Class politics vs Identity politics

I believe that capitalism/imperialism needs to be eliminated so economic equality can take root before the finer details of identity equality can be truly addressed.

Not that gender/race issues aren't important, but for example, how can indigenous rights be promoted in a system where suppressing indigenous cultures can make a pretty profit (e.g. land claims, cultural exploitation/hegemony, etc)?

Do you agree with my position?

How would you convince a liberal that class inequality has to be dealt with first (e.g. radicalize them re: class) before identity politics?

This is stupid, it's pretty easy to enforce the golden rule which is what all of this really comes down to is treat people as you would want to be treated.

Redlining

Redlining is the practice of denying, or charging more for, services such as banking, insurance,[2] access to health care,[3] or even supermarkets,[4] or denying jobs to residents in particular, often racially determined,[5] areas. The term "redlining" was coined in the late 1960s by John McKnight, a sociologist and community activist.[6] It refers to the practice of marking a red line on a map to delineate the area where banks would not invest; later the term was applied to discrimination against a particular group of people (usually by race or sex) irrespective of geography.

During the heyday of redlining, the areas most frequently discriminated against were black inner city neighborhoods. For example, in Atlanta in the 1980s, a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles by investigative-reporter Bill Dedman showed that banks would often lend to lower-income whites but not to middle- or upper-income blacks.[7] The use of blacklists is a related mechanism also used by redliners to keep track of groups, areas, and people that the discriminating party feels should be denied business or aid or other transactions. In the academic literature, redlining falls under the broader category of credit rationing.

Reverse redlining occurs when a lender or insurer targets minority consumers, not to deny them loans or insurance, but rather to charge them more than could be charged to a comparable majority consumer whose business is more sought after.[8][9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

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High-risk mortgage loans and lending/borrowing practices[edit]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...age_Offer.jpeg
A mortgage brokerage in the US advertising subprime mortgages in July 2008.

In the years before the crisis, the behavior of lenders changed dramatically. Lenders offered more and more loans to higher-risk borrowers,[6][79] including undocumented immigrants.[80] Lending standards deteriorated particularly between 2004 and 2007, as the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) mortgage market share (i.e. the share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which specialized in conventional, conforming, non-subprime mortgages) declined and private securitizers share grew, rising to more than half of mortgage securitizations.[6]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._1998-2010.GIF
Historically less than 2% of homebuyers lost their homes to foreclosure. But by 2009 over 40% of subprime adjustable rate mortgages were past due. (source: Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, p.217, figure 11.2)

Subprime mortgages grew from 5% of total originations ($35 billion) in 1994,[81][81][82] to 20% ($600 billion) in 2006.[82][83][84] Another indicator of a "classic" boom-bust credit cycle, was a closing in the difference between subprime and prime mortgage interest rates (the "subprime markup") between 2001 and 2007.[85]

In addition to considering higher-risk borrowers, lenders had offered progressively riskier loan options and borrowing incentives. In 2005, the median down payment for first-time home buyers was 2%, with 43% of those buyers making no down payment whatsoever.[86] By comparison, China has down payment requirements that exceed 20%, with higher amounts for non-primary residences.[87]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._fraud.svg.png
Growth in mortgage loan fraud based upon US Department of the Treasury Suspicious Activity Report Analysis.

To produce more mortgages and more securities, mortgage qualification guidelines became progressively looser. First, "stated income, verified assets" (SIVA) loans replaced proof of income with a "statement" of it. Then, "no income, verified assets" (NIVA) loans eliminated proof of employment requirements. Borrowers needed only to show proof of money in their bank accounts. "No Income, No Assets" (NINA) or Ninja loans loans eliminated the need to prove, or even to state any owned assets. All that was required for a mortgage was a credit score.[88]

Mortgage fraud and predatory lending[edit]

"The FBI defines mortgage fraud as 'the intentional misstatement, misrepresentation, or omission by an applicant or other interest parties, relied on by a lender or underwriter to provide funding for, to purchase, or to insure a mortgage loan.'"[117] In 2004, the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned of an "epidemic" in mortgage fraud, an important credit risk of nonprime mortgage lending, which, they said, could lead to "a problem that could have as much impact as the S&L crisis".[118][119][120][121] Despite this, the Bush administration actually prevented states from investigating and prosecuting predatory lenders by invoking a banking law from 1863 "to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative."[122]

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reported in January 2011 that: "... mortgage fraud... flourished in an environment of collapsing lending standards and lax regulation. The number of suspicious activity reports – reports of possible financial crimes filed by depository banks and their affiliates – related to mortgage fraud grew 20-fold between 1996 and 2005 and then more than doubled again between 2005 and 2009. One study places the losses resulting from fraud on mortgage loans made between 2005 and 2007 at $112 billion.

