March 17, 2025|
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The concept of building community is commonly used as a buzzword by NGOs and leftists as a proposed solution to the struggles faced under capitalism within the imperial core, where we find ourselves socially alienated and struggling to tread water financially. The issue however is that it rarely materializes into anything more than empty platitudes. It oftentimes becomes nothing more than a networking opportunity for the same familiar niche activists you are used to seeing at events. These niche leftists claim to want to build community, but rarely does this concept of community get extended into the broader working class in the area. In fact, there is a large disconnect between those doing activist work and the communities they are supposedly seeking to supply aid to. These circles become so entrenched in themselves that they really just become hobbies for those doing “the work”,[1] speaking into an echo chamber about their progressive ideas that resonate with a narrow subsection of the working class. This alienates them from the ‘community’ that they see as the vehicle for our collective liberation from capitalism. My goal with this essay is for organizers to walk away with a basis in class solidarity rather than focusing on identity. I want the left to abandon practices that isolate and alienate us; but rather, build the community that is required to defeat capitalism.
Building community requires discomfort, inconvenience and sacrifice, things that neoliberal individualist culture is the least willing to incur. Building community also requires sharing power, which runs counter to the proprietary nature of capitalist models for achieving power. This neoliberal culture has unfortunately seeped into our so-called progressive spaces and is plaguing our ability to get anything done in a unified manner. The attitude surrounding the 2024 election perfectly encapsulates this, as liberals will openly admit that they are more worried about how the results of the election effects their personal lives or even the lives of their friends and family in the USA, than the lives of Palestinians experiencing genocide and famine at the hands of the very party they advocate for you to vote for. When we say “no one is free until we are all free” this needs to be more than an empty platitude and actually ground our politics in the concept of what community is, requiring inconvenience and sacrifice to show solidarity.
Oftentimes, those same niche activists who seem to utilize organizing as a hobby, will “check out” at the first sign of conflict. This is a trademark of individualism, where activists are only interested in building their aforementioned version of community. It is their privilege as activists in the western world that affords them the ability to remove themselves from a situation when it becomes conflictual. This highlights the separation between the fair-weather activists who claim to be building community, and the actual community of the working class. That is those of us who trade our time and labor for a wage and who do not have the luxury to simply remove themselves from the struggle for liberation when it becomes inconvenient. The reality is community naturally has conflict: the key to building community is navigating those conflicts in a way that requires momentary discomfort or inconvenience, and finding a way to move forward together. I remember sitting in on a seminar about the Palestinian resistance led by professor Jodi Dean, where she highlighted how we need to expand our thinking from “by any means necessary”, to “by all means necessary”. These are the types of concepts in which we can build community, where we set aside minor differences in strategy and identity to focus on our shared interests of collective working class liberation. True relationships and bonds of trust are not solidified when things are easy, but when times are difficult.
Cancel Culture
Currently those in the movement are large proponents of what has been dubbed “cancel culture”. Though I believe there is merit to the strategy of “cancelling” actual fascists, I think it has unfortunately bled internally causing the leftist organizing scene to devour itself from the inside out. We really need to learn that the same strategy can not be applied internally as it is externally. Even if we accurately diagnose a comrades’ conflictual behavior to be steeped in some sort of bigoted micro aggression, it doesn’t mean we hastily isolate well-meaning people who agree with us on the majority of issues. The interesting thing about rushing to cancel an individual, who is otherwise a comrade, is it’s actually counter-productive to the movement as this isolated individual will undoubtedly be seeking community elsewhere, and likely would be accepted into the right wing with open arms. They could follow that right wing grift pipeline, from “anti-cancel culture” Joe Rogan podcasts to right wing fascist. Why turn an otherwise skillful and active comrade back into the field to be operationalized by the enemy? I’m not saying we shouldn’t be selective or hold people accountable, but organizers need to slow the hell down their rush to judgement within our own side.
Identity Politics
Identity politics are one of the main generators of these sorts of conflicts. There is this sort of “Oppression Olympics” that takes place, where marginalized people debate amongst themselves about who is the most maligned as a means of usurping a more organic way of deciding hierarchy and collectively determining power in these organizing spaces. Oftentimes these individuals select themselves as lone representative for the group they identify with, not recognizing that they have turned their entire community into a monolith of which they are the spokesperson, as if everyone from a particular marginalized group is going to agree with their words because of their shared experiences. It may even be a subconscious reaction where one advocates for their own interests, but we need to be consciously advocating for the collective interest instead.
