Alright, take the last chapter of the book, where this thesis is most evident. Sakai discusses the tactics and strategy of Black-White alliances, and he mentions the case of the 1890 union United Mine Workers (UMW), where black workers were the majority and white workers conspired against black workers to deprive them of their jobs and power in the unions:
Both Euro-Amerikan and Afrikan miners wanted tactical unity. However, since they had different strategic interests their tactical unity meant different things to each group. The Euro-Amerikan miners wanted tactical unity in order to advance their own narrow economic interests and take away Afrikan jobs.
Sakai shows how over decades, black worker were systematically removed from the UMW over time in several regions. His research is very enlightening indeed. However, his conclusion is as follows:
The entire example of attempted tactical unity shows how strongly the oppressor nation character of both the settler unions and the settler “Left” determines their actions. The settler “Left” tried to reach an opportunistic deal with reactionary labor leaders, hoping that Afrikan workers could be used to pay the price for their alliance.
(…)
So we see that tactical unity is not just some neutral, momentary alliances of convenience. Tactical unity flows out of strategy as well as immediate circumstances. Nor is tactical unity with Euro-American workers simply the non-antagonistic working together of “complementary” but different movements. Even the simplest rank-and-file reform coalition inside a settler union is linked to the strategic conflict of oppressor and oppressed nations.
(…)
What is important about these case histories is that they should push us to think, to question, to closely examine many of the neo-colonial remnants in our minds. “Working class unity” of oppressor and oppressed is both theoretically good, and is immediately practical we are told. It supposedly pays off in higher wages, stronger unions and more organization. But did it? (all emphasis mine)
And, finally:
The thesis we have advanced about the settleristic and non-proletarian nature of the U.S. oppressor nation is a historic truth, and thereby a key to leading the concrete struggles of today. Self-reliance and building mass institutions and movements of a specific national character, under the leadership of a communist party, are absolute necessities for the oppressed. Without these there can be no national liberation. This thesis is not “anti-white” or “racialist” or “narrow nationalism.” Rather, it is the advocates of oppressor nation hegemony over all struggles of the masses that are promoting the narrowest of nationalisms - that of the U.S. settler nation. (my emphasis)
It’s been a while since I’ve read Sakai, and I should note that I haven’t read the work in full, but having read through most of it, I don’t recall Sakai ever mentioning his definition of “nation”, which he uses continuously throughout the whole book. I may have missed it in a single chapter, since I tend to read books non-linearly. To avoid any mistake on my part, I will make my definition of nation very clear, based on the outstanding Stalin work on it.
A nation is a stable community of people which shares:
A common language, but not necessarily a single language;
A common territory;
A common economic life, a cohesive economic bond;
A common culture;
Stalin attributes the term “nation” to the synthesis of these multiple determinations. Since Stalin, this remains as the most comprehensive Marxist theory of the nation and the national question. This is a far cry from the indiscriminate use of the term “nation” by Sakai. But you can deduct what Sakai treats as “nation” by the previous passages I mentioned here.
There is one thing that Sakai largely neglects and even ignore. Which is the question of ideology. Sakai treats white supremacist ideology and white labor as one and the same manifested as the “Euro-Amerikan nation”. As an analogy, it’s as if you looked at patriarchy and treated it as an aspect of the “Male-Patriarchal nation.” If we consider the Marxist understanding of the nation, we can easily notice how the “Afrikan” and “Euro-Amerikan” nations have in common a language, territory, economic life and culture, perhaps with a few particularities on the culture one. But both constitute a single nation according to Marxist theory of the nation, especially because of the shared economic life.
One thing produced in Alabama is necessary to produce something else in Ohio, which is the essential part of a commodity assembled in California to be sold in the whole US (abstract example). The US is an integrated and indivisible whole, like every nation. Besides the national question, Sakai promotes the idea of “national liberation” of the “Afrikan nation.” Taking that into consideration, what is the common territory and economic life of this “Afrikan nation” that is distinguished from the “Euro-Amerikan nation” so that the “Afrikan nation” can achieve its liberation? The more you question it, the less sense it makes.
