The book by J. Sakai, not the type of person, hence the capitalization. There are people who say it’s too divisive.
Settlers is an absolutely vital US history book. This is a repost of a comment I made about it a while back. I’ll also say, be extremely wary of “debunks” to this book: settlers is an extremely long book, so there are very few of us who have read it, so those that haven’t tend to rely on essays that miss all the fundamental points and history laid out in the book.
First I will say that Settlers isn’t primarily a theory book, but rather a history book with a guiding central thesis. In reading it, you’ll find that it often doesn’t define the undercurrents or do analysis of, the historical events it focuses on. Its less “analysis” and more “history” focused, but of course it does have a few central ideas and themes that Sakai feels drives US history.
The main thesis of settlers stands, that is proven thoroughly throughout, is that the US perfected a system of socialized bribery that allowed a minority of capitalists and slave-owners to recruit white settlers from europe, to form a settler garrison in the US, and gain from the genocide and conquering of hundreds of Indian tribes, and to steal the country from coast to coast, in a phase of orgiastic primitive accumulation. The bourgeoisie then continually invented new ways for this absorption into the murican dream and whiteness to occur, and had a mass base to carry out their goals, always at the expense of the oppressed nations living within the US’s borders, the black nation, the indian nation, etc whose class interests were at odds with the settlers, and who had no path out of exploitation.
TL:DR; want some free land? All you gotta do is kill some indians to get it. And thousands of poor white proles from europe very loudly said yes.
Its an expose of the US’s settler-colonialist foundations, its history of genocide, exploitation, social bribery, and the spoils that went to those who willingly absorbed into whiteness and the murican dream (even if they had to kill indians to get some cheap land to do so.) Also has an excellent and unique analysis of FDR’s new deal as the bribery and absorption of the labor movement into settler colonialism that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
The spats with other leftists, and detractions from the book are really incidental IMO… the “READ SETTLERS” meme is important because there’s nothing more dangerous to the pride of western leftists than telling them they’re likely descended from generations of bastards. Making sure people don’t read settlers is the best way they can defend their identity and race pride, which must be eradicated for any true internationalism to arise. This book really separates the social chauvinists from the internationalists.
Also there’s a tendency for imperialist leftists to dismiss the book by calling Sakai racist, or claim that he was a race essentialist, which has been disproven many times: Settlers probably more than any other book first elucidated the complicated overlap between race and class; how they are inextricable, and how those US leftists who attempt to split the two are committing a mistake, and have their progenitors in the history of the US labor movement.
Oh one other thing, the New Afrikan thing doesn’t have to do with Maoism (In a post-interview that I recorded as part of the audiobook, he talks about how he has great respect for mao, but he isn’t MZT or MLM), it has to do with the idea of “colonized nations within the borders of empire”: IE peoples with shared traditions, origins, and class interests, that should make up a nation with its own autonomy and system of governance, but is prevented from doing so. This is “the right of nations to self-determination”, but within the US’s borders, that everyone from Malcolm X to Indigenous leaders to puerto rican anti-imperialists pushed for.
Wonderful summary of the book, comrade. While I disagree with some excerpts of the book, such as when Sakai affirms there is no “white proletariat” in the US (sometimes he even affirms there is no proletariat at all), I still think that everyone should read it. But not only read it, but read criticisms of it, analyze them as well, and through this dialectic movement form their own perspective on it. I believe it’s still a valuable book which offers many insights into the white supremacist nature of the US and its historical causes.
While I disagree with some excerpts of the book, such as when Sakai affirms there is no “white proletariat” in the US (sometimes he even affirms there is no proletariat at all), I still think that everyone should read it.
