ALB
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Sorry, LBN, she is not using the word “privilege” in the sense you said it is used in “privilege studies” — to criticise only those who think they are entitled to be privileged.
She is using it to criticise all “whites” (and of course all males too) simply for being privileged.
Listen to what she says:
“My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person,”“I see the desire to keep our image of ourselves ”clean“ as part of white privilege.” [as if all groups didn’t share this desire ?]“The denial of men’s overprivileged state takes many forms.”
So, now all “whites” and all males are overprivileged oppressors !Supposing that this were true, what would it mean? If you are being oppressed, what is your response? Obviously, you struggle against your oppressor and to overthrow their privileges. It’s a recipe for race war and/or sex war.Socialists are opposed to all racism and all sexism but we don’t employ the language of “white privilege” and “male overprivilege”. We want to unite the working class not split it.I don’t suppose anybody in the field of “privilege studies” studies the privileges of those who own and control the means of life and the privileged lifestyle without having to work that this allows them?Thanks. I’ll take up his offer and send something to the Brooklyn Rail. Actually, the disagreement with the original article is essentially only on the one point as to whether or not businesses have the power to increase their prices at will and cause prices generally to rise.
Meanwhile, here’s the opening section of the Party’s Study Guide on Inflation, which explains that not every rise in prices is a case of “inflation” in its strict sense:
“The word inflation has come to be used very loosely in recent years to mean any rise in prices, so that it has in fact almost become a synonym for price increase. Words are of course always changing their meaning in line with changed social practices and ideas. We can’t complain about that. But this particular change reflects an underlying confusion, amongst professional economists and the general public alike, about the cause of the enormous rise in prices that has taken place since the beginning of the last world war.
First, let us distinguish between a rise in the price of a particular Commodity and a rise in the prices of all commodities, between a rise in individual prices and a rise in the general price level. This is not always easy in practice since a rise in the general price level will also of course involve a rise in individual prices. But there is a real distinction here which it is essential to make .
A rise in the general price level can be defined as a rise in the prices of all commodities such that their prices relative to each other remain unchanged. Individual prices, on the other hand, can rise for a number of reasons besides as part of a rise in the general price level. The demand for a commodity night temporarily exceed its supply; monopoly conditions might exist; its cost of production might go up. All these no doubt have operated since the war to cause particular prices to rise at particular times, but then at other times other forces – supply exceeding demand, falling costs, government subsidies – will have worked to reduce particular prices. But in any event none of these could explain a general rise in the prices of all commodities.
What could cause such a rise? Only, it will be argued here, some change in the standard of price, some monetary change. A general rise in prices, or inflation in its strict sense, is a purely monetary phenomenon. Marx was amongst those who recognised this.”
I didn’t mean to say that the term “privilege” was toxic. After all, it appears a couple of times in our declaration of principles. It’s the term “white privilege” even in its narrow academic sense of “white racism” that is.
I see. Having escaped from academia the term “white privilege” has become toxic and applied to all “white” people. If applied in the sense developed in academia it would only apply to those “whites” who felt they were entitled to be treated better than “non-whites” and in fact acted this out. But they already was a perfectly clear term for this — racism. That’s what we are opposed to.
If I have understood you right, LBN, you are pointing out that the researchers who innovated with the meaning of the word “privilege” meant it to be used only with regard to people who felt they were entitled to behave as they did.
Hence your conclusion that, as most “white” people do not think that they are entitled to be treated better than “non-white” people, the term “white privilege” would be being misused if applied to all “whites people”.
But that is precisely how it is being used by those who bandy it about. So we need to oppose them and insist that the term be thrown out as a slur — I was going to say racial slur but then “whites” are not a race.
Yes. He talks a lot of sense;
Dr Ali said: “The problem with focusing on ethnicity as a risk factor is that it misses the very large number of non-ethnic minority groups, so whites basically, who also live in deprived areas and overcrowded housing and with high risk occupations.
He added the whole population should have a “personalised risk assessment” rather than just targeting ethnic groups.
“It doesn’t make sense to put all ethnic minorities in the same basket as it doesn’t make sense to put all whites in the same basket,” he said.
Three very valid points. In fact the whole concept of BAME (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic) is not a biological classification but an absurd political one.
Next somebody is going to talk of “employment privilege” to describe those with a job compared to those without one Or to “public sector privilege” to describe those working there compared with those working in the private sector (the Dailies Mail, Express and Telegraph already do). And many more “privileged” workers will be identified until we sink into the stinking bog of “intersectionality”.
Meanwhile the really privileged in society — those who own and control the means of production — sit back and watch us squabbling over who is the most oppressed (and so needs the most money spent on reforms to benefit them). This is not a question of “identity politics” gone mad but of it being mad from the start.
Yes. The additional point about the Singapore project is that the electrical energy goes to an international grid, as outlined by Pieter Lawrence in the article “Energy supply: a world issue” that appeared in the Winter 1986 issue of the World Socialist (unfortunately none of the seven issues are yet available online).
He quoted from a 1983 book Energy, a guidebook by Janet Ramage:
”How about a world-wide electric grid? It could use underground and ocean floor super conducting cables, and the power would come from solar farms in the world’s major deserts.”
Which is what the Australia to Singapore project is planning.
More non doom and gloom news. The sort of thing that can happen in socialism. I remember an article in the old “World Socialist” magazine we used to produce suggesting this sort of thing (array of solar panels connected to a worldwide electricity grid) using the Sahara desert. Now we have confirmation that it’s not just technologically feasible but practicable too.
https://www.energydigital.com/renewable-energy/australia-power-singapore-worlds-biggest-solar-farm
I can see the point he is trying to make. He is arguing for the absence of any impediment on grounds of skin colour. Obviously we go along with that,in fact proclaim that this one of the things we want ( see clause 4 if our declaration of principles).
But to express this in terms of wanting to get rid of “white privilege” is wholly counterproductive. He says that it is not meant as an insult to “white” people or to make them feel guilty. I think it probably is in many cases and certainly this is how it is, understandably, perceived by all “white” people (except those who do feel guilty).
“Privilege” is considered to be something bad. Thus Clause 6 of our declaration of principles calls for “the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic”. To say that somebody is privileged is to say that they have something they should not have and which should therefore be taken away from them. This is without doubt not at all the intention of that nice man but it’s the language of race conflict. In fact it’s inflammatory.
As socialists we can have nothing to do with the term but must actively combat it and make it a dirty word that should not be used.
The politicians are always saying that we are engaged in a war on Covid-19. In a sense this is true. Certainly there are COVID-war profiteers just as there are ordinary war ones, as George Monbiot exposes in today’s Guardian:
I see from that link that there are also votes on specific propositions, a reminder that some states of the US are more rather than less democratic than in some other countries— in this case allowing as in Switzerland the right of citizens to propose a referendum. California, with a population of some 40 million, is larger than most European states and seems to be up to west European standards when it comes to formal democracy.
That is just another example of how huge is the “democratic deficit” in the USA which means that its government is in no position to lecture other countries for their lack of formal democracy. No wonder they won’t allow foreign observers in to see if elections there are fair,
Marcos has drawn attention to this failure of a trotskyist party — the so-called “Socialist Equality Party” — to get on the ballot paper in California. Apparently, to do that there, you have to collect 200,000 signatures, which the SEP was unable to due to the pandemic.
We know the SEP over here of course. It’s one of the fragments of Gerry Healy’s WRP. When they contest elections they get even less votes than us. Still, they should have the right to stand.