Of course, if we are talking about the concept of trans-issues for example, we should be centering the conversation around trans people and their lived experiences. However, one trans person does not represent the entirety of trans people and their opinions. Scientifically speaking a sample size of “one” would never be accepted as evidence for a qualitative or quantitative measurement. Therefore it is disingenuous to assume that a self- appointed representative of a marginalized group is actually representing the best needs for that group. When the subject is broadened to the idea of liberation itself, it’s also disingenuous to silence opinions from non-trans people, as if they are somehow incapable of being a part of the theoretical and analytical discourse without sharing the experience of being trans. A cis-gendered lifelong organizer may have some better strategies at organizing than a trans person new to organizing or organizing based on their identity, through each of their lived experiences. Both perspectives should be valued, but a novice should be led by a journeyman and the unification propelled by the class analysis should prevail over that of the individual identitarian. This weakness was perhaps on greatest display during the occupy movement, where a pseudo-anarchist ideology aimed at equalizing organizers with differing goals, led to dysfunction and eventual failure.[2]
Circling back to the implications of “cancel culture”… In these spaces, accusations of bigotry and malice will be positioned against those with good faith disagreements, most likely unrelated to the identity of the person they are disagreeing with. A strategic difference is confused with personal differences so that the personal/identity conflict becomes foregrounded while the more important strategic conflict is forgotten to the background. For example an accusation of misogyny when a man disagrees with a woman. When someone begins a sentence “as a(n) (insert member of marginalized group)” and then follows that prefix up with their particular individual take, I cringe. They are using their identity to inflate their argument and to set the stage where they call anyone who dares to disagree with their individual opinion, a bigot. That identity alone does not give you the credibility to say anything with certainty nor absolution. It is wrong to weaponize your identity to silence the opposition.
Identity politics does not exist to create solidarity amongst oppressed groups, but to create solidarity within oppressed groups. This oppression based pecking order encourages individuals within these groups to affiliate that oppression to their identity- effectively creating in-group and out-groups and a sense of belonging (and with that, tribalism, which is antithetical to true “community building”). This tribalism also serves to embolden the ostracisation of those who do not present as “perfect victims” or who do not concede to the viewpoints of their “assigned” representatives.
Within every identity group there will be a broad range of opinions, experiences and analysis. When folks who are outside the identity group disagree with an opinion or use improper terms, it doesn’t automatically make it some sort of elusive internalized bigotry. To create a bad faith assumption that a leftist who is otherwise anti-racist, anti-transphobic, etc. and has devoted themselves to representing those values – would suddenly have a hidden agenda- you create a self fulfilling prophecy. It’s disingenuous to shut down what could and should be genuine discourse amidst a conflict. In fact, it serves the opposite purpose, as it validates the conservative trope that accusations of discrimination are applied to times when they are not relevant.
Restorative Justice
The concept of “restorative justice”, a term that is thrown around by the same “community” types, would suggest that we should reform and rehabilitate this member of the community via conversation and explanation, and attempts to reconcile with the harmed party- not castigation or an expectation of subservience. For restorative justice to be a viable concept, people need to be redeemable, therefore “cancel-culture” amongst the left to other leftists needs to end. Commonly, cancellation is justified through a self-righteous cry for “safety” and keeping marginalized communities safe, ironically often from those outside of the particular community (which only serves to support the accusation of self-righteousness). Throughout history, harm and aggression has been justified in the name of hyper “safety” needs. This victim indulgent vetting process only leads to a sort of “progressive” caste system or Brahmin left[3], bereft of working class members and in their place a cadre of individualist elites. What we need is the opposite process.
We need to understand that there is a fundamental difference between being unsafe, and being uncomfortable.
We need to understand that there is a fundamental difference between being unsafe, and being uncomfortable. Difficult conversations do not make people unsafe, it makes them uncomfortable. For us to practice restorative justice in a way that opposes the current ruling class structures of punitive justice (shame, revenge, isolation) we need to be okay with experiencing discomfort. When we say liberation requires sacrifice, the privilege of comfort is one of those things that we can afford to sacrifice. Rehabilitation and reforming a comrade who has harmful tendencies doesn’t inherently mean people are unsafe. In fact, I’d say we are the least safe when we are the proponents of shame, isolation and punishment as we are creating the conditions that incentivize revenge. We can hold our comrades accountable, but in order to practice what we preach, we must give the opportunity to be accountable and educate instead of replicating the carceral solutions we currently live under. It is important to recognize that accountability does not inherently mean the offending party will agree with you. To be accountable is to simply be responsible for your actions, acknowledge the impacts of those actions, to provide your reasoning for the behavior and insight on how to avoid future repetition. It does not mean that you have to feel remorse or regret, or that the actions occurred in a vacuum absent outside influence. Redemption and healing need to be explicitly outlined, and the offending party’s material reality should be taken into consideration while attempting to provide them the framework necessary for repair. Without clear and attainable benchmarks, the path to redemption is a performative face-saving measure. This doesn’t mean that those harmed are under any obligation to forgive, but the collective sees no benefit from discarding humans who are reformable. We are hurting for numbers on our side as it is, and let’s face it, the opposition outnumbers us because they are very willing to accept outcast members of society. Humans want and need community, and they will find it where they are welcome.
