What Steps Needed To Help Make a Just Transition?
I was recently asked for a reading list on whiteness, race, racism (synonyms, all of them) and ended up writing a summary and synthesis of books. Whiteness and capitalism are inseparable in my understanding and so some of these, and the first one, are critiques of capitalism. The list got too long so I will do this a book or two at a time.
A Strategy For Labor: A Radical Proposal by Andre Gorz (1965)- The idea of the “non-reformist reform” or “structural reform” has helped me see a way to think about projects such that we could shape them as Afro-Socialist even though they are being formed in the middle of capitalist organizations and structures. Gorz wanted to create a middle step for socialism between (1) programs that don’t fundamentally challenge the main ideas of Cedric Robinson called “racial capitalism” and (2) full out armed revolution or waiting for capitalism to fall in on itself. Option (a) is essentially more of the same, a treadmill, and option (b) in the militarized state of the 60’s, let alone today, was not possible. So, Gorz had this idea of creating projects that contained the elements that if they were to be implemented at a grander scale would dramatically shift a society away from capitalism and towards socialism. Strategy for Labor poses all critiques of capitalism that are intended to make it a more socially beneficial society as essentially socialist, which offers us a path to imagine what it might mean to be a socialist in the current moment, although that expansive definition could capture people as socialist who do not want to be defined as such. However, A Strategy for Labor has the limits of European Socialism in that European Socialism is an Enlightenment period idea and European Supremacy is built into it. Gorz offers no recognition of racism and sexism’s relation to capitalism and colonialism and his ideas of Structural Reform do not address these beyond major problems. I have a couple of thoughts on how we could spice up Structural Reforms.
The elements of Gorz’s “structural reforms” are as follows: restrain capital and/or the state, decentralize authority, and democratize decision making. To address how he doesn’t name Euro culture or whiteness as central to the problem, we could adapt his model and make them “Afro Socialist Structural Reforms”, or “Systemic White Supremacy Reforms” or maybe better is engaging adrienne maree brown’s “emergent strategies”, and calling them “Black Radical Fractals”? Regardless of what we name this, I would add “name and displace whiteness and patriarchy by including Reparations for African and Indigenous people; clearly name the intersection of Black identities that will benefit from the reform and be intentional about employing Africana cultural worldviews”. What would you add? Fundamental to a Structural Reform is that the people who are to benefit have control over the reform’s implementation. It seems to me this could require being pretty confrontational and it makes me wonder about how much of a middle step it actually is? Gorz names specific examples but none that I recall where he was a part of a group that won the control over the reform. Still, a main idea is to be more ambitious in our reform work and to name non-racial capitalist solutions rather than get stuck in definitions. This feels like it could add to the depth and power of strategy in our nonprofit work for sure. Definitely recommend and it’s short, maybe 160 pages.
If you are familiar with the Just Transition Framework Gorz’s idea aligns with that framework’s concept of the steps taken between the Extractive Economy that we are in and Living Economy that we aspire to arrive in.