Then in the last paragraph, Sakai advocates that considering all of that, white people cannot constitute a proletarian class. This is outright anti-Marxism, because be it a black person or a white-supremacist racist piece of shit, it doesn’t change the relations of production. It doesn’t change the fact that both are exploited, albeit certainly under different degrees, and the majority of blacks and whites do not own the means of production. It doesn’t change the fact that there are also black exploiters, like Beyoncé with her Ivy Park fashion sweatshop in Sri Lanka paying $6 a day to produce clothing sold for more than $200. Or black agents of imperialism like Obama, Kamala Harris, and so on.
Now, to answer your comment:
Looks like someone forgot to read the book.
Did you read the book? Check out this passage, from chapter 4. It makes more evident how Sakai treats white supremacist ideology with white labor as one and the same:
What was the essence of the ideology of white labor? Petit-bourgeois annexationism. (…) The ideology of white labor held that as loyal citizens of the Empire even wage-slaves had a right to special privileges (such as “white man’s wages”), beginning with the right to monopolize the labor market.
(…)
Since the ideology of white labor was annexationist and predatory, it was of necessity also rabidly pro-Empire and, despite angry outbursts, fundamentally servile towards the bourgeoisie.
How can someone read those excerpts and not see from a mile away the intrinsic race essentialism? It’s very clear throughout the whole book how Sakai treats white workers as inherently racist, as if the racist elements weren’t conditioned by racist ideology. In the same manner how through agitation and propaganda they can adopt a different viewpoint if an ideological force is strong enough to fight it. This is why I keep mentioning the Rainbow Coalition, which Sakai doesn’t address at all, in fact the Black Panther Party is not mentioned a single time by Sakai, even though it was an extremely influent party, even after it was disbanded, and even at the time Sakai wrote the book.
The Rainbow Coalition was a successful example of racial solidarity among different ethnic groups, and avoided the co-optation of leadership by poor whites, and was only ended by the assassination of Hampton. It was so successful and threatening to white supremacist ideology that the FBI planned and executed the assassination of Hampton in the matter of 8 months after the Rainbow Coalition was founded.
Sakai does define the nation by emphasizing that the Afrikan nation, and others, have their own internal workerings for sustaining themselves. Enslaved people had their own internal economy as did the Indigenous nations. This is seperate from the greater settler empire although it is exploited not unlike how peasant economies provide food for metropolitan centers in the periphery.
Taking that into consideration, what is the common territory and economic life of this “Afrikan nation” that is distinguished from the “Euro-Amerikan nation” so that the “Afrikan nation” can achieve its liberation? The more you question it, the less sense it makes.
I like this question because of its difficulty, but the difficulty is moving forward with the national question instead of accepting that there is a Black nation. If you kidnapped millions of people with completely different languages and lifeways, and then tried to systematically eradicate their languages and cultural bonds to ensure servitude, would you have added to your nation? Or would you just have slaves? I dont think it actually works to use the national question to justify settler colonial nationhood here when the entire “national” situation was currated out of violence instead of a sovereign melding of national bonds. Rather the sovereign formation of nationhood within the Black nation as well as many Tribal confederations was forged through surviving colonialism, not through integration and assimilation.
If we consider the Marxist understanding of the nation, we can easily notice how the “Afrikan” and “Euro-Amerikan” nations have in common a language, territory, economic life and culture, perhaps with a few particularities on the culture one. But both constitute a single nation according to Marxist theory of the nation, especially because of the shared economic life.
II feel like what you are saying is that because someone’s language was stolen or murdered, that said group of people must now admit they are part of the colonizer nation. Also, “shared economic life” is another white washing of the reality, because slaves and Indigenous people were not even seen as humans for a chunk of history, were legally barred from entire portions of the economy, and have only ever been included among the settler nation for completely cyinical, racist political reasons. I dont think you are properly applying Stalin’s ideas of nation.
It’s very clear throughout the whole book how Sakai treats white workers as inherently racist, as if the racist elements weren’t conditioned by racist ideology.
Racism and bigotry are not merely ideological. They are expressions of class society and shared economic interests. White people are by definition inherently racist. This is only a problem if you moralize racism as a personal failing and assume it is merely and only conditioning instead of a material expression of colonial hierarchies and economic interests within class society. Sure conditioning exists too, but it is preceded by colonial, capitalist social relations. White people do not cease to be racist upon realizing that racism is mean or upon breaking conditioning, they cease to be racist when the racist system is dismantled and those social relations are impossible.
