-1 9 8 2

70
 We h ave no models. The h istory of past experiences
serves only to free us of those experiences.
- Mario Tronti, " Lenin i n England", 1 9 6 4

P R E FAC E : B ET R AYA L A N D T H E W I L L

What s h o u l d w e be d o i n g today, if w e are "for" the

revo l u t i o n ? Should we build up our resou rces n ow,
or wait patiently for the next ruptu re? Should we act
on invariant revolutionary principles, or remain flexible,
so we can adapt to new situations as they arise? Any
response to these questions inevitably tarries with the
history of revol utions in the twentieth century. The failure
of those revol utions accou nts for the fact that we are
still here asking ou rselves these questions. All attempts
to account for our agency, today, are haunted by the
d e bacles of the past. That is true eve n , o r perhaps
especial ly, for those who never mention the past in the
first place. The reason for this is plain to see.

The h i story of com m u n is m is n ot o n ly the h i story of

defeats : taking risks, coming up against a stronger force
and losing. It is also a history of treachery, or of what
the Left has typically cal led " betrayal" . I n the course
of the trad itional labou r movement, there were many
famous exam ples : of the Social Democrats and the
trade union leadership at the start of World War I, of
Ebert and N oske in the cou rse of the German Revolu­
tion, of Trotsky i n the m idst of the Kronstadt Rebellion,
of Stalin when he assumed power, of the C N T i n Spain,
when it ordered revolutionaries to tear down the bar­
ricades, and so o n . In the anti-colonial movements of
the m i d -twentieth centu ry, Chairman Mao, the Viet
M i n h , and Kwame N krumah were all called betrayers.
Meanwh ile, in the last major upsurge in Europe, it was
the CGT in 1 9 6 8 and the PCI in 1 9 7 7, among others,
who are said to have betrayed . The counter- revolution
comes not only from the outside, but apparently also
from the heart of the revolution itself.

A History of Separation 71
That defeat is ultimately attributed to the moral failings of 1 To g ive j u s t o n e
Left organisations and i n d ividuals, at least in leftist his­ exam p l e , i n 1 920 at
tories, is essential . If revolutions were defeated for some the Second C o n g ress
other reason (for example, as a result of the exigencies of the C o m m u n ist
of unique situations), then there would be l ittle for us to I nternational, G ri g o ry
learn with respect to our own m i l itancy. It is because Z i n oviev asserted
the project of com m u n ism seemed to be blocked - not that: 'A whole series
by chance, but by betrayal - that communist theory has of o l d social demo­
come to revolve, as if neurotical ly, around the question cratic parties h ave
of betrayal and the will that prevents it. The link between turned in front of o u r
these two is key : at fi rst glance, the theory of betrayal eyes . . . i nto parties
appears to be the inve rse of a heroic conception of that bet ray the cause
h i story. But betrayal delineates the negative space of of the work i n g class.
the hero and thus of the fig u re of the m i l itant. It is the We say to o u r com­
m i l itant, with her or his correct revol utionary line and rad es that the s i g n
authentic revolutionary wi l l - as well as their vehicle: o f t h e t i m e s does
the party - who is supposed to stop the betrayal from not consist i n the
taki ng place, and thus to bring the revol ution to fruition. 1 fact that we s h o u l d
negate the Party. T h e
The origins of this thought-form are easy to identify : s i g n o f the e p o c h i n
on 4th August 1 9 1 4 , German Social Democrats voted w h i c h w e l ive . . . con-
to support the war effort ; the trade u n ions vowed to s i sts i n the fact that
manage labour. The G reat War thus commenced with we m u s t say: "The
the approval of social ism's earthly representatives. A o l d parties have been
year after the war began, dissident anti-war social­ s h i pwrecke d ; down
ists convened at Zim merwald , under the pretence of with them. Long l i ve
orga n i s i n g a b i rd - watch i n g convention, i n order to the new C o m m u n ist
reconstruct the tattered com m u n ist project. But even Party that m u s t be
here, spl its q u ickly emerged . The Left of that d issident b u i l t u n d e r new
g roup - which included both Leni n and representatives cond itions."' H e goes
of the cu rrents that would become the Dutch-German on to ad d : ' We need
left communists - broke away from the main contingent, a party. B u t what
since the latter refused to denounce the Social Demo­ k i n d of party? We
crats outright. I n their own d raft proposal , the Left did do not need parties
not hold back: " Prej u diced by national ism, rotten with that h ave the s i m p l e
opportu nism, at the beg i n n i n g of the World War [the p r i n c i p l e o f gath e r i n g
Social Democrats] betrayed the proletariat to i m perial­ as many mem bers
ism." 2 They were now "a more dangerous enemy to the as pos s i b l e aro u n d
proletariat than the bourgeois apostles of i mperialism:' 3 themselves . . . [We

Endnotes 4 72
But this denu nciation was only one instance of a trope need] a ce ntral ised
repeated a thousand times thereafter. The organisations party with i ron d i sci­
created for the p u rpose of defend i n g workin g class p l i ne.' It i s i m po s s i b l e
interests - often d o i n g so on the basis of their own to read these l i n e s
notions of betrayal and the w i l l - betrayed the class, w i t h o u t re m e m b e r i n g
time and agai n , in the cou rse of the twentieth century. that, fifteen years
l ater, Z i n ov i ev wo u l d
Whether they cal l themselves com munists or anarch ists, stand acc used i n
those w h o identify a s " revolutionaries" spend m u c h of the first Moscow
their time exam ining past betrayals, often in minute detail, show trial. H e w o u l d
to determ i n e exactly how those betrayals occu rre d . 4 be executed by the
Many of these examinations try to recover the red thread same party he had
of history: the succession of individuals o r g ro u ps who stalwartly d efe n d e d .
expressed a heroic fidel ity to the revolution. Their very By then Trots ky, w h o
existence supposedly proves that it was possible not stood by h i m in the
to betray and, therefore, that the revolution could have second c o n g re s s ,
succeeded - if only the right g roups had been at the h ad al ready been r u n
helm, or if the wrong ones had been pushed away from out of the cou ntry
the helm at the right m o ment. One becomes a com- and wo u l d soon b e
m u n ist o r an anarch ist o n the basis of the particular m u rd e re d .
th read out of which o n e weaves o n e 's ban n e r (and
today one often flies these flags, not on the basis of a 2 D raft Reso l u t i o n
heartfelt identity, but rather due to the contingencies Proposed by the Left
of frie n d s h i p). H owever, in rais i n g whatever ban n e r, W i n g at Z i m m e rwal d ,
revol utionaries fai l to see the l i m its to which the groups 1915.
they revere were actually responding - that is, precisely
what made them a m i nority formation. Revolutionaries 3 I b i d .
get lost in history, defi n i n g themselves by reference to
a context of struggle that has no present-day correlate. 4 'Th i s was a political
They d raw l i nes i n sand which is no longer there. m i l i e u w h e re the
m i n ute study of the
T H E P E R I O D I S I N G B R EA K m o nth-to- m o nth
h i story of the R u s s i a n
We might b e tem pted t o read t h e runes again, t o try revo l ution and the
to solve the riddle of the history defi n itively: what was C o m i ntern from 1917
the right thing to do in 1 9 1 7, 1 93 6 , 1 9 6 8 ? H owever, to 1928 seemed the
the pu rpose here is not to come up with new answers key to the u n iverse as
to old questions. I nstead, o u r intervention is therapeu­ a w h o l e . If someone
tic: we aim to confront the q u estioners, to challenge said they bel ieved

A History of Separation Preface 73

t h e i r m otivat i n g assu m ptions. Any strategic orienta­ that the R u s s i a n
tion towards the past must base itself, at least, on the Revo l u t i o n h ad been
assumption that the present is essentially l i ke it. If the d efeated i n 1919, 1921,
present is not like the past, then no matter how we solve 1923, 1 927, o r 1 936, or
the riddle of history, it will tell us very l ittle about what 1953, o n e h ad a p retty
we should be doing today. good sense of what
they would t h i n k o n
O u r goal is therefore to i ntroduce a b reak, to cleave j u st about every other
off the present from the past (and so, too, to sever the political q u estion in
relation between betrayal and the will). If placed suc­ the worl d : the natu re
cessfu lly, this period ising break will allow us to relate of the Soviet U n i o n ,
to the past as past, and the present as something else. of C h i n a, the natu re
Of course, this period isation cannot be absolute. The of the world CPS,
present i s n ot w h o l l y u n l i ke t h e past. The capital ist the n at u re of Social
mode of production remains. Indeed, the capital-labour D e m oc racy, t h e n a­
relation defines the shape of our l ives more than it ever t u re of trade u n i o n s ,
did those of our ancestors, and it does so i n at least the U n ited Front,
two fundamental ways. the Popular Front,
n ational l i berati o n
First, compared to the past, a g reater share of the world's m ovements, aesthet­
p o p u l at i o n today consists of proletarians a n d s e m i ­ i c s and p h i losop hy,
proletarians : they m ust sel l t h e i r labour-power i n order the rel ati o n s h i p
to buy at least some of what they need. Second, this of party and class,
"some of what they need" has expanded massively so the s i g n ificance of
that today, people's l ives are deeply submerged wit h i n soviet s and workers'
market relations: i n the h i g h i ncome countries, a n d also c o u n c i l s , and whether
in parts of the low-income world, workers not only pay L u xe m b u rg or B u k h a­
rent and buy g roceries. They p u rchase ready-made r i n was r i g h t about
m eals, tal k to their fam i lies o n cell p h o n es, put their i m pe r i a l i s m .' Loren
parents in n u rsing homes, and pop pills i n order l ive, or G o l d n e r, 'Com m u ­
l ive better. They must continue to work in order to afford n i s m i s t h e M ate r i a l
these things, that is, in order to maintain their social ties. H u m a n C o m m u n ity:
Amadeo Bord i g a To­
Many revolutionaries take this ever-deepening i m b rica­ d ay', Critique 23, 1991.
tion with i n m arket relations as a sufficient proof that
the present is l ike the past, i n whatever senses are
relevant. The result is that they relate to the past through
a screen . The past becomes a fantasy projection of the
present. Often enough, that screen is called "the Left".

Endnotes 4 74
Debates about history become debates about the Left : 5 'The more we seek to
what it was, what it should have done (and there are persuade o u rselves
some who, on that same basis, come to see themselves of the fidel ity of o u r
as " post-Left"). What escapes notice, thereby, is the o w n proj e cts a n d
absence, in our own ti mes, of the context that shaped values with respect
the world in which the Left acted in the cou rse of the to the past, the
twentieth centu ry, namely, the workers' movement and more obsessively d o
its cycles of struggle. w e find o u rselves
exploring the l atter
The workers' movement provided the setting in which the and its projects and
d rama of "the Left" took place. That movement was not val u e s , w h i c h s l owly
simply the proletariat in fighting form, as if any struggle beg i n to form i nto a
today would have to replicate its essential featu res. It k i n d of totality and to
was a particular fighting form, which took shape in an d i s s o c i ate them­
era that is not our own . For us, there is only the "late­ selves from o u r own
comers' melancholy reverence " . 5 It is our goal , in this p resent.' Fred r i c
essay, to explore this total ity as past and to explain its Jameson, A Singular
d issociation from the present. Modernity: Essay on
the On tology of the
Our contention is that, if the historical workers' move­ Present (Verso 2002),
ment is today alien to us, it is because the form of the p. 24.
capital-labour relation that sustained the workers' move­
ment no longer obtains: in the hig h-income countries
since the 1 970s and in the low-income cou ntries since
the 1 980s (late workers' movements appeared in South
Africa, South Korea and B razil, but all now present the
same form : social democracy in retreat). Indeed, the
social foundations on which the workers' movement was
built have been torn out: the factory system no longer
appears as the kernel of a new society in formation ; the
industrial workers who labour there no longer appear
as the vanguard of a class in the process of becom i n g
revolutionary. All that remains of this past-world are cer­
tain logics of disintegration, and not only of the workers'
movement, but also of the capital-labour relation itself.
To say so is not to suggest that, by some metric, all
workers are " really" unem ployed , or to deny that there
is an emergent i n d u strial proletariat i n cou ntries l i ke
India and China.

A History of Separation Preface 75

It is rather to point out that the fol l owin g . The world
economy is growing more and more slowly, on a decade
by decade basis, due to a long period of overproduc­
tion and low profit rates. That slugg ish g rowth has been
associated, i n most cou ntries of the world, with dein­
dustrialisation : industrial output continues to swell, but
is no longer associated with rapid increases in industrial
employment. Semi-skilled factory workers can thus no
longer p resent themselves as the lead i n g edge of a
class-in-formation. In this context, masses of proletarians,
particularly in cou ntries with young workforces, are not
finding steady work; many of them have been shunted
from the labour market, surviving only by means of informal
economic activity. The resulting low demand for labour
has led to a worldwide fall in the labou r-share of income,
or in other words, to immiseration. Meanwhile, the state,
in an attempt to manage this situation, has taken on mas­
sive amounts of debt, and has periodically been forced to
undertake " reforms"- a term wh ich in our era has come
to mean a falling away of social protections - leaving
a larger portion of the population in a tenuous position.

The social l i nks that hold people together in the modern

world, even if in positions of subjugation, are fraying, and
in some places, have broken enti rely. All of this is taking
place on a planet that is heating up, with concentrations
of greenhouse gases rising rapidly si nce 1 9 5 0 . The con­
nection between global warm ing and swelling industrial
output is clear. The factory system is not the kernel of
a futu re society, but a mach ine prod ucing no-future.

These are not merely pol itical conseq uences of neo­

l i beral ism ; they are structu ral features of the capital ist
mode of production in our time. Struggles within and
against this world are just beginning to take on a greater
global sign ificance, but they have not found a coher­
ence com parable to that which pertained in an earl ier
era. A key feature of struggles today is precisely that,
altho u g h they remain the stru g g l es of workers, they

Endnotes 4 76
present t h e m selves as such o n ly w h e n t h ey remain
at the l evel of sectional struggles, that is, struggles
of particular fractions of the class, which are almost
always defensive struggles against ongoing " reforms"
and " restructurings". When strugg les take on a wider
sign ificance, that is, for the class as a whole, then the
u n ity they present, both to themselves and to others,
goes beyond a class identity. Workers find a shared
basis for struggle, n ot by means of the class belong i n g
they have i n com m o n , but rather, a s citizens, a s par­
ticipants in a " real democracy", as the 99 percent, and
so on. Such forms of identification sharply disti ngu ish
these workers' struggles from the core strugg les of the
era of the workers movement. They have also made it
d ifficult to see the way forward, to a com m u n ist futu re.

It is t h i s context - that of the d is i n t e g rati o n of t h e

capital-labour relation, and of the u n realised potential
for stru g g les to g e n e rate new sorts of social rela­
tions - that d istingu ishes the epoch in which we find
ourselves from the past.

T H E I R P E R I O D S A N D O U RS

In the fi rst issue of Endnotes we publ ished a series of 6 See Endnotes 1, Octo-
texts that we called " prel i m inary materials for a balance ber 2008.
sheet of the twentieth centu ry". I n this issue we d raw
up that balance sheet as it presents itself to us today.
But before we do so it will be usefu l to contrast o u r
approach with that o f Theorie Communiste (TC), whose
texts featu red prominently i n that first issue, and have
continued to influence our t h i n king over the years.

The period ising break we present in this article has much

in common with Tc 's.6 Our perspective emerged , in part,
out of an attempt to measu re Tc's theory against the
g lobal history of the workers movement i n the course
of the twentieth centu ry. O n e d ifferen c e between
our account and theirs is that TC t ry to ground their

A History of Separation Preface 77

periodisation in Marx's categories of formal and real sub- 7 TC were not the first
sumption. For Marx, these terms referred specifically to to d o s o : Jacq u e s
the transformation of the labour process ; TC apply them Camatte, N egati o n ,
to the capital-labour relation as a whole, and even to and Anto n i o N e g r i d i d
capital ist society. 7 They place the break between formal the s a m e . S e e 'The
and real su bsu mption around WWI, then d ivide the latter H i story of S u b s u m p­
into two distinct phases. They then overlay this structural tion', Endnotes 2, A p r i l
periodisation - of the "form" of the "capital-labour rela­ 2 0 1 0 , f o r o u r criti q u e
tion"- with a second periodisation - of com m u n ism, or o f t h e s e atte m pts.
what they call "cycles of struggle"- where the cu rrent
phase, beg inning in the 1 970s, corresponds to a second 8 For t h i s t h o u g ht, see
phase of real subsumptio n : ' E rror' i n the n ext is­
s u e of Endnotes.
H owever, somewhat strangely, t h e key break i n o n e
seq u e n ce does n ot m atch u p with t h e key b reak i n
t h e other: a complete transformation i n the "cycle of
struggle" (the 1 970s) corresponds to a minor transfor­
mation in the form of the "capital-labo u r relation " . This

1 9 1 0s 1 9 70s

cycl e of stru g g l e : p rog ram matism com m u n isation

capital-labour relation : formal subs u m ption real subsu m ption I & I I

g ives Tc's periodisation t h e tripartite form o f a narrative 9 Perhaps t h i s is

structure, with beg i n n i n g , middle and end. As usual in because TC seem
such structu res, the middle term tends to d o m inate the to derive t h e i r
others : TC defi ne the fi rst and last phases negatively structural periodi sa-
in relation to the height of "program matism" from the tion f r o m the work o f
1 9 1 0s to the 1 970s. 8 Thus in their texts the g host of M ic h e l A g l i etta, the
prog rammatism, su pposedly long slain, has a tendency R e g u l at i o n School
to hang around and haunt the present moment. A more economist w h o
serious problem is that the schematism fits neatly, if at sees Fre n c h h i story
all, only in France (at best, it m i g ht apply to Western m i rrored i n the us
Eu rope). 9 It can only with g reat d ifficu lty be extended (Ag l i etta, A Theory of
to the rest of the world, and is particularly inapposite Capitalist Regulation:
to poor and late-developing cou ntries. The US Experience,

Endnotes 4 78
In this article, we begin from what we consider to be the Verso, 1 976). A g l i etta
grain of truth in re's d istinction between formal and real i g n o res the g rowth
subsum ption. Rather than two phases, we argue that of labour p ro d u ctiv-
their d istinction rou g h ly corresponds to two aspects ity and wages in t h e
of the world in which the workers movement u nfolded. l ate 1 9th centu ry, and
The first "formal" aspect had to do with the persistence imagines that ' Ford-
of the peasantry - extended here to include the persis­ ism' i n the u s had a
tence of old reg ime elites whose power was based in state-led form s i m i lar
the cou ntryside - as a kind of outside to the capital ist to post-war France.
mode of production. This outside was in the process of See Robert B re n n e r
being i ncorporated into capital ist social relations, but and Mark G l ick, ' T h e
this incorporation took a long time. The second, " real" Reg u l at i o n A p p roac h :
aspect was the "development of the productive forces" , Theory and H i story',
that i s , cumu lative increases i n labour productivity and NLR 1/188, J u l y 1 991 .

the accom panying transformations, both of the produc­

tive apparatus and of the i nfrastruct u re of capital ist 10 Tc touch on these two
society, on which it rel ies. tendencies with t h e i r
n o t i o n o f a confl i ct
These two aspects i n turn gave rise to the two impera­ between the de­
tives of the workers movement: on the one hand, to mands for 'autonomy'
fig ht against the old reg ime e lites, who sought to deny and a ' r i s i n g strength
workers the freedoms of l i beral capital ist society (e. g . , of the work i n g class
t h e right t o vote, t h e freedom t o choose one's employer), with i n capital i sm', but
and on the other hand, to set loose the development of they fail to d raw the
the productive forces from the fetters that they encoun­ connection with their
tered , particularly i n late developing cou ntries (those categories of formal
fetters often resulting, i n part, from the persistence of and real s u b s u m pt i o n ,
the old reg i me). 1 0 In each case o u r focus w i l l be on as i f the fo rmer were
the d ivergence between the expected and the actual p u rely ' s u bj e ctive'
conseq uences of capitalist development. w h i l st the l atter
p u rely 'objective'
The concepts of formal and real subsu m ption are i nad­ feat u res of the class
equate to the task of explaining the history of the workers' stru g g l e .
movement. The two aspects of the movement that these
concepts vag uely describe are not d isti n ct periods,
which could be precisely dated, but rather unfold simul­
taneously, m uch l i ke the formal and real subsumption of
the labo u r process itself. Nonetheless re's period isa­
tion of com munism remains close to our own . The key

A History of Separation Preface 79

period ising break, for us as for TC, beg ins in the mid
1 970s. The two aspects of the workers movement wh ich
we h ave d escribed were both rad i cally transformed
i n the last quarter of the twentieth centu ry. Instead of
a b reak between two " phases" of real subsu m ption,
marked by " revolution" and "cou nter-revolution " , we
see this transition in terms of the ongoing transforma­
tion of the labou r process, the end of the peasantry, the
slowing down of capital ist accu m u lation on a g l o bal
scale, and the corresponding onset of a long period of
deindustrial isatio n , all of which have transformed the
cond itions of workers' strugg les, for reasons explored
i n detail below. A communist horizon broke apart and
dissolved in this moment, enclosing us, for a time, within
a capitalist world seemi ngly without a van ishing point.

H O R I Z O N S OF C O M M U N I S M

There is another d istinction between our period isation 1 1 O n com m u n ist

and Tc's, one more concerned with content than form. h o rizons see ' C r i s i s
TC often refer to the workers' movement (the e ra of i n the Class Relation',
"programmatism") as a "cycle of struggle". They thus fai l Endnotes 2, A p r i l 20 1 0.
to clearly distinguish between, on t h e o n e hand, cycles
or waves of struggle, and on the other, the horizon of
com munism, wit h i n which cycles u nfol d . B oth of these
concepts are necessary to our balance sheet of the
twentieth centu ry. 1 1

The concept o f a cycle o f struggle descri bes how the

class clash takes place. The latter typically u nfol d s
neither i n l o n g marches n o r i n s h o rt outbu rsts, but
rather, i n waves . There are times of reacti o n , when
revolutionary forces are weak and episodic, but not
entirely absent. These reacti o nary e ras m ay l ast for
decades, but they do end, at a moment that is extremely
difficult to predict i n advance. Revolt then breaks out,
more and more frequently. Mil itants, who formerly made
l ittle impression on their fellows, now find their numbers
swe l l i n g . Meanwh ile, struggles take on a new content,

Endnotes 4 80
evolve new tactics, and d i scover new forms of organ i- 12 On the idea of a ' p ro-
sation (al l t h ree are won o n ly through the frightening d u ced ru ptu re'. see
melee of suffering and retribution). Over time, strugg les Theorie Com m u n i ste,
coalesce - but never in a l inear way - in waves that ebb 'Sur l a crit i q u e de
and flow over years. That is what makes revo lution pos- l 'o bjecti v i s m e'. TC 15
sible. Insofar as revo l utions fai l or counter-revo l utions Feb 1999.
succeed , the cycle comes to an end, and a new period
of reaction begins. 13 See 'Spontane ity,
M e d i ati o n , R u ptu re'.
Revolutionary strateg ists have mostly concerned them­ Endnotes 3, Septem­
selves with the high points of various cycles of struggle: ber 2013, for a d i s cus­
1 9 1 7, 1 93 6 , 1 949, 1 9 6 8 , 1 9 7 7, and so on. I n so doing, s i o n of the concept
they usually ignore the context in which those cycles of cyc l e s of stru g g l e
u nfold . The workers' movement was that context : it and revo l u t i o n ary
provided the setting i n which distinct cycles u nfolded : strategy.
e.g. (in Eu rope) 1 9 05- 1 9 2 1 , 1 93 4 - 1 9 4 7, 1 9 6 8-77.
It was because each cycle of struggle u nfolded in the
context of the workers' movement that we can say of
their high points: these were not just ruptures within the
capitalist class relation but ruptures produced within a
particular horizon of communism. 1 2 It is worth examining
such ruptu res in detail, although that is not the task we
set for o u rselves in this text. 1 3 O u r contention is that it
is only by looking at the workers movement as a whole,
rather than at d isti n ct high p o i nts, t h at we can see
what made these points disti nct, or even, exceptional.
The revol utions of the e ra of the workers' movement
emerged in spite of rather than i n concert with overall
trends, and did so i n a manner that went wholly against
the revolutionary theory of that era, with all its sense
of inevitabi l ity.

Th us, for us, the workers' movement was not itself a cy­
cle of struggle. It made for a defi n ite com m u nist horizon,
which i mparted a certain dynam ic to strugg les and also
established their limits. To say that the workers' movement
was a horizon of com mun ism is to say that it was not the
invariant horizon. It is necessary to reject the idea that
comm u n ism could become possible again only on the

A History of Separation Preface 81

basis of a renewal of the workers' movement (which is
not the same thing as organised workers' struggle). We
will here try to understand the conditions that, between
the late 1 9t h cent u ry and the 1 970s, opened up the
era of the workers' movement, made for several cycles
of struggle, and then i rreversibly collapsed . We focus,
i n other words, o n the tongue duree of the m ovement.

TWO FA L L AC I ES

The essential thing to u n derstand about the workers'

m ovement is that it represented the horizon of c o m ­
m u n ism d u ring the e r a o f the long rise of the capitalist
mode of production, that is, an e ra in wh ich "all fixed ,
fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and ven­
erable prej u dices and o p i nions" were " swept away".
Marxists have often d rawn the wrong conclusions from
this passage i n the Communist Manifesto. Thus, before
we beg i n it will be helpfu l to first d isabuse ourselves of
two common fallacies.

The fi rst fal lacy is that capitalism is an ine vitable or

e volutionary stage of history. Marxists i n the late 1 9th
century often i m ag ined that capitalist social relations
were relentlessly s p read i n g across t h e globe. They
thought the city, the factory, and wage labo u r wou l d
s o o n absorb everyone. I n actual fact b y 1 95 0 , some
two-th i rds of the world's population remained i n ag ri­
c u l t u re , t h e vast m aj ority self-sufficient peasants or
herdsm e n . Even i n the h i g h - i n come cou ntries, some
40 percent of the workforce was i n ag ricultu re. It was
not until the late 1 970s and early 1 980s that a tipping
point was reached : the ag ricultural population of the
high-income countries s h rank to a van ishing point, and
g l o bally, for the fi rst time i n thousands of years, the
majority of the world's workers were n o longer working
i n the fields. Thus, the global peasantry, and the "fast­
frozen relations" with which it was associated, were
not so q u i ckly "swept away". This house clean ing took

Endnotes 4 82
longer than expected because - in contrast to what
historical materialists imagined - there was no natu ral
or automatic tendency for the global peasantry to fold
i nto the proletariat, whether by the corrosion of market
forces or by some tendency of capitalists to expropriate
peasants en masse.

I ndeed, capital did not i nevitably d raw peasants into its

orbit. Whenever possible, peasants fou g ht to secu re
their non-market access to land. In the 1 9th and most
of the 20th centu ry, peasants' eviction from the land
was necessari ly a pol itical act. But then, such acts were
rarely undertaken by capital ists, who preferred to employ
non-free or semi-free labour wherever it was avai lable,
i n order to produce for world markets (where levels of
inequal ity were high, domestic markets were tiny). I n
fact, w h e n expropriation was undertaken, it was often
by representatives of the labour movement, or at least,
with their support.

Proletarians could support the project of de-peasantisa­

tion because peasants were em bedded in pre-capitalist
class relations with landlords. These patriarchal social
forms, stratified i nto castes o r estates, offered l ittle
oppo rtun ity for change or mobility. Old-reg ime elites,
oriented towards m i l itary affai rs, were to some degree
interested in pursu ing alliances with capitalists (often the
children of those el ites, facing up to a changing world);
however, this amalgamated elite-class saw noth ing to
gain by exte n d i n g the franchise. El ites often d i d not
even consider workers to be of the same species, that
is, h u man beings capable of managing the affai rs of the
pol ity, let alone deserving of doing so. Such el ites did
not g ive u p their privileges without a fight. Observers
i n the n i neteenth century - or for that m atter, i n the
twenty-fi rst - can be forgiven for imag i n i n g that "free
labour" was the i nevitable accompaniment of capital­
ist accumu lation. The history of the twentieth century
showed that "free labour" had to be won.

A History of Separation Preface 83

The second fal lacy is that the development of capital­
ism tends to unify the workers. The labour market may
be singular, but the workers who enter it to sell their
labo u r power are not. They are d ivided by lang uage,
religion, nation, race, gender, ski l l , etc. Some of these
d ifferences were preserved and transformed by the rise
of capital ism, while others were newly created. Such
remixing had ambivalent consequences. Most d ivisions
proved to be o bstacles to organ ising along lines of
class solidarity. However, some pre-existing forms of
collectivity proved to be their own sou rces of solidarity,
an i m petus to mass d i rect-action.

Champions of the workers' movement declared that the

development of the forces of production would get rid
of d ivisions among the workers. The dispersed masses,
the "class in itself" , would be formed by factory disci pline
into a compact mass, wh ich m i g ht then be capable of
becoming the "class for itself" . Thus if the workers would
only g ive u p on their attempts to preserve the old ways,
if they would only g ive in to the scientific (and constant)
reorgan isation of the workplace, they would soon find
themselves positively transformed : they would be u n i ­
fied b y t h e factory system into a "collective worker". For
a while, in the early part of the twentieth centu ry, this
vision seemed to be coming true.

But in fact, these transformations led to the i ntegration

of workers (for the most part, former peasants) i nto
market society, not only at the point of prod uction, but
also in exchange and i n consumption, where workers
were atomised . It was this atomising feature of the new
world, not the cooperative aspects of work in the factory,
that would prove dominant. That was true not only in
consumer markets, where workers exchanged wages for
goods, but also in labour markets, where they exchanged
their promise to work for a promised wage - and even in
the factories themselves, since divisions among workers
were retained and made anew. The resulting intra-class

Endnotes 4 84
competition was only partly mitigated by u n ions, which
acted as rival salesmen's associations, attempting to
corner the market i n labo u r power.

Here is the un ity-in-separation of market society. People

become ever more interdependent through the market,
but this power comes at the expense of their capacities
for collective action. Capital ist society reduces workers
to petty commod ity sellers, p rovi d i n g them with some
autonomy, but always wit h i n l i m its. I n h i ndsight, it is
clear that the d ream of the workers' movement - that
an "actual u n ity" of workers, as opposed to their u n ity­
in-separation, would be realised in the factories through
the further development of the productive forces - was
not true. Such an actual unity can come about only
by means of a communist transcendence of capitalist
social relations.

A History of Separation Preface 85

1 TH E C O N S T R U CTI O N O F T H E WO R K E RS M OV E M E N T

Both of the above-mentioned fallacies were elements 1 N e i l Dav i d s o n has

in the story that the workers movement told about itself, recently atte m pted to
via its leaders and theoreticians. The fi rst fal lacy, the save the notion of the
stag ist, progressivist view of history, was a staple of bourgeois revo l u t i o n
1 9th centu ry bourgeois thought, from Ran ke to Comte by d r o p p i n g the (now
to Spencer, and one that proved particu larly attractive to widely rej ected) c l a i m
the workers' movement's official scribes. Kautsky, Bern­ that these revo l u ­
stein and Plekhanov, as wel l as Len i n , Luxe m b u rg and t i o n s were led b y a
Lu kacs, all took heart from the idea that their revolution bourgeoisie i ntent
inherited the baton from a previous one, the so-called on s p read i n g l i beral
"bourgeois revolution", which they saw as the inevitable d e m o c racy. H e c l a i m s
result of the development of the forces of production i n stead that, without
and the rising power of an u rban bourgeoisie. I n early necessarily inte n d i n g
writings Marx h imself su bscribed to this view of inevi­ i t , they g ave r i s e to
table stages, but as we shall see in the postface, "The states that ' p ro m oted
Idea of the Workers Movement", he rejected it in his capitalist deve l o p ­
later writings on the Russian M i r. m e nt'. That may be
true of the 'pass ive
In this section we show that the "final" Marx was right revo l utions' (Italy,
i n repud iating the stag ist perspective that he h imself G e r m any, J apan),
had promulgated. Except in England, capitalism did not but it i s not true of
develop in n uce wit h i n the old reg i m e ; the European the classic case, the
bourgeois revolutions, when and where they took place, Fre n c h revo l ution,
1
were not really bourgeois at all. Instead , they largely w h i c h c o n s o l i d ated
found their basis in the internal tensions of the old regime, peasant land rig hts
that is to say, fi rst of all, in an ongoing contest between and the tax-offi ce
peasants and the el ites who extracted an income from state. See Dav i d s o n ,
their labo u rs, and second, in contests among el ite fac­ H o w Re volutionary
tions, vying for dominance. As we will see, these old Were the Bourgeois
reg imes tried to modernise themselves in response to Revolutions? (H ay­
the onset of capitalist development in the U K, and the market 2012).
mil itary expansionism with which it was associated. That
eventually led to attempts to i nstitute capital ist social 2 The stal l i n g out
relations, by decree, on the continent. of what Theorie
C o m m u n i ste has
We d o not claim that capital ist d eve l o p m ent fai led to called the 'formal
take place outside of the UK and us. It's j u st that the s u b s u m ption' of

Endnotes 4 86
political re volution which was s upposed to accom- society p l ayed a key
pany the economic re volution did n o t take pla c e role i n d ete r m i n -
on European soil. Thus, the establishment of l i b e ral i n g w h at shape the
n o rm s - with assu rances of u n iversal (male) suffrage, workers' movement
i n d ividual freedoms, and govern ment by laws debated took. H owever, u n l i ke
i n parl iament - was not g u aranteed . I n stead , the old Tc, we do not think
reg ime, w i t h i t s system of privileges, largely preserved this p h as e ended
itself a l o n g s i d e an o n g o i n g capital ist deve l o p m ent. with the c o n c l u s i o n o f
El ite privileges wou l d be abolished o n ly w h e re the ww1. E v e n i n E u rope,
working class completed the pol itical tasks that the the restructu r i n g
b o u rgeoisie had not. Such was the social sett i n g for of social re l ations
the emergence of the labo u r m ovement, and also for along capitalist l i nes
the d evelopment of social ist and anarchist perspec- carried o n i nto the
tives. The labo u r m ovement had to fight its way i nto post-ww11 era.
existence i n a world where both the peasantry and the
old reg i m e e l ites remained powerfu l forces. 2 3 Robert Bren-
n e r, ' Property and
A N O N -T R A N S I T I O N Progress: W h e re
Adam Sm ith Went
Accord i n g to the formerly p revai l i n g stag i st view of Wro n g', in C h r i s
h i story, the rise of the absolutist state was al ready a W i c k h a m , ed., Marx­
symptom of t h e transition to capital i s m , which was ist History-Writing
s u p posedly g o i n g on all across E u rope in the early for the Twenty-First
m odern period. Towns were swe l l i n g with the com­ Century ( British
mercial activity of the bourgeoisie ; the revol utions of Academy 2007), p.
1 78 9 and 1 8 4 8 were s u pposed to m ark its rise to 89. We are heav i l y
pol itical power. But i n fact, the peasant revolts at the i n d e bted to Brenner's
heart of modern revo lutions - which spanned the cen­ t h e s i s concern i n g the
tu ries from 1 789 all the way d own to the 1 9 60s - d i d h i storical o r i g i n s of
n ot usher i n the political rule o f capital ; rather, they the capitalist mode
largely contin ued class struggle with i n the context of of p ro d u ct i o n . See
the old reg ime. Peasant com m u n ities were fighting to T. H . Aston and C . H .
free themselves from the d o m ination of feudal l o rds. E . P h i l p i n , eds, The
H owever, the u pshot of doing so "wou l d not be the Brenner Debate:
t ransition to capitalism, but the strengthening of p re­ Agrarian Class Struc­
capital ist social property relations". 3 Peasant revolts ture and Economic
h ad as their goal to strengthen the resistance of their Development in
communities to all forms of exploitation - both capitalist Pre-industrial Europe
and non-capitalist. (C a m b r i d g e 1987).

A History of Separation Part 1 : Construction 87

The peasants could carry on without the lords for they 4 Brenner, ' Prope rty
were al ready constituted as a com m u n ity : they had and Progress', p. 63.
" d i rect access to facto rs of production - land, tools,
and labour - sufficient to enable them to maintain them- s ibid., p. 92.
selves without recou rse to the market". 4 Under these
conditions, the removal of external domination by lords
would not release peasants i nto capital ist social rela-
tions. For that to happen, their com m u n ities would have
to be d issolved . But it was d ifficult to make that happen.
On the one hand, peasant commun ities did not dissolve
themselves. On the other hand, they fought tenaciously
agai nst attem pts to separate them from the land. There-
fore, peasants - l i ke every other non-capitalist social
formation - do not necessarily become i mbricated in
markets. There is no h istorically i nevitable tendency to
proletarianise the world's population.

While it was important as a step towards the formation of

the modern state, the emergence of absol utism in conti­
nental Europe was only indirectly related to the transition
to the capital ist mode of production. Absol utism arose
because, in the aftermath of the Black Death, peasant
communities in that region were stronger. It was difficult
for feudal lords to extract rent from the peasants : "suf­
fering from reduced revenues, local lords were often too
weak to stand up to the expansion ist designs of those
g reat lordly com petitors, monarchs and princes, who
extended their territorial j u risd iction at [the local lords]
expense:' 5 On that basis, the absolutist state was able
to central ise lords' rent-extracting activity as state taxa­
tion (though only i n a h i g h ly confl ictual process, which
pitted el ites against one another). Thus, the wealth of
absolutist states was won by squeezing the peasants
m o re severely. What c o m m e rcial d eve l o p m e n t took
place in this context merely reflected age-old cycles
of u rban g rowth and decline. Whi l e this process laid
bases for what would become the modern state, there
was no transition to the specifically capital ist mode of
production necessarily i m p l ied in these developments.

Endnotes 4 88
L i kewise, elsewhere i n E u ro p e , t h e stre n g t h of o l d s ' En g l a n d , it i s true,
reg imes remained a constant feature of the landscape. i n caus i n g a social
But outside of Western Europe, that was not because revo l u t i o n i n [ I n d i a] .
peasants were growing stronger. Rather, it was because was actu ated o n l y by
their communities were weak. In Eastern Europe, where the vilest i nterests'.
territories were more recently colon ised, lords retained but 'whatever may
a tight grip on the peasants. Even in the aftermath of h ave been the c r i m e s
the Black Death, lords were able to keep peasants i n o f E n g l a n d s h e was
conditions of servitude, in some cases into the twentieth the u n c o n s c i o u s tool
century, without havin g to centralise lordly extraction. o f h i story i n b r i n g i n g
a b o u t that revolution.'
And beyon d E u ro p e ? Marx had expected E u ropean Marx, 'The British
colonialism to bring capital ism to the rest of the world. 6 R u l e i n I n d i a'. New­
However, colonial ad m i n istrations, even as late as the York Daily Tribune, 25
1 920s and 30s, only ended u p reinforcing the power of J u n e 1853.
the local elites, who ruled, in different ways, over various
agrarian societies. Where those el ites did not exist, for
example, in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, colonial powers
designated certain i n d ividuals as "chieftai ns", some­
times i nventing this role out of whole cloth. The point
of colonialism was n ot to proletarianise the population,
in itiating a transition to fu l ly capital ist social relations.
O n the contrary, the point was to rei nforce exist i n g
social relations i n the cou ntryside - p i n n i n g " n atives"
down and then partially proletarianising them - i n order
to secu re the space and the labo u r needed for l i m ited
projects of resou rce extraction.

D E V E LO P M E N T A N D L AT E D E V E LO P M E N T

I t was only i n England that capital ist social relations

emerged as an u nantici pated development out of the
old reg ime. H ere, class strug g l e i n that context had
a novel result. After the Black Death, strong peasant
com m u n ities won formal freedom, but well-organised
l o rd s secu red the right to charge rent on the l a n d
peasants farmed . T h e latter became market-dependent
for the first time. There fol lowed a veritable agricultural
revol ution, marked by the consolidation of land-holdings

A History of Separation Part 1 : Construction 89

and an adoption of new tech n i q ues, as well as the 7 Robert A l l e n , Global
g rowth of t h e d iv i s i o n of labou r in t h e c o u ntrysi d e . Economic History: A
Agricultural productivity rose, a n d that, in t u r n , fostered Very Short In tro­
demographic g rowth and u rbanisation. It was u n l i ke duction (ou P 2011),
w h at was h a p pe n i n g a n yw h e re e l s e i n E u ro p e , o r p. 41 - a m u c h more
anywhere else i n t h e world. i m portant book than
its title s u g gests.
This capitalist pattern of development swelled the military
power of the state i n Britain . The resulting European a G o l d n e r, 'Com m u n i s m
power i mbalance d rove a logic o f territorial conquest i s the M aterial H u -
through which t h e British Empire would eventually cover man C o m m u n ity'.
a q uarter of the Eart h 's l a n d m ass. In response, t h e
absolutist states o f continental Europe tried (and fai led)
to rational ise their empires, lead i n g to fiscal and social
crises, the most famous of which was the one that led
to the French Revolution. For el ites outside of Britai n ,
reg ime change t h u s appeared a political necessity. Oth-
erwise, they were going to fal l further behind it m i l itarily,
as was proven in the cou rse of the Napoleonic wars.
El ites had to figu re out how to introduce capitalist social
relations by pol itical design - and as fast as possible:
"wh ile Britain did not have a policy to 'industrial ise', most
cou ntries since have had a strategy to emu late its suc-
cess:' 7 That strategy came to be known , at least in the
economics l iterature, as "late development".

The key point i s that, i n t h e m i d - n i n eteenth cent u ry,

late development was based on all iances between a
capital ist class and old reg ime el ites : " I ro n and Rye".
I n fact, it was often u nclear whether t h e re was any
separation in the first place between these classes, from
which alliances m i g ht be concluded : the emergence
of a b o u rgeoisie was often m e rely a partial e m b o u r­
geoisement of a section of the aristocracy. In regard
to late development, "the decade of the 1 8 6 0s was
a fundamental conj u n ct u re . It saw the us Civil War,
the u n ification of Germany, the u n ification of Italy, the
Russian serf emancipation and the Meiji Restoration i n
Japan:' 8 Wh ile wars a n d internal confl icts i n the 1 8 60s

Endnotes 4 90
served to consolidate the power of elites over territories, 9 A l l e n , Global Eco-
protectionism in the 1 870s created a space for national nomic History, p. 43.
i n d u stry. It also preserved peasantries against g rain As we will see, R u s s i a
i m po rts from the U n ited States and Eastern Europe. and Japan were
u n s uccessful in t h e i r
Some of the cou ntries where el ites made power plays atte m pts to catch u p
on this basis were able to catch up with Britain, and with Britain b y means
t h u s to j o i n the c l u b of rich countries: " n ot o n ly d i d of l ate d eve l o p m ent.
continental Europe a n d N o rth America overtake Brit­ For t h e m , catch u p
ain in industrial output between 1 870 and 1 9 1 3 , but would come o n l y v i a
they man ifestly joined it i n tech nolog ical competence:' 9 ' b i g - p u s h ' i n d u striali­
H owever, the natu re of late development ensu red that sat i o n , and o n l y i n the
old reg ime el ites and the peasantry persisted. On the m i d d l e decades of
continent, " i n d u strialisation p roved to be compatible the twentieth centu ry.
with the p reservation of a firmly entrenched ag rarian
ru l i n g class and a dynastic state of a conservative and 10To m Kemp, Indus triali­
militaristic stam p. It took place without the destruction of sa tion in Nineteenth
the peasantry as a class and gave opport u n ities for the Century Europe
emergence of prosperous peasant strata prod ucing for ( Routledge 2014),
,
the markef i o The old regime went into decline in Europe p. 1 04.
only fol lowing the Fi rst World War. Then , after l i m ping
back onto the scene, it was deci mated i n the Second :
old reg ime el ites were finally l i q u idated only by the Red
Army, which - having al ready erad icated the Czar and
the Russian aristocracy in the Civil War - now opened
u p a path of slaughter that marched all the way i nto
Prussia, the heart of the old reg ime i n Central Europe.

Yet even then, the old regime persisted in the rest of the
world, strengthening itself by allying with other classes
i n the anti-colon ial movements of the middle twentieth
century. Without an international war (on the scale of
the World Wars), which m ight have u n ified nations and
strengthened the hands of developmentalists, it proved
d ifficult to dislodge such el ites. The task of doing so
was made even more d ifficult i n the g lobal context of
i m perial ist interventions: the us feared that any attempt
at real land reform would lead inevitably to com m u n ist
revolution and reg ional contag ion. And indeed, where

A History of Separation Part 1 : Construction 91

el ites were not defeated by com m u n ist revolution, they
managed to retain much of their control, both of pol itics
and of the economy. It is sti l l the case, even today, that
many national econom ies in low-income cou ntries are
overseen by a few extended fam i l ies and their retinues.

T H E P E R S I ST E N C E OF T H E P E ASA N T RY

It was i n the context of "the persistence of t h e o l d 1 1 For the best acco u n t

reg ime" that the new industrial cities fi rst materialised of t h i s p h e n o m e n o n ,
in continental Europe, i n the second half of the n i ne­ see Arno M ayer, The
teenth century. 1 1 I n some places, cities emerged from Persistence o f the Old
the transformation of medieval towns; elsewhere, con­ Regime ( Pantheon
u rbations sprung u p where only vil lages had been. I n 1981 ) .
a n y case, b y the end o f the n i n eteenth century, t h e
speed of u rban isation was u n p recedented . That was 12 It is i m portant to
true in spite of the fact that, throughout t h i s period, n ote that it w a s n o t
there remained a su bstantial nu mber of peasants. From u n t i l the p u b l i c health
g reat reservoi rs i n the cou ntryside, peasants streamed i nterventions and
i nto the towns - in a slow trickle or in a torrent - either medical i n n ovati o n s
because they had lost their land due to expropriation, of the last q u arter o f
or else because, on account of demographic g rowth, the 1 9th century and
their parents did not have enough land to d ivide among the beg i n n i n g of the
all of their descendants. 1 2 20th that demo­
g rap h i c g rowth with i n
Nevertheless, ind ividuals were not only pushed into the t h e cities d i s p l aced
cities; they were also d rawn to them. Cities offered a m i g ration as the
real if partial emancipation from ru ral patriarchy, from the m a i n s o u rce of u rban
law of the father as wel l as the lord. The total depend­ g rowth .
ence of children on their fathers was g rounded i n the
fact that land - not labou r - was the l i m iting prod uctive
factor in rural areas, and so also the real source of social
wealth . Men had to in herit land from their parents, or to
acquire it with their parents' resources; likewise, in order
to marry, women needed dowries, which only parents
could provide. That was the source of an overbearing
paternal power: children couldn't make decisions about
their own lives. They couldn't afford to upset their fathers.
The prospect of finding work in a nearby city disrupted

Endnotes 4 92
that age-old relation : the autonomy of the young was 13 Rocker, Anarcho-
won via the wage. In that sense, capitalist social relations Syndicalism: Theory
extended an existing feature of medieval cities, d e l i m it­ and Practic e - A n
ing a zone of relative freedom in a world of strictu res. In troduction t o a Sub­
ject Which the Span­
However, that freedom was secu red only in a situation ish War Has Brought
of i m mense danger. The facil ities where proletarians into Overwhelming
worked were hastily constructed . Their jobs req u i red Prominence [1937] (A K
them to handle lethal mach inery, with l ittle fresh air or P r e s s 2004 ) .
daylight. Capitalists found that they did not have to worry
about the worki ng conditions they offered . For no mat- 14 The notion that
ter how bad those conditions were, young proletarians, poverty was p u s h i n g
often fresh from the cou ntryside, sti l l l ined up for work; proletarian women,
they even fou g ht over it. I nternecine confl icts emerged ag ainst t h e i r will, i nto
between peasants arriving from different villages, speak­ sex work, was a m a1 o r
ing mutually unintelligible dialects of a national language, t h e m e of the social i st
o r d ifferent languages altogether. Capital ists played l iterat u re of the l ate
workers off one another to sec u re low wages and a n i neteenth and early
docile workforce. The same sorts of confl icts and in­ 20th centu ry.
fighting then emerged i n pro letarian residences.

In this strange new world, laden with suffering, proletar­

ian freedoms created openings for self-destruction : "if
at the end of the week the worker had enough left to
enable h i m to forget the hell he l ived in for a few hours
by getting drunk on bad liquor, it was the most he could
ach ieve. The inevitable consequence of such a state
of affai rs was an e n o r m o u s i n c rease in p rostitution,
drunkenness, and crime:' 1 3 H o useholds were always
one step away from penu ry, and thus could be pushed
into begging, petty crime, or sex work when one of their
members became an alcoholic. 1 4 I n the new ind ustrial
city it was easy to fall down and difficult to get up. That
was all the more true, i nsofar as movi ng to the cities
meant cutting the ties of support that existed in rural
commun ities. Nor were capital ists going to help workers
survive : under conditions of capitalist com petition and
an oversupply of labo u r, employers couldn't afford to
care whether any i ndividual worker or fam i ly s u rvived .

A History of Separation Part 1 : Construction 93

That was to be expected : after all, the workin g class 15 Altho u g h , in fact,
would be emanci pated only by the workers themselves. 1 5 early l a b o u r l e g i s l a-
And yet, contrary to the narrative of the workers' move­ t i o n was not won by
ment, the development of the prod uctive forces was not workers, but rather,
tending to strengthen the working class by giving b i rth by teams of factory
to the collective worker. The workers' movement sup­ i n s pectors and t h e i r
posed that this col lective worker would be a byproduct s u p porters i n g overn­
of the facto ry: it would stam p its u n iversal form on its m e nt.
victims, annihilating their relationships to the past (wh ich
remained all around them, in the form of villages outside
the city l i m its) ; the class in-itself would then become the
class for-itself. But that did not happen automatical ly.
Most workers were not even factory workers. And i n
a n y case, those who did work i n factories were often
d ivided, not only by skill, o r position with in the d ivision
of labour, but also by religion and customs. Many did
n ot even speak the same languag e ! Lackin g a basis
for solidarity, proletarians fou n d it d ifficult to convince
their co-workers to risk their jobs for the g reater good
by going on strike. The working class was a class that
tended to express itself not by striking, but by rioting.

T H E P E R S I S T E N C E O F O L D R EG I M E E L I T E S

Periodic explosions o f u rban riots gave rise t o what was

known as the "social q uestion". What did the workers
want? And what would it take to pacify them? In fact, it
seemed, at first, that there was no need to pacify work­
ers : as capitalists expanded production, their power over
them only g rew. Moreover, when proletarians did revolt,
the ownership class found that it could call on the army
and the police to beat o r shoot them for distu rbing the
peace. Agai nst these repressive interventions, proletar­
ians had few resou rces on which to d raw.

They needed to organ ise themselves. According to what

became the p revail i n g revolutionary theory, workers
needed to organise themselves to win rig hts that would
help them in their further struggle. They needed the right

Endnotes 4 94
 to assemble and the freedom of the press. They needed 16 These refo rms had
to force the army and the police to remain neutral in noth i n g to d o with
1 6
the class stru g g l e . To get all that - so the theory ' reformism' -th e
went - workers needed power at the pol itical level : they b e l i ef that the work­
needed to win the right to vote. On that basis, they could i n g classes c o u l d
form a class party which would com pete for power in b e c o m e f u l l and
national elections. This pol itical perspective was rei n ­ equal m e m bers of the
forced almost everywhere b y the fai l u re o f alternatives: capitalist p o l i ty, t h u s
"Wh i l e strikes oriented toward extensions of suffrage m a k i n g revo l ution
were successfu l in Bel g i u m and Sweden, the use of u n n ecessary. O n
mass stri kes for economic goals i nvariably resu lted i n the co ntrary, s u c h
political d isasters : i n Bel g i u m i n 1 90 2 . Sweden i n
. . refo rms w e r e seen a s
1 9 09 . . France in 1 9 20 . . Norway i n 1 9 2 1 . . a n d Great
. . . e s s e n t i a l weapons for
Britain in 1 9 2 6 All these strikes were defeated ; in the
. . . the c o m i n g class war.
aftermath, trade-un ions were decimated and repressive
leg islation was passed." 1 7 17 Adam Przeworski,
Capitalism and Social
The problem for workers, in trying the parliamentary route, Democracy (Cam­
was that the old regime control led politics. The l ower bridge 1 985), p. 12.
classes were "not supposed to share . . . the prerogatives
of ful l-fledged h uman beings", who made u p the elite. 1 8 1 a G.M. Tamas, 'Te l l i n g
There was a material basis u nderlying this perspective : the Truth a b o u t
e l ites feared that recog n i s i n g t h e lower classes as C l ass' i n Social­
equals, even formal ly, would undermine the basis of ist Register, vol. 42,
their power in the countryside: that power was based 2006; ava i l a b l e on
not on success in free markets, but rather, on strictly g r u n d risse.net.
controlling access to l i m ited resou rces - including the
rights to own land, and the rig hts to mine, log, or g raze 19 'No l a n d l ord-
animals on that land - al l of which was determined by d o m i n ated g overn­
el ite privileges. 1 9 ment will h a p p i l y vote
itself out of landown­
As it t u rned o ut, t h e b o u rgeoisie i n E u rope d i d not i n g status and vari o u s
d isplace those el ites as the workers' movement had oth e r privileges w i t h ­
expected . Instead , factory owners g rew u p with i n the out s t r o n g p re s s u re
old reg ime, often taking on noble titles. In defend ing their from other socio-po­
i nterests, the owners h i p class appealed to privilege as l itical g ro u ps.' R u s s e l l
much as l i beral economics. There was a material basis K i n g , Land Reform: A
underlying that perspective as wel l : capitalists benefited World Survey ( West­
from workers' lack of freedom. Particularly in agriculture view 1977), pp. 9-10.

A History of Separation Part 1 : Construction 95

and in resource extraction, aimed at i nternational mar­
kets, employers did not need workers to be fully free in
order to make a profit. Plantation owners, engaged in the
production of all sorts of raw materials and agricultural
prod ucts, p rofited handsomely from the employment
of slaves. O n the Russian steppes, exported g rain was
produced by q uasi-serfs. Thus, capital ist development
did n ot automatically lead to the double freedom that
M arx d escribed as its fou n d ation : workers were not
transformed i nto formally free commodity sellers who
also happened to be free of access to means of produc­
tion. O n ly some workers obtained the economic right
to sel l their labour-power; fewer ach ieved the pol itical
rights of equal citizens.

The old reg i m e had only conte m pt for workers' calls

for f u l l eco n o m i c and pol itical equal ity, arg u i n g that
they didn't deserve it, for they lacked the self-control
and independence that comes with own i n g property.
I n stead , proletarian n e i g h b o u rhoods were rife with
u nconventional and ecstatic forms of religious belief.
Drunks begged in the street, while in ports and public
parks proletarian prostitution and male h o mosexual­
ity d i sturbed refined sens i b i l ities. These indecencies
became the subject matter of newspaper exposes; elites
gawked and laughed at the lawlessness and penury of
proletarian l ife. Pol itically-minded workers could see that
these were problems, n ot just for their i mage, but also
for their capacity to organ ise : how were workers going
to win the vote - let alone abolish class society - if they
could not even keep their own houses in order?

T H E A F F I R M AT I O N O F A CLASS I D E N T I T Y

I n order to abolish class society, workers needed to

win reforms, and i n order to do that, they first needed
to present themselves as capable and worthy of power.
The d ifficulty they faced was twofold. In the cities, work­
ers had to acclimatise to dangerous conditions of l ife.

Endnotes 4 96
Coming from different vil lages (and having such diverse 20 H o b s baw m , The Age
experiences), they had to fig u re out how to organise of Capital, 1848-1875
together. Meanwhile, in newly-constructed liberal states, (Pe n g u i n 1 984), p.
workers faced the hatred of their social betters, who 224.
were looking for any excuse to exclude them from civi l
society. I n response to these problems, the workers'
movement constituted itself as a project : p roletarians
would fight for their rig ht to exist. They would show that
there was dign ity and pride in being a worker; the work­
ers' culture was su perior to that of other social classes.
Eric H obsbawm suggests that "no term is harder to
analyse than ' respectabil ity' i n the mid-nineteenth cen­
tury working class, for it expressed s i m u ltaneously the
penetration of midd le-class values and standards, and
also the attitudes without which workin g c lass self­
respect would h ave been d ifficult to ach ieve, and a
movement of collective struggle i m possible to b u i l d :
sobriety, sacrifice, the postponement of g ratification". 20
This mid-century notion of respectabil ity then matured
i nto the more developed programs and projects of the
late - n i n eteenth and early-twentieth century workers
movement in all its forms: as social ist and comm u n ist
parties, as anarc h i st u n i o n s , and as assorted other
revolutionary forces.

Supporting workers' claims to respectability was a vision

of their destiny, with five tenets :

( 1 ) Workers were building a new world with their own

hands. (2) In this new world , workers were the only
social g r o u p that was expan d i n g ; whereas a l l other
g ro u ps were contract i n g , i n c l u d i n g the b o u rgeoisie.
(3) Workers were not o n ly beco m i n g the m aj ority of
the popu lation ; they were also beco m i n g a com pact
mass, the collective worker, who was being drilled i n
t h e factories to act in concert with the mach ines. (4)
They were thus the only g ro u p capable of managi n g
the n e w world i n accordance w i t h i t s innermost l o g i c :
n e i t h e r a h i e rarchy of order-givers and o rd e r-takers,

A History of Separation Part 1 : Construction 97

nor the i rrational ity of market fluctuations, but rather, an 21 T h i s l ast tenet
ever more finely-grained d ivision of labour. (5) Workers someti m e s expressed
were proving this vision to be true, si nce the class was a w i l l to s e e the pro­
realising what it was in a conquest of power, the achieve­ letariat become the
ment of wh ich wou ld make it possible to abolish class only class; at other
society, and thus to bring man's preh istory to a close. 2 1 t i m e s , it expressed a
w i l l to see a l l classes
T h i s v i s i o n was n ' t s o m et h i n g i m p l anted from t h e abol i s h e d and work­
o u t s i d e , transfo r m i n g a refor m i st movement i nto a i n g t i m e dramati­
revolutionary one. To m uster the w i l l to take risks and cally red u ced (see
m ake sacrifices, worke rs needed to believe i n a bet­ afte rword).
ter world that was al ready i n the p rocess of real ising
itse lf. T h e i r victory was s u p posedly g u aranteed : it 22 False consciousness
was a h istorical n ecessity but, paradoxical ly, also a s u p posedly h i d the
pol itical project. It is precisely the s i m p l icity and self- class from itself, but
evidence of these tenets, their i mmed iate appeal, that false-co n s c i o u s n e s s
explains t h e movement's exponential g rowth i n t h e w a s a f a l s e concept.
years between 1 87 5 and 1 9 2 1 .
23 L u xe m b u rg , ' Reform
As mentioned above, at the heart of the workerist vision o r Revo l ution' (1 900)
lay a mythic fig u re : the collective worke r - the class i n The Essen tial Rosa
in-and-for-itself, the class as u n ified and knowing its L uxemburg (Haym ar­
u nity, born with in the space of the factory. The collective ket 2008), p. 45.
worker was presupposed in workers' organising and
posited through that o rgan ising effort. But, to a large
extent, the collective worker did not exist outside of the
movement's attempts to construct it. 22 The theorists of
the labour movement could never h ave adm itted that
this was the case. They spoke of the factory system as
if it came from the future: the development of the factory
system was supposedly a consequence of the "progres­
sive socialisation of the p rocess of prod uctio n " , which
created "the germs of the futu re social order" . 2 3 It was
expected that the socialised factory system wou l d also
prepare the workers for a social ist existence, transform­
ing them from a disparate set of working classes, into a
unified fighting force - the industrial proletariat - drilled
o n the facto ry floor.

