An Economic Theory of Law Enforcement

By Edward Lawson

Law enforcement is a necessary endeavor in society. Government makes laws, but someone must enforce those laws, through violent coercion if necessary. The American ideal is that the people elect the government and the government serves the people, so naturally the police serve the people as well. However, the actual activities of the police call this normative account into question. I argue that government--the state--serves the will of anonymous, extraordinarily wealthy oligarchs, and it passes laws that benefit them at the expense of the rest of society. In addition, I argue that the police are the primary tool of enforcing compliance with the wishes of oligarchs among society, and that they alter their behavior based on the socioeconomic conditions of the area in which they operate.

The recent deaths of individuals such as Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO and Walter Scott in North Charleston, SC, are only the most recent, high-profile incidents of police acting according to this purpose. Police violence, as well as mass incarceration, maintain a state of fear among the working class, as well as the ongoing division between races within the working class, in order to prevent organization for common cause. Oligarchs--the anonymous, incredibly wealthy individuals who exert disproportionate pressure on the state to do their bidding--use institutions such as the police to hold and expand their power.

Operating behind the state provides oligarchs with a veneer of legitimacy, particularly in a democracy. That legitimacy extends to the police, who have state-sanctioned authority to enforce compliance with the law and punish noncompliance with violence. However, rather than using that authority to benefit society, they use it to oppress the poor and placate the affluent--those who are comparatively wealthy but not oligarchs themselves.

On the Origin of States

Law enforcement organizations are agents of the state, and therefore the goals of the state are also the goals of law enforcement. This connection means that, in order to determine why members of law enforcement behave in certain ways, it is necessary to discuss the purpose of the state first. Fortunately, political theory devotes a great deal of attention to the origin and purpose of states. In all of the various theories on the origin of the state, the state exists as a product of individuals ceding at least some of their rights to a governing body. This body makes laws according to, generally (and idealistically), the will of the population it governs. However, what happens when some members of that population possess influence over the government in excess of others? What happens when a small minority dominate that government, and use it to benefit themselves rather than society?

In essence, this is how Winters (2011) views society, particularly in the United States. He argues that most societies are ruled by oligarchs, and he defines oligarchs as those who control large concentrations of material resources--wealth--and use those resources to defend and increase their wealth and position. Essentially, oligarchs use wealth to protect and improve their dominant position within society.

One purpose of the state is to protect property rights. In a Hobbesian state of nature, those who possess property are under constant threat of its loss to rivals who desire it. Therefore, individuals form states, in part, to legitimize claims of property rights and protect them from others who would try to take property away. The legitimized defense of property rights by the state is what Winters (2011) refers to as property defense, which is the first mechanism of oligarchs' wealth defense. The second, income defense, comes after property is secured. Income defense is the use of wealth to manipulate government into passing laws that protect the income of oligarchs as well as their property, at the expense of other citizens.

Using the mechanisms of wealth defense essentially subordinates the state to the oligarchs. The state, therefore, becomes an agent of oligarchs. The state's purpose is to preserve and promote the oligarch's power at the expense of the rest of the population and using the state as its defender provides a veneer of legitimacy. The oligarchs need the state to support their interests, otherwise they face the threat of losing their property, wealth, and power to an overwhelmingly large number of people who would certainly try to take that property and wealth if it were not protected by the state.

Special Bodies of Armed Men (With a Nod to V.I. Lenin)

How, then, does the state enforce the will of the oligarchs controlling it? If oligarchs are a small minority, how can they force the majority of the population to follow laws they create for the purpose of legitimizing their own wealth and power? What stops the rest of the population from simply destroying them? The answer lies in what Lenin (1918/1972) refers to as special bodies of armed men. In The State and Revolution, Lenin proposes his own theory on the origin of the state which seems closely aligned with that of Winters (2011). Lenin argues that the state is the product of irreconcilable class differences, specifically the conflict between those who own the means of production (the bourgeoisie) and those who produce (the working class).

The state is, therefore, a means for the oppression of one socioeconomic class by another. Oligarchs hoard wealth and use it to increase their power (and wealth) at the expense of the larger society. The rest of society prefers a societal organization that benefits the majority and leads to a more egalitarian distribution of material resources. The solution to this irreconcilable conflict is for the oligarchs to use their wealth and the associated power to construct a state that legitimizes their control of society.

The special bodies of armed men are the tool oligarchs use to enforce compliance with the state (Lenin 1918/1972). Specifically, these bodies are the military and the police. Both of these institutions have state-sanctioned authority to use violence in order to protect the state and force compliance with its laws. However, their domains are separate. The military address foreign threats to the state (and to the wealth and power of the oligarchs controlling it). The police address domestic threats and enforce compliance among citizens (Kraska 2007).

As Lenin (1918/1972) writes, ``A standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power." They are, then, the chief instruments of oligarchical power. The state exists to grant legitimacy to oligarchy and promote the interests of oligarchs. Special bodies of armed men (and women, of course) --the military and the police--exist to promote the interests of oligarchs as well. As agents of the state, they have legitimacy that an armed band of hired mercenaries would not. They have uniforms, rules of engagement, codified laws and policies, etc., to convey legitimacy to the public. But they are still only tools.

Indeed, an armed band of mercenaries, while more directly controllable by oligarchs, would also be counter-productive. As Winters (2011) argues, part of the power of oligarchs is that no one knows who they are. Hiring an armed mercenary group to enforce their will is a highly visible act and also lacks the legitimacy of a state-sponsored police force. The visibility shows the general public who the oligarch is that hired the group. The lack of legitimacy means that the public have much less incentive to comply with the group's instructions. Therefore, though hiring an armed band would give an oligarch more direct control, operating indirectly through control of the state is preferable.

Protect and Serve or Patrol and Control

As this paper discusses law enforcement, I leave the topic of the military to others. I have explained the origin of the state as a means for oligarchy to protect and expand its power, as well as the existence of police as a tool for enforcing the will of oligarchs. The next logical step, then, is to address why some people receive harsher treatment from police than others. If law enforcement organizations exist to enforce the will of the state, which exists to legitimize the will of oligarchs, why is every state not a tyrannical dictatorship? There are several reasons.

One may assume that, for this theoretical framework to hold, then police should be violently oppressing everyone within a society. This is a flawed conclusion. First, citizens who are not wealthy enough to be oligarchs but are what Winters (2011) calls the "merely affluent" have a considerable stake in maintaining the society's respect for property rights and protection of incomes even if they do not exercise control over the state or have as much wealth as the oligarchs who do. These merely affluent citizens are not wealthy enough to exert control over the state, but they are wealthy enough to have lives of relative comfort which they do not want to jeopardize. A regime that oppresses all citizens risks encouraging the affluence of society to pool their resources in order to fight against the oligarchs even with the protection of the state. Those pooled resources, combined with sheer numbers as the lower class joins the effort, have a real chance of overwhelming the oligarchs despite their wealth advantage. In particular, the police and the military may join the side of the oppressed rather than stay with the oppressors, which eliminates the state's means for enforcing the oligarch's will.

The affluent are also much more visible. They are typically community leaders or, at least, respected residents. They know each other. The media recognizes them. A regime that turns oppressive against the affluent also risks exposing the oligarchs to media scrutiny, which could have the effect of rallying the affluent from all of society to a common cause of self-defense.

In addition, the limited wealth of the affluent provide an incentive to not ``rock the boat." Just as the oligarchs want to protect their wealth, so do the affluent even if their wealth is considerably less. Without the pressure of a tyrannical regime, they have little incentive to resist the state and risk losing their relatively comfortable position.

Instead, oligarchs direct the power of the state--and, by extension, the police--against the poor. The poor are more numerous, which by itself presents an increased threat. If the lower class could unite itself against the oligarchs, no amount of material resources could stop them. However, they are less able to organize than the affluent for a few reasons. First, they are much less visible despite their numerical advantage. The poor do not receive much media coverage (except, perhaps, to demonize them) and are not typically well known in a community. Second, those who join the military and police typically come from the poorer sections of society. This means that, essentially, the state can effectively divide much of the lower class against itself. Third, they spend most of their time focusing on meeting basic survival needs and do not have the time or energy to organize themselves as the affluent might. Fourth, in addition to lacking time and energy for organization, they also lack the material resources necessary for mounting a large scale and sustained organizing effort.

This last point is important for another reason: although the poor lack the means to organize, they also have the least to lose from trying. If they manage to overcome the impediments to mounting an organized opposition to the oligarchs, it is likely to be much more radical precisely because they risk so little. As opposed to the affluent, the poor have much less incentive to avoid ``rocking the boat" in order to protect what they have. They have, essentially, nothing, and have nothing to lose if they oppose the oligarchs and fail.

For these reasons, oligarchs are more likely to use state power to oppress the poor and placate the affluent. Police enforce the laws of the state, and the state passes laws to benefit the oligarchs, so the laws of the state and the behavior of the police in enforcing those laws will mirror this purpose. This leads to the dichotomy of protect and serve versus patrol and control.

Protect and serve is the normative idea of policing as experienced by the affluent. The police are public servants. They are trustworthy, kind, friendly, honest, brave, etc. The affluent tell their children that they can always go to a police officer for help. The affluent trust the police to enforce the laws of the state because the laws of the state are designed to maintain their comfortable position. The police protect law and order in society. If a member of the affluent violates the law and pays a fine or goes to prison, it is that person's fault for violating the law, but they can make bail, continue with their lives, and receive a capable defense in a fair trial. The police only enforce law. They do not have much discretion, nor do they allow their own prejudice to alter their behavior. They are Sheriff Andy Taylor in Mayberry.

On the other hand, the poor experience patrol and control. The police are militarized oppressors. They take on the mindset of an occupying army holding down an enemy population. Rather than serving the public, they serve the state and its oppressive controllers. The poor tell their children not to run to the police for help but to avoid them as much as possible. And, if they cannot avoid them, to peacefully and quietly comply with any and all directions in order to avoid jail, assault, or death. The poor fear the police rather than trust them, and they see the laws as a means to facilitate their oppression rather than maintain law and order. Indeed, ``law and order" is just a code phrase for the violent and discriminatory oppression of the poor and minorities. If a poor person violates the law, which they may be forced to do for survival, that person is put in jail where they sit for months, maybe years, because they cannot afford bail. They get an overworked, underpaid public defender in a trial they have no hope of winning before going to prison. After prison, they cannot find a job and will probably have to return to illegal means for survival, which repeats the same process over again. The police have significant discretion to decide how to deal with the public, and they choose to deal with the poor harshly and violently. To the poor, they are Judge Dredd.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have sketched out a theory of law enforcement that explains how police alter their behavior based on the socioeconomic conditions of the people with whom they interact. I began by describing several theories on the origin of states, highlighting the commonalities between them and linking them with a more modern theory of states which formed the foundation of my later discussion. I next explained how special bands of armed men--the military and the police--are tools used by the state to enforce the will of the oligarchs who control it, granting both legitimacy and anonymity to the oligarchs. Finally, I describe why and how police officers provide different treatment to different socioeconomic groups.

This paper is a theoretical work, but it has a great deal of potential empirical purchase. Indeed, research already suggests its accuracy. Some work demonstrates the discretion of police and how they teach the public about their place in society (Oberfield 2011). Other work suggests that police violence is a means of controlling the poor in society (Chevigny 1990) or of maintaining inequality (Hirschfield 2015).

References

Chevigny, Paul G. "Police Deadly Force as Social Control: Jamaica, Argentina, and Brazil." Criminal Law Forum, vol. 1, no. 3, 1990, pp. 389-425., doi:10.1007/bf01098174.

