The accusation of 'class reductionism' has become prevalent within the left in recent years. A case in point was the attack on Adolph Reed Jr., which led to the cancellation of a speech hosted by the NY DSA in June 2020, amidst the heated atmosphere in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.
In their defense, Reed Jr. and others argued that the priority of ‘class‘ does not preclude the awareness of other social injustices. No reputable voices on the left, Reed Jr. contends, ‘seriously argue that racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia are not attitudes and ideologies that exist and cause harm.‘[1] And in Third Rail, we read that '[few] on the left believe "only class matters."[2] In sum, the accusation of ‘class reductionism’ is, as it were, a ‘myth’.
Except that it isn’t. Class reductionism, or the reduction of life under capitalist conditions to a specific social relation, is not a myth – it is extraordinarily real. But not in the way the participants of this debate imagine. In fact, what is at work is a deep misrecognition of the conceptual stakes involved.
I argue that the accusation of ‘class reductionism’ conflates different levels of cognition: for the reduction to ‘class’ is not a ‘theoretical construct’ in the mind of some people - it is a real abstraction. In the words of Frankfurt School philosopher Alfred Schmidt: ‘The one-sidedness idealistically lamented as “economism” ... is an abstraction not performed by the theorist, but by social reality.’[3]
Asad Haider’s recent response to Adolph Reed Jr.[4] provides a useful template by which to address this conflation – and its consequences for a critique of capitalist relations of production.
The view of ‘class reductionism’ not as a theoretical, as a really existing abstraction helps to understand two things: first, why the social relation of class is not only primary with regard to the objective determinants of life under capital, but also why human life is factually reduced to its class position. Second, only the notion of class, or which is the same, the relation between wage labor and capital, adequately addresses the mechanism of capitalist society as such. This also implies that the notions of race and gender are inadequate in doing so. But, more importantly, it implies that the ‘Trinity Formula’ of ‘race, class, and gender’, instead of clarifying social relations under the capitalist mode of production, mystify them, as I will show. This is not only because, unlike racism, sexism, and homophobia, wage labor is not a resentment or a prejudice. One cannot get rid of wage labor through better education or awareness trainings. It is, rather, because wage labor is the objective sine qua non of a social relation, which makes the production of surplus value and profit - ‘abstract wealth’ - its only objective. While under hyper-competitive markets today, there is almost no national economy able to compete without the influx of cheap immigrant labor, it would be odd to argue that racism were its motive. It is true that capitalists take advantage of immigrants lacking bargaining power in the global stratification of labor, and that racist sentiments come into effect to be productively used by capitalists to undermine the common interests of workers. The motive for such a move, however, is profit. That is why we can imagine a relatively ‘ethnically homogeneous’ capitalism – for example in Manchester’s spinning mills in the early 19th century, China’s techno-industry, or Japan’s notoriously immigrant-averse large scale industry. But we cannot imagine capitalism without wage labor.
This view is arguably shared by Haider. Yet, unlike Reed, he refrains from viewing class as ‘a stable vantage point’. To the contrary: Haider announces that Reed, by prioritizing class, undertakes a ‘departure from important insights of Marxist economic analysis’. As we will see, it is Haider who fails to theorize the specific insights of Marx’s theory of class, which in turn makes him blind to the problem of real abstraction. I will therefore, first, sketch out why and how the reduction to class in living humans specifically comes to exist in capitalist social relations. In the second part, we will take a closer look at Haider’s failure to put forward an adequate theory of class and exploitation, which leaves him with an appeal to pluralistic democratic struggles that remain within the capitalist paradigm.
A ‘stable vantage point’
How do we know that our view of capitalism assumes a ‘stable’ vantage point? If we can show that it is not only indispensable for capitalism’s functioning, but that it also presents its differentia specifica, both logically and historically. To understand how the reduction to class takes place through real abstraction therefore, we need to take a closer look at the ‘glue’ that holds capitalism together as a historically specific social formation.
The primary mode by which capitalist society gains both a relation to and an expression of itself is through the mode of quantification. This can be shown both logically as well as historically. Let us first review the logical aspect of quantification. That quantification takes hold of almost every aspect of human life is almost self-evident –our daily lives would look very different if we didn’t have to work a specific length of time for a specific amount of money to be able to buy groceries and pay a rent. But even the shoes we buy and the housing we enjoy find their qualitative aspect expressed only quantitatively – namely through their monetary equivalent: in order to be able to enjoy them, I must pay a certain amount of money. I cannot immediately enjoy the comfortable trainers spotted in the shop window. The conditions of our reproduction therefore hinge on their monetaryquantification. There is no other way that we can reproduce our daily lives. In sum – capitalism does not produce for the sake of consumption or demand, it produces for a moneyed demand. That capitalism is based on monetary exchange is not an accidental feature: the aim of capitalist production is never use value or the satisfaction of needs. Its aim is profit.