Endnotes 4 98
I n reality, this transformation did not take place auto- 24 Przewo rs k i , Capita/-
matically. The factory system was not a time-traveler ism and Social D e -
from the future. It was the form production took wit h i n mocracy, p. 20.
developed capital ist societies. As such, it embodied
not the "actual u nity" of a world to come, but rather the
u n ity-i n-separation of this world. The factory system, i n
itself, did n o t tend to u n ify the workforce i n a way that
benefited workers engaged in struggle - or, at least, it
did not do that exclusively. Capital ist development may
have d issolved some pre-existing d ifferences among
workers, but it rei nforced o r created other d ivisions,
especially as these emerged from the d ivision of labour
(that is, mostly around ski l l , but also around d ivisions
of tasks by " race" and gender, as well as accord ing to
seniority, language, region of orig i n , etc).

Meanwh ile, outside of the factory gates, workers con­

tinued to stand in conflict with one another. They had to
look out for themselves, as wel l as their ki n : "Similarity
of class position does not necessarily result in solidarity
since the interests which workers share are precisely
those which put them i n com petition with one another,
primarily as they bid down wages in q uest of employ­
ment" . 24 G iven that there were never enough jobs for
everyone (the existence of a surplus popu lation was
a structural feature of societies b u i lt around capital ist
exploitation), allegiances of rel igion, " race", and " nation"
made it possible for some workers to get ahead at the
expense of others. As long as workers were not already
organised on a class basis - and there was no pre-g iven,
structural necessity for them to be so organised - they
had a real i nterest in maintai n i n g their i n dividual ity, as
wel l as their extra-class allegiances.

This was the melee i nto which the workers' movement

t h rew itself. The m ovement e n c o u raged workers to
forget their specificity and all that s u p posedly came
from the past. Workers should turn their gaze towards

A History of Separation Part 1 : Construction 99

the futu re ; they should actively merge into the general- 25 See the ad d e n d u m to
ity of the collective worker. Here was the essence of t h i s part, p. 103 below.
the workers' movement. Trade u n ions and cham bers of
labour, as well as social organisations, brought proletar- 26 The u s presents
ians together on the basis of trades, neighbourhoods or o n l y a partial excep-
hobbies. A general workers' interest was then cobbled l i o n to t h i s story.
together out of these local organisations. The Social Its d i sti n g u i s h i n g
Democratic and Com m u n ist parties and the Anarch ist feat u res are (1) t h e
federations i n stantiated the collective worker at the early ac h i evement of
national level. u n iversal m a n h ood
s uffrage, and (2) the
These organ isations could not have succeeded in their fact that it d rew its
tasks without, at the same time, relying on an affirm­ i n d ustrial workforce
able class identity. I nsofar as they made sacrifices in not from its own
the name of the labour movement, workers generally ag r i c u l t u ral p e r i p h e ry,
were not act i n g in their i m med iate i nterests. To say but from that of
that they affirmed a shared identity is to say that the E u rope. E n g e l s , in a
movement succeeded in convincing workers to suspend letter to Weydem eyer,
their interests as isolated sellers in a competitive labour g rasped the key to
market, and, i nstead , to act out of a commitment to the both phenomena,
collective project of the labour movement. writi n g of the 'ease
with which the s u r­
To the extent that workers were willing to bel ieve that p l u s p o p u l ation [ i n the
h av i n g s o l i darity was m o rally necessary, t h ey were us] i s d ra i n e d off to
able to realise - partially and fitfu l ly - the slogan that the farms'. Free land
"an i nj u ry to one is an inj u ry to all". This phrase never o n the frontier (et h n i ­
described a preexisting truth about the working class ; cally cleansed o f its
it was, i n stead , an ethical i nj u nct i o n . But i nsofar as i n itial i n hab itants)
workers accepted this injunction, their interests as indi­ sti m u l ated the l argest
viduals began to change: those interests were simpl ified , transocean i c m i g ra­
narrowed, or even wholly redefined, but also partially t i o n in h u man h i sto ry.
fulfilled. 2 5 By this means, competition between workers States extended the
was m uted , but only for as long as the shared ethic and fran c h i s e to a l l m e n
identity could be preserved. i n o r d e r to attract
these i m m i g rants
I n that sense, the workers' movement was an apparatus, (w h i ls t women and
an u rban mach ine, which bound workers together and free blacks were d i s­
kept them so bound. 26 Such binding did not only hap­ enfra n c h i sed). U rban
pen in the factories : political mach i n e s

Endnotes 4 100
 This remained one of the Left's most perduring m is­ q u i c k ly arose i n u s
recognitions: ' labour movements' impl ied a socialism c i t i e s to m a n a g e the
beginning from the workplace, centred on strikes, and wh ite male vote along
borne by m i l itant working men ; yet those movements t h e l i nes of eth n i c ,
were actually more broad ly founded, also req u i ring re l i g i o u s and re­
women's efforts in households, neighbourhoods, and g i o nal identity. These
streets. 27 structures were only
s h aken i n the 1920s,
The collective worker was cobbled together in towns, w h e n the tap of i m ­
through an array of p o p u lar workers' organisat i o n s : m i g rati o n was turned
workers' "savings banks, health and pension funds, news­ off, and u s i n d u stry
papers, extramu ral popular academ ies, workingmen's for the fi rst t i m e
clubs, libraries, choirs, brass bands, engage intellectuals, began to d raw on i t s
songs, novels, philosophical treatises, learned jou rnals, o w n ru ral h i nterl a n d .
pam p h l ets, well-entrenched local govern ments, tem­ It w a s o n l y d u r i n g t h i s
perance societies - all with their own mores, manners period of tight i m ­
and styles". 28 Through these means, proletarians were m i g rati o n , f r o m 1932
made to forget that they were Corsican or Lyonnais; they to 1 974, that the u s
became workers. The class came to exist as an abstract came t o a p p rox i m ate
identity that could be affi rmed , dign ified and proud. a E u ropean social
d e m ocracy.
Th is is how the workers' movement solved the problems
of acc l i m atising the constant flow of new ru ral- u rban 21 G eoff Eley, Forging
m i g rants to the i n d u strial cities, and of maki n g them Democracy: The
respectable. Respectabil ity involved th ree o perations. History of the Left in
( 1 ) The movement s p read n e w b ehavio u ra l c o d e s , Europe, 1850-2000
e i t h e r appropriated f r o m bourgeois culture, o r d i rectly (Oxford 2002) , p. 58.
opposed to it (heterosexual fam ily norms, temperance).
(2) The m ovement p rovided a sense of com m u n ity, to 28 Tamas, 'Te l l i n g the
help workers overcome the social dislocation i nvolved Truth about C l ass'.
i n m i g rati n g to cities. Com m u n ity organisations rei n ­
forced the n e w codes w h i l e prov i d i n g for the spi ritual
needs of their mem bers. And (3) the m ovement b u i lt
u p institutions that supported workers' stru g g les to
transform their material situation - and to p revent i n d i ­
v i d u a l s o r fam i l ies from fal l i n g i n t o d i s re p ute (unions
and parties fought not only for better wages and cond i­
tions, but also for p u b l i c health interventions, welfare
schemes, p rovisions for the old and sick, and so on).

A History of Separation Part 1 : Construction 101

The fi rst two of these operations supported the t h i rd , 29 I b i d .
while it was the t h i rd that brought the class into confl ict
with the legal and pol itical frameworks of the era. The
workers were compelled to struggle "against throne and
altar, for un iversal suffrage, for the right to organise and
to strike". 2 9 It was necessary to take risks and make
sacrifices, but both could now be justified through the
movement's self-understanding - as a moral commun ity,
fig hting to establish a better world, g u ided by the l i g hts
of rational production and equ itable d istri bution.

T H E PAS T I N T H E P R E S E N T

I n truth t h i s moral com m u n ity was a n a d h o c construe- 3 0 H o b s baw m , Age of

tion, supported by a beautifu l d ream. It was far from an Empire, p. 1 19.
ironclad reality: "what, from one point of view, looked like
a concentration of men and women in a single 'working 31 Q u oted in G eoff El ey,
class', could be seen from another as a gigantic scat- Forging Democra cy,
tering of the fragments of societies, a d iaspora of old p. 7 8 .
and new communities:' 3 0 Workers retained or preserved
their l i n ks to the past, and did so in many d ifferent ways.
Trad itional artisan g u i lds shaded into the u n ions, ethnic
and religious g roups set themselves up in the new cities,
and most new workers retained links to peasant fami lies.

Wh i l e workers d i d not so eas i ly forget t h e i r l i n ks to

the old comm u n ities, movement activists i ncreasingly
viewed those links as an obstacle: "world history cannot
be turned back" , proclaimed the German Metalwork­
e rs U n io n (DMV), "for t h e sake of t h e kn ife-g r i n de rs "
a n d their craft mental ity. 31 H owever, i n m a n y cases t h e
culture o f solidarity that activists were trying to build
relied precisely on such holdovers, forged through the
experiences of peasants and artisans. The idea that
work was dign ified - that one should identify with one's
essence - was itself an i n heritance from artisans. The
movement tried to transfer the bonds of the craft work­
ers over to the "mass workers", that is, the semi-skilled
workers in the factories, who were supposed to identify

Endnotes 4 102
 with the class as a whole, while denying any attem pt to 32 I b i d . , p. 78-79.
preserve their specific t rades.

Resistance to the p roject of the workers' movement

often took place on this basis; a confl ict thus opened
up between the class and its organisations. It was often
workers resisting incorporation i nto the generality of
the collective worker who undertook the most m i l itant
actions. I n many places the most radical cu rrent of the
workers' movement was associated - against the pre­
vai l i n g theory of the Social Democrats - with a defense
of shopfloor autonomy, that is, with the right of workers
to make decisions about the organisation of production,
even when those decisions slowed the development
of the p rod uctive forces. Conflict was apparent i n rap­
idly g rowing cities l i ke Solingen, in western Germany:
" Where g ro u ps l i ke the Solingen cutlery grinders clung
to older ideals of a locally rooted cooperative common­
wealth based on craft autonomy, the new DMV strategists
[that is, the strategists at the G e rman M etalworkers
U n ion] celebrated technical p rogress, mass material
i m p rovement, and an industrial u n ionism proper to the
structures of a continuously rationalising capital ism". 32
Socialists and com m u n ists did not see that it was only
insofar as workers h ad a hand i n determi n i n g how pro­
d uction took place that they were able to identify with
their work as what defined who they really were. Once
that right and its corresponding experience disappeared,
so did the workers' identity.

A D D E N D U M ON T H E L U M P E N - P R O L ETA R I AT

33 ' M i sery and D e bt',
Endnotes 2, A p r i l 2010.
We have referred elsewhere to the surplus popu lation
as the extreme embodiment of capital's contradictory
dynamic. 33 What is the relationship between the surplus
popu lation and the l u m pen-proletariat? Are they one
and the same? Whereas Marx expounds on the surplus
population, at length , i n Capital, he does not refer to
the l u m pen-proletariat at all i n that work; he uses the

A History of Separation Part 1 : Construction 103

34 Rosa Luxemburg, ph rase only in his pol itical writings. How did the "lu mpen"
'The Mass Str i ke' become such a popular topic, among revol utionaries,
[1906] 1n The Essen­ in the course of the twentieth century?
tial Rosa L uxemburg
(Haymarket 2008), As it turns out, " l u m pen proletariat" was a key category
p. 1 1 4 . for the workers' movement, and particu larly for Marxists,
in their Social Democratic and Bolshevik variants. Marx­
35 M arx, 'The E i g ht­ ists were always hurling curses at perceived l u m pen
eenth B r u m a i re of proletarians and anarch ists alike, so much so that the
Lou is Bon aparte' two categories blended together. Accord ing to Rosa
( M EC W 1 0) , p. 198. Luxemburg in The Mass Strike, "Anarch ism has become
in the [ 1 905] Russian Revolution, not the theory of the
struggling proletariat, but the ideolog ical signboard of
the cou nterrevolutionary l u m penproletariat, who, l i ke a
school of sharks, swarm in the wake of the battleship
of the revolution:' 3 4

Who were these l u m pen proletarians, preach ing anar­

chy? Attem pts to spell that out usually took the form not
of structu ral analyses, but rather, of long lists of shady
characters, l ists wh ich collapsed in on themselves i n
a frenzied incoherence. H ere is Marx's parad ig matic
d iscussion of the lumpen proletariat, from The 1 8th Bru­
maire of Louis Bonaparte: "On the pretext of founding a
benevolent society, the l u m pen proletariat of Paris had
been o rganised i nto secret sections, each section led
by Bonapartist agents". These lumpens supposedly con­
sisted of "vagabonds, d ischarged soldiers and jailbirds,
escaped galley slaves, swi n d l e rs, m o u nteban ks, laz­
zaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, pimps, brothel
keepers, porters, l iterat i , o rgan g r i n d ers, rag p ickers,
kn ife grinders, tinkers, beggars - in short, the whole
indefin ite, d isinteg rated mass, th rown h ither and th ither,
which the French call /a boheme." 3 5 Is there any truth in
this paranoid fantasy? Do escaped convicts and organ
grinders share a common, cou nter-revol utionary interest
with beggars, which distingu ishes them from the com­
mon mass of workers, who are apparently revol utionary
by nature? To think so is insane.

Endnotes 4 104
36 H o b s baw m , Age of The l u m pe n proletariat was a spectre, haunting t h e
Empire, p. 140. workers' movement. If that movement constituted itself
as the movement for the d i g n ity of workers, then the
37 Kauts ky, The Class lumpen was the fig ure of the undignified worker (or more
Struggle (1 892), accu rately, the l u m pen was one of its fig u rations). All
c h apter 5, available of the movement's efforts to g ive d i g n ity to the class
on marxists.org. were su pposedly undermined by these d issolute figures:
drunks singing in the street, petty cri m inals and prosti­
tutes. References to the l u m pen proletariat registered
what was a s i m p l e truth : it was d ifficult to convince
workers to organise as workers, since mostly, they didn't
care about social ism : "a g reat many of the poor, and
especially the very poor, did not t h i n k of themselves
o r behave as ' p roletarians,' o r fi nd the organisations
and modes of action of the movement as appl icable o r
relevant to them:' 3 6 I n their free time, they'd rather go
to the p u b than sing workers' songs.

I n the fig u re of the l u m pen, we d iscover the dark u nder­

side of the affirmation of the working class. It was an
a b i d i n g c l ass- h at re d . Workers saw t h e m selves as
o ri g i n at i n g out of a sti n ki n g m o rass : "At the time of
the beg i n n i n g of modern industry the term proletariat
i m p l ied absolute degeneracy. And there are persons
who believe this is stil l the case." 37 Moreover, capitalism
was t rying to push workers back i nto the m uck. Thus,
the crisis tendencies of capital ism could o n ly end in
one of two ways : i n the victory of the working class or
i n its becom i n g l u m pen.

A History of Separation Part 1 : Construction 105

2 T H E I N F R ASTR U CT U R E O F T H E M O D E R N WO R L D

T h e workers c o u l d have failed in their essay to defeat

the old reg i m e ; we've certainly dwelled on the many
obstacles that they faced . But i n spite of all that, the
movement was successful in achieving some of its goals.
The labour movement shaped history (if not always as it
had i ntended). That it did so, we argue, had everything
t o d o w i t h t h e e m e rg e n c e of infras tructural indus ­
tries, that i s , i n d ustries producing goods whose use
depended on the construction of massive networked
infrastructures: roads, electricity g rids, plumbing, rad io
towers, etc.

If the persistence of the old reg ime set the scene or

provided the stage on which the workers' movement
was born, then these infrastructu ral industries supplied
the d ramatic action. It was in and through their g rowth
that the d rama of the workers' movement played out.
These new industries came online just as those of the
first industrial revolution - e.g., food processing, textiles,
i ronworks and rail roads - were maturing. Takin g their
place at the lead ing edge, the i nfrastructu ral industries
included, at first, everything to do with electrification
and steel : safety razors, sliced bread, radios, and preci­
sion machines. There fol lowed the heyday of so-called
" Fordism " : cars, refrigerators, washing machines, and all
manner of consu mer d u rables. Altogether, these indus­
tries employed huge masses of semi-skilled workers.

It was because they employed so many workers, and

made their e m ployment so central to the functioning of
the wider economy, that the infrastructural industries
determ i ned the course of the workers' movement. The
g rowth of these industries meant that, for a time, the
development of the productive forces really did swell the
size and power of the industrial workforce. Workers were
also u nified wit h i n massive factory complexes, which
employed thousands of them at a time. Development

Endnotes 4 1 06
therefore seemed to represent the g rowing strength
of the proletariat and the s h r i n k i n g relevance of its
old-world enemies.

However, this g rowth in u n ity and power tu rned out to

be a temporary phenomenon. Both were washed away
in the 1 970s, as ind ustrialisation became deind ustri­
alisation. Meanwh ile, the expansion of infrastructural
i n d u stries did not u n ify the wider class as expected.
O n the contrary, it deepened the i m b rication of the
proletariat with in the u n ity-i n-separation of capital ist
social relations. U n ity-in-separation was, at fi rst, merely
a formal feature of market exchange. But over time, this
formal featu re was "realised" in the transformation of the
earth - a mess of steel and g lass, concrete and asphalt,
h i g h -tension wires - takin g place not only within the
space of the factory, but also beyond the facto ry gates.

I N F R A S T R U CT U R A L I N D U S T R I E S , S E M I -S K I L L E D W O R K E R S

Prod uction in infrastructu ral industries was n ot tenden- 1 O n Marx's theory

tially automated . That made these industries u n l i ke the see ' M i s e ry and D e bt'
ones M arx was thinking of i n his famous frag ment on Endnotes 2, A p r i l
mach ines: once chemical plants had been constructed, 2010.
for example, they mostly needed to be maintained or
monitored . U n l ike chem icals production, the industries
of the second industrial revolution req u i red huge quanti­
ties of labour, not only for the construction of the plants,
but also, once constructed, for the assembly of goods.
The res u lt was, from the stand point of Marx's theory,
a wholly unexpected support for the g rowth of labo u r
demand. 1 On that basis, two waves o f strong industrial
employment g rowth took place in the 1 00 years after
M arx's death : from the 1 8 8 0 s to 1 9 1 4 , then again
from the 1 950s to 1 973. Both the fin-de-siecle u pturn
and t h e postwar boom seemed to confirm workers'
sense that the fate of capital and of labour were tied
together: accumu lation of capital was m u ltipl ication of
the proletariat.

A History of Separation Part 2: Infrastructure 107

This proletariat was, increasing ly, a respectable class.
It became respectable i n the fig u re of the male, semi­
skilled, heavy industrial worker (which is not to say that
all such workers were male, only that they were imagined
to be so, ideally). This fig u re became hegemonic i n the
course of the workers' movement: l i ke the artisan, he
real ly could defi ne h i mself in relation to his work. That
was because - at least until the 1 9 60s, when the loss
of shopfloor autonomy reached a tipping point - he was
able to see his work as a source of g rowing collective
power. He p rovided a model for the rest of the class :
what it could be, what it was beco m i n g .

Semi-skilled workers n o t o n l y provided a m o d e l , they

also had a measu re of secu rity denied to other mem­
bers of the class. They were difficult to replace on a
moment's notice, and they set in motion huge quanti­
ties of fixed capital, which were worthless when left
idle. That secu rity provided a firm basis from which to
fight for freedoms for the class as a whole. The time of
the workers' movement was simply the time of the rise
and decl ine of the semi-skil led male worker and of the
industries where he worked. Together they made it pos­
sible to imagine that capital was tendentially unifying the
class by means of an affi rmable workers' identity. But
it was only insofar as those industries were expand i n g
that the workers' movement c o u l d s e e the sem i-skil led
worker as its futu re being real ised in the present. Once
those industries went into decl ine, the glorious future
declined as wel l .

T H E R O L E O F T H E STAT E

But we will come to that later. For n ow, it is i m po rtant

to point out that, on the continent, the new industries
emerg i n g in this era did so only i n the context of late
development. As we saw above, late development was
rooted in all iances between aristocratic and capital ist
e l ites. Those all iances allowed E u ro pean powers to

Endnotes 4 108
institute "the American system " . 2 The American sys­ 2 A l l e n , Global Eco­
tem had four essential components. Late-developing nomic History, p. So.
reg i m es had to : ( 1 ) erect external tariffs to p rotect The list that follows
infant industries ; (2) abolish internal tariffs and support also comes from Al­
infrastructure b u i l d i n g , to u n ify the national market ; (3) len's text.
fund big ban ks, both to stabi l ise i nflation and provide
a boost to national capital formation ; and (4) institute 3 See Wally Sec­
public education programmes, to consolidate alleg iance c o m b e , Weathering
to the state, standardise the national language, and the Storm ( Verso
promote l iteracy (l iteracy was a p rerequ isite for a lot of 1 993). Secco m b e
semi-skilled factory work, as wel l as office work). s h ows the extent t o
w h i c h capital i s m re­
Late development commenced in the 1 8 6 0s and early ally came i nto its own
1 870s. Then, i n the course of the First G reat Depres­ only with the 'second
sion ( 1 873-9 6), many states d ropped p retenses to i n d u strial revol utio n'.
Manchestertum ; they began to i ntervene extensively in Until t h e n , proletarian
national economies. That they did so made it possible to homes were n ot only
build a vast i nfrastructure, on which the new ind ustries located i n the v i c i n ity
ran . Here were the canals, rai lroads and telegraph wires ; of facto r i e s , but also
here, too, the roads, telephone wires, gas l i nes, p l u m b­ fre q u e ntly f u n ctioned
ing, and electrical grids. At first, this i nfrastructure was as exte n d e d sites
one d i m ensional : rai l roads and canals cut through the of prod uction for
landscape. Then, it became increasingly two (or even sale: fam i l i es did
th ree) d i m ensional : networks of roads, electrical grids 'fi n i s h i n g work' at
and rad io towers covered entire areas. h o m e . The modern
wage co ntract, which
These latter necessitated some sort of u rban plan n i n g . e m p l oyed i n d iv i d u a l s
F o r exam ple, the laying d o w n of tram l ines was associ­ rather t h a n fam i l i es
ated with the separation out, on the one hand , of working to work outside the
class neighbourhoods, and on the other hand, of ind us­ h o m e , was g e n e ral­
trial zones (it was n o longer the case that workers had ised o n l y at the e n d
to l ive with in walking d istance of their places of work). 3 of the n i n eteenth
Such residential and commercial d i stricts had to be centu ry. Secco m b e
designated in advance, when the infrastructure was laid. arg u e s that, a s
a res u lt, m a r r i e d
This s o rt of u n d e rtaki n g was often too d iffi c u lt for women w e r e i n c reas-
capitalists, and not only because of the huge scale of i n g ly re l e g ated to
investment requ i red. To build a massive infrastructu re n o n - i ncome-earn i n g
requ i res an army of planners : to promote a wide reach, activities.

A History of Separation Part 2: Infrastructure 109

to prevent wasteful dupl ication and to decide on industry 4 Ernest Mandel, ' Karl
standards. That meant a g rowi ng role for the state, as M arx' i n John Eatwe l l
the only part of society capable of becoming adequate et a l . , e d s . , The New
to this task - the task of planning society. Late develop­ Pa/grave Marxian
ment occurred alongside a burgeon ing state apparatus, Economics (Norton
at once more central ised and more dispersed than ever 1 990).
before (although this apparatus remained relatively small
until the World Wars spu rred its g rowth). 5 Friedrich E n g e l s ,
Origins of the Family,
The changed role of the state d ramatically transformed Private Property and
proletarian visions of communism. In Marx's theory, there the State, 1884 (MECW
had been no role for the state to play, either before or 26) p. 272.
after the revolution. Free-market capital ism was to be
replaced by social ism : that is, the "conscious plan n i n g & Kauts ky, The Class
of production by associated producers (nowhere does Struggle. This was of
Marx say : by the state):' 4 Marx's model of plan n i n g was c o u rse the t h e s i s that
not the state, but the workers' cooperative on the one Pan n e ko e k and Len i n
hand, and t h e joint-stock company on t h e other. Likewise, conteste d .
Engels famously suggested i n Origins of the Family,
Private Property and the State that after the revolution,
the state was to find its place in "a museum of antiquities,
by the side of the spinning-wheel and the b ronze axe:' 5
Neither antici pated the massive role that states would
play i n the near futu re, i n capital ist societies. Nor did
they therefore anticipate the role the state would play
in the social ist imag i nary. Here's Kautsky :

A m o n g the social organisations i n existence today

there is but one that has the requisite d imensions, that
can be used as the requ isite field, for the establish­
ment and development of the Socialist or Co-operative
Commonwealth , and that is the modern state. 6

State-led i nfrastructu ral development revealed the i rra­

tional ity of capital, but in a particular way. It seemed
i rrational to consu me commod ities privately when they
ran on an efficient public i nfrastructure. Why sell cars
to ind ividuals, when it was possible to build networks of
collectively utilised trams? Why not just plan everything?

Endnotes 4 110
Socialism became a vision of the endless extension 7 T h i s v i s i o n of the
of the state - from partially to totally planned society. 7 total p l an n i n g of
society, as o p posed
This new vision generated debates among revolution- to its partial p l an n i n g ,
aries: how wou l d this total planner state c o m e about, somehow m i rrors the
through nationalisation or social isation? Wou l d every- v i s i o n accord i n g to
thing be d irected from above, by national parl iaments, or w h i c h the workers
would it be necessary to wholly replace that bourgeois o btai n not a port i o n ,
apparatus with one more appropriate to proletarians, for but the f u l l val u e of
example, a federation of workers' un ions? In either case, the products of t h e i r
the problem was to figure out how separate u n its - sti l l labo u rs .
o rgan ised aro u n d economic activity, and thus s u rviv-
ing more or less intact from the capital ist era - would a A d a m Przewo rs k i ,
exchange their products with one another, while putting Capitalism and Social
aside a portion of their output for the g rowth of the Democracy, p. 3 3 .
prod u ctive apparatus. Of c o u rse, automation wou l d
eventually solve these problems, b u t what about in the
meantime? There were no easy answers :

On the one hand, as Korsch . . . Wigforss . . . and others

poi nted out, d i rect control of particular firms by the
i m med iate producers would not remove the antago­
n i s m between prod u cers and c o n s u mers, that is,
workers i n other firms. On the other hand, transfer
to centralised control of the state wou l d have the
effect of replacing the private authority of capital by
the bureaucratic authority of the government. 8

H ow one saw the future role of the state affected one's

strategy in the present. Is the state a comm ittee for
manag i n g the affairs of the bourgeoisie, o r a neutral
instrument, reflecting the balance of class forces? This
question was not merely theoretical. Alliances between
I ron and Rye seemed to suggest the state could strike
a balance between classes. Would it be possible, then,
for the working class to enter the fray, to reform capital­
ism on the way - or as the way - to social ism? Such
debates gave rise to fundamental splits with in the work­
ers' movement, and later, to its frag mentation.

A History of Separation Part 2: Infrastructure 111

T H E C O N TA I N E R O F T H E N AT I O N

The workers' movement was born not only in the context 9 E n g e l s had written
of a growing role of the state, but also of the nation : about those wars
la te de velop m e n t was n a tional de velop m e n t. That retrospectively: 'the
explains why, when the G reat War arrived, socialists i rony of h istory had
were largely w i l l i n g to jettison their i nternational i s m . it that B i s marck
They j u stified their support for w a r b y reference to the overth rew Bonaparte,
m ovement's success, fol lowi n g the wars of national and K i n g W i l h e l m
9
conso l idation in the 1 8 60s and 70s. Most assumed of P r u s s i a n o t o n l y
that the return of war merely presaged another wave of estab l i s h e d the l ittle
national consolidation, which would remix the interstate German E m p i re,
framework and set up the conditions for the fu rther but also the Fre n c h
expans i o n of t h e i n d u strial proletariat. By s u p p o rt­ R e p u b l i c . The overal l
i n g the war effort, workers would prove themselves outcome, h oweve r,
respectable. They would inch closer to power, or maybe was that in E u rope
even o btain it for the fi rst time, d u ri n g the next cycle the i n d e p e n d e n c e
of economic g rowt h . and i nternal u n ity o f
the g reat n ations h ad
Luxemburg bemoaned this interpretation o f the war i n become a fact . . . on a
h e r Junius Pamphlet. S h e saw - almost uniq uely among scale large e n o u g h to
Social Democrats - that the 1 9 1 4 war would be d iffer­ allow t h e d evelop­
ent: it would be a long one, and it would leave massive ment of the worki n g
destruction i n its wake. She scolded her comrades for c l a s s t o proceed.' E n ­
their fail u re to understand the changing natu re of war: g e l s , ' I ntroduction to
"Today war does not function as a dynam ic method of The Class Stru g g l e s
procuring for rising young capitalism the preconditions i n France, 1 848-50'.
of its ' national' development. War has this character (MECW 27) p. 506.
only i n the isolated and fragmentary case of Serbia:• 1 0
The i m p l ication was that war really had functioned that 10 Rosa L u xe m b u rg , The
way in the past. Junius Pamphlet, 1915.
Earl i e r than anyo n e
Indeed, in the 1 860s and 70s wars of national consolida­ else, s h e s a w precise­
tion had ushered in a period of rapid growth for the labour ly what was com i n g :
m ovement. Social Democratic parties and Anarch ist 'Another s u c h world
federations were founded throughout Europe (and even war and the outlook
beyond, e.g. in Argentina). Movement strategists knew for social i s m w i l l be
their success was tied to the framework of the nation. buried beneath the
If the acc u m u lation of capital was the m u lt i p l ication r u b b le.'

Endnotes 4 112
of the proletariat, then the strength of the nation was 1 1 Eric H o bsbawm, Age
the degree of organ isation of its working class : "the of Capital (Vintage
alternative to a 'national' pol itical consciousness was 1 996) p. 93.
not, i n p ractice, 'worki n g class i nternational i s m ' , but
a sub-political consciousness which sti l l operated on 12 Len i n , Sta te and
a scale much smaller than, or i rrelevant to, that of the Revolution. (Haymar­
nation-state" . 1 1 The Jabo u r movement swelled with the ket 201 5) p. 48.
consol idation of national lang uages and cultures, both
of which were i n large part effects of public education
(and the associated g rowth in l iteracy), as wel l as of rail
networks. The l i n k between the fate of the nation and
that of the class was clearest for those sections of the
workers' movement that were able to contest national
elections. Of course, these were the very same sections
that patriotically voted for war credits in 1 9 1 4.

Here is the point: in many ways, it was state-Jed infra­

structure building, in the context of national development,
that created a g rowing role for parl iaments. Those par­
l iaments had the power of the purse. They control led
taxation. It was because states were able to raise taxes
regularly, via parliaments, that they were able to borrow
on bond markets to fund their i nfrastructure projects :
"The maintenance of the special public power standing
above society req u i res taxes and state loans" . 1 2 Th us, it
was in the interest of the old reg ime to share power with
national parl iaments, i n order to foster development. In
return, the old reg ime got a massive boost to its m i l itary
power. As a result the importance of parl iament rose
stead ily (even t h o u g h the levels of taxation i nvolved
remained low, com pared to what would become pos­
sible in the course of the World Wars).

That was why it was worthwhile for the workers' move­

ment to break i nto parliaments. From the perspective
of the middle of the nineteenth centu ry, that workers
might have representatives in governm ent was a fool's
d ream . H owever, by t h e cent u ry's e n d , E n g e l s was
publ icly cal l i n g for a peacefu l t ransition to social ism.

A History o f Separation Part 2: Infrastructure 113

The ballot box replaced the barricade : "the two m i l l i o n 13 Friedrich E n g e l s ,
voters whom [the SPD sends] to the ballot box, together ' I ntroduction to Karl
with the young men and women who stand behind them M arx's The Class
as non-voters, form the most n umerous, most compact Stru g g l e s i n France,
mass, the d ecisive ' s h ock force' of the i nternational 1 848-50, 1895, (MECW
proletarian army:' 1 3 The peaceful victory of social ist 27) p. 522.
electoral parties seemed all but assu red (even if it might
be necessary to rout the counter-revolution by force) : 1 4 H o b s b aw m , Age of
Empire, p. 1 1 7.
It was o n l y a q uest i o n of t i m e , accord i n g to sys­
tematic and stat istically m inded German social ists,
before these parties would pass the magic fig u re of
51 percent of the votes, which i n democratic states,
m ust s u rely be the turn i n g point. 1 4

That hope survived down to the Great War. After the war,
attem pts to rol l back constitutionalism and democracy
p roved successfu l (especially in Central, Eastern , and
Southern Europe, where both were of recent vi ntage) ;
by contrast, before the war, the expansion of the fran­
chise t h rough struggle had seemed inevitable. Social
Democracy became the dominant form of the workers'
movement in cou ntries where workers had been enfran­
chised. In states where workers had n ot won the vote,
they could look to those where workers had, i n order
to see their own futu re emerg i n g i n the p resent. I n that
way, stagism extended itself: Russia looked to Germany
as a model, both econom ically and pol itically.

As it tu rned out, the trajectories of late-late developing

countries d i d not actually rep l i cate those of the late
developing ones. Outside of Western E u rope, m ove­
ments had to h ave a m o re revolutionary orientat i o n ,
since the old regime was more resistant to recognising
workers' interests. Anarchism was strongest in Southern
and Eastern Europe for that reason (and also because,
there, advance was i mpossible without the peasantry).
But stagism was also wrong for another reason : with the
further advance of the technolog ical frontier, catch-up

Endnotes 4 114
was no longer possible on the basis of late develop- 15 A l l e n , Global Eco­
ment: " I n the 20th century, the policies that had worked nomic History, p. 2.
in Western E u rope, especially in Germany, and the
U SA proved less effective in countries that had not yet
developed:' 1 5 The only way forward was through big
push i n d ustrial isation. As we w i l l see later, the latter
req u i red not all iances with the old reg ime, but rather its
l i q u idation as the very precondition of catch-up g rowth.

I N T E G R AT I N G WO R K E R S I N TO T H E P O L I T Y

A s the workers' movement developed with in national 16 Kauts ky, The Class
zones of acc u m ulation, it also fractured (that was true Struggle ( N o rton 1971)
even before the G reat War broke the movement apart).
The movement became destabi l ised because - at least 17 This i s , of course,
i n the most "advanced" capital ist cou ntries - it proved w h e re Len i n gets h i s
possi ble to ameliorate workers' conditions via national i d e a that left com-
development in a way that dispelled workers' revo l u ­ m u n i s m i s an i nfant i l e
tionary energies. Reform a n d revol ution s p l i t off from d i sorder: h e sees it
one another. Social Democrats had i n itially arg ued that as an early form of
such a split was i m possible: socialist conscious­
n e s s , rather than a
The elevation of the working-class brought about by l ate o n e .
the class-struggle is more moral than economic. The
i n d u strial conditions of the proletariat i m p rove but
slowly, if at all. But the self-respect of the proletar­
ians mounts hig her, as does also the respect paid
them by the other classes of society. They begi n to
regard themselves as the equals of the u pper classes
and to com pare the conditions of the other strata of
society with their own . They make g reater demands
on society [wh ich society is unable to fill] . . . increasing
discontent among the proletarians. 1 6

Accord ing to Kautsky, it was a " ch i l d ren's d isease" to

t h i n k that reforms would m ake exploitation more pal­
atabl e ; reforms were necessary for the revolutionary
effort - they afforded workers a l ittle security, so they
could focus on o rgan ising for the final battle. 1 7

A History of Separation Part 2: Infrastructure 115

Kautsky could say so only because, l i ke all Second
I nternationalists, he sti l l believed in the Kladderadatsch,
the coming collapse of the system, which was going
to u nfold regard less of what reforms were won . The
onset of the First G reat Depression, i n 1 873, seemed
to confirm that belief. In the cou rse of the Depression,
capital centralised to an extrem e degre e ; it concen­
trated in industrial combi nes, l i n ked together through
cartels. On that basis, social ists annou nced that prole­
tarians - along with most capitalists, peasants, artisans
and small-busi ness owners - would soon fi nd them­
selves th rown out onto the street.

The connection socialists perceived between ind ustrial

concentration and unemployment was the key to their
revo l utionary positio n : tech n i cal d evelopment would
force capitalists to replace men with machines. In socie­
ties organised around the capital ist mode of production,
that red uction necessarily issued i n unemployment for
many people. As it tu rned out, further technical develop­
ment i n the infrastructu ral industries did not generate
unem ployment, especially in large man ufacturing com­
b i n es. I n stead , the g rowth of the productive forces
created jobs - and even more so after the end of the
First G reat Depression in 1 89 6 .

Simpl ifying somewhat, w e can explain this phenomenon

as follows. Although there were huge technical advances
in production in the cou rse of the nineteenth century,
few such advances took place in assembly. Here, human
hands were sti l l needed. As a resu lt, i nfrastructu ral
i n d u stries absorbed h u g e q u antities of both capital
and labo u r. They req u i red a small army of engineers,
but also a large army of h i red hands, who actually put
together all the p recision-made parts. Moreover, the
infrastructu ral industries were organised in such a way
that whenever those hands obstructed the assembly
process, they forced mach ines worth h u g e amounts
of money to stand idle. Development thus created not

Endnotes 4 116
i mpoverish ment, but the possibil ity for some workers to 18 Pau l M attick, ' Karl
win h igher wages through work stoppages. Kautsky: from M arx
to H itler' (1 939),
U nder these changed econom ic-political conditions it in A n ti-Bolshe vik
was moreover the case that some workers were able Comm unism ( M e rl i n
to win d i g n ity while remain i n g tethered to capital. Thus, 1 978), p. 4 . I n t h i s dark
the worki ng class was no longer the class with rad ical m o m ent, M attick
chains - the class as a p u rely negative force which c l a i m e d : 'Science
was going to rise u p and negate society. I nstead , the for the workers,
working class was integrated, slowly and haltingly (and , l iteratu re for the
it should be added, far from completely), into society as workers , schools
a positive force for change. As Pau l Mattick arg ued in for the workers,
1 93 9 : "consciously and u nconsciously, the old labour partici pation i n all the
movement [came to see] i n the capital ist expansion i n stitutions of capital­
process its own road to g reater welfare and recogni­ ist society - th i s and
tion. The more capital flourished, the better were the n oth i n g m o re was
worki ng cond itions:' 1 8 the real d e s i re of the
moveme nt.'
The consequences of this new situation were i m mense :
the organisations of the workers' movement were able to 19 Przewo r s k i , Capital-
gain recog nition as part of society, and they won gains ism and Social De-
for their mem bers on that basis. H owever, to accept mocra cy, p. 1 5 .
social recognition req u i red that they no longer promote
revolution as their goal. It wasn't possible to accept the
constitutional framework and s i m u ltaneously, to arg ue
for its overth row. That risked t h e poss i b i l ity that the
movement m i g ht lose its recognition and therefore also
the gains that it had won : "the choice between 'legal'
and 'extra-parl iamentary' tactics had to be made." 1 9 This
d i lemma was clearest i n the case of the u n ions, the key
molecules that make up the collective worker.

L A B O U R L E A D E R S A N D T H E R A N K-A N D - F I L E

The main problem faced by un ions was the same as that 20 Przewo rs k i , Capital-
faced by every o rgan isation of workers : "class i nterest ism and Social De-
is something attached to workers as a collectivity rather mocracy, p. 20.
than as a collection of i n d ividuals, their 'group' rather
than 'serial ' interest:' 20 Workers' class i nterest had to

A History of Separation Part 2: Infrastructure 117

be instantiated in some way. Towards that end, u n ions
created organs to punish behaviours that m axim ised
individual well-being (e.g. scabbing) at the expense of
the collective. They then began to exert power by th reat­
ening to withd raw collective labour, and sometimes, by
actually withdrawing it. Here was the crux of the issue :
in a context where u n ions set o u t t o i m p rove workers'
wages and conditions, while remaining roughly within
the bounds of legality, unions needed to demonstrate
not only a capacity to strike, but also a capacity not to
strike, so long as their demands were met. Otherwise,
they could not gain leverage.

For that reas o n , u n io n s had to deve l o p d is c i p l i nary

mechan isms which, in addition to suppressing behaviour
that maxim ised workers' serial i nterests, ensured that
the collective acted in line with negotiated settlements.
Developing such m echan isms did n ot necessitate a
stable separation between an organisational leader­
ship and the ran k and file. H owever, that separation
could be avoided only where ran k and file m i l itancy was
continuously operating. S ince struggles tended to ebb
and flow, the only way for u n ions to remain effective,
over time, was to build formal structu res that allowed
negotiators to appear as if they had the capacity to turn
rank and file m i l itancy on and off at will (when in fact,
they could do neither).

At this point, the interests of leaders and of the rank and

file d iverged. Rank and file m i l itancy became a l iabil ity,
except when under the strict control of the leadership.
Meanwhile, the leaders h i p became a permanent staff
paid from u n i o n d u es, and no l o n g e r d e p e n d e d o n
employers f o r wages. Leaders' interests were increas­
ingly identified, n ot with the defense of u n i o n mem bers,
but with the survival of the u n ions. Leaders thus tended
to avoi d confrontations with e m p l oyers that put the
future of the union at risk. In this way, su bstantive reform,
let alone revolution, became an increasingly d istant goal .

Endnotes 4 118
The very organisations that workers had b u i lt u p to 21 I b i d , p. 15.
make the revolution possible - the o rganisations that
instantiated the collective worker - became an i m pedi-
ment to revolution. For "a party oriented toward partial
i m p rovements, a party i n which leader-representatives
lead a petit-bourgeois l ifestyle, a party that for years
h as shied away from the streets cannot ' po u r through
the hole i n the trenches', as G ramsci put it, even when
this opening is forged by a crisis:' 2 1 From here on out,
revolution emerged not as an i nternal tendency of capi-
talist development, but rather, as an external effect of
geopolitics. Revolutions occurred only where capital -
ist development destabi lised national frameworks of
accumulation, p itting nation-states against one another.

In the backg round was also this g nawing predicament:

as the productive forces developed, it became increas­
i n g ly d ifficult to know what it wou l d mean to win, to
run all these massive apparatuses i n the interest of the
workers. Just as the galaxy, when seen dimly, appears as
a single point of l i g ht, but when seen up close turns out
to consist mostly of empty space - so too the produc­
tive forces of capital ist society, when seen i n m i n i ature,
appeared to g ive b i rth to the collective worker, but on
a larger scale, gave b i rth only to the separated society.

A D D E N D U M ON C LASS I D E N T I T Y

The workers' movement p ro m oted the development

of the productive forces as a means of p ressing the
collective worker into being, as a compact mass. As
it tu rned out, the extension and i ntensification of the
factory system fai l ed to h ave the desired effect; the
collective worker really existed o n ly i n and t h ro u g h
t h e activity o f the workers' movement itself. B u t the
med iations of the workers' movement did make work­
ers' collective interest into something real. As we h ave
argued, unions and parties constructed a working class
identity as a key feature of their o rgan ising efforts. This

A History of Separation Part 2: Infrastructure 119

22 ' I t is al ways in the
h e art of the worker
aristocracy that a
h e g e m o n i c fraction
fo rms, presenti n g it­
self as the proletariat
and affi r m i n g the
proletarian capacity
to organise another
social order, start i n g
w i t h the s k i l l s a n d
val u e s f o r m e d i n its
work and its str u g g l e.'
J acq u e s Ranci ere,
' Les m a i l l o n d e l a
chai ne'. Les Re vo/tes
Logiques #2, S p r i n g ­
S u m m e r 1 976, p. 5 .
Endnotes 4
is not to say that class u n ity, or the identity with which
it was associated , was somehow merely i mposed by
union and party leaderships; that unity and identity were
i ntegral to the project of the labo u r movement itself, in
which m i l l ions of workers partici pated.
Within the labour movement, workers claimed that the
class identity they promoted and affirmed really was
universal in character. It supposedly subsu med all work­
ers, regard less of their specific qual ities : as mothers,
as recent i m m i g rants, as oppressed nationalities, as
u nmarried men (and at the outermost l i m i t : as disabled,
as homosexuals, and so on). In fact, the supposedly uni­
versal identity that the worker's movement constructed
tu rned out actually to be a particular one. It su bsumed
workers o n ly i nsofar as they were stamped, o r were
willing to be stam ped, with a very particular character.
That is to say, it included workers not as they were in
themselves, but only to the extent that they conformed
to a certain i mage of respectabil ity, dign ity, hard work,
fam ily, organisation, sobriety, atheism, and so on. 22
Earl ier, we exam ined the historical genesis of this par­
ticular class identity - in the struggle against the old
reg ime, and with the expansion of the infrastructural
ind ustries. It is possible to imagine that, i n changed
conditions, certain particu lar featu res of this identity
may have tu rned out d ifferently. To be sure, even with in
E u rope, o n e wou l d find many c o m pletely contrad ic­
tory characteristics ascribed to workers as a class in
d ifferent national and reg ional contexts. I n that regard ,
h owever, we should exercise some caution. Even i n
the U n ited States, where u n iversal manhood suffrage
was ach ieved early, and there was no old reg i m e to
defeat, a worker's identity was sti l l constructed in the
late nineteenth century around a sim ilar set of markers :
productivity, d i g nity, solidarity, personal responsibil ity.
In a nation of i m m i g rants, where African and N ative
Americans were at the bottom of the social hierarchy,
120
23 Capital i sts can also
express their particu-
lar i nterests in p h i lan-
thropic sett i n g s : they
damage o r d e stroy
in one m o m e n t that
w h i c h th ey, with g reat
fanfare, atte m pt to
re medy in the next.
24 Claus Offe and H e l -
m u t Wiesenthal, 'Two
Log i c s of C o l l ective
Action' i n Offe, Dis-
organized Capitalism
(M1T 1985), p. 179.
A History of Separation
wh iteness represented an additional marker, sometimes
complimenting class identity and sometimes com pet-
ing with it. The latter partly explains the weakness of a
worker's identity in the us, and its earl ier dem ise. But
it also points to the deeper structu ral factors that gave
rise to that identity, in spite of vast national and cultural
d ifferences.
There was something necessary, someth ing spontane­
ous, in the narrowing of the class identity that took place
in the workers' movement. The key point here is that the
collective interests of workers can not be determ ined
sim ply by add i n g up their serial interests as ind ividuals.
This fact distinguishes workers from capitalists, and also
puts the former at a disadvantage in negotiations. After
al l , the col lective i nterests of capital ists are, to a large
extent, simply a matter of arithmetic (or more accurately,
a m atter of solving com plex systems of e q u at i o n s) :
costs m ust b e kept a s low a s possible, while keeping
p rofits as h i g h as possible. There aren't, for exam ple,
environmentalist capitalists and feminist capitalists, who
come to blows with other capitalists over the way a
com pany s h o u l d be ru n . S uch considerations come
i nto play only insofar as they do not affect a com pany's
bottom line. 23
Workers, by contrast, face m uch harder sorts of calcula­
tions: " h ow m uch i n wages, for instance, can ' rational ly'
be g iven up in exchange for which amount of increase
in job satisfaction? The answer to this q uestion can­
not be found by any calcu lus that could be objectively
applied ; it can only be found as the result of the col­
lective deli beration of the mem bers of the [workers']
organisation!' 24 The answers that any particular workers
might g ive to such a question depend on their individual
p references, as well as on the vagaries of their situa­
t i o n s : you n g u n married men h ave d ifferent interests
from single mothers.
Part 2: Infrastructure 121
25 Offe and Wiesenthal,
'Two Log i c s of C o l l ec­
tive Action', p. 183.
26 Offe and Wiesenthal,
'Two Log i c s of C o l l ec-
tive Action', p . 184.
27 Anyone who par-
t i c i pated i n O c c u py
can see that: if u n ity
of demands is to
be o bta i n e d across
d iverse secti o n s a n d
then presented to
the worl d - without a
shared i d entity - that
can be ach i eved o n l y
thro u g h an e n d l e s s
d e l i berat i o n , and/or
at the cost of m any
people not g ett i n g
what they want.
2a Offe, 'Two L o g i c s
of C o l lective Acti o n ',
p. 183.
29 For a deve l o p m e nt of
this point in relat i o n
to a s pecific con-
temporary stru g g l e ,
see ' G at h e r U s From
A m o n g the N at i o n s',
i n this issue, pp.
210-14.
Endnotes 4
And yet, to deli berate every point, to reach some sort
of consensus or compromise, which would ensure that
every worker got at least something they wanted , would
m a ke workers' organisation d ifficult. The "costs" of
organ ising would be too g reat. The solution is to be
found i n the formation of a collective identity: "only to
the extent that associations of the relatively powerless
succeed i n the formation of a collective identity, accord-
ing to the standards of wh ich the costs of organisation
are subjectively deflated , can they hope to change the
origi nal power relation:' 2 5 That is precisely what the
u n ions ach ieved , by promoting the workers' identity: by
getting workers to perceive their i nterests through this
identity-lens, the u n ions " s i m ultaneously express[ed]
and defi ne[d] the i nterests of the members:' 2 6
I n d ividual workers had to recogn ise the u n ion as acting
in their i nterests, i n a broad sense, even when their own,
particular interests were not being served by the union's
bargaining strategies. This is a feature of all routin ised,
demand-based stru g g l e : insofar as a collective wants
to make demands, and i n that sense, to engage i n a
sort of bargain i n g , the members of that collective must
either share an i m mediate i nterest, or else they must
be capable of form ing an identity to plug gaps among
their overlapping interests (paradoxically i ntrod ucing a
non-utilitarian element into a demands-based strug ­
gle). 27 I t is because workers' organisations had t o partly
redefine interests i n order to meet them that they were
forced to rely o n " n o n - u t i l itarian forms of collective
action", based on "collective identities". 28 I n deed, the
capacity for demand-making i n a g iven struggle may be
g rasped as structurally l i n ked with its capacity to d raw
u pon an existing - or forge a new - collective identity;
demand-making and composition are two sides of the
same coin. 2 9
I n the context of t h e w orkers' movement, t h i s point
appl ies not only to negotiations with bosses, but also
122
 to the expansion of pol itical parties, and to the g rowth
of all other organisations existing in u rban environments
fu l l of ex-peasants and/or recent i m m i g rants. The sheer
n u m be r and d i ve rs ity of situations makes it hard to
decide on common " i ntermed iate" goals (that is, prior
to the conquest of power). But even if this wasn't a
problem, the costs of organ ising remain h i g h in other
ways. Workers have few monetary resources ; they pay
the costs of the class struggle mostly with their time and
effort Goining a demo, attending a meeting, stri king). If
one has to work 1 2 hour days, or to look after children,
as most women workers did, all of this is extremely d if­
ficult. Moreover, there is no way for workers to monitor
each other's contri butions. Together with the sheer
size of the movement, that creates massive collective
action problems. We see this in the moral centre of
the workers' movement - cultivating a sense of duty,
solidarity - but also in the means of d iscip l i n e - the
closed shop, attacks on scabs. Even with these assets,
the attraction of workers' organ isations varied g reatly,
as d i d t h e i r organisat i o nal capacities. It sti l l usually
took a tragedy, such an industrial fi re or a massacre by
com pany goons, to bring the majority of workers out
onto the street.

A History of Separation Part 2: Infrastructure 123

3 T H E F RACTU R I N G O F TH E W O R K E RS ' M OV E M E N T

Workers believed that if they partook in the terrifying 1 El ey, Forging Oemoc-
march of progress, then the slaughter bench of h istory racy, p. 75.
wou l d cut down their enem ies. The development of
industrial civi lisation would propel workers into a posi- 2 I b i d . , p. 83.
tion of power. It was certainly true that in the decades
before the G reat War, trends seemed to be moving in
the right direction. In the first decade of the 20th century,
workers streamed en masse i nto organisations b u i lt
aro u n d an affi rmable workers' identity. Social Demo-
cratic parties went from netting thousands of votes - as
a minority formation with in the workers' movement - to
acq u i ring m i l l ions, as that movement's main line.

Meanwh i le , i n s o m e c o u ntries, u n i o n m e m b e rs h i p
s u rged : " By 1 9 1 3 , British u n ions had added rou g h ly
3 . 4 m i l l i o n , German u n ions j u st under 3 . 8 m i l l i o n , and
French around 900,000 workers to their membership of
the late 1 8 8 0s. U n ions finally i nvaded the factory floor,
as against the b u i l d i n g site, coal m i n e , and small work­
shop, where they al ready had a p resence." 1 The class
had become a force to be reckoned with, and knew it.

Revolutionaries' belief that trends wou l d continue to

m ove i n t h e i r favou r was e n s h r i n e d i n the p o l i cy of
abstention ism. Social Democratic parties became the
largest factions in parl iaments, even if they remained in
the minority; but those parties abstained from participat­
ing in government. They refused to ru le alongside their
enem ies, choosing i n stead to wait patiently for their
m aj ority to arrive : "This policy of abstention i m p l ied
enormous confidence i n the future, a steadfast bel ief
i n the inevitable worki ng-class majority and the ever­
expanding power of social ism's working-class support." 2
But that inevitabil ity never came to pass.

Endnotes 4 124
T H E E XT E R N A L L I M I T S O F T H E WO R K E RS ' M OV E M E N T

The industrial workers never became t h e majority o f soci- 3 I b i d . , p. 48.

ety: "Even as ind ustrial labour reached its furthest extent,
long-term restructuring was already tipping employment 4 Eric H o b s baw m , Age
toward wh ite-col lar and other jobs i n services." 3 That of Capital, p. 1 36.
was the movement's external l i m it : it was always too
early for the workers' movement, and when it was not s I n many countries,
too early, it was al ready too late. the peak was m u c h
l ower, a t aro u n d
It was too early because the old reg ime persisted, i n 30-35 p e rcent of the
all i t s forms, despite the g rowi ng strength o f the i n d us­ workforce.
trial worki ng class. At the end of the 1 9th centu ry, "it
was undeniable that, except for G reat Britai n , the p ro­
letariat was not - social ists confidently claimed, ' not
yet' - anything l i ke a maj ority of the popu lation." 4 The
stal led g rowth of the working class was reflected i n the
obstinate continuance of peasants in the cou ntryside,
and i n the tenacious holding-on of artisans and small
shopkeepers i n cities. It was also reflected i n apparent
quantitative lim its to the movement's g rowt h : the u n ions
were far from organ i s i n g t h e m aj ority of t h e p o p u la­
tion ; Social Democratic voting percentages remained
below 51 percent. Looki n g over these n u m bers, the
parties decided to wait. And wait they d i d , even during
those moments when the class b ucked and tried to
tram ple its riders. S u p posed ly, h istory would take its
course - this was g uaranteed. H owever, h istory took
an u n expected turn.

Almost as soon as the old reg ime was cleared away, the
semi-skilled ind ustrial working class stopped g rowing.
It then went i nto an u narrested decl ine. At fi rst it did
so only relative to the total workforce. But then, i n the
1 980s and 90s, and in nearly every high-income country,
it declined absolutely. As a resu lt, the industrial workers
never made up more than, at most, 4 0-45 percent of
the total workforce. 5 A growing mass of private service
workers expand e d a l o n g s i d e the i n d u strial workers

A History of Separation Part 3: Fracturing 125

and then overtook them as the largest fraction of the 6 O n the s pecificity o f
workforce . 6 L i kewise, many u rban-dwe l l e rs came to service l a b o u r, see
find e m ployment i n the p u b l ic sector - civil servants, section 5.2 bel ow.
teachers, etc - or else l ived by neither wage nor sal-
ary : students, benefits claimants etc. All these g ro u ps 7 G eoff E l ey, Forging
were supposed to fal l i nto the proletariat, but instead Democracy, p. 48.
the proletariat fell i nto them.

That was the case, i n spite of the fact that more and
more of the world's popu lation was made dependent
on the wage. But for the most part, this wage-earn ing
popu lation d i d n ot fin d work i n i n d u stry. The appear­
ance of factories i n some places did n ot presage their
appearance everywhere : " Dynamism actually requ i red
backward ness in [a] d ialectic of d e p e n d e n cy:' 7 The
success of the workers' movement - in single-industry
towns, or ind ustrial cities - was not the real isation of
the futu re in the present. The co-existence of massive
factories and small shops was not a bug, but rather, a
permanent feature of the system.

H owever, the d e e p e r reas o n s for workers' a b i d i n g

non-maj ority are t o b e fou n d i n t h e "laws o f motion" of
capital's dynamic. The key point, here, is that capital
develops the productive forces in and through a massive
increase in labo u r productivity. This has contrad ictory
resu lts with respect to the demand for labou r : rising
output causes employment to g row; rising productivity
causes it to shrink. The balance between the two then
dete r m i n es the g rowth of t h e demand for labou r. In
the heyday of industrial isatio n , labo u r productivity rose
qu ickly. However, industrial output rose more quickly, so
industrial employment expanded. As we explore below,
this overall relationship was reversed in the latter half
of the twentieth centu ry : output g rowth rates fel l below
rates of productivity growth; industrial employment growth
steadily declined as a resu lt. But even in the earlier period
the balance between g rowth of output and g rowth of
prod uctivity presented real l i m its to the workers' power.