Hirschfield, Paul J. "Lethal Policing: Making Sense of American Exceptionalism." Sociological Forum, vol. 30, no. 4, 2015, pp. 1109-1117., doi:10.1111/socf.12200.

Kraska, P. B. "Militarization and Policing--Its Relevance to 21st Century Police." Policing, vol. 1, no. 4, 2007, pp. 501-513., doi:10.1093/police/pam065.

Lenin, Vladimir Illyich. "The State and Revolution." Marxists Internet Archive, 1999, www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/.

Oberfield, Zachary W. "Socialization and Self-Selection: How Police oCers Develop Their Views about Using Force." Administration & Society, vol. 44, no. 6, 2011, pp. 702-730., doi:10.1177/0095399711420545.

Winters, Jeffrey A. Oligarchy. Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Retail Work and Customer Relations: An Interview

By Devon Bowers

This is the transcript of an email interview I did with former UK retail worker Helen Howard in which we discuss retail work, relations between customers and workers, and where the US retail industry is headed.

How did you wind up working in retail?

I started at the age of 16 in 1997, and by the next year I needed a weekend position to help me out financially. I was given four hours on a Sunday afternoon working in the music/video section of the store my brother worked at, with the opportunity to work extra hours during the week to fit in around my studies. Once I left college in 2001 I decided to stay on as I didn't know what I wanted to do for a career. I worked for the one company in various branches for 16 years, then left to enter education in 2013.

You stated in our discussion that you went all the way from a regular worker to an asst manager. In what ways did you see the personality differences and attitudes towards workers change as you moved up the ladder? Did you internalize some of these attitudes?

As members of my family had worked in the same store, I was pretty well known anyway and it was always assumed I would have most of the answers to questions. The store I was working at was unlike most other high street stores, giving all members of the store team the authority to solve most issues without having to call a supervisor. As I grew in confidence I dealt with most things myself and soon noticed that my weekend colleagues would turn to me to help them out. I discovered I was good at solving problems and when I was given a new member of staff to train up, I was able to help her settle in and eventually empower her to make her own decisions over refunds etc. I was given the promotion to supervisor in another store when I left college.

I soon gained a reputation as a 'fix-it' person, and was sent by the area managers to other stores that needed support in getting back on track with tasks. I only met with negativity in one particular store, but the whole attitude of the store team was not as it should be, and although I got a few people onside it was not a big success, and I left soon after. I didn't take these attitudes on board, as I knew the problems in that store ran deeper than I could fix.

When the internet first came into existence, how did that affect workers and what was the industry concerned about, if they were concerned at all?

We first noticed that people were starting to question why something was cheaper online than in stores, not something we were prepared for. When people then said, "Oh well I may as well get it online then," we knew we had a problem.

This grew when the cuts to overtime came in. Then we noticed that we were increasingly left with fewer and fewer colleagues around, and that people who had left were not getting replaced. When the large, two-floor store I used to work at was reduced to one floor in the early 2000s: that was when the alarm bells started ringing.

The company saw takings fall and knew it had to increase footfall into their stores and away from the internet so there was a huge increase in promotional activity in the store. Confectionery and stationery companies now do deals with the company to push their merchandise. This was by far and away the biggest change. Bigger signage, more cardboard display stands, more hanging signage, more pre-orders on books and videos were introduced. The pressure increased on workers to offer exemplary customer service, give out vouchers, keep displays filled and push certain confectionery lines at the tills. Stores in the 1990s were clear, tidy and quite open plan. By the 2000s, they were filled with colour, huge signs and displays everywhere to the point where they now look cluttered and visually 'noisy.'

You did a study in which you examined interactions between retail workers and customers. What were your findings and how do they relate to the alienation people experience in the workplace and larger society?

I had long been fascinated by the reactions some customers would have when told they couldn't have a refund, even though I remained calm and explained the store policy very clearly. This led to me deciding to explore this when I went back to university to study a degree in Psychology. I interviewed both customers and my colleagues at the store I was working inat the time. I compared their responses, and discovered something rather interesting. I saw that both the customers and sales assistants had a 'them and us' mentality. The customers saw the assistants not as individuals, but as faceless representatives of the company, and the assistants saw each customer as just one of many people they would serve that day. Significantly, both sides saw themselves as unique individuals. When this view was challenged by the other side, that's when the high negative emotions began to emerge.

Additionally, it should also be understood that human beings have a strong need to belong and to feel safe in a collective. Customers would band together and support each other against the assistant in a refund dispute, and so would the assistants. This effect would heighten the more serious the dispute. (I would theorise that if something extraordinary happened such as armed gunmen coming in to the store, the customers and assistants would then band together against the gunmen as it would make them feel safer.) This all relates to social identity theory, which aims to explain how people behave and feel in society. Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team etc.) which people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem.

Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world. So customers would see fellow customers as their 'in-group,' and the assistants as the 'out-group.'I understood from my study that the best customer service was when a customer was made to feel their uniqueness and individuality, particularly when an assistant would make an extra effort to solve an issue or query. An assistant would always remember and appreciate a customer who would smile and be pleasant to them, perhaps offering a compliment or something. On each occasion, the customer or the assistant would have their sense of individuality recognised and appreciated, rather than just be treated as 'one of the out-group.'

As a supervisor in a large store (as I was in around 2004), I was effectively Assistant Manager although the official title was almost obsolete by then. I knew that team morale was lead by the store manager and myself. I could sense that when there was conflict between us, the store team was unsettled and uneasy. When we were having a laugh and the store was doing well, the team was happy and worked very well together. If any member of my team felt unhappy or alienated, I would do my very best to talk to them and identify what the problem was. It was essential to make every person feel they were valued, respected and that I was grateful for every contribution they made.

Retail work many times is manual labor. Why do you think society looks down on retail as not a so called real job, but simultaneously admires manual laborers?

Twenty to thirty years ago, a career in retail was admirable and respectable. Nowadays this is not the case.

I would say that the main reason that retail is looked down on by most in other professions, is because there are no real qualifications needed to start, and many store managers have risen up the ranks by experience alone. (We do have some qualifications in the UK to assist in a career in retail, such as a BTEC or NVQ in Business Management, but these are not necessary.) The skills needed in retail (common sense, practical thinking, solution-focused problem-solving, numeracy and literacy, stress and time management amongst many) are not taught in a course but developed over time and mostly learned on the job.

Even though not everyone can develop these skills, they are still not valued as much and are therefore not as well paid. Most people in other professions would have taken a Saturday job in order to bring in a bit of pocket money, so it would be seen as a stop-gap job and not taken seriously.

People admire manual labourers such as builders, plumbers, electricians etc, because there are necessary courses to take to learn how to perform these jobs and a lot of money can be made. To most people, fixing a car or their central heating system is completely beyond them and therefore those that can, are respected and admired.

In the US currently, many retail stores are shutting down due to folks shopping online. Is there a same affect in the UK?

Yes, absolutely. We have lost many beloved high street stores over the past twenty years, particularly record and electronic shops and have also seen many companies buy each other out. However the various pound shop chains are alive and thriving.

For those that remain, store staff has been reduced to a skeleton and pressure exists to cut even more. Branches have been closed down with staff either made redundant or forced to relocate. Self-service checkouts have been introduced to attempt to cut queues. As a side-note, this further exacerbates the feeling of 'de-individualisation' of customers by the company, as they are not even served by a real person!

I think in the future, the convenience of shopping online will slowly bring back the desire to be treated as a human being and people will return to shopping in actual stores. People have never liked using automated systems such as telephone banking or choosing options on a phone keypad and really appreciate more than ever a personal service.

The Class Politics Behind Last Week's Market “Correction”

By Ben Luongo

Markets plunged into correction territory last week after losing 10% from record highs. Economists continue to reassure the public that market corrections are a normal part of a cycle that peaks and troughs over time. The term itself implies that the precipitous drops are temporary adjustments that put the markets back on track. This is certainly how investors look at it. Ron Kruszewski, Stifel Financial Corporation CEO, told reporters that "people just need to relax. Just relax […] It's a healthy correction to a market that has gone almost straight up since the election over a year ago."

However, framing the recent market drops as transient and remedial fails to recognize the larger structural problems boiling under the surface. Indeed, this week's market sell-offs reflect issues of class and inequality - in particular it is a direct response to reports of modest increases in American wages.

This may sound counterintuitive. One would think that an increase in wages would be a welcome development in an economy whose GDP growth has remained consistently under 4% for the last fifteen years . After all, higher pay means increased consumption where the demand for more goods and services translates into even more jobs. However, investors interpret the good news of wage increases as a sign of inflation looming around the corner. CNN Money reported that "Concerns about inflation was most glaring on Friday, when stocks tanked after the January jobs report revealed the strongest wage gains since 2009."

The argument that inflation follows a rise in wages is called wage-push-inflation (WPI). It argues that executives, in an attempt to maintain corporate profits, finance wage increase through prices hikes. If you buy into this argument, then you worry that Federal Reserve will respond by raising interest rates in order to sow the economy. This of course makes it harder to borrow money and grow one's business. The WPI argument may sound good in theory, but it's not how the real world works. In reality, the recent increase in worker pay is a modest 2.9% increase , and it is the first in eight years. This hardly suggests a dramatic rise in the bargaining power of workers to demand higher wages. In fact, the real governing power in corporate policy rests with shareholders (I get to this in a minute).

It's hard to believe, then, that driving the market volatility are fears of rising inflation. Such inflation would have to follow a dramatic rise in worker pay, which simply isn't the case. In fact, the portion of the profits that workers take home continues to shrink as evidence of the labor share following overall downward trend . Additionally, inflation has been historically low for years. The Federal Research measure inflation through the Consumer Price Index which has held at a low and steady rate since the 1990s. Regardless, the fact that investors treat wage increases as a destabilizing force exposes the role that wealthy elites play in suppressing labor gains. To understand this, it's important to add context the market's bullish growth these past eight years.

As much as the media likes to conflate Wall Street with Main Street, market trends reflect elite interests more than anything else (new research by NYU economist Edward N. Wolff evidences how the top 10% of Americans own 84% of all stocks). An important point to make here is how markets are tethered to corporate profits. Where profits go, so go the markets.

The reason for this is because corporate profits are reinvested back into stocks in order to inflate their prices. Rising stock value send signals to speculators to purchase even more shares which, in turn, is good news for executive pay (executive compensation packages usually include stock appreciation rights (SARs) which are essentially bonuses for good market performance).

This feedback loop explains the bullish market for the past eight years. Executives invest in their companies stock, which is good for investors looking to grow their finances. Investors then buy those shares which increases business performance. And the cycle goes on treating executives and financiers very well. As is often the case in economics though, what's good news for elites is not always good news for labor. The rise of corporate profits have come at the direct expense of worker's wages.

The reason for this is because the incorporation of SARs into executive pay packages incentivizes management to more on those financial instruments and less on payroll. Think of it this way - executives can either a) reinvest their profits into their workers and factories, which is costly and yields a slower return on investment, or b) purchase stock buybacks and dividends, which generates a much faster return for impatient investors. Executives have chosen the latter. This is evidenced by an overall declining trend in domestic investment as share of the GDP.

While they spend less on building their business and hiring workers, they are investing more in those lucrative financial instruments (buybacks, dividends, etc.)

Overall, company expenditures have been siphoned over the years from payroll to financial instruments in order to cater to shareholder interests. This reveals who really exercises power in corporate policy. The new corporate governance functions to maximize shareholder value - speculators determine how companies invest, executives and management make a killing, and workers takes home a small portion of the pie. None of this suggests, in any way, that labor has the bargaining power to demand higher wages. On the contrary, this exposes how the markets are designed for executives to capture larger portions of the company's profits in a way that ensure the subordination of labor.