Then in the last paragraph, Sakai advocates that considering all of that, white people cannot constitute a proletarian class. This is outright anti-Marxism, because be it a black person or a white-supremacist racist piece of shit, it doesn’t change the relations of production.
Its not anti marxism and the relations kf production are different. Allow me to explain by pointing to China for a moment. I will use ideas from Roland Boer’s book Socialism With Chinese Characteristics: A Guid For Westerners, especially chapter 4.
Western marxists oftentimes get China wrong because they assume a universal mode of class formation; very basically, that the bourgeoisie developed in the cracks between fiefdoms, won many revolutions against aristocracy, and of course a proletariat, a class that has revolutionary potential due to the internal condradictions of capitalism developed alongside.
But the Chinese revolution took place before a bourgeoisie class ever established a dictatorship and did not develop in a way like Europe. In fact, the “bourgeoisie” in China was developed under the guidance of the CPC, owing much of its place in the world to proletarian revolution and proceeding politics. This is why China has no proper class of bourgeoisie, despite a casual observer raising alarm over an increasing number of wealthy entrepreneurs and despite such developments being reminiscent of class formation in western Europe. The bourgeoisie in China lacks the class consciousness of a traditional bourgeoisie, which makes it qualitatively different thatn that of the western, colonial bourgeoisie.
In Amerika perhaps we can say the same thing about the settler proletariat as we can about the Chinese bourgeoisie. It lacks a traditional class consciousness, which oight to be an inherently revolutionary class consciousness. This is because of its social relations to production, wealth, land ect etc. It is a colonial relation, an exploitative relation that also fundamentally alters its relation with the settler bourgeoisie. Just as the Chinese “bourgeoisie” is dependent upon the liberation of the means of production and a project for socialist construction led by the CPC, the settler “proletariat” is dependent upon colonial spoils and a colonial project led by the bourgeoisie and their political institutions. This fundamentally alters class antagonisms and relations to production.
How can you say a class of working settlers that are routinely given incredibly cheap stolen land and relatively high wages has the same relationship to production as a slave? Even white slaves, indentured servants, typically recieved land within a few years after their servitude, as wages were higher because of slavery and genocide than back in Europe, and they were granted the right to, ya know, not be enslaved for their entire lives and the right to own property. That is a massive difference in relations to production.
The Rainbow Coalition was a successful example of racial solidarity among different ethnic groups, and avoided the co-optation of leadership by poor whites, and was only ended by the assassination of Hampton. It was so successful and threatening to white supremacist ideology that the FBI planned and executed the assassination of Hampton in the matter of 8 months after the Rainbow Coalition was founded
I dont disagree that the rainbow coalition was a productive thing. I couldn’t tell you exactly why it isnt mentioned. There certainly is literature that sheds light on how wealthy whites perceive poor whites that makes points that are relevant to the discussion of colonial class society and could have been included in the book (although this relationship is still qualitatively different that the relationship between colonizer and colonized). But maybe the book isnt really about that as much as it is about how the history of settler-colonialism has benifited white people, even workers, at the expense of and the exploitation of the colonized.
Thank you for the breakdown and answer. Considering what you wrote, I acknowledge my reasoning was flawed in some parts. I will highlight the most important part of your comment:
But the Chinese revolution took place before a bourgeoisie class ever established a dictatorship and did not develop in a way like Europe. In fact, the “bourgeoisie” in China was developed under the guidance of the CPC, owing much of its place in the world to proletarian revolution and proceeding politics. This is why China has no proper class of bourgeoisie, despite a casual observer raising alarm over an increasing number of wealthy entrepreneurs and despite such developments being reminiscent of class formation in western Europe. The bourgeoisie in China lacks the class consciousness of a traditional bourgeoisie, which makes it qualitatively different that that of the western, colonial bourgeoisie.
That example was wonderful, and it really makes sense in the case of the Statesian white proletariat. I admit that I downplayed the importance of the historical development of the US white working class, which Settlers breaks down thoroughly. I didn’t fully understood that point until you gave me this example, so thank you for that.