"Predatory lending describes unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent practices of some lenders during the loan origination process."Lenders made loans that they knew borrowers could not afford and that could cause massive losses to investors in mortgage securities."[57]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprim...wing_practices

@OP

Could you be more specific about what you mean by identity politics, because it isn't really clear in the OP. A lot of "gender/race issues" (to use your words) are class issues and should be addressed as such rather than ignored because "after the revolution..."

Well see, that's the thing. Lots of liberals will see these identity politics (e.g. LGBT rights, anti-racism, nationalism, disability rights, No One Is Illegal, anti-war, anti War On Drugs, etc) as just that - issues that affect their self-interest or self-identity. I'm just wondering what some strategies some of you have used to re-frame these issues into class issues, or if this sort of approach is even kosher in the revleft circles.

well they don't see them as class issues that's the problem. Hell even some so called Marxists and Anarchists don't.

As if everything will be fine after the revolution :rolleyes: .

As for Liberals it can be hard to beat any class consciousness into them but i have had some come around to being Communists mainly because they hardly realized what Communism is. As long as capitalist created identity politics divide the working class it makes true revolution impossible. While nationalism, race issues and gender equality may be identity politics they are still a part of class struggle because if we want any chance of having a united working class everyone has to be on the same playing field and having a sort of 2 tiered working class because a certain ethnic group, nationality, etc get's turned down for a job first makes this impossible.

Ridding the Proletariat of those divides is in my opinion one of the first stages of revolution.

Race needs to be looked at similarly. "Whiteness" has been a key part of establishing a bulwark against proletarian revolution in the form of a privileged strata of workers whose (short term) interests are with the capitalists'.

So, what's problematic about this is that it seems to be based in the same problematic notions of liberal "identity" which remain divorced from class understanding.
In other words, your suggestion that some differences can be "put off" while we deal with the question of class shares a lot of assumptions in common with the idea that we can deal with differences (gender, race, etc.) without dealing with class. ie That these things can be neatly teased out.
The reality is different - gender and race are absolutely central, in historical terms, to the lines along which class has been constructed. Women's reproductive and affective labour, for example, is absolutely central to understanding the proletariat - we can't simply put "women's liberation" off until later because "later" will never come without addressing this question.
Race needs to be looked at similarly. "Whiteness" has been a key part of establishing a bulwark against proletarian revolution in the form of a privileged strata of workers whose (short term) interests are with the capitalists'. We can't put anti-racist struggles off because, again, as long as this division remains, "later" will never come.
This is where the line needs to be drawn with liberals - not at "What task comes first?" but deeper at the question of "How, in historical terms, do identities and classes come into being?" This latter question must be answered if we're to even imagine a classless society.

I don't see why we should expect every non-male, non-white, non-heterosexual person in the world to put aside the struggles that they face every day so that those of us who are male, white and straight can lead the world to glorious revolution.

I don't think it is the case that any of class, race, or gender can simply be 'put aside' until after the second coming of christ/the revolution. Revolution is a process, not waking up one day with a red flag flying above the government buildings. That process has to include women, it has to include non-whites and it has to include workers too.

There has to be a class basis to our analysis of race and gender issues (which I think TGDU outlines nicely), but that doesn't mean that our worldview is a reductive one based only on class, with some woolly promise to make blacks and whites play nicely after we've won power. That's just bogus lip-service and it's really disingenuous and shows a lack of empathy with the struggles of non-cisgender people.

Yup, you guys have a very good point. I mean, I realize that revolution is a process. It just seems like a monumental task to tackle class/race/gender/etc all at once.

And I'm not white, btw.

[W]hat matters is the *overall* result, such as what policies are in place, and what kinds of strategies a particular politics might support.

The leftward direction of the political spectrum is always ready to support its own chosen strategies, but the realization of such is usually denied by the relatively-right side of the spectrum which simply 'takes the low road' and compromises potential gains that leftism favors.

I'll be the hard-ass here and point out that you might begin by *not* assuming that everyone here is 'guys'

:rolleyes:

I'll be the hard-ass here and point out that you might begin by *not* assuming that everyone here is 'guys' -- if that *was* an assumption (I don't know, I didn't check everyone's profiles).

Also you're not helping yourself, or the discussion, by self-identifying regarding race -- it's pretty meaningless in cyberspace.

I speak with a Midwestern variety of English! Very difficult to not say "you guys"

I only did so because some of the replies seemed to suggest I was being ethnocentric.

Gah, this is getting complicated.