This came to a head with last week after investors responded to wage increases with market volatility. Nervous speculators threw the markets into correction territory after news that workers may be cutting into record-setting corporate profits. After all, wage increases imply more investment in payroll and less in those lucrative buybacks. The decision for executives to ease up on stock purchase and other financial instruments confused speculators who have been used to confident managers investing in their own company's stocks. As a result, investors become unsure of their shares and their decisions to divest created a seller's market (and all of that money that top-income earners got from the new tax deal simply sits in the bank).

Overall, last week's market drops were strategic movements to counterbalance the modest rise of worker's wages. So, the next time investors describe market drops using the term "correction," remember what they really see as the problem.

Ben Luongo is a doctoral candidate at University of South Florida's School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies where he teaches courses in global political economy and international human rights. He previously worked as a campaign organizer and directed several campaigns for groups like the Human Rights Campaign and Save the Children. His articles have appeared in the Foreign Policy Journal, Foreign Policy in Focus, International Policy Digest, and New Politics .

Revolution and Black Struggle: Marxism as a Weapon Against Racism and Capitalism

By Marcello Pablito

Racism, Capitalism, and Slavery

In his most important work, Marx states that "Labour in a white skin cannot emancipate itself where it is branded in a black skin."1 Despite attempts by political and intellectual groups to deny Marx and Engels' (and, by extension, revolutionary Marxism's) uncompromising stance against racism, the founders of scientific socialism thoroughly understood that racist oppression served as a tool for the capitalist exploitation of all workers. The relationship between capitalism and racism has only grown stronger in subsequent generations. There have been cases in which the falsification of Marx and Engels' positions and the conscious attempts to equate Marxism with Stalinism have led to generalized attacks on Marxism.This brief article will describe how the leadership of the Russian Revolution understood the fight against racism.

Marxism was developed on the foundations of a new worldview based in historical materialism and offering an explanation that was superior to idealism, religious beliefs, or a view of history as a mere succession of random events. Contrary to these views, Marxism explains the development of history and the division of society into classes as emerging from the material development of human society, and it describes class struggle as the driving force of history. It is from a scientific view of the development of capitalism, and from a critique of political economy and the origins of the bourgeois state, that Marxism explains racism as an ideology that emerged to justify and rationalize one of the greatest atrocities in the history of mankind and identifies it as one of the fundamental pillars of primitive capital accumulation: the enslavement and trade of more than 11 million human beings to work on the plantations of the Americas and the Caribbean. This is a counter-perspective to idealistic conceptions that view racism as an ideology that has always existed and is intrinsic to human nature or as an idea that emerged out of nowhere, dissociated from its material foundations.

Without recognition of this fundamental aspect, it is impossible to have a scientific view of either the development of racism or of capitalism itself. As Eric Williams writes in his classic work Capitalism and Slavery:

Slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery ... The reason was economic, not racial ... The features of the man, his hair, color and dentifrice, his "subhuman" characteristics so widely pleaded, were only the later rationalizations to justify a simple economic fact: that the colonies needed labor and resorted to Negro [sic] labor because it was cheapest and best.2

Throughout the book - whose theses continue to generate important debates - Williams describes the role slavery played in the process of primitive accumulation, focusing on the relationship between the slave trade and industrial development in England. In its imperialist phase, the era of "crises, wars and revolutions," the relationship between racism and capitalism was reinforced. It is no coincidence that theories of scientific racism became more fully developed as nation-states played a decisive role in combining racism and capitalism to increase exploitation, precisely when the African continent was occupied and divided up among the European powers.

This is the basis of a scientific explanation of how racism develops as ideology. It is impossible to understand the development of capitalism without considering the relationship between slavery and racism. It is unquestionable that, to this day, racism serves to further capitalist exploitation. Countless statistics indicate that black people have the most precarious, poorly paid jobs and receive far lower wages than white workers even if they do the same work. By increasing the levels of exploitation of the black worker, and especially of black women, capitalists are able to further undercut the wages and living conditions of the working class as a whole. For this reason, the fight against racism must necessarily be a struggle against capitalism.

Revolution and Slavery

The 1917 Russian Revolution showed the working class and the most oppressed sectors of society a glimpse of a future beyond the narrow limits of capitalist oppression. This did not only apply to the Russian workers; the peasants, who came from a history of serfdom in which they were branded like cattle, achieved their dream of agrarian reform; religious minorities obtained religious freedoms; women gained the right to abortion for the first time in history; and gay people were no longer persecuted.

Internationally, the Russian Revolution had a huge impact on class struggle and demonstrated that, even in underdeveloped capitalist countries like Russia or the countries of the African continent, the masses could lead a revolution.

The Third International, led by Lenin and Trotsky, was born out of the struggle against the social-chauvinists who supported the imperialist war in the early 1900s. The international perspective of the socialist revolution was decisive to its founders. After the triumph in 1917, they aimed to transform the newly created Soviet Republic into a barricade for international and global revolution. The interests of the Soviet workers were intertwined with those of the global working class and of the multitudes of oppressed peoples worldwide. One of the most egregious aspects of the early imperialist era was the division and rule of the African continent by 15 European countries at the Berlin Conference of 1885. The expansion of the Russian Revolution, the defeat of the European bourgeoisies, and the victory of the working class in these imperialist countries - which included France, Germany and England - would have been a fatal blow to their colonial project in the African continent. At the same time, the weakening of the European bourgeoisie would have increased the chances of African workers and the oppressed of overthrowing imperialist rule in their regions.

Great revolutionary leaders like Lenin and Trotsky left various testimonies to their enormous enthusiasm for black struggle against racist oppression and the role of all revolutionaries in merging with this struggle internationally. Even before the Russian Revolution, Lenin was already concerned about the situation of black people worldwide, understanding how crucial it was for communists to connect with the most oppressed and exploited sectors of the working class. In 1920, John Reed wrote a report at Lenin's request, describing the situation of black people in the U.S. to the Second Congress of the Third Communist International:

The Communists must not stand aloof from the Negro [sic] movement which demands their social and political equality and at the moment, at a time of the rapid growth of racial consciousness, is spreading rapidly among Negroes. The Communists must use this movement to expose the lie of bourgeois equality and emphasize the necessity of the social revolution which will not only liberate all workers from servitude but is also the only way to free the enslaved Negro people.3

In a society divided into social classes based on relationship to the means of production and the bourgeoisie's private appropriation of the social labor produced by the working class, Marxists argue that the exploiters end up being their own gravediggers. The working class, by virtue of its strategic role in the production of all that exists in society, is the only group capable of defeating capitalism, taking on the task of emancipating not only its own class but humanity as a whole. Black people are not only a fundamental part of the working class; they also comprise its most precarious sectors.

The Fourth Congress held in 1922, before the Stalinization of the Comintern, ratified its theses on black liberation, declaring that the revolutionary order of the day included the fight against racism and support for the struggles of black people on an international scale. After stating that "the enemy of [the black] race and of the white worker is identical: capitalism and imperialism," the theses affirmed that:

The Communist International should struggle for the equality of the white and black races, and for equal wages and equal political and social rights. The Communist International will use every means at its disposal to force the trade unions to admit black workers, or, where this right already exists on paper, to conduct special propaganda for their entry into unions. If this should prove impossible, the Communist International will organize black people into their own unions and then use the united front tactic to compel the general unions to admit them.4

These historical examples show that black struggle is worker struggle, a message that continues to have relevance today. Fighting for the working class means fighting against racism and defending, for example, wage equality between blacks and whites, men and women, and the direct hire of outsourced workers. This fight calls for an end to police brutality, the right to decent housing, and comprehensive agrarian reform, as this is the only way to unite the working class. This is a decisive question since unity is impossible without fighting against racism, and without this unity, victory cannot be achieved in a revolutionary process.

The Black Struggle and the International Revolution

Lenin and Trotsky did not regard the Russian Revolution as an end in itself but rather as the first step in the international and global expansion of the revolution that would first reach other European countries like Germany. This would mean the end of colonial domination in Africa and Asia and a tremendous advance from the point of view of the world revolution.

The reactionary policy of Stalinism in defense of "socialism in one country" promoted after 1924, along with the failures of the Chinese revolution in 1926 and the general strike in England in 1926, sealed the fate of the black struggles and resistance in the African continent. It signalled for the global imperialist bourgeoisie the possibility of regaining its strength and maintaining its international domination, thus delaying for decades the independence of African countries.

In Brazil, the Stalinism represented by the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) played a deplorable role in racial politics. Among several examples until the 1960s, the PCB was opposed to discussing any demand for admitting black people into trade unions because they argued that it divided the working class, blatantly capitulating to the ideology of "racial democracy."

Trotsky devoted all his energy to combating the bureaucratization of the USSR. The Left Opposition, and then the Fourth International, were the continuation of the Bolshevik tradition. The passion and aspirations of these revolutionaries were anchored in the solid theoretical-programmatic foundations of the theory of permanent revolution which strongly encouraged the merging of revolutionary ideas with the most exploited and oppressed sectors of capitalist society such as black people in the U.S., Latin America, and Africa. In Trotsky's words:

We can and we must find a way to the consciousness of the Negro [sic] workers, the Chinese workers, the Indian workers, and all the oppressed in the human ocean of the colored races to whom belongs the decisive word in the development of mankind.5

The revolutionary struggle against exploitation and oppression, particularly among blacks, was decisive for the emergence of a generation of black Trotskyists. The fight against Stalinism and the development of the theory of permanent revolution itself were driving forces for the revolutionary perspective of the fight against racism. Perhaps the individual who most stands out in this respect is CLR James, the author of The Black Jacobins. James is recognized in academic circles as the person who revealed to the world the depth of one of the most glorious black achievements in world history: the Haitian Revolution. Few remember his Trotskyist past or the fact that when he examines Haiti, he does so through the lens of class struggle.

The power of this book is based, among other things, on the way James describes how the revolutionary conditions in France were intertwined with the weakening of Saint-Domingue's elite while highlighting the revolutionary and uncompromising audacity of the black people of the island in search of their freedom. Only someone with a worldview guided by the perspective of the exploited and oppressed in class struggle would be capable of a work that revealed how the revolution transformed the former slaves of Saint-Domingue into heroes.

CLR James was not only a historian but also a Trotskyist militant who sought to link the struggle for black liberation with the direct fight against the imperialist bourgeoisie and its cowardly counterparts in non-imperialist countries. He demonstrated how, in important moments of class struggle, the goals of the whole working class have more chances of being achieved with the unity of the laboring ranks, that is, between blacks and whites.

The Russian Revolution was the highest point in the struggle for an end to exploitation and oppression. It was a demonstration of the audacity, revolutionary courage, and scientific preparation of the Bolsheviks. Notwithstanding the limits of analogy, the same determination in the struggle for freedom flowed through the veins of the black people of Saint-Domingue in this decisive episode in the history of capitalism. The spirit of the Bolsheviks, the Left Opposition, and the Fourth International is reflected in these words:

What we as Marxists have to see is the tremendous role played by Negroes [sic] in the transformation of Western civilization from feudalism to capitalism. It is only from this vantage-ground that we shall be able to appreciate (and prepare for) the still greater role they must of necessity play in the transition from capitalism to socialism.6

From this perspective, the emancipation of both whites and nonwhites, to which Marx refers, acquires full meaning in the struggle for a society free from exploitation and any form of oppression: a communist society. Who, if not those who suffer the most under capitalism, will fight more vigorously for that future?

