Articulating Abolitionist Form and the Limits of Social Democracy Toward Abolition
I theorize an abolitionist form for our organizing projects and programs that is rooted in Marxist historical materialist theory as an updated vision for societal transformation
Introduction
It is important to have clarity and precision with our concepts, definitions, and language in our organizing projects as, if our intention is to move ontologically toward a new form, system, or space outside of capitalism, we need to accurately identify the bounds of the form and shape we want to take and its definitions, understand our historical context and where we come from in order to understand where we are going and moving toward and how we are going to go about it. Without this clarity around identity and form, we run the risk of (unconsciously) falling back to “liberal and bourgeois ideology” (Bannerji 2005, pg. 148 and Wood 1981) that works to separate the economic sphere from the political and obscure the historical conditions that made these conceptions and separations possible (Wood 1981). By not spending time on ontology and form, we run the risk of perpetuating the very tactics of liberal bourgeois ideology, which are to make the economy abstract, “empty capitalism of its social and political content,” (Wood 1981), and confuse or fail to grasp the specificity of social forms with its disconnected parts, histories, and contexts (Bannerji 2005, pg. 152).
The purpose of this essay is to propose a suggested form that articulates a vision of the world and practices that seek to transform society and relations fundamentally, transcend capitalism rather than reform it, and continue to build on historical materialist and socialist traditions with frameworks that speak to race, gender, sexuality, colonialism, decolonization, abolition, disability, and ecological, climate, and degrowth movements (Coburn 2014, pg. 2). I will review the literature on ontology, form, and historical materialism to evaluate the yardstick of what I want to use to measure what I am calling abolitionist form. I will also look at the Democratic Socialists of America as a case study to discuss the limits of social democracy as a political-economic form and its pitfalls, as well as provide recommendations on how to articulate and measure abolitionist form in our organizing projects. I argue that given the United States' history and liberal tradition, it is critical to be precise and specific with our social forms clearly define and articulate our terms, and have clarity on where we are going and moving towards. Specifically, I am arguing that we should be articulating and shaping an abolitionist form over a reformist and accommodationist one given historical materialist and socialist traditions. Additionally, I am arguing that social democracy limits our progress toward an abolitionist form and risks us falling back into liberalism and reformism. My essay seeks to address the following research questions:
What kind of form is needed to transcend capitalism and transform society?
How do you articulate an abolitionist form for a solidarity economy project?
What are the limits of social democracy toward achieving abolitionist form?
Background and Literature Review
Before I discuss and review the literature on the ontology of matter (historical materialism), I want to go through existing literature on rubrics, metrics, and yardsticks used to measure and determine if a particular solidarity economy project is in fact a solidarity economy project and operating with the values of solidarity. Kawano and Matthei (2020) and Williams (2014) define the solidarity economy as a post-capitalist framework that emerged in Latin America and Europe in the 1990s that rejects state-dominated authoritarian forms of socialism, seeks to change the fundamental relations of power in a given economy and society, and is about a broad set of practices that are about social inclusion, social transformation, participatory democracy, feminism, anti-racism, and ecology (Kawano and Matthei 2020, and Williams 2014, pg. 38). Menser (2018) introduces a rubric to evaluate whether a solidarity economy project is operating under a direct or participatory democracy framework. Menser offers the term maxD or “maximal democracy” to measure whether a model is a participatory democracy, as defined by four features: 1) collective determination, 2) capacity development and delivery of economic, social, and/or political benefits to members or constituents, 3) the replacement of unequal power relations with relations of shared authority, and 4) the construction, cultivation, proliferation, and interconnection of movements and organizations with overlapping normative frameworks (Menser 2018, pg. 4). Williams (2014) argues that the solidarity economy is distinct from the social economy in that the social economy seeks to work within capitalism and ameliorate the negative social effects of liberalized, free markets, while the solidarity economy seeks to transcend capitalism (Williams 2014, pg. 38). The question here is to what extent these definitions and rubrics work as useful measurements toward an ontological form that moves toward abolition.