Endnotes 4 126
Employment in many of the lead ing-edge industries of a On t h i s conce pt, see
the pre-WWI period - such as textiles and steel, where ' M i s e ry and Debt' i n
workers had achieved t h e most gains - ceased t o keep Endnotes 2, A p r i l
pace with the g rowth of the labo u r force after WWI. 2010.
S o m e i n d u stries even laid off m o re than t h ey h i re d .
Meanwh i l e , new sectors, l i ke c o n s u m e r goods and
automobi les, picked u p some of the burden of generat-
ing employment in industry, but it took time for u n ions
to organise t h e m . M oreover, since they began a t a
high level of mechanisation, the expansion of these
industries was less employment enhancing than the
growth of earlier industries had been, for exam ple, in
the m i d and late n ineteenth centu ries. Here was the
phenomenon of tech nological ratcheting, and relatively
decl i n i n g demand for labo u r, which Marx, i n the fi rst
volume of Capital, termed the rising organ ic composition
of capital. 8 I n every country the industrial share of total
employment remained resolutely below the 5 0 percent
mark requ i red to ach ieve a majority. Even i n the most
industrialised cou ntries (the U K , Germany), it did not
inch above 45 percent.

T H E I N T E R N A L L I M I T S OF T H E M OV E M E N T

External l i m its set boundaries on the g rowth o f the work­

ers' movement by l i m iting the size of the m ovement's
constituency. H owever, the movement faced i nternal
limits as wel l : only a portion of the proletariat ever identi­
fied with the programme of the workers ' movement. That
was because many proletarians affirmed their non-class
identities - organ ised primarily around race and nation,
but secondarily around gender, ski l l and trade - above
their class identity. They saw their interests as adding up
differently, depending on which identity they favou red.

To speak of a "class identity" i n this way would have

seemed to the theorists of the workers' movement to be
a sort of contrad iction i n terms. They saw identity and
class as opposed concepts. Class was su pposed to be

A History of Separation Part 3: Fracturing 127

 the essence of what people were ; to identify primarily 9 G eoff E l ey, Forging
with one's class was to have " class-consciousness". Democracy, p. 51 .
To identify oneself along some other line was to have
"false consciousness". Non-class identities were seen
as inessential traits which d ivided workers against one
another, and so also as against their real i nterests (that
is, their class interests). But it was only from i nside
the workers' movement that the h o rizontal strug g l e
between political groups, organ ised around d ifferent
identities, was perceived as a vertical struggle between
a depth category - the class essence - and a variety
of su rface categories.

The worker's identity could function as a depth category

because it seemed to be at the same time both a par­
ticu lar and universal identity. The particular identity was
that of the sem i-ski lled, male i n d u strial worker: "The
worki ng class was identified too easily with the wage
relationship in a pure form : the authentic worker, the true
proletarian , was the factory worker", and we might add ,
more specifical ly, t h e m a l e factory worker. 9 Although it
often held their needs to be secondary, the movement
did not ignore wome n : among workers, Engel's Origins
of Private Property, the Family and the State, and August
Bebel's Women and Socialism were more popular than
Marx's Capital. Of course, women did work i n factories,
particularly in l ight industry (textiles, electron ics assem­
bly), and were often important labour organisers.

Yet it remained the case that the particular identity of the

sem i-ski lled, male ind ustrial worker was seen as having
a u n iversal sign ificance: it was only as the industrial
working class that the class approximated the collective
worker, the class in-and-for-itself. This significance was
not just political. During the ascendency of the workers'
movement it seemed that all non-class identities - even
gender, insofar as it served to separate out certain tasks
i nto male and female labours - were d issolving in the
vast army of semi-skil led factory workers.

Endnotes 4 128
The theorists of the workers' movement saw the collec­
tive worker emerging from the bowels of the factory and
envisaged the extension of this dynam ic to society as a
whole. Due to the d ivision of labour and the deskilling of
the worker, the sort of work that industrial workers did
was expected to become ever more fu ngible. The work­
ers themselves would become interchangeable, as they
were sh uffled from industry to industry, in accordance
with an ever changing demand for labour and for goods.
Moreover, i n the factories, workers would be forced to
work with many other members of their class, i rrespec­
tive of " race" , gender, national ity, etc. Capital ists were
expected to pack all sorts of workers into their g igantic
combines: the capital ist interest in turning a profit would
overcome all u n profitable prejud ices in hiring and fi ring,
forcing the workers to do the same. As a result, workers'
sectional interests would be short-circuited. Here were
the solids melting i nto air, the hol ies profaned.

I n real ity, the homogen isation that seemed to be tak­

ing place i n the factory was always partial. Workers
became i nterchangeable parts in a g iant mach i n e ;
however, that mach ine tu rned o u t t o b e vastly complex.
That i n itself opened u p many opportun ities for pitting
different g ro u ps against each other. I n u s auto plants,
black workers were concentrated in the fou n d ry, the
d i rtiest work. Southern Italians equally fou n d t h e m ­
selves seg regated f r o m N o rtherners i n the plants o f
Turin and Milan. Such segregation may appear inefficient,
for employers, si nce it restricts the pool of potential
workers for any g iven post. But as long as the relevant
popu lations are large enough, employers are able to
seg ment the labour market and d rive down wages. If
d ifferential sets of i nterests among workers could be
created by the i nternal d ivisions wit h i n the plant (as in
Toyota-isation), so m uch the better. Capitalists were
content for the labouring population to remain d iverse
and incommensurable in all sorts of ways, especially
when it undermined workers' organ ising efforts.

A History of Separation Part 3: Fracturing 129

G iven t h at t h e expected h o m o g e neity of t h e s e m i - 10 See t h e i m portance
skilled workforce fai led to fully realise itself, it became of M eth o d i s m for the
part of the task of the workers' movement to realise E n g l i s h l a b o u r m ove-
that homogeneity by other means. As we saw above, m e nt. Pro h i bition
organ isation req u i res an affirmab/e identity, an i mage of was a key p l a n k of
working class respectabi l ity and dign ity. When workers Keir Hardi e's o r i g i n a l
failed to fit t h i s m o l d , the cham pions of the workers' Labour party.
movement became cham pions of self-transformat i o n .
The workers' movement was a sect - with D I Y , straight- 11 E l ey, Forging Democ-
edge sensibil ities, a particu lar style of d ress, etc. 1 0 Yet racy, p. 82.
the pred icates of the dign ified worker (male, d isciplined,
atheist, expressing a thirst for scientific knowledge and 12 The m ove ment o p -
pol itical education, etc.) were often d rawn by analogy posed itself to a l l
to the val ues of bourgeois society. "The party activists forms of m a i n stream
wanted to l ive worthy, u pstan d i n g , m o ral, moderate, p o p u l a r c u l t u re,
and d isci p l i ned l ives: on the one hand, to show the which were o n l y j u s t
worke rs who were not yet organised a good exam p l e ; a p p e a r i n g a t the
on the other h a n d , to show bourgeois society that o n e t i m e , s i n c e the l atter
was u p to all tasks, that one deserved g o o d stan d i n g kept proletarians at
and respect:• 1 1 I n o t h e r words, party activists were h o m e , rat h e r than
q u ite often ki l ljoys. 1 2 out o n the streets,
where they were
It is easy to point out that there were many workers to s u s ce pti b l e to soap­
whom such a self-understanding could never appeal. box sermons and
The i nternal l i m it of the workers' movement was the entreaties to enter
l i m it of workers' capacity o r desire to identify as work­ socialist o r anarc h i s t
ers, to affirm that identity as something positive, but m eeti n g s . The s u c­
m o re than t h at , as s o m et h i n g essential, s o m et h i n g cess of m a i n stream
that fundamentally defi ned w h o they were. That meant forms of e nterta i n ­
that the workers' movement came to include always ment - above a l l the
only a fraction of the working class. On the outside c i n e m a, rad i o and tel­
there forever remained "the su perstitious and relig iously ev i s i o n - goes a long
devout, the sexually transg ressive, the frivolous young, way to explai n i n g the
the ethn ically different and other marg inalised minorities, eventual d e ath of
and the rou g h workin g class of criminal subcultures, those forms of l i fe on
casual ised l a b o u r m a rkets a n d t h e m i g rant p o o r:' 1 3 which the affirmat i o n
Pol itical factions arose that tried to appeal to workers of a workers' i d e ntity
o n the basis of some of t hese i dentities, w h i c h t h e was based.
workers' movement left o u t . Thus the movement found

Endnotes 4 130
itself com peting with national ist, Ch ristian or Catholic 13 Eley, Forging Oemoc-
parties. But it was nevertheless the case that, in the ra cy, p. 83.
era of the workers' movement, all those factions found
that they had to defi ne themselves with respect to the
workers' identity i n order to matter at all. The workers'
movement hegemonised the pol itical field (even if from
the sidelines of official politics).

S T R AT E G I E S A R O U N D T H E L I M I T S

It was primarily in response to its external l i m it that the

workers' movement deve l o ped d ivergent strategies.
H ow were the workers going to overcome t h i s l i m it
and become the majority of society? In retrospect, we
can see the external l i m it as an absol ute barrier, but
it was i m possible to make that judgement d u ring the
era of i n d u strialisation. For workers, it seemed l i kely
that i n one way o r another ind ustrialisation would take
its cou rse, or else that by various means the forces of
production could be made to expand, thereby increasing
the size and u n ity of the proletariat. Of course, those
who believed that the project of the workers' movement
would never realise itself under existing conditions sim­
ply left the movement, entering one or another utopian
tendency l ost to history, or giving u p on pol itics.

For those who remained, the external l i m it presented

itself as a set of strategic quandaries. These debates
mostly concerned forms of struggle, as o pposed to
its content: ( 1 ) the form of revol ution - insu rrection or
the ballot box? (2) the form of the organisation - d irect
action or parliamentary and union representation? and
(3) the form of the state - tool of the ru ling classes or a
neutral instrument reflecting the balance of class forces?

In any case, the point for us is to see that the key stra­
teg ic debates of the workers' movement emerged i n
relation to the specific l i m its that movement faced. O u r
own strategic debates, in our t i m e , stand in relation t o

A History of Separation Part 3: Fracturing 131

 the l i m its we face or will face, which are rather d ifferent 14 T h i s is not, of c o u rse,
(th i s i ntuition should not be read as i m p ly i n g , pessi- to say that all tactics
mistical ly, that our l i m its will also turn out to have been and strate g i c devices
insurmountable barriers). Any attempt to reactivate the of that movement are
strateg ic horizon of the workers' movement today is u n iformly, absol utely
either based on a false read ing of a similarity between mori b u n d . U n i o n s
eras, or else it is a delicate and d ifficult leap across the obviously sti l l exist
chasm of time, which knows itself to be such . 1 4 and i d entities and
tacti cs forged i n a
1) T H E WA I T I N G R O O M prev i o u s era can be
m o b i l ised in part i c u l a r
O n t h e right of t h e workers' m ovement, t h e social c a s e s . But it i s clearly
d e m o c rats were compelled to face the facts. They n o longer the case
were waiti n g for their time to come, but everywhere that those part i c u l a r
they h it ceilings in terms of voting percentages, often i n stances can be
sign ificantly below 51 percent. They decided that they i n s e rted with i n a
needed to prepare for the long road ahead . That meant, large-scale n arrative
in particular, holding their membership in check when at the oth er e n d of
the latter tried to j u m p the gun by risking the organ isa­ w h i c h l i e s some sort
tion's gains too soon in a "test of strength" . 1 5 Social of workers' soci ety,
democrats (and later, com m u n ist parties) were always to be arrived at via
motivated by this fear of the too soon. Instead of j u m p­ either refo rm or
ing the g u n , they would bide their time and moderate revo l u t i o n .
their demands in alliance with other classes. In the past,
social democratic parties had been strong enough to 15 A n t o n Pannekoek
have a share in power but did not take it based on the d i scussed the
pol icy of abstention. Now, they would beg in to use the d e bates aro u n d t h i s
power they had : it was time to make comprom ises, to p h rase i n ' M arxist
cut deals. Theory and Revo l u -
tionary Tactics,' 1912.
It was this compromising tendency that split the workers'
movement. To many workers, giving up on abstention­
ism and making all iances was a " betrayal " , signaling
in particular the corrod ing influences of other classes
(petit-bourgeois intellectuals), or of certain privi leged,
pro-im perial ist sectors of the worki ng class (the labour
aristocracy). I n fact, this turn with in social democracy
had more prosaic roots. In the first i nstance, it was the
only way to give the voters something to celebrate, once

Endnotes 4 132
voting percentages stopped rising so q u ickly. Second, 16 Adam Przewo rski,
and more importantly, once the social democrats could 'Social D e m ocracy
see that they couldn't reach the crucial numerical major­ as a H i storical Phe-
ity on the basis of workers alone, it made sense that they n o m e n o n 1 • N L R 1/122 1
would beg in to look for voters elsewhere : social ists had J u ly-A u g u st 1980
to "choose between a party homogeneous in its class
appeal, but sentenced to perpetual electoral defeats, 11 C .f. Amadeo Bord i g a ,
and a party that strugg les for electoral success at the 'The Revo l u t i o n -
cost of d i l uting its class character." 1 6 Increasing ly, all a r y Programme o f
social democratic parties chose the latter. The " people" C o m m u n ist Society
tended to be substituted for the worki ng class (although E l i m i n ates All Forms
social democratic rhetoric also tended to fl i p back, at of Owners h i p of Land,
crucial moments), with victory over the old reg ime within the I n s t r u m e nts of
g rasp, democracy became an end in itself. Social ists Prod uction and the
dropped any reference to violence, and then eventual ly, Prod u cts of Labour'
to revolution, in order to establ ish themselves in parlia­ (Partito Comunista
ment, h u n kering down for the long road ahead . lnternazionale 1 957).

The problem is that appeal ing to the people req u i res 18 Przewo rski, Social
d i l uting the prog ram me. 1 7 Their expanded constituency Democracy as a His-
of small shopkeepers, peasants, and so on experienced torical Phenomenon.
the p ro b l e m s of m o d e rn ity in a n u m be r of d ifferent 'Social dem ocrat i c
ways that were d ifficult to add up. The parties became parties are no longer
containers for a set of sectional interests, tied together q u al itatively d i fferent
more by political maneuvering than by any internal coher­ from oth e r part i e s ;
ence. The social democrats were forced to fight over c l a s s loyalty is no
the centre with other parties, national ist and religious: l o n g e r the stro n g est
"as class identification [became] less salient, social ist base of self- i d e ntifi­
parties [lost] their u n i q u e appeal to workers." 1 8 Thus cat i o n . Wo rkers see
even with an expanded constituency, they still struggled society as com posed
to attain the elusive 5 1 -percent majority. of i n d ivid u al s ; t h ey
view themselves
The social d e m ocrat i c parties i n itially j u stified t h e i r as m e m bers of col­
reformism b y saying t h e t i m e was n o t yet ripe, b u t start­ lectivities oth e r than
ing from the 1 950s they g radually d ropped the idea of class; they behave
socialisation of the means of prod uction altogether. They politically on the ba­
had come to see this move as not necessarily a retreat. s i s of re l i g i o u s , eth n i c ,
This is because, for many social democrats, a worki ng reg i o n a l , or s o m e
class party at the helm of the state is socialism, or at other affi n i ty. They

A History of Separation Part 3: Fracturing 133

 least, all that is left of this idea: the state o rganises all become Cath o l i c s ,
the activities of the working class, not via their separate Southerners , Fran­
interests as workers in different factories or sectors, but cophones, o r s i m ply
rather, as a whole, as the col lective worker, which then
hands down orders to the d ifferent sectors. The workers'
world, from this perspective, is not a far off d ream, but
an actually existing social democracy.

2) T H E R O M A N T I C R E VO L U T I O N A R I E S

I n the centre of the workers' movement were the roman- 19 Robert Allen, Global
tic revolutionaries. They arg ued that power should be Economic History.
seized now, precisely in order to complete the transition
that capital ism failed to prod uce. Thus the Bolsheviks
in Russia and the Maoists in China took it as their task
to ensure that the working class became a majority, in
spite of rather than i n l i n e with capitalist dynamics in
their "backward " cou ntries. I n order to achieve this goal,
the workers would h ave to c o m p l ete the b o u rgeois
revolution in place of a weak and servile bourgeoisie.

I n undertaking this task, the revolutionaries i n the poor

cou ntries confronted a real problem. Due to ongoing
capitalist development i n the West, the tech nological
frontier had continued to be driven outward . Catch up
became much more d ifficult to ach ieve. It was no longer
possible to catch u p to the tech nolog ical leaders in the
West by means of the "American System" . Allowing capi­
talist industries to develop on that basis would simply
take too lon g : catch up would take h u n d reds of years,
rather than decades. 1 9 Under these conditions, the only
way to advance was to suspend the logic of the market
completely. All the infrastructure and fixed capital had to
be b u i lt at once. Prices had to be artificially deflated to
their expected future level, a level that would not real ly
be achieved until the whole intercon nected industrial
system had been more or less entirely built up. This very
complex industrial strategy has been termed "big-push

Endnotes 4 134
i n d u strialisatio n " . 20 It was only possible in cou ntries 20 I b i d .
where extreme forms of plan n i n g were permissible.
21 See Robert A l l e n ,
Yevge n i Preobrazhensky, i n essence, d iscovered the From Farm t o Factory:
possi b i l ity of b i g - p u s h i n d u strialisat i o n , based on A Reinterpretation of
his analysis of M a rx's reproduction schemes. 2 1 He the Sovie t Industrial
developed his fi ndings i nto a new sort of anti-Marxist Re volution ( Prin ceton
Marxism : catch- u p d evelopment via central plan n i n g . 2003).
Th us, i n an emerg i n g "co m m u n ist" b l o c the figu re of
the tech nocrat-planner came into its own . However, 22 One m i g ht also
setting u p a tech nocratic planner state meant uproot- mention the settl e r-
ing traditional ag rarian relations, something old reg ime colonial state of
el ites, as wel l as many peasants, would bitterly oppose. I s rae l , w h i c h got rid
Marxism-developmentalism thus depended on getting of local el ites i n a
rid of the old el ites and reorganising l ife i n the country­ d ifferent m a n n e r.
side; compromises were no longer an option.

I n the end it was this aspect of the strategy that would

pay off. I n the twentieth century, o n l y countries that
wiped out the old reg ime elites were able to catch u p :
Russia, Japan, South Korea a n d Taiwan . 22 O f course,
Japan, South Korea and Taiwan were able to ach ieve
this result without turning communist, but their ability to
do so had everything to do with a wave of revolutions
that swept East and Southeast Asia (the main sites
of victorious peasant wars), and also with assistance
received from the us. Where romantic revol utionaries
did not come to power, and old reg ime el ites were not
deposed , in India and Brazil, etc, developmentalism ran
aground. They had to do it in the old way, via com pro­
m ise and corruption, and that j u st wou l d n 't cut it.

We can see in this tendency the extreme form of the

paradox of the workers' movement. U nder the social
democrats support for the development of the produc­
tive forces primarily meant constructing the image of
the collective worker, cal l i n g for d isci p l i n e , b u i l d i n g
t h e institutions to see workers through t h e l o n g hau l .

A History o f Separation Part 3: Fracturing 135

 With the romantic revolutionaries we find the workers' 23 T h e i r s u pport for the
movement not merely waiting for the development of development of t h e
the productive forces, having faith that they will develop, p ro d u ctive forces
but actively developing them, with the i ron discipline of i nvolved a v i s i o n
a central ised state apparatus. 23 of com m u n i s m a s
a w o r l d of p l e nty.
3) T H E C O U L D - H AV E - B E E N S Theoreti c a l ly the
d i ssolution of the
Lastly, there was t h e left-wing : t h e anarcho-syndicalists state would take
and council comm u n ists. The left began from the fact p l ace a l o n g s i d e that
that the workin g class was al ready a m aj ority in the of class. B u t to get
industrial towns, where the social democrats and union­ there it h ad to be par­
ists held power. I n this narrow context, the external l i m it adoxically e n l arged
was i nvisible. To workers in these areas, it was clear that and e m powered.
they were the ones building the new world. All that was
left to do was seize control of the production process 24 The Ital ian left com-
d i rectly - not through the mediation of the state, but by p l i cates this p i ct u re,
means of their own organ isations. for they d idn't reJect
u n i o n s and parties i n
In this way, the left rejected the problem of add i n g u p t h e s a m e way a s the
t h e class t o get a 5 1 percent maj ority at t h e national anarcho-syn d i calists
leve l . There was n o need for comprom ises with other and German/Dutc h
parties, n o need to appeal to the people instead of the C o m m u n i st Left.
class. That explains the increasingly anti-parliamentary The m e d i ations they
character of a sizable fraction of the workers' movement opposed (mass party,
after 1 9 0 0 : they rejected the parl iament as the place u n ited front, anti-fas­
where the entire country is added up and somehow the c i s m ) were m o re par­
workers come u p short. The left rejected the problem t i c u l ar, t h e i r d i ssent
of the real m aj ority - but they d i d so o n ly i n favou r of from the m a i n line of
so many local ones. worker's movement
less p ro n o u n c e d . Yet
That was because the anarchists and the commun ist left, Bord i g a's crit i q u e
more than anyone else, really believed in the collective of cou n c i l i s m w o u l d
worker. 24 They saw the mass strike as the sti rring of a b e c o m e the basis for
sleeping g iant, tugging at the ropes with wh ich formal a critical r u pture with
organ isations had d i l igently b o u n d it. The collective the ideology of the
worker had to be encouraged to throw off the media­ worker's movement
tions that divided it, that trapped it in un ions and parties, (see Afterword ) .

Endnotes 4 136
with their fixed focus on this world and winning gains 25 The left kept faith
for workers qua commod ity sellers. with the early period
of the workers' m ove-
I n that sense, t h e l eft i m p l icitly reco g n ised that t h e ment, re1ect i n g n ot
development o f t h e productive forces was leading t o the o n l y t h e parl i a-
separated society. They rightly saw this as, i n part, the ment, but the state
work of the workers' own organisations, their attempt to ap paratus as a
empower the class via integration with the state. 2 5 The whole, advocat i n g its
left criticised the real ities of the workers' movement in re placement with the
terms of its ideals, taki ng refuge or finding solace in the fed e ration of workers.
logic of Marx's pu rer, more revolutionary analyses. But The coll ective worker
in doing so, they sought mostly to turn back the clock. would not constitute
They didn't see that it cou l d n 't have been otherwise : it itself t h ro u g h organs
was i mpossible to build the collective worker without, of the state, h a n d i n g
on the one hand, defeating the old reg ime, and on the d o w n orders, but
other, building up class power through all these different bottom u p , i n a d i rect
mediations. They saw the mass strike as a revelation d e m ocrati c m a n n e r.
of the true essence of the proletariat. But what were H owever, the 'ad d i n g
those strikes for? Mostly, they either sought to secu re u p ' problem was
pol itical rig hts for workers' parties and u n ions, or else there by s h ifted to
they sought to renegotiate, rather than overturn , the the rel at i o n between
relationsh i ps between workers and their leadersh ips. i n d i v i d u al p ro d u ctive
u n its. How would
confl i cts of i nterest
between these u n its
be resolve d ? The left
i m a g i ned a magical
res o l u t i o n , t h ro u g h
t h e d i rect exc h a n g e
between produc-
tive u n its, m o n ey
re placed by labour­
c h its - labour m e d i at­
i n g itself. I n stead
of overco m i n g of
a l i enat i o n , they envis­
aged a l e s s e n i n g of
its s p h e re.

A History of Separation Part 3: Fracturing 137

4 T H E STRA N G E V I CTO RY O F T H E W O R K E R S ' M OV E M E N T

The workers' movement survived WWI I and even thrived

in its aftermath. It did so by sticking to one safe strategy:
to whatever extent possi ble, workers' organisations
supported the war effort. They presided over a labo u r
peace f o r t h e war's d u rati o n , h o p i n g to gain power
and recognition i n the war's aftermath. Whe re fascists
took power, n o such peace was possible. All above­
ground organisations of the workers' movement were
an n i h i l ated. It was thus comm u n ists, rather than social
democrats, who took the leading role, giving their l ives
in the Resistance. Following the war's conclusion, this
Resistance served as a temporary irritation to the social
democratic and comm u n ist leaders h i p : armed revo l u ­
tionary organisations, f o r m e d beyon d t h e c o n t r o l o f
established parties and u n ions, h a d their o w n visions
for post-war reconstruction. But these organisations
were q u ickly d isarmed, and then fel l away. The same
developmental strategy could then be p u rsued after
the wars as before.

The postwar period was a triumph for com m u n ism i n

t h e East a n d social democracy i n the West (although
the latter often fai led to obtain parliamentary majorities).
The old reg ime was defeated on Eu ropean soils, and in
some cases, even in the wider worl d . Workers finally
gained recognition as a power wit h i n society. And yet,
in spite of these victories, it was becoming more d ifficult
to see the way forward. The path from the development
of the productive forces to the tri u m p h of the class was
beco m i n g more obscure.

For the collective worker, product of the factory system,

was ever more d ispersed across a complex productive
apparatus. As it turned out, the real l i n ks forged among
workers were not fou n d i n their l ived connection wit h i n
workplaces. For t h e most part, t h e i r real l i n ks were

Endnotes 4 138
formed outside of the factory gates: on the roads, in
electricity lines, in the supermarket, on television. Instead
of the "great evening" of the industrial worker triumphant,
we got the g roggy morning of the subu rban comm uter.
The atomised worker re vealed itself as the truth of the
collective worker. Here was the u n ity-in-separation of
capital ism, corroding the bases of workers' solidarity,
not just in the factory, but also across the city. Instead
of the Workers' Chorus there was Soul Train. Instead
of the Thames I ronworks Footbal l Club, there was West
Ham on Match of the Day. Instead of neighbours filling
u p parks and seasides there were fam i ly hol iday pack­
ages with C l u b Med. All this - it s h o u l d go without
saying - proved much more entertaining than a social ist
meeting. Yet it wasn't to last. The strange victories of the
postwar period tu rned out to be only a tem porary respite
from the ravages of capitalist society. Crisis tendencies
re-emerged, already in the mid 1 9 6 0s and early 1 970s.
The glorious advances in production became overpro­
duction, and fu l l employment became unem ployment.

T H E D E F E AT OF O L D - R EG I M E E L I T E S

World War II finally decap itated t h e E u ropean old

reg i m e . The Red Army marched through the central
E u ro pean blood-lands, maki n g itself the i n heritor of
the opu lent classes' wealth . Along the way, large land­
holdings - which sti l l formed the material basis of el ite
power in countries where more than half the popu lation
was engaged in ag riculture - were confiscated . In itial ly,
some attem pts were made to d istri bute t h i s confis­
cated land to peasants, but these efforts were quickly
abandoned in favou r of large-scale ag ricultural collec­
tivisation. Meanwh ile, Prussia, h istoric stronghold of the
old reg ime i n Central Europe, was wiped off the map.

I n Western Europe, too, the aristocracy went into an

u narrested decl ine. Outside of Italy and G reece, this

A History of Separation Part 4: Strange Victory 139

decl ine was not the result of land reform. Instead , the 1 Thomas Pi ketty, Capi­
end of the old reg ime was a consequence of i nterwar tal in the 21st Cen tury
and wart i m e t u r b u l e n c e . Stock m arket c rashes, fol ­ ( Harvard 2013).
l owed b y rapid i nflation, wi ped o u t fortu nes that had
long ago been disi nvested from the cou ntryside and 2 Two exceptional
then invested in modern forms of wealth-accumu lation cases, w h i c h d i d not
(in particular, government bonds). 1 The loss of colonies fly the red flag but
and national isation of industries also wreaked havoc still d eveloped along
on upper class finances. This leveling down of wealth these l i n e s - and in
was then secu red , pol itical ly, by high-rates of taxation. fact, d i d so much
m o re s u ccessfu l ly,
Such material transformations were accom panied by s i nce they had the
cultural ones. Any l i ngering deference to established s u pport of the u s and
fam i l ies was smashed i n the war. The notables were access to its d o m es­
n o longer so notable, especially si nce so many had tic market - fo l l owed
col laborated either with occu pying forces or with dis­ a s i m i lar m o d e l of
cred ited but home-grown Fascist reg i mes. From here b i g - p u s h i n d ustriali­
on out, classes would no longer be disti ngu ished by sat i o n . South Korea
the head coverings (top hat, worker's cap) they wore. and Taiwan were gar­
The wars thus completed one of the main tasks of the rison states , meant
Eu ropean workers' movement. They cleared the way for to serve as models to
a further development of the productive forces, and, so East and South east
too, for the expected tri u m p h of the working class. I n Asian p o p u l ations of
reality, Europe was now merely g o i n g t o catch up t o the what the l atter c o u l d
U n ited States, in terms of the commercial isation of life achieve with capital­
and the integration of all into the fu l ly separated society. ist d eve l o p m e nt.
H e re, too, s u ccessful
It is true that, outside of Europe, old reg imes remained big-push i n d ustrial i ­
in place, blocki ng the prog ress of such modern isation sation w a s depend­
projects. H owever, precisely due to the war, colonial ent on rad ical land
empires were sign ificantly weaker, while social ist and refo rm progra m m e s ,
capital ist models of development, within national zones w h i c h knocked out
of accumu lation, were m uch stronger. By the 1 950s, old reg i m e s i n the
movements of national independence were sweeping cou ntrys i d e early o n
thro u g h the world, extending the nation-state model i n the postwar p e ­
to the edges of the earth (of course, there were hold­ riod. I n t h e s e cases,
outs : South Africa, the Portuguese colonies, etc). In the rad ical land refo rm
colon ies, as in the metropoles, an attack was mou nted programmes were
against l i ngering economic backward ness. only i m pl e m ented as

Endnotes 4 140
Yet, a m o n g t h e victori o u s i n de p e n d e n c e m ove­ l ast d itch, cou nter­
ments - which unfolded alongside peasant insurgencies revo l u t i o n ary effo rts,
in Latin America - it was only the few that were led by to stop the s p read of
romantic revo l utionaries and i n s p i red by Russia and c o m m u n ist revolution
then by China that were able to overturn the domi nation (the South Vietnam­
of ru ral e l ites decisively. Revolutionaries reabsorbed ese reg i m e refused
elites' land holdings i nto collective farms, creating the to i m plement a s i m i l ar
conditions for Russian-style big-push industrial isation progra m m e of rad ical
(even if their success, i n that regard, was usually rather land refo rm, e n s u r i n g
l i m ited) : the removal of old reg ime el ites freed tech no­ its d efeat). As a re­
cratic com mun ists to focus on the developmental tasks s u lt, state managers
at hand - namely, breaking up peasant communities and in these c o u ntries,
d isplacing peasants to the cities, where they could be l i ke the ro mantic
put to work in g igantic m i l ls. 2 revol utionaries
elsewhere, were able
Everywhere else, where the red flag was defeated - either to i n stitute barracks­
because peasant i n s u rg e n c i e s were too weak, o r style capitalist
because peasants were d rawn into anti-colon ial a l l i ­ deve l o p m e nt.
ances w i t h local el ites - movements for land reform
either fai led completely, or were so watered down as to 3 Rehman Sobhan,
become largely inconsequential . 3 As a result, old reg ime Agrarian Reform and
el ites su rvived the transition to national-developmental Social Transforma tion
capital ism, just as they had i n the Europe of the n i ne­ (Zed Books 1993).
teenth century, except that now, late development under
" I ron and Rye" all iances was n o longer viable.

Of course, the persistence of the old reg ime was not

only a matter of el ites : there was also a large remainder
of the peasantry i n t h e g l o bal cou ntryside. N ot only
was this peasantry sti l l a large m i nority i n Western and
Central Europe. I n Southern and Eastern Europe, as
wel l as in East Asia, the peasants accou nted for the
majority of the population. Where the old reg ime was
cleared away, real domination u nfolded rapi d ly in the
countryside: wit h i n twenty to forty years (depen d i n g
on the region), the peasantry h a d all b u t d isappeared.
That was partly a m atter of red u ced pol itical p rotec­
tions for ag ricultu ral prod ucers, and partly the resu lt of
new technolog ies that allowed the real subsumption of

A History of Separation Part 4: Strange Victory 141

agricultural production to proceed rapid ly. After the war,
ag riculture began to look more l i ke a b ranch of industry.

Sti l l , technical developments in ag riculture could not

h ave a n n i h i lated the heavy rem a i n d e r of the peas­
antry worldwide by themselves. That task was left to
demographic g rowth. Postwar developments i n pub­
lic health - i n c l u d i n g ant i b i otics, i m m u n is at i o n and
D DT - led to an u n p recedented drop in infant and child
mortal ity levels. The resulting boost to popu lation growth
undermined the peasantry on a g lobal scale. It was also
associated with u rbanisation. Today the majority of the
world's popu lation l ives in cities. The u rban proletariat,
numbering more than three billion people (more than the
global popu lation at the end of WWI I) is entirely depend­
ent on market production and exchange to s u rvive. We
have yet to see full communism but, i n the last hour,
we are finally approach ing full capitalism.

T H E M OV E M E N T T R I U M P H A N T

With t h e old reg ime defeated in Europe - and a t r i s k o f 4 T h e fi rst art i c l e o f the
revolutionary overthrow across the world - the workers' 1 948 Italian constitu­
movement seemed to have tri u m phed, even where its t i o n , co-written by the
parties were kept from power. By showing themselves PCI , declares 'labour'

to be val iant soldiers and capable co-managers of the the fo u n d at i o n of the

war economy, the workers n ot o n ly defeated the old Italian re p u b l i c , the
reg ime: they also won recogn ition within national zones rock u p o n w h i c h the
of accumu lation. Workers' dign ity was enshrined in law. 4 post-War state was
N ot only were u n ions recog n ised as workers' official b u ilt.
representatives ; u n ion bargaining was g iven legal sup­
port. Corporatism reigned, in the u s from the 1 930s,
and then throughout Europe after the war.

Meanwhile the very success of big-push industrial isa­

tion put the romantic revolutionaries in the East on the
same footing as the social democrats, if always a few
steps back. The 1 950s were, accord ing to some, the
Golden Age of social ist planning; consumer goods finally

Endnotes 4 142
 became more widely available. Yet at the same time, any
remai n i n g appeal to a working class identity o r class
solidarity was red uced to a kitsch aesthetic, the source
of many bitter jokes. The workers' movement thus ten­
dentially completed (or participated in the completion
of) the project of proletarian ising the world's popu lation,
in "First" , "Second" and "Th i rd " world variants.

Paradoxical ly, at least from t h e p e rs p e ctive of t h e

workers' movement, t h i s same process depleted revo­
lutionary energies, for two reasons. ( 1 ) The past, which
the workers' movement set out to a n n i h i late, tu rned
out to be a fundamental support of its revol utionary
vision. (2) The future, when it finally arrived in the form
of a h i g h ly developed prod u ctive apparatus, tu rned
out n ot to g ive birth to the col lective worker; instead, it
reinforced the u nity-in-separation of capital ist society.
The workers' movement persisted as a social force,
but in a sclerotic form. It could probably have gone on
forever had it not been defeated from an unexpected
corner - that is to say, by the reactivation of capital 's
fu ndamental contrad iction.

1 ) W I T H O U T A PAST, T H E R E I S N O F U T U R E

I t was t h e l ived experience o f t h e transition - from peas- 5 Fre d r i c Jameson, A

ant and artisan com m u n ities to capital ist society - that Singular Modernity
g ave t h e workers t h e sense that another transition (Ve rso 2002), p. 142.
was possible - from capital ist society to the coopera­
tive commonwealth . In some sense, this "transitional"
perspective was sim ply about the visibility of ways of
l ife that were not founded solely on the cash nexus. 5
B u t t h e transitional i m p u lse was not j u st about t h e
existence of alternatives.

It was also about the experience of history unfolding. The

i m med iate obstacles to the arrival of that future - the
persistence of the old regime - had provided a focal
point around which to rally workers at the national level .

A History of Separation Part 4: Strange Victory 143

 I ndeed, the privileges retained by lords rem inded eve­
ryone of the fai l u re of the bourgeoisie to stand up for
its l i beral val ues. That em powered workers to take the
lead in a c ross-class coalitio n : in d efense of secu­
larism, democracy and (formal) equal ity. The idea of
" hegemony" , made famous by Gramsci, extended the key
question of 1 9th centu ry French pol itics into the 20th
century: which class can represent to other classes their
true interest? And i n the period in which social demo­
crats and com m u n ists alike were ru n n i n g u p against
the i m passe of the workers' movement, this i nterest
appeared as a national one. As long as the "bourgeois
revolution" appeared to be stal led, the workers could
claim this mantle for themselves. That was their h is­
toric mission. Of course, it didn't h u rt that it was easy
to fi nd hatred for the " h i g h-born" among the l owest
orders - and that the d istinction between the aristocrat
and the capital ist was often rather s l i m .

However, it was n o t o n l y t h e myth o f workers' historic

destiny that had depended o n the existence of t h e
o l d reg i m e . Many aspects of working-class c u l t u re
were inherited from proletarians' d i rect experience of
old-world forms of l ife. The workers' movement told
former peasants to forget the past, but in spite of these
entreaties, recent u rban m i g rants found ways to build
a new culture of resistance on the old foundations of
face-to-face com m u n ity and an uncompromising soli­
darity. Likewise, the workers' movement admon ished
the artisans - who knew the whole production process
and real ly identified with their work - for their unwill­
i n g ness to g ive u p control over that p rocess, which
was the real basis of their pride in their work (and so
also of their affi rmation of their class identity). Span ish
anarchism in particular d rew on old world resou rces
for its pol itical i ntransigence. Once those reso u rces
were gone, so too was the most intransigent wing of
the workers' movement.

Endnotes 4 144
2) T H E P R E S E N T WAS N OT W H AT T H EY H A D I M AG I N E D

In order to su rvive into the post-WW I I era, the Social 6 See Robert Bren-
Democratic parties and the trade u n ions found them- n e r, 'The Paradox of
selves forced to disem power their own membersh ips S o c i a l Democracy:
as a means of steadying their cou rse on the road to The Ameri can Case',
power. D u ri n g the wars, the workers' o rgan isations i n The Year L e ft: a n
had become organ isations for manag ing labou r-power. American Socialist
Indeed, at key moments those organisations showed Yearbook ( Verso
that they were wil l i n g to put d own the rad ical wings 1 985).
of their own movements in order to demonstrate their
capacity to rule within the bounds of capital ist society. 7 See Paul Romano
But success in repressing mem berships only tended to and Ria Sto n e , The
undermine the power of the leaderships in the long run . 6 American Worker
( Fac i n g Reality 1 969)
That was because the fu rther development of the p ro­ and B i l l Watson,
ductive forces, i n which the workers' movement put its 'Cou nter- P l an n i n g
faith , undermined the very basis of that movement. More on t h e S h o p Floo r',
and more workers were e m ployed in industry, as the Radical A merica,
movement had hoped. H owever, the increasing frag­ M ay-J u n e 1971
mentation of the industrial labo u r process made it ever
more d ifficult for workers to identify with their work as a a Cornel i u s Castoriadis
source of d i g n ity and pride. What each worker did was released th ree arti-
increasingly j u st one step in a large process, unfolding cles u n d e r the title
across m u ltiple production sites, which ind ividual work- ' O n the C o ntent of
ers could not possibly hope to understand. Factory work Social i s m ' between
was both boring and u nfulfi l l i n g , especially for young 1 9 5 5 and 1958.
workers entering modern factories built i n the 1 950s
and 60s. 7 The falling a way of an affirmable working­
class identity did not need to wait for deindustrialisation
to begin. New anti-work, or at least, anti-factory-work
sent i ments wit h i n the factory led s o m e theorists to
question not only the form of the revolution (that is to
say, the role of the party, or that of the state), but also
"the content of social ism " : 8 a better form of l ife had to
be someth i n g else than the endless development of
mach inery and large-scale industry.

A History of Separation Part 4: Strange Victory 145

That workers w o u l d lose t h e i r a b i lity to u n d e rstand 9 T h e concept of the
their work, and also their sense of fulfi l m ent i n work, 'coll ective l a b o u rer'
had been anticipated by many movement strateg ists. was fi rst outlined by
N evertheless, workers were expected to take pride in Marx i n his d iscus­
the fact that - even if they could n o longer understand s i o n of m a n u fac-
the entirety of the production process themselves - their t u re: 'The c o l l ective
u n derstan d i n g was still somehow e m b o d i e d i n t h e l a b o u re r possesses,
sa voir-faire o f the workforce a s a w h o l e , that is, t h e i n an e q u a l d e g ree
collective worker. 9 of exce l l e n ce , a l l the
q u a l ities req u i site
I n spite of the development of the productive forces, for prod u c t i o n , and
labour, it was insisted, remained the source of all wealth, expends them i n t h e
its latent power and knowle d g e reflected precisely most e c o n o m i cal
i n that development. That t u rned out not to be true: m a n n e r, by exc l u ­
knowledge of the production process was n o longer s i v e l y e m ploying a l l
located i n the place of the collective worker, but rather h i s o r g a n s , c o n s i st­
(if anywhere), i n the place of the collective technician. i n g of part i c u l a r
That was a key point because - wh i l e it upended the l a b o u rers, o r g ro u ps
fou ndation-stone of the workers' movement - it also of l a b o u rers, in per­
finally confirmed Marx's perspective i n the "fragment form i n g t h e i r special
on mach ines" (reproduced more soberly i n Capital). f u n ct i o n s .' Capital, vol.
1 ( M ECW 35), p. 354·
Here was the real obsolescence of the value form, of
a social relation which measu red wealth in terms of
labour time. It was i ncreasingly the case that h u man
labour was n o longer the main productive force ; sci­
ence - often applied to the worst ends of i n d u strial
"development" - took labour's place. That p rofo u n d ly
affected workers' self-understanding, their experience
of what they did and their place i n the world : workers
could no longer see themselves as building the world
in the n a m e of modern ity o r a better, m o re rational
way of living. O n the contrary, that world was already
b u i lt, and it was entirely out of their hands. Modern ity
presented itself as this i m posing thing, which workers'
confronted, not as subj ect, but rather, as an object to
be regulated and controlled.

Endnotes 4 146
The factory was only one part of this new real ity. It was in 10 These i s s u e s w i l l be
the total transformation of the environment, both h u man explored at g reater
and ecological, that the fully separated society real ly length in ' Error', in
came into its own . Society is n o longer just the means Endnotes 5, forth-
of prod uction, a set of factories that can be taken over coming.
and self-managed by the workers who run them. Those
factories, as wel l as everything else about modern l ife,
rely on a massive infrastructure. One can not hope that
workers will storm the bosses' offices as if they were
so many winter palaces. The bases of social power are
now much more dispersed . They are located not just
in the rep ressive apparatuses of the police, the jails
and the armed forces and the so-cal led " ideological"
apparatuses of schools, churches, and television. They
include also power stations, water-treatment plants, gas
stations, hospitals, sanitation, ai rports, ports, and so on.
J ust like the factories themselves, all of this infrastructure
relies on a legion of engineers and tech n icians, who
keep the whole things running from m i n ute to m i n ute.
These technicians possess no collective workers' iden­
tity, nor were they ever included i n the prog rammes of
the workers' movements. 1 0

I n t h i s new context, t h e role o f t h e social ist state could

no longer be simply to add u p the federated workers (a
role it retained in the vision of council communists). The
social ist state had to embody the techn ical rationality of
the whole system, in all its complexity. It would have to
become the central organ of coordination, hand ing down
d irectives, but without repl icating the authoritarian ism
of the USSR. Social democrats were at a loss in terms
of figuring out how to ach ieve this new goal. Hence the
g rowing identification of social democracy with a form
of technocratic planning that would manipu late but not
displace markets, i n order to ensure ful l employment.
This new vision owed much to m i l itary planning i n the
world wars and the (negative) example of the Soviet

A History of Separation Part 4: Strange Victory 147

U n ion. But it was possible because of the Keynesian
Revol ution . We will d iscuss the prom ises of that "new
macroeconom ics" shortly.

Before we do, however, it is worth reiterating this point.

The postwar tech nocracy wasn't simply an ideolog ical
effect of an era that deified the scientist and engineer.
It was a real p roblem of management that arises i n
a w o r l d that e m bodies the separation of each from
each - and their reu n ification through markets - that
is the val ue-form. Th is separation is fi rst and foremost
one between workers, a l iteral division of labour. This
d ivision means that workers can only come together on
the basis of their prior separation, as so many operatives,
as representatives of this or that workplace, in order to
somehow decide what to do. I n this context, getting rid
of the state - without some degree of simpl ification of
l ife - is extremely d ifficult to imagine.

LUMBERING ON

I n the aftermath o f WW I I the socialists sti l l expected

that they would win. They i mag ined a glorious future
would soon wash over them. But if they could del iver
the goods in the meantime, by being better managers
of capital ism than the capitalists themselves, then all
the better. Indeed, for the workers' parties and u n ions
in Europe, the post-war years were filled with promise.
Having al ready (long before the war) d i l uted their class
character to gain votes - e m brac i n g t h e b o u rgeois
notions of "the people" and "the nation"- these parties
(the British Labour Party, the SPD in Germany, the French
SFIO) were in a position to capitalise on popu lar resent­
ment for the old pol itical establ ish ment (and to d raw on
the apparent success of the planned war economies and
the New Deal), to put forward a state-led reconstruc­
tion effort under the ban ner of Keynesian econom ics.

Endn otes 4 148

Keynesian ism allowed social ists to maintain their idea- 1 1 Eley, Forging De-
logical role as cham pions of the working class, but to mocracy, p. 402. The
shift away from the problems of power and autonomy on negative i m p l i ca­
the shopfloor, towards policies that would affect wealth t i o n s of t h i s turn
and income d istri bution at the national level. This move for class s o l i d arity
also coincided with a transfer of power and influence were soon apparent:
from union representatives to electoral representatives. ' p overty now became
Yet, in office, the latter were forced to behave l i ke any d e m o n i s ed i nto the
other party - respect i n g the i nterests of th ose who pat h o l o g i e s of decay­
control i nvestment, and thereby their chances of re­ i n g reg i o n s and i n n e r
election. Having abandoned all d reams of " revolution" cities, from single
i n the name of " refo r m " , the social democrats were mothers and eth n i c
increasingly forced to abandon all hope of " reform" in m i n o rities to violent
the name of " peace" and "stabi l ity" . and d r u g - a b u s i n g
yo u t h , i n h id d e n
The result was a hollowing out of the old workers' move­ e c o n o m i e s of cas u a l i ­
ment, t h e g utti n g of t h e c o l lective i d e ntity t hat had sat i o n and permanent
underg i rded it. There were two d i mensions to this, prior u n d erem p loyment. In
to the revenge of the external l i m it i n the 1 970s. First this racialised and
of al l , new forms of government sti m u l us to consumer c r i m i n a l i s i n g d i s­
demand were often taken d i rectly from the workers' cou rse 1 movements
movement: unem ployment benefits, pension schemes, shaped h i storically
collectively s u bsid ised health care. When the state by appeal i n g to wh ite
adopted these meas u res, workers could be forg iven male workers i n re g u ­
for believing that they h ad won. But without these key lar e m p l oyment had
elements of its progra m m e - and h aving meanwh i l e less and less to say.'
abandoned the project of socialisation of the means of
production - the social democrats were at a loss as
to what to do. The same was true of the unions: "trade
u n i on i s m lost its credentials as a progressive force;'
since "workers' well-being" now derived from "a wider
public charge" (that is, the welfare state) ; conseq uently,
"collective bargaining slid more easily into sectional ism,
less attentive to a general working-class interest or to
effects on other unions and categories of workers." 1 1 As
wages were bolstered by post-war growth, unions were
left to hash out the contractual fine print in each sector.

A History of Separation Part 4: Strange Victory 149

However, in taking on this management role, the d is­
tance between union leaders h i ps and the rank-and-file
widened to a chasm. State recogn ition of u n ions ended
u p putt i n g officials at yet another remove from their
m e m bers h i ps, w h i l e s i m u ltaneously i ncreas i n g t h e i r
resp o n s i b i l ities as accepted c o - managers of s o c i ­
ety. U nder n e w conditions, the optimal size o f u n ions
increased ; as a result formal grievance proced ures were
su bstituted for shop-floor m i l itancy. At the same time,
union officials had more and more functions to perform
above and beyond the representation of workers to the
e m p l oyer: u n i o n s provided accident and u n e m p l oy­
ment protection, as well as pensions. Wh ile the partial
de-commod ification of labo u r power associated with
government-recogn ised u n ions (and extensive labo u r
reg u l ations) gave workers m o re bargai n i n g power, i t
simu ltaneously rendered u n ion organ isations more con­
servative in outlook. Management of ever more gigantic
pension funds and insurance schemes tu rned unionists
into bureaucratic functionaries, fearful of any disturbance
that might h u rt their - and they could reasonably clai m ,
also t h e workers' - bottom line.

Whether they act as l iaisons of state functionaries, or as

q uasi-state fu nctionaries themselves, the pressu re for
union leaders to behave "responsibly" increased, and the
distance from their base widened. Thus organisations
formed i n the defense of workers become organisa­
tions that co-manage labour markets on behalf of the
reg ulated economy, ensuring labour peace on the one
hand, and protecting wage gains on the other, all i n the
name of stabilising the business cycle. This move, on
the part of u n ions, was not real ly a selling-out. U n ions
were pursuing the same course they always had, and
to its log ical conclusions: attem pt i n g 1 ) to preserve
the organisations, and 2) to defend the m e m bership,
i n a context i n which m ost of the formal rig hts they
had fou g ht for had been won (the old el ites had been

Endnotes 4 1 50
destroyed) and the wage-earn ing population was less
new, l ess unstable, and i ncreasingly d ifferentiated.

Combined with the fact that workers had much more

d ifficu lty identifying the world around them as " made"
by them (rather than the machines, the engineers, or the
state-planners), these transformations spelt the decline
of a shared, affirmable workers' identity, even prior to
the downfall of the workers' m ovement.

A History of Separation Part 4: Strange Victory 151

5 T H E D E F EAT O F T H E WO R K E RS ' M OVE M E N T

Left to its own devices, the workers' movement might

have gone on indefinitely i n a sclerotic form. Yet, as it
tu rned out, the triumph of the workers' movement in the
g reat post-war settlements was a Pyrrh ic victory - and
not because the workers, in ' 6 8 , came to reject the best
that capital ism had to offer. The end of the postwar
c o m p ro m ise was the result of the re-emergence of
capital 's objective crisis tendencies after 1 965. This is
what we above called the "external l i m it" of the workers'
movement, and it played out as 1 ) a global dynam ic - in
com petition between regional blocs of capital , and 2)
sectoral shifts with i n each bloc.

1) G LO BA L DY N A M I C

I n t h e cou rse o f t h e twentieth centu ry, t h e n u m ber of

national zones of accumu lation m u ltiplied. Each zone
developed its own factory system , and, moreover, the
productive capacity of the factories was compou nded
exponentially over time. These were not automatic ten­
dencies of an expanding world capitalism. As we have
seen, late development was pol itically med iated ; g iven
prevailing class dynamics, i n which old reg ime elites
and colonial administrations played starring roles, ongo­
ing industrial development was an uncertain prospect,
even i n parts of Europe. Moreover, late development
became more d ifficult to pull off over time, since the
tech nological frontier was always being d riven outward
and the necessary i nfrastructu ral support for industrial
expansion became increasingly tech nically complex.

In the postwar period, new geopol itical real ities hel ped
s o m e states overc o m e these i m pe d i m ents. D u ri n g
the war, Stal i n i s m h a d expanded i t s sphere o f infl u ­
e n c e ; t h e n the Chi nese Revolution opened a n e w era
of com m u n ist i n s u rg e n cies, across the low- i n c o m e
worl d . B o t h encouraged the u s a n d E u ropean powers

Endnotes 4 152
(except Portugal) to rel i n q u ish strategies of isolation- 1 A l s o , the develop-
ism and - after 1 9 60 - empire, and instead to promote ment of the ato m
industrial development wit h i n the bounds of the "free b o m b itself rad i ­
worl d " . I nternational trade was encouraged and ind us­ cally d i m i n i s h e d , and
trial isation promoted (although programmes of rad ical perhaps eve n e n d e d ,
land reform were crushed). The gap that had opened the pos s i b i l ity of f u l l ­
u p between advanced capital ist cou ntries and the rest s c a l e w a r between
of the world did not close ; however, it was no longer deve l oped nat i o n ­
expand i n g . Yet these changed g lobal conditions were states.
momentous only in Western Europe and in developing
East Asia, where increasingly large, regional "blocs" of
capital rapidly expanded their reach.

Twentieth century econom ists imagined that national

zones of accu m u lation were the proper space for late
deve l o p m ent. In truth rap i d eco n o m i c expans i o n i n
t h e mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was
al ready predicated both on exporting industrial goods
to foreign markets, and on i m porting raw materials and
sou rces of energy, usually from other markets i n the
low- i ncome world . N evertheless, a qualitative transfor­
mation took place in the postwar period. The expanding
industries of the second industrial revolution pushed
against national boundaries, in search of new markets,
to be sure, but also eventually in search of new sources
of i n d ustrial parts production and sites for i n d u strial
assem bly. The evisceration of old-world el ites i n the
World Wars and t h e th reat of a creep i n g Stal i n is m
perm itted t h e establishment o f new reg ional zones of
accumu lation, as new containers for these i n d ustries,
for it weakened protection ist i nterests. 1

Thus much of the world was divided between an Ameri­

can bloc under US management, a Eu ropean bloc under
Franco-German management, an East Asian bloc under
Japanese management, and a Soviet bloc under Russian
management. Tying these together were transnational
institutions l i ke the UN, NATO, the GATT, etc. The b rief
tri u m p h of the workers' movement was partly due to a

A History of Separation Part 5: Defeat 153

transnational component : in the influence of Russia on 2 For the best accou n t
its opponents during the cold war, the m i litary-ind ustrial of t h i s p h e n o m e n o n ,
expansion of the state (enabling various experiments in see R o b e r t B re n n e r,
social planning), and the extension of industrial firms into The Economics of
new reg ional markets without yet offshoring production Global Turbulence
itself. The workers could get a seat at the table both (Verso, 2006), espe­
because of their strateg i c position i n the heart of this c i a l l y the p reface to
g rowth machine, and because "state capitalism" was, the S p a n i s h e d i t i o n :
for a brief moment, really on the cards. ' W h at's Good for
G o l d m a n Sachs is
Yet without the possibil ity of war between these reg ional Good for Ameri ca'.
blocs, their simu ltaneous g rowth inevitably led to a satu­
ration of export markets. Competition between national
blocs of capital - centered i n the us, Western Eu rope
and East Asia - intensified, i n the mid- 1 9 6 0s. G lobal
markets became increasingly oversupplied, eventually
making it so that no one bloc could g row q u ickly unless
it did so at the expense of the others. 2 The result was
a decline in rates of industrial output g rowth, which fel l
below rates o f labour prod uctivity g rowth in the 1 9 8 0s.

This point should be emphasised : de-industrialisation was

not the result of a m i raculous tech nolog ical d iscovery,
pushing prod uctivity growth-rates to new heights. Rather,
it was d u e to chro n i c overprod u ction, which pushed
output g rowth-rates down, with less severe effects on
productivity. The same trends of slowing global output
growth, and mediocre productivity growth, have continued
down to the present, even taking into account Chinese
expansion. On this basis, industrial employment g rowth
finally went i nto reverse, not only on a temporary, busi­
ness cycle basis, but permanently, over crests as much
as busts. De-industrialisation replaced ind ustrialisation
as a worldwide tendency, although l i ke industrialisation,
it was never a simple secu lar trend. Capital 's trajectory
was thus d ifferent from what the workers' expected .
The development o f t h e productive forces tu rned o u t to
mean not the becoming majority of the industrial working
class, but rather, its tendential dissolution.

Endnotes 4 154
2) S ECTO R A L S H I FTS

Of cou rse, this did not signal the end of the worki ng
class. Along with the above-mentioned tech n ical and
infrastructural innovations came the enormous g rowth
of ad m i n i strative, b o okkee p i n g , l o g istical, s e rvice ,
commun ication and instructional labour: "wh ite collar"
jobs. These jobs g rew even as i n d u strial jobs were
d isappeari ng. Thus whi lst the new industries (contra
Marx's prediction) created jobs and tem porarily saved
the industrial worki n g class from decl ine, it was this
latter sector which absorbed m ost of the decl i n e i n
the agricultural workforce. A n d wh ilst the old u n ions
could organise this new sector, victories were far less
consistent, for the hegemonic working class identity
tended to dissolve on this new terrain. H owever, this
i s e x p l a i n e d less by the n at u re of these j o bs , and
therefore not by their absolute g rowth, than by the fact
of a sluggish demand for labour.

I n part, service jobs g rew because most services are

not i nternationally tradable. There cannot be i nterna­
tional overproduction i n services, as there can be in
both i n d ustry and ag riculture. But the non-tradability
of services is part and parcel of the fact that services,
a l most by defi n ition, are o n l y formally but n ot really
subsumed. That is to say, the production process in ser­
vices is resistant to the sort of capitalist transformation
that wou l d make those services amenable to reg ular
increases in labour productivity. In other words, services
aren't produced in factories (where di rect human labour
g ives way to mach ine production).

It i s the resistance of eco n o m i c activities to real

s u bs u m pt i o n that makes them i nto last i n g s o u rces
of e m p l oyment g rowt h . That was why, wit h i n i n d us­
try, assembly processes saw the g reatest increase i n
employment, in the course o f the twentieth century. More
rarely, whole industrial sectors resisted real subsumption,

A History of Separation Part 5: Defeat 155

past a certain point. Those sectors saw massive employ­
ment g rowth, too : in the apparel industry, the sewing
mach ine was the last g reat tech nological development.
C l ot h i n g is sti l l m ostly sewn with t h ose n i neteenth­
century mach ines in sweatshops across the worl d .

