How To Use Identity Politics To Defeat Capitalism

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, author of Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else), joins Sam to discuss class reductionism and the elites' hold over identity politics.

Watch the Majority Report live MondayFriday at 12 p.m. EST on YouTube OR listen via daily podcast at

#SamSeder #EmmaVigeland #MajorityReport #politics #news #progressive #leftist #democrats #liberal

SUPPORT the show by becoming a member

Download TMR's FREE app

CHECK OUT MORE from the MR crew:

Matt Binder DOOMED

Brandon Sutton DISCOURSE

Emma Vigeland ESVN

Matt Lech LEFT RECKONING

OTHER LINKS:

Check out more from the MR crew:

Matt Binder DOOMED

Brandon Sutton THE DISCOURSE

Emma Vigeland ESVN

Matt Lech LEFT RECKONING

Image Credit, Socialist Appeal

The image has been cropped and the color has been altered.

If the elite have sort of taken control as it were or have manipulated the idea of identity politics and have turned it into that or have promoted that variant which basically says on some level like we're going to use this as a shield to avoid addressing some of the structural problems. What are we to do? What do the rest of us do about that? I mean what is the and you get into like essentially you know I don't I don't know if I would call it Solutions but a way to address this. Because you are I mean you are not advocating getting rid of or ignoring the idea of identity politics right? I mean this is and I just want to maybe you can clarify that and then take us into you know what we should be doing with it. Yeah, so I'm not advocating for getting rid of identity politics. I think the question isn't whether or not we use identity politics but the question is how to what ends do we put identity politics? Which is the same political question we should ask of any idea that we're using politically? And you know this is where my thinking is perhaps you know more about most Orthodox as far as you know maybe Marxist thought goes. But you basically want to build up the kinds of Institutions that actually challenge the power gap between non-elites and Elites if you wanna finally capture it more importantly if you want to actually change the way that the world Works. So rather than fighting with capitalists over the definition of identity politics and what real identity politics is, why don't we create the kinds of groups and linkages that can fight with capitalists over the terms of working conditions? Those are unions. I have a slightly broader view of this. You know I think we should be fighting about decommodifying water and energy. I think those are also big centers of power for particular segments of the capitalist class. and we should want those to be genuinely publicly owned.