As I want to make the case that we should be moving toward an abolitionist form, I need to attempt to define and articulate what that is. Then, I can determine if the above rubrics are useful. Wujin (2009) explains how ontology aims to reveal the meaning of being and defines the ontology of matter, which is Marx’s “philosophical revolution on materialism” (Wujin 2009, pg. 406). Here, Wujin notes that materialism is a “solid philosophical foundation from which we proceed towards reality and seek truth from facts, recognize the world as it really is and change the world according to its laws” (Wujin 2009, pg. 406). Wujin points out that Marx was not conceiving of materialism in the abstract or in isolation, but was specifically conceiving of an ontology of matter that revealed and investigated human activities and the historical relationship humans have with nature, industry, and productive labor under capitalism (Wujin 2009, pg. 409). Wujin stresses the importance of operating within the concrete versus the abstract realm and the importance of uncovering the human way of dealing with nature and clarifying the historical processes and techniques. Wujin argues that Marx’s ontology was rooted in the “concrete states of matter under capitalism” (Wujin 2009, pg. 411) and studies the process of productive labor and how capital leads to unrestricted expansion. Marx’s goal was not just to study these processes, but to create a philosophical, political, and social revolution to change and reshape the world to liberate humankind (Wujin 2009, pg. 411). This is an important philosophical foundation that I will use to articulate an abolitionist form.
Bannerji (2005) similarly describes Marxist theory and ontology as working to “deconstruct this object form and return it to its concrete, diverse social determinations” (Bannerji 2005, pg. 152). Bannerji describes Marx’s primary concern with the “precise method that produces ideology and the thought content or ideas that are generated” (Bannerji 2005, pg. 153). Marx is concerned with the ruling class's ideology and how they came to create the political and social economy needed to perpetuate capitalism. As such, Bannerji states that these concepts and ideas must be “specifically addressed by our political organizations” (Bannerji 2005, pg. 153). Bannerji argues that once we lose or confuse the specificity and integrity of the social form, they become fetishized and disconnected. The core issue here is that what gives liberal bourgeois capitalist ideology power is its ability to detach and decontextualize concepts from their social relations in order to create “de-specific, aspatial, atemporal, homogenous” relations of difference that serve the interest of the ruling class through exclusion and invisibility (Bannerji 2005, pg. 155). As Bannerji states, dehistoricized and desocialized concepts that do not take into consideration the histories of colonialism, and imperialism, as well as the struggles around class and race, help to push liberal/petty-bourgeois politics that centers middle-class white people (Bannerji 2005, pg. 155). Bannerji argues that Marxists in the West undercut the class struggle because of the habit of “separating class from culture and social relations of gender/patriarchy” and making “race” a non-class issue. Bannerji thus further argues that labor movements are incomplete social or anti-capitalist movements and “participate in the replication of the organization of capital and bourgeois rule” (Bannerji 2005, pg. 156).
Wood (1981) also posits that Marxists have perpetuated the “rigid conceptual separation of the ‘economic’ and the ‘political,’ which has served the bourgeois ideology” as it fractures capitalism of its social and political context. Thus, Wood argues that it is the purpose of Marxist theory to “understand the historical nature of the differentiation of the ‘political’ and ‘economic’ spheres, shed light on the political sphere, and explain how capitalism has driven a wedge between the economic and political” in order to “reveal the political face of the economy which had been obscured by bourgeois political economists” (Wood 1981).
Again, Bannerji, Wujin, and Wood make the point that being rooted in Marxist theory, the ontology of historical materialism, means to elucidate the full socio-historical concrete material reality, or there is a risk oftock into liberal identity politics and “ideological forms of race and ethno-nationalist identities” (Bannerji 2005, pg. 156) that slip into fascism. Wood writes that Marxist theory cannot ignore the historical realities of the political/social sphere or continue to perpetuate the separation of economics and politics “that has served capitalism so well in theory and practice” (Wood 1981). Doing so would risk falling into the trap of liberalism.