B u t most o f what was resistant t o real subsu mption was

not industry at all - but rather services. With notable
exceptions, it has generally proven d ifficult to transform
service-maki ng processes, to make them amenable to
constant increases in labour productivity. I n fact, "ser­
vices" is something of a false category. Services are
precisely those economic activities that get left beh ind :
they consist of all the activities that prove resistant to
being transformed into goods (that is, self-service imple­
ments). To be transformed into a good is the typical way
that an economic activity becomes really subsumed :
carriage d rivers are replaced with cars, washerwomen
are replaced by washing mach ines. Because services
are not really subsumed, prod uctivity g rowth remains
modest. Even if output g rows more slowly in services
than it had i n industry (d uring the latter's heyday), it
is nevertheless the case that the n u m ber of service
jobs stead ily increases. Here is the long-term tendency
of capital ism : to produce a post-industrial wasteland,
w h e re e m p l oyment g rows slowly, and workers are
very precarious.

The growi ng segment of the working class who occupied

these not-yet-real ly-subsumed jobs had an experience
of work and the capital ist mode of production that d if­
fered from the industrial workers who formed the core
of the workers' movement:

Real subsu m ption is what makes workers' jobs alike,

across ind ustries. It is the process of mechanisation
that red uces all workers to semi-skil led factory hands.
Without mechanisation, labo u r processes retain their
specificity, in terms of the skills req u i red (making coffee

Endnotes 4 156
 versu s program m i n g versus teach i n g versus cari ng).
Service jobs are less homogeneous. For the same rea­
son, the wage scale is m o re d i s pe rsed . H e re is the
difference between the experience of industrial work­
ers, becoming a com pact mass, and the experience of
service workers, confronting an endless differentiation
of tasks.

2 Real subsu m ption concentrates workers into massive

combines, where they work with huge quantities of fixed
capital. That is what g ives ind ustrial workers the power
to stop society by refusing to work. There are many bot­
tlenecks i n the industrial production process : stopping
work i n one place can sometimes shut down an entire
industry. The opposite is true in services: many service
workers are l ittered across i n n u m e rable s h o ps, and
most of those are involved i n final sales to consumers
(a major exception is d istri butional services).

3 Real subsu m ption is the potentially l i m itless g rowth in

labou r productivity. Workers experience those produc­
tivity gains as a contrad ictio n : we prod uce a world of
freedom, but we know that freedom to mean , potential ly,
our own unemployment, and therefore u nfreedom. By
contrast, the service workers' experience is not linked to
the tri u m p h of free time. On the contrary, it is the fai l u re
to generate free time that creates employment. Endless
busy-work, which is nevertheless essential for valorisa­
tion, is what creates jobs and generates incomes. Direct
h u man labour remains central to the work p rocess ; it is
not a supplement to the power of machines.

WO R K E R S AT T H E L I M I T

The resp o n s e of t h e workers to t h i s c h a n g e i n for­

tune was - against the standard i nterpretation of May
' 6 8 - in fact q u ite weak. The relatively low-am p l itude
of the wave of struggles in the advanced ind ustrial ised
cou ntries from 1 9 6 8 to 7 7, the fact that they never

A History of Separation Part 5: Defeat 157

d i rectly chal lenged the mode of production, is largely
explained by the depletion of rank-and-fi le-mi l itancy in
the earl ier period. When confronted with the external
l i m it, the u n ions proved to be hol low monoliths, unable
to appeal either to the mem bers h i p they had system­
atically d is-em powered, o r to the state on which they
had become increasingly dependent. It was the prior
incorporation of aspects of the workers' movement
i n t o t h e state t h at d a m p e n e d t h e resp o n s e of t h e
w orkers t o c a p i t a l 's rest r u ct u r i n g . B u t t h at d efeat
was inevitable, si nce the very industries on wh ich the
workers' movement had been based were the ones that
were undermined by the restructuring.

All that remains of the workers' movement are unions that

manage the slow bleed-out of stable employment; social
democratic parties that i m plement austerity measu res
when conservative parties fail to do so; and comm u n ist
and anarch ist sects that wait (actively or passively) for
their chance to rush the stage. These organisations
have hardly been consig ned to the d ustbin of history.
Yet none is l i kely to rejuvenate itself on the world scale.
The workers' movement is n o longer a force with the
potential to remake the world. That it was such a force
was what gave l ife to these cu rrents with in the workers'
movement : they no longer make sense ; their coordi nates
have been scram bled.

But of cou rse the end of the workers' movement is not

the same thing as the end of either capital or the work­
ing class. Even as more and more workers are rendered
superfluous to the needs of capital, the relation between
these two terms contin ues to defi ne what cou nts as a
l ife worth living. Thus, the class relation has outlived the
real movement that was supposed to destroy it. I ndeed
the class relat i o n has o n ly become m o re d o m i nant
since the end of the workers' movement: for women
everywhere, for peasants, etc.

Endnotes 4 158
What has changed in this period is that the d iverse frac­
tions of the working class no longer shape themselves
into a workers' movement. Except in reactionary ways
(when one part of the class defends its access to a
d i m i n ishing pool of stable jobs), workers rarely affirm
their shared identity as workers. There are a n u m ber of
reasons for this transformation, all of wh ich h ave fol ­
lowed from t h e " restructuring" o f t h e class relation in the
1 970s. As the profit rate declined after 1 973, a surplus
of workers and capital swelled into existence. It became
possible to attack workers' material existence, and nec­
essary to do so, since com petition among capitals was
intensifying. Because they were under attack, nationally
situated workers' movements found themselves unable
to score the material gains that had been their final rea­
son for existence. Workers abandoned the organisations
to which they had - even as those organisations proved
to be counter-revolutionary - formerly clung.

Everywhere, the working class is less homogeneous - it

is stratified across high- and low-income occupations;
its work is more precarious; and it switches jobs more
freq uently. More and more workers feel l i ke work has no
purpose ; for more and more are employed i n dead-end
service jobs, or are unemployed or unemployable. Like
the housewives of an earlier era, they produce little more
than the everyday reproduction of the class relation itself.
For these reasons, we can not follow the autonom ists in
supposing that an "objective" recomposition of the class
will find its correlate in a new "subjective" affirmation
of class identity.

It's not that it's i m possible today to glorify work or work­

e rs ; it's that those who can do so are necessarily a
minority. They can no longer pose their activity, or the
activity of any concrete fraction of the class, as having
u n iversal sign ificance. The workers' movement rested
on a vision of the future that turned out to be a dream. I n

A History of Separation Part 5: Defeat 159

the second half of the twentieth century workers awoke
from this d ream to discover that all that was supposed
to bring them together had actually separated them.

C O N C L U S I O N : T H E M ETA P H YS I C S O F C LASS ST R U G G L E

T h e mach inery o f accu mu lation is breaking down. As 3 As is hopef u l l y clear

yet, no revolutionary force appears ready to oppose its from the arg u ment
g lobal reign. It makes sense then that we mourn the laid out, above, t h i s
workers' movement, that we look back nostalgically on a metaphys i c was not
time when that movement presented itself as a cou nter- s i m p ly a 'wro n g idea',
force, even if a problematic one. How could one not feel which could h ave
a nostalgia for the past, living in a time when there is been oth erwise. It
l ittle to stop the ravages of capital ist social dynamics? e m e rged more or
But we m ust not let nostalgia cloud our understanding, less organically o u t
maki ng us believe that it would be possi ble to renew of workers' stru g g l e s
the struggles of an era that has come to an end. People with i n a parti c u l a r
do not make history under self-selected circu mstances, social and pol itical
but rather under existing ones. H u man ity has survived frame, w h i c h no
the era of the birth of capitalism, although not without longer pertains.
trau ma. N ow, we must get on with its destruction.

How is t h i s task to be acco m plished? The workers'

movement embodied a certain idea about how it was
to be done. At its heart was a metaphysical conception,
that of the collective worker, which has si nce dissolved . 3
Society is sti l l the prod uct of all these worki ng people :
who grow and distribute food, who extract minerals from
the earth, who make clothes, cars, and computers, who
care for the old and the infirm, and so on. But the glue
that holds them together is not an ever more conscious
social solidarity. O n the contrary, the glue that holds
them together is the price mechan ism. The market is
the material h u man com m u n ity. It u n ites us, but only i n
separation, o n l y in a n d through t h e com petition o f one
with all. If the world's workers stopped worki ng - turn­
ing their attention instead to routing the capital ists and
their goons - they wo uld not find at their d isposal a
ready-made mode of social organisation, born of their

Endnotes 4 160
"actual" u n ity (that is, the collective worker). I n stead , 4 See Anton Pan ne-
they would be th rown i nto a social void, wit h i n which it koek's World Revolu-
would be necessary to construct h uman relations anew. lion and Communis t
Tactics, V. I . Le n i n's
The reason it is no longer possible to believe in the Left- Wing Com­
collective worker as the hidden truth of capital ist social munism: A n Infantile
relations is sim ply this: the extension of capital ist social Disorder, H e rman
relations to the ends of the earth was not associated G a rter's L etter to
with an ever more class-conscious workfo rce ; q u ite Comrade L enin, and
the opposite. I n the period im med iately fol lowi ng World Anto n i o G ra m s c i 's
War I , a n um ber of theories emerged to explain why this prison writi n g s .
was the case. 4 After all, revolution had taken place in
"backwards" Russia but fai led to come off in "advanced "
Germany, w h e re t h e worki n g class had been m o re
industrialised. Why had i n d u strial organ isation failed
to generate class consciousness?

One set of explanations focused on the role of bourgeois

ideology: the emergence of a class consciousness had
been b locked by a false consciousness, which was
i m p lanted in workers' m i n d s by the apparatuses of
bourgeois society: its presses, its schools, its ch u rches.
This i nstitutional mach inery was putting d rugs i n the
workers' d ri n ki n g water. Another set of explanations
focused on the role of mediating institutions of the work­
ing class itself. Trade unions and parties were supposed
to shape workers' wills i nto an i mmense hammer, with
which the old world wou l d be smashed. I nstead , this
hammer either sat i d ly by, o r else was tu rned against
the class itself (such betrayals were frequently explained
as a matter of a certain embourgeoisement of party and
union leaderships).

In real ity, it was neither b o u rgeois ideology nor t h e

med iation o f workers' organisations that was to blame,
most fundamental ly, for the fai l u re of a revo l utionary
consciousness to g e n e ralise. As it tu rned o u t , t h e
extension o f capital ist social relations gave b i rth n ot
to the collective worker, but rather to the separated

A History of Separation Part 5: Defeat 161

society. The m o re workers' l ives were i m b ri cated i n 5 Of course, n o n e of
market relations, the more they were red u ced to the these revo l u t i o n s led
ato m ised observers of their own exploitatio n . I n the to anyth i n g remotely
cou rse of the twentieth century, social ist revolutions l i ke com m u n i s m .
did n o t emerge where t h e fu l l efflorescence o f capitalist
social forms had been ach ieved . Rather, they emerged
where those relations had only recently extended them-
selves. 5 With time, revolutionary potentials appeared to
d i m inish everywhere that capital ist society developed.
At that point - except i n rare circumstances, which we
will come to momentarily - workers could embody their
combative will only i n med iated forms, such as trade
u n ions and parties. These institutions were part of this
society, and as such, reflected its basic character. It took
almost half a century after 1 9 1 7 for this real ity to clarify
itself. For all its i nadequacies, Guy Debord 's Society
of the Spectacle i ntu ited at least this sad reality: the
extension of capital ist social relations was reflected i n
t h e increasing separation o f workers from one another,
even as they became increasingly dependent on one
another for their survival .

Constructing an "actual" u n ity, under these conditions,

had to be a pol itical project : it was that of the workers'
movement itself. Acting with i n this society - against a
cu rrent that became ever more intense - the movement
pressed forward . It became lost, however, i n a sea of
d ifferential i nterests: those of women and men, young
and old, "wh ite" and non-"wh ite", and so on. Workers
could bridge the gaps among their sectional i nterests
o n ly i nsofar as they bel ieved, and convinced others
to bel ieve, in a shared identity: the collective worker.
However, the u n ity thereby named was not a " real" u n ity,
given immediately by the fu ll flowering of capitalist social
relations. It was a fiction presupposed and posited by
the movement itself.

O n this basis of shared identity, workers' day-to-day

struggles - from which many workers benefited o n ly

Endnotes 4 162
i n d i rectly, if at all - appeared to be u n iversally util itar­
ian : "an injury to one" became "an inj u ry to all". By some
measu res, this project was wildly successfu l. By means
of solidarity and sacrifice, workers were able to win
social protections for the unemployed , the elderly, and
the destitute. Furthermore, by limiting the circu mstances
under which they were obliged to sell their labour, work­
ers also compressed wage hierarchies. However, their
efforts did not prod uce a revol utionary rupture. Eventu­
ally, the corrosive character of capital ist social relations
dissolved the fictive u n ities of the workers' movement.
And here we are, today.

Today there is everywhere a com m o n ly felt absence

of the institutional forms of solidarity that formed the
backbone of the workers' movement. When we need
to find a job, o r when we have problems with a land­
lord, there are no chambers of labo u r, no m utual aid
societies to which to turn. We are left with noth ing but
the state and its ancil lary charities. Today's strategic
thinkers thus u rgently try to i nvent new organ isations of
this kind (places to dwell and share), or seek to revive
those of the past (union, party, co-op). But these new
or revived structu res lack staying power, for they are
built on the sh ifting sands of the fully separated society:
no matter how m uch water one pours on them, they
refuse to cake up.

It's true that i n many ways the d ifferences among work­

ers that the labour movement had to overcome, in the
first half of the twentieth century, have been sign ificantly
reduced . In the high-income countries, and in many low­
i ncome cou ntries as wel l , the vast majority of workers
l ive in u rban areas. Their only country of residence is
commodity-land. They obtain almost everything they
need - paying mortgages or renting apartments, buying
food, clothing, and assorted gadgets, and purchasing
entertainment - by sel ling their capacity to labour. In
this context, subcultures emerge and die off, but these

A History of Separation Part 5: Defeat 163

are all overlaid on an abiding cultural flatness. For many 6 A deeper tran sforma-
people, national identity has become l ittle more than lion has occurred,
a matter of national languages and cuisi nes. National as we l l , w h i c h has
monu ments stand i n for any more engaging h istorical further d i m i n i s h e d
awareness. Meanwh ile, there are women CEOs, black the chances for a
CEOs, gay CEOs, and so on. resurgence o f a
class-based pol itics
Yet even so, certain social d ifferences have hardened. of sh ared i nterest:
The wage scale continues to i n stantiate a h i e rarchy being a worker i s n o
among workers, generating d ifferential l ife chances for l o n g e r one's e s s e n c e ,
workers and their children. These l ife chances are also e v e n if o n e i s poor.
determ ined by d ifferential accu m u lations of assets : the Soc iety tries to con­
children of some workers inherit handsome sums, which vince those at the top
may not allow them to stop worki ng, but at least ensure of the wage h i e rarchy
that they will l ive no less well than their parents did i n that they can work at
t h e i r later years. F o r most workers, however, there is no what they l ove, and
such personalised safety net. Nor are unem ployment that therefore they
and underemployment randomly d i stributed across the m ay i d e ntify the total­
class. They continue to correspond to d ifferences of ity of t h e i r l ives with
gender, race, national ity, i m m ig ration status, etc. I nter­ t h e i r work i n g l ives.
ests among workers tend to diverge most strongly when That i s also true of
the economy is growing slowly, or stagnating. Of course, certain jobs - n u rses
i n most cou ntries the economy has not g rown quickly o r teachers - where
for a very, very long time. 6 workers c o u l d i m ag­
ine a d i fferent form
Today crises are more freq uent. More and more peo­ of social organisat i o n ,
ple are shunted into an existence defi ned by low-pay, i n w h i c h they c o u l d
i rreg u lar work, and i nformal ity, in other words, every­ be m o r e usef u l , and
thing we have called surplus populations. The division even recog n i s e d
between the sti l l regu larly employed and the fractions as s u c h . For m o s t
of the surplus popu lation is becoming the key d ivision p e o p l e , h owever,
with i n struggles, today. Because we reiterate this point, work is what they d o
our analysis is often taken to im ply that we think things to s u rvive. The work
are looking u p because everything is getting worse : la they d o i s the sort of
politique du pire. It is certainly u n l i kely that revolutions work they hope t h e i r
will take p lace i n a time when things are simply getting c h i l dren w i l l never
better - nor when they are statically bad . h ave to do.

Endnotes 4 164
However, there is no hope in things getting worse, by 1 'Spontane ity, Med ia-
themselves. Revolutionary hopes are found only in revolts, t i o n , R u pt u re', End-
which tend to emerge out of a frustrated optimism. That notes 3, Septe m b e r
is, revolts fol low a d isruption of everyday l ife, or a series 2013.
of such disruptions, that fractu res the d ream by which
h u man ity is cowed into believi ng that the rigged game
of social l ife will work out i n their favou r. The picture of
calm and unanim ity presented by the forces of order
breaks down ; confl icts among el ites are suddenly on
display before the people. Anger building u p for years
or even decades rises and spills out onto the su rface.
There is hope, then, only in the open ing of a new cycle of
struggle, in the flight of popu lations into ungovernabil ity.

Indeed, the real u n ity of the class l ies neither in some

organic u n ity g iven by the development of the forces of
production, nor the mediated un ity achieved by means of
the unions and parties. Rather, that un ity has and always
will be forged in self-organised struggle, when workers
overcome their atom isation by creatively constructing a
new basis for collective activity. In the previous issue of
Endnotes, we tried to find a way to describe that u n ity
without appeal to a pre-existing metaphysical entity, the
collective worker. We showed how a historically specific
form of struggle emerges out of the historical specificity
of class relations in capitalist society (determined by
the u n ity-in-separation of the exploited). 7

This way of understanding struggle - grounded in but also

taking leave of the perspectives of left communists - can
be applied equally to the past as the p resent. But it is
important to recogn ise, here, the chasm that separates
us from the past. The creative generation of new forms of
organisation, new tactics, new content - all immanent to
the unfolding of struggle - is orientated toward a g iven
horizon of communism. In the past, revolutionary rupture
was orientated towards a particular project, wh ich we

A History of Separation Part 5: Defeat 165

have described in detail in this article. We have also a T h i s point has been
shown why this project is no longer g iven today. made by Theorie
C o m m u n i ste.
Th inking throug h the new context in which strugg les are See, for exam p l e ,
taking place req u i res a pivot at the deepest level, in the 'Theorie Commu-
very categories of comm u n ist theory. We can no longer n i ste Responds' i n
appeal to the notion o f class consciousness, with all it A u fheben 13, 2005.
impl ies. We are forced to confront the fact that the work-
ing class is a class of this mode of prod uction, u n ified
only i n separation. Of cou rse there are sti l l moments
when, in their strugg les, workers come together in a
mode that i nterru pts t h e i r u n ity for capital, allowing
them to organ ise both within and across lines of division.
However, today when they come together they no longer
do so as a class, for their class belonging is precisely
what d ivides them. Instead , they come together under
the name of some other u n ity - real democracy, the
9 9% - which appears to widen their capacity to strug-
gle. I n such moments a confl ict can open u p between
this ideal u n ity of the class, as something other than a
class, and the fact of the actual d isun ity of the class,
as a class of this mode of production.

It is i n such d iverse and d iversified conflicts that the

com m u n ist horizon of the present may announce itself,
not i n a g rowing class consciousness, but rather, i n a
g rowing consciousness of capital. 8 At present, work­
e rs name the enemy they face in d ifferent ways: as
bad banks and corrupt pol iticians, as the g reedy 1 %.
These are, h owever, o n l y foresh o rtened critiques of
an i m mense and terri ble real ity. O u rs is a society of
strangers, engaged i n a complex set of interactions.
There is no one, no group o r class, who controls these
i nteractions. I nstead , our b l i n d dance is coord i n ated
i m pe rsonal ly, t h ro u g h m arkets. The l a n g u a g e we
speak - by means of which we call out to one another,
in this darkness - is the language of prices. It is not the
only lang uage we can hear, but it is the loudest. This is
the com m u n ity of capital .

Endnotes 4 166
When people make the leap out of that com mun ity, they
will have to fig u re out how to relate to each other and
to the things themselves, in new ways. There is no one
way to do that. Capital is the u nity of our world, and
its replacement can not be j u st one thing. It will have
to be many.

A History of Separation Part 5: Defeat 167

AFTERWO R D : T H E I D EA O F T H E WO R K E RS ' M OV E M E N T

The first issue of SIC lays out the main historical claim 1 ' E d itorial', s i c 1.
of the com m u n isation cu rrent. "In the late 1 9 60s and
early 1 970s, a whole historical period entered into crisis 2 The Erfurt Pro-
and came to an end - the period in which the revolution gramme, 1891; ava i l -
was conceived ... as the affirmation of the proletariat, its able o n marxists.org
elevation to the position of ruling class, the l i beration
of labour, and the institution of a period of transitio n :' 1 a The Erfurt Pro-
This claim leaves u nanswered what would seem to be gramme. That the
an essential q u esti o n : what was it that t h i s " period s P o vowed to f i g h t
of transition", for which revolutionaries fou g ht, was a oppression d i rected
transition to? a g a i n s t parties i s p re­
s u mably a reference
After all, the socialists and com m u n ists of the late nine­ to the passage of the
teenth and twentieth centuries did not take as their final 1878 Anti-Socialist
goal to h oist the proletariat i nto the position of a new Laws i n G e rmany,
ruling class. Their final goal was to abol ish all classes, w h i c h l i m ited organis­
i n c l u d i n g the proletariat. This aim was stated in the ing aro u n d social
Erfu rt Programme of 1 89 1 , which became the model democrati c p r i n c i p l e s .
for many revolutionaries, across the worl d : "the G er-
man Social Democratic Party . . . does not fight for new 4 K a r l Kauts ky, The
class privileges and class rig hts, but for the abolition Class Struggle, 1892;
of class rule and of classes themselves:' 2 Towards that on marxists.org. We
end, the S P D fou g ht against " not only the exploitation will q u ote from Kaut­
and oppression of wage earners" but also against "every sky a lot h e re. M u ch
manner of exploitation and oppression, whether directed m o re than Marx, and
against a class, party, sex, or race" . 3 To focus on the precisely because h e
transition period only - the so-called dictatorship of the i nterpreted h i m f o r
proletariat - is to m iss its intimate connection with this a b roader a u d i e n ce,
final goal - the abo l ition of class society. Kautsky laid out the
bas i c theoretical
Some m i g ht respond that, when the SPD spoke of the p e rs pective of the
abolition of classes, they meant something very d ifferent t h e l a b o u r m ovement.
than we d o . What did the SPD mean by the abol ition of I n sofar as Len i n , Trot­
"classes themselves?" In his commentary on the Erfurt s ky, or even Pan n e ­
Programme, published as The Class Struggle in 1 89 2 , k o e k reacted against
Karl Kautsky provides t h e fol lowing gloss: he says, "it Kauts ky, it was

Endnotes 4 168
is not the freedom of labour" for which the social ists u s u a l l y o n some b a s i s
are fig ht i n g , but rat h e r t h e "freedo m from labou r " . 4 that they s h ared w i t h
They are fighting to bring "to mankind freedom of l ife, h i m . See M a s i m o
freedom for artistic and intellectual activity". 5 Kautsky Salvad o r i , Karl Kaut­
did not see social ist parties as fighting to preserve o r sky and th e Socialist
extend an al ready g rey world, a world o f choking smog, Revolution ( Ve rso
a world of mental and physical exhaustion brought on 1 990); Pau l M attick,
by years of work. ' Karl Kautsky: from
Marx to H itler', 1938
On the contrary, the goal of socialism was to red uce i n M attick, A n ti-Bol­
the role of work i n everyone's l ives, to create time for shevik Communism
other pursu its. This goal was already g iven in the major ( M e r l i n Press 1 978) ;
workers' struggle of Kautsky's time, the campaign for the G i l l e s Dauve, 'The
eight-hour day: "the struggle of the proletariat for shorter "Renegade" Kautsky
hours is not aimed at economic advantages . . . the strug­ and h i s D i s c i p l e
gle for shorter hours is a struggle for l ife." 6 I n Kautsky's L e n i n ' , 1 977. I n Lenin
estimation, only social ism could real ise this goal . The Redisco vered: Wha t
party program m e claimed that o n ly social i s m c o u l d I s t o Be Done? in
transform "the constantly g rowing prod uctivity o f social Context ( B r i l l 2006),
labour . . . from a sou rce of misery and oppression i nto Lars Lih has recently
a s o u rce of the g reatest welfare and u n iversal har­ made s i m i l a r arg u­
monious perfection:' 7 Productivity g rowth was widely m e nts w h i lst d rawi n g
seen as the sou rce of present-day m isery, but also of a the o p posite political
potential l i beration, wh ich could n ot but be the l i bera­ conclusions.
tion of h u man ity.
5 Kauts ky, The Class
Kautsky's own vision of p rod u ctivity-based liberation Struggle.
was of a world of art and p h ilosophy not u n l i ke ancient
Athens. Whereas Athenian culture was based on the 6 Ibid
slavery of men, socialism would be based on the work of
mach ines: "What slaves were to the ancient Athenians, 7 Ibid.
mach inery will be to modern man." 8 Socialism wou l d
thus realise t h e dream o f Aristotle, w h o imagined that " i f a Ibid.
every i nstrument c o u l d accomplish i t s o w n work, obey­
ing or anticipating the will of others, l i ke the statues of 9 Ari stotle, Politics 1 : 4
Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus" there would i n Complete Works
no longer be any need for the debasement of the many ( P r i n ceton 1984).
to create free time for the few. 9

A History of Separation A fterword 169

T H E P R I M A RY CO N T R A D I CT I O N O F T H E W O R K E R S M OV E M E N T

S o , was Kautsky t h e original theorist o f anti-work? How

did this l i beratory perspective turn into its opposite in
the twentieth century? That is to say, how did the libera­
tion from labo u r become a l iberation of labour? What
we need to recover here is the primary contrad iction of
the labo u r movement. The social ists and comm u n ists
of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries wanted
to abolish the working class and with it class society.
However, they believed this abolition could be achieved
only through the universalisation of the proletarian con­
dition. To end a world of hard labour, m ost of h uman ity
had to be transformed into labourers: they had to be
set to work accord i n g to t h e l atest tech n iq u es a n d
technolog ies of production.

To d ay, most of h u m a n ity has been proletarian i s e d .

Across t h e globe, h u g e masses o f people must s e l l their
labour i n order to buy what they need to survive. That is
true i n spite of the fact that, for many, proletarianisation
has taken place without an accom panying integration
into modern capitalist enterprises : a large portion of the
world's labou r force consists of workers without (regu lar)
access to work. It is obvious that this situation has not
bro u g ht us any closer to being l i berated from a world
of work. Indeed, it is d ifficult to imag i n e how anyone
m i g ht have thought otherwise, i n the past : how could
you seek to end d o m i nation by spread i n g one of its
forms to the ends of the earth? Yet this idea animated
an era of revolutionary energies: to usher in a world of
workers became the order of the day.

That explains why, almost half a centu ry after the pub­

l i cation of the Erfurt Programme, Leon Trotsky could
look back o n h i s interventions i n Russian h i story as
having pushed towards the real isation of the social ist
project, in spite of the Stalinist n i ghtmare that the USSR

Endnotes 4 170
became. He thought he had contributed to this project, 10 Leon Trots ky, The
not because the Bolsheviks had red uced the amount of Re volution Be trayed,
work the Russian people performed, but rather, because 1 936 ( Socialist Alter-
they had increased it: "social ism has demonstrated its native 2013).
right to victory, n ot on the pages of Das Kapita/, but i n
an industrial arena comprising a sixth part of the Earth's 11 I b i d . p. 59.
su rface - not in the language of dialectics, but in the
language of steel, cement, and electricity." 1 0 It was a 12 Ibid. p. 59.
massive increase in production, not a reduction in labour
hours, that was the measu re of social ism's success. 13 I b i d . p. 64.

Although he did not h imself oversee it, it was in this vein 14 As Le n i n says, 'The
that Trotsky praised the war against the Russian peas- whole of society
ants - undertaken in the course of the collectivisation w i l l h ave become a
d rives of the early 1 930s - as a "supplementary revolu­ s i n g l e office and a
tion" to that of 1 9 1 7. 1 1 This supplementary revol ution had s i n g l e facto ry, with
been demanded since "the kulak did not wish to 'g row' equal ity of labour and
evolutionarily into social ism" (by this Trotsky meant that pay.' Vlad i m i r Le n i n ,
the peasants had refused volu ntary proletarian isation, Sta te a n d Re volu­
and thus subjection to the will of the central planner and tion, c h apter 5, 1917;
local b u reaucrat). 1 2 Trotsky saw a fuller proletarianisa­ ava i l a b l e o n marxists.
tion as a necessary step before any red uction in labour org. Le n i n i m a g i n e s
time was possible. t h i s office-factory
as organised 'on the
Indeed, he believed that the threshold at which work l i n es of the postal
could be red u ced was sti l l far in the future, even i n servi ce', with all
advanced capital ist countries : "A social ist state, even tech n i cians, as well
in America . . . could not i m med iately provide everyone as workers, rece i v i n g
with as much as h e needs, and would therefore be a 'workman's wage'.
compelled to spur everyone to produce as much as pos­
sible. The duty of the sti m ulator in these circumstances
naturally falls to the state, which in its turn can not but
resort . . . to the method of labour payment worked out
by capital ism:' 1 3 Not only a world of work but also a
system of wage payments would have to be retained
for the time being ! 1 4 We take Trotsky, here, as one key
exam ple (he is not necessarily representative of the
range of social ist perspectives).

A History of Separation A fterword 171

The point is that, in any case, the extension to the world 15 Anton i o G ramsci not
of the English factory system (later, the American one only p o p u l arised the
displaced the Engl ish) - with its frightfu l pace, its high term ' Ford i s m ', he
rate of industrial accidents, its periodic speed-ups, and also identified with
its all-round subj ugation of h uman beings to the needs it. Ford i s m was the
of the mach ine - this was the d ream of many revolution­ ' u l t i m ate stage' of the
aries. 1 5 On that basis, it is easy to see why social ism , sociali sat i o n of the
i n its see m i n g l y i nterm i nable, i ntermed iate stage of means of p roduction,
development, came to seem to many people to be not based on the p r i m acy
so different from capital ism. I ndeed, many social ists of i n d ustrial capital
saw themselves as doing the work that cap ital had not and the emergence
done or had refused to do. The incompletion of capitalist of a new kind of
development presented itself as a communist problem. morality. Such i n t i m a­
tions of the ' n ew
T H E I R F U N DAM E N TA L V I S I O N man' c o u l d emerge
i n America because
I n t h e vision o f t h e futu re laid o u t in t h e Communist the u s lacked the
Manifesto, the development of the productive forces u n p ro d u ctive c l asses
was supposed to bring about heaven on earth. As we that formed the social
have seen, the social ists looked forward to a time, not base of E u ropean
far in the future, when machines - moving by themselves fasc i s m . The moral
and prod u c i n g a corn ucopia of goods accord i n g to d e p ravity of the latter
designs of scientists - were going to bring about an confl i cted with the
end of suffering, and so also of the confl ict born of n ew meth ods of
that sufferi n g , which made man i nto a wolf for other p ro d u ct i o n , w h i c h
men. The fuller development of the productive forces ' d e m a n d a rigorous
was not g o i n g to end suffering i m med iately: all t h i s d i s c i p l i n e of the
productive power w o u l d a s yet remain concentrated in sexual i n sti ncts and
the hands of capital ists, who used it for their own ends with it a stre ngthen­
(hence the im poverish ment of the masses i n a world i n g of the fami ly'.
of plenty). Nevertheless, i n stoking development, what Prison Notebooks ( I n ­
these capital ists were producing "above all" was their ternational P u b l is h e rs
"own g rave-diggers" . 1 6 1 97 1 ), p. 299.

Here we come to the as yet u n mentioned key to the 16 Marx and E n g e l s , The
labou rist vision of the future. The fuller development Communist Manifesto,
of the productive forces was expected to propel the 1 848 (M ECW 6), p . 496.
workers into the leading role. The development of the

Endnotes 4 172
productive forces was simultaneously "the multiplication 17 Karl Marx, Capital, vol.
of the proletariat", its becoming the majority of bourgeois 1, (M ECW 35) p. 609
1 7
society. Crucial ly, proletarians were not only becoming (Fowkes trans.). See
the maj ority; they were also made over i nto a com pact ' M i s e ry and D e bt',
m ass : the Gesamtarbeiter, or col lective worker. The Endnotes 2 for a m o re
factory system was pregnant with this collective worker, thoro u g h d i sc u s s i o n
wh ich was born of bourgeois society in such a way that of t h i s fam o u s l i n e
it would destroy that society. from Marx.

Antonio G ramsci captu red this vision best when, i n his 1a Anton i o G ra m s c i ,
pre-prison years, he described the collective worker i n ' U n i o n s a n d C o u n c i ls',
terms of workers' g rowing "consciousness of being an 1919. G ramsci thought
organ ic whole, a homogeneous and com pact system that the c o u n c i l was
which, worki ng usefu lly and disinterestedly prod ucing the proper form for
social wealth, arms its sovere i g nty and actuates its this collective worker,
power and freedom to create historY:' 1 8 Of course, in and also the germ of
order to become conscious of themselves as an "organ ic a future society. See
whole", workers would have to g ive u p various particu­ 'A Collapsed Perspec­
larising identities related to ski l l , ethnicity, gender, etc. tive', below.
Coaxing them to do so tu rned out to be more d ifficult
than social ists supposed.

Yet i n s pite of such d i ffi c u lties, workers were confi­

dent that h istory was movi n g i n their favou r. T h e i rs
was n o free-flo at i n g v i s i o n . It was g ro u n d e d i n an
experience of h i story's u n fo l d i n g . The working class
could feel h istory unfolding, i n stages : the old world
begets capital ism, and capitalism begets socialism. The
transition thro u g h these stages could be read off the
landscape, as the cou ntryside gave way to cities. The
same disj u nction was reflected in the surface of British
steel : one could com pare its straig htness to one's own
crooked i nstruments. The factories of England were
su pposedly the most advanced point in history. They
had traveled the fu rthest along a l i n ear trajectory. All
of Eng land was being made over by the factories ; all
of Europe was becoming England ; and all of the world
was becoming Europe.

A History of Separation A fterword 173

T h i s a l l e g orical read i n g of t h e E n g l i s h factory sys- 19 Eric H o b s baw m , Age
tern g ro u nded a fervently h e l d belief that the future of Empire (We i d e n -
belonged to the worki ng class : "The proletariat was feld & N i colson 1987)
destined - one only had to look at i n d u strial B ritai n p. 1 1 7.
and the record of national censuses over the years - to
become t h e g reat m aj o rity of t h e people" . 1 9 It was
i n evitable. By c o n t rast, every o t h e r social strat u m
was doomed t o d isappear: peasants, artisans, small
shopkeepers, etc. On that basis, many socialists felt no
need, at least at fi rst, to take a stand against colonial-
ism, or against the genocide of faraway popu lations, in
settler-colonial countries, to make space for Europeans.
H i story was going to stamp these peoples under its
boots and march on.

S O M E P RO B L E M S

Yet history marched at a halting pace. The Marxist under­

standing of history turned out to be only partially correct.
The entire world was not made over in the image of the
English factory. I n d ustrialisation took place i n some
reg ions; however, it largely failed to g ive b i rth to the
collective worker as a compact mass. We have provided
a h istorical account of these problems, above. H ere,
we focus o n internal d ebates among social ists and
comm u n ists. At issue was the question : wou l d capital
eventually g ive rise to a working class that was large
and u n ified enough to take over and then to destroy
bourgeois society - and how q u i ckly?

Kautsky made the clinging-on of the moribund classes

i nto a centerpiece of h i s c o m m e ntary on the Erfu rt
Program me. He ad m itted that there was sti l l a large
remainder of peasants, artisans, small shopkeepers in
Europe (to say n othing of the world as a whole, where
these classes were preponderant). Kautsky explained
this real ity as fol l ow s : i n capital i st society, " private
property in the means of production fetters the small
p r o d u cers to t h e i r u n d ev e l o p e d o c c u p at i o n s l o n g

Endnotes 4 174
after these have ceased to afford them a competence, 20 Kauts ky, The Class
and even w h e n t h ey m i g ht i m p rove t h e i r c o n d i t i o n Struggle.
20
by becom i n g wage workers outright." I n essence,
smallholders refused to become wage-workers because 21 E d u ard Bernste i n ,
to do so would requ i re that they s u bj ect themselves Evolutionary Socia /-
to the insecurities of the market and the despotism of ism, 1899; ava i l a b l e o n
the factory d irector. I n the face of these d i re prospects, marxists.org.
smal l h o l de rs did whatever they could to retain their
auton omy. 22 I b i d .

Of c o u rse, Kautsky stil l t h o u g h t t h ese s m al l h ol ders

were doomed. But he n ow supposed that capitalism
w o u l d s n uff them out much m o re slowly than Marx
and Engels had expected. Socialism, once ach ieved,
wou l d have to complete the process of proletarianisa­
tion. In socialism, to be a proletarian would no longer
mean a l ife of i n security and su bord ination. For that
reason, socialism would be able to coax the remain i n g
smal l h o lders i n t o the factory : they w o u l d willingly g ive
up their small pieces of property to join the proletariat,
thereby reducing economic i rrationality and bringing us
ever closer to communism. Kautsky thus conceived the
leveling down of the new world as a precondition for
absorbing the remainder of the old worl d .

I n his revisionist critique, Eduard Bernstein argued that

smal l h olders wou l d never get the chance to partake i n
these sorts of social ist schemes. Bernstei n , t o o , began
from the arg ument that, i n fact, "the industrial workers
are everywhere the minority of the population:' 2 1 At the
turn of the century - and even i n Germany, one of the
leading industrial powers - the remainder of peasants,
artisans, and shopkeepers was very large. I n d ustrial
wage-earners, " i ncluding industrial home-workers" , rep­
resented merely " 7,000,000 out of 1 9,000,000 people
earning incomes" , o r i n other words, about 3 7 percent
of the workforce. 22 Below the 5 0 - percent h u rdle, it
was flatly i mpossible for the class to obtain a m aj ority
in parliament.

A History of Separation Afterword 175

Even more problematic, for Bernstei n, was the fact that 23 Bernste i n , Evolution-
these " modern wage-earners are not a homogeneous ary Socialism.
mass, d evoid in an equal degree of property, fam i ly,
etc., as the Comm unist Manifesto foresees:' 23 That is 24 I b i d .
to say, the factory system was not giving b i rth to the
collective worker as a com pact mass. Between workers 2 5 I b i d .
of d ifferent situations and skills, it m i g ht be possible to
imag i n e a " l ively, m utual sym pathy;" however, "there is
a g reat d ifference between . . . social pol itical sympathy
and economic solidarity:' 24 Moreover, the factory system
was tending to accentuate d ivisions between workers,
not red uce them.

Bernstei n arg ued that socialists would h ave a hard

time maintaining equal ity among workers, even if they
managed the factories themselves. For as soon as a
factory " h as attained a certain size - wh i c h m ay be
relatively very modest - equal ity breaks down because
d ifferentiation of functions is necessary and with it sub­
ordination. If equal ity is g iven up, the corner-stone of
the building is removed , and the other stones fol low in
the course of time. Decay and conversion into ordinary
business concerns step i n ." 2 5 Bernste i n 's solution to
these embarrassments was to to give up on the goal of a
revolutionary transition to socialism altogether and to try
to find a more inclusive, l iberal-democratic way forward .

For the mai nstream of the socialist movement, it was not

yet time to give up on the goal. One part of the movement
d rew the conclusion that it was now necessary to bide
one's time: they should allow capitalism to mat u re, and
await the fu rther integration of the popu lation into the
modern industrial workforce ; meanwhi le, they should
conti nue to organise that workforce into a conscious,
coherent mass t h r o u g h the m e d i ations of the trade
unions and the social democratic parties. By contrast, for
the romantic revol utionaries - including Trotsky - there
was no time to wait. H i story had stal led, half-com plete.
The revolutionary com m u n ist international would thus

Endnotes 4 176
constitute itself in the decision to de-arrest the dialectic
of history. What was supposed to be a historical inevi­
tabil ity would now become an act of will. Everyone is
being proletarianised, and so, to achie ve communism,
we must proletarianise e veryone!

Regard less of w h i c h facti o n t h ey j o i n e d , socialists

shared this overall perspective. As the catastrophes
of h i story piled ever h i g h er, they put their faith i n the
fu l l development of the prod uctive forces. Movement
strategists saw that development, and the class power
it wou l d b r i n g , as the o n ly way to b reak out of t h e
penu lti mate stage of h i story and i nto the fi nal one.

A C O L L A PS E D P E R S P E C T I V E

Before we go any fu rther, it is important to recogn ise

that what we have called the primary contrad iction of
the labour movement - that the generalisation of one
form of domination was seen as the key to overco m i n g
a l l domination - eventually resolved itself in a "collapsed"
perspective, which fused the two sides of the contrad ic­
tion together. Thus, the un iversalisation of the proletarian
condition was i dentified directly with the abolition of
class rule, rather than as a precondition of the abolition
of all classes. I n fact, this collapsed perspective - we
might call it " Lasal l i a n " - was hegemonic before the
Marxist vision displaced it, and it also became popular
once again i n the middle of the twentieth centu ry. Lasal­
lianism had its root in the defensive struggles of artisanal
workers agai nst capitalist ind ustrial isation.

For artisans, capital appeared as an external parasite :

artisans did the same amount of work as before, but
instead of receiving all of the income from the sale of
the products of their labo u r, they received back only a
portion of those revenues as wages. Hence the nearly
universal slogan among struggling craft workers was
that labo u r was entitled to its "ful l p rod uct". Artisans'

A History of Separation A fterword 177

stru g g les were n ot o n l y about resist i n g "the wages 26 See D av i d M o nt-
system". Craft workers also fought battles over shopfloor g o m e ry, The Fall of
control. They resisted employers' efforts to rationalise the House of Labour
the labour process, to increase the d ivision of labo u r (Cam b r i d g e 1 989),
and to i ntroduce labo u r saving technical change. 2 6
27 ' [T] he c raftsmen
Although the artisans were eventually defeated (in fact, p u s h e d together in
the battle d ragged on for a long t ime), their vision of the m a n u factu re . . .
skilled workers' self-management was adapted for an c o u l d d ream of an
ind ustrial era. What "semi-ski lled" workers lost i n terms i n d u striali sation that
of skill and contro l , they gained in terms of n u m bers: wou l d turn its back
they formed - to a g reater extent than any other set o n the big fac-
of workers - a c o m pact m ass in large-scale work­ tory and retu rn to the
places, which could be seized as strongholds. Workers small works h o p , and
d reamed that, once they were in contro l , they wou l d to a private i n d e p e n d ­
be a b l e to run the now-establ ished factory system i n ent property freed
the i nterest o f the workforce, without the capital ists. of m o n ey fetters
In terms of both wages and shopfloor contro l , class (fo r exam p l e , t h a n ks
confl i ct was perceived m o re or less as a zero-su m to free credit a l a
game: i t was class against class, with t h e possibil ity Pro u d h o n , or to L o u i s
that the exploited class m ig ht take the "fu l l product " , B l anc's People's
e l i m i nating the capital ist. 2 7 B a n k). In co ntrast, for
the s k i l led e l ectricity
This Lasall ian perspective was the one that Marxism o r m etal worker, for
defeated, in the last q uarter of the n ineteenth century: the m i n e r, rai l wayman
a Marxist sto ry about dynamic productivity g rowth d is­ o r d o c ke r, there was
p l aced the Lasal lian one about a zero-su m contest n o g o i n g back. H i s
between classes. H owever, such a static perspective G o l d e n A g e was not
was later revived in the early twentieth century, above to be found in the
all in the rad ical cu rrent of the labour movement called past, but in a future
anarcho-syndicalism (which is not to suggest that syn­ based o n g i ant facto­
d i calists were pro-market, l i ke Lasalle, just that they ries . . without bosses.
came to see communism as a sort of workers' paradise). His experience i n a
relatively auto n o m o u s
Th is sort of perspective also became the de facto posi­ w o r k t e a m made
tion of the socialists and com m u nists, if not their de it logical for h i m
Jure position, throughout the first half of the twentieth t o think he could
century, and into t h e mid 1 9 6 0s, when t h e goal of c o l l ectively manage
wholly or nearly automated production - having already the facto ry, and o n

Endnotes 4 178
receded towards the horizon - fel l below that horizon the same model the
and d isappeared completely from view. whole soci ety, w h i c h
w a s conceived o f a s
The dynam ic g iven by g rowi n g p ro d u ctivity, and t h e an i nter-connection
tendency towards automation (which was so central t o of firms that had
Marx a n d the socialists of the late n ineteenth centu ry) to be democrati -
thus fel l out of the story, once agai n . Only the struggle cally re-u n ified to d o
to end capitalist exploitation remained. As Rudolf Rocker away with b o u r g e o i s
explai n e d , " Fo r t h e Anarcho-Synd ical i sts, t h e trade an archy.' G i l l e s Dauve
union is by no means a mere transitory phenomenon and Karl N e s i c , ' Love
bound u p with the d u ration of capital ist society ; it is of Labour, Love of
the germ of the Socialist economy of the future, the Labour Lost', End-
elementary school of Socialism in general." 28 Here, it notes 1, 2008.
real ly was expl icit that the working class was to be the
ruler of society. Taking over society was to inau g u rate 28 Rudolf Rocker,
a transition, not to a world without work, but rather, to Anarcho-Syndica/ism:
a workers' world. Theory and Prac tice,
1938. Rocker's s u m ­
A History of Separation has attempted to explain why the m a r y of anarcho­
primary contrad iction of the labour movement resolved syn d i c a l i s m does not
itself into this col lapsed perspective. The key was that, mention prod u ctivity­
for a long time, the development of the productive forces e n h a n c i n g tec h n ical
really d i d tend to i ncrease the size of the i n d u strial change.
workforce. Like Marx, Kautsky and the other socialists
expected a second phase of industrial development to 29 It was probably
arrive and sooner rather than later : rising prod uctivity d iffi c u l t to see the
was supposed to bring about a reduction in the demand collapse of 1 929/30
for labour and hence the ejection of the workers from as h av i n g its s o u rce
the space of the factory, lead ing to widespread unem­ in automat i o n , but it
ployment. I n fact, this second phase did not arrive until wo u l d be worthwh i l e
the 1 970s. 2 9 When it finally d i d , it spelled doom for the to exam i n e that
labour movement. period's politics
carefu l ly.
A PA R T I A L C R I T I Q U E

Rummaging around in our theoretical toolbox, we might

be i n c l i ned to retrieve the fol lowi ng critical perspec­
tive. The social ists lacked a proper theory of val ue, as
wel l as of the possibil ity and the inner tendency of its

A History of Separation A fterword 179

self-abol ition. 3 0 Accord ing to this critique, the labour 30 For a read i n g o f
movement failed to conceive of a real break with the Endnotes along these
value-form. It therefore ended u p reinforcing the cat- l i n e s see M atth ij s
egories of the cap ital ist mode of production, not least K r u l , ' E n d n otes: A
the category of prod uctive labour. Hence, final ly, the Romantic Criti q u e?',
labour movement "affi rmed the proletariat", instead of The North Star, 28
abolishing it. Jan uary 2014. For a
critical response see
The mistake of the theorists of the labour movement was Ate, ' Ro m antic Fic­
as follows. They often described capital ist social rela­ tion: N otes o n K r u l ' s
tions in terms of a foundational fracturing : the separation critique of E n d n otes',
of peasants from the land generated a propertyless E n d n otes b l o g , Feb­
proletariat. However, the class relation is not only estab­ ruary 2014.
lished through a foundational fracturin g ; it also confirms
that fracturing in every moment. Capital ism realises the 31 'Separation i s itself
fracturing of social existence as the "un ity-in-separation" an i nteg ral part of the
of market society, an interdependence of everyone on u n ity of t h i s world',
everyone else, which nevertheless red uces ind ividuals to G u y Debord, The So­
isolated atoms, facing off against one another in market ciety of the Spectacle,
com petition. 31 This is especially true for proletarians, 1g67, 11 7
whose very survival depends on competing with other
proletarians, and who therefore face the m ost barriers
to collective organ isation (as we have arg ued elsewhere,
it is not the eventual decl ine of working class identity,
but rather its emergence despite these barriers, which
needs to be explained).

The cleav i n g off of h u man b e i n g s from t h e i r capac i ­

t i e s - the expropriation o f "workers" s e t against the
" m eans of producti o n " - is s i m u ltaneously the social
separation of ind ividuals from one another, of the sphere
of production from that of reprod uction. It is also the
separation of the economy from pol itics. All that is given
in the phenomenon of market dependence and market
exchange: we are cut off from nature and from other
people, in such a way that we relate to both almost ex­
clusively through the med iation of markets, overseen by
states. We remain dependent on one another, but in a way
that keeps us separate from one another. This practical

Endnotes 4 180
u n ity-in-separation instantiates itself in a set of ideas, 32 Sociali sts often
which come to seem self-evident : "a fai r day's work for spoke about a future
a fai r day's pay" ; "he who does not work shall not eat". moment when the
se paration between
All of these separations, together, would have to be over­ m e ntal and manual
come in order to ach ieve com m u n ism, that is, a world in l a b o u r would be ove r­
which the connection between how much one "works" come, but they saw
and how much one "eats" has been defi n itively broken. t h i s overco m i n g as a
For the labour movement, only the i n itial separation of tech n i cal matter.
workers from means of production came clearly into view
as something to be overcome : this they hoped to achieve 33 ' W h e n S p a n i s h an-
by abolishing private property in the means of produc- arc h i sts s p e c u l ated
tion, and replacing p rivate exchange with central ised about t h e i r utopia, it
planning of production and d istri bution. 32 By contrast, was in terms of e l ec-
the commod ity - as "use-val ue" but not as "exchange- tric ity and automatic
value"- appeared to be neutral and transh istorical ; it waste- d i sposal ma-
was the same in every era. And so, they thought, the c h i nes.' H o b s bawm,
more the better: if more wheat will feed everyone, then A g e of Empire, p. 1 3 8 .
why not more of everything else? That can only be a
good thing. 33 Commod ities, heaped together in g reat 34 Theodor Adorno,
piles (an " i m mense collection of commodities"), were Minima Mora/fa
seen as the overcom i n g of alienation, not its real isa- ( Verso 2005), p. 1 56.
tion. More i m portantly, the factory system - as "labour
process", but not as "valorisation p rocess" - was to
survive the end of the capital ist mode of prod uction. It
was understood as the foundation of social ism, not as
the material embodi ment of abstract domination.

To cal l these notions "prod uctivist" or "prog ressivist" is

to mark out the obviousness of our discon nection from
a former era. But neither of these epithets should be
taken to mean that, today, we think the d ream of freeing
hu man beings from existential insecu rity is not a beau­
tiful d ream . Nor wou l d we q u estion the h u man needs,
however apparently frivolous, which such p rod uction
was imagined to satisfy (the critique of consumerism is
itself an outgrowth of productivism). It is sim ply to point
out that the identification between the real isation of this
dream - that "no-one shal l go hungry any more" 3 4 - and

A History of Separation A fterword 181

the extension of capital ist social relations, or the mas- 35 Orthodox M arx-
sive expansion of the factory system , is not only false ; ism tends to see
due to g lobal warm ing, it now has the potential to bring tech n o l ogy as n e utral
extreme harm to h u man ity as a whole. between alternative
socialist and capital­
As few were able to see i n advance, the mach inery and ist uses, c.f. L e n i n's
products of the capital ist production process were n ot i nterest i n scientific
neutral ; they reprod uced all the separations of capital­ management and his
ist society. 3 5 It is perhaps surprising that contributions defi n i t i o n of com-
towards a critique of the neutral ity of the factory system m u n i s m as 'soviets
d i d not e merge wit h i n the workers' movement u n t i l plus e l ectrificati on'.
the 1 950s (in the writings o f Phil Singer and G race I n fact, the capitalist
Lee Boggs, as wel l as Ran iero Panzieri and Cornelius transformat i o n of the
Castoriad is). 3 6 l a b o u r process does
not take p l ace s i m ply
Among the few who did see this side of things, in an as a means of in­
earl ier moment, was Marx h i m self. Quoting Fourier, he creas i n g productivity,
equated the factories to " m itigated jails". 37 For the fac­ but also as a means
tory is the very embodi ment of capital ist domination, of of i n creas i n g the con­
the separation of h u man beings from their capacities trol of the capitalist
and from one another. It is the perfect real isation of the over the workers.
topsy-tu rvy world of capital in wh ich man is dominated
by the prod ucts of his own labour. Marx failed to fin ish 36 Pau l Romano and Ria
Capital, his masterwork on these phenomena of aliena­ Sto ne, The American
tion and embodied domination (or real subsumption). Worker (Fac i n g Real­
However, based on the volume he did finish, it is hard to ity 1 969)and Ran i e ro
see how the factory could be thought to have a liberatory Panz i e r i , 'The Capital­
content. In her critique of Bernstein, Rosa Luxe m b u rg ist U s e of Mach i n e ry'
conceded this point: "It is one of the pec u l iarities of i n Phil S l ater e d . ,
the capital ist order that with in it all the elements of the Outlines of a critique
futu re society fi rst assume, in their development, a form of technology ( I n k
not approach ing social ism, but, on the contrary, a form L i n ks 1 g80).
moving more and more away from socialism!' 3 8
37 M arx, Capital, vol. 1
A S E L F - U N D E R M I N I N G T R A J ECTORY (M ECW 36), p. 553.

That the factory was part and parcel of the u n ity-i n - 38 Rosa L u xe m b u rg ,
separation of capital ist society made it d ifficult for the ' Reform or Revo l u -
collective worker to stru g g l e its way i nto existence. t i o n ' (1 goo) i n The

Endnotes 4 182
I n s pite of rhetorical statem ents to the contrary, it Essen tial Rosa L ux-
t u rned o u t t h at the "actual u n ity" of factory w ork­ emburg ( H aymarket
ers - as opposed to their u nity-in-separation - could 2008), p. 92.
be achieved only through the med iations of the trade
u n ions and the parties, as well as through their myriad 39 M arx, Capital, vo l . 1
cultural organisations (we will come to the problems (MEcw 36), c h apters
associated with u nifying through those med iations, as 13 and 14.
opposed to d i rectly on the factory floor, a l ittle later).
We can go beyond this critique. 40 Bernste i n , Evolution-
ary Socialism, c h apter
The theorists of the labou r m ovement expected that 3.
the u nity of workers within the fou r walls of the factory
would cut against the tendency of capitalist society to 41 M arx, Capital, vol. 1
atom ise workers and to oppose them to one another (MEcw 36), c h apter 15.
outside the factory (in labour-market competition and
i n the isolation of household repro d u ction). Yet this
strategy seems l i kely to h ave been effective o n l y i n
t h e early phases o f industrialisation, that i s , during the
phases of what Marx, i n Capital, called "cooperation"
and " manufactu re" . 39

During these phases, capitalists took workers from many

small shops and collected them together in g igantic
combines, where they were able to see and experience
themselves all working in concert, p roducing all the ma­
terials of a new world. Thus, it was i n these early phases
that workers appeared to be the ultimate sou rce of ma­
terial wealth (as we showed, above, rem nants of these
phases tended to last a very long time, much longer than
Marx expected). Bernstei n dismissively pointed out that
it was precisely "cooperative" work that people usually
thought of when they imagined the collective worker's
self-actualisation : "What one usually understands by as­
sociated labour is only a m istaken rendering of the very
simple forms of cooperative work as they are p racticed
by g roups, gangs, etc., of undifferentiated workers:' 40

With the advent and extension of " large-scale indus­

try", this sort of imag i n i n g l ives on only as nostalg ia. 4 1

A History of Separation Afterword 183

Mach i nes, designed according to the latest scientific 42 ' Because the produc-
knowledge, become ever more central to the production lion re lations are
process. The very centre of society sh ifts : science and, trans parent, most
perhaps more than that engineering, replaces labour at i n d iv i d u a l s i n i nferior
the heart of the production process, as the key sou rce social positions are
of material wealt h . I ndeed, h e re is the fundamental, d i ssatisfied with the
self- u nderm i n i n g tendency of the capital ist mode of system . . . The only
prod uction : social l ife continues to be founded on the way the syste m can
exchange of labours ; yet with the extension and devel­ b e mai ntai ned is
opment of the fixed capital base, labour is no longer through the effective
the key to p rod uction. D i rect h u man labo u r plays an ato m i sati o n of the
increasingly subsidiary role i n production, even though p o p u l ation.' H i l l e l
the exchange of equ ivalents continues to be measured Ticktin, 'Towards a
in terms of labour time. Po l itical Economy of
'
the USSR , Critique,
The development of large-scale industry expresses itself, vol. 1, no. 1, 1 973, p. 36.
finally, in the extrusion of workers from the factory - dein­
d ustrialisation. Beyond the factory gates, workers find
themselves wandering i n an i m mense i nfrastructu re,
that of modern l ife, which reflects back to them not
their g rowing power, but rather, their i mpotence. They
see not a world of their maki n g , but rather a runaway
world, a world beyond their control, perhaps beyond
anyone's control.

Insofar as they put their faith i n the development of the

prod uctive forces (insofar as they themselves contrib­
uted to that development), industrial workers actually
u ndermined the basis of their power. The fu ller devel­
opment of the p rod uctive forces did eventually lead
to everyt h i n g M arx i m ag i ned : worse n i n g crises, t h e
expansion o f surplus populations, a n d the imm iseration
of vast n u m bers of people in a world of plenty. But at
the same time, that development made it i m possible
for workers to experience themse lves as an a l i q u ot
part of the collective industrial worker, and hence as
the savior-destroyer of society. In short, atom isation
won out over col lectivisation (and did so in the USSR
as much as i n the us).42

Endnotes 4 184
WAS T H E R E A N A LT E R N AT I V E ?

