by DAVID CAMFIELD / October 16, 2017
 
People who are committed to radical social change and who are trying to work towards that goal, whether as community, union or campus activists or supporters of a left-wing candidate, are sometimes skeptical when people like me say that we need theory. If we’re building the fight for $15 and Fairness, organizing against the racist far right, campaigning against sexual assault, or supporting Niki Ashton’s bid to lead the federal NDP, do we really need social theory?
 
The first thing to recognize is that all of us already have social theory, whether we realize it or not. We all have ideas about how society works even if we’ve never read a book about it. Everyone who’s working for social change has ideas about making change. That’s what social theory is: explanations of how society works and how social change happens.
 
Most people’s ideas about these things are a mixture of what we’ve heard from people we know, been told by teachers or other persons whose views we pay attention to, picked up from the mainstream media, and learned from our own personal experiences. But often we don’t realize how we’ve come to believe what we do. Also, our thinking is often inconsistent – for example, someone might believe that capitalism and inequality exist because humans are naturally competitive. Yet at the same time this person is cooperating with some of their coworkers to unionize the place where they work because they’re fed up with how they’re being treated by management.
 
People know their own experience very well. Our personal experience is a valuable source of insights about how our society works, at least for the great majority of people who endure sexism, racism, and/or another form of oppression as well as spend hours working for pay in places where we have little or no control over what we do. Unfortunately, the forces that shape our everyday experiences – flows of capital investment, government policy decisions, and how gender and racial power are organized, for example – are harder to understand. Most people don’t have a good handle on such questions as what capitalism is, how it’s intertwined with different kinds of oppression, the relationship between the state and capitalism, and what the most effective ways of fighting for change are.
 
Does this really matter? It’s true that you don’t need to understand capitalism to unionize your workplace, and you don’t need to know what patriarchal gender relations are to force your student union executive to put resources into hard-hitting feminist education for students about sexual assault. You can want capitalism to be replaced with a better system even if you don’t understand very well how capitalism works.
 
But to grasp why it’s so damaging for union officials to buy into employers’ plans for competitiveness, why educational campaigns alone won’t put an end to rape, and what keeps capitalism going we need ways of thinking systematically about how society is organized. In other words, we need social theory. A good theory of how state power operates in a capitalist society helps people organizing for reforms to craft a strategy that can win. A good theory of what kind of party the NDP is will help us to understand why the party has never worked to build social movements. Without this kind of theory we’ll draw the wrong conclusions when governments headed by left-wing leaders who promise real change fail to deliver, and when the NDP tries to channel the energy of protest into preparing for the next election. It makes a big difference if we look at the low level of active support among non-indigenous working-class people for indigenous efforts to decolonize Canada and conclude that the working class here will never fight to transform society or if we reject that conclusion (as I do). We need a good theory of the working class and settler-colonial capitalism to help us here.
 
We also need theory to grapple with questions like “is it possible to replace capitalism with a better society?” and “if it is, what should we do in the here and now to work towards that goal?” Too many people give up fighting for radical change because their expectations – founded on faulty assumptions – turn out to be wrong. A better understanding of what we’re up against helps people to stay in the struggle.
If you’re convinced we do need theory, then you face another question: what kind? Most social theory today is written by academics for other academics or upper-level university students because their jobs require them to publish books or articles. Most of it has a far from radical outlook on the status quo. The questions it asks are often of little interest to radicals. This is why many activists are turned off by theory. Most of it is useless for efforts to change society for the better. Theory that is potentially more useful is often written in ways that are hard for most people who haven’t studied social theory in university to understand. But it’s a mistake to think all theory is like that, or to assume that theory has to be written in an academic way.
 