This is what detractors say but it is never substantiated as a criticism. By what natural law of capital is it so ubiquitous that a revolutionary proletarian class must exist among colonizers? This criticism usually amounts to disappointment or frustration that the processes of class formation in Amerika differ from that of Western Europe. Settlers is not a description of the moral quality of white people but rather the material process of class formation in settler colonial Amerika and its consequences for labor organizations and for colonized peoples. I read the book and I have yet to see any successful criticism of the book among its mkst common criticisms, I have, frankly, only seen strawmen and white fragility.
This is what detractors say but it is never substantiated as a criticism. By what natural law of capital is it so ubiquitous that a revolutionary proletarian class must exist among colonizers?
Where did this “revolutionary” come from? You are putting words in my comments where it does not exist. Interesting how you complain about strawmen and begin your comment with one. I am not a “detractor” of J. Sakai’s work, I mentioned several times that there’s value in it, but a critical reading is definitely essential. So that I can “substantiate” my criticism, here is an excerpt from the very first chapter :
When we point out that Amerika was the most completely bourgeois nation in world history, we mean a four-fold reality: 1. Amerika had no feudal or communal past, but was constructed from the ground up according to the nightmare vision of the bourgeoisie. 2. Amerika began its national life as an oppressor nation, as a colonizer of oppressed peoples. 3. Amerika not only has a capitalist ruling class, but all classes and strata of Euro-Amerikans are bourgeoisified, with a preoccupation for petty privileges and property ownership the normal guiding star of the white masses. 4. Amerika is so decadent that it has no proletariat of its own, but must exist parasitically on the colonial proletariat of oppressed nations and national minorities.
“most completely bourgeois nation”, “bourgeoisified”, “Amerika (…) has no proletariat of its own”. Sakai uses Marxist terms, but how they are used are completely meaningless. What “bourgeoisify” means? How come Amerika has no proletariat of its own? The country is still an industrial powerhouse, it’s a producer of commodities as well, therefore it has proletarians producing these commodities. Even slaves to that point, which consists of 60% of the prison population which are obliged to work for several corporations of different economic sectors.
I am making a reasonable critique of this work from a Marxist standpoint. If you can only see “strawmen” and “white fragility”, I’m sorry, you are possibly projecting a white fragility or white guilt onto others, because I’m not even white by your standards. For all intents and purposes, I am disgusted by white people in United States. I’ve seen the shit white women (karens) in this awful country do, it’s frankly terrifying. But I am a Marxist, I understand that these people were not at all born this way, they are conditioned by their environment, by white supremacist bourgeois ideology, and that treating them and the ideology that affects them as one and the same is the purest sample of race essentialism.
Under the Nazi Germany, the most vile racist chauvinism was promoted as state ideology, and genocidal rapist campaigns of terror were promoted throughout the whole Europe. Yet, Stalin in 1942, in the midst of an war, said:
It would be ridiculous to see in the Hitlerite clique the German people or the German state. Historical experience proves that Hitlers come and go, but the German people, the German state, remains. The strength of the Red Army resides in the fact that it doesn’t nurture, nor could it nurture, any hatred toward other people, and therefore couldn’t even nurture hatred for the German people; it is educated in the spirit of the equality of all peoples and all races, in the spirit of respect for the rights of other peoples.
Nowhere a Marxist would declare a whole people, and even, the majority of the Statesian people as irredeemable to the point they would claim it is useless to work with them. The white people of the US are captured by bourgeois white supremacist ideology, and instead of self-defeating themselves, all revolutionaries should devise strategies and enhance their agitation and propaganda to fight against this ideology, an effort led by the oppressed ethnic groups. Fighting white supremacy does not mean fighting Statesian white people.
Where did this “revolutionary” come from?
Revolutionary class consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the proletariat that not every working class has. If a working class has no consciousness and no revolutionary potential, then it is not a proper proletariat even if it performs wage labor.
Not trying to put word in your mouth. Im trying to communicate how we differ in our analysis of class, especially in the US.
Your criticisms dont answer my question on why it is ubiquitous that such a class must exist among colonizers. IMO it is a fundamental question to understanding class in Amerika.