Of course I’m not claiming that everyone is redeemable either, nor am I claiming to be free of sin. I feel as though violent crimes, sex crimes, etc. should be subject to genuine cancellation. What I am saying, however, is that we need to consider the nuances that are associated with truly being part of a community. In this way, society would function more like some indigenous civilizations did, where there were no prisons, but a failure to function within the expectations of society still yielded consequences. We need to return to the etymology of the term “discipline”, where its root word “disciple” suggests an approach of education and not punishment. People were not abandoned, they were guided, and in this way less deviations from the expectations of society occurred. The existence of the strong community alleviated many of the challenges or conflicts we see in individualist society. Of course for those incapable of assimilating, harsher and more extreme consequences existed.
Take for example, your stereotype, blue collar conservative with fringe “bigoted” views. If we wanted to have class solidarity with this individual, how could it realistically require a predetermined barrier of moralism where the solidarity is contingent upon their politics aligning with our own seamlessly? How could we expect them to move further to the left on issues of identity such as race or gender while simultaneously exiling them to find community with the fascists? If your answer was that we don’t want class solidarity with this person then you have completely lost the plot, you do not understand the concept of community or of restorative justice practices, you simply practice moral Puritanism to inflate your own insecure individual ego.
The way we move this person to the left, to our side, is by giving them community. It’s by putting them side by side with working class blacks and working class queers, toiling toward the same goal of liberation from under the boot of the ruling class. Through this work they will recognize that their enemy is not those with darker skin, or who identify as alternative genders. They will see that where we differ in identity, is nothing compared to where we find unity on the basis of class. They will build camaraderie with those who they previously “hated” because the hate was based in superficial discourse driven by propaganda pushed by the ruling class to divide the working class into something that remains subservient. In his article titled “The Left’s problem isn’t Politics, it’s Metaphysics” Gregory Leffel says “Postmodernity taught us to fear forced assimilation into the visions of the dominant society. But walled-off identities must be broken open to offer hospitality to the ‘other’ for communication to take place. Diversity without a universal is a jungle; the universal without diversity is a prison”[4]. A universal language of class analysis must be spoken to the masses to reach liberation, one that encompasses all creeds, colors and backgrounds. Liberation is not acquired through discourse, it is acquired through consistency and hard work over a long period of time.
A Socialist Perspective
This is what socialism aims to provide, an analysis and a movement rooted in class antagonism, particularly that of the working class versus the ruling class, instead of a culture war that focuses on the individual identities amongst the movement. The cancellation of folks who do not subscribe to a certain idea of identity only fractures solidarity on a class basis, it indicates how unserious people are about actual liberation. This is why class and only class must be our determining factor when it comes to who we are going to work with. Class analysis must always supersede an identity basis if we want to build a functional movement that can actually defeat its opponents, that can actually win. Nothing is more important than winning, because it is through victory that we can actually bring about the change that will abolish the systems of oppression existing for particular identity groups. This isn’t an argument that identity groups don’t exist, or that their nuance isn’t a part of the material reality, nor is it an invitation to abandon the concepts of intersectionality. This is a vocation to prioritize class over identity so that we can conglomerate into the largest possible single group that unites toward the same goal. We may not have in common our races or our gender, and of course even if/when we do some of us are more privileged than others.
