What Does the Proletariat Do? v1: Transforming Oppression to Liberation
Some notes on the proletariat, the core features of oppression, and how to move forward
The purpose of the proletariat is to lead the social transformation of the whole society from oppression to liberation.
The proletarian struggle for social liberation stands in direct contradistinction to a working-class identity politics, which turns the working-class into just another sectional interest group. This opportunist maneuver is justified for a number of reasons, the most common of which is the notion that the workplace is the primary site of class struggle and as a result it’s best to focus on economic demands. However, as Lenin wrote in What Is to Be Done?, “the conception of the economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its practical significance.” The point of the proletarian class struggle isn’t to give the workers a turn or their due, it’s to liberate society.
The proletariat has radical chains precisely because it has the potential to go beyond parochialism. The proletariat is capable of fulfilling the republic, to serve as the leading citizens who put the good of the society as a whole above any private privilege or interest. To do this, proletarian consciousness must take up all the political questions facing all the classes and all the people of the society -- a process that can only happen when it steps beyond the domain of bosses and workers.
Therefore, the proletariat must take on all oppression among all the people of society as foundational to its class struggle. If not, then it ceases to fulfill its duty and instead is merely just another petty interest brokering for its cut.
What Is Oppression?
We often think of oppression in terms of violence. Certainly, the question of violence is key in evaluating the nature of oppression and how to overcome it, as Fanon, Lenin, Jefferson, and many others have done through the years. However, oppression cannot be reduced to violence. Oppression is, first and foremost, limited capacity. It prevents individuals, groups, and the whole of society from realizing their potential and producing at a higher level.
Further, oppression is binding not only on the oppressed, but the oppressor as well. A grievance based model of oppression, which is centered on perceived victimhood, can never accurately describe oppression for many reasons, but most of all because it cannot grasp contradiction. Not everyone is a reactionary, and many people caught in backwards relations can be won over to liberation -- this is a key principle of proletarian leadership, which sets transformation as its aim rather than condemnation or payback.
Oppression is primarily characterized by three elements: degradation, exclusion, and exploitation. Proletarian liberation overcomes oppression by transforming degradation to dignity, exclusion to emancipation, and exploitation to solidarity. These are three key transformations that should be foundational to generating and evaluating activity. I will use this framework as the basis for discussing political programs in the coming weeks, but first I’ll describe it and apply it at a conceptual level.
Degradation
Degradation is to experience personal and cultural denigration, to be presumed substandard and of little inherent value. People expect you to occupy a subservient role, or they assume you are stupid. Perhaps your language and customs are put down, or your mannerisms or interests are openly ridiculed. People find it easy to insult you, and they approach you with an air of entitlement and treat you as a tool. Occupying a degraded position is precarious, as it leaves one open to the capriciousness of others, and any assertion of your own independent value and ability can be met with murderous hostility.
Exclusion
Exclusion takes many forms, but at its essence it is to be presumed beneath full consideration, to be disregarded and disposable. Obviously, exclusion means that one is not included, but in the context of oppression it means something greater. Oppression holds people outside of politics, which is to deny the oppressed the full expression of their humanity as politics is the means by which people more fully realize their consciousness and seize their place in history.
Exclusion manifests itself in the millions of people who are not incorporated into regular social life, and as such have no future in the world as it exists. In the economy, these are people relegated to the irregular sphere. For example, Black households disproportionately depend on income flows from subsistence activity and petty commodity production, which are themselves denigrated or criminalized. Alton Sterling and Eric Garner were engaged in petty commodity production — selling bootleg CD’s and loose cigarettes respectively — just before being killed by police.
Exploitation
Exploitation is perhaps the most complex element of oppression, and certainly the most difficult to eliminate. Exploitation is a power dynamic in which a subordinated element is unfairly engaged by a dominant element, where the decisions and outcomes of interactions are largely determined by the fact of one’s subordination. Exploitation can be transactional and structural. The transactional is interpersonal and iterative, while structural exploitation entrenches disadvantages over time and across social institutions. One can participate in exploitation -- both as the exploited or the exploiter -- without intending to do so or even when we subjectively don’t want it. Exploitation is the supreme rule of capitalist relations.
What is to Be Done?
Degradation and exclusion make exploitation easier, and exploited people are frequently degraded and excluded. By making certain households disproportionately dependent on the degrading and often criminalized incomes of subsistence activity and petty commodities, capitalists can pay them less in wages if they bother to hire them at all. In addition to being super-exploited, members of these households also function as a strategic labor reserve — practices which serve to suppress their own wages and those of workers more broadly. The three elements of oppression work together to maintain the existing state of affairs.
If the goal is to realize the republic and full citizenship for all, then we need proletarian leadership to take a leading role in addressing oppression. In the coming weeks, I’ll use the above concepts to sketch out discussions of key fault lines in society. My first attempt will be to develop a proletarian approach to the question of police violence.