Alright, take the last chapter of the book, where this thesis is most evident. Sakai discusses the tactics and strategy of Black-White alliances, and he mentions the case of the 1890 union United Mine Workers (UMW), where black workers were the majority and white workers conspired against black workers to deprive them of their jobs and power in the unions:
Sakai shows how over decades, black worker were systematically removed from the UMW over time in several regions. His research is very enlightening indeed. However, his conclusion is as follows:
And, finally:
It’s been a while since I’ve read Sakai, and I should note that I haven’t read the work in full, but having read through most of it, I don’t recall Sakai ever mentioning his definition of “nation”, which he uses continuously throughout the whole book. I may have missed it in a single chapter, since I tend to read books non-linearly. To avoid any mistake on my part, I will make my definition of nation very clear, based on the outstanding Stalin work on it.
A nation is a stable community of people which shares:
Stalin attributes the term “nation” to the synthesis of these multiple determinations. Since Stalin, this remains as the most comprehensive Marxist theory of the nation and the national question. This is a far cry from the indiscriminate use of the term “nation” by Sakai. But you can deduct what Sakai treats as “nation” by the previous passages I mentioned here.
There is one thing that Sakai largely neglects and even ignore. Which is the question of ideology. Sakai treats white supremacist ideology and white labor as one and the same manifested as the “Euro-Amerikan nation”. As an analogy, it’s as if you looked at patriarchy and treated it as an aspect of the “Male-Patriarchal nation.” If we consider the Marxist understanding of the nation, we can easily notice how the “Afrikan” and “Euro-Amerikan” nations have in common a language, territory, economic life and culture, perhaps with a few particularities on the culture one. But both constitute a single nation according to Marxist theory of the nation, especially because of the shared economic life.
One thing produced in Alabama is necessary to produce something else in Ohio, which is the essential part of a commodity assembled in California to be sold in the whole US (abstract example). The US is an integrated and indivisible whole, like every nation. Besides the national question, Sakai promotes the idea of “national liberation” of the “Afrikan nation.” Taking that into consideration, what is the common territory and economic life of this “Afrikan nation” that is distinguished from the “Euro-Amerikan nation” so that the “Afrikan nation” can achieve its liberation? The more you question it, the less sense it makes.
Then in the last paragraph, Sakai advocates that considering all of that, white people cannot constitute a proletarian class. This is outright anti-Marxism, because be it a black person or a white-supremacist racist piece of shit, it doesn’t change the relations of production. It doesn’t change the fact that both are exploited, albeit certainly under different degrees, and the majority of blacks and whites do not own the means of production. It doesn’t change the fact that there are also black exploiters, like Beyoncé with her Ivy Park fashion sweatshop in Sri Lanka paying $6 a day to produce clothing sold for more than $200. Or black agents of imperialism like Obama, Kamala Harris, and so on.
Now, to answer your comment:
Did you read the book? Check out this passage, from chapter 4. It makes more evident how Sakai treats white supremacist ideology with white labor as one and the same:
How can someone read those excerpts and not see from a mile away the intrinsic race essentialism? It’s very clear throughout the whole book how Sakai treats white workers as inherently racist, as if the racist elements weren’t conditioned by racist ideology. In the same manner how through agitation and propaganda they can adopt a different viewpoint if an ideological force is strong enough to fight it. This is why I keep mentioning the Rainbow Coalition, which Sakai doesn’t address at all, in fact the Black Panther Party is not mentioned a single time by Sakai, even though it was an extremely influent party, even after it was disbanded, and even at the time Sakai wrote the book.
The Rainbow Coalition was a successful example of racial solidarity among different ethnic groups, and avoided the co-optation of leadership by poor whites, and was only ended by the assassination of Hampton. It was so successful and threatening to white supremacist ideology that the FBI planned and executed the assassination of Hampton in the matter of 8 months after the Rainbow Coalition was founded.
Sakai does define the nation by emphasizing that the Afrikan nation, and others, have their own internal workerings for sustaining themselves. Enslaved people had their own internal economy as did the Indigenous nations. This is seperate from the greater settler empire although it is exploited not unlike how peasant economies provide food for metropolitan centers in the periphery.