We do not all share the same consequences of systematic oppression. Of course, working class black people in the USA have had it worse than the average white man, It may be more comforting to think that working class Blacks have more in common with black capitalists, and white working class with white capitalists, because that is the individualist siloed narrative that is sold in our culture. On a material level however, we have more in common with working class bigots than capitalists. While it may be temporarily comforting to see totems of success that look like us, it is the experiences shared by the masses that should motivate our actions. To paraphrase Fred Hampton, “we do not defeat capitalism with black capitalism, we defeat it with socialism”. Fred focused on making rainbow coalitions amongst the working class, because what we do share is being exploited by the ruling class. What we do share is the same oppressors, the capitalists, where racism and bigotry are byproducts of their overarching control of the means of production. When the capitalists are in control, they can oppress by any means they wish, and so our main objective needs to be toppling the capitalist elite and their ruling class collaborators with revolutionary terror. The capitalists “by any means necessary” methods require a “by all means necessary” response. We can only bring about this terror of numbers with solidarity amongst the working class, toppling those systems of oppression means liberation for all. We win via organized solidarity around the premise of class, not through individual based purity tests of moralism. The Chinese who opposed the Japanese imperialists put their moral differences aside, communists allied with conservatives to fight the common oppressor, and through this unification they were victorious[5]. If we want to actually improve the lives of the marginalized identity groups we claim to represent, this victory needs to be the primary goal. After this goal is achieved, the systems that marginalized these groups in the first place can be dissolved. Cuba is a great example of this, where the revolutionaries who actually began their period of rule with their own bigoted views particularly toward queer people and have maintained some conservative cultural norms, have now progressed their society into having the most progressive views on this subject on the planet, allowing the people to decide on their own what “family” looks like to them, regardless of identity or gender.[6]
When it comes to capitalism, the identity of the capitalist ceases to matter. White or black, woman or male, queer or straight, all capitalist interest is aligned in upholding the systems of capitalism and therefore they are unified on that basis. That unification is what creates the ruling class, those who exploit the working class for its labor value by doing nothing more than owning businesses or real estate. If the opposition is unified on the basis of class, then why aren’t we? Again this essay isn’t advocating to just abandon our identities in favor of class in their entirety, our individual identities are what provide so much depth and diversity to our culture. We should maintain those identities with pride, while putting that pride aside for the liberation for all of the working class. This has always been a core tenet of socialism, stemming from the rallying cry from Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto “Workers of the world, unite!” This unification doesn’t just align us with our brothers and sisters domestically, but internationally as well. It defines the principle of solidarity, as being something we share with ALL members of our class, regardless of our differences. When it comes to being a revolutionary, solidarity can mean risking life and limb for those you’ve never met or will meet regardless of what they might believe. That is how a community that roots itself in class operates, with a tenacity and a resilience that can never be defeated by the oppressors.
The concepts touched on in this essay even address both the trope of leftist Infighting and why the left is divided amongst dozens of niche sectarian organizations in every major city in the United States. By maintaining an inability to resolve conflict, to disagree on majorly inconsequential differences and maintaining a barrier of moral purity, the left fractures itself into pieces. Even worse, is that intelligence agencies have admitted that these qualities are a part of the strategy to defeat the rise of the western left, and yet many of us are making their job particularly easy – we cointelpro ourselves.This approach leaves the left so divided that we are incapable of any major victories. We must reform our messaging and practices that accept the working class into our ranks with all of their flaws, that fights on behalf of the existing labor organizations despite all of their flaws, and that resolve conflicts in a productive manner. We must learn to accept critique from our ranks, and root ourselves in a principled approach regardless of how we feel as individuals. We must create coalitions, and if those coalitions become inoperable or inefficient then all parties must move on with continued collective support for each other’s organizations and projects. The movement is larger than ourselves, and if we can’t sacrifice our individual emotions for the collective, how could we expect anyone else to? I am not free of wrongdoing myself. I have participated in many of these practices and it’s through conflict, regret and ineffectiveness that I have developed this analysis. Political development is a journey and not everyone travels at the same speed, but we must consistently work on improving ourselves. We can not reform the bourgeois capitalist systems, but we can reform ourselves into a formidable opponent to these systems. We need to abandon the mentality that “we don’t owe anyone anything” because in reality, we owe everyone everything. The concept of dialectics holds that everything and everyone is connected, nothing is achieved without building upon the momentum of those before you. You owe it to those before you, and more importantly those who come after you, to do better than we have. A change is needed, and those who make the change will inevitably become the forefront of a movement for a better tomorrow. If community is the homebase for our collective struggle against capitalism, then let’s create that community today.
Nicholas Rubin is 31 years old, born in Brooklyn, grew up in Rochester. Father, musician, Marxist-Leninist and tradesman.
Links to works cited articles
- https://regenerationmag.org/mutual-aid-a-factor-of-liberalism/
- https://socialism.com/fs-article/horizontalism-falls-flat/
- https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/left-s-problem-isn-t-politics-it-s-metaphysics/
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Front-Chinese-history-1937-1945
- https://jpia.princeton.edu/news/progressive-policy-versus-conservative-norms-paradox-lgbtq-rights-cuba
[1] “The Lost Art of the Fighting Organization” regenerationmag.org
[2] Holtz Elias. “Horizontalism Falls Flat” Freedom Socialist Party June 2016
[3] https://www.aei.org/op-eds/brahmin-left-vs-populist-right/
[4] Leffel, Gregory. “The left’s problem isn’t politics—it’s metaphysics. How can liberals and progressives learn to feel differently about identity?” Open Democracy 17, December, 2017.
[5] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “United Front”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Sep. 2018, https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Front-Chinese-history-1937-1945.
[6] Wilk, Melissa. “Progressive Policy Versus Conservative Norms: A Paradox of LGBTQ+ Rights in Cuba” Princeton University Journal of Public Affairs 20, May, 2020
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