I n the above sections, w e have noted a g a p between 4 3 K a r l M a r x , Critique of

Marx's late critique of pol itical economy and the theories the Gotha Programme,
of the labour movement, towards which Marx otherwise 1 875 (MECW 24), p. 8 1 .
expressed an infin ite fidelity. Some have described this M a rx i s h e re ex p l i c­
gap in terms of an "exoteric" and an "esoteric" teach ing. itly expre s s i n g h i s
Evidence for their perspective can be found in Marx's fru strat i o n w i t h the
critique of the Gotha Prog ram me, an 1 87 5 pre-cu rsor Lasal l i a n pers pec­
to the Erfu rt Prog ram me of the 1 8 9 0s, q u oted above. tive, w h i c h lacks the
The fi rst l i n e of the Gotha Progra m m e affirmed that dynam i c given by the
"labour is the sou rce of all wealth and all culture", to tendency towards
which Marx repl ies, n o ! " Labo u r is not the source of all auto m at i o n .
wealth. Nature is just as much the sou rce of use val ues
(and it is surely of such that material wealth consists !) 44 I b i d . p. 87
as labou r!' 4 3 It is only with i n a value-producing society
that labour becomes the centre of social activity, and
natu re is pushed into the backg round as something to
be used , but not really valued in itself. Marx is confident
that the fu rther development of capital ist economies will
render this Lasall ian perspective moot.

But do Marx's later writings really present us with an

alternative to the path taken by the labour movement? In
the Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx goes on to
lay out his vision of the stages by wh ich capitalism wi l l
actually be overcome. I n the "fi rst phase o f commun ist
society", he explains, the same principle will apply as
in bourgeois society, except that "content and form are
changed, because under the altered circumstances no
one can g ive anything except his labour, and because,
on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of
ind ivid uals, except i n d ividual means of consumption." 44
Marx here expresses the same sort of contradi ctory
position that Kautsky and Trotsky expressed i n their
writi ngs: to ach ieve the abolition of the proletariat, it
is fi rst necessary that each i n d ividual be red uced to a
proletarian. The u n iversalisation of this form of domina­
tion is the precu rsor to the end of domination.

A History of Separation Afterword 185

For Marx, it is only in the h i g her stage that domination is 45 Marx, Critique of the
actually overcome. This overcoming is, once again, appar­ Gotha Programme,
ently possible only on the basis of a fuller development p. 87.
of the forces of prod uction : "after labo u r has become
not only a means of l ife but life's prime want ; after the 46 Eve n more than
productive forces have also increased with the all-around Kauts ky, George Ple­
development of the i n d ividual, and all the springs of khanov was the o n e
co-operative wealth flow more abundantly - only then w h o developed t h e s e
can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed i d eas i nto a f u l l y
i n its entirety and society i nscribe on its banners : From f l e d g e d stage-theory.
each accord ing to his ability, to each accord ing to his See, for exam p l e , h i s
needs!" 45 Marx's statement is, to be sure, a beautiful one, ' T h e Deve l o p ment of
laden with mysteries worthy of further consideration. For the M o n i st Theory of
our purposes, it is pertinent sim ply to note that, even H i story' (1 895).
accord ing to Marx, it is not until we achieve a state of
abundance that we can hope to break the link, inaugurated
by capital ism, between the amount of work one does for
society and what one receives back from it. 46

TH E FI NAL MARX

Yet very late in his l ife, Marx called this whole stagist 47 See Kev i n B . An-
perspective i nto q uestion. Indeed, he came to believe derson, Marx a t the
that the theory of the succession of modes of production, Margins (C h i cago
which he had laid out in the Communist Manifesto, as 2010).
wel l as his vision of the stepwise transition to com m u -
n ism, was i ncorrect. Instead of fin ishing Capital, Marx 48 Karl Marx, d raft
became increasingly obsessed with non-capitalist com- l etters to Vera
m u n ities, among them the Russian peasant com mune, Zas u l i c h , i n Theodor
t h e M i r. 47 M arx's i n s i g ht was that, w h i l e t h e re were Shan i n , L a te Marx
classes in the Russian countryside, the d o m ination of and the Russian Road
one class over another was not ach ieved on the basis ( M o nthly Review
of " private property" ; on the contrary, domi nation was 1 983), p. 100.
i m posed externally o n a com m u n ity that retained "com­
mon property" in the land. 48 Wit h i n the M i r, relations
were not mediated by markets, but by commu nal deci­
sions made in accord and in confl ict with local customs.
That was of cou rse true outside of Russia, as wel l , in the
vast global countryside beyond the European continent.

Endnotes 4 186
 On the basis of these investigations, Marx u pended the 49 Shan i n , L a te Marx
stage-theory of h istory. Maybe u n iversal proletarianisa­ and the Russian Road,
tion was unnecessary. In areas where proletarianisation p. 112.
was not yet ach i eved , it m i g ht be possible to move
d i rectly from the ru ral c o m m u n e to full c o m m u n i s m , 50 Marx and E n g e l s , The
without an intermed iate stage. I n a d raft letter to Vera C om m u n i st M a n i -
Zasul ich, Marx suggested as much : the ru ral commune festo, 1 8 8 2 R u s s i a n
" may become a d i rect starting-point of the economic Edition ( M E C W 24),
system towards which modern society is tend i n g ; it p. 426.
may open u p a new chapter that does not beg i n with
its own su icide ; it may reap the fruits with which capital- 51 Jacques Camatte,
ist production has en riched h u man ity, without passing 'Com m u n ity a n d
through the capital ist reg ime". 4 9 It is important to note C om m u n i s m in Rus-
that Marx is not looking backwards here, or imag i n i n g s i a', Part I I . See also
some alternate reality i n which capital ism h a d never Loren G o l d n e r, 'The
arise n ; the point is that com m unes could take on capi­ A g rarian Question in
talist innovations, without proletarian ising. the Russian Revo l u ­
tio n', Insurgent Notes
The same idea was expressed publicly in the corrective 10, J u ly 2014.
preface to the Russian edition of the Communist Mani­
festo, publ ished i n 1 8 8 2 , that is, just one year before
Marx d ied. With Engels, he wrote: "If the Russian Revo­
lution becomes the sig nal for a proletarian revolution
in the West, so that both complement each other, the
present Russian common ownership of land may serve
as the starting point for a com m u n ist developmenC 50
The hopefu l note Marx sounded, here, on the role that
the peasant commu nes m i g ht play in the coming Rus­
sian revolution was echoed - at least i n itial ly - in the
spontaneous activity of the peasants themselves, in
the cou rse of the revol utionary era that opened i n 1 9 1 7.

Accord ing to Jacques Camatte, in his 1 972 text, "Com­

m u n ity and Com m u n is m i n Russia", the com m u nes,
which had u ndergone a process of d issolution i n the
late n i neteenth a n d early twentieth centu ries, were
actually revived in the course of the Russian Revo l u ­
t i o n . 5 1 Camatte suggests - woeful ly considering what
was about to happen - that "this could have been the

A History of Separation A fterword 187

beg i n n i n g of the reformation of the com m u n ities on a 52 Camatte, 'C o m m u n ity
higher level, on the condition that the peasants were and Co m m u n i s m in
supported by the new state, which had to remove the R u s s i a', Part I I .
elements harmfu l to the development of the com m unes,
a s Marx had stated in t h e d rafts o f his letters t o Zasu- 53 Ibid.
l ich." 5 2 Perhaps there would have been a way forward,
here, for the world as a whole, a new sort of revolution, 54 I b i d .
wh ich would have made possible the " reconciliation of
men at various moments of their development, without 55 I b i d .
necessarily putting these on an axiological scale." 5 3
56 I b i d .
It is not clear how this new revolution would have been
ach ieved , when Russia was d e c i m ated by the Civil 57 Camatte conti n u e s :
War, and when revolutions i n Europe fai led to come 'We h ave been most
off. Ignoring these i m pediments, Camatte sim ply notes: i n capable of conceiv­
"the victory of Marxism hindered the real isation of this i n g of [the leap over
solution:' 54 Camatte is surely right that, instead of being the C M P] , i nfested as
repudiated by events on the grou nd, Marx's earl ier, stag­ we were by the idea
ist perspective was hereby "cod ified in the name of that progress i s for a l l
Marxism", as a prog ram me of economic development people the develop­
and then put i nto p ractice by the Bolshev i ks. 55 The m e nt of the produc­
latter determined that "everything archaic and Asiatic tive forces. i . e . i n the
had to be e l i m i nated over the whole huge empire (and e n d , capital, which
g iven that the revolutionary flood affected the peripheral was the affi rmation
countries, this took on a global importance)." 56 Real ising i n s i d e the proletariat
that the peasants could not real ly be coaxed into this of the i nteriorisat1on
modern world i n formation, the Bolsheviks eventually of capital's v i cto ry.
set out to destroy the commune, to proletarianise the T h u s it is natural that,
peasants, and to develop the forces of production as before the peoples
Russian capital had not. This prog ramme became that whom we h ave forced
of com m u n ist revolution in the twentieth centu ry. to s u b m i t by o u r
agreement w i t h t h e
A M O M E N T F O R R E F L ECT I O N deadly e n e my, t h e
i nfamous path of
For Camatte, h u man ity had "the possibil ity o f leaping the passage to the
over the C M P [capital ist mode of prod uction];' but has C M P, we should stand
now "lost" that possibil ity. 57 We have paused to consider acc used (violent
this " lost" possibil ity for a few reasons. Fi rst, among all criti c i s m s of M arx's
the vaunted red th reads of history - which trace their ethnocentrism h ave

Endnotes 4 188
way back to an i n itial moment of betrayal, and hence to b e e n m a d e b y various
an u n realised potential for salvation - this one seems eth nolog ists o r i g i n al-
to go back fu rthest: to the confl icts within Marx's own i n g among these
conception of the pathway to communism. But more than people) .' Camatte,
that, this alternative vision seems to us to get closer than ' C o m m u n ity and Com-
any other to the heart of the matter, that is, the primary munism i n R u s s i a'.
contrad iction of the labo u r movement: to end all domi-
nation su pposedly req u i red the extension of one form 58 'Alas, we who wished
of d o m i nation, namely proletarian isation, to the ends to lay the fo u n d at i o n
of the earth, with all the violence this process neces­ f o r k i n d ness, c o u l d
sitated. 58 The proletarian class - u n ified in and through n ot o u rselves be k i n d .'
the extension of the factory system - was thought to be Bertolt B recht, 'To
the only class powerfu l enough to make the revolution. Posterity'.

In fact, instead of being a centu ry of proletarian revo l u - 59 It's easy e n o u g h

tion, the twentieth century turned out, l i ke the centuries to d e n i g rate t h i s
that had passed before it, to be largely a century of p roj ect retros pec­
peasant revolts. These revolts were aimed, i n itial ly, at tively, but i t was o n ly
securing a renewed access to non-market means of terr i b l e i n sofar as
existence, which had been eroded both by the capil lary it failed to achieve
action of capital ism and by the violent i m positions of its goal. I f it had
colonial ad m i n istrations. Peasants were often backed succeeded, it would
by comm u n ists, who adopted peasant slogans while h ave been worth
s i m u ltaneously t u rn i n g t h e m towards t h e new goal : it. The suffe r i n g s of
i n d u strial development, with the a i m of creat i n g the h u m an ity, al ready an
preconditions for fu l l com munism. Com m u n ists aimed o m n i present real ity,
at the maximal programme: freedom from want, freedom but a u g m e nted by the
from labour, "freedom of l ife" , to be achieved, fi rst of all, c o m m u n ists, wo u l d
through the incorporation of hu man ity into the ind ustrial h ave b e e n redeemed
proletariat, and only later by the abolition of that class by the v i ctory of
and by the withering away of the state. 5 9 co m m u n i s m . That
red e m pt i o n never
As mentioned above, the premise behind this project came.
proved false. U n iversal proletarianisation has now been
ach ieved : through the combined action of capital ist and
social ist development, as well as by means of other, u n ­
foreseen forces (the spread of the demographic tran -
sition). Consequently, there is no longer an outside to
capital ist social relations. Almost everyone h as been

A History of Separation A fterword 189

incorporated into the modern world, at least tenden­
tially, although frequently without finding employment
within capitalist enterprises. Yet the train wreck of world
history has not arrived at communism, nor even come
nearer to it. Universal proletarianisation did not give
rise to the collective worker, as a "real unity" to stand
against the unity-in-separation of capitalist society. And
of course the peasants - on to whose revolts this pro­
ject was grafted- were defeated even when their re­
volts were victorious.

REFLECTIONS CONCLUDED

In his texts - which to our mind pose the greatest

challenge to Marxist history- Camatte seems almost
exasperated that false ideas, or in other words, the
Marxist-developmentalist project, somehow won out
over the true ideas, based in Marx's repudiation of stag­
ism. This exasperation signals his failure to supercede
an idealist perspective, which is the primary perspective
that revolutionaries have taken with respect to their own
history. In fact, history is not made by ideas, whether true
or false, but rather, only in a clash of forces. There is one
force that Camatte did not include in his discussion..

The peasantry, the peasant commune, persisted well

into the twentieth century, that much is true. But almost
everywhere the persistence of peasant communities
also meant the persistence of old regime elites, whose
massive power was also based in the countryside. These
elites did not really form one class, but a set of overlap­
ping power-structures. Their power was based, not in
successful competition, but rather, on privileged access
to resources, such as land and credit, and rights, such
as the right to streams of income deriving from their
ownership of, e.g., mines or positions in government.

As it turned out, these same elites were not displaced

by bourgeois factory owners, with their purportedly

Endnotes 4 190
enlightened, l iberal ideals. Instead, the bourgeoisie was 60 G . M . Tamas, 'Te l l i n g
largely absorbed into the sabre-rattling old regime. This the Truth about C l ass',
amalgamated ruling class typically set out to exclude Socialist Regis ter
workers from the polity. I n some regions, they wanted 2006, p. 24.
more: they tried to turn back the clock, to " re-introduce
caste society, that is, h uman g roups with radically d if- 61 Trots ky, The Revo/u-
ferent entitlements and d uties", and so to re-establish tion Betrayed.
reg i m es of personal d o m i n ation in place of abstract
ones. 60 Such was true not only of the fascist parties of 62 I b i d .
the mid-twentieth centuries. It was the notion of a whole
range of political groupings, basing themselves on Social 63 I b i d .
Darwinist ideas.

As long as these amalgamated elites retained power - in

fact, their power was often augmented by what mod­
ern isation took place - the overall development of the
productive forces was b locked outside of the core
capital ist states. Trotsky makes precisely this point, at
the start of The Revolution Betrayed, which we quoted
above : "the history of recent decades very clearly shows
that, in the conditions of capital ist decline [they were
actually j ust a middling phase of capitalism's rise] , back­
ward cou ntries are unable to attain that level which the
old centres of capital ism have attained:' 6 1 He attributes
t h i s to the persistence of the o l d reg i m e : "the over­
th row of the old ru l i n g classes did n ot ach ieve, but
only completely revealed the task," namely to undertake
proletarianisation, as the precondition of communism. 62
This task was n ot otherwise going to be undertaken,
accord ing to Trotsky, due to "the insign ificance of the
Russian bou rgeoisie", and the consequent weakness
of the proletariat. 6 3

Indeed, wherever the old reg ime remained at the helm,

the peasantry persisted, while the proletariat remained
small and weak, unable to play a decisive role i n h is­
tory. This peasantry, while sometimes willing to rise up
against its oppressors, was at other times obedient to
its overlords, particu larly in the context of (often rigged)

A History of Separation A fterword 191

parl iamentary elections. The same could be said of small
but formally employed ind ustrial workforces, which were
often concil iatory towards the forces of order. All of this
is clearly on view in the h istories of low-income coun­
tries - particu larly in Latin America, the Middle East, and
South and Southeast Asia, but not in East Asia - where
old reg ime el ites retained much of their power.

It was in this context that, as we mentioned before, the

strateg ists of the labour movement came to see history
itself as blocked, and the u n blockage of history as an
u rgent task. That task would req u i re a further develop­
ment of the productive forces, whether within capital ist
society or in a planned, social ist developmental ist one.
I n either case, fu rther development seemed to be the
only way to strengthen and u nify the proletariat against
its enem ies, wh ich were legion (and this in spite of the
fact that, in real ity, that development spelled the doom
of the labour movement itself). Meanwh ile, old reg ime
el ites, backed by i m perial powers - later including the
U n ited States - were actively engaged in turning back
any movement in a l i berato ry d i rection.

Without condoning or condemning, we claim that these

facts grounded the workers' movement. Marx's idea had
been that the industrial working class would come to
exist, and that circumstances beyond its control would
force that class to cal l itself into question. But real ly, in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the question was
whether the class would exist at all, as a class of free
commod ity sellers, outside of a few centers in Northern
Eu rope and among wh ites i n the wh ite-settler colonies.
The world was changing rapidly, and it did so i n ways
that tended to en hance the power of the oppressors,
both in the factories of Europe and in the colonies. In this
context, fighting to exist became a revolutionary position.

Endnotes 4 192
A History of Separation A fterword 193
GATH ER US FROM AM ON G
TH E NATI ONS
The February 201 4 protests i n
Bosnia- H e rzegovina

194
When, on 10 February 2 0 1 4, we crossed the frontier 1 These i ntervi ews
between Serbia and Bosnia aboard a tiny Eurolines were conducted by
bus, one of our fellow passengers, a young man in his the video c o l l ective
late teens, was asked to step down from the bus and Yearo1 , of w h i c h one
disappeared into the police station. The officers had of u s i s a m e m b e r.
suspicions he was part of the crowd that had gathered The c o l l ective went to
in front of the Mostar Canton government building on B o s n i a- H erzeg ovi n a
7 February as it went up in flames and wanted to know t w i c e , i n February
more about it. A fter a 3 0-minute interrogation, they fi- and Octo ber 2014, to
nally let him go. As he stepped back into the bus and c o n d u ct i nterviews
it was clear he had definitely made it across the border, with part i c i pants of
his joy erupted. Of course he was there! Like in Tuzla, the stru g g l e and to
like in Saraje vo, people a ttacked and burned down the report on the causes
government building, and it was a wonderful sight! Even and consequences
better, in the divided city of Mostar, he sa w people from of t h e revo lt. See the
both sides, Bosniaks and Croats, hugging each other Face book page and
in front of the burning building! He was hoping to be Yo uTu be c h a n n e l :
back in time for the plenum; he was constantly receiv- Year-01-Videocol-
ing text messages from his friends who were now in lective.
the streets in Mostar, and he could not wait to be there .

• • •

A lot of people i n February had u n realistic expec­

tations. A maj ority of them thought that deep and
far-reaching changes were possible and were going
to happen i n this short period. It was u n realistic to
hope that a b u nch of angry people i n the streets
could undo the developments of the past 3 0 years. I
always recal l this old lady with a red scarf tel ling us,
very angrily: "If this fails, I will never forgive you " . At
the time I thought, "What are your criteria for fail u re?".
You could sense that people really wanted a revo l u ­
tionary change; a l o t of people expected something
very rad ical to change. But for a n u m ber of us who
have more pol itical experience, we knew that noth­
ing so rad ical could really happen. (Interview with a
plenum organiser, Sarajevo, October 201 4) 1

Gather Us From Among the Nations 195

 There will be noth ing here without revolution ! What 2 On the d iv i s i o n of
b u rned is zero, believe m e . I repeat : the seco nd the c i t y o f M o star
period will be bloody, bloody in Tuzla! It started in i nto a B o s n i a k and a
Tuzla, it must fi nish in Tuzla. There is no other way. Croat part, see Van n i
Look a t t h e politics: all t h e same national ists stayed D 'Alessio, ' D ivided
in power and kept their positions. (Interview with a and Co ntested Cities
worker of the Dita factory in Tuzla, member of Solidar- in Modern E u ro-
nost - a new independent union - October 201 4) pean H i story: The
Exam p l e of Mostar,
As they had long been doing every week, on Wednes­ B o s n i a- H e rzegov i n a',
day 5 February 201 4 the workers of several privatised in Sabine Rutar, ed.,
factories of Tuzla took to the streets to demand payment Beyond the Balkans
of months of overdue wages and social contri butions. (LIT Ve rlag 2013).
Most of them had been fighting for years, occupying
their factories ; several hunger strikes had even been 3 While the term 'eth n i c
u n d e rtake n , to no avai l , and the weekly Wed n esday n at i o n a l i s m ' h e l ps
demonstration seemed u n l i kely to make a d ifference. captu re the specific­
But on that day they were joi ned by several h u n d red ity of n at i o n a l i s m
young people. Together they tried to storm the building in the reg i o n , it h a s
of the Tuzla canton govern ment. The demonstrators often been used
managed to rush inside before eventually being forced i n the l i terat u re o n
back by the police. As clashes occu rred , some work­ n ational i s m s i n c e
ers were beaten up, and these i mages, captured on the 1 9 4 0 s (especially
camera, went viral. s i nce H a n s Kahn's
1 944 book The Idea
By the n ext d ay, d e m o n strations of solidarity were of Na tionalism)
occu rri n g i n Tuzla, and also i n Sarajevo and Mostar. to d e n ote a 'bad'
On Facebook, g roups l i ke U DAR in Tuzla, and the page Eastern n at i o n a l i s m
"50,000 For a Better Tomorrow", called for massive pro­ i n contrast to a 'good',
tests in the coming days. O n 7 February, thousands We stern 'civic' variant.
of people turned up to demonstrations in all the major This i d e a was popu­
cities of Bosnia-Herzegovina. I n S arajevo and Tuzla, larised ag a i n i n the
after violent clashes with the police, people stormed 1 990s i n the context
the canton g overnment b u i l d i n g s and set t h e m on of the Balkans by
fire. I n the d ivided city of Mostar they also burned the M i chael l g n ati eff i n
headquarters of the main political parties. 2 In pan ic, the Blood a n d Belonging:
canton govern ment m i n isters of Sarajevo, Tuzla and Journeys into the New
Zen ica resigned. Na tionalism. For a
criti q u e of the eth n ic/

Endnotes 4 196
In the following days, people started to organise " ple­ civic n at i o n a l i s m d i ­
n u ms" (assem b l ies) to d iscuss what to do next, and c h otomy, see Pavlas
to formu late demands. Many m o re t u rned u p than H atzo p o u l o s , The
expected - several h u n d red in Tuzla and Mostar, often Balkans Beyond Na­
m o re than one thousand in S araj evo. The p l e n u m s tionalism and Iden tity
q u ickly became the main l o c u s of the m ovement as (1 s Tau r i s 2008).
the protests dwindled. U n l i ke in the Occu py and l n d i g ­
nados movements, the assembl ies did n o t take place in 4 W h i l e it i s obvi-
the streets but in separate build ings. At each session, in ously p ro b l e m at i c
each city - more than 2 0 cities in Bosnia-Herzegovina to refe r to eth n i city
had their own plenums - long lists of demands were and eth n i c g ro u p s as
formu lated, among them the end of p rivatisations and if they were g ivens
of golden parachutes for pol iticians, and the setting u p rather than socially
o f a "government o f experts" . constructed, these
are - as with race
A recurring t h e m e in slogans, i n g raffiti a n d within ple­ and g e n d e r - really
n u ms, was the rejection of national ism. I n the context existing con structs
of Bosnia-Herzegovina, however, " nationalism" - and and must be analysed
therefore anti-nationalism - refers to a very specific as s u c h . Eti e n n e
real ity, which m ust be taken into consideration if we are B a l i b a r and I m m a n u e l
not to be led astray. Rather than the sign of an interna­ Wal l e rste i n h e l p -
tionalist movement unexpectedly emerg i n g before o u r f u l l y analyse races,
eyes, what was actually b e i n g rejected here was one n at i o n s and eth n i c
form of nationalism w h ich had d o m i n ated the cou n ­ g r o u p s as t h ree 'peo­
try since t h e 1 9 9 2 - 9 5 war, d ividing i t between Serbs, p l e h ood constructs'
Croats and Bosniaks. This is often referred to as a that are 'all i nventi o n s
kind of "ethnic nationalism" 3 , whose aim is to push the of pastness, a l l
economic and pol itical i nterests of one or another of conte m porary politi­
the three "ethnic g ro u ps" 4 wit h i n B osn ia-Herzegovina. cal p h e n o m e n a', yet
a l l h ave d ifferent
But i n no way does this mean that this rejection was structu ral re l at i o n s to
a trifl ing matter. I ndeed, ethnic tensions have been at the capitalist mode of
the centre of everyday l ife in Bosnia-Herzegovina since prod uction (see esp.
the creation of the cou ntry amid the ruins of Yugosla­ 'The construction of
via. They had al ready started to rise i n the 1 9 80s as peoplehood' i n B a l i ­
the latter began restructuring its economy to cou nter bar and Wal l e rste i n
the after-effects of the g lobal economic crisis of the Race, Na tion, Class
1 970s. With the g rowing pol itical and economic auton­ (Verso 1gg1) pp. 79-
omy of its several republics, i mbalances arose between 85). T h e i r analys i s of

Gather Us From Among the Nations 197

m e m , since m e previous spatial a iv1s1on or 1aoour the 'et h n i c group' o n l y
wit h i n Yugoslavia had concentrated m ost i n d u stry i n m a k e s sense, how­
t h e north - particularly i n t h e Slovenian a n d Croatian ever, i n the context
part - and ag riculture and raw material extraction i n the of an 'eth n i c m i n ority'
south, including in Bosnia. The managerial and pol itical within a cou ntry, and
el ites of the d ifferent rep u b l i cs soon started fig hting i s therefore of l i m ited
for their particular economic interests, and cu ltivating u s e i n u n d erstan d i n g
nationalist d isco u rses, each holding the other rep u b­ t h e construction of
l ics - and the other "ethnic g roups" - responsible for eth n i c ity in B o s n i a­
their local economic d ifficu lties. These claims increas­ H e rzegov i n a , w h e re
ingly resonated with the proletariat of each republic as t h e re is no eth n i c m a­
its standard of living declined and its i nterests d ivided j ority per se ( it is esti­
from those of the others. Tensions mou nted until the m ated that Bosn iaks
Yugoslav wars erupted i n the early 1 9 90s, fi rst i n Slo­ represent 48% of
ven ia and Croatia, then i n Bosnia. the p o p u l at i o n ) . The
d ifference between
The war was particu larly bloody i n Bosnia, the m ost con cepts of eth n i c
ethnically m ixed of all the republics. More than 1 00,000 g r o u p and n at i o n i s
people were killed (some estimates place the n u m ber f u rther c o m p l icated
closer to 2 5 0,000 ) ; mass rape and genocide were in Bosnia-Herzego­
used as weapons of war; nearly half the country's pre­ vina by the relat i o n
war population was d isplaced . This was part of the of t w o of the groups
eth nic cleansing that was used to create the relatively with i n B o s n i a- H e r­
ethnically homogeneous zones of today's Bosnia-Her­ zegovi n a - the C roats
zegovina. S ince the Dayton peace agreement of 1 9 9 5 , and the Serbs - to the
t h e country h a s consisted o f two entities a n d one d i s ­ Croatian and Serbian
trict, formed a l o n g ethnic l ines : located a t the centre n e i g h b o u r i n g state s .
of the country, the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina
( not to be confused with the country itself) is ad m i n is­
tratively d ivided i nto 10 cantons and mostly populated
by Bosniaks and Croats. Wrapped around this, on the
northern and eastern sides of the country, the entity
of Rep u b l ika S rpska - wh i c h has its own president,
parl iament, govern ment and police force - is m a i n ly
populated by Serbs. Between the two geograph ical
reg ions of Rep u b l i ka S rpska is located a further self­
govern ing ad m i n istrative u n it, the B rcko D istrict, which
also has a separate status. All institutions at the level
of the country as a whole themselves reflect these

Endnotes 4 198
d ivisions, with the th ree major eth n i c g ro u ps g uaran- 5 To com p l i cate the
teed, accord ing to the constitution, an equal share of m atter even m ore,
power. The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for s i nce 1 997, a non­
example, consists of three members : one B osniak and e l ected body, the
one Croat elected from the Federation , and one Serb Office of the H i g h
from Rep u b l i ka S rpska. 5 Representative i n
Bosnia a n d H e rzego­
Ever since the peace agreement, ethnic tensions had vina, has the power
dominated all aspects of society, which made any revolt to 'adopt b i n d i n g
or m ovement almost i m possible, since it would i m medi­ decisions w h e n local
ately run u p against accusations of playing one ethnic parties seem u n a b l e
group off against another. But this situation started to o r u n wi l l i n g to act'
change i n J u n e 201 3, with several protests that were and ' re m ove from
termed the " Baby-lution". Earl ier that year, due to eth­ office p u b l i c offi cials
nic d ivisions, the govern ment of Bosnia-Herzegovina w h o v i o l ate legal
had failed to enact a law for the registration of new­ commitments' (these
born babies, leaving them without identity n u m bers, are refe rred to as the
and thereby p reventing them from getting access to B o n n powers) . This
healthcare, and from leaving the country. After the scan­ body, which has al­
dal of one t h ree-month-old baby who died because ready d i s m issed m o re
she cou l d n 't leave the country to g et medical t reat­ than 100 offi cials,
ment, Bosniak, Croat and Serb protesters - mothers including judges,
with strol lers on the front line - formed a h u man circle m i n i sters, c i v i l se rv­
around the parliament and kept the MPs and government ants and m e m bers of
employees l ocked inside. It was the first movement to parliament, has often
u n ite people across eth nic boundaries since the war. been criticised for the
Though this movement was relatively smal l , it was impor­ u naccou ntab i l ity of
tant as a forerunner of the February 201 4 revolts; many its d e c i s i o n - m a k i n g
activists who were central i n o rgan ising plenums had and for its repeated
met each other d u ring the protests of the previous year. i nterfere nce in the
politics of the cou ntry.
D u ri n g the B aby-lution, women's assigned roles as
primary caretakers placed them at the centre of the
d e m o n strations. The connections they formed, and
the experiences they had i n that movement, prob­
ably contributed su bstantially to their i m po rtance i n
the protests that followed . As i n the g l o bal squares
m ovements of 2 0 1 1 , many women were i nvolved in
the demonstrations and plenums in February 201 4 and

Gather Us From A mong the Nations 199

played an especially i m portant rol e on social media. 6 6 On the s i g n ificant
They were equally present i n the riots of 6-7 February role of women in the
and particu larly active among the workers of privatised Febru ary m ove ment,
factories. H owever, while they sometimes had to fight see Nedim H ad rovic,
to be equally represented i n plenums, especially among 'Women are at the
delegates, the question of gender did not come to the forefront of g rass­
forefront of the p rotests, as we will try to explain later. roots movements in
Bos n i a', available on
SOCIAL COM POSITI O N m ufta h .org

At t h e centre o f t h e protests, at least at t h e beg i n n i n g ,

were factory workers from t h e privatised plants o f Tuzla:
mainly Polihem, Dita, G u m i n g , Aida and Konj u h . How­
ever, the status of these "workers" must be treated with
caution, for production i n their respective factories has
long been at a standst i l l , and they should therefore be
considered more o r less u n e m p loyed - t h o u g h they
can't formally claim that status, since this would cancel
t h e i r rig hts to the back-pay they are owe d . In many
cases, the owners - who mainly use the factories for
money lau ndering - prefer to simply stop paying work­
ers, rather than laying them off. On the one hand, these
workers h ave a very strong identity derived from the
importance of these factories wit h i n Yugoslavia, and
the preem i nent role played by the fig u re of the worker
in the i m a g i n ary of those t i m es. On the other, they
are u nable to use their position with i n the production
process to push their demands, and are often totally
ignored, n ot only by the owners but also by u n i ons and
government officials. Typically, these workers without
work haven't received wages or social contributions for
years, and months of occupations, protests - even hun­
ger strikes - have not made any d ifference. It is i n this
context that they took to the streets every Wednesday
until things took an u n expected turn i n February 201 4.

Indeed, it is only when these workers were joined by

thousands of young, mainly unemployed, people on the
streets of Tuzla on 6 February, and in all major cities the

Endnotes 4 200
next day, that the movement achieved a tipping point, 1 As i n Egypt and
forcing several canton governments to step down. The Tu rkey, football fans/
parents of this younger generati o n typically became u ltras p l ayed an
i m poverished d u ri n g the war, o r d u ri n g the wave of i m portant role i n the
privatisations and economic collapse that fol lowed. In riots, as well as o n
Tuzla, they often have fam i ly ties with the workers of s o c i a l m e d i a . They
privatised factories, which surely played a role in the w e r e also active
crystall isation of solidarities. In Sarajevo, this cohort is in h e l p i n g people
sometimes referred to by better-off activists as "foster who s uffered from
home childre n " , since many ch i l d ren lost their parents the floods that h i t
d u ring the siege of Sarajevo and fel l i nto deep poverty B o s n i a- H erzegov i n a
at that point. Amongst this category, some are organ- i n M ay 2014.
ised in football fan clubs such as the " Red Army" in
Mostar, or "Fukare" (have-nots) - the supporters of the a For an analysis of
football club FC Sloboda in Tuzla. 7 those movements
see 'The H o l d i n g
Finally, in Tuzla a n d Sarajevo i n particu lar, g raduate stu ­ Pattern', Endnotes 3,
dents a n d academics played a b i g role in t h e movement, Septe m b e r 2013.
especially i n o rgan ising and spread ing the idea of ple­
n u ms. I n B osn ia-Herzegovina, the level of education is
sti l l very high - a rem nant of social ist Yugoslavia - but
many struggle to fi nd jobs after university. Within this
category, there are wide d ivergences of income and
expectations, with many l iving o n the brink of poverty,
while others can sti l l afford to travel abroad or study
i n foreign u niversities. B ut the frustration of the latter
group remains h i g h , as their only chances of getting
a good job depend u pon aligning themse lves with a
pol itical party and playing the corruption game.

Of course, some partici pants do not fal l i nto any one of

these th ree categories - which are themselves some­
what fl uctuant and i m precise. Sti l l , these g r o u p i n g s
captu re i n b road o u t l i n e t h e d iverse d istri bution o f
social backgrounds and stakes a m o n g the p rotesters.
Thoug h close attention must be paid to the specifici­
ties of each local case, there are clearly some broad
parallels between the key terms of this composition and
those of the 201 1 squares movements. 8 Wh ile systemic

Gather U s From A mong the Nations 201

confl icts among these sections wou l d emerge increas­
ingly during the ebb of the movement, this diversity is
itself a measure of the momentum of a struggle that
managed to bring together people who normally have
l ittle to do with each other.

R EASO N S F O R R E VO LT

The most i mmed iate reason for people taki n g to the 9 See Raj ko Tomas,
streets i n such n u m bers o n 7 February was clearly Crisis and Gray
o utrage at the way police treated workers who were Economy in Bosnia
demonstrating. In this sense, l i ke m ost riot-waves of and Herzego vina,
recent times, the proximate cause of this movement was (Friedrich Ebert 2010).
police brutality; but that the latter could have such an
effect is the result of a more general context of social 1 0 See Nermin Oruc,
i njustice and - i n this case - econo m i c collapse. I n 'Remittances and De­
explain i n g t h e movement, i t is thus t o this context that velopment, the Case
we should look. of Bosnia', 201 1 .

Most industry i n Bosnia-Herzegovina h a s been devas- 1 1 And more recently t o

tated since the war, due n o t o n l y to the destruction of assist the US m i l itary
fixed capital in the war itself, but also the series of cli­ in reg ions affected
entelist privatisations, bankruptcies and asset-stripping by Ebola. See Adam
that fol l owed it. The country is dependent on i m po rts, Moore, 'Bosnians
and the trade deficit g rows every year. Bosnia produces recruited to su pport
raw materials (metal , wood , coal) as well as electricity US m i l itary's fight
from hydroelectric sou rces, which it exports abroad , again st Ebola i n West
to Germany, Croatia, Serbia and S lovenia. But m ost Africa', Balkanist, 27
consumer goods h ave to be i m porte d . E m ployment October 2014
is low and concentrated i n the service sector : 65%,
com pared to 2 6 0/o i n t h e - larg e ly " l eg acy" - i n d us­
trial sector and 80/o i n ag riculture. The state and its
various apparatuses are the biggest employers i n the
country. Unemployment is among the highest in Europe,
estimated at 44% overall and 6 0% for young people.
Almost one-t h i rd of Bosnia-Herzegovina's population
is considered to be i n poverty o r o n the verge of it. The
g ray economy plays an i m po rtant role, rep resenting
more than 20% of overall economic activity accordi n g

Endnotes 4 202
to estimates. 29 0,000 people are thought to be work- 12 See L i l y Ly n c h , 'Qatar
ing in that sector, while the n u m ber of people officially seeks Balkan h o u se­
employed is circa 700,000. 9 m a i d s', Balkanist, 2
Septe m ber 2013.
Transfers by Bosnian workers living abroad help many
fam i l ies to get by. It is est i m ated that about 1 .35 1 3 See T i m othy Donais,
m i l l i o n Bosn ians l ive abroad , and their rem ittances The Political Economy
represent around 23% of G DP. 1 0 Many of these peo­ of Peacebuilding in
ple are h ig h ly educated - the "brain d rain" that started Post-Dayton Bosnia
d u ring the war is ongoing - but unskilled youths also ( Routledge 2005)
often leave in search of e m p l oyment elsewhere. For and Lana Pas i c ,
exam ple, s i n ce 2 0 0 7, American com pan ies such as ' Bosn ia's vast fore i g n
Fluor Corporation and DynCorp have been recru iting f i n a n c i a l assis-
thousands of contractual workers from Tuzla and the lance re-exa m i n e d :
reg ion to work in us m i l itary bases i n Afg hanistan and statistics and resu lts',
l raq . 1 1 I n 2 0 1 3 , deals were also made between the B a l kanalys i s . c o m , 21
Bosn ian government and Qatar to authorise young J u n e 201 1 .
Bosnian women to work there as domestic workers. 1 2
I n some cases, with these contracts, workers can get 14 O n the specificities
fou r times the average salary i n Bosnia-Herzegovina, of workers' manage-
allowing them to send h o m e a considerable remit­ men! in Yugoslavia,
tance. Financial aid and loans from other cou ntries see G o ran M u s i c ,
also remain major sou rces of money, even if they have 'Workers' Self-Man­
been decreasing since 2000. 1 3 agement as State
Parad i g m ' in I m ma­
T H E E N D O F WO R K E RS ' I D E N T I T Y nuel Ness and Dario
Azze l l i n i , eds, Ours to
With its i m portant m i nes, Tuzla was once among the Master and to Own:
i n d ustrial centres of Yugoslavia, so it is h i g h ly sym ­ Workers ' Control from
bolic that the movement started there. Si nce the Husino the Commune to the
rebellion i n 1 9 20 - an armed rebellion by striking m i n ­ Present ( H aymarket
e r s that w a s violently rep ressed - the fig u re of the 2011).
miner i n strug g l e has been central to the h i story of
the city. I n Yugoslavia more broad ly, the specific form
of workers' identity was one centred o n the idea of
workers' self-management of the means of produc­
tion. 1 4 Wh ile it is clear that the decision-making power
that was g iven to workers within the production u n it
was l i m ited - especial ly d u ri n g Yugoslavia's final

Gather Us From Among the Nations 203

decades 1 5- self-management has had an i m p o rtant 15 On how the real ities
i nfl uence o n the self-i mage of workers, who often of self- m anagement
express a strong bond with their workplace as belong­ evolved between 1 948
ing to them - someth i n g rei nforced by the fact that and 1 991 , see Vlad i m i r
many received shares in these factories after the col­ U n kovs k i - Korica,
lapse of Yugoslavia. However, if this identity is sti l l very 'Self- m anageme nt,
much present in workers' understanding of their role in Development and
society - as could be witnessed in their statements and Debt: The rise and
interventions at plenums - it is, as al ready mentioned, Fall of the 'Yu g o -
a contrad ictory one: a workers' identity held by people s l av Experim ent' i n
who have been de facto unemployed for years. Srecko H o rvat and
Igor Stiks, eds, Wel­
And every statement from the authorities shows how come to the Desert
ind ifferent they are to val ues such as workers' pride. I n of Post-Socialism:
t h i s context, t h e non-working workers whose protests Radical Politics A fter
were blatantly i g n o red by e m p l oyers and pol iticians Yugosla via (Ve rso
a l i ke became the symbol of a workers' identity fight­ 2015).
ing desperately against its obsolescence, whose fate
strongly resonated in a younger generation for whom
formal labour had long-since become an inaccessi­
ble d ream. I n this sense, these workers became the
sym bol of the surplus character of labo u r i n Bosnia­
H e rzegovi na. I ndeed, if an i m p o rtant facto r i n the
socio-eco n o m i c c o m position and stakes of many
recent movements, including the square occupations of
201 1 - 1 2 , has been the general low-level of demand for
labour on a global level, in individual cases local factors
can d rastically exacerbate this general predicament.
With its h istorical particu larities, Bosnia-Herzegovina
rep resents a q u ite acute case. U n e m ployment lev­
els here are extreme, production is devastated , and
there is hardly any i nternational economic interest i n
the reg ion - which also explains w h y the international
media carried so l ittle coverage of the protests.

Wh i l e in other E u ropean cou ntries where sq uares

movements occu rred it was the 2008 crisis that accel­
erated the rise in unemployment and poverty, in Bosnia
the economy has been i n a deep crisis since the war,

Endnotes 4 204
when the country's GDP fel l to only 1 0% of its pre-war 16 See the Statistics of
leve l , so the effects of the fi nancial crisis were less foreign trade, no. 3,
clear-cut against this backd rop. Stil l , there had been B H Agency for Statis-

modest i m p rovements i n the economic situation since tics, 20og, p. 3

1 996 - improvements halted by the effects of the Euro­
pean crisis in 2008. Indeed, while the Bosnian economy 17 See Raj ko Tomas,
is only i n d i rectly i nteg rated i nto the EU's, as countries Crisis and Gray
l i ke Croatia and S lovenia - the main i m porters of Bos­ Economy in Bosnia
nian prod u cts - were affected by the E U crisis, the and Herzegovina,
g rowth trend went i nto reverse. Exports to these coun­ (Friedrich Ebert Stif­
tries slowed down while internal consumption remained tung 2010), p.1 0 1 .
low, diminishing employment possibilities even fu rther. 1 6
In this context, aggravated by a reduction of financial aid
from international fu nds during the last decade, and a
decrease in transfers from Bosn ian citizens abroad (by
about KM300 - €600 m i l l i o n in 2008 1 7 ) the economic
situation became even more un bearable for the poorest
segments of the population.

C O R R U PTI O N

A s in other squares movements, corru ption was seen 1 s S e e Stef Jansen,

by protesters as the main cause of the economic prob- ' Rebooting politics?
lems affecti n g Bosnia- H e rzegovina. The latter is often Or, towards a < Ctrl-
l isted as one of the most corru pt cou ntries in Europe, Alt- D e l > for the
along with U krai ne, Belarus and Kosovo. The chan- Dayton Meantime' in
nels of corruption run through all layers of society, from Dam i r Arsen i1evic, ed.,
the allocation of money i njected by foreign i nstitutions Unbribable Bosnia
and NGOs, to the state sector (incl u d i n g u n iversities, and Herzegovina: The
schools, cultural p rojects and healthcare), to the pri- Fight for the Com-
vate economy and vari o u s local m afias. Its central mans (Nomos 201 5),
structures, however, seem to be the ethn ically-divided p. 91.
pol itical parties, someti mes referred as the "ethnocrats",
who run this "foreig n-sanctioned national-cl ientelistic
mach ine". 1 8 Indeed, si nce the war, these parties have
been al locating the avai lable jobs and resou rces along
ethnic l i nes in a cl ientel istic manner, blatantly increas-
ing their own wealth in the process. They are therefore
the primary target of the protesters where corruption

Gather Us From A mong the Nations 205

 is concerned, and several pol itical party headquarters 19 See ' Beyon d the
were attacked d u ring the demonst rations. Hopelessness of
Su rvival' i n Unbrib­
The functions of the state are d ivided between mem­ ab/e Bosnia and
bers of these parties, since, as mentioned above, every Herzego vina, p.62.
position m ust be held by t h ree representatives : one
B osniak, one Serb and one Croat. This m u ltiplication 20 See Damir
of positions makes of the state an enormous mach ine, Arsenij evic's i ntroduc­
a n d i n d e e d , accord i n g to Aleksandar H e m o n , t h e tion to a collection of
" largest a n d o n ly rel iable e m ployer i n t h e cou ntry " . 1 9 texts by partici pants
However, corruption is n ot l i m ited to pol itical parties in the protests:
and state employees ; for most proletarians i n Bosnia Unbribable Bosnia
it is a very concrete everyday experience. Indeed, in and Herzegovina: The
order to get a job, it is typically necessary to bribe a Fight for the Com-
member of a pol itical party - wh ich can cost several mons.
thousand euros, req u i ri n g a loan that will take years
to repay. M e m bers h i p of the party l i n ked to the j o b
i n q uestion, a n d a demonstration of loyalty to i t , are
also typical req u i re ments : i n particular, partici pation
i n p rotests, o r anyt h i n g else that m i g ht endanger i n
any way t h e party's prospects, is ruled out. That i s , of
course, not to say that the majority of people in Bosn ia­
H e rzegovina benefit from corru ption, but rather that
they are forced to play by the rules and be part of the
big corruption mach ine. Ag reeing to play the game is
also a prerequisite of access to healthcare, si nce the
health system is hig hly dysfu nctional and doctors must
be bribed for assistance and med ication. The same
applies in u n iversities, where students have re ported
having to pay bribes to get their d i p lomas.

I n t h i s sense, t h o u g h it m ay s o u n d q u aint, the des­

i g n at i o n of t h e February p rotesters as " U n b r i b a b l e
B o s n i a " 2 0 m ay w e l l b e u sefu l , if w e set a s i d e t h e
moral istic connotations. A l o n g w i t h u n i versity p rofes­
sors and academ ics who refused to be corru pted and
belong to a pol itical party, a su bstantial part of the
protesters may well be " u n bribable" because they are
simply too poor to participate in the corruption machine,

Endnotes 4 206
unable to pay the bribes that would buy them a place in 21 Jasm i n M ujanovic,
those networks. This may actually help to explain why 'The Baja Class and
so fe w people took part i n the p rotests, considering the Politics of Partici-
the terrible economic and social conditions most have pation' in Unbribable
to e n d u re : while, accord i n g to su rveys made s h o rtly Bosnia and Herzego-
before the October 201 4 elections, the maj ority of the vina, p. 141
popu lation saw them as positive events, no more than
a few tens of thousands of people (in a country of only 22 L.S., 'Hanging by a
3.8 m i l l ion i n habitants, it m ust be said) took part in the thread : class, cor-
protests and plenums around the country. Among the ruption and precarity
fears preventing them from doing so was that of losing i n Tunisia', Mute, 1 7
a position, or access to a service, by not showing one's January 2012. He
loyalty to the regime i n general, and a political party i n conti nues: ' For the
particu lar. unemployed poor
of the i nterior most
But, accord i n g to J asm i n M ujanovi6, "Th is process can­ notably, but for
not merely be understood as one of banal 'corruption', Tu nisians suffering
as there is no functioning state that is being corru pted , decl i n i n g i ncomes
2 1
per se". Indeed, a central demand of the movement and rising prices gen­
was to get "a functioning state". Moreover, corruption erally, corruption and
as organised through these clientelist n etworks m ay the attendant experi­
be effectively the form the state takes in Bosnia, the ence of violence and
way it (dys)fu nctions. O r, as LS. says i n the context of i nj ustice at the hands
Tun isia: "Corruption is then not simply an exception to of state officials is
the normal functioning of the relationshi p of the state an everyday fact of
to civil society, nor merely the conc_e rn and cause of social reproduction.
the established middle class citizen, but a moment i n From the point of
t h e state's habitual, harassing reproduction o f t h e mass view of the state, it
of marg i nals:' 22 is a way of manag­
ing the growing
Discussions aro u n d corruption and its causes often surplus popu lation: a
revolve around the alternatives of either blaming foreign specific way i n which
institutions such as the I M F o r viewing it as a matter of authoritarianism is
the cl ientelism and patronage to which some "cultures" mod u l ated to control
are especially prone. In the context of recent revolts, and i nteg rate the
corruption has been discussed primarily in cases where proletariat of the
what Jack Goldstone has termed a "sultan" is able - i n restructured and
the context o f a rentier state - to red istri bute revenue globally i nteg rated
via patronage networks. I n Bosnia-Herzegovina, though, neoli beral economy.'

Gather U s From A mong the Nations 207

there is no sultan, no dictato r - n ot even a particularly 23 See Jack A. Gold­
strong fig u re. 23 This pecul iar state-form is the d irect stone, ' U n derstand­
result of the Dayton ag reement, designed by "the i nter­ ing the Revolutions
national com m u n ity" . Wh ile there is a form of top-down of 2 0 1 1 ' , Foreign
clientelist redistribution - particularly of foreign aid, one A ffairs, May/J u n e
of the main resou rces the state and NGOs can redis­ 201 1 . An exception
tribute - corruption has also emerged at the base of here is the case of
the social struct u re, through the development of an Rep u b l i ka Srpska
informal economy that is necessary for the most basic and its nationalist
reproduction. This economy is organised through vari­ president, M i lorad
ous small mafias that ruthlessly exploit the desperation Dodik, who is famous
of the bottom layer of the popu lation. for his 'bom bastic
public performance
For neoliberals such as Hernando de Soto, the infor­ of personal strength
mal economy is a result of corru ption, and corruption and authority'. See
i n turn a result of the rigid ity of the labo u r-market. But Jasmin M ujanovic,
causation may flow in the opposite d i rection - corrup­ 'The Baja Class and
tion resulting from the informal ity of the economy, itself the Politics of Partici­
the effect of a low demand for labo u r, which makes pation' i n Unbribable
the reproduction of a sign ificant part of the proletariat Bosnia and Herzego­
contingent to capital. The g ray economy is an inefficient vina, p.135.
terrain for capital acc u m u lati o n : i n Bosnia it is est i ­
mated that profits are 2 0 0/o lower here than in t h e formal
economy. But it nonetheless helps shore up a crumbling
social structu re that m i g ht otherwise collapse entirely.
Rather than being straightforwardly unemployed, peo­
ple sti l l fin d meagre, residual sou rces of i ncome here
and there, and allegiance to corrupt officials p revents
them from revolting. Wh ile the economy tends towards
informality - i.e. avoiding formal taxation - when profits
are weak, in such a context the corruption wh ich both
riddles the state and props up such political structu res
as do exist may be i nterpreted functionally as a last­
instance mode of taxation :

Corruption is the most successful business of q uasi­

democratic authorities ; g ray economy is their most
powerful social program, and " racketeerin g " is the
favorite method of "taxat i o n " . Corruption is also

Endnotes 4 208
 one form of g ray economy. U ltimately, it is an i llegal 24 Raj ko Tomas, Crisis
method of taxation. The g ray economy actors need and Gray Economy in
corru pted civil servants, and t h e corru pted civil Bosnia and Herzego-
servants need g ray economy. 24 The construct i o n vina, p.131
of t h i s c l iente l i s m along eth n i c l i nes i nvolves a l l i -
ances between business partners, mafia networks
and pol itical parties - all u n ited by an alleg iance to
the i nterests of one eth nic group against the others.
Business opport u n ities and cash resou rces can be
gained through networks of influence with in the state,
and there are benefits to be had from the turn i n g of a
blind eye to i l legal activities. These ethno-nationalist
networks d istribute eth nic privilege - that is, the abil-
ity to excl ude other people from jobs and resou rces.
I n this sense, it is no wonder that these networks, as
wel l as corruption more generally, have been one of
the main targets of those who are largely deprived
of such resou rces.

A N E N O R M O U S D E M A N DS - P R O D U C I N G M A C H I N E

The most widely-discussed aspect of the Bosn ian move- 25This transparency
ment was its systematic creation of plenums -"citizens' led to a formal ism
asse m b l i e s " - in all the affected cities. This form of even more acute than
organisat i o n h as been popular in the reg i o n among that of Occupy Wall
left students and academics since the Croatian student Street: people were
occupation of 2009, and it was d iscussed, but never g iven only two m i n ­
put into practice, in Bosnia-Herzegovina during student utes to t a l k ; all deci-
protests i n Tuzla i n 2009 as well as during the 201 3 sions were written
Baby-lution. This time it turned out to be extremely pop­ down and projected
ular, and, from 8 February onwards, more people went on a wall at all times;
to plenums than to demonstrations or gatherings. While most plenums were
the n u m ber of protesters fel l to a few h u n d red, some filmed and the videos
5 0 0 - 1 000 people of d iverse ages and backg rounds put online. These
gathered i n the plenums of Tuzla, Mostar and S arajevo, arrangements were
at least until the end of February. Th rough plenums, the clearly meant to avert
movement expressed an enormous need for comm u n i ­ corruption, at least
cation, exchange o f experience a n d transparency. 2 5 I t sym bolically.
is often reported that the first p l e n u m s were a sort of

Gather Us From A mong the Nations 209

 collective psychotherapy, with people mentioning for 26 For a l ist of the
the first time i n public their war traumas and post-war main demands
experiences. G iven that this is a country where each form u l ated at the
"ethnicity" has had to go through a parallel - and often d ifferent plenums,
biased - rem e m b rance and m o u r n i n g p rocess, t h i s see 'The Demands
function o f the p l e n u m s s h o u l d n ot be downplayed . I t of the People of
has often been said that it profoundly changed people's Bos n i a-Herzegovina'
perception of the collectivity and of the capacity of d if­ on jasmi n m ujanovic.
ferent "ethnic g rou ps" to comm u n i cate together. com. Accord i n g to
Valentina Pellizzer,
H owever, t h e p l e n u m s q u ickly c rystall ised aro u n d an activist i nvolved i n
another central aim a n d p urpose: that o f formu lating plenums i n Sarajevo,
demands. Each session produced dozens of them, from 2200 demands were
" revisions of the privatisations of public firms", to the received by the
"right to work" and " l inear pension increases" . 2 6 Tal ks plenum organisers in
and i nterventions seemed to become mere preambles that city alone. See
to their formu l ation : "Come to the point, what is you r 'The politics of d ivi­
demand?" A frenzy of demand-making c o u l d be wit­ sion and sabotage',
nessed , with each city send ing one l ist after another on 'Bosnia-Herzego­
to their respective governments. Does this contradict vina Protest Files'.
the common claim that an absence of demands has
been a central aspect of recent movements around the 27 It wou l d seem rea-
world? Consideration of the prol iferation of demands sonable to doubt that
i n the Bosnian movement m ay help us to clarify some struggles are ever so
points about the issue of demands, and to q u estion p u rely n i h i l istic. Even
some more simplistic readings of their alleged absence. the struggles which
have been described
Let's start by probi ng the idea of demands per se, and as 'suicidal' i n 'com-
of the p u rely demandless struggle. All struggles short m u nisation theory'
of revolutionary i n su rrection m u st necessarily h ave (See Jeanne N eton &
somet h i n g d ete r m i n ate at stake with i n a cont i n u i n g Peter Astriim, ' H ow
relation t o another social su bject - a specific employer, one can sti l l put
the state, the police. And it would seem reasonable to forward demands
consider such stakes as amounting to "demands" that when no demands
are at least i m p l icit in the very fact that the struggle is can be satisfied', SIC
taking place at all. An everyday struggle entirely lack­ 1, N ovember 201 1 , and
ing demands in this sense is inconceivable. We might in ter alia Theorie
consider all-out insurrection as lacking these kinds of Com m u n iste, 'Self­
demands, but this is because when this occ u rs, the organisation is the

Endnotes 4 210
time for negotiations is al ready over, and the subjects to fi rst act of the revolu­
whom one might put demands are no longer recognised tion; it then becomes
as interlocutors. Yet, even then, they will become so an obstacle which
again if the uprising falters or h its some deadlock short the revolution has to
of all-out victory, and it becomes necessary to "sue for overcome', 2015) can­
peace" . That is, as long as another social subject is not be understood as
recogn ised as a persistent pole in a relation of struggle, p u rely demandless.
there are always demands i m plicit in the situation. The They are better de­
struggle that truly "demands noth i n g " can thus only be scribed as last-d itch
one that either has fu l l revolutionary ambition, as well forms of 'demand
as some concrete, practical sense that this ambition stru ggle', where the
can be ach ieved - or, perhaps, is absol utely n i h i l istic odds are so hopeless
or suicidal. 27 Everything short of that is i n the last analy­ that desperate meas­
sis a "demand struggle", whether or not demands are u res are taken i n an
formally written up and handed over to the opponent, attem pt to secure
scrawled on a ban ner, chanted in a slogan, o r merely the most m i n i mal of
i m p l icit in what the struggle is. 28 victories. One can
view even the most
The simplest valorisations of demandlessness in recent negative examples
movements may be read as a token of rad icality in the of such struggles as
here and n o w ; an expression of m axi mal revolution­ not merely ' irra­
ary ambition. Such inclinations to demandlessness will tional', and as related
i n evitably prove " p remature" i n every context short of overall to negotiat­
the all-out revolution i n wh ich it becomes g e n u i nely ing strategies. In all
possible to step beyond demands-making and to start such struggles it is
creating a new situation d i rectly. On the one hand we clear that there are
thus have here an instance of the anarchist broken clock determ inate stakes,
that manages to tell the right time twice a day. On the and thus always
other we should not be eager to habitually annou nce demands - however
such prematu rity, for while counsel lors of moderation in latent or i m pl icit.
struggle always know what time it is - too early - when
the moment finally comes it will stop all the clocks. And 28 See Zaschia Bou­
such valorisations are not always u n iformly i nappropri­ zarri, 'A rson with
ate, even this side of revolution : i n certain conditions Demands - on the
they can gain a certain resonance. For exam ple, where Swedish Riots', i n
all routes for conventional, ritualised demand-making Sic 3 (avai lable on
appear blocked, the refusal of em pty negotiations, and sic.j ou rnal.org ) for
the decision to struggle anyway, outside of normal for­ an analysis of the
mal ised paths, may be a way to bring about a new 2013 Swedish riots in

Gather Us From A mong the Nations 211

situation in which d ifferent poss i b i l ities can emerge. this l i g ht. A stri k i n g
These poss i b i l ities w i l l generally i nvolve new capaci­ exam ple d u r i n g s o m e
ties for demand-making, though very rarely they might o f t h e s e riots - w h i c h
involve a capacity to push beyond demand-maki ng to were partly f u e l e d by
all-out insu rrection. In such conditions, then, while there a d rastic i n crease of
will be underlyi ng, latent stakes, refusal to make these rent in the n e i g h bor­
explicit as formalised demands for the negotiating table hood - was 'g raffiti
can be considered a rational tactic to open u p space with demands' s u c h
for further struggle. We might thus say that the assump­ as: ' l ower the rent
tion of the most abstractly rad ical subject position here by 50%'. See also 'A
can be a reasonable speculative orientation to bring R i s i n g Tide Lifts A l l
about a new situation, even if this fal ls short of the all­ Boats', Endnotes 3,
out revolution in terms of which this su bject position o n the 2011 E n g l i s h
is constructed . riots: 'A nyone w h o ,
f o r political reaso n s ,
What happens if we now regather some med iations w a n t s to h o l d that
and return to a more emphatically socio-historical level? "The R i ots" were en­
It is clear that many recent movements have experi­ t i rely "demand"-free,
enced problems of demand-maki ng. Either they've been a m e re m atter of the
unable to conj u re any conviction about their ostensi­ " n e g ative l a n g u ag e of
ble demands in the face of an awareness of the sheer van d a l i s m " etc, w i l l
mean inglessness of even pretend i n g that such things at minimum need to
are sti l l u p for negotiation ; o r they've spent weeks offer some explana­
and months in endless d iscussion, trying to discover tion as to how they
what their demands actually are ; or they've embraced would separate these
a condition of demandlessness as a de facto ad mis­ events, at w h i c h
sion of despair; or they've produced such a d isordered clear demands - on
mass of demands that the "meaning" of the movement banners, in chants, i n
itself loses leg i b i l ity. These real experiences of a prob­ atte m pts to negotiate
lem of demand-making may explain the resonance of with cops - were pre­
abstract valorisations of demandlessness in such move­ sent, can be separat­
ments. The slogans that named the conversational ist ed from the ri ot-wave
encampments of Occupy were forged in the much more in w h i c h they i s s u e d ,
insu rrectionary postu res of the student movement that and w h i c h would n o t
preceded them. But the very abstractness in those pos­ h ave occu rred i n t h e i r
tures functioned d ifferently in Occupy, transformed into absence.'
a positive space i n wh ich to i nfin itely th rash out the
problem of demands.