Ji (2016) draws a similar thread to slipping into liberalism by laying out the U.S. historical context of business unionism in the labor movement, and how the U.S. “liberal tradition” works to “undermine notions of class solidarity” (Ji 2016, pg. 4). Ji explains that the liberal tradition of the U.S. American political culture has been associated with the “belief in the harmony of interests of capital and labor,” leading to a business unionism framework and philosophy of collective bargaining, concessions, and collaboration between capital and labor (Ji 2016, pg. 5). This ultimately leads to an articulation of the world where workers seek to work within capitalism and where workers “seek to transcend their class position through individual effort and not by mobilizing as a self-conscious member of a “working class” confronting the inequities of capitalism” (Ji 2016, pg. 7).
Coburn (2014) adds to this discussion by presenting an argument that states that historical materialism and socialism are useless theories unless they are in constant conversation with other oppressive theories and struggles around “race, gender, sexuality, disability, colonialism, as well as ecological movements” (Coburn 2014, pg. 2). Coburn also makes a similar case that we cannot talk about “class” concepts stripped from their “antagonistic relational characteristics within the capitalist context” (Coburn 2014, pg. 4). Once we realize that we need to render clear the political and economic spheres that have been fractured by capitalism, we can see historical materialism as an analytical and philosophical framework (Coburn 2014, pg. 7) that offers a critique to capitalism but also a way to move toward the fundamental social transformation and the subversion, overthrow, and abolition of capitalism.
Here is where I can begin articulating what an abolitionist form could look like, going back to Menser, Kawano Matthei, and Williams. If we are to create a yardstick, with one end being an ideology/political economy operating within capitalism and the other end being an ideology/political economy that transcends capitalism and seeks fundamental social transformation, I would place the social economy at the end toward operating within capitalism, the solidarity economy and historical materialism at the end toward transcending capitalism, and maxD and PD in the center of the yardstick. The reason I place maxD and PD in the center of the yardstick is that the four features that make maxD are not closely rooted in historical materialism in the sense that they do not seem to work to unobscure the political and economic realms to reveal the true historical context and recontextualize the political and social sphere to the economic. This seems to be at the heart of Marxist theory and thus the core of socialism and communism and we must be precise in our concepts, definitions, and language so that we may accurately describe, shape, and transform the world.
Case Study: Democratic Socialists of America and the Limits of Social Democracy
I use the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as a case study to discuss the limits of social democracy as a project in achieving abolitionist form. DSA is the largest socialist organization in the United States, with over 90,000 members (Adler-Bell 2022). DSA is facing an identity crisis. DSA presents itself as a socialist organization that fights for the working class, for tenants. DSA has numerous working groups and committees from Immigration to Labor to Housing that allow members to plug into local organizing efforts. At the same time, DSA does electoral work and runs political campaigns for socialist candidates. This is where the divergence between the idealized version of DSA and its material reality begins, and where the root of the conflict within DSA lies. There is a lack of identity within the organization, and this has been made worse by the decision to move into electoral work and political campaigns without any internal strategic plans on how to combat and address concentrations of power that arise and, relatedly, how to create systems of accountability beyond grievance.
Additionally, while DSA outwardly portrays itself as fighting for working-class struggles, there is a lack of commitment to political education and building a class-consciousness, militant labor movement (Ji 2016, pg. 17), as well as the undermining of class-race and colonial struggles. For example, DSA member and elected socialist in office United States Congressional Representative Jamaal Bowman voted in favor of funding for Israel’s Iron Dome and, despite calls from DSA’s BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group to expel Representative Bowman from DSA (Barkan 2021), the National Political Committee of DSA has chosen to not expel Representative Bowman (Democratic Socialists of America 2021). This represents a marked break in values, principles, and commitment to Palestinian liberation and sovereignty. Additionally, when President Joe Biden announced that he would intervene in a railroad strike in December 2022 by calling on Congress to pass legislation to adopt a Tentative Agreement to avoid a rail strike (Daugherty et. al. 2022), DSA elected socialists in office Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Representative Cori Bush, and Representative Jamaal Bowman all voted in favor of the TA agreement and intervening in the strike. While DSA put out a statement condemning the actions of the elected socialists in office for their votes (Democratic Socialists of America 2022), there have been no calls from DSA for the removal from office of these elected socialist leaders for their transgressions against the working class and the labor movement. Through this undermining, DSA is (perhaps even unconsciously) pushing race, caste, and ethnicity categories into cultural spheres rather than treating them as part of the class-race economic category (Bannerji 2005, pg. 148). In this way, DSA’s political standing and framework are fundamentally flawed and a liberal/bourgeois “reading of the social sphere,” (Bannerji 2005, pg. 148) risking any further policymaking and organizing falling into a liberal and bourgeois ideology and framework.
