Identity Trumps Socialism: The Class and Identity Debate after Neoliberalism

217 Pages·2023·1.897 MB·English

by  Marc James Léger

Identity Trumps Socialism
With essays by today’s leading leftist social critics, Identity Trumps Socialism
presents a rigorous and persuasive primer on the problems generated
by postmodern and neoliberal challenges to the legacy of emancipatory
universality. In addition to the ways in which capitalism has used racialized and
gendered forms of oppression to divide the working class, today’s activism must
also understand how neoliberal capitalism uses identity politics to undermine
socialism. Identity Trumps Socialism advances an emancipatory left universality
that addresses the limits of diversity and makes the case for the centrality of class
in the struggle against global capitalist hegemony.
Marc James Léger is a Marxist cultural theorist living in Montreal. He is
the author of several books, including Bernie Bros Gone Woke: Class, Identity,
Neoliberalism (2022) and Too Black to Fail: The Obama Portraits and the Politics of
Post-Representation (2022).

Identity Trumps Socialism
The Class and Identity Debate after
Neoliberalism
Edited by Marc James Léger
Designed cover image: Karl Marx Monument in Chemnitz by Lev Kerbel, 1971. Photo by Maximilian Scheffler.
Concept by Marc James Léger.Vector design by Cayley Sorochan.
First published 2023
by Routledge
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© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Marc James Léger; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Marc James Léger to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Léger, Marc James, 1968- editor.
Title: Identity trumps socialism : the class and identity debate after
neoliberalism / edited by Marc James Léger.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Includes bibliographical
references and index. | Contents: Introduction: The politics of
emancipatory universality / Marc James Léger -- Eight theses on the
universal / Alain Badiou -- Politics, identification and
subjectivization / Jacques Rancière -- The eternal return of the same
class struggle / Slavoj Žižek -- Universality and its discontents /
Bruno Bosteels -- Capitalism, class and universalism : escaping the
cul-de-sac of postcolonial theory / Vivek Chibber -- Intersectionality :
a Marxist critique / Barbara Foley -- From progressive neoliberalism to
Trump - and beyond / Nancy Fraser -- What materialist black political
history actually looks like / Adolph Reed, Jr. -- Who’s afraid of Left
populism? Anti-policing struggles and the frontiers of the American Left
/ Cedric G. Johnson -- Class not race / Walter Benn Michaels --
Capitalism is the problem : articulating race and gender with class /
David Harvey -- A comrade for the anthropocene : beyond survivors and
allies / Jodi Dean -- The use and abuse of class reductionism for the
left / Marc James Léger. | Summary: “With essays by today’s leading
leftist social critics, Identity Trumps Socialism presents a rigorous
and persuasive primer on the problems generated by postmodern and
neoliberal challenges to the legacy of emancipatory universality. In
addition to the ways in which capitalism has used racialized and
gendered forms of oppression to divide the working class, today’s
activism must also understand how neoliberal capitalism uses identity
politics to undermine socialism. Identity Trumps Socialism advances an
emancipatory left universality that addresses the limits of diversity
and makes the case for the centrality of class in the struggle against
global capitalist hegemony”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022053865 (print) | LCCN 2022053866 (ebook) | ISBN
9781032341842 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032341804 (paperback) | ISBN
9781003320890 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Socialism and society. | Identity politics. | Class
consciousness. | Liberty. | Universals (Philosophy)
Classification: LCC HX542 .I346 2023 (print) | LCC HX542 (ebook) | DDC
335.43--dc23/eng/20230120
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053865
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053866
ISBN: 9781032341842 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032341804 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003320890 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003320890
Typeset in Bembo
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Contents
Notes on Contributors vii
Acknowledgements x
Introduction: The Politics of Emancipatory Universality 1
MARC JAMES LÉGER
1 Eight Theses on the Universal 27
ALAIN BADIOU
2 Politics, Identification and Subjectivization 35
JACQUES RANCIÈRE
3 The Eternal Return of the Same Class Struggle 41
SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
4 Universality and Its Discontents 59
BRUNO BOSTEELS
5 Capitalism, Class and Universalism: Escaping the Cul-de-sac
of Postcolonial Theory 79
VIVEK CHIBBER
6 Intersectionality: A Marxist Critique 94
BARBARA FOLEY
7 From Progressive Neoliberalism to Trump – and Beyond 99
NANCY FRASER
8 What Materialist Black Political History Actually Looks Like 114
ADOLPH REED, JR
vi Contents
9 Who’s Afraid of Left Populism?: Anti-Policing Struggles and
the Frontiers of the American Left 121
CEDRIC G. JOHNSON
10 Class Not Race 143
WALTER BENN MICHAELS
11 Capitalism Is the Problem: Articulating Race and Gender
with Class 157
DAVID HARVEY
12 A Comrade for the Anthropocene: Beyond Survivors and Allies 165
JODI DEAN
13 The Use and Abuse of Class Reductionism for the Left 177
MARC JAMES LÉGER
Index 195
Notes on Contributors
Alain Badiou is Professor Emeritus at the École Normale Supérieure and
Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School. A former mem-
ber of the Organisation Politique, he has written many books of philoso-
phy, including his trilogy Being and Event (1988), Logics of Worlds (2006)
and The Immanence of Truths (2018), as well as Saint Paul: The Foundation of
Universalism (1997).
Bruno Bosteels is Professor and Chair in the Department of Latin American
and Iberian Cultures as well as Professor of Comparative Literature &