Translation by Marisela Trevin

This was originally published at Left Voice .

Notes

1 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, trans. Ben Fowles (London: Penguin Classics, 1990), 1:414.

2 Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 20, previously published in 1944.

3 John Reed, "The Negro Question in America: Speech at the 2nd World Congress of the Communist International, Moscow - July 25, 1920," in Second Congress of the Communist International. Minutes of the Proceedings (London: New Park Publications, 1977), previously published by Publishing House of the Communist International, 1921.

4 Jane Degras, ed., The Communist International, 1919 - 1943, vol. 1, 1914 - 1922 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), 401.

5 Leon Trotsky, "Closer to the Proletarians of the Colored Races," The Militant 5, no. 27 (2 July 1932), 1, previously published in Fourth International 6, no. 8 (August 1945): 243.

6 CLR James, "The Revolution and the Negro," New International 5 (December 1939): 339-343

Marxism and Nature: The Metabolic Rift

By Rebecca Heyer

This article is intended to be the first in a series that will provide an introduction to some of the concepts that provide the foundation for ecosocialism, a movement that develops and applies socialist solutions to the challenges of climate change and the environment. All of these will be an attempt to introduce the reader to the subject matter.

Many readers find the original works that have helped define the movement to be difficult to follow. Academics such as John Bellamy Foster and Ian Angus are highly respected, but use a language that many socialist organizers find somewhat inaccessible. I highly recommend their writing to anyone who wants to take the time and effort to read and understand them. I will not come close to their rigor and attention to detail here. I hope to inspire all people interested in building a socialist future to investigate further.

Marx's View of the Relationship between Humans and the Environment

Marx and Epicurean Philosophy

Karl Marx spent much of his life considering the relationship between the human race and the world they live in. He excelled in the study of philosophy, history and the natural sciences. Marx's world view was grounded in philosophy, particularly that of the ancient Greeks. The subject of his PhD thesis was a comparison of philosophy of two of the classic Greek scholars, Epicurus and Democritus. Both of them were materialists, in contrast to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle who were idealists. Idealism had dominated western thought for centuries and provided a foundation for much of Christian theology. The Enlightenment marked a revival of the materialist school. Marx saw the relationship between humans and the environment in materialist terms and saw humans as part of the world they live in. Marx's world was not populated by ideal forms. It was made up of matter, time and space. It existed independently of any deity, and humans did not govern it or maintain it as agents of God. They interacted with their environment in a dialectical relationship, with all participants affecting all other participants.

Labor as a Natural Process

Marx saw labor as a process that connected humans with their environment. In Volume I of Capital, Chapter Seven, Section One, he wrote:

" Labor is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature's productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are not now dealing with those primitive instinctive forms of labor that remind us of the mere animal. An immeasurable interval of time separates the state of things in which a man brings his labor-power to market for sale as a commodity, from that state in which human labor was still in its first instinctive stage. We presuppose labor in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labor-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the laborer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realizes a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will. And this subordination is no mere momentary act. Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that, during the whole operation, the workman's will be steadily in consonance with his purpose. This means close attention. The less he is attracted by the nature of the work, and the mode in which it is carried on, and the less, therefore, he enjoys it as something which gives play to his bodily and mental powers, the more close his attention is forced to be."

Labor is a dialectical process where humans impact the environment, but at the same time the changes in the environment made by humans impact humans.

The Metabolic Rift and Fertilizer

Marx and the Soil

Marx recognized the fundamental role of the soil in the labor process. He viewed agriculture as the basis for an economy. He included the following in the section of Capital cited above.

" The soil (and this, economically speaking, includes water) in the virgin state in which it supplies man with necessaries or the means of subsistence ready to hand, exists independently of him, and is the universal subject of human labor. All those things which labor merely separates from immediate connection with their environment, are subjects of labor spontaneously provided by Nature. Such are fish which we catch and take from their element, water, timber which we fell in the virgin forest, and ores which we extract from their veins. If, on the other hand, the subject of labor has, so to say, been filtered through previous labor, we call it raw material; such is ore already extracted and ready for washing. All raw material is the subject of labor, but not every subject of labor is raw material: it can only become so, after it has undergone some alteration by means of labor."

The transition from feudalism to capitalism was marked by a change in the relationship between humans and the soil.

Capitalism in Europe began to develop in the fourteenth century with the rise of capitalist agriculture. Feudal Europe had few cities or towns and agriculture was distributed across a multitude of feudal estates. Most were largely self-sufficient and trade was not a significant factor. As the population grew cities and towns became more important. This led to the practice of tenant farming and the development of markets for agricultural products. In Chapter Twenty-Nine of Capital, Volume I, Marx writes:

" Now that we have considered the forcible creation of a class of outlawed proletarians, the bloody discipline that turned them into wage laborers, the disgraceful action of the State which employed the police to accelerate the accumulation of capital by increasing the degree of exploitation of labor, the question remains: whence came the capitalists originally? For the expropriation of the agricultural population creates, directly, none but the greatest landed proprietors. As far, however, as concerns the genesis of the farmer, we can, so to say, put our hand on it, because it is a slow process evolving through many centuries. The serfs, as well as the free small proprietors, held land under very different tenures, and were therefore emancipated under very different economic conditions. In England the first form of the farmer is the bailiff, himself a serf. His position is similar to that of the old Roman villicus , only in a more limited sphere of action. During the second half of the 14th century he is replaced by a farmer, whom the landlord provided with seed, cattle and implements. His condition is not very different from that of the peasant. Only he exploits more wage labor. Soon he becomes a metayer, a half-farmer. He advances one part of the agricultural stock, the landlord the other. The two divide the total product in proportions determined by contract. This form quickly disappears in England, to give the place to the farmer proper, who makes his own capital breed by employing wage laborers, and pays a part of the surplus-product, in money or in kind, to the landlord as rent. So long, during the 15th century, as the independent peasant and the farm-laborer working for himself as well as for wages, enriched themselves by their own labor, the circumstances of the farmer, and his field of production, were equally mediocre. The agricultural revolution which commenced in the last third of the 15th century, and continued during almost the whole of the 16th (excepting, however, its last decade), enriched him just as speedily as it impoverished the mass of the agricultural people."

The Metabolic Rift

The development of capitalist agricultural alienated farmers, both from the soil, which was the source of their productivity, and their produce, which was the fruit of their labor. Marx did not call this alienation a "metabolic rift" but later writers have used this term to refer to the disruption of the relationship between humans and the environment described in Capital Volume I, Chapter 15, Section 10.

" Capitalist production completely tears asunder the old bond of union which held together agriculture and manufacture in their infancy. But at the same time it creates the material conditions for a higher synthesis in the future, viz., the union of agriculture and industry on the basis of the more perfected forms they have each acquired during their temporary separation. Capitalist production, by collecting the population in great centers, and causing an ever-increasing preponderance of town population, on the one hand concentrates the historical motive power of society; on the other hand, it disturbs the circulation of matter between man and the soil, i.e., prevents the return to the soil of its elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing; it therefore violates the conditions necessary to lasting fertility of the soil. By this action it destroys at the same time the health of the town laborer and the intellectual life of the rural laborer. But while upsetting the naturally grown conditions for the maintenance of that circulation of matter, it imperiously calls for its restoration as a system, as a regulating law of social production, and under a form appropriate to the full development of the human race. In agriculture as in manufacture, the transformation of production under the sway of capital, means, at the same time, the martyrdom of the producer; the instrument of labor becomes the means of enslaving, exploiting, and impoverishing the laborer; the social combination and organization of labor-processes is turned into an organized mode of crushing out the workman's individual vitality, freedom, and independence. The dispersion of the rural laborers over larger areas breaks their power of resistance while concentration increases that of the town operatives. In modern agriculture, as in the urban industries, the increased productiveness and quantity of the labor set in motion are bought at the cost of laying waste and consuming by disease labor-power itself. Moreover, all progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the laborer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time, is a progress towards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility. The more a country starts its development on the foundation of modern industry, like the United States, for example, the more rapid is this process of destruction. Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the laborer."

Soil Depletion and the Use of Fertilizer

Capitalists often attempt to address problems created by a metabolic rift through technical changes in production methods. Marx was familiar with the attempt to mitigate soil depletion through the use of fertilizer. He was fascinated by the work of organic chemist Justus von Liebig on the subject of nutrients needed by plants. In large part due to Liebig's discoveries, the use of fertilizer in both Europe and America exploded during the nineteenth century.

The best available fertilizer available at the time was guano, the accumulated droppings of sea birds. Islands on the west coast of South America had an abundant supply. Demand for guano from Peru soared during the mid nineteenth century and the major agricultural producers of the time fought to control these resources. This led to the Chincha Islands War of 1864-1866. Marx saw this conflict as an example of the way imperial powers enter into conflict for the control of natural resources.

As is often the case, this metabolic rift led to another, as the capitalist system attempted to correct the problem by using new technology. Guano was carried from Peru to agricultural centers in Europe and North America by clipper ships. About the same time as the Chincha Islands War, shipping technology changed from wind driven vessels to steam driven vessels powered by coal. The mining and shipping of coal created a new, even more serious metabolic rift. Fossil fuels such as coal represent energy that was captured long ago by plants and has been sitting underground for millions of years. Plants use energy from solar radiation to convert carbon dioxide into other carbon compounds. This energy is stored in fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas. The stored energy is released when fossil fuels are burned, but at the same time carbon dioxide is also released. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas which, when released into the atmosphere, causes environmental systems like the oceans to retain heat and become warmer. The current warming trend that is driving global climate change began in the mid-nineteenth century and can be in, at least in part, traced back to the chain of metabolic rifts that was initiated by capitalist agriculture.

The Metabolic Rift Today

Agriculture

The chain of metabolic rifts in agriculture has continued. By the end of the nineteenth century, deposits of nitrates such as guano were becoming depleted. Capitalist agricultural, now dependent on nitrate fertilizer, needed a new technology. In 1909 an artificial way of fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere, called the Haber Process, was discovered. The Haber Process is still the dominate way of producing nitrates, which are used in the production of munitions and explosives as well as fertilizer.

The Haber Process is energy intensive, uses natural gas as a source of hydrogen and consumes three to five percent of the world's production of natural gas. Capitalist agricultural is also heavily dependent on the use of powered equipment, such as tractors, trucks and harvesters, which are also fueled by petroleum products. Although agricultural consumption of petroleum is dwarfed by other economic sectors such as transportation, according to the US Energy Information Administration about half a trillion BTU of petroleum is consumed by agricultural production in this country alone.

Energy

No where is a metabolic rift more apparent than in the capitalist production of energy. Fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and petroleum represent solar radiation received by plants millions of years ago and captured through the process of photosynthesis which converts carbon dioxide and water into other hydrocarbons. Burning fossil fuels releases both energy and carbon dioxide. After almost two hundred years of burning fossil fuels, accelerated by capitalist agriculture and manufacturing processes, the portion of the atmosphere made up by carbon dioxide has gone from less than three hundred parts per million to over 400 parts per million. Changes of this magnitude typically take millions of years.

Manufactured Goods

In the same way that the globalization of agriculture creates metabolic rifts, the globalization of the production of manufactured commodities creates additional rifts. These may not be connected directly to the soil, but they still impact the connection between humans and environmental systems. In a globalized economy the sources of raw materials, the sites of manufacturing facilities and consumers are usually separated by large distances and national borders. The most obvious impact on environmental systems comes from the need to transport huge quantities of commodities and materials. Most of these are moved by cargo ships and most of these ships are powered by a petroleum product known as bunker fuel, the residual that is left after gasoline, kerosene, diesel oil and other lighter distillates are extracted. Bunker fuel is relatively inexpensive, but burning it emits large amounts of carbon dioxide compared to the amount of energy produced. The transportation of goods and materials needed to support a globalized economy contributes heavily to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and thereby to global climate change.