Revolutionary class consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the proletariat that not every working class has. If a working class has no consciousness and no revolutionary potential, then it is not a proper proletariat even if it performs wage labor.
As I understand, the proletariat is not only a wage-slave but also a producer of commodities. In a footnote on the first volume of Capital, Marx writes:
Our “prolétarian” is economically none other than the wage labourer, who produces and increases capital, and is thrown out on the streets, as soon as he is superfluous for the needs of aggrandisement of “Monsieur capital,” as Pecqueur calls this person.
I cannot confirm that every time Marx refers to the proletariat he means this. But this definition is extremely important. In the whole book of Capital, Marx is analyzing how value is produced, and how it is extracted by the bourgeoisie to turn into profit.
Under this definition of proletariat, the revolutionary potential of this class becomes more clear: they are the producers of everything that is consumed, even by the bourgeoisie, therefore, they are in a better position to bargain, protest and organize a general strike which is the ultimate weapon of the working class.
The US has proletarians, irrespective of the color of the skin. But the bulk of everything that is consumed by US citizens is actually produced by the proletarians in the Global South.
It’s fine.
I look at it like this. The book is correct until it isn’t. If you’re a white worker settler, do what you gotta do to help prove Sakai wrong. Obviously to prove Sakai wrong would be to have the whole of white workers to overturn white supremacy and play reparations and surrender power to nonwhite revolutionaries and the colonized.
It’s a tall order. But it isnt impossible.
If you’re a white worker settler, do what you gotta do to help prove Sakai wrong.
What even is a modern settler? Modern white Statesians did not come from Europe, they are born in USA. In the same vein there are black Statesians who reject the term “African American,” because they are not born in Africa, and they have very little in common with Africans.
Obviously to prove Sakai wrong would be to have the whole of white workers to overturn white supremacy and play reparations and surrender power to nonwhite revolutionaries and the colonized.
Racism is not intrinsic to skin color. It’s ideology. How did China manage to fight Han chauvinism when Han people are 92% of the population? Because there was an organized movement fighting against it instead of saying “Han people are enemies of the revolution because they want to preserve their privilege,” and just leaving it like that.
Read it. No investigation, no right to speak. You might find stuff you like, you might not.
I think there’s value in the book. The author made extensive research to develop it. However, the main thesis of the book is really awful. It essentializes white people as irreparably racist, and it conveys a defeatist message altogether, implying there’s nothing to be done to fight it, and that white people cannot be allies. It places the determination of race above class when it comes to white people.
The thing is, the majority of Statesians are white. If you declare that white people cannot be allies and that they are intrinsically enemies, you are neglecting 61% of the population of the US. There are some critiques of this work which makes this point more clear, take a look:
https://comraderene.wordpress.com/2020/05/21/settlers-by-j-sakai-un-marxist-trash/
https://erich-arbor.medium.com/the-anti-marxist-elitism-of-j-sakais-settlers-409ff2d496ee
https://thecharnelhouse.org/2017/05/15/dont-bother-reading-settlers-by-j-sakai/I think those who defend this work to be of utmost value to the US radical left should address those critiques. I personally think the Settlers thesis is very beneficial to the bourgeoisie who wishes that the working class never unite and fight racism together. In the words of the late Fred Hampton,
We don’t think you fight fire with fire best; we think you fight fire with water best. We’re going to fight racism not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity.
It essentializes white people as irreparably racist, and it conveys a defeatist message altogether, implying there’s nothing to be done to fight it, and that white people cannot be allies.
Looks like someone forgot to read the book.
I think those who defend this work to be of utmost value to the US radical left should address those critiques.
Those critiques have to exist first. All the links you provided are exactly the people spreading strawman representations of the book. They don’t engage with it at all. They just make up an argument based on what they think the book is about or they read it they way a Christian reads the Quran.
Those critiques have to exist first.