Endnotes 4 212
Let's venture a hypothesis: that the problem of demands 29 See 'A H i story of
is identical to the problem of composition. For any sin­ Separat i o n ', in t h i s
gu lar, consistent social agent in struggle, the essential vol u m e , f o r a c o n ­
demands of the struggle will be evident in the simple s i d e rat ion of re l ated
facts of who the agent of the stru g g l e is, and what p o i nts 1 n the co ntext
has caused this agent to form in struggle. But where of the workers' m ove­
a struggle man ifests an u n synthesised m u ltipl icity of ment.
social agents - where it expresses a problem of com­
posing a u n ified agent of struggle - by the same token
it will express a problem of demand-maki n g . 2 9 I n such
a situation it is not that demands are absent, for i n fact
there's a m u ltipl icity of them, but rather, that they're not
synthesised at the general level, as un ifying demands of
the whole movement. Thus their absence in one sense
is d i rectly related to their m u ltipl icity i n another. What
should then probably be done in pursu ing the q u estion
of demands in a particular movement is, rather than sim­
ply posing the question of their presence or absence,
to ask what the consistency of demands, as wel l as
their content, tells us about composition. Demands, we
could say, are a d i rect index of the composition and
texture of a movement.

Both the absence of demands and their m u lt i p l icity

represent attem pts to tem porarily overcome the frag ­
mentation of the class, to come to a common mode of
strug g l e despite d ivergent stakes for d ifferent class
fractions. I n Bosnia, there was a risk that the workers,
the students, the reti red would have i rreconci lably d if­
ferent aims in the struggle, and instead of attem pting to
gather everybody around one central demand - wh ich
would have been i m possible - plenums let everybody
add their demands to a never-ending l ist. This frenetic
prol iferation was an attem pt to avoid leaving anybody
out, to make sure this was the protest of all Bosnian citi­
zens ; an attempt to ach ieve u n ity through m u ltiplication.

But it remained a weak u n ity, and as the m ovement

ebbed , conflicts between the various fractions emerged

Gather Us From Among the Nations 213

in the plenums. They also appeared within these groups 30 A disastrous external
themselves, d e p e n d i n g o n the concrete situation of factor must be
each . Among workers from privatised factories, for mentioned though:
exam ple, there were conflicting interests between older the flood that hit the
workers - focused on getting their pensions and due cou ntry i n May 2014
wages - and younger ones who wanted to prioritise and caused i ncredible
the restarting of prod uction. damage. This was
indeed the last blow
DECLI N E to the movement.
However, this doesn't
The g rad ual fad ing-out o f t h e movement i n March and explain why the latter
April 201 4 sad ly makes a particularly i nteresting case­ had been decl i n i n g
study of how a movement comes to an end. In this case, s i n c e March. Still, i t
no external factor, such as d i rect repression by police, h a s b e e n reported
can real ly be blamed, and it is clear that the end had that two of the main
to come from the l i m itations of the movement itself. 3 0 organised g roups
Many participants are cu rrently in a phase of i ntense of partici pants, the
reflection about this: for a lot of them, those days in plenum-ers and the
February were the best days in their l ives, and they are football fans, were im­
sti l l tryi ng to understand how and why the movement portant i n organ ising
could just die out l i ke that. 31 help during the flood,
while the government
I n particular, people g radually stopped coming to ple­ once again showed
nums. Most would agree that as soon as the p rotests its total uselessness.
disappeared the plenums had no leverage, no way to See Aleksandar
pressure the institutions, which q u i ckly stopped taki ng Hemon, ' Beyond the
their demands seri o u s ly. Some p o l iticians came to Hopelessness of
the p l e n u m s to push their own i nterests, and some Survival' i n Unbrib­
a l l e g iances were reve a l e d , b reaki n g the trust t h at ab/e Bosnia and
had been so i m po rtant i n b r i n g i n g people together. Herzegovina.
As people went o n with t h e i r l ives, t h ey conti n u al ly
experienced p ress u re - th reats that t h ey wou l d not 31 Some partici pants in
be able to find a j o b because of t h e i r part i c i pati o n , Tuzla have referred to
street harassment by p o l i ce e t c . As t h e m ovement this as a process of
ran out of steam, the weak u n ity that had arisen from mourning.
the strug g l e started c ru m bl i n g . Confl icts broke out
between d ifferent g ro u p s : workers were accused of 32 For exam ple, on 1 5
being corporatists, only caring about t h e i r own struggle, M arch , a candidate
while rifts developed between those with jobs and the for chief executive of

Endnotes 4 214
unemployed ; between young and old ; between people the T uzla Canton gov­
with various levels of education. ernment came to the
plenum to present his
But what did participants expect of the plenums? After program for the local
the first cathartic phase it seems that people u nder­ elections of October
stood the plen u m as a new form of i n stitution. And 2014.
i ndeed, it d i d t ry to m i m ick the state: d ifferent work-
ing g ro u ps were created whose names would parallel 33 I n contrast to the
those of the d ifferent m i n istries: a workin g group for relatively large n u m ­
the economy, one for culture and sport, one for i nternal b e r s o f protesters on
affairs. Quickly, the plenums agreed to form connec­ the streets i n the first
tions with former politicians and candidates i n the next days of the move­
elections. 32 The plenums started a dialogue with the ment, o n ly 300/400
very politicians they at fi rst rej ected. At one point, it people participated
looked l i ke they might even aim to become a perma­ in the protests i n
nent i n stitution that would p l ay an i ntermed iary role Sarajevo on 10th
between the population and the g overnment, gather­ and 11th February
ing demands on the one hand, putting pressure on the before the first Sara­
other - and one m ight say - preserving some level of jevo plen u m - which
social peace i n the meantime. But it is i m po rtant not around 1000 people
to fall i nto the trap of blam i n g plenums for putting an attended - took place
end to the movement. I n Sarajevo for example, the first on the 12th.
one was organised as people were already deserting
street protests. 33 If some plenu m-ers were pleased to 34 See the interview
discover that their organ isational form seemed capa­ with a Sarajevo ple­
ble of d iverting people from the more violent forms of num organ isor, Sejla
3 4
protest , many were also conscious that, without such Sehabovic, on Face
protests, the plenums would lose both their legitimacy TV, a Bosnian televi­

and their main leverage. 3 5 sion channel, on 14th

February (available
Wh ile some activists in Bosnia accused plenum o rgan­ with English subtitles
isers of being responsible for the i nstitutionalisation of on bhprotestfi les.
the movement, the latter would typically blame a certain word press.com).
passivity on the part of participants, who would come
expecting to be told what to do. In the first theorisa- 35This doesn't mean
tions of this organisational form i n the Croatian student organisers share
movement and its Occupation Cookbook, p l e n u m s no responsibility
were supposed to extend themselves, m ultiplying on in their insistence
d ifferent levels of society : in u n iversities, workplaces, that plenums should

Gather Us From A mong the Nations 215

etc . . . Though this was mentioned at points, it never take place i n offi cial
really caug ht on. Simi larly, and q u ite paradoxically, if the b u i l d i ngs rather than
idea of plenums was g reatly i nfluenced by the Occupa­ on the streets. As
tion Cookbook, one thing that was never on the cards we witnessed d u r i n g
during the Bosnian movement was the occupation itself. t h e fi rst plenum i n
And this is where the s i m i larities with Occupy m ove­ Sarajevo - wh ich
ments stop. could not take place
because the room
As a resu lt of this absence, t h e re was n o att e m pt chosen for it was too
to reorg a n ise social l ife o n a n o t h e r basis, beyo n d smal l - many ex plicitly
t h e l evel o f representat i o n . I n m ost l o cal i n stances questioned the strat­
of t h e s q uares movements, people not o n ly met at egy of the organisers
assemblies and protests, but shared significant periods i n waiti ng for the
of t h e i r everyday l ife together. In some cases, t h ey authorities to provide
organ ised alternative forms of reprod uction that d i d a bigger room, and
not i nvolve m oney. The clearest exam p l e of t h i s i s demanded that the
t h e G ez i Park m ovement, w h e re p e o p l e organised plenums be held in
free food, free access to health care, free barbers, a the open. Organisers
l i b rary, even a red i stri bution of cigarettes. N ot that conti n u ally insisted
these explicitly alternativist moments d id n 't have seri­ that plenums were
ous l i m itations: the money-free zone could only exist a serious matter, re­
because monetary-exchange continued a few meters q u irin g proper sound
away from t h e s q u are, a n d those with j o b s s i m ply equi pment, and thus
continued going to work, coming back to the square at couldn't be organised
the end of their work-day. Sti l l , there was an idea that spontaneous ly.
the protesters could not simply appeal to some institu-
tion to solve their problems, and that some attempts at 36 0n the l i n k between
changing social relations should take place with in the gender and the
struggle itself. reprod uction of social
spheres with i n the
This also has specific i m p l ications when it comes to capitalist mode of
the chal l e n g i n g of gender relations. When p rotest­ prod uction, see 'The
ers occu py a square for more than a few days, l iving Log ic of G e nder' in
together i n tents, organ ising cooking, childcare and so Endnotes 3.
on, they can not avoid being confronted with the ques­
tion of the separation between spheres of social l ife,
and with it the q uestion of gender. 3 6 This can itself take
place in a confl ictual and violent way, as demonstrated

Endnotes 4 216
by the many attacks o n women i n Tah r i r square, for 37 On this question, see
example. U nwaged reproductive activities take place Rust B u n n ies & Co.,
among assemblies and street battles, and the question ' U nder the riot gear'
of their repartition cannot remain hidden : the occupiers i n S/C 2, Jan 2014.
have to take the q u estion of their own reprod uction
as an o bject ; it itself becomes a pol itical q u esti o n . 37 38The two fi rst de­
I n the absence of occupations, d u ring the p rotests i n mands of the Tuzla
Bosnia-Herzegovina the challenge f o r women was t o p l e n u m are telling in
participate equally - which they certain ly d i d , possibly this regard : while the
even more actively than men - in plenums, riots and first one called for a
protests, while having to take care of these reproduc­ 'maintai n i n g [of] pub­
tive activities on the side. They struggled to be heard in l i c order and peace
plenums, to be equally represented among delegates, in cooperation with
but, since there were no occupations, the q u estion of citizens, the police
their managing of reproductive activities during the pro­ and civil protection,
tests remained a private concern. i n order to avoi d
a n y criminal isation,
I ndeed, if the Bosnian movement was looking for an pol iticisation, and any
alternative, it was only at the level of decision-making : manipu lation of the
the movement demanded more democratic institutions, protests', the second
less corrupt i o n , to replace a govern ment of crooks one demanded 'the
with a government of experts. This aspect, which was establishment of a
present in other squares movements, was especially techn ical government,
central here. I n d e e d , m o re than d i rect d e m oc racy, composed of expert,
people seemed to be mainly longing for a properly func- non-pol itical, u n com-
tion ing state. 3 8 Most partici pants said they just wanted promised mem bers.'
the infrastructu res and the institutions to function ; that
they were fed u p with ad m i n istrative proced u res being 39 0n this phenomenon,
blocked, public transport being u n reliable, even the which has 'less to do
most basic help n ot being provided while the country with the embellish-
was being ravaged by floods. Most people did not mind ment of the past than
the state, but they wanted a non-corru pt, efficient one with its i nvention',
capable of distri buting a basic level of welfare. In this see M itja Vel i konja,
sense, as in other cou ntries where revolts have taken 'Mapping Nostalgia
place in recent years, protesters expressed a certain for Tito' i n We/come
pining for a previous order of things, some form of wel- to the Desert of Pos t-
fare state - a certain Yugo-nostalgia could even be felt, Socialism.
especially among older people. 39

Gather Us From A mong the Nations 217

A N T I - N AT I O N A L I S M AS D E M A N D F O R A F U N C TI O N I N G STATE

This has gone hand in hand with a rejection of the ethnic 40 Elements of this
d ivisions that have been responsible for the fragmenta- rhetoric could be
tion of institutions. If national ist confl ict appears here heard for example
as the main barrier to the formation of a proper state, i n the gth plenum
the anti-nationalism that was one of the main positive i n Tuzla, the 2 0 fi rst
aspects of this movement cannot be separated from m i nutes of which
its longing for a functioning state, for a " u n ited Bos­ can be seen on the
nia-Herzegovi na" that would bring all eth n i c groups 'Bosn ia-H erzegovina
together. 40 It is perhaps striking, in an era in which some Protest Fi les' website
longstanding state structures in Eu rope - G reat Britai n, with English s u btitles.
S pain - have been newly threatening to u n ravel under
national pressu res partly d riven by social m ovements,
that i n the fractious reg ion which two centuries ago
g ave u s the word " balkanisation " , nationalism could
be confronted l i ke this as a pol itical problem for move­
ments to solve in the name of a functioning state. If a
common pol itical problematic for many recent move­
ments has been that produced by the enfeeblement
of local and national med iations o n the vast field of
capital's worldly movements (and the entwinement of
these mediations with capital's regional and global man­
agements) the Bosnian case seems notably disti nct. I n
this reg ion i n w h i c h global capital is barely i nterested,
there is no properly fu nctioning state to be defended in
the fi rst place. To have one appears to be a privilege to
aspire to ; to be properly exploited by capital is another.

In another context, these tendencies might have taken

the form of an expl icit movement towards the creation or
defence of a nation-state, giving rise to a new national­
ism. I ndeed some Bosnia-Herzegovina flags could be
seen here and there i n demonstrations, but in n u m bers
that are in no way com parable with the movements in
G reece or Egypt. This is because the specific situation
of Bosnia-Herzegovina makes such a prospect i n her­
ently problematic. The longing for a u n ited Bosnia is
itself associated with Bosniak nationalist d iscou rse, and

Endnotes 4 218
thus also with a prospective dimi nution of the autonomy 41 There have been
of the B rcko d i strict and Repu b l i ka Srpska, d i rectly reports that small
contrary to the aspirations of Bosnian Croat and Serb gatherings took
nationalists respectively - the latter of whom actually place i n Rep u b l i ka
hope for an incorporation into "G reater Serbia" . This Srpska in su pport of
projection of the Bosniak national ist imaginary is itself a the protests but were
response to the fear of a division of Bosnia-Herzegovina q u ickly repressed by
that would leave only a tiny Bosn iak-popu lated reg ion. police and nationalist
thugs.
By defe n d i n g t h e creat i o n of a u n ited B o s n ia-
Herzegovina, pushing, for example, for the abolition of 42 Many protesters
Repu blika Srpska and the B rcko district as obstacles had only the vag u-
to the creation of a fu nctioning state, the movement est knowledge of
would have destroyed any possibil ity of support from Occupy or even of
other reg ions. Indeed, some Serb and Croat national­ the Arab Spring. But
ists al ready insisted on descri bing the p rotests as a they knew a lot more
Bosniak phenomenon - even spread ing ru mours that about oth er revolts
the p rotesters wanted to attack Repu b l i ka S rpska resi­ in ex-Yugoslavia and
dents. This partly explains why the demonstrations were about the movements
almost non-existent in those reg ions. 41 Pushing for the in G reece, Turkey,
formation of a single nation-state would thus have put and - f u rther away
in danger the very u n ity that such a state would req u i re. but at the ce ntre of
This explains in large part why national ist/patriotic ten­ many debates - i n
dencies were largely absent within the movement, in Ukraine.
contrast to recent movements i n Egypt or Spai n .

But beyond this level, protesters in Bosnia also under­

stood themselves as part of a larger wave of movements
in the reg i o n , using forms and ideas fi rst developed
in neighbouring states such as Serbia and Croatia. 42
Such sentiments of solidarity were reci procated : during
the p rotests, there were demonstrations of solidarity
with the Bosn ian movement in almost all ex-Yugoslavian
cou ntries, including Macedo n ia, Serbia, Croatia and
Montenegro . Revolts i n ex-Yugoslavia seem to h ave
been watching each other closely and infl uencing each
other's modes of action in recent years. Indeed, before
the Bosnian movement itself, many observed a wave
of protests in the reg ion, com paring it to the 201 1 - 1 3

Gather Us From A mong the Nations 219

 g l o bal wave of strugg les, and even raising the pros- 43 See M ichael G. Kraft,
pect of a Bal kan Spring. 4 3 In Croatia, Slovenia, Bu lgaria, ' I nsu rrecti ons i n the
Serbia, commentators n oted the rise of new modes Balkans: From Work­
of p rotest with - albeit o n a smaller scale - s i m i lar ers and Students to
aspects to recent squares movements. N ew Political Subjec­
tivities' i n We/come
Probably the most obvious example is the Slovenian to the Desert of Post­
protest wave of 201 2 - 1 3 , and the small Occupy move­ Socialism. This col­
ment that preceded this in October 201 1 . After a big lection of essays was
demonstration agai nst austerity on 1 5 October, around p u b l ished in 2015 but
3 0 tents were erected i n a square in front of the Lj u­ most texts contained
bljana Stock Exchange, where they remained until early were written before
201 2 . Assembl ies that sometimes gathered 1 5 0-200 the Bosnian move­
people took place regu larly, sharing s i m i larities with ment. In a postscript,
those of Zuccotti Park i n New York, even if activists Srecko Ho rvat and
at the core of the movement put forward a principle of Igor Stiks recal l how,
"democracy of d i rect action vis-a-vis the consensus­ after the s u b m i ssion
based decision making of ows". 44 Protests reappeared of the manuscript,
again in November 201 2, fi rst in Maribor, the second the 'most i m portant
largest city, before spread ing to many others and gath­ social upheaval i n the
ering tens of thousands of people. They were mainly post-socialist Bal­
d i rected against corrupt pol iticians - the mayor of Mari­ kans' took place in
bor being a blatant exam ple - and contributed to the Bosnia-Herzegovina,
fall of a n u m ber of officials. as a clear proof of
the return of protest
Beyon d Slovenia, the whole reg ion has witnessed a movements i n the
surge of social protest : in Bulgaria in 201 2 - 1 3 45 peo­ Balkans they had
ple took to the streets because of a huge increase in been documenting
the price of electricity, and against corruption in general. through the book.
I n Romania protests have eru pted sporad ically since
2 0 1 0 , i n response to austerity measu res and health- 4 4 See Maple Razsa and
care reforms. Demonstrations have also taken place And rej Kurnik, 'The
i n Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, and Occupy M ovement in
most recently i n Macedonia. Despite their d ifferences, Zifok's hometown: Di­
these movements have d isplayed similarly "alternativist" rect democracy and a
tendencies, particu larly in their experimentation with politics of beco m i ng',
collective forms of decision-making, outside trad itional, American Ethnologis t
h ierarchical structu res, privi leging plenary assembl ies 39(2): pp. 238-58,
as organ isational forms, and the use of social med ia. 46 M ay 2012.

Endnotes 4 220
The forms the February movement took i n B os n i a- 45 See M ariya lvanche-
Herzegovina should therefore ultimately be understood va, 'The Bu lgarian
in the context of this more general wave. Wave of Protests,
2012-2013', CritCom,
Workers' struggles have also been recu rrent i n the 7 Octo ber 2013, avail­
reg ion, especially i n Serbia and Croatia, and many are able online.
stri kingly simi lar to those that have been taki ng place
in Tuzla. Goran Music speaks of a new workers' move- 46 See M i chael G . Kraft,
ment in Serbia, and analyses three specific types of ' I nsu rrections i n the
workers in the private sector, who each use different Balkans: From Work­
47
modes of p rotest. The fi rst are e m p l oyed by large ers and Students
profitable companies - often multinationals - and while to N ew Political
they suffer intense exploitation, they usually get their S u bjectivities' i n We/­
wages o n t i m e and h ave less tro u b l e making ends come to the Desert of
meet. The second type are employed in small privately Post-Socialism.
owned busi nesses - shops, bars, sweatshops - and
are extremely exploited, reg u larly d o i n g u n paid over- 47 G oran Music, Serbia 's
time. They are very atom ised , with few poss i b i l ities for Working Class in
fighting collectively. Lastly there are "those workers left Tra nsition 1988-2013
behind in large and midsized companies bypassed by (Rosa Luxemburg
new investments". As Music points out: "These workers Stiftung 2013)
are faced with challenges of a specific type, as their
exploitation is not primarily the result of i ntensive labour 48 Zoran Bulatovic, a
processes at the place of formal employment:' Accord­ worker from the
ing to h i m , it is this category of workers that has been Raska textile factory
pushed to the forefront of resistance since the 2008 who cut off a fi nger
crisis, using forms of protest such as hunger stri kes and from his left hand i n
even self-mutilation to press their demands. 48 Concern­ protest against h i s
ing this layer of the working popu lation and their modes forced unemployment,
of struggle, M usic asks the m ost pressing q u esti o n : has become a symbol
"After years o f social decom position o f the i n d u strial of the des peration of
worki ng class, would it make more sense to view these this part of the work­
protesters as workers or a declassed layer of i m pover­ i n g class i n Serbia.
ished citizens?" He sum marises the situation of these
workers particu larly wel l . Here the resemblance with
the Tuzla workers is striki n g :

O n the one h a n d , t h e collective memory o f social ­

ism made sure the protagonists sti l l saw themselves

Gather Us From Among the Nations 221

 primarily as workers. The image of the past as a bet- 49 M u s ic, Serbia 's Work-
ter time serves as the sou rce of self-respect for this ing Class in Transition,
group of workers. Regardless of it standing idle for pp. 44-45. Music also
years, the local factory remained a place of identifica­ g ives the exam ple of
tion and pride. Even after m u ltiple privatisations, the the former workers
workers stil l saw the enterprise as something belong­ of 'Zastava Elektro'
i n g to them. The preferred final outcome of the strike who organised n i n e
for most strikers was the renewal of industrial activity. road blocks o f t h e
train tracks con­
On the other han d , the methods of struggle show­ necti n g Serbia and
cased d u ri n g these p rotests had l ittle to do with M acedonia between
trad itions of the labour m ovement. I n many cases J u n e and December
the workers occupied factories o n l y to turn them­ 2009, 'placing their
selves into hostages. H unger stri kes, self-muti lations bodies across the
and suicide threats carried more resem blance to the tracks as a symbolic
tactics of struggle inside a prison than an industrial act of workers' col­
faci lity. With assem bly lines remain i n g motion less for lective suicide'.
years, workers lost the most powerful weapon they
once had i n their hands - control over the prod uc- 50 Nonetheless, many
tion process. Even in cases when they recaptu red would say that they at
the facto ry halls, it seemed that nobody cared. Nei- least gained a sense
ther the state, nor the new owners had any i ntention of pride i n protesting,
of using that space for man ufacturing anyway. The resisti ng pressures,
" G radac" factory i ncident, where the boss cut off the and being the spark
water supply wh ile the hu nger strike was taking place for many i m portant
inside the b u i l d i n g , is a good exam ple. The workers experiments such as
were superfluous people - a burden i n herited from the plenums, giving
the t i m e of social i s m which s h o u l d be d iscarded them hope that such
together with the timeworn mach inery. 4 9 a movement m i g ht
reappear qu ickly i n
The increasingly desperate situation of the workers i n t h e futu re.
Tuzla is clearly far f r o m u n i q u e i n t h e reg i o n . I n t h i s
context, it is unsurprising that they wou l d try to gather 51 In Tuzla and Sarajevo,
support from other parts of the population, bringing their more than one year
struggle out i nto the open, demonstrating and blockad­ after the protests, the
ing roads. Their situation has hardly improved since the Cantonal govern­
February movement. 50 S ho rtly after the p rotests, the ments had still not
new cantonal govern ment - the so-called "govern ment repaired the bu rnt
of experts" - promised to renationalise the Dita factory, b u i l d i ngs or removed

Endnotes 4 222
wh ich had been at the forefront of the movement. But t h e g raffiti. I n stead
it soon became clear that this would not actually hap­ they just moved to
pen, since the renational isation of a company with such other locations. The
vast debts (approximately 1 5 m i l l i o n eu ros) was ruled damaged b u i l d i ngs at
i l legal. For a while, some workers from Dita n u rtured the centre of these
h o pes that t h i n g s could change before the October cities remain monu-
201 4 general elections, but these expectations q u i ckly ments to the protests,
d issi pated. 5 1 The new i ndependent u n i o n , Solidarnost, and rem i n ders of
has been struggling to gain legal recognition, and while how little change
it has helped organise bigger demonstrations, has so far they actually brought.
been unable to ach ieve more concrete resu lts. The latter significa­
tion was perhaps
An action organised by the workers of Tuzla o n 24 i ntentional.
December 2 0 1 4 was h i g h ly sym bolic: to demonstrate
that they no longer had anything to hope for in Bosn ia­ 52 Accord i n g to a su rvey
Herzegovi na, several h u n d red left the city on foot, i n conducted in 2012 by
harsh winter weather, to walk to Croatia, enter the E U the Youth I nformation
and ask for asyl u m . When they reached the border on Agency of Bos n i a­
28 Decem ber, lacking passports, some were refused Herzegovina, 81%
entrance to Croatia. Those who did h ave papers of young people
crossed the border sym bolical ly, but returned in soli­ declared they would
darity with the others. Exhausted from the long walk in 'leave the cou ntry
the snow, several people needed med ical attention. tomorrow if they
O n their way back to Tuzla, angry as ever, the work­ had a chance'. The
e rs marched past the govern ment b u i l d i n g chanting same agency reports
"thieves ! , th ieves ! " and "yo u ' l l be beaten u p ! " that from 2006 to
2012 at least 1 50,000
To many - particularly the younger - emigration seems young people from
one of the only ways of i m p roving their situation, con- Bos n i a moved to the
t i n u i n g , one m i g ht say, class struggle by other means. Western Balkans,
This betrays the lack of options left to the workers - and, North America and
to a deg ree, to the rest of the popu lation - i n Bosn ia- Australia.
Herzegovina. 5 2 If it is true that, as Serbian econom ist
Branko Milanovi6 claims, inequal ities between countries 53 Branko M i l anovic,
have now g rown bigger than those within cou ntries, 5 3 Global Income
emigrating to a richer country may be by far the most Inequality by the
effective way of increasing the price of one's labo u r Numbers (World Bank
power. Commentators i n the autonom ist marxist ten- 2012)
d ency, i n c l u d i n g Anto n i o Negri and M ichael H ardt,

Gather Us From A mong the Nations 223

have tended to analyse such emigration in a roseate 54 See Hardt and Negri,
l ight, seeing " desertion and exo d u s " as a " power­ Empire (Harvard
ful form of class struggle wit h i n and against i m perial 2000), p. 213.
postmodern ity". 54 But as long as workers i n those
richer countries themselves experience i m m i g ration as
bringing the prospect of reductions i n the price of their
labour power, the question of the nation - despite the
positive developments we have witnessed in Bosn ia­
Herzegovina - is u n l i kely to recede easily i n the futu re
g lobal unfolding of class struggle.

E P I LO G U E

A l l p rospects o f t h e Dita workers gett i n g their d u e

wages van ished when t h e owner declared h i mself
ban kru pt i n April 201 5. I n J u ne, however, the workers
decided , with the agreement of the creditors, to restart
production in a self-managed fashion. Using materials
left in the factory, and repai ring some of the mach ines,
they started turning out some of the main detergents
previously produced there, under the names of '3de',
' Blic g ri l l ' , 'Al ls' and ' Broncho'. On 30 June, they ag reed
with the creditors that they would only have to repay the
factory debts when they started making a profit. For the
cred itors, showing that the factory is viable may be a
major help in the search for a new investor, and would
thus increase their chances of getting their money back.
For the workers at D ita, the restarting of prod u ction,
even on a small scale, brings them not only an income
but also a clear source of pride and hope. I n this con­
text, it is important not to get blinded by the ideolog ical
debates aro u n d self-management, either from those
who praise it as a step towards a society of free prod uc­
ers or those who reject it per se as conservative and
cou nter-revolutionary. However implausible it may seem
as a long-term solution, in the context in which these
workers find themselves, self-management appears as
one of the few s u rvival strategies remai ning to them,
and - from their point of view - at least worth a t ry.

Endnotes 4 224
Gather Us From Among the Nations 225
ITS OWN P ECULIAR DECOR
Capital, u rban i s m , and the crisis
of class pol itics i n the US

Chris Wright

226
In Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord noted in rapid 1 Debord, Socie ty of
succession several elements of the relation of capital to the Spectacle, tran s .
space, which he brought under the concept of u rban- Donald N i cholson-
ism. Capital u nifies and homogenises space so that it S m ith ( Zone 1 994 ) ,
becomes the free space of com mod ities, of the valori- p. 1 65-9.
sation of val ues. This e l i m i nates geographical distance
only to create a ki nd of inner distance - separation - in 2 This i s often con-
w h i ch transportation serves to make each place as ceived of today as
much l i ke every other as possible, so that, finally: the real s u b s u m ption
of labour under capi-
A society that molds its entire surroundings has nee- tal, but I b e l i eve this
essarily evolved its own techniq ues for working on is m i stake n . As I will
the material basis of this set of tasks. That material arg u e , i n d u stry i n t h i s
basis is the society's actual territory. U rbanism is c a s e s h o u l d be u n -
the mode of appropriation of the natu ral and h u man d e rstood as 'mechan-
environment by capitalism, which, true to its logical ical i n d u stry', and is
development toward absolute domination, can (and itself a s u rpassable
now must) refashion the total ity of space into its own organisation of the
pecul iar decor. 1 labour process.

This concept of u rban ism identified the separation under

conditions in which it appeared that 1 ) "industry" as
discussed in Capital vol . 1 was the h i g h est and last
form of the organisation of labour, 2 2) capitalism would
never be able to overcome the material i m poverish­
ment of more than a smal l minority of wage-labourers
in any country, including the wealthiest ones, and 3) the
working class would remain always and forever - or at
least until the revolution - outside the legal and politi­
cal forms of capital ist society ; that is, it would retain
the status of an estate with its own semi-autonomous
pol itical and cultural i nstitutions marki n g it off from
the bourgeois and petit-bourgeois classes. I n crucial
respects, these three conditions no longer apply.

These changes are expressed not merely in production,

distribution, and consumption, but i n the working u p of
the spaces in which these take p lace. For example, the
elimination of geographical distance today relies more on

Its Own Peculiar Decor 227

the means of rapidly traversing an expanding low-density
geography, rather than on increasing density of popu lation
and productive capacity, form ing u rban clusters l i n ked
by poi nt-to-point systems l i ke rail and s h i p p i n g . The
contrad ictory d rives of capital accumulation which have
resulted in the th ree above-mentioned changes equally
determine this de-concentration which we think of as
sprawl and s u b u rbanisat i o n . This sh ift i n t h e spatial
production of capitalist society literally changes the terrain
on which its contrad ictions play out. This does not do
away with the essence of cap ital, with its fundamental
categories, but reg isters a g e n u i n e transformation in
their expression, their modes of existence or phenomenal
forms, in the shaping of space. This matters because
the phenomenal forms taken by the opposition to capital
also change - something we will retu rn to later.

I have focused on suburbanisation in the U n ited States

for the same reasons Marx focused on Britain in Capital:
this d ramatic sh ift in the worki ng up of space by capital
is nowhere else so clear and complete, but the condi­
tions which generate sprawl and subu rban isation are of
course not l i m ited to the us - they represent a general
enough g lobal tendency i n this period to be taken as
characterising the broader dynam ics of the class rela­
tion as such. This does not mean, h owever, that we
can simply read the American case off the operation of
capital's "logic". The latter is itself highly shaped by the
pecul iarities of the us context, mean ing that the story
of s u b u rban isation m u st be u nfolded with an atten­
tion to particu lar cases and the contingencies which
shape them. The tendency towards de-concentration
is constituted by, and in turn helps to constitute, the
reorganisation of the phenomenal forms of the capital­
labour relation - a reorganisation d riven by the crisis
of 1 9 1 7-45, in which the worki ng class as an estate
met its historic defeat in a counter-revolution that arose
in part from within the workers' movement itself. Such
a defeat is not only pol itical , however. Defeat always

Endnotes 4 228
entails the reorgan isation of the labo u r p rocess and
the very conditions of acc u m u latio n . Wh i l e the work­
ing class was decisively defeated by fascism on one
side and Keynesian ism o n the other - through their
m utual i m me rsion i n war and genocide - acc u m u la­
tion was renewed on a world scale. This occu rred under
conditions which reversed the three above-mentioned
assu m ptions of capital ism's rad ical critics : transform­
ing labour and prod u ction p rocesses to su rpass the
dominance of mechan ical industry ; relatively overcom ­
ing the worki ng class's material i m poverishment i n t h e
wealth iest cou ntries ; introd ucing a g reater degree o f
inclusion a n d representation o f wage-labourers, a s i n d i ­
vid uals, within the pol itical and legal system. T h e latter
was not merely a matter of votes, o r of the integ ration
of u nions or workers' parties i nto the state : with it came
more general i m p rovements in the g uaranteed qual ity
of l ife, through access to healthcare, funded retirement,
paid vacation, free public education, and so on. This
g radually ate away at the independent organisations
and institutions of the class that had existed outside,
and often agai nst, the state and bourgeois property law,
and in many cases effectively destroyed them.

The recognition of these changes has been g lacially slow

among those claiming a " revolutionary" outloo k - that is,
one in which the overcom i n g of capital ism as the work
of capital, itself entails the overcom i n g of capitalism by
those compelled to wage labour. Where they have been
recog n ised, and where the abolition of capital has not
been given up altogether, this has often entailed the claim
that the capital-labour relation no longer holds, that the
worki ng class no longer exists, and that the overcom­
ing of capital will either come only from a class outside
of the capital relation, o r will be the work of capital's
own rational self-overcom i n g . Both cases share a com­
mon sou rce of error: an association of the phenomenal,
h istorically particular conditions of mechan ical indus­
try and material i mpoverishment with the categories of

Its O wn Peculiar Decor 229

capital as such and the abstract nature of its forms of
domination, and the conflation of a class relation with
the condition of being an estate. To put it another way,
both have acted as if capitalist society was a direct form
of domination of one group by another, as in slavery or
feudalism, when in fact it involves an indirect form of
domination through abstract social forms. Of course, in
its initial development capitalism arose amidst such direct,
concrete forms of domination and they do not simply
disappear of themselves, but only under a protracted
development, which is itself determined by continual
crises and the potential overthrow of capitalism.

CAPITAL AND SPACE

Labour in capitalist society requires the constant sepa- 3 Society of the Specta-
ration of people from their powers, from the means of c/e, p. 20.

production, from the products of their labour, and from

each other. Separation is the premise of all accumula­ 4 As Marx noted in the
tion, or paraphrasing Guy Debord, it is the alpha and Grundrisse: all pro­
omega of capital.3 Separation is internalised within duction is consump­
the experience of everyday life, where it becomes tion, all consumption
naturalised and consensual, and does not appear as production.
domination. Separation is essential to capital as a total
social circuit-that is, the separation of production, cir­
culation, and consumption. This separation of the total
circuit can be expressed spatially. For example, produc­
tion occurs in "places of work", from factories, mills
and mines to offices and engineering campuses, while
circulation takes place in commercial warehouses and
retail stores, and consumption loops back into produc­
tion in the workplace or the home.4 From the opening of
the capitalist era the latter has been constructed as pri­
vate by the separation of non-waged labour-into the
feminised space of the home-from the masculinised,
public, waged labour of the workplace. This separation
of the private is in fact doubled: as the separation into
spheres of waged and unwaged labour, but also of
public and private, of the political and the economic.

Endnotes 4 230
L A B O U R P R O C E S S A N D C A P I TA L C I R C U I T

Marxian u rbanism was concerned largely with concep­ 5 M o n ey -> c o m m o d i ­

tualising the contrad ictory u n ity of spatial and formal ties . . . prod uction
concentration : bringing together geograph ically to sepa­ . . . commod ities +
rate socially - produce rs from means of p rod u ction ; s u r p l u s val u e ->
h o m e from workplace; reproduction of labour power m o n ey + s u r p l u s
from reproduction of capital ; producer from p rod uct ; v a l u e . T h i s form u l a
producers from each other, and so on. Capital seemed p l aces an e m p h a s i s
to categorically require an increasing density of popula­ on m o n ey, s i nce it
tion and a geographical concentration of the means of fal l s at the c i rc u it's
accumulation. However, this concentration has ultimately extremes, and i s t h u s
p roved contingent; something which capital sought to s p e c i f i c a l l y the c i rc u i t
overcome, and it ach ieved this through a transformation of m o n ey cap ital , but
i n its capacity to negate physical d istance: the crisis it can also be v iewed
of u rbanism was thus temporarily resolved through the i n rotation, with
spatial deconcentration of capital and labou r. either the commod­
ity o r prod uction at
Capital is not o n ly separation, however: its entire cir­ its extremes, t h u s
c u i t - M -+ C P C ' -+ M ' - has to be taken i nto
. . . . . . g i v i n g u s the c i rc u its
accou nt. 5 The q u esti o n i s how the logical forms are of commod ity and
simultaneously both maintained i n their separation and prod u ctive capital.
brought together in a unity. Many of the central problems A l l of these c i rc u its
of u rbanism flow from the contradiction that capital is s h o u l d n o n etheless
not only its activity of separation but this entire circuit be g rasped as facets
of buying, sel l i n g and productive consu m ption - and of a s i n g l e , socially
that i n order to complete the circu it, producers, means g e neral process. For
of production, and products all have to be brought to­ Marx the c i rc u i t of
gether in g reat concentrations. Consumption also takes commod ity capital
place, in Marx's classic formu lation, between capital's was actually the more
two "departments"- capitals engaged in the production con c rete, s i nce it ar­
of means of production and in the production of means t i c u l ated the c i rc u its
of consum ption - which is another way of considering of i n d iv i d u a l capitals
prod u ctive cons u m ption by capital and labo u r. Here with the broad e r
we will focus in on changes that have occu rred with in s o c i a l context, v i a the
only part of the circu it: C P C ' . That is, we will look
. . . . . . m arket.
at changes to production, comm u n ication, energy, and
transportation, due to the i mportance of these for u n ­
derstand i n g spatial de-concentration.

Its O wn Peculiar Decor 231

U rbanism arose and took its classical forms as man u - s This is why c raft la-
factu re and mechanical industry gave rise to ever denser b o u r, for exam p l e ,
popu lations under conditions which helped produce a does n ot g o away; nor
collective self-identification as workers, as a class, as d i d t h e i m p l e m enta­
a political power, as proletariat. The modern industrial tion of large-scale
city, as wel l as the g reat cosmopol itan centres, g rew e l ectrification and t h e
out of this process, under conditions determined both c o m b u stion e n g i n e
by techn ical restrictions on capital's diffusion i n space after w w 1 1 s i m p l y d o
and by the economic and political exclusion of labour. away with mechan i cal
The crisis of the phenomenal forms of capital in the fi rst i n d u strial processes.
half of the 2 0th centu ry was then also a crisis of the B u t neither d o they
modern ind ustrial city and of the relationship between any l o n g e r h ave the
the u rban and the ru ral . Out of many d isconti nuous and pos s i b i l ity of being
contested changes a p rocess of rational isation took the form i n w h i c h a
place, both within the labour p rocess and i n u rban ism. new period of val­
orisation m i g h t take
The process of rationalisation under capitalism is not place. Either the new
about technological solutions to technological problems, class relation f u n d a­
but re-organisation of the class relation. This p rocess mentally alters the
is typically described i n terms of the transformation of means, opening up
the labou r p rocess throug h technolog ical i n n ovation, d i fferent pos s i b i l ities,
but it also entails t h e t ransformation of the enviro n ­ or the o l d e r tec h n o l ­
ment, which is m u c h less d iscussed . T h e replacement ogy s i m p l y s u b s ists i n
of l iving with dead labour is not just quantitative, replac­ those areas where its
ing x h u man labo u r with y m ac h i n e ry, but i n volves replacement by oth e r
qual itative combinations of labour d isplacement and labour processes i s
deski l l i n g . The widespread e m p l oyment of a particu­ n ot p ractical i n a p rof­
lar technology to ach ieve systematic rationalisation is itable m a n n e r.
always also a question of the problem of rep roducing
labou r as a social mediation. The old mach inery and
methods become red uced to mere technology s u b ­
s u m e d to the n e w labo u r process. 6 T h i s p rogressive
rationalisation can n ot be adequately g rasped by the
notion of a movement from formal to real subsu m ption.
Capital ist "progress" is exactly this p rocess of succes­
sive transformations i n the labo u r process, undertaken
to overcome problems of valorisation. "Technological
solutions" m e d i ate t h ese b road- ra n g i n g transforma­
tions that alter the o rganisation of space, time, and

Endnotes 4 232
rationality, which is also why these progressive rationali- 7 M o i s h e Posto ne rec-
sations appear as tech nological revol utions, giving rise o g n i s e s this i n terms
to tech nological determ i nist theories. 7 This process of of the pro d u ctivity
rational isation is the way in which capital's domination of capital outstrip­
is reasserted , throug h the transformational reproduc­ ping labou r with the
tion of the capital-labour relation. c u rrent appl i c at i o n of
science, b u t h e can­
These transformations rad iate and general ise because not ad e q u ately relate
capital is a dynam ic totality that can accom modate an it to the m o d e of
almost infin ite variety of pol itical and cultural forms, and prod u c i n g and l a b o u r
absorb forms of resistance. The total ising natu re of the p r o c e s s , b e c a u s e it
dynamic is evident i n the g lobal scope and s i m u ltane­ refl ects s o m eth i n g
ity of these transformations, which h ave been g iven m o re s pecific than
an abu ndance of names: Ford ism, the mass worker o r the 'real s u b s u m pt i o n '
state capitalism to refer to the period f r o m 1 9 1 7 t o of labo u r or even than
the early 1 9 7 0 s , where power and production seemed the ' m i cro-electro n i c s
i n c reas i n g ly to collapse i nto each other; g lobalisa­ revolution' specified
tion, neo-li beral ism or Empire to refer to the changes by Robert K u rz and
which have taken place since the 1 970s, in wh ich the N o rbert Tre n k l e ,
separation of state and economy seemed to be the w h i c h m i s ses the
dominant trend . 8 At the same time, these rational ising transformat i o n of t h e
transformations can man ifest themselves in a seemingly labour p r o c e s s i n i t s
infin ite variety of concrete shapes, and the g lobal shift is con crete ness.
therefore only evident after the fact. Often, the fact that
we can talk about a change indicates that it is al ready 8 O r perhaps o n e
passing, or has already passed . s h o u l d say: the re­
d u ct i o n of the state
We will now take a closer look at these successive and to a m o re i n d i rect i n ­
progressive rational isations through which the capital­ tervention i n favo u r
labour relation has re-asserted itself, transforming the o f so-called ' m arket
way i n which it is experienced and prod uces space. m e c h a n i s m s'.

TH E C H A N G I N G R E LAT I O N OF W O R K E R S TO WO R K

T h e transfo rm ation o f mach i n e ry a n d t h e labo u r pro­

cess alters the relation of labo u r and capital, and the
relations of workers to each other. Mach inery and the
labour process mediate the actual relations between
workers, because workers come into contact with each

Its Own Peculiar Decor 233

other through the production process. They also medi­ 9 J u st as we can refer
ate the relation between capital and labour, because to the class re l at i o n
capital is experienced first and foremost as m ac h i n ­ as a k i n d of s y m b o l i c
ery, raw materials, a n d the command o f the production order, s o with mach i n ­
process, while capital experiences labour as variable e r y and t h e l a b o u r
capital. Machinery and the labour process m aterialise p r o c e s s we h ave a
the class relation and thus form the basis for its per­ k i n d of m aterial se­
petuation and particu larisation. 9 Social relations are m i ot i c .
thus embedded i n the labour process and mach inery,
and this formation in turn shapes social ity.

The introduction of a labour process based on machin­

e ry g ives work an i n d i rect relations h i p to n at u re , as
work is performed on nature to either turn it into a raw
material or to turn a raw material into a product, but i n
neither case is the w h o l e labour oriented towards t h e
w h o l e p rocess from beg inning to end. T h i s abandon­
ment of hand icraft production opens u p the way for the
pre-planning of coord ination, transport and assembly,
and the rationalisation of the work activity via p ract i ­
cal analysis a n d deskilling. Planning i n t u r n becomes
the price-form i n p rocess, with the value already being
calcu lated prior to being brought to the m arket. Out
of t h i s comes t h e d ivorce of operational and techn i ­
cal planning from realisation v i a physical labour, wh ich
introduces the d ifference between the worker and the
planner, engineer, and overseer.

Following Hans-Dieter Bahr:

Machinery sets free an intellect formerly bound to

the feudal-handicraft labour process, an intellect
which carries the poss i b i l ity of form i n g a pol itical
collective worker out of the d ivided partial workers.
In contrast to the work eth i c of the g u i l d , the pol itical
cooperation of wage-workers comes i nto external
opposition to production as such, since the social
ends of prod uction confront the proletariat as an
external force, i.e. as the ruling class. The leveling

Endnotes 4 234
 down of the special ised workers by means of prod uc- 10 Hans-D ieter Bahr,
tion tech nology creates the condition for turning the 'The Class Structu re
wage-struggle i nto the potential pol itical social isa- of M a c h i n e ry', in P h i l
tion of a working class i n the process of organ ising Slater ed., Outlines of
itself. On the other hand, the contrad iction between a Critique of Technol-
the special ised worker and the tech nolog ical i ntel- ogy (Ink L i n ks 1 979),
lect responsible for the d i rection, construction and p. 6.
transmission of the isolated detail operations, pre-
vents the worki ng class from recogn i s i n g its own
social character in this intellect, which in fact rep­
resents its own intel lect, even if in the form of an
u nconsciously collective prod uct alienated from the
working class and acq u i ring i ndependent shape in
the form of planners, tech n icians and engineers. The
proletariat therefore stands i n outward opposition to
its own intellect, which the capital ist process of pro­
d uction has created i n formal independence. I n part,
it was this hostil ity which weakened and n u l l ified the
resistance of the working class to fascism. In add ition,
the absence of a practical-theoretical critique of the
productive intellect b l inkers the working class, bind-
ing it as a variable moment to the agg regate social
capital ; in this respect, the working class is merely
an antagon istic, but nonetheless fixed component of
bourgeois society. Its blind ness towards its own, but
alienated , i ntellect means that it contributes to the
maintenance of the false totality of this society. And
a " l iberation" which takes place behind the backs of
the producers posits freedom as mere ideal. 1 0

The formal i n dependence of the i ntel lect has become

its real independence. This shift means that the worker
m o re thoro u g h ly d ivorces h i m self from a labo u r p ro ­
cess w h i c h is incomprehensible to h i m i n the absence
of hig hly specialised, scientific knowledge. This inde­
pendent i ntel lect fosters a culture of g iving orders and
obeying which is prevalent i n today's permissive society.
Both authority and obedience flourish where they are
least expected .

Its Own Peculiar Decor 235

With the internal isation and objectification of the whole 1 1 I b i d .
labour process i nto mach inery, the circu lation of com-
modity capital is itself industrialised, while "industrial and 12 Ibid. The notion of the
commercial capital fuse via the functional role played ideal ity of the worker
by financial capital:' 1 1 Despite this fusion, however, the as a s u bject is i m p o r-
l i m itations of the means of transportation and commu- t a n t . As Bahr notes,
n ication prior to WWI I stil l necessitated relatively dense Lu kacs m i stakes t h i s
and connected facil ities, with large concentrations of ideal ity f o r a real ity,
workers able to see the entire production process. This and t h u s i m a g i n e s
concentration brought about ind ustrial u n ion-type org- a s u pra- h i storical
an isations and labou r-type pol itical parties. Forms of S u bJect.
mass com m u n ication such as the newspaper, fi l m , and
rad io, developed to artificially resolve what Bahr refers
to as the '" ideal ity' of the col lective worker" into that of
an ind ividual consumer and citizen. 1 2 The various strands
came together in the form of organ isations of the work-
ers which took on an autonomous existence, developing
bu reaucratical ly, and i n the end becoming a brake on
the very revol utionary intellect from which they g rew.

Critical changes took place in energy, com m u n ications,

and transportation that provided the infrastructural founda­
tions for the dissolution of the spatial and communicative
conditions of col lective working class life. National energy
grids were developed to provide power across large
areas without the need for fac i l ities to have ded icated
power plants. Th is broad network of energy provision was
combi ned with the mass prol iferation of the automobile
and truck, and the development of massive road and
hig hway infrastructu res to support them, which made
it possible to expand laterally i n space at a much lower
popu lation and capital density than had previously been
imaginable. I n terms of i ntercontinental transportation
there were also huge strides in transoceanic shipping
and air transport. Th is expansion of power and mobility
for the commercial, the retail and the residential went
hand-in-hand with i m p roved com m u n ication networks,
starting with the phone, but expanding i nto rad io, televi­
sion, and eventually computers.

Endnotes 4 236
These developments also involved the massive, more
or less d i rect, engagement of the state in the economy.
In poore r cou ntries o n ly the state c o u l d gather and
coordinate enough capital to engage in development. In
wealthier cou ntries it reg ulated the com monly req u i red
systems of power, com m u n ication, transportation, edu­
cation, healthcare and sometimes housing, whether
d i rectly i n the form of national isations, o r i n d i rectly
via reg u latory bodies and i nvestment in i nfrastructure,
which was then made u p as a g ift to private capital .
This development of capital's means of transport and
means of com m u n i cati n g its orders and instructions
deepened the spatial isolation and separation between
workers, and d isrupted collective and public forms of
com m u n ication and of movement in space.

THE R E LAT I V E E N D OF M AT E R I A L I M P OV E R I S H M E N T A N D T H E
I M POVE R I S H M E N T O F S PACE

One major change after WWI I was the massive increase

in spend i n g power of workers, especially in the us ,
w h i ch amou nted to 5 00/o of the world's wealth and
250/o of world productive capacity, but only 50/o of its
popu lation. The union isation of the 1 930s resu lted in
a desire by the i nstitutional rep resentatives of capi ­
t a l a n d labour t o ensure social peace a n d profitabi l ity
in the post-war period. The wage-productivity d eal
worked out between the u n ions and major i n dustries
m eant that, i n retu rn for productivity that i n c reased
faster than the rate of wage g rowth, wages were none­
theless able to g row far higher than ever before. This
played a critical role in the development of the worker
as mass consumer, as the material i m poverishment of
the pre-WWII period was left behind. This took the form
of a large part of the working class havi ng the means
to buy cars, houses, and to move away from the dense
u rban networks of working class l ife to the relative iso­
lation of the suburbs.

Its Own Peculiar Decor 237

The new means allowed ind ividuals and g ro u ps to find 13 W h i l e ' i n d u strial
"solutions" to the problems associated with the indus­ c ity' or 'fi nancial me­
trial city, such as overcrowding, lack of access to nature, tropolis' d i fferentiate
crime, landlords, and so on. They also made it possi­ between the k i n d s of
ble to flee into places purged of, and wal led off fro m , cities that pred o m i ­
the racial a n d i m m i g rant Other, simu ltaneously escap­ n ated u n d e r urban­
ing and rei nforcing racial formation and its confl i cts. i s m - say, between
Suburban development and sprawl , through which the Detro it and New
existing order produced such solutions for some at the Yo r k - it i s d iffi c u lt
expense of others, combined with the transformation to conceptualise the
of those workers i nto mass consu mers, to result in a n ew k i n d of city along
process of de-concentration. This wou l d become the production l i n e s .
basis of "wh ite fl ight", " u rban decay", and eventually Post- i n d u strial seems
" u rban renewal " . The more pronounced and extensive a cop-out, m u c h l i ke
the development of the s u b u rb proper, the more the 'post- m o d e r n i s m '
d ismantling of the industrial city i m p l ied its falling into a or post-anyt h i n g .
state of ru i n , and not necessarily its transformation i nto O t h e r options l i ke
a " rej uvenated" sprawl city. 1 3 Where the formation of the 'cybernetic' o r
the suburb was less pronou nced or even largely absent, ' b i o- i nformatic' city
the older cities were often n o n etheless re-shaped seem odd. It i s an en­
accord ing to the forces of this ex-u rban ism. There was vironment so wholly
also an emergence of wholly new cities, which from their g iven to the totality
inception were suburban in design. of capital, so much a
s m ooth s u rface e n ­
It was never for the working class alone that housing capsulati n g the entire
and the geography of social relations were a problem. cycle of M-C-M', I
Large concentrations of people from all social classes t h i n k it necessary to
meant large concentrations of poverty, of garbage and alternate between
sh it, and of d iscontent. Water and air p o l l ution from ' s u b u rban city'. as
factories and homes, garbage, and poor housing put an i n d i cator of its
up simply i n order to provide the m i n i m u m of shelter, s u b - u rban stat u s , and
meant i l lness and disease. Cu rrent conditions in Mexico 'sprawl city' to iden­
City, Lagos, Shanghai, Hyderabad , and Sao Paolo d iffer tify its m ate rial and
in scale from the 1 9th centu ry conditions of the Eng­ organisati o n a l fee l .
lish worki ng class in Manchester or Leeds, or the 20th Such term i n o l o g ical
century worker living in Chicago, but except for a h i g h ly d i ffi c u l t i e s are i n d i c a­
developed consu mer society wh ich has increased the tors of a g e n u i n e
power and pressure of money over the working class conceptual k n ot that

Endnotes 4 238
g lobally, many of these conditions would be fam i l iar to needs to b e revi s ited
those workers. and wrestled with.

CASE STU DY: THE U N I T E D STATE S AND S U B U R B I A P R O P E R

T h e problems o f environmental plan n i n g created a new

field of activity for the management of class power. As
early as t h e 1 8 3 0s in E n g l a n d , m i d d l e class social
reformers and utopians attem pted to find a way to deal
with "the housing problem", with both sides generally
proposing a combination of individ ual ownersh i p and
state i ntervention i nto workers' housing. This problem
reflected fundamental dilemmas of capitalism : capital­
ists i n the building industry needed demand to exceed
supply; capital wou l d flow towards the more p rofitable
b u i l d i n g projects ; g r o u n d rent - w h i ch p l ays a key
rol e i n d eterm i n i n g h o u s i n g costs a l o n g s i d e of the
actual costs of construction, maintenance and interest
on m o rtgages - was too h i g h in cities, because of
industrial and commercial development.

Engels m ocked those who proposed such solutions

i n h i s 1 87 2 articles o n "The Housing Question". He
also warned that, were such panaceas to succeed,
they would result i n the de-pro l etarianisation of the
worki n g class, and that widespread h omeowners h i p
was i ncompatible w i t h - and wou l d be a reactionary
development in relation to - the working class as a rev­
olutionary class. Anticipating the current state of affai rs
by m o re than a century, he suggested that it wou l d
render workers immobile a n d p u t them deeply into debt,
and therefore at the mercy of capitalists. Against the
claims of Proudhon and some of his German fol lowers,
Engels argued that far from p rovi d i n g security and a
civilising effect, i n d ividual home owners h i p would t u rn
workers back i nto peasants, clutch ing their l ittle piece
of land and - whatever their m isery - ultimately narrow,
p rovincial, and fixated on the secu rity of their property.