Conclusion

I hope this article has given the reader some idea of the meaning of the term metabolic rift and its place in the Marxian critique of capitalism. Metabolic rift is a key concept within ecosocialism and the understanding of how capitalism is responsible for global climate change.

This article originally appeared on the Socialist Party USA's official publication, The Socialist .

Rebecca Heyer graduated from Rice University with a BA in economics in 1977. Based in Texas, she worked as a systems analyst and consultant for 23 years, specializing in the management of very large data sets. Starting in 2000, she became active in politics, holding a county office in the Green Party and lobbying the Texas Legislature. She relocated to northwest Florida in 2006 where she served on the City of Pensacola Environmental Advisory Board. After the 2016 election she left the Green Party and joined the Socialist Party USA as an at large member. She currently serves on the Ecosocialist Commission. At the age of 62, she still enjoys the punk scene and living on the Gulf Coast.

Sources

Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature by John Bellamy Foster

The Ecological Rift: Capitalism's War on the Earth by John Bellamy Foster, Robert York and Brett Clark

The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophies in General - Karl Marx's Doctoral Thesis

Capital, Volume I by Karl Marx

Nike: Understanding How Wealth and Poverty are Created in the Global Capitalist System

Jeremy Cloward

"The dirty truth is that the rich are the great cause of poverty"

- Michael Parenti

Though news to some commentators and scholars, wealth and poverty are natural consequences of global capitalism functioning exactly as it is designed to do. The more the owners of the commanding heights of the economy take for themselves, the less there is for everyone else. Though poorly understood or even discussed throughout much of US society, this planetary-wide system generates two basic classes: the owning class and the working class. Either you own the productive forces of the economy or you work for someone that does. And, the relationship between the two classes is exploitative by nature as the owning class lives off the surplus value (or profit) created by the working class. Indeed, though almost never acknowledged in the media or even at the university the wealth of capitalist society is produced by working people. Yet, they do not enjoy the fruits of their labor. Instead, those who produce nothing (and often do nothing to add to the value of the commodity produced, i.e., the owning class) reap the lion's share of the wealth that is created by the workers. Just as the slave owner sat on his porch drinking tea while the slaves labored in the fields to make him wealthy, the capitalist sits in his office while the workers, often in distant lands, labor for mere dollars a day to create great wealth for him. That is how the system works. The wealth generated by workers for owners may vary but not the relationship between the two classes.

In just one example of a highly-respected economist and scholar who apparently does not understand the cause of wealth and poverty in the world we might consider the position of Hernando de Soto in his much noted book The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. de Soto argues that the poor are poor in Third World countries because they have not created a "legal structure of property and property rights" for gathering wealth. Yet, the reality of a capitalist economic system is that if you guarantee the right of property and property rights in your society to generate wealth then you are also guaranteeing that you will have poverty in your society, as well. To be sure, wealth is the cause of poverty and poverty is the cause of wealth. They go hand-in-hand and cannot be unlocked from one another. To use the classic example, if an individual takes 4/5ths of a pie all for himself, then no matter how you slice it, there is only 1/5th of the original pie left over for everyone else to split. That this point is missed again and again by one political scientist and economist after another (including de Soto) makes one wonder what is being taught in our centers of higher education in the social sciences. In fact, one of the most prominent proponents of liberalism and defenders of "private property" clearly recognized this basic truth about property. John Locke (1632-1704) the historically respected political philosopher maintained that, "where there is no property, there is no injustice." In other words, the only way not to have economic inequality (and the classes that coalesce around property) is to not have private property at all. Without private property, neither wealth can be amassed or gathered nor can poverty be created. Instead, the level of material comfort for everyone in society rises and falls together.

One of the best examples (among hundreds) to illustrate this truism about capitalism is that of the "American" transnational company, Nike Corporation. Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, is worth some $25 billion. To generate that kind of wealth, Knight would have needed to personally make 25 million pairs of shoes and then sell them for $100 each all by himself. Has this been the case? Of course not. Instead, he is similar to the slave-holder on the porch in the days before the Civil War (1861-1865). For certain, Knight and the titans of commerce like him in nearly every industry one can think of, add virtually no value at all to the commodity that their companies produce. On the contrary, just as was the case with the slave, it is the worker who produces the entire value of the commodity produced by the companies that Knight and others like him preside over. Just as the master extracted the whole of the surplus value from the commodity produced by the slaves, today's owners extract the whole of the surplus value produced by the working class. Clearly, there are differences in working and living conditions between these two modes of capital accumulation. However, financially, the only difference between slavery and capitalism is that the profits are extracted after a wage is paid. Yet, often times and for the great mass of humanity, the wage is exceedingly low.

For example, Knight pays his labor force in countries such as Indonesia just $4.33 a day (or $100 a month) to produce his shoes. This type of pay would be acceptable to some, provided the cost of living in Indonesia was proportionate to the day's wage. However, just a cursory glance at the cost of living in Indonesia illustrates how out-of-line Nike's wage is with what a Nike employee needs to survive. For instance, the average cost of a loaf of bread in Indonesia is roughly $1; a pair of Levi's blue jeans is about $50; a three-bedroom apartment runs somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,000 a month; and a pair of Nike shoes, made and sold in Jakarta, Indonesia, are priced at approximately $75. In other words, a Nike factory worker living in Indonesia would need to spend approximately three-fourths of his or her monthly Nike salary just to purchase one pair of Nike running shoes. A three-bedroom apartment is simply out of the question. But, it is worse than that. That poverty wage, when paid by multiple corporations and industries across multiple countries and continents translates into not only global poverty but into all kinds of problems for the world's poor. Making up some 80 percent of the world's population, the global poor, who are in actuality the world's poorest laborers, are confronted by needless yet ongoing hardships such as preventable deaths from a lack of basic food and medicine, unsanitary living conditions from shack-house and slum living, and a shortage of clean drinking water on a regular basis.

Today, global capitalism continues to move towards its logical conclusion of amassing all of the world's wealth into the hands of just one person. This could never take place in reality as the system would collapse before it did causing massive and worldwide social unrest along the way. Yet, the system nevertheless continues to move in this self-devouring direction-with capital accumulating at summits never before reached in history. Without a doubt, the system has produced such dizzying heights of capital accumulation that the numbers have become difficult to believe with global capitalism generating such extreme wealth for the few while creating a massive-sized "wretched of the earth" whose ever-expanding numbers are threatening to not only undermine, but possibly even destroy, the whole system itself. For instance, almost half of the worlds' population lives on just $2.50 a day and at least 80 percent of the world's population-or some 5.6 billion people-live on $10 or less a day amounting to a mere $3,650 per year. In fact, just eight people in the world possess more wealth than the bottom half of humanity combined-some 3.5 billion people. Make no mistake about it, though not intended by the "wealthiest among us," their greed may very well be digging their own class grave.

In the end, Nike, ExxonMobil, General Electric, Ford Motor Company, Bank of America or any other giant corporation whose operations span the globe exist for one purpose - to generate as large of profits as possible for the board of directors and major shareholders as they can. This is done, and always has been done, by the owning class exploiting the working class. If things are to improve for great mass of humanity and we are to take the next major step forward in history - which is ending the exploitation of man by man which is the guiding principle of the global capitalist economic system-then we need to wake up to this basic fact. When we do we will see that it is we, and not the rich, who are members of the most powerful class ever-known to man. Possibly then we will have the courage to begin to take control of the whole of the productive forces of the global economy for the betterment of all of humanity instead of the wealthy few.

Jeremy Cloward, Ph.D. is the author of three books and multiple articles. His college-level American Politics textbook, Class Power and the Political Economy of the American Political System has been endorsed by author Michael Parenti , the Director of Project Censored Mickey Huff, and professor and former Central Committee member of the Black Panther Party, Phyllis Jackson. It is currently being marketed to a national audience of political science professors throughout the country. In addition, Dr. Cloward has run for public office on three occasions (Congress 2009, 2010, and City Council 2012) and has appeared in a variety of media outlets, including FOX and the Pacifica Radio Network (KPFA). Today, Professor Cloward teaches political science in the San Francisco Bay Area.

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and Society: An Interview

By Brenan Daniels

Today we interview two members of the Socialist Party USA. Stephanie C. is a biochemist working in the university and Eric D. is a quality manager, though by trade is a civil engineer. In the interview we discuss STEM as it relates to them personally, through the lens of capitalism, and we end with asking what advice they would give to someone looking to go into the STEM field.

What got you into the STEM field? What part of STEM do you engage in?

Stephanie C.: As long as I can remember, I had an interest and knack for science. My father was a microbiologist for the FDA, and he used to take me to work. I always knew I wanted to work in a lab. My main interest was chemistry, but the biological sciences were where I had the most knowledge and skill. I got my degree in biochemistry; I currently work making proteins that are used for cancer research at a large public research university.

Eric D.: I have always had a love for math and science. As a child, I wanted to be a scientist of some kind. But because things came easily to me in school, I got really bored and distracted. It wasn't until I got married, years after high school, that I started taking classes at my local community college.

My initial plan was to get an associate's degree and then transfer to a four-year school for a degree in chemical engineering. But during the course of taking classes at the community college, I grew more interested in civil engineering and I ultimately ended up going down the path of a degree in Civil Engineering Technologies.

I ended up getting a job with a local mechanical contractor doing CAD drawings for them on second shift and moved my way up through that department. Now, I run the company's quality management system. It's my job to establish processes to ensure that the products that we deliver meet all applicable requirements.

Why do you think that there seems to be a battle between liberal arts and the STEM fields, with people denigrating the former?

Stephanie C.: I cannot say why it is STEM that is valued over the liberal arts. Perhaps the roles would be shifted if there were more STEM graduates than liberal arts graduates, but valuing one over the other when both are useful in different ways doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The working poor have always been shamed and blamed for the failings of capitalism, this is not a new thing, though the rhetoric changes to fit the times. Lack of education can no longer be used as an excuse for why so many hard working people live in poverty, as so many of those in poverty have an education now. So the narrative shifts: It must be that they don't have the right kind of education. Or they didn't get enough education. Or the education system itself is broken. It is all about turning working people against each other: rather than questioning the system that continues to fail them.

Eric D.: Honestly, I have no doubt that it comes down to capitalism. Our country goes out of its way to cater to businesses and is set up in a way to ensure maximum profits. As a result, our education system gets manipulated by legislators in order to push whatever agenda they think will lead to a profitable outcome, with no regard for the long-term effects of such action on the wider society.

Liberal arts feed the human spirit. We can construct highways that runs through mountains and over rivers, probe into the vastness of space, open up a chest and see a beating heart without killing someone, and develop a way to instantly communicate with people anywhere in the world - all because of STEM fields. The things that we have managed to accomplish on account of STEM fields are amazing. But to truly appreciate the depth of humanity, enjoy the beauty of the world around us, and enrich our lives beyond what technological marvels can accomplish, we need the arts and humanities. But there is more money in developing technology than there is in poetry. A ballet company will never be as profitable as a medical technology corporation. Of course capitalists want to drive investment towards STEM fields and away from the Liberal Arts.

