Views in brief

September 2, 2014

Blaming protesters in Ferguson

IN RESPONSE to "They call for peace and commit more violence": Thank you for this wonderful article and coverage of the struggle in Ferguson. As I was reading the article, I kept thinking of Malcolm X and was glad to see you quoted him.

I also feel this other quote of his, from his autobiography, applies to the situation. The brave protesters in Ferguson seem to me to be in the position Malcolm was, especially in relationship to the mainstream press coverage they are getting:

When I am dead--I say it that way because from the things I know, I do not expect to live long enough to read this book in its finished form--I want you to just watch and see if I'm not right in what I say: that the white man, in his press, is going to identify me with "hate."

He will make use of me dead, as he has made use of me alive, as a convenient symbol, of "hatred"--and that will help him escape facing the truth that all I have been doing is holding up a mirror to reflect, to show, the history of unspeakable crimes that his race has committed against my race.

Chris Craig, Agawam, Mass.

Image from SocialistWorker.org

My memories sold

IN RESPONSE to "They auctioned away my memories": I understand exactly how you feel. My job moved me to Missouri in 2005, and six months later, I was laid off. I had to put everything in storage and move back home to Minnesota.

The people at the storage facility knew my situation and promised that if anything were to happen, they would at least hold the boxes containing all my personal information and, most importantly, all my pictures. When I was not able to find a job, I fell behind on my payments, and they sold everything.

When I called the storage facility, the woman in charge yelled at me and said, "I don't know why people put things like that in storage," and she refused to give me any information on the buyers. It's been almost nine years, and I still cry when I think about my pictures, because they were my memories.

I refuse to watch the show Storage Wars because I think it's so hurtful for someone to buy someone else's memories and throw them away like they're trash. In my heart, I hope that whoever bought my unit saved my few personal belongings and someday, somehow, they will find me and return them to me. I know it's kind of ridiculous, but I would give anything to have them back.
Christie, Minneapolis, Minn.

Readers’ Views

SocialistWorker.org welcomes our readers' contributions to discussion and debate about articles we've published and questions facing the left. Opinions expressed in these contributions don't necessarily reflect those of SW.

What's not on the ballot

IN RESPONSE to "What divides Black America?":After recalling Ice Cube's "Endangered Species" and trying to get my head around all this, "What divides Black America?" is the best thing I've read on Ferguson.

I especially appreciate this: "Voting is not unimportant, but the idea that we will simply vote our way out of the crisis that has exploded in Ferguson and threatens to detonate in every U.S. city is naive or specious. That which would protect the health and safety of Black communities--a fully funded public sector, an end to police brutality, living-wage jobs with health insurance--is almost never on the ballot."

I would say the same about our crisis in the labor movement. Today, leaders in the labor and the Black movements only have hollow words that further push the anger of the ranks toward disenfranchisement and sometimes outright hostility toward politics.
James York, from the Internet

What feminism adds to Marxism

IN RESPONSE to "Marxism and feminism are incompatible": Even though it wasn't probably the intention of the author, I was struck by the dismissive tone regarding the key issues of women and reproductive rights. As a Marxist-feminist, I have also encountered this same line of thinking before, from Marxist men and some women, too.

Unless I missed something, women still bear the majority of responsibility for child care, caregiving in general and household management, often while working full time (the "second shift," a concept, by the way, conceptualized by Marxist/socialist feminists). Additionally, women make up the majority of minimum-wage workers, a key issue of crisis proportions facing the working class as a whole. The cuts to social safety net programs and public-sector employment rights also impact more women than men, though men are certainly harmed by these same policies. That's just reality, brought to us by capitalism.

Of course, mainstream feminism can be overwhelmingly right wing, especially the power feminist trope of "If Hillary Clinton can make it, so can anyone." I'm talking, instead, about socialist-feminism, which acknowledges the same tenets of Marxism, and acknowledges that all women are not facing the same situations when it comes to class struggle.

But if we are going to envision a Marxist society, we have to be able to articulate specifically how capitalism has created and shaped the nuclear family, and the central place of reproductive rights. Because women bear the consequences of reproduction (literally, unless men can now get pregnant), they have to be able to talk openly about issues of key importance to the working class, i.e. "women's issues." That doesn't mean men can't enter into the conversation.

I just don't see how focusing on abortion rights, contraception, rape and child care is somehow "taking away from" the class struggle. It is the class struggle, and these key issues have to be articulated, because we are still under capitalist rule. We can't just lump these issues in with other ones and call it a day. I just wonder why anytime women start to talk about uncomfortable topics, these topics are rhetorically rendered "secondary" to "more important" things like war, the economy, etc. Why not go into detail?

By the way, Marxist-feminism isn't overtly rejected, as the author implies. It is a vibrant movement with excellent writing addressing the needs of the working class.
Faith Agostinone Wilson, Waukegan, Ill.

Tech and the proletariat

I USED to work as a software engineer for an e-commerce giant until I decided it wasn't right for me. My brother recently shared "What does tech mean for the left?" with me. While I appreciate many of the viewpoints, it doesn't address enough of the long-term ramifications technology will have for the working class.

It was a good read, and I agree with some of the concerns it raises. For instance, the tech industry certainly does tend toward libertarian ideals. Consider how online transactions often bypass sales tax. Our laws can't keep up with the breakneck pace of technical innovation and too often laws favor present motives of the few rather than considering the long-term implications to everyone.

Several main arguments miss the mark. The article doesn't effectively capture the long-term risks of stratification between tech workers and the conventional proletariat.

The author writes, "[W]e should avoid letting the digitization of work be confused with the end of the traditional working class."

The author backs up this point by referring to "service-sector workers, and transportation and logistics workers form[ing] an important basis for workplace organization" and manufacturing operations like Foxconn City.

All this tells us is that the tech industry hasn't yet eliminated the proletariat and that the tech industry currently spurns economic demand for low-wage manufacturing by humans. The trouble is these sectors can and almost certainly will be automated eventually. Granted, in any cases where automation fails to take hold, Foxconn is probably an accurate model.

The next obvious question is whether the tech industry will create as many jobs as it takes away, particularly with the same earning potential for most displaced workers. I'm skeptical. CGP Grey recently expressed his concerns about this in "Humans Need Not Apply," and I agree with most of his points.

Boyette also writes, "[I]t should be clear that tech workers aren't a new vanguard from an inherently more progressive industry."

But it is a progressive industry in the sense that, for better or worse, it's dramatically changing everyone's day-to-day lives and will continue to do so for a long time. It's myopic to ignore how technology keeps growing at exponential rates and in turn affects us all.

Rather than address whether/when socialists ought to adopt tech workers and encourage them to unionize, it's more pertinent to ask how the proletariat will cope with the inevitable innovation/automation all the things. Significant changes are looming because of the plentiful opportunities for cost reducing and convenience innovation.

If you're interested in this kind of thing I recommend reading about the technological singularity. I also recommend watching Plug & Pray, a film about an MIT professor and computer scientist who morally objected to AI and machine-learning research. As far as I know, he was the only researcher to gain such deep insight and vocally raise his concerns to the research community at large.

We ought to consider where this automation/communication revolution can take us, and do so before the tech moguls lobby the government to support their latest agendas. In fact, we should beat them to the punch and enact laws now that will protect our well being in the future.
Jake Mitchell, Seattle