I like this question because of its difficulty, but the difficulty is moving forward with the national question instead of accepting that there is a Black nation. If you kidnapped millions of people with completely different languages and lifeways, and then tried to systematically eradicate their languages and cultural bonds to ensure servitude, would you have added to your nation? Or would you just have slaves? I dont think it actually works to use the national question to justify settler colonial nationhood here when the entire “national” situation was currated out of violence instead of a sovereign melding of national bonds. Rather the sovereign formation of nationhood within the Black nation as well as many Tribal confederations was forged through surviving colonialism, not through integration and assimilation.
II feel like what you are saying is that because someone’s language was stolen or murdered, that said group of people must now admit they are part of the colonizer nation. Also, “shared economic life” is another white washing of the reality, because slaves and Indigenous people were not even seen as humans for a chunk of history, were legally barred from entire portions of the economy, and have only ever been included among the settler nation for completely cyinical, racist political reasons. I dont think you are properly applying Stalin’s ideas of nation.
Racism and bigotry are not merely ideological. They are expressions of class society and shared economic interests. White people are by definition inherently racist. This is only a problem if you moralize racism as a personal failing and assume it is merely and only conditioning instead of a material expression of colonial hierarchies and economic interests within class society. Sure conditioning exists too, but it is preceded by colonial, capitalist social relations. White people do not cease to be racist upon realizing that racism is mean or upon breaking conditioning, they cease to be racist when the racist system is dismantled and those social relations are impossible.
Its not anti marxism and the relations kf production are different. Allow me to explain by pointing to China for a moment. I will use ideas from Roland Boer’s book Socialism With Chinese Characteristics: A Guid For Westerners, especially chapter 4.
Western marxists oftentimes get China wrong because they assume a universal mode of class formation; very basically, that the bourgeoisie developed in the cracks between fiefdoms, won many revolutions against aristocracy, and of course a proletariat, a class that has revolutionary potential due to the internal condradictions of capitalism developed alongside.
But the Chinese revolution took place before a bourgeoisie class ever established a dictatorship and did not develop in a way like Europe. In fact, the “bourgeoisie” in China was developed under the guidance of the CPC, owing much of its place in the world to proletarian revolution and proceeding politics. This is why China has no proper class of bourgeoisie, despite a casual observer raising alarm over an increasing number of wealthy entrepreneurs and despite such developments being reminiscent of class formation in western Europe. The bourgeoisie in China lacks the class consciousness of a traditional bourgeoisie, which makes it qualitatively different thatn that of the western, colonial bourgeoisie.
In Amerika perhaps we can say the same thing about the settler proletariat as we can about the Chinese bourgeoisie. It lacks a traditional class consciousness, which oight to be an inherently revolutionary class consciousness. This is because of its social relations to production, wealth, land ect etc. It is a colonial relation, an exploitative relation that also fundamentally alters its relation with the settler bourgeoisie. Just as the Chinese “bourgeoisie” is dependent upon the liberation of the means of production and a project for socialist construction led by the CPC, the settler “proletariat” is dependent upon colonial spoils and a colonial project led by the bourgeoisie and their political institutions. This fundamentally alters class antagonisms and relations to production.
How can you say a class of working settlers that are routinely given incredibly cheap stolen land and relatively high wages has the same relationship to production as a slave? Even white slaves, indentured servants, typically recieved land within a few years after their servitude, as wages were higher because of slavery and genocide than back in Europe, and they were granted the right to, ya know, not be enslaved for their entire lives and the right to own property. That is a massive difference in relations to production.
I dont disagree that the rainbow coalition was a productive thing. I couldn’t tell you exactly why it isnt mentioned. There certainly is literature that sheds light on how wealthy whites perceive poor whites that makes points that are relevant to the discussion of colonial class society and could have been included in the book (although this relationship is still qualitatively different that the relationship between colonizer and colonized). But maybe the book isnt really about that as much as it is about how the history of settler-colonialism has benifited white people, even workers, at the expense of and the exploitation of the colonized.
Thank you for the breakdown and answer. Considering what you wrote, I acknowledge my reasoning was flawed in some parts. I will highlight the most important part of your comment:
That example was wonderful, and it really makes sense in the case of the Statesian white proletariat. I admit that I downplayed the importance of the historical development of the US white working class, which Settlers breaks down thoroughly. I didn’t fully understood that point until you gave me this example, so thank you for that.