And let's not forget one very important thing. STEM fields develop a system for thinking about issues and developing solutions. But they really don't drive someone to think critically about the world around them in a way which would challenge the status quo. The Liberal Arts helps make someone a better critical thinker about social issues. It's much easier to govern a people who don't ask hard questions about why things are the way they are than it is to have a society full of deep thinkers who challenge those in office. That's not to say that people in STEM fields aren't engaged in the political issues of the world. Only that a person who has studied history, philosophy, and other things of this nature tend to bring an entirely different perspective to things than people who have spent their entire lives approaching problems like engineers.

What would your response be when people act as if a STEM field is a ticket to fast money? Why is it that this idea persists even though there are people with such degrees who can't find jobs?

Stephanie C.: I do hear this a lot, and it bothers me. It is as if we're getting to the point where education is nothing more than job training, and the concept of pursuing an education for its own sake is considered frivolous or old-fashioned. While it is possible to make money in STEM, it is by no means guaranteed, and there are other ways to make money that don't involve taking on a lifetime of student loan debt. Also, it is difficult to succeed in any field that requires long hours covering subject matter that seems boring to most people. It can be done, but at the end of the day money isn't the greatest motivator. Personally, I'd rather live in a world where doctors and scientists are motivated by their love of the field and desire to help people than money. I think this idea persists for the reasons I mentioned in the second question. The myth that the poor are poor because they chose the wrong profession, an argument that falls apart as soon as you realize that ultimately, someone has to do the low-paid professions, no matter what they happen to be at that point in time.

Eric D.: Personally, I'd tell anyone not to pursue a career just because of the money. We all know people who are absolutely miserable with what they do for a living but who make a decent living. Who cares how big my TV is if I spend 40% of my day hating what I do?

That said, if you think that you have found a ticket to fast money which is being pushed by the government, you have to keep in mind that millions of other people will be thinking the same thing. Politicians and business leaders are perfectly happy to herd millions of people towards STEM fields in order to maximize profits - and if some slip through the cracks, that's a price they're willing to pay.

Talk about some of the internal problems in the STEM field that people may not know of. We all know of the racial/gender problems?

Stephanie C.: I cannot speak from personal experience when it comes to racism in STEM, as I am white, but it is a very real problem that deserves it's own discussion. I have seen women make in roads into STEM, especially in the life sciences, but I have not seen the same progress in racial equity. Like all fields, STEM has a gender wage gap. It may be smaller than other fields, but it remains, especially in the most highly paid fields. For example, one study showed that having a male name on the top of a resume meant $4,000 more in compensation than the same resume with a female name.

Many studies have shown bias against women : in addition to being paid less, they are less likely to be hired, less likely to be promoted, and are viewed as less competent than men doing the same work. Women's work is devalued simply by the nature of women's doing it, and there are many examples showing pay drops when women take over a field and rises when men take over, It isn't just women naturally picking lower paying jobs, women are simply valued less, despite working more. And although some effort has been made to counteract gender discrimination in STEM, it is still widely believed to be a myth, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Eric D.: Well, I can't speak for all STEM fields and I'm sure that they vary in certain areas. But, in my experience, the engineering field tends to be overwhelmingly men who are very conservative. It's not at all uncommon to catch part of a conversation in which people being racist, sexist, or homophobic.

Additionally, a career in a STEM field can be very demoralizing. There is a lot of stress, tight deadlines, and a sense that you can be replaced at any moment because there are million people who are ready to step into your place. It's like the giant wheel of our economy will crush anyone who falls behind.

In what ways does pushing STEM in K-12 aid in the further decline of the power of labor and the aid in the empowerment of the corporate state?

Stephanie C.: Corporations have been pushing kids into STEM for some time now. Whether it is because it is good PR, for tax write offs and free advertising, or because they are actively trying to drive down wages by flooding the market I cannot say, but I sincerely doubt their sole motivation is helping kids.

Eric D.: The entire push towards STEM is intended to benefit the corporate state. They are creating this sense that kids need to lock in what they want to do at a young age and push towards being the best that they can be in order to be successful. My kindergartener comes home with math homework every night. While I think it's good to be competent in math regardless of a person's career choice, I don't at all think that it is more important to do math homework than it is to play in the dirt and explore. This worries me because I can already see how the drive towards STEM is taking place for him in school. The pressure only increases as kids advance in their education.

My wife teaches 11th grade Language Arts and Cultural Literacy. She does a remarkable job helping motivate kids to think outside of STEM, better understand the world in which they live, and challenge the status quo. But things have changed. There is less of an emphasis placed on her courses and far more pressure on the students and teachers where STEM fields are involved.

I've heard numerous teachers talking about life after high school and the importance of jobs in the STEM field. I hate it. I wish that students were taught the material which would best develop them as humans instead of being taught the material which would make them most useful to businesses. Not only does this have a detrimental impact on students due to them placing less importance on obtaining a well-rounded education, but it also skews their worldview and places an elevated importance on making money above other things.

A person whose main motivation is the amount of money they can make will give no thought to the forms of oppression being faced by others. In short, it reinforces the problems that already exist in our society and creates a cycle by which those oppressions continue to get worse. But this suits legislators and businesses very well. A person who is looking out for themselves and the amount of money that they can make will not be organizing labor unions or engaging in behavior which might in any way risk the stability that they cling to.

By making people focus on their wages above all else, capitalists have taken another step in neutralizing any efforts made to regain power for the working class.

What would you say to a person thinking of majoring in the STEM field?

Stephanie C.: I would ask them why want to go into STEM, and what they expect from their degree. If they say that they want easy money but have no interest or skill in STEM, I would try to encourage them to check out other options as well before committing to a path. If they are legitimately interested in STEM I would do what I could to help them discover what would be a good fit for them. I'd definitely recommend taking all the credits they could at a community colleges to transfer to another school, as this can save a lot of money, and not to take out unsubsidized or private loans if possible.

Eric D.: If it's where your heart really is, go for it. But if you aren't sure or if you're just doing it because it's what others expect you to do or you think it will provide a good source of income, don't do it. The world needs more poets, artists, dancers, philosophers, etc.

I'm concerned that with the drive towards STEM, we are sacrificing part of our humanity at the altar of "progress."

What is the End Game?: Moving Academics Out of the Ivory Tower

By Cherise Charleswell

As I sat on the panel for a session entitled, " Where Ebony Meets Ivory: From the Tower to the Streets (Towards a Critical Race Theory in Activism) " during the 2017 National Women's Studies Conference, I found myself asking the attendees this question. Unlike myself, an independent scholar and practitioner, they were mostly academics -- tenured faculty, adjunct, post-docs, and those trying to get their feet into the door of the Ivory Tower.

We discussed the irony of wanting to be a part of and completely beholden to the very institutions that their research and work focused on as being problematic. But, hey- folks have to eat right?

With my own professional background that involves working in biomedical and public health research, I find myself perplexed, annoyed, and frustrated with academia when it comes to the humanities, and related fields. See, those working in STEM research do so with an End Game in sight - and that is to develop a compound, drug, device, method, or intervention that will eventually go to market and be used to improve the lives or health outcomes of the public. That is the point of clinical research, that it is moved from "bench to market." The End Game for public health looks quite similar - conduct research in order to design programs, projects, and interventions that address an identified need. Now, I must admit that raking in profits is also another motivating factor, with the great irony that many of these companies that bring things to the commercial market are often making use of research developments that were funded by the public and distributed through federal grants, from agencies such as The National Institutes of Health.

Anyhow, my annoyance with the humanities (and I say this as someone who studied cultural anthropology as an undergrad) is that I truly lack the patience to theorizing in absence of action. Once again, when the germ theory was developed (first proposed by Girolamo Fracastoreo in 1546, expanded upon by Marcus von Plenciz in 1762, and later revolutionized and standardized by the work of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch), it helped to revolutionize public health and led to vaccinations and anti-microbial medicines that have greatly benefitted humankind. Imagine if these leading scientists decided to simply spend the next few centuries theorizing, speaking in round, and never applying their knowledge. It is a reason why I wrote the article Feminism is Not Just for Academics: Overcoming Disconnect and Division , and made a point of asserting that feminist activism cannot rely on academics.

As more humanities courses, whether ethnic studies, women/gender studies, sociology, and others come under attack and go on the "chopping block" -- as was the case at the University of Wisconsin Superior, where 25 of these programs have been suspended - it is imperative to demonstrate their relevance, and much of that relies on application of scholarship. Showing how the knowledge that has been curated is actually being put to use to impact society, change dialogues, guide policy development, design interventions, and help to ensure that funding is correctly directed.

Simply stated, there is absolutely no value in research and theories if none of this information reaches the groups that were studied or whom the theoretical framework applies to, or society as a whole. There is no value in research that points out problems, but offers no insight or recommendations on how they may be counterbalanced, and there is certainly no value in research that only serves the purpose of ensuring that another person earns the right to put large letters behind their last name.

These points should especially resonate with scholars who come from minority or marginalized racial/ethnic/religious backgrounds; those who should be able to produce knowledge that betters or addresses the conditions that members of their racial/ethnic/religious group are subjected to. Historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Carter G. Woodson, said it best with the following statement: " The large majority of the Negroes who have put on the finishing touches of our best colleges are all but worthless in the development of their people."

But being worthless is apparently what is being taught, encouraged, and reinforced to academics. In response to my question during that NWSA session, my co-panelist turned to me and said, "There is no end game." She shared with the audience words of guidance imparted on her by a senior faculty in the sociology department. He tried to throw shade by calling her an applied sociologist, and reiterated that she should focus more on publishing. He also finished with stating the following: " If my work ever reaches or is used by the public, that is fine, but that is not my focus, or concern ."

A number of scholars have pointed out why this problem of meaningless and inactive research persists: it is due to the fact that the institutions dictate that they focus on publishing and doing nothing. It is an insidious cycle -- where the research and the employment of faculty is often being funded through donations and major grants by those who actually have a stake in ensuring that the social ills described in all of this research never go away. And by focusing on theorizing, not acting - academics do not have to worry about biting the hands that literally feed them. The neoliberal academy often shares the same supporters as the politicians in Washington, D.C. and state houses across the U.S., and there lies the problem. It is why academics are unable to include a vision of an "end game."

The Hampton Institute, a working-class think tank, was actually established with this End Game in mind. Building a community for inquiry, knowledge creation, discourse and networking - are the purpose of this organization, because we realize that it is these tenets, along with accessibility, that have always made it possible to create social change. While a university education is a recent privilege for many, it was not always something that was accessible to most Americans, particularly prior to the 1944 GI Bill. Intellectualism has always been something that was respected. People read novels, newspapers, foreign books translated to English, wrote poetry and entries into journals, and even developed what is now known as town halls in order to share or debate their understanding of pressing social issues.

The Hampton Institute (HI) harkens back and takes direction from this era and other subsequent social movements - Civil Rights, women's rights, and so on. As stated on our About Us page, the organization was "founded with the purpose of giving a platform to everyday, working-class people to theorize, comment, analyze and discuss matters that exist outside the confines of their daily lives, yet greatly impact them on a daily basis. The organization was named after former Black Panther, Fred Hampton, and also cites inspiration from Italian Marxist theorist, Antonio Gramsci, as well as educator and philosopher, Paulo Freire. In order to remain consistent with its working-class billing, the HI seeks out, as well as aims to develop, organic intellectuals within the working class; both in the US as well as internationally." Further, we are "dedicated to not only providing commentary, theoretical analysis, and research on a wide range of social, political, and economic issues from a distinct working-class perspective; but also to focusing on the continuation of transforming these ideas into practical steps towards revolutionary social change."

It is imperative that in this era of anti-intellectualism we show the importance of inquiry and knowledge-creation. There is no greater reminder that there is a need for applying this knowledge and engaging in activism than the current state of affairs that has left many adjuncts impoverished , overworked, and under-valued . Some adjuncts are even dealing with homelessness and have turned to sex work . It is just a reminder to academics that they should be loyal to the working class and not the plutocracy.