Its O wn Peculiar Decor 239

Far from representing a solution, at the time wide-scale 14 It is i m portant to n ote
home owners h i p by workers seemed utterly i mpossi­ that in the 1 9th and
ble. None but the highest paid workers had access to most of the 20th cen­
the money or credit necessary to secure a mortgage, tu ry, s u b u rbani sat i o n
although even in the 1 887 edition of Engels's articles i n cont i n e ntal E u rope
there was al ready a note on the purchase of homes by had a d i fferent c h ar­
workers in Kansas, on the outskirts or in the suburbs. acter from the A n g l o­
B u i lt by themselves, of extremely poor q ual ity, with l ittle American tre n d . I n
in the way of modern conven iences l i ke sewage and E u rope, t h e city cen­
public garbage removal, some workers sti l l purchased tre was claimed by
these l ittle dwellings at $600 each. the bourgeoisie and
u p per middle classes,
The real breakthrough i n housing construction was the while the work i n g
" balloon frame" h o use. This could be b u i lt from p re­ class and i n d u stry
cut wood, with relatively l ittle effort, time and therefore were pushed to the
cost - especially com pared to the older brick and stone edges of the cities
buildings. It thus made possible the mass-production of and s u b u rbs. Even
houses at prices that many workers could afford, if they today, American-type
could manage the land or the ground rent, and if they s u b u rbs re main the
could get a mortgage that they could pay off. exception o n the
continent. Therefore
Land prices make up a large part of the cost of a house, it i s u n s u r p r i s i n g
so houses for workers had to be b u i lt on cheap land, that the 2005 Fre nch
on the edges of, or outside, cities, but the l i mitations of riots took place in
existing means of transport posed a critical barrier to the ban l i e u s - that
use of that land. Train travel over short distances, and i s , the s u b u rbs - and
even horse-d rawn o m n ibuses, were sti l l too expensive m ostly i nvolved N o rth
for most workers and the lower middle classes, and African youth. I n the
no other means of transport made it feasible to work us, the riot i s almost
1 0- 1 4 hours a day and sti l l get to and from work without al ways an 'inner city'
living with i n wal king distance, even if wal king distance phenomenon, though
was often several m i l es. Even reformers complained as events i n Ferg u ­
that long wal ks to and from work contributed to work­ s o n , M O h ave shown,
ers' exhaustion and red uced productivity. H owever, the t h i s i s not exc l u s i vely
widespread i ntrod uction of mass transit in the form of the case. [See ' M i ke
the trolley or tram would come just a few short years Brown's Body', in t h i s
after Engels's deat h , u n d erm i n i n g the force of t h i s i s s u e , f o r an analysis
argu ment. 1 4 of the l atter.]

Endnotes 4 240
Before the automobile, the electric tro l l ey made pos- 15 B radford S n e l l , 'The
sible a spread ing-out over a much larger area of land. Streetcar C o n s p i racy:
Through state subsidies in Europe - where owners h i p H ow G e n eral M o ­
of a tro l l ey o r c a b l e c a r l i n e i nvolved l e g a l p ro h i b i ­ t o r s D e l i b e rate ly
tions on real estate speculation - a n d p rivately i n the Destroyed P u b l i c
U n ited States, w h e re t h e owners of such systems Trans it', The New
were almost all land specu lators, m ass transit came Electric Railway
i nto existence, g reatly extending the distance workers Journal, A u t u m n 1995.
could l ive from their homes. The much cheaper land on For an i nternational
the edges of, or outside, cities thus suddenly became view of the stru g g l e
accessible to a larger part of the workin g class. Los between m a s s transit
Angeles - today known for its vast car-driven sprawl and the auto m o b i l e ,
and expressways - was originally developed as a low­ see C o l i n D ivall a n d
density, de-centreed city based on the trolley system, W i n stan B o n d , Subur­
and was u n l i ke anything imagined i n Europe or east of banising the Masses:
the M ississippi. By the early 1 900s, Los Angeles had Public Transport and
the largest mass transit system in the world, put into Urban De velopment in
place as a way to turn a profit on land bought cheaply Historical Perspective
by large real estate speculators. Los Angeles was the (As h g ate 2003).
product of land specu lation m ixed with the new system
of mass transit and balloon frame housing, and became
the first u rban suburb, even before the automobile could
have a significant i m pact on public transportation.

I n the U n ited States, the tro l l ey systems usually ran

at a loss, and owners hoped to profit heavily from the
land speculation and housing development that they
facil itated. By the 1 9 2 0s, however, the trolley was i n
competition w i t h t h e noisier, l e s s efficient, p o l l u t i n g
b u s - a n d , to an i ncreasing extent, the car. A coal ition
of companies, including automobile, trucking, steel , rub­
ber, and others, lead by the president of General Motors,
systematically bought up and destroyed the trolley mass
transit systems in dozens of cities, including New York.
Th is process of systematic acq u isition and destruction
contin ued into the 1 940s. The destruction of Los Ange­
les' mass transit system by General Motors is only the
most well-known incident at the end of a long process
that had beg u n almost 20 years earl ier. 1 5

Its Own Peculiar Decor 241

As the trolley systems were being destroyed bit by bit, 16 D av i d H. O n kst, " F i rst
however, mass transit i n the form of buses continued to a N e g ro ... I n c i d e n ­
predominate in the 1 930s. The vast majority of Ameri­ tally a Vete ran': B l a c k
can workers used either their feet o r mass transit to W o r l d W a r Two Vet-
get to work, to shop, to visit their friends, and to oth­ erans and the G . I . B i l l
erwise conduct their l ives. Even so, home owners h i p i n t h e D e e p South,
was an i ncreasingly c o m m o n feature o f workin g class 1 944-1948', Journal
l ife i n the U n ited States, especially among the ch i l d ren of Social History, vol.
of i m m i g rant workers - n ow considering themselves 3 1 , no. 3, s p r i n g 1 998,
wh ite American - who were more l i kely to buy homes p p . 517-44.
than were those who had preceded them by several
generations. They were also more able to get credit and 1 7 Fran cis D u pont,
buy homes than were b lack workers, who were either whose fam i l y m o n ey
trapped i n the sharecropper/tenant farmer contracts c reated G M , became
of the Southern rural areas, or relegated to the lower t h e head of the
strata of the working class in the N o rthern cities after Federal H i g hway
the first G reat M i g ration from WWI onwards. 1 6 C o m m i s s i o n . See
M ary Zepe rnick, 'The
Expansion fu rther outside of the cities requ i red two key I m pact of Corpora­
elements. The first prerequ isite was even more individu­ t i o n s on the C o m -
alised transportation, allowing travel to anywhere that m o n s , ad d ress at
roads went, instead of being circu mscribed by bus and t h e H a rvard D i v i n ity
trolley l ines. This meant the building of a large motor School's Theologi­
veh icle road system outside of the cities, in areas where cal O p portunities
the money for such vast p rojects was scarce. This pro­ Program, 21 October
cess began i n the 1 930s, but real ly expanded i n the 2004.
1 95 0 s with the fede ral Interstate H i g h way Program
under Eisenhower, d irected by a former General Motors 1 8 F i g u re adj u sted for
executive. 1 7 S u pported also in the name of " national 2006 d o l lars. These
defence", this was i n fact a t h i n ly d i s g u ised way to sums include mai nte­
increase the dominance of the car as the primary means nance costs for b r i d g ­
of transport. This programme received 9 0% of its fund­ e s and o t h e r i t e m s o n
ing from the federal budget and 1 0% from the states ; h i g hways , as w e l l as
approximately 50% came from federal, state and local the h i g hways them­
fuel taxes, vehicle taxes, and tolls, the rest from other selves. A l N e u h arth,
federal taxes. It was an i nvestment, over 35 years (the 'Trave l i n g I nte rstates
formal completion of the prog ramme came as late as i s our Sixth Freedom.'
1 99 2 , with the completion of I nterstate H i g hway 1-70), USA Today, 22 J u n e
to the tune of $42 5 billion. 1 8 This makes it one of the 2006. F o r total

Endnotes 4 242
largest public works programmes in h u man history. On bud get see 'Spend­
top of this origi nal plan, i nterstate hig hways have of i n g and Funding for
cou rse continued to be constructed. I n 2007, funding H i g hways, Con­
appropriated for the total I nterstate Hig hway System g ressional B u d g et
budget totalled $ 1 4 7 billion. Office Eco n o m i c and
B u d g et I s s u e B rief',
The other key element was a transformation of the home Jan u ary 201 1 .
loan and building ind ustries. Mortgages were a prob­
lem because they tended to be short term - at most
1 5 years - with a large d own payment, a large l u m p
s u m d u e a t the e n d , a n d fai rly h i g h i nterest rates. I n
response t o t h e depression, t h e Roosevelt ad ministra­
tion created agencies and passed bills that completely
restructu red the mortgage industry. Focusing on low
i nterest, long-term loans and federal g uaranteeing of
many mortgages, the mortgage industry was rad ically
restructured. Even though federal housing loans d i d
n o t force private lenders to adopt t h e i r rules, federal
loan g u i delines and guarantees against losses due to
foreclosure promoted a restructuring of practices, and
facilitated a vast extension of private lend i n g .

T h e Federal Home Loan agency - a n d following i t , t h e

so-called G I H o u s i n g B i l l implemented during a n d after
ww1 1 - d efined the g u i d e l i nes for u n d e rwrit i n g m o rt­
gages in the official Underwriters Manual. This identified
areas where lending was most l i kely to succeed or fail
by defining fou r d ifferent zones, marked by colour; thus
was created the p ractice of " red l i n i n g " . Red-line dis­
tricts were those where m o rtgages, and the federal
insuring of mortgages, were more or l ess automatically
denied. The main criterion was race. Areas that were
n on-wh ite or " mixed" were automatically redl ined, so
that neither the federal government, nor ultimately pri­
vate lenders, would lend to " black" people tryi n g to
secu re a m o rtgage. Despite the GI B i l l and Federal
Home Loan agency accounting for over 5 0% of sub­
u rban housing construction mortgages from 1 945 to
1 9 6 0 , less than 1 % of those loans went to prospective

Its O wn Peculiar Decor 243

black homeowners . 1 9 This also reinforced the devalua- 1 9 T i m Wise, ' B i l l of
tion of housing in predominantly black or mixed areas, so Wh ite s : H i storical
that many whites, able to secure a home loan , fled to the M e m o ry Through
suburbs in a steady flow after 1 945. The Underwriters the Racial Loo k i n g
Manual also gave preference to - and in many cases G l ass', ZNet, 24 J u l y
actually req u i red - racial ly-restrictive h o u s i n g cove­ 2000: ' t h e VA and FHA
nants that would prevent black people from purchasing loan progra m m e s
homes within a federally insured housing development. [ . .. ] utilised racial ly­
restri ctive u n d erwrit­
The Underwriters Manual also made it d ifficult to get i n g criteria, thereby
an insured loan for already-built housing, and certain ass u r i n g that hardly
construct i o n g u i d e l i nes - s u ch as req u i ring a cer­ any of the $120 b i l l i o n
tain amount of d istance between the house and the i n h o u s i n g e q u ity
street - forced people to move to newly constructed loaned from the late
housing i n the s u b u rbs instead of p u rchasing i n the forties to the early
cities. Th is provided a huge boost to home b u i l ders sixties through the
by forcing prospective homeowners to pu rchase new prog ram m e s wo u l d
buildings instead of existing housing stock. g o t o fam i l i es of
c o l o u r. These loans
The federal home loan and GI B i l l housing programmes, h e l ped finance over
combined with the eventual hig hway construction pro­ half of all s u b u rban
g ramme of the 1 950s, i nvolved b i l l ions of d o l l ars of h o u s i n g construction
federal su bsid isation of housing for wh ites of all class­ i n the cou ntry d u r i n g
es, including a bevy of homeowner tax credits, so that t h i s p e r i o d , l e s s than
it was often cheaper to buy in the suburbs, including 2% of which e n d e d up
p u rchas i n g one o r two cars, than to rent e q u ivalent b e i n g l ived i n by non­
housing in the city. wh ite persons.' Su­
zan ne M ettler argues
The construction industry - originally dominated by small that, while the G . I . B i l l
to med i u m sized builders, who could only come u p with g o t b l ac k workers
enough capital to take on projects of a few houses at a i nto vocational and
time - was also transformed by federal underwriting of college prog ram mes,
residential and commercial developments, and ration­ it fai led to prov i d e
al isation of the mortgage system. Wh ile there were a h o u s i n g : Soldiers to
few large residential construction companies, they were Citizens: The GI Bill
exactly that : few. B u ilders generally needed to have as­ and the Making of the
su rances that they could build with as l ittle risk as pos­ Greatest Genera tion
sible from foreclosures and economic downturns. With (Oxford U n iversity
each depression between 1 87 7 and 1 9 29, thousands Press, 2005).

Endnotes 4 244
of contract b u i lders went under, unable to su rvive the 20 Su preme C o u rt r u l i n g
bankruptcy of more than a handful of mortgage holders. i n Shelley vs. Kraemer,
The federal loan programmes and agencies, and their 1 948.
de facto restructuring of the mortgage lending i n d us-
try, provided the stabi l ity and insurance against l osses 21 Levittow n s : large
that made it possible for larger construction firms and post-war s u b u r-
developers to build housing for workers on a scale that ban deve l o p m ents
was u n i mag inable only 20 years earl ier. p i o n e e r i n g the new
model, c reated by the
The relative power of w h ite labo u r to secure h i g h e r real estate d eveloper
wages and to move freely allowed many workers to pur- W i l l iam Levitt's com-
chase homes under the new terms of 3 0 year, insured, pany. I n 1 9 4 8 Levitt
low interest mortgages. And, g iven the chronic weak- declared: 'No man
ness of the us labour movement, laws could be written who owns his own
to: 1 ) openly excl ude black people, via red l i n i n g , wh ich h o u s e and lot can be
meant that 990/o of federal ly guaranteed and subsidised a C o m m u n ist. H e has
mortgages between 1 935 and the early 1 9 60s went too much to do.'
to wh ites only; 2) m i n i m ise i nvestment i n renovat i n g
existing h o u s i n g , because loans were almost enti rely
reserved for new homes ; 3) re-d i rect i nvestment away
from cities, because most space for new single-fam ily
residence housing was i n the suburbs; 4) stop cities
from g rowing by annexing i m med iately adjoining sub-
u rbs, since suburban residents and authorities wanted
to keep taxes low, avoiding the cost of common m u n ici-
pal social services, which s u b u rbanites could i n any
case sti l l access simply by travel i n g i nto the city.

Even t h o u g h a 1 9 4 8 S u preme C o u rt r u l i n g formally

outlawed racially restrictive covenants i n housing, the
practice has continued de facto to the present. 20 The
structure of the eco n o m i cally homogeneous subd ivi­
sion - where developers build a whole set of houses
aimed at a single income bracket - contin ues to domi­
nate s u b u rban housing d eve l o p m ent, and typically
remains racially un iform. Few projects have been on the
scale of the origi nal Levittowns, but the basic standard
for subdivision - rather than i n d ividual lot - d evelop­
ment, guarantees that u n iform ity. 2 1

Its Own Peculiar Decor 245

This kind of development has not remained purely i n
the suburbs o r i n newly developing areas. T h e open ing
up of areas outside cities for housing would have been
insufficient in itself to shift the tide of development from
u rban to suburban. For this to happen, the rest of the
city also had to move to the subu rban and semi-ru ral
areas. The city had so far been the location of both work
and consumption. Factory and office, department store
and m u ltitude of small retailers, would all reside with i n
the city, with i n neighbourhoods o r city centres. But t h e
same changes in transportation that allowed residential
movement to the subu rbs also opened the possibil ity of
moving industry and offices out of the cities.

The personal car came hand in hand with the develop­

ment of the trucki ng industry. Trucking gave the same
flexibil ity i n space to industry that the automobile gave
to ind ividuals and fam i l ies. By the 1 930s, the rail roads
were i n steep decl ine, as trucking became the main
means of transport for materials and commod ities over
land. Rail roads remain the predominant long-d istance,
point-to-point method of land transport because under
those conditions it is cheaper than trucking. H owever,
the fu rther one needs to move away from central cit­
ies and train l ines, the m o re cost effective trucki ng
becomes. This dynamic led to the eventual dominance
of trucking for transport i n the U n ited States.

Soon after WWI I , companies began to m i g rate industry

and offices out of the cities and into the suburbs, and
eventually i nto the " g reenfi e l d s " - s e m i - r u ral areas
t h at are o ft e n in a state o f d e ve l o p me n t between
ru ral and s u b u rban. From a l most every angle, m ov ­
i n g i n d u st ry out of t h e c i t i e s b e n efited b u s i n esses.
S u b u rbs, h av i n g less i nfrastruct u re to maintain and
being on less developed land, offered low ground rents,
and generally lower taxes. Prior to the "tax revolt" that
began in the late 1 970s, this movement allowed many
suburbs to maintain lower residential and homeowner

Endnotes 4 246
taxes t h ro u g h taxat i o n l e v i e d o n b u s i n esses, w h o
sti l l managed t o pay less than in cities. A t t h e same
time, businesses thereby avoided conflicts with u rban
pol itical mach ines, which had to maintain relative class
peace in a much less homogenous environment than
the suburbs. This m utually beneficial tax arrangement
wou l d eventually cru m b l e i n the 1 9 60s and 70s as
companies either moved further away from the cities,
seeking better deals in newer suburbs and greenfields,
or left the country.

Companies responded as m u c h as the state to the

huge class conflicts between 1 9 1 9 and the end of WWII.
Workplaces moved i nto the suburbs and g reenfields
i n order to escape the concentrated mass of workers
that proved so i ntractable in the fi rst half of the 20th
centu ry. Dense concentrations of workers, their fam i ­
l ies a n d friends i n generally rented housing, meant that
thick networks of relationships could exist, and often
near workplaces. Cities did not generally have land use
regulations creating sharp divisions between residential,
commercial, and retail areas. Many small businesses
dependent on the workers with in walking d istance had
close relationsh i ps with them. This tended to generate
sym pathy, and in ti mes of stri kes and lockouts workers
could often depend on a certain degree of support from
such businesses, where they bought their g roceries and
everyday goods. Such networks could prove a serious
problem for capital.

S u b u rban design i ntrod uced r i g i d d isti nctions of

residential, commercial and retail space. Zon ing laws
separated these in a way that they never had been
i n cities. Workers came to l ive apart from not only
their workplaces, but also the businesses they bought
consumer goods fro m . I n post-WWII s u b u rbs, u rban
planners and developers produced designs involving
new arrangements such as the purely residential cul de
sac opening onto a fou r to eight lane feeder road. Not

Its Own Peculiar Decor 247

only was there really no way to walk to the workplace
or shops, but walking itself was actually d iscouraged
by a design that made it h ugely i n efficient and even
p hysically dangerous. Here physical design was also
i n part social engineeri n g . Police harassment of those
walking in subu rbs would further reinforce the separa­
tions - focusing in on those lacking apparent pu rpose,
o r possessing an appearance atypical for a particular
subdivision.

S u b u rb i a changed t h e poss i b i l ities for t h e e n t ry of

chain stores into the space p reviously dominated by
"mom and pop" neighbourhood stores. I n the suburban
setti n g , s m a l l retailers c o u l d n ot be situated w it h i n
walking d i stance of consumers, because they could
not be set i n residential areas. At the same time, many
people also wanted access to the downtown shopping
experience stripped of the unpleasantness of beggars,
homeless people, and other " u n d es i rable elements".
Enter t h e two m ost com m o n ly reco g n ised symb o l s
o f suburbanisation : strip m a l l s a n d s h o p p i n g m a l l s , t o
w h i c h have b e e n added "big box" stores l i ke Wal m art,
w h i c h f o l l o w t h e s a m e basic " o ne-stop-s h o p p i n g "
design a s t h e trad itional m al l . Whi l e t h i s took some
time to develop - really only beg i n n i n g i n the m i d to
late 1 9 5 0 s - both t h e s h o p p i n g mall a n d t h e strip
mall took off i n t h e 1 9 6 0 s a n d 70s, recreat i n g the
d owntown shopping options, b u t wit h i n a far m o re
controlled environment.

Comm u n ities began to fragment as large concentra­

tions of workers in p roxim ity with each other across
m u ltiple workplaces were broken up. As both waged
workers and i n dustry left, what remained in cities were
populations pushed further and fu rther to the social
and spatial margins, with collapsing i ncomes and thus
collapsing i nfrastructures and social services. Here we
have the successor to the pre-WWII g hetto. The latter
was, to be s u re, a place of collective isolation, but it

Endnotes 4 248
was also one rarely outside of capital ist reprod uction 22 See Thomas S h a p i ro,
in one form o r another, due to the expand i n g need for Tatj a n a Meschede
labour i n the period from the 1 9th to the early 2 0th and Sam Osoro, 'The
century. But what came now was a new kind of ghetto, Roots of the W i d e n ­
increasingly cut off from more than marg inal access to i n g R a c i a l Wealth
waged labour, and also the object of increasing homog­ Gap: Explai n i n g
en isation and atom isation. I n the U n ited States t h i s t h e B l ack-W h ite
dislocation, de-popu lation, and g hettoisation f i n d s its Eco n o m i c Divide"
highest expression in the former centres of industrial B ran d e i s U n iversity
production and worki ng class m i l itancy : Detroit, Bal­ I n stitute o n As sets
timore, Cleveland, Akron, B uffalo, N ewark, St. Louis, and Social Po l i cy,
Pittsburg h , and so on. I n terms of d ivision wit h i n the February 2013. T h i s
working class, it is most clearly expressed in the d ispar­ s t u d y l o o k e d a t 1 ,700
ity in med ian wealth per household between black and fam i l i e s over 25 years
wh ite fam i l ies, which has tripled i n the last 2 5 years. from 1 984 to 2009.
Median wh ite household wealth is $265 ,000 compared The B u reau of Labor
to $28,500 for black households, most of which is tied Statistics reports an
to home ownership. 22 even g reater re l ative
g a p (th o u g h s m a l l e r
Even focusing purely on the support g iven to d ifferent i n absol ute terms)
types of housing, the d ivergences are stark. Pu blic pro­ of $110,729 vs $4,995
g rammes, originally put i nto place d u ring World War I I respectively. Accord­
to meet housing demand for war workers, were essen­ ing to the BLS, the
tially the only subsid ised housing non-wh ite workers g a p between black
could get, while they were completely excluded from and wh ite fam i l i e s
federal - and th e refore largely from p rivate - m o rt­ n e a r l y d o u b l e d from
gage loans. Cities and states worked with the federal 2008 to 2010 because
government to " c l ear s l u m s " - often referred to as b l ack, l atino, and
"negro removal" - putting workers i nto public housing asian fam i l y wealth
located in relatively isolated areas of the city, often far dropped coll ectively
from downtown and from the best paid i n d ustrial work. by 60%, w h i l e w h i te
Based on the standardisation of neig h bou rhoods, real wealth 'only' d ropped
estate agencies and developers could profit vastly by by 23%.
engag ing in " b l ock bustin g " : suppo rting the move of
one o r two black fam i l ies i nto a n e i g h b o u rhood, to
then scare white fami l i es with the associated p rospect
of decl i n e in their property val ues - u n d e rwritten as
certainly as a federal loan by the federal govern ment's
mortgage l e n d i n g policies - and eventually allowing

Its Own Peculiar Decor 249

them to cash i n , as wh ite fam i lies sold cheap and black 23 See, a m o n g others,
fam i lies bought dear. I n the longer term, this allowed Setha Low, ' H o w
them to also devalorise the land and b u i l d i n g s in a Private I nterests
neighbourhood for eventual redevelopment, complete Take Over P u b l i c
with government subsidies for s l u m clearance. Since Space', and C i n d i
the 1 9 80s the formation of development zones, and Katz, ' Power, Space,
the e n s u i n g tax b reaks to d evel o pers, h ave al lowed and Te rror', i n The
the s u b u rbanised g entrification of large sections of Politics of Public
central cities. 23 Space ( Routledge,
2006); also Kenneth
New housing i ncreasingly tends towards the single fam ­ T. Jackson, Crabgrass
i ly residence, a s public housing projects, long suffering Fron tier (Oxford U n i ­
from systematic neglect, are torn down. Whe re m u lti­ versity Press, 1 985).
u n it dwellings go up, they are frequently for the wel l-off.
The poorest popu lations are d riven out of the city cen­
tres in a less overt but no less systematic work of "neg ro
remova l " , t h o u g h t h i s is i n c reas i n g ly also extended
to the poorest wh ites and latinos. Recent examples
include the gentrification of lower Harlem i n New York
City, and the tearing down of Cabrin i G reen and other
projects near Chicago's downtown, to be systematically
replaced with single fam i ly residences, d u plex condo­
m i n i u ms, and luxury resi dential skyscrapers.

S patial deconcentration goes hand-in-hand with the

post-WWII expansion of consumption for a large part of
the working class ; the i ntroduction of the mach inery of
one-way comm u n ication from capital and the state to
the populatio n ; the mechanisation of household labour;
the ind ividualisation of means of transport over large
d i stances via the auto m o b i l e . Marg i n a l cities, lack­
ing the developed i nfrastructu res and social services
requ i red both for industry and to accommodate a self­
sustaining and often oppositional working class culture,
with its own i nstitutions and self-identity, are the fallow
fields upon which the suburb city is constructed . Here
we have the creation, in what appears as a kind of "all
at once" rush, of the radi o and T V audience, the model

Endnotes 4 250
h o usewife, the c o m m uter, and the s u b u rban home- 24 S parrows Po int steel
owner. The suburb proper, having no autonomy of its m i l l i n Balti m o re is
own, derives its model from the city. J ust as the pre­ a case i n point. The
WWI I suburb was a m i n i-city, so the post-WWII suburb plant itself was until
is a m i n iatu re Los Angeles. recently c o n s i d ered
to h ave one of the
There is also the loss - o r fai l u re to keep up the best steel prod u c i n g
repai r - of public amen ities, from sidewal ks to public cont i n u o u s caster
parks, including both programmes and facil ities. I n the u n its left i n the us,
case of global metropoles l i ke New York, or in cities but for lack of a b i l ity
such as Ch icago which have similar status, the care to produce steel as
of public facilities is partially or even wholly privatised, cheaply as in Braz i l
mean ing that the maj ority of resou rces go to the facili­ or R u s s i a , the m i l l
ties that most i m med iately serve local el ites. I n other has been scrapped,
cases, such facilities are annexed by gated or otherwise its parts h av i n g been
restricted com m u n ities, and thus effectively privatised auct i o n e d . See J a m i e
insofar as they become inaccessible to non-residents Sm ith H o p k i n s , 'With
of those s u bd ivisions. In places such as Detroit and blast fu rnace down,
Baltimore, the dismem berment of the city takes place Sparrows Po i n t l ay­
o n such a scale that it is often cheaper to abandon offs beg i n', Baltimore
housing than to attempt to sel l it. Thus whole areas are Sun, 8 J u n e 2012 and
in a sense reclaimed by nature, as weeds, g rass and 'Sparrows Point auc­
trees g row up and over the rusting cars, the crumbling tion brings h u n d reds
buildings and em pty lots strewn with garbage. to buy m i l l's p i eces',
Baltimore Sun, 23
I n the former i n d u strial cities we of cou rse also find J a n u ary 2013.
i n d ustrial ru i n s : abandoned factories and steel m i l l s ;
areas where t h e l a n d h a s been rendered u n usable by
years of industrial waste ; large production facil ities and
warehouses wh ich m ay o r may not become the "art­
i sts' l ofts" of some l ucky developer. Fac i l ities which
employed h u n d reds, thousands or even tens of thou­
sands lie dormant, with l ittle prospect of being put back
into profitable use, even if from a tech nical point of view
they remain completely functional. 24 As m uch as the
transformation of housing, retai l , and public space, the
change in the space of production marks a sign ificant
departure from the past.

Its O wn Peculiar Decor 251

Through these developments, the city ceases to have many 2s R i c k H e p p , ' Po l i ce
of the distinctive featu res which once demarcated it from Enforc i n g New
the subu rban and rural worlds. Relentless privatisation Anti-Loite r i n g Law',
and policies of separation and demarcation undermine Chicago Tribune, 22
what remai ning public space might be contested. Parks Aug 2000.
are replaced with fee-charg ing places l i ke " D iscovery
Zone" or "Chuck E. Cheese's". What is allowed in public
spaces is curtailed, "zoned" for certain activities while
others are ruled out. Sidewal k space i n "commercial
areas" is restricted , as for example in Chicago where no
more than three people at a time are allowed to gather
in certain districts, in the name of stopping loitering by
gangs - a law which of cou rse is only systematically
applied to youth, and especially of colour, as opposed
to g roups of drunken, but spending, yuppies. 2 5

Wh ile, i n the us, the state played a central role 1 n

implementing housing policies that favoured a racially
seg regated s u b u rbanisation, g lobally it was i n c reas­
ingly the provider of services that were not profitable
for private enterprises, but which were necessary to
m o l l ify popu l ations that had been i n near-constant
upheaval before WWI I . The state was often forced into
partially rationalising unequal social relations in the face
of movements making demands for the extension of
citizenship and the use of law to remedy de jure and
de facto inequal ity. State prog ram m es for nationalis­
i n g healthcare, education, and p u b l i c housing were
the result.

The struggles of the labour movement which had engen­

dered the partial incorporation of labour into citizenship
were followed by the increasing demand for equal isa­
tion i n other areas of l ife, which themselves took the
forms of struggles wit h i n the labour movement and
its organisations. This often l ead to a frag m entation
of worki ng class culture along l i nes of race, gender,
sexuality, reg isteri n g fau lt l i nes which had been s u p­
pressed by a politics of worki ng class identity.

Endnotes 4 252
However, as these struggles receded, their demands 2&401 ( k) p l a n s : an
were partially incorporated. It became i ncreasingly nec­ e m p l oyer-co ntri b u ­
essary for women to join the workforce fu l l time i n order t i o n f o r m of p e n s i o n
to sustain household income levels. Meanwhile, non­ sav i n g i n the u s that
wage benefits were i ncreasingly privatised - which is was introd uced i n the
to say, commod ified - in the sh ift from social secu rity l ate 1 970s to g ive tax
and pensions to 401 (k) retirement plans 26 ; the replace­ breaks on d eferred
ment of d i rect wages with employee stock options ; in income.
increasing wage deductions for med ical benefits; grow­
ing dependence on home ownership-based equ ity for
loans and to maintain a certain credit rating. This last
aspect has advanced to the point where many employ­
ers now check a potential e m p l oyee's credit rat i n g
before h i ring them - someth i n g w h i c h systematical ly,
if uni ntentional ly, d iscri minates against mi norities, g iven
their widespread excl usion from homeownership.

A s t h e crisis of u rban i s m has p ro g resse d , s o too

has the privatisation of spaces and services, as the
socialisation of the fulfi l ment of needs once cod ified
and executed through the extension of the powers of
the state - or as Gaspar Tamas has described it, "the
E n l i g htenment tendency to ass i m i late citize n s h i p to
the h u man condition " - is systematically rol l ed back.
Homogenisation and privatisation - always part and
parcel of capital's logic - h ave taken o n a h itherto
u n p recedented scope i n the face of the transforma­
tions looked at above. This can not be separated from
the simu ltaneously increasing material ineq ual ity and
absol ute material i m poverishment both i n the d evel­
oped countries and in those places pushed outside the
g lobal circu its of legal accumu lation. These tendencies
represent a c o n sistent u nd e rm i n i n g of any ki n d of
prog ressive u n iversal ity of the kind that was central to
the notion of socialism in the workers' movement of the
1 9th and early 20th centu ry.

If the ruined city is the fi rst, negative prod u ct of the

crisis of urban ism, this ruin has its photo negative in the

Its Own Peculiar Decor 253

suburban or sprawl city. The transformation of the urban
world i nto sprawl cities had two d i stinct moments: o n
the one hand the creation of n ew c i t i e s along l i nes
laid out by Los Angeles and the post-WWII suburb, and
the transformation of some former industrial cities i nto
sprawl or suburban cities ; on the other the mere hollow­
ing out of cities that cou ld not be profitably transformed.

The typical sprawl city escaped the fate of the industrial

city precisely because it was marg i nal, in a less ind ustri­
ally developed reg ion, and so did not present the same
institutionalised, structural resistance to the rationali sa­
tion of capitalist accu m u lation and u rban ism. A lack of
collective working class identity entailed a lack of oppo­
sition to the new technolog ies and labour processes.
Provi ncialism and isolation thus proved assets. They
were also somethi n g promoted by the new methods
of de-concentration - indeed, their very rational ity. For
capital's part it was often sim ply easier to start again
somewhere else than to try reform ing the industrial city.

This goes a s i g n ificant way to expla i n i n g why u rban

population decline in the U n ited States - but also in
many other cou ntries ; C h i n a comes to m i n d - has
occu rred largely in former ind ustrial cities, while growth
is almost entirely confined to s u b u rb cities. I n d u stry
in these places is often very h i g h tech , uti lising small
amounts of unskilled labour generally at very low wages,
while what labo u r is employed i ntensively - such as in
the many forms of engi neering - is h i g h ly skilled and
amou nts to few jobs. Much of the workforce provides
services to the core of h i g h ly paid, hig hly ski l led work­
ers and managers. What sprawl cities have in common
with the moribund industrial city and the suburb is a lack
of collectivity. Like them, these are places of atom ised
individuals, moving from work to home to the shops.

How then should we i nterpret the sh ift of some of the

popu lation back to the inner areas of New York City,

Endnotes 4 254
London or Tokyo? What about the apparent prospering
of some older cities l i ke San Francisco and Ch icago,
which have in some ways resembled industrial cities?
H ere we need to make some d istinctions about the
development of cities globally, even if we risk making
overgeneralisations. New York, Tokyo and London have
always been g reat financial-cosmopol itan centres of
capital . Th ro u g h them flow the vast rivers of money­
capital, and it is thus no accident that these places
are strongly identified with their exchanges or financial
d istricts, whether Wal l Street, the N i kkei or the City.
As such, they have also tended to be centres of high
bourgeois culture. This is utterly u n l i ke the i n d u strial
cities, which were if anyt h i n g a n i m ated culturally by
the worki n g class, si nce the u pper classes i n these
places, and the political class i n particu lar, were not
only often at odds, but q u ite ignorant and i m mersed
i n realpolitik rather than any kind of deep cultural l ife.
The cosmopol itan centres too may u ltimately be trans­
formed further by their central role in the circulation of
capital - hollowed out as bourgeois society becomes
ever more senile - but they also generally do not cease
to be global poles of attraction, and as places seem­
ingly made entirely of money they provide g round for
all manner of adventu res and ideas.

Cities l i ke Chicago and San Francisco really throw into

relief the combined and uneven character of capital­
ist development. Chicago was certainly part industrial
city, but it has also long been a financial centre. As
such, its course and its condition reflect this d uality.
San Francisco is not atypical of coastal cities that were
major places for shipping and trade. I nsofar as shipping
remains a vastly i m portant part of the global economy,
port cities can sometimes retain some degree of cen­
trality, or preserve stature while shifting to other focuses.
But with containerisation, of course, many such places
have died a death, as business is transferred to a deep­
water dock elsewhere. Although San Francisco's own

Its O wn Peculiar Decor 255

 role as a port city d ecl i ned d ramatical ly - 1 34 other
us ports now handle more traffic - the Bay Area as a
whole remains massively i m portant, and this has con­
tinuing impl ications for the San Francisco economy. The
key to the city's fortunes is, however, its proxim ity to the
subu rban areas that became central to the m icroelec­
tronics i n d u stry, namely S i l icon Val l ey. What is most
distressing about San Francisco is the degree to which
it has become a bed room com m u n ity for the S i l icon
Valley set. A larger discussion of this is not possible
here, but the city has increasingly become not where
so many people spend their days, but only where they
return, after 1 2- 1 4 hour days, to consume and sleep.
San Francisco, for all of its h istoric association with
radical politics i n the U n ited States - as capital of the
" Left Coast" - is now one of the most expensive places
to l ive in the whole of North America; a place that, l i ke
New York, has precious l ittle space left for the kind of
m i l ieus on which it b u i lt its reputation.

What has to be recognised here is that the apparent

opposition of city and suburb, which existed in the post­
WWI I period, has been fundamentally undermined. The
crisis of mechan ical industrial u rban ism, out of which
the suburb and the subu rban city arose while simulta­
neously d ismantling the industrial-era city, has passed .
Debord again registered this period clearly :

The c o u n t ry d e m o n st rates j ust the o p posite

fact - "isolation and separation" ( The German Ide­
ology). As it destroys the cities, u rbanism i nstitutes
a pseudo-countryside devoid not only of the natu ral
relationsh i ps of the country of former times but also
of the d i rect (and d i rectly contested) relationships
of the h istorical cities. The forms of habitation and
the spectacular control of today's "planned environ­
ment" have created a new, artificial peasantry. The
geographic d ispersal and narrow-mindedness that
always p revented the peasantry from u n de rtaki n g

Endnotes 4 256
 i ndependent action and becoming a creative h istori- 27 Debord, Society of
cal force are equally characteristic of these modern the Spectacle, p. 126.
producers, for whom the movement of a world of their
own makin g is every bit as inaccessible as were the
natu ral rhythms of work for an earl ier ag rarian soci­
ety. The trad itional peasantry was the unshakeable
basis of "Oriental despotism", and its very scattere­
d n ess called forth b u reaucratic centralisation ; the
new peasantry that has emerged as the product of
the growth of modern state bu reaucracy differs from
the old in that its apathy has had to be historically
manufactu red and maintained : natural ignorance has
g iven way to the organ ised spectacle of error. The
" new towns" of the technolog ical pseudo-peasantry
are the clearest of ind ications, i nscribed on the land,
of the break with historical time on which they are
fou nded ; their motto m i g ht well be: " O n this s pot
not h i n g w i l l ever happen - and noth i n g ever has:'
Quite obviously, it is precisely because the l i bera­
tion of history, which must take place i n the cities,
has not yet occurred, that the forces of h i storical
absence have set about designing their own exclu­
sive landscape there. 27

Whereas Debord ends i n the affi rmation of the over­

coming of the city and urban ism by the subord ination of
the environment to the needs of the workers' councils,
what has i n fact happened is the end of the con d i ­
tions u pon which councilism cou ld exist. What can be
decried in the structu re of the sprawl suburb comes to
redefine the city in nearly equal measure.

GAT E D C O M M U N I T I ES A N D THE E N D OF T H E
WO R K I N G C LASS AS AN ESTAT E

The i n d ivid ualistic, privat i sed resol ution of the hous­

ing question i n ex-u rban deconcentration not only has
objective effects, such as the re-segregation of Amer­
ica, it is part of the restructuring of the experience of the

Its Own Peculiar Decor 257

 class relation. To understand this shift, it is necessary
to g rasp the role private home ownership plays in the
us as a replacement for the types of benefits that are in
many other places provided through social programmes
and the state. There is a reason why neoliberal endeav­
ours to an n i h ilate the social democratic elements of
the state, in favou r of private solutions, often get their
im petus from America. A private homeowner benefits
in at least six ways that mask their reliance on the state:

The state provides a huge tax write-off, giving back

significant income. With the end of the heavily graduated
i ncome tax in the late 1 970s, more people were taxed
at lower income levels than in the 1 930s, 40s or 50s,
and so the tax refund on the mortgage became even
more i m portant.

2 G iven the low rates of interest and tax subsidies,

mortgage outgoings can be far less than rent for an
equivalently-sized home. This depends on relatively low
property taxes, however, which in the suburbs are the
single most i m portant source of revenue for services
provided by the town/city, such as police, fire, roads,
and schools. The other major source of income comes
from taxation on i n d u strial and com m e rcial proper­
ties, which are key to keeping property taxes low for
homeowners.

3 A house acts as equ ity, i m p roving the owner's credit

rating, and thus allowing them to borrow considerably
more for considerably lower rates of interest. For most
fami l ies i n the bottom 80% of the popu lation, the house
is by far the single most val uable item they own, and
generally the o n ly one they can use as a s i g nificant
sou rce of collateral.

4 A house acts as a form of i nter-generational wealth

transfer and income secu rity.

Endnotes 4 258
5 The value of the house can be expected to increase in 28 F H A : Federal H o u s-
value over time. Th us the asset becomes a means of 1 n g Ad m i n istrat i o n ;
increasing one's wealth. H u o : De partment o f
H o u s i n g and U rban
6 The combi nation of increasing value and equ ity also deve l o p m ent.
becomes a means of making it possible for one's chil-
d ren to go to un iversity and escape the orbit of working 29 See R i c h ard Avi l e s ,
class labour. ' Racial Th reat
Revisited: Race,
These six aspects of home ownership were, as we've Home Ownership,
seen, racial ised by the housing policies of the FHA and and W h ite Work i n g
H U D. 28 Since these policies meant that black fam i l ies C l a s s Po l i t i c s i n t h e
purchasing a home in a community would automatically us, 1 964-1976', 2009,
deval ue property, in the rare cases where they could d raft paper available
qual ify for housing assistance and loan support, home on l i n e.
owners h i p went hand-in-hand with the desire for racial
isolation and against integ ration. This racial isation of
housing, equity, and property val ues, especially after
the end of de Jure seg regation i n the South i n 1 9 64
and 1 9 65, meant that the threat of i ntegrated housing
became one of the most important factors in the right­
wing sh ift of wh ite workers to the Republ ican Party in
the 1 9 6 8 , 1 97 2 , and 1 976 elections. 2 9 White renters,
on the other hand, were statistically much less opposed
to integ ration/desegregation, in housing and in educa­
tion, both before 1 9 64 and after 1 9 6 8 .

H o m e ownership along these l ines t h u s has a close rela­

tionship to political conservatism, but it is not necessary
to stretch one's imag ination very far to understand the
further transformation of experience that home owner­
s h i p entails. Here I will briefly list some key points :

• Hostil ity to any policies which m i g ht lower h o u s i n g

val ues. T h i s incl udes n o t o n l y t h e aforementioned rac­
ism, but also hostility to public housing and subsidised
apartment programmes which d o not lead to h o m e
ownership, a s these tend to lower values b y introduc­
ing lower-income fam i l ies with worse credit ratings.

Its Own Peculiar Decor 259

 Hostil ity to anything which might increase the tax bur­
den, including property taxes. This includes providing
for services which would be available to everyone in a
com m u n ity, and not merely homeowners. The cu rrent
push among the Tea Party-type populists to privatise
education and fi re departments provides a particu larly
nasty exam ple.

• H ostil ity to anything th reatening the privilege of huge

tax b reaks for h o m e ownersh i p . Renting is i n effect
penalised several times over, and homeowners have a
vested interest in not being red uced to renters again.

What is at issue is not merely the title to the property

itself, but the abil ity of the home to act accord ing to
the six characteristics outlined above. Of central i mpor­
tance here is also the degree to which home ownership
has effectively functioned i n the u s as a partial form of
compensation for the lack of a social safety net. Wh ile
it may not have the absolute highest homeownership
rates, t h e U n ited States does have the h i g h est i n e ­
qual ity o f a n y industrial ised nation. More t h a n a n y other
developed country, it depends on a high level of private
debt, based on equ ity derived from the home and better
access to additional credit sou rces l i ke credit cards.
Such debt has of cou rse g rown massively since the
early 1 970s, effectively plugging a gap left not j ust by
stagnating real wages, but also by the meagre "social
wag e " . I n the 2000s the secu ritisation of household
debt both enabled its further expansion and articulated
it with g lobal financial flows as foreign ban ks bought up
dollar-backed securities. The capacity for the American
economy to support enormous levels of private debt
itself depends u p o n the preservation of the d o l l ar's
val u e , which i s effectively u n d e rwritten by the cata­
strophic effects that any deval uation of the dollar - as
world money - would have on the global economy.

Endnotes 4 260
The increased home owners h i p exten d s t h e p rivate
into the public, and in turn transforms the public i nto
a p rivate affai r, red u c i n g p u b l i c e n g a g e m e n t i n t o
N I M BY (Not I n My B ackyard) politics. It is no accident
that suburbanisation should g ive rise to a politics of
re-privat i s at i o n . The overcom i n g of c o m m u nal a n d
collective existence was material ised in the post-WWII
technologies of urban ism, especially the creation of the
experience i n one's private space of what previously
had to be experienced p u b l i cly. The home was no
l o n g e r s i m p l y a place to eat and s l e e p , but a self­
sustaining m icrocosm i n which the outside world only
entered via electronic media such as rad io, television
and eventually the com p uter. The h o m e became a
refuge. At the same time, the yard provided a fenced­
off replacement for parks and playgrounds and other
public fac i l ities i n which natu re m ight be experienced
collectively.

Post-war mass consumer u rban ism also held out the

promise of homogeneity. As we've seen, the very struc­
ture of the post-war suburb depended on developers
creating large areas with relatively similar incomes, and
for a long time it was legally req u i red that the comm u ­
nity be racially homogeneous. S i n g l e women were also
blocked from access by social conventions and cred it
ratings based on gender. Subu rbanisation involved a
flight from people " not l i ke us", which was to say away
from d ifferent races, creeds, eth n i c groups, and so on.
The tendency towards homogeneity and conform ity
means that subu rban isation has a logic of experience
u n l i ke that of the city. Therein lies a fu ndamental prob­
lem for the s u b u rban city. The very extension of this
homogen isation - privatisation of space and services ;
private management and even fu n d i n g of parks and
schools which are nominally public - butts u p against
the very structu re of the city.

Its Own Peculiar Decor 261

Homogeneity is also viewed as a sou rce of safety. The
absence of obvious class d ifferences i n a comm u n ity
where one leaves one's work somewhere else, where
work and non-work l ife are cordoned off; the absence
of "the lower classes" or "the poor" - o r what is i n
fact t h e absence o f those without sufficient access t o
credit - tends to result i n red uced crime. T h e city i s
increasingly pol iced t o keep people i n their neighbour­
hoods, while suburbs are pol iced to keep people out.
Profi l i n g is exceptionally effective i n s u b u rbs due to
their propensity for homogeneity. Being of a d ifferent
race, d riving a rusted old car, and wal king o n foot are
all equally tel l-tale signs of excl usion, of being Other.
The gated com m u n ity is merely the most obvious, overt
expression of this tendency.

Thus the world outside the s u b u rb is al ready prefig ­

u red a n d experienced a s th reatening, dangerous and
especially as criminal: people from the cities want what
those in the subu rbs have, but living in the cities they
cannot, by defi nition, have it, so they can only steal or
achieve it by a degree of u ndeserved privilege. When
George Bush J r. announced that terrorists hate us for
our freedo m , he did n o more than rearticu late the com­
mon sense of the s u b u rban experience towards the
dangerous masses of the cities as the national experi­
ence of the us in relation to the "dark masses" of the
non-Euro-American .

The hostil ity to intel lectual and cultural maturation as

bourgeois, as elitist, is the reaction of the h i l l b i l ly and
the slave master to modernisation. Anyone who has the
temerity to suggest that their provincial utopia is not as
good as it gets is a snob. Wh ile provincialisation cannot
be reduced to subu rbanisation and sprawl, it rei nforces
it. At the same time, intellectual language is transformed
into that of the admin istrative side of society. Those who
feel outside of, or u nfairly constrained by, the manage­
rial logic of l i beral ism thus find their inclination towards

Endnotes 4 262
tribali s m , insularity and corporatism reinforced. S u b ­
u rbanisation magnifies a n d intensifies the experience
of t h i s alienation from the l i beral adm i nistrative con­
sciousness, even as it exists completely in dependence
on state subsidy, and especially on the m i litaristic and
overtly oppressive sections of the state.

S u b u rbanisation also promotes i nfanti l isation and

fem i n isation. By "fem i n isation " , what i s meant here
is not a domination of some essential female val ues,
but the extension of the root of gender relations in
capitalist society, the separation of home and work.
Suburbanisation extends this d ivision by putting work
in one place - maybe even a completely d ifferent sub­
u rb or in the city - so that one no longer l ives where
one works, and the social orientation of both men and
women in suburbia becomes the home. Where work
traditionally also meant that the worker who brought
home the income also participated i n p u b l i c activi­
ties - whether carousing in bars or u n ion activities or
social c l u bs - non-work l ife is increasingly oriented
towards housework: mowing the lawn, gardening, fix­
ing up the house, working on the car in the garage.

The fetish of sports as both a communal voyeurism and

a social i mperative goes hand-in-hand with the loss of
other collective referents and the process of identifi­
cation with a b rand and a tribe. American football is
the most watched sport, asserting violent masculinity
against cheerleader and "beer babe" fem i n i n ity, and
tribal collectivity. On the other hand there is the over­
whelming popularity of golf, which is the actually-played
sport of choice because it req u i res l ittle physical ity, is
very ind ividualistic and is associated with social sta­
tus - both because it is expensive to play and takes
place in another man ufactured, pseudo-nat u ral but
utterly tame space. The dynamics that infanti l ise adu lts
also promote an exaggerated focus on children. Pub­
lic l ife ends u p in many cases being about taking the

Its O wn Peculiar Decor 263

 kids to their "activities". The original excuse to move
to the suburbs is often "for the schools" and to have
a "healthy environment" in which to raise children. The
latter become another k i n d of B i g Other, a s u per­
egoic compulsion to suburbanise. It is no accident that
both parents and children resent each other in such
situations.

P O L I T I CA L A N D L E G A L I N TEG RAT I O N A S
T H E C R I S I S O F T H E P O L I T I CA L

Revanchist politics has expressed itself in many different 30 G aspar M . Tamas,

forms over the last sixty or so years, from McCarthy- 'On Post-Fasc i s m ',
ism and the rise of Goldwater Republ ican populism, Boston Review,
through the Taxpayers Revolt of the 1 970s to Reagan- S u m m e r 2000.
ism and the rise of the Ch ristian Right. The Tea Party
of today is only the latest incarnation of this pol itical 31 ' C o m m u nalist' h e re
trend , encouraged by the th reat to the financial condi- refe rs to political
tions which made subu rban and sprawl development m ovements such
possible. Post-WWII urbanism depended on a number of as the Te a Party,
features, not least of which was a capitalist expansion LePe n i s m i n France
l i n ked to productivity rates outstripping i ncome growth and the J o b b i k Party
so that such growth could be accommodated by capi- i n H u n gary.
tal. De-ind ustrial isation , the movement of prod uction
facilities to other cou ntries, and other kinds of capital
fl ight from the suburbs have contributed to increased
dependence on state and federal fund i n g , but states
too have fou n d themselves in d i re straits. The politi-
cal m i l ieu of subu rban revanchism seeks to rel ieve its
problems by poach ing the wealth of the cities and the
tax base of the most u rbanised areas.

The crisis of this u rbanism is the spatial form of a cri­

sis wh ich i n pol itical terms Gaspar Tamas refers to as
post-fascism. 3 0 The key features of the communalist
expression of post-fascism include: 31

• an extreme feeling of ressentiment towards the poor or

non-cred itworthy, the Other as bogeyman

Endnotes 4 264
• ressentiment towards any kind of cultured or i ntellec­
tually soph isticated, worl d ly sorts of people; feel i n g at
home in the world - instead of simply at home - is a
sign of corru ption and treason

• denial of one's own dependence on state subsidies

• an orientation towards the privatisation of all social ser­

vices that do not d i rectly support private wealth

• overt identification with capital

• perpetual concern that people aren't "carry i n g t h e i r

o w n weight"

• a lack of i nterest i n non-work except for ritualistically

mascu line activities, a.k.a. sports

• pronounced nativism

• fear and thus hatred of anything one doesn't u nderstand

(l i n ked to nativism , rel i g iosity, m i l itant heterosexual ity,
conformism)

At root, this amou nts to the creation of a d ual state

where "true citizenship" goes hand-in-hand with one's
cred it score, race, rel i g i o n , and so on. I n other words,
u n d e r the pressu re of capital's i n a b i l ity to s i m u lta­
neously sustain p rofitabil ity and t h e expans i o n of
citizensh ip, the spatial deconcentration and isolation of
post-war u rban ism lends itself to a post-fascist pol itics
that d rives towards the death of u n iversal citizensh ip.
Both of these phenomena are coterm inous with what
many refer to as neo- l i beralism.

The same impoverishing influence of the goal - escaping

and keeping o ut the Other; creating a comm u nity with­
out confl ict, sharing a common hatred and fear - does
not easily translate i nto the city. The city simply is the

Its Own Peculiar Decor 265

space of Others residing alongside and amongst each
other. That is not to say that some miraculously free and
open public space existed before, but that what was
free and open could at least be contested and fought
over, while the space for such poss i b i l ities has now
become systematically privatised and policed. Space in
the city was always hotly contested - often violently so.

To su rvey some cases i n Chicago, for example, 1 9 1 9

alone saw white riots and the m assacre of aro u n d
1 ,000 African Americans i n events that occu rred
alongside and entan g led with the meat packin g and
steel strikes. Many white workers who went on stri ke
with black workers also partici pated in riots against
the growing black popu lation on the south side of the
city. I n 1 93 7, i n the " Little Steel Strike", Chicago work­
ers were shot down by stri ke-breaki ng police. I n 1 9 6 6
racist mobs attacked a civil rights march attended by
Martin Luther King J r. in Chicago's Marquette Park with
a degree of ferocity and hatred that King claimed was
unmatched even in the South. In 1 9 6 8 , the parks were
the site of massive protests agai nst the Democratic
Party at the Democratic N ational Convention, which
was met with brutal violence by the Chicago Pol ice
Department and the National Guard . I n 1 9 90-9 1 more
than 1 0,000 people marched in the streets of Chicago
against the G u lf War. Pol i ce violence is of course a
relative constant in this story, but what becomes more
and more i m possible to imagine is the open natu re of
the confl ict and of the space itself. Where in a suburb
would such mobil isations even take place?

The d e c l i n e a n d m a rg i na l is at i o n of t h e i n d u strial
city - its transformation into a site of ru ins where what
blossoms does so only where the g reen of finance
a n d pockets of t h e m ic ro e l ectro n i c , software, a n d
bio-chemical industries sow t h e land - is t h e decl ine
of a kind of self-sustaining working class culture. These
cities typically col lapse i nto g hettos stri pped of social

Endnotes 4 266
l ife. What p re d o m i n ate are larg e r or s m a l l e r i nter­
personal networks, fam i l ial and private relations i nto
w h i c h o n e can o n l y enter by i nvitat i o n . T h i s i s t h e
c o m p l ete o pposite of the u n io n , the worki n g class
pol itical party, the self-help organisation, the commu­
n ity cooperative, and so on. I n place of overtly political
newspapers - whether from the S o c i a l i st o r C o m ­
m u n ist Party or the Chicago Defender or Pittsburgh
Courier - we have the overwhe l m i n g weight of the
corporate med ia, and now even the dissolution of the
journalistic, print-oriented segment of that into infotai n ­
m e n t a n d t h e isolated blogger. Pu blic i nstitutions are
replaced with commod ified services. The state, which
Marx once called "the illusory community", is seemingly
no longer even contested as the com m u n ity. If one
wants to start a prog ramme, say, to help "the youth of
the city" , it is necessary either to add ress oneself to
the state - that is, to the schools or to state-run park
districts - or to start one's own organisation and find
fu n d i n g . I n the latter case one m ust either create a
business oneself, become indebted to private business
support, or rely on fu nding from the state. The rich and
relatively independent i nstitutional l ife that the working
class had to maintain at the stage when it lacked social
and economic integration fi rst becomes u n necessary
and then becomes un recoverable.

The loss of universalising alternatives to capitalism as

negations of class - and i n a d ifferent manner, of race,
gender, sexual ity, and so on - does not mean an end
to attem pts at forms of collective organisation. Com ­
m u n itarian modes of accommodation take the place of
universalising alternatives. Capitalism does not merely
replace overt social relations with production relations
as the determ i n ate social relations ; it subordi nates
them without necessarily doing away with them. Th us
race, gender, sexual ity, rel i g ion, nation, reg i o n , and
so on, which seem to group people i n various ways,
in ways that allow them to associate for perceived

Its Own Peculiar Decor 267

m utual advantage - remain not only potent, but actu­
ally become more powerfu l . I n a society of antagon istic,
competitive relations between individuals with uneq ual
power relations, such groupings are common.

Progressive social movements tended to associate

citizenship with the right to a certain qual ity of l ife, and
typically they worked to extend its domain to broader
layers of the population. Communitarian modes operate
in the exact opposite way, attempting to restrict the full
extension of citizenship - and since the 1 9 20s, they
have sought to actively destroy the l i n ks established
between citizenship and the right to a certai n standard
of l iving. Comm u n itarian modes seek to create a homo­
geneous com m u n ity and to pursue its interests ; indeed
the com m u n ity is actually constituted i n the pursuit of
t hese i nterests, i n the same way that the s u b u rb is
created by the flight to a space of homogeneity, away
from what one imagines oneself not to be. Wh ile these
tendencies supply the blueprints of fascism i n the fi rst
half of the 20th centu ry, and of post-fascist revanchist
politics since the 1 950s, relig ion is of course especially
su ited to such developments, pred icated as it is on a
com m u n ity of believers contrasted to the u n bel ievers
who are condemned to some manner of damnation i n
this world o r the next. It should n o t su rprise us t h e n
that i n the enforced homogeneity o f the s u b u rban ist
world, in the absence of a l i berato ry u n iversal istic alter­
native, reactionary populism should so often find itself
i n rel igious garb, not only d istinguishing between the
deserving and the u ndeserving, but allowing the saved
to locate the damned. We could say fu rther - though
this point can not be developed here - that i nsofar as
capital ism entails an i n d i rect, abstract social relation
which does n ot d i rectly appear as a social relation,
and thus seems also to lack mean i n g , the pressure for
d i rect, concrete, and meani ngful social relations takes
on a new force. Final ly, the relig ious institutions - wh ich
have no particular opposition to capital's domination of

Endnotes 4 268
a world of sin or karma - take the place of other non­ 32 Jacques Ranciere ,
state institutions, able to provide services and even Hatred of Democracy
jobs and l ivel i hoods, but s u pposedly i n the name of (Ve rso 2006)
the affi rmation of the comm u n ity of believers, without
the ind ifference of the pure market relation of employee
and employer.

The cu rrent constel lation thus g ives rise to a pol itical

crisis, but i n the form of a crisis of the pol itical as such.
Jacques Ranciere presents this crisis as an attack on
democracy. 32 By this he does not mean an attack on
the state or its functions, but on pol itics as the bring­
ing of conflicts and antagon isms i nto the public sphere,
and on democracy as the sovereig nty of anyone and
everyone - or rather a sovereignty that can not be legiti­
m ised a priori. This attack entails the privatisation of
key aspects of l ife and, i n what remains, the i ncreasing
scope of both the pol ice function and the role of the
special ist with particular com petencies. The crisis of
the pol itical takes a s i m i lar form to that of the labour
process: pol itics is red uced to the scientific ad min istra­
tion of affairs by the state, within l i m its set by the market.
All public collective challenges to domination become
excessive, and pol itical struggle becomes an oxymoron.

