Abstract
Introduction
One cannot wade through an academic journal in the social sciences or humanities, read an Op-Ed essay, or listen to a political podcast without coming across a discussion on the relationship of identity and politics. Whether it is a discussion on the concept and merits of ‘identity politics’, the relationship between particular experiences and universalist aspirations for emancipation, or paths toward reform or revolution, these issues elicit strong responses. Two recent books broach these topics in a clarifying manner and deserve to be compared, contrasted, and analyzed. These books are Alain Badiou’s (2022a) A New Dawn for Politics and Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò’s (2022a) Elite Capture: How The Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else). Thinking through the key themes in these works can help academics and activists alike elaborate a systematic vision and idea on how identity relates to radical, anti-systemic politics.
To begin, this essay focuses on the politics of identity. I explore the intellectual traditions from which Táíwò gathers his critique and defense of particular politics of identity. I then juxtapose Táíwò’s thoughts on identity to Badiou’s position, highlighting their tensions and possible compatibly. Next, I clarify both Táíwò and Badiou’s attempts to identify and define an act of authentic, radical politics. It attempts to discern how both scholars conceptualize a form of emancipatory, anti-systemic politics that are capable of allowing one’s identity to be a part of the struggle for equality, rather than discarded as a reactionary husk. Finally, I show how both scholars’ ideas speak to other domains of critical scholarship and our current moment of political uprising and upheaval.
The Politics of Identity
First, let us begin by clarifying Táíwò’s relationship to the politics of identity, and their relationship to the concept of ‘elite capture’. Táíwò rejects the concept of racial uplift politics, where select Black Americans are tasked with improving the socio-economic conditions for the larger Black American community via creating a self-sustaining model of Black capitalism. Following the ideas of E. Franklin Frazier and Jared A. Ball, Táíwò (2022a) summarizes how the Black (lumpen)bourgeoisie’s decision to promote ‘the possibility of an insulated Black economy is [a] myth’, while ‘the institutions and patterns of the status quo’ become the non-solutions proposed to overcome the hyper-exploitation of the Black working class (p. 21).
For the reasons outlined above, Táíwò (2022a) believes that this uplift into the capitalist economy style of identity politics should be rejected as a ‘problem that masquerades as a solution’ (p. 21). However, he believes that the entire concept of identity politics is not to blame for these pathetic outcomes. Instead, Táíwò hypothesizes that ‘elite capture’ of identity politics—and nearly every other type of political proposal with radical intent—is the real culprit for failure to achieve radical social change. For Táíwò (2022a), ‘elite capture happens when the advantaged few steer resources and institutions that could serve the many towards their own narrower interests and aims’ (p. 22).
Táíwò uses the formation of the Combahee River Collective (CRC) in the 1970s as an illustrative case study that might show us how to think clearly about the politics of identity. Composed of Black feminist, lesbian, socialist women, the CRC was responsible for popularizing the term ‘identity politics’ nearly five decades ago (Combahee River Collective (CRC), 1977; Taylor, 2017). Members of the CRC were concerned with the sustained aloofness or outright hostility they faced in Left organizational circles, based on aspects of their identities related to gender, sexuality, and race. Táíwò (2022a) notes that the CRC was ‘in favor of diverse coalitional organizing’, where one’s invocation of identity was not intended to exclude specific groups from having input, but rather ‘functioned as a principle of unity’ for all those engaged in struggling for equality (p. 8). As the collective outlined, in their own words, ‘we reject pedestals, queenhood, and walking ten paces behind. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough’ (Combahee River Collective, 1977).
With regard to the concept of identity politics, Barbara Smith—a founding member of the CRC—rejects the popular and narrow contemporary deployment of the term. In her words, when the CRC popularized this term ‘we didn’t mean that if you’re not the same as us, you’re nothing. We were not saying that we didn’t care about anybody who wasn’t exactly like us’ (Taylor and Smith, 2017: 60) Smith views this approach as deleterious to any sort of organizing and anathema to producing solidarity (p. 62). For these reasons, Táíwò (2022a) is less interested in denouncing the concept of identity politics at large, instead offering a research agenda that encourages us to identify ‘how political projects can be hijacked in principle or in effect by the well positioned and resourced’, which is not an isolated individual act but rather ‘a kind of system behavior’ (p. 10). In other words, he is insisting we find ways to identify how elites (and others) can take an idea with radical potential and subordinate it to the demands of status quo American capitalism.