Bannerji shows just how alarming this is, as such a liberal bourgeois “fractured reading” of historical materialism “results in ideology,” and under bourgeois “democracy,” this ideology means “claims to equality of citizenship or rights while legally preserving and enhancing actual social relations of inequality and ruling” (Bannerji 2005, pg. 152). In other words, a fetishized view of class and race abstracted from their historical contexts risks a slippery slope into fascism. In addition to not being rooted in historical materialism and the lack of class-race articulation, DSA continues to fall into the U.S. American tradition of liberalism and liberal politics, despite its claims of being a socialist organization committed to worker and tenant power. DSA has a systemic internal culture of narrow “bureaucratic business unionism” (Ji 2016, pg. 5) that translates into a concessionary and liberal view of electoral and engaging with the State. Rather than building a militant labor movement, many DSA leaders see themselves as party leaders playing the political game of trying to win concessions from the State from a legislative and policy framework by compromising on and selling out to the labor and tenant movements.
Recommendations: Articulating Abolitionist Form
In attempting to answer what form is needed to transcend capitalism and transform society and how to articulate an abolitionist form, I will offer recommendations on what I think an abolitionist form should look like based on the literature review and the case study on DSA.
The literature highlighted four main themes or components that I will use to build what I am calling an abolitionist form:
The extent to whether the organizing project is rooted in historical materialism
The literature review and case study highlight that Marx’s ontology of matter or historical materialism is the foundational philosophical revolutionary theory that seeks to clarify historical processes and techniques under capitalism to create a philosophical, political, and social revolution to liberate humankind (Wujin 2009, pg. 411). Bannerji and Coburn add to Marxist theory dialogues about other struggles around race, colonialism, gender, sexuality, and ecology.
The extent to whether there is a clear articulation of the class-race-labor and capital antagonisms
As mentioned by Ji (2016) and Bannerji (2005), because the U.S. has this tradition of liberal politics, it is imperative that organizing projects that seek to transcend capitalism or that call themselves solidarity economy projects, clearly articulate what they see to be the antagonisms between class-race-labor and capital. Without this line clearly defined, the organizing project runs the risk of fetishizing these concepts and disconnecting them from their actual historical social contexts (Bannerji 2005, pg. 155).
The extent to which raising class consciousness and developing a militant labor movement are central to the organizing project
Ji (2016) argues that we will see a very different trajectory and form in an organizing project between one that is committed to developing a militant, class-conscious labor movement, and one that is at best seen as an alternative to capitalism that doesn’t fundamentally change or subvert capital-labor relations, and undermines class struggle by conceding to the State and capital interests. We see this undermining in the DSA case study and thus see the limits of this type of project towards an abolitionist form.
The extent to which the organizing project and program has clarity around identity and strategy toward transcending capitalism over reforming capitalism and clarity and specificity about societal and relational transformation
As shown in the DSA case study, if there is a lack of specificity about who and what the organizing project is as an identity, and what it is moving toward in terms of reforming or abolishing capitalism, the organizing project runs the risk of fetishizing class-race identities and falling into liberal and bourgeois ideology, which is a slippery slope into fascism.
Conclusion
I theorize an abolitionist form for organizing projects that are rooted in Marxist historical materialist theory as an updated vision for societal transformation. I choose abolition because I am seeking an enduring form of communism that cannot be co-opted by the State, city officials, the non-profit industrial complex, liberals, and other opportunists.
References
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