So what kind of theory do radicals need? For starters, it has to begin from a global recognition of all forms of oppression (gender, racial, imperialist, settler-colonial, sexual, of the disabled…) and of how everyone who directly produces goods and services — from impoverished peasants in the South to the highest-waged workers in the North – is subordinated to employers in various ways. Before thinking systematically about these things, it has to deeply appreciate that they’re real and harmful. It needs to be not just a theory of these realities but also a theory against them. It should also recognize that they happen simultaneously, so that even if we sometimes have to talk about, say, class exploitation we never lose sight of how in reality class never exists separately from different kinds of oppression.
 
The theory we need has to do more than analyze the exploitation and oppression we face. It also has to help us see where potential power to change society is and how it can be organized. It should allow us to identify weaknesses in the system we’re fighting so we can take advantage of them. Our theory has to be able to recognize the hidden potential for a society beyond capitalism that has come to exist under capitalism – a possible future in the present – and be useful for developing political strategy.
 
All this rules out most approaches to social theory. Most aren’t theories against oppression and exploitation. None of the most influential schools of thought in the social sciences fit the bill, from evolutionary psychology to neoclassical economics (and most of its critics). Nor do theories that are against class exploitation or one or two kinds of oppression but don’t try to provide an integrated theory of and against them all.
 
Another quality of the theory we need is that it should be materialist. This doesn’t have anything to do with being preoccupied with money or what money can buy. Materialist theory, in the words of the socialist writer George Novack, acknowledges that “Everything comes from matter and its movements and is based upon matter. This thought is expressed in the phrase: ‘Mother Nature’… nature is the ultimate source of everything in the universe from the galactic systems to the most intimate feelings and boldest thoughts of homo sapiens.” Materialism is the alternative to idealism. Idealism comes in many varieties, include theories that talk of “Western” and “Muslim” cultures with fixed essences and theories that treat ideas as the driving force of history.
 
 
The theory we need must also be historical. It has to be very sensitive to the ways societies have changed over time. So much of what most people today take for granted as “just the way things are” or think is natural isn’t natural at all and hasn’t always existed. Male domination and the division of society into exploiting and exploited classes have only existed since the late Neolithic Era (roughly 4500-3000 BCE). Capitalism only emerged in England in the 1400s and didn’t become dominant there for another two centuries. Racial oppression was spread around the world by Europeans’ capitalist colonialism. For people to live with a “heterosexual,” “homosexual” or “bisexual” “orientation” is even more recent.
 
To be most useful, the theory should be critical, not dogmatic. Some theory that has the positive qualities I’ve mentioned avoids some of the toughest questions facing those of us who yearn for social transformation or offers glib answers. This may be reassuring, but in the end such theory isn’t the most effective guide to action.
 
I think the strongest social theory with the necessary qualities is one that fuses the best ideas of Karl Marx and some of the people who have worked with Marx’s concepts with the best ideas developed by thinkers whose foremost concerns have been sexism, racism, heterosexism and other kinds of oppression. It’s not a new approach, but it’s usually overshadowed by other theories that have more academic or political backing (my name for this fusion is reconstructed historical materialism).
 
In my book We Can Do Better: Ideas for Changing Society I’ve tried to introduce this approach and use it to answer some of the questions on the minds of activists today. I’ve tried to do this as clearly as I can, so that people who aren’t academic researchers can understand the ideas. Social theory is too important to be left to the academic publishing industry. Radicals need to read and use theory (which sometimes involves writing) to change the world.
 
David Camfield lives in Winnipeg and is a member of Solidarity Winnipeg.
 
Elements of this article appeared in a shorter piece published on the Briarpatch website 

Originally published by Briarpatch Magazine (blog).

This is a difficult time for activists in Canada. There are few strikes and protests, and even fewer wins. We haven’t seen the kind of radicalization that’s been expressed in support for Sanders in the U.S. and Corbyn in the U.K. Organizing for change is a hard slog, and organizers are sometimes skeptical when people like me say that we need theory. Some people see it as a mistake to devote time to learning theory that could instead be spent mobilizing people for urgent actions. Still, I think theory really matters in this moment.
We all have theory, whether we realize it or not. We all have beliefs about how society works. Some of us have ideas about how society could be changed. That’s what social theory is: explanations of how society works and how social change happens. Most of us learn that the way society is organized today is natural or fundamentally good – a belief challenged by radical social theory.