...And (Quality) Education For All: A Case Study on Race, Poverty, and Education in America

By Milo Levine

Four years ago, when senior Tre'chaun Berkley first came to Tamalpais High School (Mill Valley, CA) from Martin Luther King Jr. Academy, he was nervous. "I felt that I wasn't ready. Coming from a class with 11 students to a class with 20 is something I had to get used to," he said. "On top of that, [I worried about] not knowing how to speak with the people in my class, because I don't speak as proper [as them], so they wouldn't probably understand me or they would make fun [of] the way I say something," he said. Berkley is not alone. Many students of color that come to "Tam" from Marin City experience societal and systemic hardships that disrupt their educational experience.

"The Academic Achievement Gap"

We live in Marin County: the 17th wealthiest county in the country, and also one of the most segregated.

This segregation manifests itself in what teachers and administrators call "the academic achievement gap." According to the Glossary of Education Reform, an achievement gap is "any significant and persistent disparity in academic performance or educational attainment between different groups of students, such as white students and minorities, or students from higher-income and lower-income households."

This problem is very much alive in the Tam community. "The achievement gap correlates to socioeconomic status, and it is a countywide, statewide, and nationwide issue," Sausalito Marin City School District (SMCSD) Board of Trustees President Joshua Barrow said. "This is not something new. It's been around for decades."

Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy (MLK) and charter school Willow Creek Academy (WCA) are both part of SMCSD. Mill Valley Middle School (MVMS) is part of the Mill Valley School District (MVSD). MLK and WCA teach students in grades K-8, while MVMS teaches students in grades 6-8. All three schools feed into Tam, and though they're within four miles of each other, they couldn't be more different.

The aforementioned schools differ significantly in statewide testing results. Student skill, knowledge, and achievement are largely measured by the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) scores. This test is given to students in grades 3-8 and 11. There is a large disparity in student performance when MLK and WCA are compared to MVMS. CAASPP determined that 77 percent of MVMS students are proficient in math, and 83 percent are proficient in English. In stark contrast, 25 percent of MLK students are proficient in math and 25 percent are proficient in English, well below the statewide average of 37 percent in math and 48 percent in English. WCA passed more students than the state's average in both math and English, at 43 percent and 50 percent, respectively.

CAASPP also reports that 82 percent of MLK students and 40 percent of WCA students are either African American or Hispanic. These two demographics perform the lowest in both math and English testing at Tamalpais High School. According to CAASPP, 31 percent of Hispanic students are proficient in math and 36 percent are proficient in English, while only 17 percent of black students are proficient in math and only 23 percent are proficient in English.

These results are heavily influenced by both race and poverty, given that white Tam students from low-income families also receive significantly lower test scores when compared to the general population, but higher test scores than students of color.

Only 3 percent of African American students attending WCA are proficient in math, and only 10 percent are proficient in English. Among low-income students, who make up 42 percent of WCA's population, 23 percent are proficient in math and 35 percent are proficient in English. At MLK, 17 percent of black students are proficient in math and 14 percent are proficient in English. While these statistics highlight SMCSD's shortcomings, they also show that there is a significant racial element to the achievement gap.

The principal of MLK, Dr. Chappelle Griffin, did not respond to multiple email requests for comment.

At Tam, multiple former MLK students said they felt under-served by the teachers at MLK. Freshman Tyrell Atkinson went to MLK from grades K-7, but transferred to WCA for the 8th grade. "I learned a lot in math and English [at MLK], but in all the other [subjects] I didn't," Atkinson said. "The bad teachers let us do whatever we wanted, and we had a sub every week. [I received] average grades, even though I didn't learn a lot from most teachers."

Atkinson said his school experience changed after he transferred. "At WCA they didn't give us much homework like they did at MLK. The teachers were nice and taught us a lot. It was an improvement over MLK," he said.

Unlike Atkinson, sophomore Daeshawn Burr attended MLK for the entirety of his pre-high school education. "MLK was academically bad for me," he said. "They weren't teaching us some stuff that we needed to learn. When I came to Tam I felt underprepared."

Burr elaborated on his rough transition. "I had an F in [Algebra 1-2], both semesters last year," he said. Although he admits that "I wasn't pushing myself to do well," he also added, "My [freshman math teacher] was kind of bad. She was all over the place. I went up to her to get help a few times, but she never helped me. I think she was probably busy." Burr is now in Algebra Foundations.

Tam Social Studies teacher Dr. Claire Ernst defended Tam, in response to Burr's claim that he was underserved by a school instructor. "Our job is to teach all students and to differentiate [instruction] so every student can learn and succeed," she said. "Math poses a lot of challenges in that regard, but our math department in general does a great job. A lot of support is available for kids that need it."

However, Ernst does notice a pattern among the students who require the most additional academic support. "Broadly speaking, students that have been through MLK come in with fewer skills," she said. If a student is struggling, Ernst said she will "meet [the student] at tutorial, restructure assignments, break things into smaller pieces, [and] individualize attention during class."

Berkley, who came to Tam from MLK, also spoke about a rocky transition to high school. "I wanted to go [to MLK], because it was close to my house and in my neighborhood, [but] I didn't feel prepared coming here from MLK," he said. Berkley had a particularly challenging time upon arrival at Tam. "It was a bigger school and I didn't know a lot of the students," he said.

Senior Jaiana Harris, who went to MLK and WCA, has also experienced a fair amount of alienation at Tam. "At MLK everyone's black, but [at Tam] you feel like an outsider," Harris said. Multiple African American students expressed outrage over how welcomed they were by the Tam athletic community, only to then be rejected come school time.

"We are only important during sports, but when it comes to academics, they don't care about us," Harris said, as several nearby African American students chimed in with their agreement. "[Black students] are used for sports… and during the classroom, [there's] no love for us," Berkley added.

Racial issues arise frequently at Tam, unbeknownst to many white members of the community.

"Students feel isolated, due to being black and alone in a class…You feel like you don't belong," Principal J.C. Farr said. At Tam, events such as Breakthrough Day, which took place on February 27 (2017), can help the community unite to mend issues of racial segregation. However, many minority students felt that Breakthrough Day didn't do enough. "I thought [Breakthrough Day] was a waste of time, because it was teachers running it instead of students, and all our teachers that ran it are white," junior Pedro Mira said.

Another issue, according to freshman Ta'Naejah Reed, was a widespread indifference expressed by white students during the day's activities. "I felt [Breakthrough Day] was good, but people couldn't really connect. If you weren't colored or weren't a different race you didn't really connect to it and it wasn't that important," she said.

Breakthrough Day may have catalyzed conversations about race at Tam, even though it evidently left plenty to be desired. Regardless, the Tam administration is actively exploring race and poverty, with regards to the achievement gap. "It's a very complex issue," Farr said. "Some of it is due to preparation and the quality of middle school education."

Chaotic Teacher Turnover

Farr went on to explain one problem in particular that MLK recently faced. "They went months without having a single math teacher for the 8th grade. Those who even receive instruction are greatly advantaged," he said.

Berkley has experienced firsthand MLK's chaotic teacher turnover. "There were so many teacher switches at MLK. There were always new teachers and subs. It was confusing," he said. Almost every former MLK student interviewed mentioned teacher turnover as a substantial difficulty.

SMCSD has had an ongoing problem with teacher turnover, especially as of late. "Sausalito Marin City is a revolving door district. Statistically, having good teachers is the most important thing, and there is definitely more turnover than you want to see," Barrow said.

Referring to MLK's math teaching vacancy, Barrow said they had had a teacher lined up to fill the position, but he quit unexpectedly after a week.

"I don't know the reasons why he left. It could have been culture shock. Maybe he had another job lined up. It takes a special kind of teacher to operate in this environment," Barrow said. "Money doesn't drive the turnover. People just like to be involved in something successful."

The Shanker Institute reported significantly higher turnover rates at schools with a large disadvantaged population, compared to schools with a smaller disadvantaged population. When 34 percent or less of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, teacher turnover rates average 12.8 percent per year. At schools where upwards of 75 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, teacher turnover rates nearly double, to an average of 22 percent per year.

Acknowledging that "all teachers are special in their own right," Barrow listed some of the qualities that make a person a good fit for working at MLK. "[They need a] desire to work with low-income and minority students, cultural awareness and sensitivity, particularly with African American, Hispanic, and the many other ethnic groups we serve, [and the] ability to work in a small district which may not have the specialization, process maturity, systems, or support structures of a large district," he said.

In a research analysis report, the Center for Public Education corroborated Barrow's analysis, suggesting that a good teacher is integral to student success. "Research consistently shows that teacher quality-whether measured by content knowledge, experience, training and credentials, or general intellectual skills-is strongly related to student achievement: Simply, skilled teachers produce better student results," the organization reported.

Tam has recently taken on an active role in trying to stop MLK's teacher carousel. "[Math department teacher leader] David Wetzel was assigned to teach at MLK, part time, for the semester," Farr said.

"MLK, for over a year, did not have a math teacher, so I asked the school to let me go over there to teach math and they said yes. I have been teaching there [part time] since the start of the semester," Wetzel said.

This is not the first time Wetzel has sought to help the academically challenged school. "Ten years ago, students coming [to Tam] from MLK were underperforming, so we started the MLK Math Transition Program, and MLK student's performance went up," he said. "Then SMCSD canceled the program, after three years, and performance went down again." Wetzel and Barrow both said that they did not know why the program had been cancelled.

Regardless, things are now looking up for MLK 8th graders, according to Wetzel. "The students are very grateful and positive now that they have a math teacher again. They are working very hard to learn as much material as possible," he said. From SMCSD's point of view, Barrow said, "The Wetzel situation is kind of like a band-aid. It's a temporary fix."

Funding, Education, and Added Stressors

Teacher pay could be a factor in SMCSD's turnover problem, given that teachers at MVMS have a higher average salary than teachers MLK or WCA. However, it would appear that funding in general is not the main driving force behind the district's poor academic performance. "On dollars per student, SMCSD is far ahead of MVSD, even after all of Kiddo's contributions," said Barrow.

Kiddo, which Barrow is referring to, is a nonprofit founded in 1982 that funds all Mill Valley School District (MVSD) campuses, covering kids from kindergarten to 8th grade. In the 2015-2016 school year alone, Kiddo raised almost $3.5 million for the district. A vast majority of this money goes straight into the schools.

Barrow is convinced that there are many other causes at play, unrelated to finances. "It's not all about money. It's about leadership, structure, consistency, and many other factors," he said. "I wouldn't say that Kiddo is why MVSD is doing so great. It helps, but it's not primary, and I don't know what they're doing right, but I do know that they have [a greater] size and a [smaller] disadvantaged population."

Students who come from low-income families face many academic obstacles. In their book about improving school performance, William Parrett and Kathleen Budge, both of whom have Ph.Ds in the educational field, wrote that "[Students living in poverty] may have limited access to high-quality day care, limited access to before-or after-school care, and limited physical space in their homes to create private or quiet environments conducive to study." They also reported that economic privilege manifests itself early, and those who don't have it suffer from the start. "…Substandard housing, inadequate medical care, and poor nutrition can affect the rate of childhood disease, premature births, and low birth weights, all of which affect a child's physical and cognitive development," they wrote.

In addition to navigating potential stressors at home, many students reported struggling with an environment at MLK that they did not find conducive to learning. "It was so easy to get in trouble there. It's a small classroom, with all of your friends. A lot of students in there were messing around and stopping the class," Berkley said. When faculty tried to intervene with students' misbehavior, Berkley felt that it sometimes made things worse.