The logical origin of quantification however is not the grocery store or the online shop. It is the ‘hidden abode of production’, or rather the moment wage workers enter into a contract with their employer. Through the capitalist’s purchase of labor power as a commodity, put ‘in use’ for a certain duration of time by the worker, something strange happens: the working day becomes quantitatively divided into ‘necessary’ and ‘surplus’ labor. But this division is not imposed by the capitalist – it is a social constraint imposed by the law of value. For the law of value, without which capitalism wouldn’t exist, demands the production of units of value – commodities – in ‘socially necessary labor time’. Only if a commodity is produced in this exact amount of time, it has value. If it doesn’t, it has been overproduced or underproduced, and it won’t find a buyer on the market. The despotic rule of time becomes the real measure of value – the basic and general quantification everyone is subject to.
But how does the reduction to class take place in the concrete lives of people? Let us briefly return to the division of the working day in ‘necessary’ and ‘surplus’ labor. The worker does not only produce commodities for the capitalist, she produces an equivalent of the sum of money she will receive as a monetary wage. She has therefore not only quantified time into ‘socially necessary’ units, she has quantified herself, by quantifying the conditions of her reproduction – or simply, her life. But money is quantified time: it requires the reproduction of the monetary equivalent of the items on her shopping list in a specific amount of ‘socially necessary’ labor time – for labor power, like every other commodity, must obey the law of value. However, this reproduction of the monetary equivalent only represents the necessary part of the working day, what she and her family need to go on living. The capitalist however makes her work over and above the length of time she needs to reproduce herself, for his existence equally depends on it. And it is this quantitative difference in time – the difference between necessary labor time (the wage) and surplus labor time (surplus value – capital – profit) that presents the single logical mechanism by which capital sustains itself. With that logic, the bigger the difference between the two parts of the working day – or rather, the smaller the part of the necessary, and the bigger the part of the ‘surplus’ labor day – the better for gains in the general competition for profits. The quantitative difference between necessary and surplus labor, measured in time, and with it, the quantification of the laborer, is the conditio sine qua non to class exploitation, and with it, capitalism. It is in this sense that this ‘quantifying abstraction’ becomes the condition of human life in capitalist social relations. And because reproduction everywhere has this capitalist form, no living human, whether wage worker or not, is exempt from it.
But the class relation where this really existing reduction is generated also has a history. Marx describes the history of valorisation as the history of the separation of the direct producers of the means of production in early 15th century England, and, with it, the emergence of a new classrelation. For only the relation between wage laborers and capitalists – i.e. exploitation guaranteed by the formally equal labor contract – renders surplus value possible. Without surplus value, there would not be no value. And without value, labor materializing itself in commodities – in that sense, commodities, like money, are quantified time - there would be no capitalism as an objective social formation.
Exploitation, in contrast to slavery and other racial forms of oppression, is therefore impersonal: it is guaranteed by the expenditure of labor power in the production process. It requires no personal coercion, only the coercion of the market. ‘Race’ possesses none such semantic function, however. As with religion explaining oppression, but not the economic function that makes religion its ‘apparent form’, ‘race’ (and ‘gender’) assume the function of an idealist obfuscation. Race, therefore, is not only not objectively real, as the social constructivists correctly argue – it is a mystification, and a reactionary one at that, for it delivers a template to sow division and to divert attention away from the essence towards the forms of appearance, or ‘fetishes’, of capitalism.
At this point, the argument returns to the analysis of antiracism as a tool of neoliberalism, the political ideology of late capitalism, which both Reed Jr and others have time and again insisted on. Let us move to Haider’s arguments in rejection of this view.
Class Cancelled?
