Marxist Left Review, Winter 2018

Sarah Garnham

Against reductionism: Marxism and oppression

The relationship between oppression and class has always been an important question for Marxists and has been the subject of numerous debates between socialists and among the left more broadly. These debates have primarily focused on racism and sexism. I will continue that focus here, but it is worth bearing in mind that this discussion has implications for many other forms of oppression. In particular it is a discussion that has a bearing on the political approach we take towards struggles against oppression as well as the way such struggles are related to the working class movement.

For many decades identity politics has been the most widely accepted approach to oppression and this has contributed enormously to the idea that oppression and class can be severed from one another. In popular discourse oppression is often understood as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and so on. Discussions of the oppression of the working class are uncommon, despite the fact that it is the largest oppressed group. And for many proponents of identity politics the working class are not only omitted as victims of oppression but are seen as a primary agent in the oppression of women and minorities – thereby obscuring the existence of whole layers of the class who suffer special oppression.

Several useful critiques of identity politics and oppression-first theories exist. Sharon Smith’s 1994 article “Mistaken Identity” is a brilliant and scathing critique of identity politics that explores its conservative conclusions and its origins as an expression of retreat from struggle.^[1] The aim of this article is not to rehash the ground already covered by others; instead it focuses on various erroneous approaches to oppression put forward by theorists within the Marxist tradition. Exploring these positions has become particularly important given the changing landscape around these questions.

In recent years, the validity of the identity politics framework has been somewhat challenged. Around the world the global financial crisis brought class inequality into stark relief and this has led to a renewed interest in class politics. Even many who have formerly embraced identity politics question the wisdom of some of its tenets. In this context, theoretical explanations of oppression that place class as central are being more widely accepted.

But making class central does not automatically make a theory correct. Unfortunately some theorists advocating for a class-based approach not only fail to dispel the assumption that oppression and class are in opposition to one another but, in fact, confer legitimacy on it. These theorists effectively confirm the slur put forward by many liberals in relation to oppression, that Marxism is “class reductionist”.

Reductionism involves over-simplifying complex phenomena, either by discounting contradictory elements of a totality or by collapsing them into other elements without accounting for their specific characteristics.^[2] Class-reductionist perspectives on oppression vary in the ways they do this. The two distinct perspectives that this article focuses on are anti-essentialism and abstract reductionism. Anti-essentialism sees identity as a false construct and an obstruction to the class struggle; while the approach I refer to as abstract reductionism sees oppression as external to the structures and impulses of capitalism. Those within these respective currents disagree on certain points, but both ultimately discount the importance of oppression to capitalism and the importance for Marxists of struggles against oppression.

Their arguments are worth examining in some detail because they can be disorienting for the left. They appear to offer a way out of the dead end that is identity politics and a way back to Marxism, but unfortunately they do neither. The task of this article is to contribute something to an understanding of oppression in opposition to class reductionism and to argue alternatively for a theory of class and oppression that sees them as economically and politically integrated into a unitary totality of capitalism. Such an integrated approach has important implications for the project of revolutionary social transformation.

Identity and anti-essentialism

Identity is not a straightforward concept. The way it is constructed, embodied, performed and politically understood is complex and contested. Marxists have generally recognised that there is nothing trans-historic or permanent about particular categories of identity. This stands counter to an essentialist reading that takes race, gender, nationality and sexuality as given and natural. Identity politics lends itself to such an essentialist reading of identity. It focuses on the readily observable differences between different identity groups and, rather than interrogating the basis of these differences, calls for those who are part of a marginal or oppressed identity group to bind together in pursuit of their shared interests. Even those who put forward more structural analyses and solutions within an identity politics framework, such as patriarchy and whiteness theory, tend to base their analysis on essentialist assumptions. Given the prevailing influence of identity politics, it is unsurprising that dispelling this essentialist notion of identity is a concern for contemporary class-first thinkers. For the anti-essentialists, a group of Marxist academics mainly in the US, it is the key focus.

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