Most people’s ideas about these things are a mix of conclusions drawn from our own experiences and what we’ve picked up from other sources. Our experience is often a valuable source of insights about how our society works, at least for the majority of people who endure sexism, racism, colonialism, and other forms of oppression, and spend hours working for pay in places where we have little or no control over what we do. Unfortunately, the forces that shape our everyday experiences – flows of capital investment, government policy decisions, and how gender and racial power are organized, for example – are harder to understand.

Does this really matter? It’s true that you don’t need to understand capitalism to unionize your workplace, for example, and you can oppose capitalism even if you don’t understand the system really well. But to grasp why union officials rarely encourage member-driven unionism and what keeps capitalism going, we need ways of thinking systematically about how society is organized. In other words, we need social theory. Without insightful theory to guide us, people working for social change are more likely to adopt ineffective or even counter-productive strategies and tactics.

We also need theory to grapple with questions like, “Is it possible to replace capitalism with a better society?” and, “If it is, what should we do in the here and now to work toward that goal?” Too many people give up fighting for change because their expectations turn out to be wrong; a better understanding of what we’re up against helps people to stay in the struggle.

If you’re convinced we do need theory, then we face another question: what kind? Most social theory today is written by and for academic researchers or for university students, informed more by concerns important to the academy than those of people on the front lines of organizing for social and ecological justice. Much of the best radical academic writing is inaccessible to non-academics. But not all theory is useless for activists, and it doesn’t have to be written in an academic way.

The starting point for the kind of theory we need is the understanding that many forms of oppression exist, that people who produce goods and services – from impoverished peasants in the Global South to the highest-waged workers in the Global North – are subordinated in various harmful ways. It needs to be not just a theory of these realities but also a theory against them. It should also recognize that they happen simultaneously, so that even if we sometimes have to talk about, say, class exploitation, we never lose sight of how this never exists separately from different kinds of oppression.

This theory should be materialist. Materialism doesn’t have anything to do with being preoccupied with money or what money can buy. The kind of materialism we need understands humans as an animal species distinguished from the rest of nature by how its members work together as conscious makers of tools and culture. This kind of theory starts from material contexts to understand how societies are organized and how they change, rather than from ideas, which never exist separately from people.

The theory we need must also be historical. So much of what most people today take for granted as natural or “just the way things are” isn’t natural at all. Theory that takes history seriously can reveal how such things as gender oppression, capitalism, and racism haven’t always existed. This helps us see just how much social arrangements can and do change.

To be most useful, the theory should be critical, not dogmatic. Some theory that has the qualities I’ve mentioned avoids some of the toughest questions facing those of us who yearn for social transformation or offers glib answers. This may be reassuring but in the end such theory isn’t the most effective guide to action.

I think the strongest social theory is one that fuses the best ideas of Karl Marx and some of the people who have worked with Marx’s concepts with the best ideas developed by thinkers whose foremost concerns have been sexism, racism, heterosexism, colonialism, and other kinds of oppression. It’s not a new approach, but it’s usually overshadowed by other theories that have more academic or political backing (these range from perspectives that defend the status quo to those that are critical of oppression but don’t grasp the central role of capitalism and class to versions of orthodox Marxism). I call this fusion reconstructed historical materialism. There’s lots to debate, but I’m convinced that activists need to read and use this kind of theory as we try to change the world. People who use it are involved in a range of efforts; one interesting political initiative informed by such theory was the 2017 International Women’s Strike in the U.S.

Some reading suggestions and a video:
David Camfield, We Can Do Better: Ideas for Changing Society
David McNally, Another World is Possible: Globalization and Anti-Capitalism
Alan Sears, The Next New Left: A History of the Future
Himani Bannerji, Thinking Through: Essays on Feminism, Marxism, and Anti-Racism
“Beyond Everyday Feminism,” a recent talk by Kate Doyle Griffiths



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Originally published by newsocialist.org.

