Latest / Mechonomist Podcast / VW and Working Class Politics

Transcript

VW and Working Class Politics · Mechonomist Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to say a big congratulations to the workers at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a huge victory.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: They've said for years,
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: you can't organize workers in the South for whatever reason,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: too conservative,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: too racist,
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: too stupid,
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: whatever.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not true.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: The South has been home to union,
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: high levels of union movement movements until very recently or relatively recently.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: In the 1880s and 1890s,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: there was a huge union movement that was multiracial and that would have won many
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: elections if those elections hadn't been outright stolen by the leaders of Southern states.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that has got me thinking, you know, what's the next steps after unionization?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things we need to do is develop a uniquely Southern working class politics.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: that's multiracial,
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: working class,
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: multigender,
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: multi-everything,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: that's diverse,
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: and what kind of politics would that look like?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I have always thought would be a great political project
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: was land reform and reparations.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the thing about revolutionary movements is that revolutionary movements are
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: guided by some sort of utopian vision.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: these movements never achieve this utopian vision.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when they try to implement it,
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: it's usually terrible in the countries they try to implement it in because
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: governing is different than seizing power.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: But one such revolutionary vision could be land reform and reparations.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So land reform for the working class,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: and reparations for Black and Indigenous people.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the 40 acres,
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: and it's the same,
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: it's not a new solution,
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: and it's a solution that's been used all over the world,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: and it's 40 acres and a mule.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's Black and Indigenous people get 40 acres and a mule, and so-called white workers get 40 acres.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So so-called white workers get something,
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: everybody gets something,
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Black and Indigenous workers get a little bit more.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: one of the things that we've even gone so far as to do is to draw a map as to what
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: that would look like.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: um,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: we envision the South as a three nation confederation of the Republic of greater Appalachia,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: the Commonwealth of greater Appalachia,
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: uh,
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: the Republic of new Africa and indigenous sovereign territory.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: the republic of new africa is straight from 70s black nationalist movements who
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: felt like the south was their rightful home and that they had the right to the land
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: in the south and our sort of perspective on this is that black people who would get
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: such land would get the best land in the south which would be the black belt which
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: is the historical home for uh enslavement institutions and now it's all in timber
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: which basically doesn't
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: employ anyone at all.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So-called white workers would get Appalachia, which is the worst land.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other land in the South,
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: the ports,
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Florida,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: that sort of stuff would go to indigenous workers,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: indigenous people.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I think that we could look forward and will this ever be achieved?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Unlikely.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's unlikely, but it is a way
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: to bring all of the workers together under one political program in which everybody
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: gets something and black and indigenous workers get more because they have been
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: more exploited and more oppressed throughout history than white workers.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: But white workers have been oppressed and exploited as well.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not as severely as black and indigenous workers.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: so it's a way to bring people together it's a way to get people thinking on the
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: same page you know one of the issues in the south with workers is that especially
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: with black and white workers white workers really don't trust black people and
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: black workers really don't trust white people and we need something that we can
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: agree on to start building relationships across these differences and develop trust
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: where there is distrust right now so
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's the simple political project.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be writing about it in my book in more complex ways.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think straightforward,
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: direct,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: simple political project that anybody can understand is a way to sort of unify the
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: workers and get them thinking about things bigger than just unions,
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: about governing and leading and seizing power in the South.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, we'll see y'all later.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Peace y'all.