Alright, take the last chapter of the book, where this thesis is most evident. Sakai discusses the tactics and strategy of Black-White alliances, and he mentions the case of the 1890 union United Mine Workers (UMW), where black workers were the majority and white workers conspired against black workers to deprive them of their jobs and power in the unions:
Both Euro-Amerikan and Afrikan miners wanted tactical unity. However, since they had different strategic interests their tactical unity meant different things to each group. The Euro-Amerikan miners wanted tactical unity in order to advance their own narrow economic interests and take away Afrikan jobs.
Sakai shows how over decades, black worker were systematically removed from the UMW over time in several regions. His research is very enlightening indeed. However, his conclusion is as follows:
The entire example of attempted tactical unity shows how strongly the oppressor nation character of both the settler unions and the settler “Left” determines their actions. The settler “Left” tried to reach an opportunistic deal with reactionary labor leaders, hoping that Afrikan workers could be used to pay the price for their alliance.
(…)
So we see that tactical unity is not just some neutral, momentary alliances of convenience. Tactical unity flows out of strategy as well as immediate circumstances. Nor is tactical unity with Euro-American workers simply the non-antagonistic working together of “complementary” but different movements. Even the simplest rank-and-file reform coalition inside a settler union is linked to the strategic conflict of oppressor and oppressed nations.
(…)
What is important about these case histories is that they should push us to think, to question, to closely examine many of the neo-colonial remnants in our minds. “Working class unity” of oppressor and oppressed is both theoretically good, and is immediately practical we are told. It supposedly pays off in higher wages, stronger unions and more organization. But did it? (all emphasis mine)And, finally:
The thesis we have advanced about the settleristic and non-proletarian nature of the U.S. oppressor nation is a historic truth, and thereby a key to leading the concrete struggles of today. Self-reliance and building mass institutions and movements of a specific national character, under the leadership of a communist party, are absolute necessities for the oppressed. Without these there can be no national liberation. This thesis is not “anti-white” or “racialist” or “narrow nationalism.” Rather, it is the advocates of oppressor nation hegemony over all struggles of the masses that are promoting the narrowest of nationalisms - that of the U.S. settler nation. (my emphasis)
It’s been a while since I’ve read Sakai, and I should note that I haven’t read the work in full, but having read through most of it, I don’t recall Sakai ever mentioning his definition of “nation”, which he uses continuously throughout the whole book. I may have missed it in a single chapter, since I tend to read books non-linearly. To avoid any mistake on my part, I will make my definition of nation very clear, based on the outstanding Stalin work on it.
A nation is a stable community of people which shares:
- A common language, but not necessarily a single language;
- A common territory;
- A common economic life, a cohesive economic bond;
- A common culture;
Stalin attributes the term “nation” to the synthesis of these multiple determinations. Since Stalin, this remains as the most comprehensive Marxist theory of the nation and the national question. This is a far cry from the indiscriminate use of the term “nation” by Sakai. But you can deduct what Sakai treats as “nation” by the previous passages I mentioned here.
There is one thing that Sakai largely neglects and even ignore. Which is the question of ideology. Sakai treats white supremacist ideology and white labor as one and the same manifested as the “Euro-Amerikan nation”. As an analogy, it’s as if you looked at patriarchy and treated it as an aspect of the “Male-Patriarchal nation.” If we consider the Marxist understanding of the nation, we can easily notice how the “Afrikan” and “Euro-Amerikan” nations have in common a language, territory, economic life and culture, perhaps with a few particularities on the culture one. But both constitute a single nation according to Marxist theory of the nation, especially because of the shared economic life.
One thing produced in Alabama is necessary to produce something else in Ohio, which is the essential part of a commodity assembled in California to be sold in the whole US (abstract example). The US is an integrated and indivisible whole, like every nation. Besides the national question, Sakai promotes the idea of “national liberation” of the “Afrikan nation.” Taking that into consideration, what is the common territory and economic life of this “Afrikan nation” that is distinguished from the “Euro-Amerikan nation” so that the “Afrikan nation” can achieve its liberation? The more you question it, the less sense it makes.
