ABSTRACT
David Harvey’s essay makes practical suggestions on how to organize a post-capitalist transition. While capitalism cannot be the solution to our problems, social critique must also pay attention to the right-wing weaponization of racism to gain political power. When black leaders combined race and class, the American state used repressive means to dismantle black radical organizations. The issue for us today, Harvey argues, is how to productively combine identity and class so that politics not only benefits everyone but benefits the poor majority especially. Since impoverished communities are typically comprised of minorities, only universal rights that emphasize collective needs rather than individual responsibility can address racial and gender disparities. Because no identity group can go it alone, only majority politics can lead to structural change. The de-unionization of labour does not imply that class politics is impossible, only that the working class needs to rally around issues of common concern like rising rents or health care. The future of left struggles, he argues, should be oriented towards the de-commodification of goods and services, as well as the building of solidarities along economic rather than identitarian lines.
