Bruce Lesnick and Malcolm X lay it out clearly. Whether we are
talking about the House Socialist and the Field Socialist, or the
House Nigga or the Field Nigga, we are talking about people who are
controlled by their Master.
In our day we have the same problem. The Working Class has divided
itself into Working, Middle and Upper Middle Class. But all are still
under the control of the Ruling Class. For many years the Working
Class believed that if it worked hard and played by the Ruling Class'
rules, it would one day enjoy the same life style as its Master. Some
of the Working Class began to dress and talk like their Masters. Many
of these self anointed Middle Class folk adopted the contempt for the
Blue Collar Workers. This Middle Class became the First Defense of
the Ruling Class, destroying labor unions, supporting world conquest,
making profit their bottom line. The Ruling Class used the Middle
Class and the White Racists as wedges, driving people apart.
Despite his apparent sympathies, Bernie Sanders cannot "fix" a
government that is broken. Broken, that is, as far as the Working
Class is concerned. Change is coming, but not in an orderly well
planned method. The Ruling Class will never allow that. Since they
are on top and believe they are their due to their superior abilities,
they will never compromise. Most likely, America as we know it, or
America as we dream of it becoming, will never happen. We could well
become another Libya or Egypt.
In deed, the base problem, along with Capitalism, is this old thinking
of dividing the world up into nations. Corporations are busy
attempting to change that concept, but that will not be to the
advantage of the Working Class. We need to organize world-wide and
build a People's Government, where the bottom line is People, not
profit.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/6/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://socialistaction.org/house-socialists-and-field-socialists/
House socialists and field socialists
Published March 5, 2016. | By Socialist Action.
Dec. 2015 Democrats
By BRUCE LESNICK
I wholeheartedly support the populist programs that Bernie Sanders
advocates—from single-payer health care, to free college tuition, to
taxing the rich and more. But borrowing from Malcolm X [see excerpt
below], Bernie is a house socialist and I’m a field socialist.
Bernie doesn’t want to replace or overthrow capitalism. Like all house
socialists, he thinks capitalism can be fixed or tamed with reforms. By
contrast, we field socialists understand that the essence of
capitalism—private ownership of major industry, resources, banks, and
the exploitation of labor by appropriating surplus value (profit)—is
antithetical to democracy.
In fact, for all of Bernie’s talk about “democratic socialism,” he and
other house socialists turn a blind eye to the lack of economic
democracy that is the very hallmark of the capitalist system. Because
Bernie is in favor of tweaking capitalism but opposed to dismantling it,
he ignores the systemic lack of democracy in the workplace and the
economy—the very aspects that most affects people’s lives.
Bernie rightly denounces the unequal distribution of wealth, where the
top 1% owns more than the rest combined. But like all house socialists,
Bernie fails to identify important institutions as being controlled by
and serving the interests of the 1%. Congress, the Democratic and
Republican parties, the national media, the police and the military are
all captives of the 1%.
In a class-divided society, all important institutions are wielded as
tools of the dominant class. Field socialists understand that these
institutions answer only to the needs of the 1%, even though much effort
is made by official propagandists to convince us that they serve us all.
Bernie and other house socialists aid the 1% in the criminal charade of
pretending that government institutions, the police and the military
exist and operate independent of the class divisions in our society.
This is why it’s no surprise that Bernie and other like-minded house
socialists are military hawks. They see the U.S. army as “our” army
rather than a weapon of the 1%. This is why Bernie has voted for nearly
every war appropriations bill. This is why Bernie supports drones and
U.S. military involvement in the Middle East; why he supported military
action in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere.
This is why Bernie supported sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s that
caused the deaths of more than half a million children and he supported
U.S. military action in Kosovo in 1999. This is why Bernie refuses to
denounce the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine but supports
billions in military aid for Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other brutal U.S.
client states that serve to extend the reach and protect the interests
of the 1% overseas.
Field socialists oppose imperial war-making, understanding that the
individuals and institutions of the 1% that exploit us here at home
cannot be trusted to defend our interests abroad. In contrast to the
hawkish house socialists, field socialists demand: “All US Troops Out
Now!” “Dismantle All US Military Bases Abroad!” “Not One Bomb, Not One
Bullet for the Wars of the One Percent!” “Money for Jobs, Not for War!”
(For a complete field socialist election platform, see here.)
Because house socialists like Bernie limit their critique to reforms of
the existing system, they are unable to propose concrete, workable
solutions for the big problems we face. Take climate change, for
example. Sure, house socialists say we must do more. But they emphasize
tweaking economic incentives in the hope of persuading energy monopolies
to change their behavior.
