The formation of the proletariat by capital’s historic crimes — and the ongoing recomposition of the class by imperialism, racism, heterosexism, and immiseration — is not unlike the creation of Frankenstein’s monster. The working-class, as a whole, is a disordered and chaotic body. Labor was (and is) formed through the theft of forests, farms, continents, and people. It was (and is) formed in the creation and displacement of entire industries, gender norms and the shifts in social reproduction, the invention of “races” and “nations.” The targets of capital’s crimes were (and continually are) fused together and torn apart in their relation to capital. Labor does not become a class “for itself” by pretending otherwise. It must study the journals of the “men who made it.” But the class becomes conscious when each disordered element of the class defends every other disordered element.
Read MoreLocust #4 ~ Call for Submissions!
Submissions are now open. As always, we want your words and images, your prose and poetry, your “this doesn’t quite fit in a normal world, in more than one way.” It needs a place. We have always sought to give it a place. We reckon, as the world spasms and unravels in so many unpredictable directions, it will continue to need a place.
Read More