Society at Columbia University, New York. He is the author of Badiou and
Politics (2011), The Actuality of Communism (2011), Marx and Freud in Latin
America (2012) and La comuna Mexicana (2021). He has translated works by
Alain Badiou and León Rozitchner and is the author of dozens of articles on
modern Latin American culture, contemporary European philosophy and
political theory. He has served as the general editor of the journal Diacritics
and is the co-editor of the series Radical Américas with Duke University
Press.
Vivek Chibber is Professor of Sociology at New York University. He is
the co-founder and editor of the journal Catalyst and has written several
books, including Locked in Place: State-Building and Late Industrialization in
India (2003), Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital (2013) and The Class
Matrix: Social Theory after the Cultural Turn (2022).
Jodi Dean is Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith
Colleges. She has also held the position of Erasmus Professor of the
Humanities in the Faculty of Philosophy at Erasmus University. She is the
author of several written or edited books, including Blog Theory: Feedback
and Capture in the Circuits of Drive (2010), The Communist Horizon (2018),
Crowds and Party (2018) and Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging (2019).
viii Notes on Contributors
Barbara Foley is Emerita Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers
University-Newark. She is the past President of the Radical Caucus of the
Modern Language Association and is currently a member of the Editorial
Board and Manuscript Collective of Science & Society. A resident of New
Jersey, she served for two decades as Chair of the Combating Racism Task
Force of the National Organization of Women-NJ. Her books include
Radical Representation: Politics and Form in US Proletarian Fiction, 1929-1941
(1993), Spectres of 1919: Class and Nation in the Making of the New Negro
(2003), Wrestling with the Left: The Making of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
(2010) and Marxist Literary Criticism Today (2019).
Nancy Fraser is Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Political and Social
Science at the New School for Social Research. She is the author of Unruly
Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (1989)
and Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis
(2013). A supporter of the International Women’s Strike, she coined the
phrase “feminism for the 99 percent” and co-authored the book Feminism
for the 99%: A Manifesto (2019).
David Harvey is Distinguished Professor of anthropology and geography at
the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author
of many books, including The Limits to Capital (1982), The Condition of
Postmodernity (1989), A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005), The Enigma of
Capital (2010) and The Anti-Capitalist Chronicles (2020). A noted Marxist
scholar, his online courses on Capital and the Grundrisse have introduced
a new generation of contemporary leftists to the critique of political
economy.
Cedric G. Johnson is Professor of African American Studies and Political
Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His writings have appeared
in New Political Science, Monthly Review and In These Times. He is the author of
Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American
Politics (2007) and The Panthers Can’t Save Us Now: Debating Left Politics and
Black Lives Matter (2022). He is the editor of The Neoliberal Deluge: Hurricane
Katrina, Late Capitalism and the Remaking of New Orleans (2011).
Marc James Léger is an independent scholar living in Montreal. He is the
editor of the two volumes of The Idea of the Avant Garde – And What It
Means Today (2014, 2019). His books include Brave New Avant Garde (2012),
The Neoliberal Undead (2013), Don’t Network: The Avant Garde after Networks
(2018), Vanguardia: Socially Engaged Art and Theory (2019), Too Black to Fail:
The Obama Portraits and the Politics of Post-Representation (2022) as well as
Bernie Bros Gone Woke: Class, Identity, Neoliberalism (2022).
Walter Benn Michaels teaches English at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
He is the author of several books, including The Beauty of a Social Problem:
Notes on Contributors ix
Photography, Autonomy, Economy (2015) and The Trouble with Diversity (10th
anniversary edition, 2016). He is a member of the editorial board of nonsite
.o rg and of UICUF, Local 6456, IFT, AFT, AAUP, AFL-CIO.
Jacques Rancière is Professor Emeritus at the University of Paris VIII and
Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School. A leading figure
in French political philosophy, he is the author of The Nights of Labor: The
Workers’ Dream in Nineteenth-Century France (1989), Disagreement: Politics and
Philosophy (1998), Aisthesis: Scenes from the Aesthetic Regime of Art (2013) and
Modern Times (2017).
Adolph Reed, Jr. is Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania.
He is a founding member of the U.S. Labor Party and occasional host of
the Class Matters podcast. His articles for The Progressive, The Nation and
The Village Voice are presented in Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other
Thoughts on the American Scene (2000). Other books include The Jesse Jackson
Phenomenon: The Crisis of Purpose in Afro-American Politics (1986), W.E.B.
Du Bois and American Political Thought: Fabianism and the Color Line (1997),
Without Justice for All: The New Liberalism and Our Retreat from Racial Equality
(2001) and The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives (2022).
Slavoj Žižek is the International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the
Humanities, University of London, Visiting Professor at the New York
University and Senior Researcher in the Department of Philosophy at
the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. A leading interpreter of Lacanian
psychoanalysis, he is the author of dozens of books, including Less Than
Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism (2012), Absolute Recoil:
Towards a New Foundation of Dialectical Materialism (2014) and Heaven in
Disorder (2022).