This is not an attempt at a full assessment of the campaign or its outcome, only some initial thoughts mainly about Niki Ashton’s solid but disappointing result and what next for radicals who aren’t advocates of a parliamentary road to change but who voted for her.

1. Ashton’s 17 percent is the best score for a left candidate since Svend Robinson in 1995, though I think her policies and approach were further to the left than Robinson’s, so a better comparison might be Steve Langdon’s 14.6 percent first-ballot score in 1989.
2. Society in the Canadian state hasn’t been affected by the long post-2007 economic slump nearly as badly as some other places, including the US and UK. Although there are many young people who’re stuck in awful jobs, loaded with debt, and fearful about the future, the situation of young working-class people isn’t as dire here as in the US and UK.
3. The federal Liberals under Trudeau haven’t been pushing aggressive austerity, presiding over a decline in real wages, and playing with racism to win votes, as the Tories have been doing in the UK. The Liberals’ version of neoliberalism is different from Harper’s, and many NDP supporters haven’t recognized that the NDP’s best response to the Liberals would be a smart left turn.
4. Many NDP supporters were disappointed by Mulcair’s performance in the 2015 election, but none of the candidates to replace him were widely seen by NDPers as candidates who would continue to steer the NDP to the right and even deeper into the conventional way that official politics is now done (even though Jagmeet Singh and Charlie Angus were obviously such candidates), which is the course that Ashton challenged. Yes, Ashton faced sexism, but there’s a lot more to why she got 17 per cent of the votes cast than that. Now the NDP is headed by a leader who, as Dru Oja Jay put it, “represents a huge opportunity to hit the reset button on the unspoken whiteness of the NDP” but won’t “fire up the base and duke it out with the people who stand in the way of climate justice and economic equality.”
5. Neither Singh nor Angus nor Caron were seen by NDP members in anything like the way many people in the US saw Hilary Clinton was when she was running for the Democratic Party nomination (as a candidate of continuity with eight years of job losses, falling living standards and racist killings under a president who embraced Wall St.). Nor were they seen like the contenders for Labour leader who were beaten by Corbyn (as more or less candidates of continuity with what the party had become—a party that advanced neoliberalism and went to war in Iraq when in government and promised milder austerity when in opposition). The dynamics around Ashton’s run were qualitatively less favourable than those around Sanders and Corbyn.
6. The level of social protest is lower here than it was in the US prior to Trump’s election, and—except in Quebec—there hasn’t been anti-austerity mobilization of the kind seen in the UK in 2010-11. Without such experiences of collective action, and in the conditions noted under point 2, there hasn’t been a widespread left-wing politicization. This meant the potential base for a left challenge to the NDP establishment wasn’t that large.
7. Ashton made anti-neoliberal and climate justice-oriented parliamentary reformism that opposes various forms of oppression, including the oppression of Palestine, more visible. That was welcome, since such ideas are outside the spectrum of what’s considered acceptable in official politics in Canada today. Her campaign probably gave some supporters a sense of confidence that there is a left to the left of the NDP establishment. But although I’d love to be wrong, I don’t think her campaign will probably have much of a lasting impact. This is both because she didn’t try to build an organized left current before she ran or during her run and because it doesn’t look like any significant organization is positioned to grow as a result of her campaign (I haven’t seen signs that Ashton supporters flocked to Courage or will do so now, though some will).
8. With the race over, people who see social struggle—not electoral politics—as key to making change but who joined the NDP to vote for Ashton shouldn’t get involved in the party. Instead, they should devote their efforts to workplace, community and campus organizing and to trying to strengthen the non-sectarian radical left. Fellow Winnipegger Matthew Brett put it well: “we need to build a strong, vibrant, independent left that engages in grassroots struggle and strives to build mass movements.”