Then in the last paragraph, Sakai advocates that considering all of that, white people cannot constitute a proletarian class. This is outright anti-Marxism, because be it a black person or a white-supremacist racist piece of shit, it doesn’t change the relations of production. It doesn’t change the fact that both are exploited, albeit certainly under different degrees, and the majority of blacks and whites do not own the means of production. It doesn’t change the fact that there are also black exploiters, like Beyoncé with her Ivy Park fashion sweatshop in Sri Lanka paying $6 a day to produce clothing sold for more than $200. Or black agents of imperialism like Obama, Kamala Harris, and so on.
Now, to answer your comment:
Looks like someone forgot to read the book.
Did you read the book? Check out this passage, from chapter 4. It makes more evident how Sakai treats white supremacist ideology with white labor as one and the same:
What was the essence of the ideology of white labor? Petit-bourgeois annexationism. (…) The ideology of white labor held that as loyal citizens of the Empire even wage-slaves had a right to special privileges (such as “white man’s wages”), beginning with the right to monopolize the labor market.
(…)
Since the ideology of white labor was annexationist and predatory, it was of necessity also rabidly pro-Empire and, despite angry outbursts, fundamentally servile towards the bourgeoisie.How can someone read those excerpts and not see from a mile away the intrinsic race essentialism? It’s very clear throughout the whole book how Sakai treats white workers as inherently racist, as if the racist elements weren’t conditioned by racist ideology. In the same manner how through agitation and propaganda they can adopt a different viewpoint if an ideological force is strong enough to fight it. This is why I keep mentioning the Rainbow Coalition, which Sakai doesn’t address at all, in fact the Black Panther Party is not mentioned a single time by Sakai, even though it was an extremely influent party, even after it was disbanded, and even at the time Sakai wrote the book.
The Rainbow Coalition was a successful example of racial solidarity among different ethnic groups, and avoided the co-optation of leadership by poor whites, and was only ended by the assassination of Hampton. It was so successful and threatening to white supremacist ideology that the FBI planned and executed the assassination of Hampton in the matter of 8 months after the Rainbow Coalition was founded.
Sakai does define the nation by emphasizing that the Afrikan nation, and others, have their own internal workerings for sustaining themselves. Enslaved people had their own internal economy as did the Indigenous nations. This is seperate from the greater settler empire although it is exploited not unlike how peasant economies provide food for metropolitan centers in the periphery.
Taking that into consideration, what is the common territory and economic life of this “Afrikan nation” that is distinguished from the “Euro-Amerikan nation” so that the “Afrikan nation” can achieve its liberation? The more you question it, the less sense it makes.
I like this question because of its difficulty, but the difficulty is moving forward with the national question instead of accepting that there is a Black nation. If you kidnapped millions of people with completely different languages and lifeways, and then tried to systematically eradicate their languages and cultural bonds to ensure servitude, would you have added to your nation? Or would you just have slaves? I dont think it actually works to use the national question to justify settler colonial nationhood here when the entire “national” situation was currated out of violence instead of a sovereign melding of national bonds. Rather the sovereign formation of nationhood within the Black nation as well as many Tribal confederations was forged through surviving colonialism, not through integration and assimilation.
If we consider the Marxist understanding of the nation, we can easily notice how the “Afrikan” and “Euro-Amerikan” nations have in common a language, territory, economic life and culture, perhaps with a few particularities on the culture one. But both constitute a single nation according to Marxist theory of the nation, especially because of the shared economic life.
II feel like what you are saying is that because someone’s language was stolen or murdered, that said group of people must now admit they are part of the colonizer nation. Also, “shared economic life” is another white washing of the reality, because slaves and Indigenous people were not even seen as humans for a chunk of history, were legally barred from entire portions of the economy, and have only ever been included among the settler nation for completely cyinical, racist political reasons. I dont think you are properly applying Stalin’s ideas of nation.