Li beralism tends towards the side of scientific reason,

tolerance of d ifference, m u lticultural ism, and rational
ad m i n istration, want i n g t h e state to make pol itics a
matter of management and civil ity. It i nvolves a secular
de-politicisation of social contrad iction and antagonism,
making of these a province of the state and of experts.
Reactionary p o p u l i s m favours expl icitly anti-pol itical
l ines of power such as kinship, religion, and the market,
using the state to turn these into matters of personal
responsibil ity, to ind ividual ise them. This m arks a flight
from the public field, the field of pol itics proper, to that
of the private - in both senses of this word - whether
as the technocratic domain of rational ad m i n istrators
and special ists or the management of the property of

Its O wn Peculiar Decor 269

i n d ividuals or non-governmental i n stitutions. This is
also the extension of the police function, of the rule of
merit, kinsh ip, wealth. What is sought is obedience to
an authority which is obj ective and therefore beyond
reproach o r contestation, whether the tech n ical d i c ­
tates o f science, t h e market or G o d . For Ranciere, since
democratic politics is j ust contestation taki n g place
openly and collectively, as public matters, democratic
struggle is the struggle to widen the public sphere, to
politicise what is private, and to do so without precondi­
tions for participation.

Though Ranciere hypostatises the separation of public

and private, democracy and oligarchy, turning these into
eternal categories of the human condition, he goes right
to the heart of the problem. But he does so only to turn
away at the last moment. The savage condition of l ife at
present - u nable to stand the thought of pol itics, and
thus suppress i n g o r striking out madly at it - is one
where the g rowi ng contradiction between the i mmense
capacity to p rod uce material wealth with a m i n i m u m of
d i rect hu man labou r on the one hand, and the social
form of wealth as capital , as self-expand i n g value, on
the other, is sustained only by denying the possibil ity
of the re-purposing of this capacity for common human
ends. The struggle to pol iticise cu rrent conditions - to
fight for the problems of crime, violence, poverty, hunger
and so on to be expressed as pol itical problems and
not as matters of personal responsibil ity or technical
expertise - quickly runs up against the recognition that
such a politicisation immed iately calls into question the
rational ity of capital. No doubt this is why any attempt to
apply the brakes on runaway inequal ity or p rovide free
publ ic services is automatically attacked by reactionary
popul ists as social ism or com m u n ism, while massive
expenditures on the m i l itary, police and the rep ressive
apparatus in general - and any associated restrictions
on freedom of expression, com m u n ication, and assem­
bly - are viewed as protecting democracy.

Endnotes 4 270
Consider the recent fight over healthcare i n the U n ited
States i n l i g ht of our above analysis. N owhere is the
issue a lack of material ability to p rovide adequate care.
Neither the l iberal nor the reactionary side have argued
that we lack d octors, techn o logy, the a b i l ity to train
more people, or the ability to produce adequate medi­
cal supplies. The issue is solely the apparent scarcity
of money. One side argues that state regu l ation, if not
nationalisation, wou l d regulate care more efficiently so
as to reduce costs. The other believes that any h uman
control over market forces is tantamount to questioning
the hand of God, and that it will automatically result in
g reater cost and less efficiency. For neither side is the
issue of care itself primary.

L I M I TAT I O N S A N D POTE N T I A L S U BV E RS I O N

What then are w e t o do with this? I f t h e city has been

largely hollowed out along the l ines of the post-WWII
suburb ; if hollowed city and suburb together g ive the
environmental shape of the current state of capitalist
development, i n which a workerist class politics has
been eviscerated ; if this is an era in which identity poli­
tics seems to have run its course and largely lost its
progressive, not to mention radical, force ; nonetheless
this need not mean that the city as a site of struggle is
dead. The city remains the geographical site of capi ­
tal's contradictions, because capital, for a l l its tendency
to produce homogeneity, cannot sustain itself except
through the constant production of heterogeneity. If
Shenzhen is a labour camp, it is one with 1 0 m i l l io n
p e o p l e i n close q uarters capable of d isrupting a s i g ­
n ificant part o f global production. If the fastest g rowi n g
cities i n the U n ited States a r e all s prawl cities, with
all that i m p lies, they are nonetheless not suburbs, but
complex, relatively dense spaces built upon a potentially
explosive combinatio n : dependent o n u s d o m inance
and the dollar as world money, and o n the i mmense
debt-to-i ncome ratio of their i nhabitants.

Its O wn Peculiar Decor 271

There is n o certai nty that these places w i l l not suc­
cumb to the kind of reactionary populism that has grown
exponentially since the 1 970s. Despite this, even in the
moribund ex-ind ustrial and the suburb cities we find a
large portion of the popu lation that is opposed to racist,
xenophobic, and m isogynist pol icies. It is probably not
accidental that Occu py and the Arab Spring, for all their
fail ings, were overwhelmingly u rban phenomena while
reactionary p o p u l isms l i ke the Tea Party, the J o b b i k
Party a n d the National Front in France are overwhelm­
ingly present in subu rban and ru ral areas.

The d i spossessed popu lations of cities - which capi­

tal seems to have made permanently superfluous from
the point of view of valorisation - often find them­
selves d rawn to the popul ist and self-help messages
of reactionary comm u n itarian populisms and religious
groupings, from ethn icised m i l itias to lslam ist, Hindu or
Ch ristian "fu ndamental ist" political groupings. It is often
the d islocation suffered by being made superfluous
and having to survive thro u g h " black m arket" activi­
ties - many of which are predatory u pon the waged and
unwaged al ike - which leaves the religious and commu­
n itarian g roups as the only cohesive social institutions.

If the overcom i n g of capital is no longer the seizure of

the existing means of production by a working class
that exists as an estate in a struggle against material
poverty and a lack of pol itical and social inclusion, this
does not mean the end of the need to overth row capi­
tal. The present situation is clearly u nsustainable. The
conditions which allowed for the overc o m i n g of the
working class as estate, and of what seemed l i ke an
inescapable material i mpoverishment, are predicated
upon social relations which cannot maintain inclusion
and relative freedom from want. From the side of capital
accumu lation this cannot be sustai ned.

Endnotes 4 272
I n terms of the labo u r process and therefore the valori­
sation process, capitalism has survived on an al ready
i m mense and growing debt on the sides of both capital
and labo u r. We are in the m idst of an ongoing crisis of
valorisation, because the amount of titles and claims
to val ue, paper m o n ey and financial i n struments, c i r­
cu lating daily on a g lobal basis, are in the trill ions - far
beyond the current capacity of capital to valorise. The
futu re is leveraged a long, long way forward. The level of
valorisation necessary to solve this problem is unlikely to
materialise, since it wou ld req u i re that capital no longer
s u p plant l iving labour with constant capital - that is,
capital wou l d have to find another dynam ic altogether.
I n fact, probably the only i mag inable alternative is a
catastrophic destruction of existing val u es - including
labour power - on a hitherto u n i mag ined scale.

I n terms of material i m poveri s h ment, the part of the

working class which saw the g reatest g rowth of income
and relative prosperity has also seen its debt l oad rise
d ramatically. I n the U n ited States, average household
debt is over 1 00% of after-tax d isposable income, very
much connected to rising housing prices, but also to
stag nant wages and the red uction of state subsidies
for basic social services, such as education and health
services. Even more painfu l ly, a larger and larger part of
the global popu lation seems to be excluded from formal
access to the wage. Over 1 b i l l ion people essentially
l ive in a money economy with l ittle hope of access to
wage labour i n a legal industry, and thus with only tenu­
ous sources of monetary income. Capital is abolishing
money, not i n the sense of some post-modern "virtu­
ality", but i n the very p ractical , c o m m o n place sense
of denying people access to secure wage labo u r and
to the kind of small property that m ight allow self­
employment o r sustenance . Material i m poverish ment
is not only return i n g with a vengeance, b ut the worki ng

Its Own Peculiar Decor 273

class as mass consumer becomes unsustainable the
more living labour itself is abolished by capital.

Finally, it is becoming clearer and clearer that capitalism

cannot afford the political and legal inclusion of labour.
This is not to anticipate a return to the working class
as estate, for the material foundation in the circuit of
capital upon which that was possible-that is, a certain
configuration of the labour process -has gone.

It is important to recognise what has changed. If we

have lost the coordinates of the world of the indus­
trial working class, we nonetheless have not seen
the overcoming of the contradictions of capital. The
very changes to the capitalist labour process which
destroyed the old forms of self-activity and the capac­
ity to recognise oneself as part of a coherent working
class, seem to be bringing about a crisis in which capi­
tal is coming perilously close to abolishing labour in
much of the production process-even as it cannot
do away with it as foundation of the value form. This
contradiction is expressed not only in a tremendous
productive capacity that requires relatively little living
labour and thus produces crises of valorisation, but
also in the forms of spatial organisation. More than
ever it seems at least technically evident that we could
achieve new forms of spatial organisation that would
utilise cleaner power sources, increase population den­
sity while decreasing ecological footprints, immediately
reduce the hours of human labour, and increase the
amount of time available to be lived outside of work.
What is perplexing is that while each of these can be
imagined apart-and all can be reckoned as rational
and feasible-today there seems to be no generalised
sense that their combined realisation in a world without
capitalism is possible.

Endnotes 4 274
Its Own Peculiar Decor 275
A N I D E N T I CA L A B J ECT-S U BJ E C T ?

276
In Endnotes 2, we presented an account of capital's 1 T h i s article is based
immanent tendency towards crisis that revolved around on a talk g iven i n Ber­
a theory of surplus popu lation. What fol lows is an l i n in early 2014. Arg u -
attempt to refi ne, clarify and develop the central catego­ m e n t s i n secti o n s 2
ries of that theory. 1 Our motivation to do so derives from and 3 d raw on Aaron
certain m isapprehensions we've encou ntered , which Benanav, A Global
seem to betray a general tendency to d i rectly map History of Unemploy-
the category of "surplus popu lation" onto a s i n g u lar, ment, forth c o m i n g
coherent social su bject or sociolog ical group, with the f r o m Ve rso.
potential i m p l ication that this g roup is to be viewed as
a new kind of revolutionary agent. Far from representing 2 W h i l e , i n the low-
the emergence of a coherent agent, the expansion of i n co m e countries,
the surplus population marks the tendential d isappear- t h i s second sector is
ance of the previous revolutionary horizon. i n fact the over-
w h e l m i n g m ajority,
It was once possible - i ndeed q u ite reasonable - to s i m i l ar d i v i s i o n s and
think of the proletariat as an emergent social subject, confl i cts of i nterest
becoming ever larger and more u n ified with the g lobal are also i n evi d e n ce.
spread and development of the capitalist mode of pro­
d u ction, and particu larly with the i ncorporation of a
g rowing portion of the class into industrial employment.
Today, in an era of slowing economic g rowth - which
is also an era of general d e i n d u strial isation - the
revol utionary orientations of the past no longer make
sense. The working class - always i nternally d ifferenti­
ated - displays a d i m i n ishing capacity for u n ification
under a s i n g l e h e g e m o n i c fig u re, thus rea l i s i n g its
always latent tendency to decompose into fragments,
facing off one against the other.

At the heart of this fractiousness is the d ivision of the

class into two parts: ( 1 ) a shrinking one that retains
h i g h e r wages and social p rotections, but m u st con­
stantly fight rearg uard act i o n s agai n st capitalist
"reforms" and restructurings; and (2) a growing one that
faces poor prospects of employment and is offered few
social protections. 2 The more secure sector - which is
also more organised - often needs the support of the
more precarious in order to win its struggles. However,

An Identical A bject-Subject? 2n
cal ls for g reater "inclusion" of such people may stoke 3 Partly for that reas o n ,
val id fears that this will undermine more secure posi­ the m o re precar i o u s
tions, opening up access to education and training, and a r e often rendered a s
thereby i ncreasing labou r supply and red ucing bargain­ u n deserv i n g i n o n e
i n g power. 3 At the same time, members of the more way or an oth er: a s
precarious part may be rightly suspicious of the motives u pstart youth, i l legal
of the more secu re : after the sacrifices have been made, i m m i g rants, and so
won't it be merely the latter's rearguard battles that have o n . See the section
been won? After al l , those with secu rity rarely take to o n the abject, bel ow.
the streets when it is the less fortunate who are get­
ting screwed. The expansion of the surplus popu lation
is i m portant in explai n i n g this d ivision, but it is not the
only mean ingful one within the class.

There is a potentially infin ite variety of such d istinctions,

so the question of explaining cu rrent d ivisions can in a
sense be reversed : What was the u n ity that is now i n
advanced stages o f decay? How did i t c o m e about?
This is a q u estion that we have attempted to answer
elsewhere in this issue, in 'A History of Separation'. For
our pu rposes here thoug h , it is enough to note simply
that there was once a hegemonic identity and orien­
tation among workers that cou l d provide grounds for
affi rm ing certain struggles as central, while excluding
others as secondary or u n i mportant. It is equally clear
that this affirmation seems less and less plausible today.
In place of the identity of the worker, we are now faced
with so many competing alternatives, each with its own
strategic priorities : those who want more jobs against
those who want to stave off environmental catastro­
phe; those who want to preserve the fam ily wage for
union ised male workers against those who want gender
equal ity; those of dominant national or racial identities
against those of racialised m i n orities, and so on.

In this sense, the fractiousness of " i d e ntity pol itics"

is symptomatic of an e ra. I n a period of i ncreasingly
slow economic g rowth under the th reat of ecological
catastrophe, it seems d i m i n ishingly plausible to claim

Endnotes 4 278
 that fighting the battles of one part of the class w i l l
advance the class a s a whole. T h i s is w h y w e reject
any attempt to find in surplus populations an ersatz
social subj ect that m ight replace the hegemonic role
played by the wh ite male factory worker i n the workers'
movement. At present there seems to be no class frac­
tion - whether "the most strateg ically placed" or "the
most oppressed" - whose strugg les express a general
i nterest. At the same time, attempts to conj u re u p a
new un ity from this diversity by simply renam ing it as
"multitude" or "precariat", for exam ple, merely gloss over
this fundamental problem of i nternal d ivision.

If there is any revolutionary potential at present, it seems

that it stands to be actualised not in the struggle of any
particular class fraction, but rather, i n those moments
when d iverse fractions are d rawn together i n struggle
in spite of their mutual suspicions ; despite the lack of
a stable, consistent hegemonic pole. In such moments,
the demands of various sections of the class come i nto
confl ict with one another - a confl i ct that m ay bring
the p rospect of destabi l i s i n g or u nd e rm i n i n g m utu­
ally exclusive demands and identities. The modes by
which social l ife is organised and segm ented with i n
capital ist societies can then come t o appear a s obsta­
cles to further struggle, dividing workers against one
another. The question of how to move forward is then
at least raised , though with no easy answers. After all,
a definitive answer wou l d involve an overcom i n g of the
u n ity-in-separation that organ ises social l ife.

W H AT IS A S U R P L U S P O P U LAT I O N ?

T h e theory of s u r p l u s population derives from arg u­

ments presented by Marx i n the first volume of Capital,
chapter 25 in particular, on the "general law of capital­
ist accum ulation " . Marx defines the surplus population
as workers without regu lar access to work: a worker
"belongs to" the surplus population "when he is only

An Identical A bject-Subject? 279

partial ly employed or wholly unem ployed " .4 Marx refers 4 M arx, Capital, vo l . 1
to this surplus popu lation as a " relative surplus popu la­ (M ECW 35) p p . 634-
tion", because these workers are not absolutely surplus, 635.
as in a Malthusian account (which is to say, it is not a
matter of there not being enough food, water, shelter,
etc). Instead , these workers are surplus relative to the
needs of capital - that is, relative to capital's demand
for labour.

In the h i story of capital ist societies, large masses of

people have been absorbed i nto the labour market and
have come to depend entirely upon earn ing wages in
order to survive. They cannot leave the labour market
u n less they can get other workers to s u p p o rt t h e m .
I n oth e r words, workers h ave to w o r k regard less o f
what sort a n d h o w much work is available. They a r e at
the mercy of capital's demand for labo u r. When that
demand fal ls and there isn't enough work to go around,
workers do not stop working altogether - u n less they
really have no options, in which case they become pau­
pers. Instead , they enter one or another branch of an
extensive and variegated surplus popu lation.

Marx describes "all kinds of forms" of surplus popu­

lation. Due to transformations of production, workers
are constantly being chu rned out of old and into new
industries, depending upon the shifting needs of capital.
This g ives rise, in Marx's accou nt, to both "latent" and
"floating" surplus popu lations, the latter of which Marx
often called the " reserve army of labour". H owever, as
a conseq uence of this ongoing development, capital
also produces a s u per-exploited " stag nant" surplus
popu lation, when it fails to re-absorb displaced work­
ers into new l i nes.

Marx thought that the problem of the surplus popula­

tion - ulti mately a problem of the growing oversupply
of, and under-demand for, labou r - would intensify over
time and, as a result, people wou l d increasingly find

Endnotes 4 280
themselves d isco n nected from labour m arkets, and 5 M a r x , Capital, vol. 1
hence from reg u lar access to the wage. Indeed, Marx ( M Ecw 35), p p . 638-
describes this as the "absol ute general law of capital ist 647.
accumu lation". What happens is that capital's ongoing
accu m u lation process leads to risi n g labour produc- 6 See ' M i s e ry and
tivity, which i n turn expand s the " i n d ustrial reserve D e bt', Endnotes 2,
army", cau s i n g the "conso l i d ated s u r p l u s popula­ A p r i l 2010.
tion" - "whose misery is i n inverse ratio to the amount
of torture it has to undergo i n the form of labour" - to
grow, and increasing "official pauperis m " ; that is, those
who can not make enough i n wages to survive, and so
m ust beg for their bread . 5 The overal l result is that the
accumu lation of wealth occurs alongside an accumu la­
tion of poverty.

I n Marx's account, the main reason capital ist develop­

ment leads to the g rowth of the surplus popu lation has
to do with what we have called "tech nological ratch­
eti n g " . 6 I n essence, Marx argues that the demand for
labour i n each industry eventually falls as labour pro­
ductivity rises. New industries do come on l i n e , at a
faster or slower pace, increasing the demand for labour.
H owever, these new i n d u stries never start out from
zero : they do not need to reinvent e.g. steam power,
the assembly line, the electric motor. Instead , new l ines
absorb tech nological i n novations that preceded them.
As a result, the emergence of new i n d ustries is less
and less effective i n i ncreasing the demand for labour.
Hence capital has what Marx terms a "rising organ ic
composition " . M arx arg ues that it is the older l i nes,
wh ich have not yet been techn ically renewed , which
tend to absorb the most labour.

This theory cou l d be fleshed out further by develop­

i n g l i n ks with Marx's n otes o n overaccu m u l at i o n in
volume 3, but that is another project. Here we simply
note that, today, what renders many workers surplus
to the req u i re m e nts of capital i s a dual t e n d e n c y :
on t h e o n e h a n d , towards overaccu m u lation - which

An Identical A bject-Subject? 281

reduces profit rates and hence slows the expansion of 7 O n e s h o u l d not treat
output - and on the other hand, towards the ongoing the m u t u a l capital-
g rowth of labour productivity, which arises out of capi- l a b o u r re p roduction
talist competition and results i n a loss of jobs i n those as i f it captu red a
e co n o m i c sectors w h e re output does n ot i n c rease s i n g u l ar social 'sys-
at a rate equal to prod u ctivity. The c o m b i n at i o n of tern', val i d at t h e l evel
these factors ensures that, i n an economy wracked of each and every
by overaccumu lation, the demand for labour will fail to n at i o n-state ; the ba-
keep up with its supply. That, in turn, will expand the s i c frame of analysis
surplus population. for s u c h m atters i s
necessarily g l obal.
In Endno tes 2 we argued that these developments B u t n o r, of c o u rse,
would tendentially lead to the reproduction of the pro­ can we t h i n k i n terms
letariat becoming contingent to that of capital. If the of an u n d ifferenti­
post-war settlement had formal ised the reciprocal but ated g l o bal level:
asymmetrical relation i n which the reproduction of the i n d iv i d u al n ational
working class is necessary to that of capital, with the e c o n o m i e s m u st be
end of that settlement and the rise i n surplus popula­ g rasped differen­
tions, those who are surplus are effectively reproduced tially with i n a g l o bal
as a sort of "side-effect" of capitalist production. 7 What frame. The post-war
this means is that capital ist productivity, especially i n settlement was t h u s ,
agriculture, is increasingly capabl e o f su pporting sec­ of c o u rse, n o t s o m e
tions of the g lobal popu l ation far removed from the u n iform g l obal ar­
dynam ic i n d u stries at the core of capitalist acc u m u ­ rangement: it a p p l i e d
lation. B u t w h e n this happens, the d ual i nterlockin g part i c u l arly to the
cycles o f t h e m utual reproduction o f capital a n d class Western i n d u strial­
seem to make less and less sense. As "Screami n ' Alice" ised cou ntries, w h i l e
has argued, this leads i n some senses to "d isinteg ra­ s o m e analogous
tion" of these circu its at the same time as " integration" arran g e m e nts m ay be
deepens in other respects - i n the financialisation of perceived i n Eastern
ever new areas of l ife, for example. 8 B l o c c o u ntries (and ,
i n d e e d , the press u re
D E I N D U S T R I A L I SATI O N , T H E N A N D N OW for s u c h a settl ement
was partly g iven
I n the 20th century, this idea of the tendency of capital by t h e g e o p o l itical
to increasingly produce workers as surplus was largely polari s at i o n between
dismissed as an "immiseration thesis", on the g rounds the two). B u t i nsofar
that h i story had p roven it wro n g : the workin g class as those places
had c l e arly fai l e d to become i m m i s e rate d ; o n t h e i n which it a p p l i e d

Endnotes 4 282
contrary, l iving standards had risen. Industrial employ­ represented the b u l k
m e n t had g rown d ra m atical ly, s u g g esti n g t h at t h e o f t h e i n d u strialised
industrial working class would eventually account for world, it i s reasonable
the vast majority of the workforce. Wh ile Marx appears to th i n k of t h i s 'settle-
to have been broadly correct in interpreting mid- 1 9th ment' as character­
centu ry tendencies (wh ich l i m ited the g rowth of the i s i n g the g e n eral
demand for l a b o u r i n i n d u st ry), h e did not foresee n atu re of capitalist
the emergence of new l ines of production that would class relations i n that
p rove capable of absorbing the s u rp l uses of capital epoch. The essential
and labo u r that were b e i n g produced e lsewhere in nature of t h i s settle­
the economy. These i n d u stries - s u c h as the auto ment was that the
and white goods industries - lay at the very core of state would reg u l ate
20th c e nt u ry capital i st deve l o p m e n t a n d i n d u strial the re production of
employment. The semi-skilled factory worker was the the work i n g class
key fig u re in the old labou r movement. But i n Endnotes on whom capital
2 we posed the question : What if Marx had just been depended, since
wrong on the timing? i n d ividual capital­
ists - necessar-
It is now clear that those twentieth century industries i l y relat i n g to that
have long been in relative decline as employers. Newer re prod uction as an
i n d u stries, alth o u g h they h ave emerged, h ave not extern ality - were
absorbed all of the labou r being shed from elsewhere. i n capable of l o o k i n g
As a result, deindustrialisation has been ongoing since after it themselves.
the mid 1 970s across the high-income countries. But
even newly industrialised countries l i ke South Korea, 8 Scream i n ' A l ice, ' O n
Taiwan , B razi l , Mexico, South Africa and Egypt h ave the Peri o d i sat i o n of
seen the industrial shares of total employment in their the Capital ist Class
economies stag nate or decl ine since the mid 1 9 80s Relation', SIC 1, N o ­
or mid 1 9 90s. China seems to be an exception to the vember 201 1 .
rule, but even there, construction constitutes a large
component of the new "industrial" labour force, and the
Chinese man ufacturing share of employment actually
remained stag nant - at between 1 4 and 1 6 percent
of the labour force - d u ring the period of rapid g rowth
from 1 9 80 to 2006. New industrial firms were open­
ing u p and absorbing labour, such as i n the Pearl River
Delta reg ion, but this only tended to balance - not
reverse - the overall effects of the closures of state­
owne d enterprises, and the l aying off of workers i n

An Identical A bject-Subject? 283

Chi na's northeast. 9 Chi na's man ufacturing employment 9 See C h i n g Kwan Lee,
share only rose beyond previously ach ieved levels in Against the L a w: Labour
2006, reach ing 1 9 percent i n 201 1 (the last year for Struggles in China 's
which data is avai lable). Wh i l e the absolute n u m ber Rustbelt and Sunbelt
of people e m pl oyed in i n d u stry in C h i n a is certai n ly (U n iversity of Cal iforn ia
staggering, the man ufacturing share of employment in 2007).
the new "workshop of the world" is nowhere near as
h i g h today as it was in the West d u ring the heyday of
industrialisation. In fact, the Chi nese share is closer to
the level that prevails in Mexico and B razi l today than
to the level of Germany or the U K at mid-20th century
(wh ich hovered between 3 1 and 35 percent).

Accord ing to an old developmental narrative, ag ricul­

tural employment would decline as ag riculture became
m o re prod u ctive, precipitat i n g lots of potential new
workers into towns, who would then be taken up by
expanding industrial production. These developments
would eventually bring every country into modern ity.
For o rt h o d ox M arxi sts, t h i s w o u l d tendentially form
a proletariat u n ified under the hegemony of its m ost
"advanced" fractions in industry. But as the global peak
of i n d u strialisation recedes into h i story, it looks l i ke
somet h i n g else is now happe n i n g . While ag ricultural
e m ployment has not halted its decl ine, those workers
shed are less l i kely to join the ran ks of the industrial
workin g c l ass than to enter a vast and heterogene­
ous service sector. At the world level , there are now
twice as many workers i n services as com pared to
i n d u stry: services account for 4 4 percent of g lobal
employment, while industry accou nts for just 2 2 per­
cent. The share e m ployed in factories is even smaller
than that 22 percent s u g gests, n ot o n ly because it
includes the labour-intensive construction sector, but
also because a sizable portion of i n d u strial e m p l oy­
ment i n the low- i n c o m e cou ntries i s accounted for
by the p etty p r o d u c t i o n of informal, self- e m p l oyed
proletarian households.

Endnotes 4 284
S E RV I C E S A N D S U P E R F L U I T Y

Many commentators will arg ue that the ongoing stag­

nation o r decl ine i n manufacturing employment, which
we described above, is nothing to worry about. It is
su pposedly a m atter of a q uasi-nat u ral evolution i n
consumer demand , d riven by m arket forces. J u st as
agriculture comes to e m p l oy a decreas i n g share of
the workforce, si nce there are l i m its to g rowth i n the
demand for food , so too with manufact u ring : there are
su pposedly l i m its to the demand for goods (apparently,
there is, however, a l i mitless demand for services). The
result, accord ing to this perspective, is that over time, a
rising demand for services will dynamically pull workers
into the service sector, j ust as in an earl ier phase work­
ers were pul led into the industrial sector.

I n real ity, the dynam ic d raw of man ufacturing d u ri n g

i n d ustrial isation w a s u n i q u e to that sector. To m a n u ­
factu re something is to take a g o o d - o r to transform
a service, such as dishwash ing, i nto a good, such as
a dishwasher - and to produce that good in a factory,
accord i n g to ever-more efficient techn iques. It is the
resulting rise in the efficiency of production within the
space of the factory that rapidly lowers costs of pro­
d uction i n man ufacturing l ines. That leads, in turn, to
a rapid fal l in relative prices. Markets for manufactu res
expand , making possible a d ramatic expansion of out­
put. Concomitantly, huge masses of humanity are pulled
into work i n manufact u ri n g l ines. That is the key to the
dynam ic g rowth of manufacturing output and employ­
ment: the former is very rapid, and that is why, i n spite
of h i g h rates of labou r prod uctivity g rowt h , the latter
expands, raising the man ufacturing employment share.

The same does not take place in the service sector.

Services are precisely the sorts of activities that cannot
be - or have not yet been - su bstituted by goods. I n
services, labo u r prod uctivity tends t o i ncrease slowly

An Identical A bject-Subject? 285

if at a l l , and concom itantly, prices follow t h e same 10 T h e fact that t h i s
trajectory. I n fact, as long as real wages are rising, the s l owdown is tak i n g
relative price of services will itself tend to i n c rease. p l ace across t h e
S ince relative prices do not fal l d ramatically, there is worl d - with, of
no impetus for markets for services to expand rapidly. cou rse, local excep­
Hence, there is no dynamic tendency to d ramatically t i o n s - i s itself proof
expand output and thus to d raw lots of labour i nto against the theory of
the sector; instead, employment i n the service sector a s i m p l e demand­
expands slowly. s h ift from i n d u stry to
services.
On this basis, it is possible to describe a major distinction
between phases of ind ustrialisation and deind ustrial i­
sation in the history of capital ist societies. During the
former phase, the demand for labour i n industry - not
during busts, but at least during booms - was very high.
That affected the entire labour market, d i m inishing slack,
reducing the size of the surplus population and increas­
ing workers' bargain i n g power. Once ind ustrial isation
went into reverse, the industrial sector became, along­
side ag riculture, another sou rce of g rowi n g slack in
the labo u r market, i ncreasing the surplus popu lation
and red ucing workers' bargain i n g power. All the while,
the demand for labo u r i n services has been charac­
teristically low. It has expanded, but slowly, due to the
fact that more labour is generally needed to increase
service-sector output, which is itself g rowing slowly.
The sh ift from i n d u strialisation to d e i n d u strialisation
is necessarily the sh ift from an economy that g rows
rapid ly, with big booms and busts, to one that g rows
slowly, tending towards stag nation. In such a context,
booms and busts are g iven merely by financial b u b ­
b l e s b e i n g blown u p a n d deflated around t h e world by
surplus capital . 1 0

There is a corollary to this theory, which explai ns why

a large portion of the surplus popula tion ends up in
the service sector, particu larly i n the low-wage, super­
exploited section and in the i nformal, self-exploiting
section. As service work tends to be labour-intensive,

Endnotes 4 286
a large p roportion of the final costs are made u p of
wages. Because real wages do not usually fal l across
the economy, it is difficult for service sector firms to
lower their costs on a reg u lar basis (general tenden­
cies towards falling costs in industry and agriculture are
due to increases in the efficient use of more expensive
labour). This resu lts i n a relatively low level of output
g rowth i n services. But precisely for that reason, when
worke rs are expelled from other sectors, it i s possi­
ble to get much cheaper workers i nto services - as
those discarded as surplus will usually have to accept
a lower wage leve l . This lowers costs and allows for
some expansion i n demand for, and output of, services.
In the service sector, there is g reater room to expand
the market by lowering wages. By contrast, in most
manufacturing activities, wages make u p only a small
portion of the final cost of the product, so there is less
room for manoeuvre.

Of c o u rse, t h i s doesn't m e a n t h at each and every

s p e cific service stands n o c h a n c e of b e c o m i n g a
basis for dynamic growth. Many jobs which were once
p e rfor m e d as services h ave been at least partially
turned i nto manufactu red commod ities i n the cou rse
of capitalist history, either for the ind ividual household
or for collective spaces. As mentioned above, the ser­
vice of wash ing clothes by hand was replaced by the
washing machine, i n people's homes or i n launderettes.
The transformation of services i nto goods is part of
i n dustrialisation, which transforms activities, makin g
t h e m amenable t o constant increases o f productivity
in what Marx called the " real subsumption of the labour
p rocess" , openi n g u p markets and allowing for long­
term g rowth.

Whi l e it i s d ifficult to identify a precise and determi­

nate " logic" as to why some activities become really
subsumed and others do not, the fact that certain activi­
ties requ i re delicate work or d i rect human contact, and

A n Identical A bject-Subject? 287

therefore must remain labour-intensive, is clearly key. 1 1 N ot a l l of these sorts
There appears always to be a remainder of such activi­ of l a b o u r are services.
ties, an assortment of d ifferentiated tasks, mostly in For exam p l e , apparel
services. 1 1 I nsofar as services remain services, they man u factu re has
tend predominantly to be a source only of "abso lute " , always req u i red very
a n d n o t " relative" s u r p l u s value. This is simply another d e l i c ate sew i n g work.
way of saying that there are l i m its to raisi n g productiv­ Since the i nvention of
ity. Consequently, econom ies that are " post-industrial" the sew i n g mach i n e ,
and concentrated aro u n d service work tend to be it h as p roven d iffi c u lt
low-growth. to f u rther mechanise
t h i s work, and s o
I n such conditions, it is i m perative for capitalists to get ap parel man u factu re
as much out of their workers as possible, by increasing remains a large
the d u ration or intensity of labo u r. To some extent, the e m p l oyer. Whether
p rereq u isite for the existence of many jobs becomes p rod u ct o r service
pressurised work cond itions. If su per-exploited sec­ h owever, o n e t h i n g
tors take up a g rowin g s hare of the labour m arket, s e e m s to be c o n ­
this also puts downward pressure on all wages, and stant: because wag e s
increases insecurity, as workers lose bargaining power m ake u p s u c h a l a r g e
and bosses are em boldened to demand ever more flex­ p a r t of the final cost
i b i lity. With this, the door is opened for a whole range of these commod ities,
of abuses to be u n l eashed upon the worker - sexual , these sectors h ave
emotional and psychological, as well as the steali n g or been e m p l oy i n g over­
retention of wages and chronic overworking. Certain w h e l m i n g ly women,
positions, such as that of the low-wage service sector whose l a b o u r-power
worker, thus appear as a kind of special category of can be fou n d o n the
surplus worker, akin to the i nformally self-employed i n l a b o u r-market at a
low-income countries (an d i n h i g h income countries below average cost.
over the past decade o r so). Low-wage service work­ See 'The Logic of
ers m u st become extreme self-exploiters, as wel l as G e n d e r ' in Endnotes
being su per-exploited, if they are to get work. Many 3 for the relat i o n
of these jobs (deliveries, house-cleani n g , supermarket between g e n d e r and
baggers, and so on) can only exist because the wages d ifferentiation i n the
of the people performing the service are a fraction of price i n labour-power.
what those consu m i n g the service are paid. Thus, the
condition for finding a job i n a g rowing service sector is
often accepting a sign ificantly lower than average wage.

Endnotes 4 288
S U R P L U S P O P U LAT I O N S A N D U N E M P L OY M E N T

As is now hopefu lly apparent, the tendency towards 12 Marx, Capital, vol. 1
increasing superfluity is not a tendency towards a lit- (MEcw 35), p. 637.
era/ extrusion of a part of the working class from the
economy. S u rp l u s workers sti l l need to buy at least
some of what they need to s u rvive, and therefore they
must earn or acq u i re money in order to l ive. Those who
are produced as surplus to the needs of capital may
sti l l receive wages in super-exploited sectors, or they
may be informally self-employed and thus self-exploiting
(since they lack access to capital).

Marx clarifies some of these points in his d iscussion of

the "stagnant surplus population". One cannot read his
account without thinking of the g lobal informal economy,
much of which would have been included, in Marx's time,
under the rubric of home-work or "domestic industry".
The stagnant surplus population :

forms a part of the active labour market, but with

extremely i rreg ular employment. Hence it offers capi­
tal an inexhaustible reservoi r of disposable labour. Its
cond itions of l ife sink below the average normal level
of the worki ng class, and it is precisely this which
m akes it a b road fou n d ation for special b ranches
of capitalist exploitation. It is characterised by a
maxim u m of working time and a m i n i m u m of wages.
We have al ready become fam i liar with its ch ief form
under the rubric of "domestic industry" ... Its extent
grows in proportion as, with the g rowth in the extent
and energy of accu m u lation, the creation of a sur­
plus popu lation also advances. But it forms at the
same time a self-reprod ucing and self-perpetuating
element of the working class, taking a proportionally
greater part in the general increase of that class than
the other elements. 1 2

An Identical Abject-Subject? 289

 It would t h u s be a m i stake to identify surplus popu­
lations with "the u n e mp l oyed" . This categ o ry is, to
some extent, an artifact of 20th cent u ry high-income
countries' provision of unemployment insurance. I n the
1 9th century, as i n m ost low-income countries today,
"being u n e mployed" in t h i s sense was s i m ply n ot an
o ption. U n e mployment insurance did not exist - and
today covers few workers in low-income countries - so
workers could not afford to be without work for long :
they needed to find employment as soon as possible,
regard less of t h e d e g ree to w h ich their labour was
demanded by capital. If there was n o demand, they
needed to set u p s h o p for themselves, without any
employer - by picking through rags, for example.

I n the hig h-income cou ntries, the category of "unem­

ployment" is currently being undermined once again ,
a n d appears a s increasingly less defined . A s a general
tendency, the welfare state has been d ramatically trans­
formed, such that unemployment benefit, typically paid
to a part of the workforce structu rally excluded from
employment, has tended to g ive way to means-tested
benefits. These are meant to supplement and support
incomes only at t h e very l owest end of the e m p l oy­
ment scale, rather than support those simply without
work, and are contributing to major i ncreases i n low­
wage, service sector employment. This transformation
is of course occurring at d ifferent paces i n d ifferent
h i g h - i ncome countries. I n many E u ropean cou ntries,
protections have remained i n place much longer, pre­
venting the bottom from entirely falling out of the labour
market. For that reason, a m aj o r "jobs gap" opened
u p between the u s and U K on the one hand, and con­
tinental Europe on the other, wherein the latter have
experienced h ig h e r u n e m ployment rates, as well as
l ower rates of labour force participation, particu larly for
women. This gap can be explained entirely i n relation to
the relative lack of service-sector employment i n conti­
nental Europe, and i n particu lar, low-wage employment.

Endnotes 4 290
The service sector share of employment is lowest in 13 The service sector
Germany and Italy, at around 70 percent, as com pared sh are of e m p l oyment
to the us, UK, and France, at around 80 percent. 1 3 is also lower 1 n Japan,
at 70 percent.
Additional ly, i n the global economy - in which mobile
flows of surplus capital discipline states - high-income 14 T h i s i s less t r u e
states must do everything they can to prevent outright of the low- i n c o m e
u n e m ployment, and thus u n e m ployment provisions, c o u ntries, i n w h i c h
from g rowing too d ramatical ly. Welfare expenditures, there are basically
which are ultimately funded from tax receipts, must be no social p rotect i o n s ,
kept to a m i n i m u m to avoid worrying bondholders and and wh ere over half
taxpayers. Cu rrent U K government policy, for exam ple, of the l a b o u r force i s
is to try to erad icate, as far as possible, possibil ities often i nformal, with
for u n e m p l oyment as any kind of stable category, only a portion of t h i s
transform ing welfare i nto workfare. As a result, in the popu l ati on ever ex-
high-income cou ntries, many workers fal l in and out of peri e n c i n g the fl u i d ity
relative su perflu ity d u ring their l ifetime, due both to the to m ove either i nto,
increasing flexibil isation of the labour market and its or out of, the formal
destabi l isation of categories of employment at a struc- sector.
tural level, as well as the fal l i n g demand for labou r. 1 4
1 5 We h ave d i scussed
Beg i n n i n g from the identification of specific social sub­ t h i s i s s u e prev i o u s l y
jects typically means reaching for pre-packaged figures i n re l at i o n to the E n g ­
who sign ify to the popular i mag inary a simple economic l i s h riots o f 201 1 . See
marg inal ity, such as the slum dweller. But "the surplus 'A R i s i n g Tide Lifts A l l
popu lation" cannot be so easily identified. Though d if­ Boats', Endnotes 3 ,
ferential positions in relation to the labour process can Septe m b e r 2 0 1 3 , p p .
certainly be empirically identified and taxonom ised ac­ 1 1 8-19.
cording to types and degrees of "surpl usness", it is nec­
essary to fi rst identify the broader logic at play, before
mapping the complexly variegated ways i n which this
logic plays out; none of this permits a straightforward
identification of surplusness with a singu lar social sub­
ject o r group. 1 5 As we have seen , what facil itates the
increasing production of workers as surplus is capital's
d ual tendency towards both overaccumu lation and an
i ncrease in the productivity of labour, which in turn de­
crease the n u m ber of workers needed to perform many
tasks. But from their i n itial condition as surplus, these

An Identical A bject-Subject? 291

workers may turn out to com pose just a "floating" sur­
plus population - being reabsorbed i nto production at
some later point - or go on to su bsist in one or another
relatively stagnant part of the economy (the latter is, of
course, much more common i n low-income cou ntries).
I n neither case are surplus workers necessarily either
unem ployed or unproductive of surplus-val ue. And at
a general level "surplus population" refers to a large,
massively varied part of the population, characterised
by all sorts of i nternal divisions and stratifications, all
sorts of relations to the labour process.

AN I D E N T I CAL ABJ ECT-S U BJ ECT?

O n the one hand, this relatively s i m p l e theory of the

tendential prod uction of surplus population can help
g reatly i n explai n i n g vario u s key aspects of the pre­
sent global situation. It g ives us a basis for explai n i n g
deind ustrial isation, the relative g rowth o f services, t h e
spread o f forms o f insecu re and flexi ble labour, a n d t h e
numerous abuses f o r w h i c h this o p e n s the way. I n t u r n ,
these tendencies i ntensify and exacerbate the d ifficu lty
of un ifying the working class under the hegemony of the
ind ustrial worker, i n the way trad itional Marxism antici­
pated ; it thus g ives us a basis for explain i n g the crisis
of the left and present strategic pred icaments. It also
seems to offer an explanation for declining g rowth rates
over recent decades, as relative surplus value-producing
labour has become a d i m i nishing share of global labour.
There are other things we could add to this l ist too, for
i nstance : the d ifficu lty of states balancing between wel­
fare demands and those of markets ; the formation of
mega-sl u m s ; post-ind ustrial forms of u rban ism. O r, on
the other side: "financialisation", "neoliberal ism", and
so on. I nsofar as these combined tendencies sketch out
the major dynamics and outlines of the present global
situation, we take the theory of surplus populations to
be an i m portant reference point in fram ing the present.

Endnotes 4 292
 On the other hand, when a theory has clear explana­
tory power, it can be tempting to slide into a sort of
conceptual overreach, where the theory is presumed
to explain things which it real ly can't explain, or to say
things which it doesn't. It may be the case that Marxists
have particu larly bad habits on this level : for exam ple,
"capital" o r "subsumption" are concepts that are often
reached for too hasti ly, called u pon to do more explana­
tory work than they are actually able to. For a theory
to have real explanatory power, one has to be able to
identify its l i m its clearly and honestly - to say what it
cannot, as wel l as what it can, explain.

What seems to be a standard m isi nterpretation or

over-extension of the theory of surplus population is
characterised by a hypostatisation of "the surplus popu­
lation" as a singu lar social subject, with the apparent
i m p l ication that this may be viewed as the new revo­
lutionary agent, or at least that it is the agent behind
various forms of contemporary struggle. This i nvolves
a conceptual sli ppage between general tendency and
particular sociolog ical o r e m p i rical cases. Wh i l e it
would of course ultimately be false to separate the two,
it is also i m portant not to identify them too i m mediately
or simpl istically. Thus, the theory of s u rplus popu lation
does not i nvolve some kind of neo-Baku n i n ite roman­
ticisation of a s u rplus subject "more rad ical" or " more
dangerous" than the organised working class ; nor does
it involve a read ing of p resent stru g g les as those of
some "surplus" subj ect.

A B J ECTI O N

Such t h i n king was in t h e a i r in d iscussions around the

201 1 English riots, which we analysed at some length
in Endnotes 3. Briefly revisiting problematics that were
at play at that time will help us to flesh out and specify
these points about surplus population.

An Identical Abject-Subject? 293

It seemed back then that for some the riots should be 16 Marx h i m se l f even
read as a rebell ion of "the surplus population". However, exte n d s t h i s categ o ry
such read ings appeared in some ways a simple - and to orphans and the
d isconcerting - inversion of standard and reactionary e l d e rly!
interpretations of such events, stoked by mainstream
media, which held the riots to be the work of a disor- 1 7 I nfo rmal ity i s u s u ­
derly and dangerous " u nderclass" . The latter is l ittle ally d isti n g u ished
more than a pseudo-concept, an ideolog ical gener­ from i l legal ity. The
al isation from the u ngeneralisable. For this reason, it g l o bal i nformal sector
can not sim ply be i nverted i nto something positive that i n c l u d e s a l l those
one m i g ht valorise. d o i n g legal work, but
without protections,
And, i n any case, it was clear that the British u rban poor o r i n firms consisting
who came out on the streets cou ld not be straig htfor­ of five o r fewe r peo­
ward ly identified with the concept of surplus population. p l e . T h u s , it does not
Fi rst of all, as we have already seen, the concept of include those doing
surplus-population is relatively non-specific i n socio­ i l legal sex-wo rk, or
logical terms. It can apply to a large variety of workers, engaged i n the drug­
some of whom are fully employed but su per-exploited, trad e, etc.
others of whom are underemployed or i nformally self­
employed. It is reasonable to surmise that a su bstantial
portion of the British working class is relatively "surplus"
in one sense or another. 1 6 Nor can the identity of the
British u rban poor be easily captu red under specific
categories of surplusness, such as "the unem ployed".
Wh ile unemployment of cou rse tends to be higher i n
p o o r u rban areas, the u n e m p loyment rate i n Britain
has been relatively low in recent years, com pared to
other European countries, and a majority of the u rban
poor - and of those who rioted - were either employed
or in full time ed ucation. Nor could they be sim ply identi­
fied with " informality", i n terms of the " g rey economy",
or with i l legal ity, i n terms of the " black economy" . Early
reactionary claims that most of the rioters were involved
in criminal gangs pred ictably proved u nfou nded. 1 7 And
as we have al ready seen, it doesn't make sense to see
the u rban poor as "surplus" i n the stronger sense of
being excluded from the economy per se.

Endnotes 4 294
Another often ideolog ical concept that g ets t hrown
around when people d iscuss the u rban poor is that of
the ghetto. This has related connotations to the ideas of
superflu ity that we have already discussed : the ghetto
is conceived as a sort of social d ustbin where the sub­
proletariat is thrown, where state agents often fear to
go and where the market is absent. The concept of the
g h etto signifies superflu ity, exteriority to the (formal)
economy, and also tends to l i n k the l atter up with the
concept of race. G h ettos are, of course, a real ity in
some parts of the worl d . But the B ritish u rban poor
d o not l ive i n g h ettos i n anything other than a meta­
phorical sense: poor British housing estates are small ,
often eth n i cally m ixed, incorporated i nto t h e b roader
cities in which they are placed, and managed as wel l as
patrolled by the state. They are not surplus or external
in any simple sense to either the state or the market.

If we can say unproblematically that what we've been

calling the "urban poor" were a key active agent in 201 1 ,
this only works because this is a weak, vague, merely
descriptive category. As soon as we try to apply the
more techn ically specific category of surplus popula­
tion here, we run i nto problems. Of course, it was not
completely i rrational to want to do so: there was a sort
of intuitive "fit" at least at the level of representational
thinking. The palpable, d i s ru ptive p resence of strata
of people on the street who are habitually cast out,
excluded i n various ways, was one of the most striking
aspects of 201 1 .

This confronted us with three questions. Firstly, how

to theorise the social subjects who came out i n revolt
i n 2 0 1 0 - 1 1 , and to identify the ways in which these
people really do appear as "excluded" or marg i nal, with­
out collapsing this into the general political-economic
logic of the production of a surplus population? Sec­
ondly, how to rel i n k this exclusion or marginality with

An Identical Abject-Subject? 295

the concept of surplus population once it has been
d istingu ished from it? Th i rdly, how m i g ht these matters
be related to deeper problems of revolutionary subjec­
tivity and organ isation?

It is clear when looking at the history of u rban riots i n

Britain that they are distinctly period isable, a n d that the
period of the real emergence of their modern form is - as
are so many things - contemporary with the capitalist
restructuring that has occurred since the 1 970s. If the
tendential production of a surplus population at a g lobal
level g ives us some basis for explai ning this period of
restructuring, then this tendency could presumably be
l i n ked with the emergence of the modern u rban riot in
this period, without necessarily needi n g to establ ish an
i m med iate identity between u rban rioters and "surplus
population" as a simple and coherent social subject.

Since the 1 970s, we have of course seen g rowing and

generalising insecurity, as stable industrial employment
has given way to e m p l oyment by the state and the
service sector. But these developments were uneven,
h itting some sections of the working class before oth­
ers. Prior to B ritai n's ful l-scale deindustrialisation, the
British working class was of cou rse stratified, with a
more insecure, informal, racialised stratum at the bot­
tom , prone to being ejected from employment in times
of economic stress, such as occu rred throughout the
1 970s: a classic industrial reserve army. These workers,
at the racialised margins of the organised working class,
were some of the first to feel the crisis of the 1 970s.
They were hit disproportionately by unemployment and
they were not to be re-employed i n newly emergent
l i nes of p roduction, since these l i nes did not i n fact
employ many people.

If surplus population is useful anywhere in this history

in identifying an immediate sociological reality, it is here,

Endnotes 4 296
where it can be used to distinguish a particular stratum
in relation to the rest of the working class. H owever, in
interpreting the deind ustrialisation that really kicked in
from this point on, it is necessary to m ove beyond the
strictly political-econo m i c level o n w h i ch t h i s theory
is forged. This is because the timing and character of
B ritai n 's d e i n d ustrial isation are i n extricable from the
particular dynamics of class struggle i n B ritai n , and
from the pol itical mediations of this struggle. Tho u g h
B ritai n 's industrial base h a d long b e e n in d e c l i n e , its
tras h i n g by the Thatche r govern ment was pushed
through actively, at least i n part for strateg ic reasons.
If the insecu re margins of the workforce g rew i n Eng­
land from the 1 970s onwards, this is n ot completely
reducible to the general global tendency towards the
prod uction of a surplus population. We need reference
to the specific pol itical med iations, even if this general
tendency can help i nform our understanding of what is
being mediated by such mediations.

It is amongst these pressu rised sections of the working

class - the more insecure, informal, racialised strat u m ,
which struggled to be reabsorbed b y the labo u r mar­
ket - that the riot became particularly prominent as a
mode of struggle, from the mid to late 1 970s, and it
seems reasonable to hypothesise that this newfound
promi nence is d i rectly related to the absence of possi­
bilities for " normal " , reg ulatory, demands-making of the
corporatist type. In developments dialectically entwined
with the struggles of this section of the worki ng class,
the police in t h i s period increasingly developed new
tactics of repression specifically targeted at poor u rban
neighbou rhoods. One m i g ht even say that the riot and
its repression became a sort of proxy way in which class
relations were reg u lated, in the absence of the " n o r­
mal" mode of reg u lation exercised by wage bargain i n g ,
etc. T h i s is not a perverse p o i n t : historically riots have
pushed demands towards wh ich the state has made

An Identical Abject-Subject? 297

concessions. Th is proved true of 201 1 just as it did of 1a See ' B rown v. Ferg u -
1 9 8 1 ; more recently it has proved true i n the u s , after so n', i n t h i s i s s u e , for
the 201 4 Ferg uson riots. 1 8 an analysis.

I n Endnotes 3 we termed the social logic of stigmatisa- 1 9 Tyl e r, Revolting Sub-

tion associated with such developments "abjection" - a jects: Social A bjec-
concept borrowed from I m ogen Tyler's recent book lion and Resis tance
Re volting Subjects. 1 9 With its in some ways d u bious in Neoliberal Britain
provenance, we were not especially fond of this term, (Zed Books 201 3).
but it seemed nonetheless q u ite appropriate as a name Tyl e r has deve l o ped
for certain problematics with which we were grappling. 2 0 this as a g e n e ral­
What was usefu l was that this term named a particular p u rpose categ o ry of
kind of abstract structure in which something is cast off, psycho-social theo ry,
marked as contingent or l owly, without actually being through a critical
exteriorised . The relevance of such a struct u re here engagement with
should be obvious: the i n itially racial ised com m u n ities Georges Batai l l e
subject to the forms of oppression that develop through and J u l i a Kri steva,
this period are socially marked as a problem - or even d i sta n c i n g h e rself
as a sort of rejection from the healthy core of the body especially from the
politic - without being literally exteriorised in any sense l atter's reacti o n ary
from either economy or state. Police repression looms politics.
large in the i mmed iate experience of abjection i n this
sense, but the term is also intended to captu re broader 20 We also d e p l oyed
social processes, such as the moral crusades of reac- the term 'abject' as a
tionary press, or the constant obsessing of pol iticians name for s o m e par-
over the various fai led su bjects of the nation. These are t i ally analogous - b u t
not s i mply unconnected moments; concrete connec- by n o means i d e nti-
tions between all of them could be articulated such that cal - structures, i n
we see a particu lar socio-political pattern of oppression. 'The Log i c of G e n d e r',
in t h e same i s s u e .
It seems that abjection may be relatable, in a mediated
way, to the production and management of a surplus
popu lation i n that specific h istorical moment of the
1 970s, as the restructuring began. But the med iations
require carefu l articu lation. After all - though there was
at least a sign ificant overlap - the stigmatised u rban
comm u n ities who were the " p ri mary abjects" of this
new styl e of policing were of course not com posed
exc l usively of workers at the marg i n s of i n d ustrial

Endnotes 4 298
em ployment. Moreover, as B ritain deind ustrialised, and
as broader global tendencies towards the production of
surplus population were felt particu larly in a generalised
decomposition of the worki ng class, the association of
these typically racial ised commun ities with a specifically
reserve army function declined. Unemployment became
hig hly generalised i n the British economy, to then be
slowly superseded by a h i g h ly flexibil ised and insecure
labo u r market. Whi l e this associ ation of racialised mar­
gins of the worki ng class with a reserve army function
d i m i n ished, police repression of the poor mounted.

If the development of new styles of policing might be

partially l i n ked to the management of a surplus popu la­
tion at the outset then, this tie becomes increasingly
tenuous as we get into the 1 980s and 90s. One m i g ht
speak of a developing "autonomisation" of the apparatus
of repression and its related stigmatising and racialis­
ing logics. By this we mean that an apparatus which
i n itially seems to apply i n particular to clear, economi­
cally marginal, parts of the class, becomes d issociated
from that strict function. Wh ile those who are s u bject
to these processes of abjection come to symbolise the
l i m its of affi rmable class, these l i m its are i n actual ity
u nstable, sh ifting and i l l-defi ned. They become more a
socio-pol itical, or perhaps socio-cultural , than a politi­
cal-economic construct. If this is the case, it is doubtfu l
whether we are l i kely to have any luck constructing the
o bj ect of this apparatus i n p u rely pol itical-economic
terms. Who is "abjected" then? We m ight provisional ly
reply, somewhat tautologically: those who are defined
as such by the fact that they are the object of these
processes of repressi o n . There i s n o particular pre­
exist i n g trait or social categorisation which m u st, i n
itself, necessarily o r inevitably mark one out a s a n object
of these processes, which is not to say that certain
social categories do not end u p being reproduced i n
such positions. Abjection is closely related - though
not identical - to racialisation.

An Identical Abject-Subject? 299

If the mechan isms of abjection could once be related 21 I n deed, from a n other
to a certain function in the state's management of the pers pective - th at of a
i n secu re marg i n s of the i n d u strial worki ng class, as s p e c u l ative proletar-
the object of that management dissi pates social ly, the i a n u n i ty - o n e m ay
function itself would seem to be th rown into question. v i e w s u c h develop-
If something is being "managed " through abjection, it is m e nts as a m atter of
no longer self-evident exactly what, by who, or to what p u re dysf u n c t i o n .
end. We have blind social patterns of stigmatisation and
oppression which are q u ite general , and can thus not
be viewed as the work of some conspiracy. And we also
have the cont i n u i n g operation of formalised structu res
of power and oppression within these patterns, with
police, politicians and media playing important active
roles - though generally i n part responding to the very
real sentiments of the citizen ry. I n the process a new
kind of "fu nction" may be perceived, as the generalised
i n secu rity of the post-i n d u strial workforce i s exacer-
bated by the wan ing of solidarities here, and people all
too read ily turn on each other. But this is "fu nctional"
only i n a perverse sense : it is the prod uct of no design
or i ntent ; a purely " irrational" outcome, albeit one which
can i n some ways p rove useful to capital and state
after the fact, i nsofar as it further d isem powers their
potential antagon ists. 2 1

If w e a r e now speaking o f the subjects of "abjection"

rather than "surplus population" here, how about the
abject as a social subject? These developments sign ify,
however, not the creation of a n ew form of social (or
potential ly, revol utionary) subject, but rather the prob­
lem of any class subject at all. In itself, that which is
abjected would seem to be by defi nition unaffi rmable,
u n u n ifiable, for it is not a positive existence of its own,
but merely the negative of something else. Those who
are abjected are not something other than the prole­
tariat. More often than not they are workers, students
etc. On ly, they are workers, students etc who are vilified,
cast beyon d the pale of social respectab i l ity. These
developments represent problems for the constitution

Endnotes 4 300
of a un ified class subject ; indeed, they are di rect expres­
sions of the decomposition of the class. The abject is
projected as a sort of l i m it-concept of affirmable social
class, in an operation where that class is itself nega­
tively defi ned against what has been abjected. "We
are not l i ke t h e m " replaces "the workers u n ited w i l l
never be defeated" . A n d a s s u c h , abjection c a n have a
somewhat fractal qual ity: not applying u n iformly to one
social group, but across and between social grou ps,
depending to some extent on where one stands in the
social landscape. There is always someone more abject
than you .

This is not something that should b e valorised or roman­

ticised, or projected as the positive basis for some
future social subject. If it is a cu rse to be red uced to
the proletarian, it is doubly so to be abjected. Neither
surplus population nor the abject provide any ultimate
answer to the pro b l e m of revolutionary agency, but
both describe aspects of the problem, and it is with
the problem that we m ust start. What seems clear is
that whatever shape a futu re u n ity of the class could
take, it is not one that is l i kely to be hegemon ised by
an advanced industrial worker; though it seems equally
clear that no "abject" or "surplus" s u bject offers itself
u p as an obvious alternative. N onetheless, the problem
will continue to be confronted, as people i n struggle
strain to com pose and extend some u n ity in order to
push forwards. And the c o m b i n atory p rocesses of
struggle can be end lessly generative.

A n Identical Abject-Subject? 301

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"I could see Baltimore through the window and it was a very interesting mo·
ment because it was not quite daylight and a neon sign indicated to me
every minute the change of time, and naturally there was heavy traffic and
I remarked to myself that exactly all that I could see, except for some trees
in the distance, was the result of thoughts actively thinking thoughts, where
the function played by the subjects was not completely obvious. In any case
the so-called Dasein as a definition of the subject, was there in this rather
intermittent or fading spectator. The best image to sum up the unconscious
is Baltimore in the early morning."