"[I had an] English teacher [who] was too busy punishing kids that she didn't teach us anything," he said.

Berkley was not the only MLK alum whose experience was marred significantly by feuds between the students and the adults. Many felt that the constant conflict hampered their ability to learn much at all.

On the other end of the spectrum, MVMS alumna and current Tam sophomore Alexis Detjen-Creson said, "The school [MVMS] made sure that you did well. If you were struggling, the teacher would talk to you in private about getting your performance back on track."

Compounding the inequities between the two districts is the contrast in their sizes. Because MVSD has a massive population of around 3,400 students, compared to the relatively tiny SMCSD population of 540 students, it has more resources and can operate more efficiently. "[SMCSD] is one of the smallest [districts] in Marin. There are nineteen school districts in the county. We need to fix that," Barrow said.

Barrow has started a committee to try to combine SMCSD and MVSD into one district. "To consolidate like this, you need to hold a vote on it. If it got through, the governing board and the voters would be invested in improving Sausalito Marin City student's performance. The community at large would be pushing for this betterment," Barrow said. The community, in this case, would be families from Sausalito, Marin City, and Mill Valley, all working together to accomplish the same goal: improving academic success. The issue has not yet been brought to a vote; however, for the measure to pass, two-thirds of voters would have to approve it, a tall order for any bill.

Politics and Education

SMCSD has been subject to a fair amount of controversy as of late, primarily due to the release of a Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) report, an organization that investigates the financial status of local educational agencies. Published on August 10, 2016, the report concluded that: "The district has not met the needs of students at Bayside MLK, and the result is that students are underachieving." More specifically, MLK students are scoring well below average in statewide testing, in addition to being outperformed by their own district counterpart: WCA.

The assessment has since been disputed by SMCSD, who stated on their website that "The report was called into question by the Sausalito Marin City School District Board of Trustees, as it contained several factual inaccuracies and unfounded allegations."

The political controversy surrounding SMCSD can distract from the most important issue: the well-being and success of the students. There are some external organizations that are actively helping out, such as Marin Promise, which aims to propel disadvantaged students through high school and into college. There has been an increased effort to improve student's 9th grade math readiness, and Wetzel is currently working with the group to find solutions.

Another group is Bridge the Gap College Prep, which is a "college preparatory and youth development organization that provides programming aimed at preparing Marin City students for college success," according to their mission statement.

The effectiveness of such programs cannot accurately be measured at this time, due to a lack of available information and statistics from said non-profits.

Barrow has made an effort to address the matter at an earlier grade level "By high school, it's too late to integrate low and high income students," he said.

Measure A of 2016, a bill that would have, among many other things, created low price or free preschool for underserved children in Marin County, failed. This was a great disappointment for Barrow, who was hoping to improve kid's readiness for kindergarten.

The Marin GOP was a staunch opponent of Measure A, due to a common conservative opposition to welfare expansion. This may have resulted in the failure of the bill, even in a predominantly liberal area.

Granted, it's best to confront the achievement gap with younger kids, but high schools still have to take responsibility for their role in the issue, according to Farr. "We are amping up transition programs over the summer, to build up student's skills," said Principal Farr. "[It has taken me] some time to try and develop an understanding of the situation." Farr wants the Tam community to know that "We're committed to addressing the achievement gap."

Despite facing many obstacles throughout his educational career, Senior Tre'chaun Berkley is now looking to move forward, via higher education. After looking into various options, he finally made his decision. "I'm going to go to a community college, then [I'll] transfer into a university after two years," Berkley said. Reflecting on his time in high school, he added, "For the future [minority] students [at Tam], I want to say look to be a leader, [not] a follower."

Milo Levine is a student-journalist who serves as a news editor and editorial board member for The Tam News, a school paper located in Mill Valley, CA. Milo has won a national Certificate of Merit from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.

Capitalism and White Supremacy: The Two-Headed Dragon that Must Be Slain

By Matthew Dolezal

Four decades of neoliberal Reaganomics has decimated the American poor and working class. Median wages have remained stagnant since the late 1970s, despite a consistent increase in productivity. The top 1 percent owns 40 percent of the country's wealth, and top CEOs make more than 300 times that of the average worker (which is a 1,000 percent increase since 1978). There are 46 million Americans officially living in poverty, but, due to the arbitrary nature of the poverty line, another 100 million are "near poor" (i.e. cannot afford basic necessities). And keep in mind - this is happening in the richest country in the world. These third-world levels of economic inequality make the US look a lot like an oligarchy. The vast majority of new income goes to the top 1 percent, and one family -  the Waltons of the Walmart empire - has more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of the population.

Wealth concentration and poverty under neoliberalism aren't abstract concepts; they have tangible consequenses. For example, half of all Americans don't even live paycheck to paycheck, student loan debt is diminishing the prospects of home ownership, climate change is beginning to devastate poor communities while helping the rich, and 45,000 people die every year due to a lack of health insurance. In Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s final speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1967, he said :

"One day we must ask the question, 'Why are there forty million poor people in America?' When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy."

But this is a democracy, right? Who would vote for such a grim existence? Well, according to an academic study from Cambridge , there is literally no correlation between public opinion and government policy. Turns out the plutocrats are running the show (thanks, in part, to Citizens United ).

Generic, theoretical capitalism is inseparable from our current paradigm of advanced, hyper-consumerist, job-shipping, union-busting, soul-crushing neoliberalism. Prominent capitalists have fought desperately to achieve this sadistic system, which is the culmination of an evolutionary history of laissez-faire. One day, long ago, Adam Smith planted roses, and all that remain are the thorns. To quote King again, "today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness."

But capitalism is not an equal-opportunity destroyer. These social tragedies demonstrably and empirically affect folks of color at vastly disproportional rates. For instance, the average net worth of black households is $6,314, compared to $110,500 for the average white household. Blacks are more than twice as likely as whites to be poor, and a white male with a criminal record is more likely to get a job than an equally qualified person of color with a clean record. Median black household income is approximately $43,300, while median white household income is around $71,300. This discrepancy is roughly 40 percent greater today than it was in 1967. And these economic disparities are just the beginning. For instance, in the area of mass incarceration, more than 40 percent of US inmates are black men, while that demographic only makes up 6.5 percent of the general population. In the area of police violence, black teens age 15-19 are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by the police than white teens of the same age group. These statistics could continue for pages. Profound systemic racism poisons every aspect of American society. These horrors are manifestations of the racial caste system that has always existed in the US, which is discussed at length by Michelle Alexander in her groundbreaking book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

We often forget that merely five decades ago, our country maintained a government-sactioned apartheid system. This included the intentional creation of black ghettos through redlining and other discriminatory policies. Political inertia, mixed with the racist War on Drugs, has preserved the vestiges of white supremacy. The reality on the ground looks a lot like the same ol' Jim Crow; that guy we swore we kicked out in 1964.

But racism isn't just institutional; it is often overt. The recent emergence of Trump made this crystal-clear . Not only did the Ku Klux Klan and white nationalists endorse him, but even for his voters, " fear of diversity " was a significant motivating factor.

The evils of racism are clearly apparent to any non-psychopath, but racial ideologies also serve to pit poor and working-class white folks against people of color and minorities, distracting them from their true nemesis; the ruling class. This is a classic example of "divide and conquer," and has benefited the elites immensely. Anti-racism activist and author Tim Wise elucidates this phenomenon in a concise Marxian manner:

"The history of America is the history of rich white men telling not rich white people that their enemies are black and brown."

Let's put an end to this madness. Let's build a movement to confront and destroy this dual evil of economic and racial injustice. Might I suggest…

Socialists have a rich tradition of fighting racism, from the Communist Party of Alabama , to Cuba's critical support of black South Africans during Apartheid, to early 20th century socialist politician Eugene Debs , to revolutionary Marxist Rosa Luxemburg , to the original Black Panthers Party . Socialists not only see racism as contrary to worker solidarity, but as a destructive and dehumanizing hierarchy, just like the class system itself. And indeed, capitalism and racism have a symbiotic relationship. Two modern organizations that are battling this double-headed beast are Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Redneck Revolt .

Founded in 1982, DSA is the largest socialist organization in the US, with a total dues-paying membership of 25,000 (a four-fold increase since November of 2016). Members have been active in opposing the agenda of the Trump regime, as well as carrying the torch of the Bernie Sanders political revolution. DSA has been on the front lines fighting for a $15 minimum wage, universal healthcare, LGBTQ equality, climate justice, reproductive rights, and many other progressive causes. However, one thing that separates DSA from other left-leading organizations such as Our Revolution is their vehement anti-capitalism. DSA document Where We Stand: Building the Next Left explains:

"We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.

We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships."

On the topic of anti-racist activism, DSA Honorary Chair and prominent intellectual Cornel West writes :

"A long and deep legacy of white supremacy has always arrested the development of US democracy… When the system is declining, it can bring despair. That's why Black Lives Matter   -   and all other young people of all colors who are mobilizing   -   is a beautiful thing. We are having a moral and spiritual awakening. It gives us democratic hope... It's time to move from being spectators, to being actors."

Members of Redneck Revolt are not liberals . They are pro-gun, pro-labor, anti-fascist, and anti-racist. The movement is rapidly expanding, with more than 30 chapters around the US. Developing around 2009 as an outgrowth of the John Brown Gun Club, this diverse group now focuses on recruiting rural, southern and Appalachian working-class folks to join the fight against white supremacy and capitalism, while protecting and supporting people of color and other marginalized communities. After all, many of these poor southern white folks have been voting against their own interests for decades after falling for the xenophobic rhetoric of prominent politicians. Dave Strano, a founding member of the organization, explains:

"The history of the white working class has been a history of being an exploited people. However, we've been an exploited people that further exploits other exploited people. While we've been living in tenements and slums for centuries, we've also been used by the rich to attack our neighbors, coworkers, and friends of different colors, religions and nationalities."

Member Max Neely summarized their strategy by saying simply:

"We use gun culture as a way to relate to people. No liberal elitism. Our basic message is: guns are fine, but racism is not."

Now, I know just mentioning the term "white privilege" can make people uncomfortable , but this sociological reality must be acknowledged and dismantled as an inherent aspect of entrenched white supremacy. White privilege is the flip-side of the oppression and marginalization faced by people of color. Simply being given an unconditional pass to avoid oppression, discrimination, profiling, and other forms of profound inequality is in itself a major manifestation of white privilege. But an understanding of intersectionality as it relates to privilege is also crucial, just as it is in understanding oppression and exploitation. If one has privileges based on other sociological aspects of their identity, this privilege may extend beyond merely avoiding the injustices uniquely faced by non-whites. In addition to race, these realms include class, sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, etc. The more dominant groups one belongs to, the more privileges that are usually afforded to that individual. Based on a rudimentary analysis of modern American society, the most privileged demographic would be wealthy, white, heterosexual, cisgendered, Christian men. Indeed, if you pay even peripheral attention to current events and history, you'll quickly realize that these are, more often than not, the people who own and control our society and have since its inception. One such man was "founding father" and forth president of the United States, James Madison, who was passionate about protecting "the minority of the opulent against the majority." Oh, and he also owned over a hundred slaves. There are still dudes like this, but now they're banksters and Koch -fiends. Let's break this trend. To those of us with various forms of privilege, let's use it to fight for a better future for everyone.

The genocide of the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas was our nation's original sin. White supremacy and capitalism were then built upon this rotten foundation. These parasitic abominations emerged simultaneously in American society; let's dismantle them simultaneously as well.