In his appeal for cross-class democratic struggles, Haider argues that both the ‘class’ and the ‘race reductionism’ argument ‘go nowhere’, for they underestimate the importance of positive change both worker alliances and antiracists helped implement politically and socially. Because his target is ultimately Reed, however, he stresses that, just in the way some antiracist ‘woke’ tokenizing may fuel an elite discourse, the celebration of ‘essential workers’ (e.g., during the pandemic) does not imply that their ‘demands and struggles’ were accomplice to capitalism. And here, Haider puts forward a specific view – not of class, which Haider nowhere defines – but of class struggle that is quite incompatible with Marx’s insights into the confrontation between labor and capital. In an astounding argumentative move, Haider aims to discharge the critique of antiracism as
‘strengthening capital’ by maintaining that the class struggle does very much do the same – namely, in fact, strengthen capital:
‘… class struggles which improve workers’ conditions can actually strengthen capitalism, because they can upgrade the effectiveness of labor power, and because workers are the largest class of consumers.’ Let it just be reminded that, for Marx, the point of effective reproduction is its monetary form, expressed in profits, not in a ‘satisfied consumer class’. But by emphasizing that class struggle could positively contribute to living standards by making both capital and labor benefit from each other in harmonious collaboration, Haider ‘preemptively’ rejects critiques of antiracism who argue that the problem associated with it is the perpetuation of capitalist social relations. Bizarrely, Haider declares capitalist progress, i.e. the development of the forces of production, a desirable phenomenon. This is not because, as one may assume, his advocacy of theories of capitalist collapse related to a tendential fall of the profit rate (a collapse that is apocalyptic and savage), for Haider believes that, with progress, workers ‘benefit from the growth of productivity.’ This is rather because Haider thinks that capital will somehow, and only he knows how, perish from progressive social changes: ‘From this perspective, the idea that antiracism strengthens capital is somewhat beside the point, to the extent that forcing capitalism to make these self-strengthening progressive changes is an inevitable part of the struggle to ultimately transcend capitalism.’ From a Marxian standpoint, this is nonsense: progressive changes for capital are at no point progressive changes for workers. The worker confronts capital as a source of value. It is precisely because living labor is never fully paid that capitalists can make a profit. The interests of workers (higher wages) are directly opposed to the interests of capitalists, because they threaten profit margins. But because Haider fails to conceptualize the specifics of class exploitation and the drive to valorization that lowers the value of labor power in favor of the ‘surplus’ part of the working day, he cannot make sense of his own reasoning. The strength of capital is measured not in the success of workers, but in the success of undermining workers’ interests. Haider, who has no economic notion of class, which would require insights into the quantification of workers in their sale for a continuously diminishing monetary wage, conflates the interests of capital with workers’ interests. Most importantly, this sleight-of-hand parallelization between the demand of antiracists (the end of racial oppression) and the demand of workers (the end of exploitation, and with it, the end of capitalism) misrecognizes that they do not even share the same object of critique. And yet, for Haider, class must be supplemented with race, the wage struggle with the antiracist struggle, for these progressive changes alone can somehow, though he isn’t himself sure how, ‘transcend capitalism.’ Because Haider, not Reed, departs from Marx’s analysis (and instead assumes the vantage point of a ‘harmony between capital and labour’ put forward by vulgar French economist Frédéric Bastiat), he cannot even formulate the conditions for the ‘transcendence’ of capital.
Of course, antiracism as expressed in the racial disparity discourse does nothing to change the economic situation of non-whites. It does not and cannot decommission their class position. To the contrary: lip-service and empty gesturing function as ‘stand-ins’ for change. In that sense, while ‘establishment Democrats make a show of taking a knee are indications that significant social changes have taken place’, social changes which mysteriously transcend capitalism, according to Haider, are precisely exhausted on the level of awareness. Here is where racialism digresses to an idealist, not materialist, discourse. Yet Haider pledges for scrutiny regarding the ‘underlying property relations of capitalism’, a materialist (and worthwhile) claim. But he cannot redeem the same for race. The materialist analysis, which arguably Haider, a good Althusserian, considers crucial, becomes vague when ‘racial capitalism’ (a term he is quick to denounce) or ‘race’ present the lens of capitalism as an object of critique. Let us conclude by seeing how.
The Limits to ‘Social Constructivism’
‘Social constructs’ such as race and gender do not and cannot deliver an explanatory framework that addresses quantification as the locus of capitalist specificity. This does not mean that there is no capitalist rationale for the existence of racism and sexism. It means, however, that ‘race’ and ‘gender’ do not prove to be adequate explanations for a specific economic constellation, which sustains itself through exploitation. Precisely for this reason, attempts to invoke ‘intersections’ of race, class, and gender fail on account of their own claims: for the mechanism which identifies ‘class’ as the sine qua non of capitalist accumulation cannot be equally applied to ‘race’ and ‘gender’. The ‘Trinity Formula’ of race, class, and gender therefore (similar to Adam Smith’s dogma of land, capital, and labor equally presenting the ‘three sources of wealth’) does not only operate on different levels of abstraction, but their conflation mystifies the exact process by which everyone, regardless of their ‘ethnicity’, becomes subject to the law of value. Let us review this mystification, or bad reasoning, in some detail.