With Táíwò’s position sketched out, let us turn to Badiou’s discussion on the potentials and pitfalls of identity thinking. In general, Badiou is a firm believer that all people have the potential to participate in emancipatory politics, regardless of their multiplicities of identities (see, inter alia, Badiou, 2012, 2019, 2022a, 2022b, 2022d) Although the precise definition of politics is in the forthcoming section, it is worth quickly outlining how Badiou views all genuine political movements as being universalist events. Accordingly, his long-standing position can be summed up in the statement that ‘if the universal is for everyone, this is the precise sense that to be inscribed within it is not matter of possessing any particular determinations’ (Badiou and Žižek, 2009: 47). With that said, we should not dismiss Badiou’s position as a broad dismissal of the politics of identity—the picture is much more complicated.
For Badiou, identity must be thought of in terms of tensions and contradictions. We all have a multiplicity of identities that can be thought of at a given moment (e.g. one’s racial or ethnic identity, national identity, gender identity, and so on). Our identity—and its possible articulation within the state of a political movement—simultaneously has ‘an affirmative and creative dimension’ and a reactive ‘purification’ or ‘reactive’ formula (Badiou, 2022a: 136, 140). The former (i.e. creative) dimension of identity can be seen in Badiou’s example of a hypothetical Algerian worker who now lives and works in Paris, France. Here, the worker will be creative and flexible with their identity, where he is A Moroccan worker, yes, but one living in Aulnay-sous-Bois in France. He’s going to invent that, an identity that didn’t exist prior . . . He will in fact create himself as a subjective moment. He will go from Moroccan peasant in north of Morocco that he was to the worker living in a Paris suburb. He will appropriate this new figure of existence via what we might call a dilation of identity, such that his identity integrates possible displacements in a single world. (Badiou, 2022a: 137)
The latter option for identity is one of reaction and isolation. Per Badiou (2022a), ‘it consists in defending, sometimes fiercely, one’s insistence that “I am not the other”, where ‘as a result, this Moroccan worker, and maybe his children, will forcefully assert that their traditions and customs are not those of the European petty bourgeoisie’ (p. 138). A possible result of this is opting to ‘phantasmatically oppose the Western world’ (pp. 138–139). In other words, the creative aspect of identity allows one to simultaneously grasp their concrete situation within the totality of the web of social life in which they’re immersed, while the reactive aspect of identity would calcify one’s identity as being somehow removed and incompatible with other social forces in the world system.
For the reasons outlined above, Badiou sees the reactive position of identity ends up directly playing into the (false contradiction of) ‘clash of civilizations’ discourse espoused by the bourgeoisie of capitalist democracies, who are never shy to propose new modes of war and conquest to quash an allegedly hostile civilization. Badiou is not one to completely dismiss aspects of identity within one’s movement in the world. This is important to note, as it shows a dialectical approach to understanding identity, rather than a static one which may espouse a transhistorical view of identity. As such, Badiou (2022a) declares ‘that “existence” and “identity” are distinct and in a complex dialectical play with one another’ (p. 139).
Overall, Táíwò and Badiou both find that the politics of identity are not to be thought of as something to be impulsively embraced or discarded. Instead, they should be understood in relational/dialectical manner, and studied at both a theoretical and concrete manner that allows us to see how identity politics play out in real time, in our day-to-day lives, in the domain of organizing, and the domain of politics. At this point, it will be useful to identify the wider set of social relations that Táíwò and Badiou identify as the political problem of our time, which presumably will need to be corrected to achieve a form of political equality.
The Identity of Politics
In Elite Capture, Táíwò (2022a) states that ‘the true problem lies in the system itself, the built environment and rules of the interaction that produced the elites in the first place’ (p. 54). Táíwò (2022a) argues that ‘elite players have for several centuries been transforming the world’ to fit the logic of capital (p. 59) and argues elsewhere that the capitalist mode of production is one of ‘global racial empire’, in need of dismantling (Táíwò, 2022b: ch. 2).
Táíwò encourages us to reject the ‘deference politics’, and embrace what he calls a form of ‘constructive politics’. The former places its emphasis on the processes by which we automatically yield-to or stifle our political opinions based on commentary by any individual with a marginalized identity in the room, following the logic of ‘listen to the most affected’ (Táíwò, 2022a: 12, 70). The latter emphasizes the construction and pursuit of the outcomes desired by the group, rather than finger pointing toward individual actions or seeking symbolic tribute or acceptance (with)in elite circles (Táíwò, 2022a: 12, 84). Táíwò wants us to avoid a sheepish politics of deference, which suggests only people from particular identity groups can have said group’s best interests in mind. Likewise, he rejects the idea that Black Americans should be awaiting salvation from Black elites.