It’s very clear throughout the whole book how Sakai treats white workers as inherently racist, as if the racist elements weren’t conditioned by racist ideology.
Racism and bigotry are not merely ideological. They are expressions of class society and shared economic interests. White people are by definition inherently racist. This is only a problem if you moralize racism as a personal failing and assume it is merely and only conditioning instead of a material expression of colonial hierarchies and economic interests within class society. Sure conditioning exists too, but it is preceded by colonial, capitalist social relations. White people do not cease to be racist upon realizing that racism is mean or upon breaking conditioning, they cease to be racist when the racist system is dismantled and those social relations are impossible.
Then in the last paragraph, Sakai advocates that considering all of that, white people cannot constitute a proletarian class. This is outright anti-Marxism, because be it a black person or a white-supremacist racist piece of shit, it doesn’t change the relations of production.
Its not anti marxism and the relations kf production are different. Allow me to explain by pointing to China for a moment. I will use ideas from Roland Boer’s book Socialism With Chinese Characteristics: A Guid For Westerners, especially chapter 4.
Western marxists oftentimes get China wrong because they assume a universal mode of class formation; very basically, that the bourgeoisie developed in the cracks between fiefdoms, won many revolutions against aristocracy, and of course a proletariat, a class that has revolutionary potential due to the internal condradictions of capitalism developed alongside.
But the Chinese revolution took place before a bourgeoisie class ever established a dictatorship and did not develop in a way like Europe. In fact, the “bourgeoisie” in China was developed under the guidance of the CPC, owing much of its place in the world to proletarian revolution and proceeding politics. This is why China has no proper class of bourgeoisie, despite a casual observer raising alarm over an increasing number of wealthy entrepreneurs and despite such developments being reminiscent of class formation in western Europe. The bourgeoisie in China lacks the class consciousness of a traditional bourgeoisie, which makes it qualitatively different thatn that of the western, colonial bourgeoisie.
In Amerika perhaps we can say the same thing about the settler proletariat as we can about the Chinese bourgeoisie. It lacks a traditional class consciousness, which oight to be an inherently revolutionary class consciousness. This is because of its social relations to production, wealth, land ect etc. It is a colonial relation, an exploitative relation that also fundamentally alters its relation with the settler bourgeoisie. Just as the Chinese “bourgeoisie” is dependent upon the liberation of the means of production and a project for socialist construction led by the CPC, the settler “proletariat” is dependent upon colonial spoils and a colonial project led by the bourgeoisie and their political institutions. This fundamentally alters class antagonisms and relations to production.
How can you say a class of working settlers that are routinely given incredibly cheap stolen land and relatively high wages has the same relationship to production as a slave? Even white slaves, indentured servants, typically recieved land within a few years after their servitude, as wages were higher because of slavery and genocide than back in Europe, and they were granted the right to, ya know, not be enslaved for their entire lives and the right to own property. That is a massive difference in relations to production.
The Rainbow Coalition was a successful example of racial solidarity among different ethnic groups, and avoided the co-optation of leadership by poor whites, and was only ended by the assassination of Hampton. It was so successful and threatening to white supremacist ideology that the FBI planned and executed the assassination of Hampton in the matter of 8 months after the Rainbow Coalition was founded
I dont disagree that the rainbow coalition was a productive thing. I couldn’t tell you exactly why it isnt mentioned. There certainly is literature that sheds light on how wealthy whites perceive poor whites that makes points that are relevant to the discussion of colonial class society and could have been included in the book (although this relationship is still qualitatively different that the relationship between colonizer and colonized). But maybe the book isnt really about that as much as it is about how the history of settler-colonialism has benifited white people, even workers, at the expense of and the exploitation of the colonized.