When Reed, according to Haider, posits ‘class politics as a self-sufficient alternative to antiracism, it flattens the real contradictions and challenges of class organization.‘ What does the ‘flattening‘ - another term for ‘reducing’ - consist in, and how can it be avoided? What are the ‘real contradictions and challenges‘ to class organization – except, e.g., the insistence on different racial sensibilities or experiences, which generate yet another set of epistemological problems? Needless to say, we cannot go into historical detail about how racism has gained a material-social existence in the US experience. To throw a light on some inconsistencies in Haider‘s review of ‘race‘ however, let us, at least briefly, question ‘race’ as a meaningful explanatory template.
First of all, Haider correctly sees that ‘if we view discrimination as the result of those conscious ideas [racism] we are presuming what we actually need to explain — that is, we are presuming that people are already divided into “races” and that members of one “race” discriminate against members of another “race.” And yet,‘race’ must be able to explain something about real social conditions in capitalism that ‘class’ cannot. Remember that Haider aims to circumvent the ‘flattening’ allegedly produced by class politics. And here, Haider’s argument becomes somewhat circular. To Haider, ‘material relations’ cause racial discrimination at the level of ideology: ‘However, this conscious prejudice isn’t the cause, but the effect of the material relations which secrete ideology.’ But if these ‘material relations’ are not produced by the capital relation, which class politics – and class politics alone – could address, they must be produced by racism. We have seen that this is illogical, for it posits racism as a motive for the exploitation of wage labor. And yet, we are back with the tautology that racism produces racism. How, then, does Haider explain ‘race’? ‘Race’ is ultimately understood as a construct based on material disparities – but it does itself not have a material reality. Race, according to Haider, is an ‘ideology’. But even if we grant that ‘race’ has a material basis: can the ‘racism-tautology’ be avoided if we replace the biological with a ‘socially constructed’ view of race? In other words: if race is just a social construct, then why insist on its material and social objectivity? The problem seems to be that we are ready to reject a biological (or even ‘cultural’) use of race, but are inviting the same ontologizations through the back door when we insist on its ‘material objectivity’, no matter how ‘socially constructed’ it is. Accordingly, the talk of race as ‘ideology’ becomes disingenuous, because Haider – who wouldn’t call ‘class’ an ideology – treats race as though it were objectively given. And that is quite contrary to his initial claim.
With that in mind, Haider’s contention that Reed ‘runs the risk of a sectarian approach’ is not only a cynical projection, but misrecognises the real abstraction already at work in the notion of class as a general and all-encompassing socially objective framework. Moreover, if we insist on ‘race’ as the explanans for ‘material relations’, we either conflate class with race, or – and this happens much more frequently – we tacitly suspend class for a more salient and conspicuous, ‘obvious’ injustice. We are back with a moralistic and idealist critique of capitalism, something we can be sure Haider would identify as detrimental to ‘the path to liberation’.
Because the ‘reduction’ of individuals to their class position is not performed by the theorist, but by really existing social abstraction, however – a reduction we can identify as such – the crucial condition for worker unity is already fulfilled: the self-sameness of predicament and emancipation that is common to everyone. The mechanism that disarms the reproduction of the capital relation begins with class. There is no objective need for a detour to contesting forms of oppression, no need for ‘discrimination’ in the Kantian sense, no need for a – already neoliberally conceived –‘pluralism’ of demands on the terrain of workers’ struggle. If universal emancipation has any meaning at all, it must be this.
[1] Reed Jr., Adolph, “The Myth of Class Reductionism”, The New Republic, September 25th, 2019. [2] https://thethirdrail.substack.com/p/the-quest-for-the-mythical-class [3] Schmidt, Alfred, 'On the Concept of Cognition in the Critique of Political Economy', in Euchner, Walter and Alfred Schmidt (ed.), The Critique of Political Economy Today. 100 Years of Capital), Europäische Verlagsanstalt 1968, pp. 30-43. [4] See https://asadhaider.substack.com/p/class-cancelled
Excellent article! All of haider’s disingenuous arguments addressed with surgical like incision!
I have a question I'm hoping you can clarify. You've highlighted (in my view, correctly) that exploitation according to Marx's formulation of the labor theory of value is "impersonal" and derives from the requisite of the capitalist mode of production to produce surplus value. However: isn't it the case that in Capital what Marx was characterizing was essentially the "limit case" of a market in which commodities (including labour power) are exchanged at their values (though they need not be)? Marx's point being that (through the mechanism of the fetish character of mone) exploitation occurs even in the case of ostensibly "free and equal exchange"? And so isn't it hence also the case that Marx acknowledges that concrete commodities need not actually be exchanged at their values -- and so is it not also the case that systematic undercompensation of particular class segments can arise in concrete historical cases (e.g. for U.S. blacks) without contravening Marx's analysis?