We can see parallels between Táíwò’s argument and similar critiques made by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (2016, 2020). Taylor rejects celebrating the presence of ‘Black faces in high places’ (i.e. the election of a Black Mayor, Senator, or President) as a victory for all Black Americans, or the symbolic painting of the words ‘Black Lives Matter’ on a city street, while the politicians in that city opt to continue increasing their police budget. These acts would fit squarely within the framework of Táíwò, who rejects the cynical and opportunistic politics of identity used by elected officials and unofficial ‘movement spokespersons’ in America, which redirect and diffuse the radical potential of insurgent movements for justice.
Badiou’s approach to politics, universality, and revolution is more than capable of accounting for the local specificities of a situation as they emerge in what he would call the ‘event’ (i.e. the initial rupture in political activity that interpolates us into a sustained effort to overturn a corrupt and unjust system). As such, he wants to know ‘how we can understand the idea that something with a universal status can nonetheless begin, be created in and deployed from, situations that are always absolutely particular’ (Badiou, 2022a: 50)? His decades-long exploration of this question has always led him to reach a conclusion that a form of communist politics is at once the true universalist path toward emancipation, and simultaneously capable of providing a guiding ideological light to identify the shortcomings of capitalist politics.
For Badiou (2022a) a communist politics of emancipation means we must come to realize that private property, a system oriented toward profit making above all else, a system which allows a State to hold a monopoly on violence, and a constant reference to ‘identitarian closed sets such as nations, languages, religions, and customs’ must be overcome (p. 67). As such, the only genuine type of politics for Badiou is a communist politics—all other activities are simply distractions and attempts of reactionaries and liberals alike to displace and distract from true contradictions (of our capitalist world system), instead offering false contradictions to us (e.g. politicians telling us that we’re in a battle of The West vs The East, or Islam vs Democracy).
So, where does Badiou’s (2022a) approach to politics measure-up in relation to Táíwò’s? Badiou clearly states that ‘everything, absolutely everything depends upon the definitive revival of [the] alliance and its political organization on an international scale’ of intellectuals, workers in the upper and lower wrung of the working class, and what he has often described as the ‘nomadic proletariat’ (i.e. migrants and refugees from the peripheries of the world system with nowhere to go, physically displaced and economically forgotten) (p. 16 and passim; see also Badiou, 2020, 2022c). Perhaps this syncs up with Táíwò’s vision of emancipation? Let us explore this in greater detail.
In terms of immediate actions toward constructing an anti-capitalist future, Táíwò and Badiou have different political strategies. Táíwò’s (2022a) book calls for constructive engagement within the existing political system, focusing on ‘pursu[ing] specific goals or end results’ that can aid ‘in the task of redistributing social resources and power’ (p. 84). He is not averse to attempting to use existing political leverage for social reforms. This sympathy is also shared by members of the Combahee River Collective such as Barbara Smith (2020), who was a proud supporter of the recent presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders in the United States. Badiou is less keen on supporting electoral political efforts, even if the politician professes a commitment to socialism. For Badiou (2022a), these acts are insufficient and are akin to aggrieved parties ‘begging the state . . . to “listen” to them, organise referendums for them (on what?), provide a few more local services, or increase their spending power a little by reducing taxes’ (p. 94).
Both Táíwò and Badiou see revolutionary intellectual activities as paramount in the struggle against capitalism, fascism, (neo)colonialism, racism, and sexism. Táíwò (2022a) offers a vivid account of the life of Lilica Boal, a Cape Verdean anti-fascist and educator whose commitments to internationalism and revolutionary anti-colonial struggles offered a template of an engaged intellectual and political figure (pp. 63–68). Furthermore, Táíwò offers a ringing endorsement of Paulo Freire’s conceptualization of education as a form of conscientização (English: critical consciousness raising). This approach ‘aims to pursue the kind of mutually liberatory political project that would eliminate the distinction between elites and non-elites entirely’ (Táíwò, 2022a: 87).
Badiou also sees revolutionary potential in constructing local-to-global networks of radical schools for a multitude of purposes. He sees a need for ‘a vast network of schools where everything that needs to be known in order to live and act in oru current societies coul be taught to all who wish to learn’ (Badiou, 2022a: 100). The dialectic of learning is not simple one of a revolutionary cadre instructing theory to the masses, but one where ‘one can learn simultaneously from the experiences and questions of the popular public, with at its heart the nomadic proletariat (those misnamed “migrants”)’ (Badiou, 2022a: 100). Beyond education, there should be mechanisms to distribute aid, the formation of a general assembly, and translations of all formally produced documents into any language needed. These compose what Badiou (2022a) calls ‘red political schools’ (pp. 95–102).
