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LUMPENPROLETARIAT—[14 AUG 2020] Perhaps, you’ve noticed how most working class people never quite have enough of the daily necessaries of life. There’s never quite enough money for the bills. There’s always this nagging stress and strain of making ends meet. And, if you’re getting sick of it, then this talk is for you. Let’s tune in and discuss. Shall we?
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“Why You Should Be a Marxist” by Jacobin, 14 AUG 2020.
Tonight we're joined by Paul Heideman, editor of Class Struggle and the Color Line, and frequent Jacobin contributor to explain what being a Marxist means and how it gives us a framework to understand the world that informs socialist politics.
Transcript excerpts by Lumpen Proles…
(c. 46:29) “And, here, I would argue that Marxism is absolutely necessary for, you know—again, just taking the example of racism in the United States, today—Marxism is absolutely necessary for an understanding of what will be necessary to win racial justice in the United States. Because, in the US, today, racial injustice is intertwined with capitalist power, and is reproduced by capitalists exercising their power. Right? When the banks went out and pushed subprime loans in black neighborhoods, they did that because they thought they could turn a profit. They wouldn’t have done that, if they didn’t think they could turn a profit. That’s capitalists exercising their power. And, if we want to stop that kind of plunder, we need to stop capitalists from having that kind of power. Right? If we want to stop environmental racism, we need to limit the ability of capitalists to choose that their gonna dump, you know—like in North Carolina, it’s a huge issue of agricultural capitalists dumping farm pollution into lagoons next to black-owned farms, and things like that. That’s a non-class form of oppression. The people, who are suffering that are disproportionately black. And the capitalists are looking for black neighborhoods, that might be disempowered, as an easy target for this. And we wanna stop it. We have to put fetters on capitalism. We have to enchain capital, and stop capital from having the power to be able to do that.” (c. 47:55)
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[22 FEB 2021]
[Last modified on 22 FEB 2021 at 19:07 PST]