House socialists support keeping the energy industry in the hands of
private, profit-mad corporations. But gentle persuasion hasn’t changed
corporate behavior up to now and we shouldn’t expect it to succeed in
the future. As long as there are profits to be made by disregarding
rules and incentives, corporations will do so. No incentives and no
amount of persuasion can induce a leopard to change its spots; you have
to replace the leopard. (For a field socialist analysis of climate
change and the energy monopolies, see here.)
Few Americans realize that there are different kinds of socialists.
Since house socialists are less of a threat to the powers-that-be, they
tend to get a wider hearing than field socialists. In many European
countries, house socialist parties have mass followings. House
socialists have served as prime ministers in France, Sweden, Portugal,
Norway, Luxemburg and elsewhere. Yet, capitalism hums merrily along in
Europe as in most of the rest of the world. If electing house socialists
to high office made a crucial difference to addressing global injustice,
climate change or endless war, we would have seen it by now.
Unfortunately, there’s no field socialist to vote for in the upcoming
presidential election. Nor do we in the U.S. yet have a mass labor
party—rooted in the working class and linked to militant, fighting trade
unions—which could serve as a real alternative to the parties of the 1%.
Given this void, it’s not surprising that those fed up with the status
quo might put their hopes in Bernie Sanders, a house socialist seeking
to be the leader of a big-business party. But beware: while a vote for
the house socialist candidate of a capitalist party might make some
people feel good, no one should expect it to change much.
*****
Malcolm X on “The House Negro and the Field Negro”
Below is an excerpt from Malcolm X’s presentation on “The Race Problem.”
The talk was given on Jan. 23, 1963, to the African Students Association
and NAACP campus chapter, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.
So, you have two types of Negro. The old type and the new type. Most of
you know the old type. When you read about him in history during slavery
he was called “Uncle Tom.” He was the house Negro. And during slavery
you had two Negroes. You had the house Negro and the field Negro.
The house Negro usually lived close to his master. He dressed like his
master. He wore his master’s second-hand clothes. He ate food that his
master left on the table. And he lived in his master’s house—probably in
the basement or the attic—but he still lived in the master’s house.
So whenever that house Negro identified himself, he always identified
himself in the same sense that his master identified himself. When his
master said, “We have good food,” the house Negro would say, “Yes, we
have plenty of good food.” “We” have plenty of good food. When the
master said that “we have a fine home here,” the house Negro said, “Yes,
we have a fine home here.” When the master would be sick, the house
Negro identified himself so much with his master he’d say, “What’s the
matter boss, we sick?” His master’s pain was his pain. And it hurt him
more for his master to be sick than for him to be sick himself. When the
house started burning down, that type of Negro would fight harder to put
the master’s house out than the master himself would.
But then you had another Negro out in the field. The house Negro was in
the minority. The masses—the field Negroes were the masses. They were in
the majority. When the master got sick, they prayed that he’d die.
[Laughter.] If his house caught on fire, they’d pray for a wind to come
along and fan the breeze.
If someone came to the house Negro and said, “Let’s go, let’s separate,”
naturally that Uncle Tom would say, “Go where? What could I do without
boss? Where would I live? How would I dress? Who would look out for me?”
That’s the house Negro. But if you went to the field Negro and said,
“Let’s go, let’s separate,” he wouldn’t even ask you where or how. He’d
say, “Yes, let’s go.” And that one ended right there.
So now you have a twentieth-century-type of house Negro. A
twentieth-century Uncle Tom. He’s just as much an Uncle Tom today as
Uncle Tom was 100 and 200 years ago. Only he’s a modern Uncle Tom. That
Uncle Tom wore a handkerchief around his head. This Uncle Tom wears a
top hat. He’s sharp. He dresses just like you do. He speaks the same
phraseology, the same language. He tries to speak it better than you do.
He speaks with the same accents, same diction.
And when you say, “your army,” he says, “our army.” He hasn’t got
anybody to defend him, but anytime you say “we” he says “we.” “Our
president,” “our government,” “our Senate,” “our congressmen,” “our this
and our that.” And he hasn’t even got a seat in that “our” even at the
end of the line. So this is the twentieth-century Negro. Whenever you
say “you,” the personal pronoun in the singular or in the plural, he
uses it right along with you. When you say you’re in trouble, he says,
“Yes, we’re in trouble.”
But there’s another kind of Black man on the scene. If you say you’re in
trouble, he says, “Yes, you’re in trouble.” [Laughter.] He doesn’t
identify himself with your plight whatsoever.
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Posted in Black Liberation, Elections, Marxist Theory & History. |
Tagged Bernie Sanders, Democrats, Malcolm, socialism.
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