The Big Picture: Constructing a New World System
Just as Táíwò rejects political ploys to use identity as a smokescreen to pursue exploitative capitalism-as-usual policies, Badiou is no fan of this approach. Badiou (2022a) seeks ‘to divide the middle class, to create the contradictions within it . . . to propose a logic of exit and autonomy from without’ (p. 41). For Badiou, he sees the grim alternative as reactionary nihilism, a pointless carnival of opinions in an alleged marketplace of ideas, and the charade of bourgeois capitalist elections. Likewise, Badiou (2022a) rejects political movements who seek pure negation and annihilation of existing symbolic and material harms, which he believes can only lead to absorption within the existing political situation and ideologies and is incapable of constructing a positive alternative (pp. 89–92).
The tensions between the within and/or against the system approach to revolutionary social change are on display when examining the thought of Táíwò and Badiou. It calls to mind the question of whether there are ways to enact non-reformist reforms on the road to socialism, or if there are methods to harness existing institutional arrangements to act as vanishing mediators to usher in a post-capitalist society (Calnitsky, 2022; Jameson, 2016; Mueller et al., 2020). In other words, both scholars contemplate whether it is possible or desirable to construct a new system using existing State forms to one’s advantage.
Táíwò (2022a) proposes a multi-pronged approach to constructive politics that ‘involves building power in and through institutions and networks’, and works from community-level initiatives to ‘campaign-relevant practices of information gathering and sharing’ (pp. 109, 112). His approach seems to look toward all possible institutional and non-institutional mechanisms that can be harnessed by movement organizations to accrue power and redistribute wealth and resources. How might we make sense of this in terms of recent uprisings related to the police killing of George Floyd in the United States?
The George Floyd uprising—and other Black Lives Matter activities, at large—brings the issues of within and/or against the State to the forefront of our agenda. Energy from these uprisings have given people much hope for major reforms and abolition of unjust elements of the US political system, were composed of participants from across a range of identity groups, and had a global resonance. However, attempts to use these uprisings to justify symbolic changes and expansion of the violent security apparatus’ within the United States are already underway. Just as the elite capture and coopting of ‘justice for George Floyd’ is a realistic possibility, it is equally important to think through the possibility of a movement being caught in a cycle of pure negation (i.e. solely working to deconstruct and end a particular part of the system, without an affirmative politico-ideological commitment to build the very future they wish to see).
With elected officials in the dominant capitalist parties of the US political system looking to pacify these movements’ potentials, the question must be asked: is there is road to a post-capitalist world system that revisits the possibility of a communist party, anchored to the proletarians of the world, or would a party’s relationship to a State apparatus render it impotent? Jodi Dean’s (2016, 2018) recent work—influenced by Badiou—explores these questions in a manner that takes seriously the issues of collective solidarity in an uprising, and the need for long(er)-term modes of organizing the global proletariat in a manner to wield revolutionary power. Pursuing a strategy of dual power, as an expression of collective power external to the existing nodes of State power, raises the question as to what the desired outcome would be.
Badiou is quite clear on the strict conditions under which a communist politics might emerge, and how a well-intentioned uprising looking to negate existing injustices can become deflated via a missing ideological north star. There is no fuzzy politics of ‘post-capitalism’ for Badiou, without identifying precisely what that post-capitalist world would be: communist. Táíwò outlines examples—which guide his theory of identity politics and elite capture—from an array of historical feminist, socialist, and communist organizations in the United States and abroad. As such, we must ask: will the participants from various contemporary anti-racist, anti-capitalist uprisings define their future as one that is necessarily communist? Time will tell. Working through these issues of theory and practice, while engaging with the ideas of Badiou and Táíwò, can help us answer the question: ‘After the uprising, what is to be done?’ (Purnell et al., 2023; see also Mueller, 2023a, 2023b)
Both Elite Capture and A News Dawn for Politics manage to unpack significant philosophical, theoretical, and practical knowledge on emancipatory politics, identity, and social change in less than two hundred pages. They were also composed with the intent of reaching an audience beyond a small coterie of academic researchers. The historical legacies of Marxism, socialism, communism, and anti-racism are not matters for mere academic debate, but have real consequences for strategies and tactics pursued in the short to long term, for those looking to build a new world system. I suspect Badiou would agree with Táíwò, when he describes his constructive approach to politics as ‘extremely demanding . . . ask[ing] us to be planners and designers . . . to become builders and construction workers’ that cooperate with people across various social identities, in order to ‘build the kind of rooms we could sit in together’ as equals (Táíwò, 2022a: 118). For the reasons outlined above, these two books should be read, shared among friends and colleagues, and debated widely by all those looking to build a socially just world system.
