Theodore W. Allen
On the Life, Work, and Legacy of Theodore W. Allen
"Janata Weekly," India's oldest Socialist Weekly published "On the Anniversary of His Death, Theodore W. Allen's Analysis Still Resonates" by Jeffrey B. Perry (on January 24, 2021) from "Black Agenda Report" -- see HERE
Article on Theodore W. Allen in "Against the Current" -- See HERE
Base and Superstructure
and the Socialist Perspective *
Theodore W. Allen
In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations
that are indispensable and independent of their will these relations of production
correspond to a definite stage of development of their material
powers of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes
the economic structure of society – the real foundation, on which rise legal
and political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social
consciousness.
– Karl Marx, Preface to A Critique of Political Economy (1859)
I. What is to be the base over which a corresponding socialist superstructure may
rise?
The assumption that the periodically intensified chronic crisis of
overproduction marked by increasing manifestations of parasitism
and decay would eventuate in proletarian ascendancy (rather than
in "the mutual destruction of the contending classes"), just as the
ascendancy of the bourgeoisie resulted from the transformation of
labor-power into a commodity, has not been validated by history in
the century-and-a-half since the promulgation of the Communist
Manifesto.
That fact cannot be attributed to a lack of heroic revolutionary bids
for working-class ascendancy. Yet, even though those mighty efforts
have failed, they provide us with one valuable lesson, one that has
not been sufficiently studied. Marx and Engels themselves wrote that
"the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the
sway of the proletariat" (Communist Manifesto), apparently assuming
that the conquest of state power would clear away the fetishism of
commodities, whereunder the relations between persons take the
form of the relation between their products, and usher in a rational
order of social relationships. Or, consider Lenin's slogan, "Soviet
power plus electrification equals communism!"1 The essence of that
concept is that a capture of state power, together with the necessary
instruments of production, would provide the basis of a socialist
society. After the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in Russia, Lenin
declared, "We shall now proceed to build the Socialist order!" But it
was not to be; instead, beset by enemies in all directions and lacking
elementary resources and technical personnel, the Bolsheviks
embarked upon what would prove to be the irretrievably slippery
slope into bourgeois habits of administration and production in the
hopeless expectation of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat
over a population 90% peasantry.
The lesson to be learned is that, while the seizure of state power
may bring beneficial results – land reform, ending a war, and the overthrow
of a colonial regime – yet it is no short-cut to socialism.
In Europe, the bourgeoisie was able to overthrow the feudal order
only because their mode of production had developed in the womb of
the old order until it could emerge to claim hegemony over the given
society. In short, they proved that the wage-labor/ capital relation of
production was irresistible by the order based on the serf/ feudal lord
relation of production. The seizure of power was the outcome of the
development of this novel relation of production; not the other way
around. In like manner, the basis of the necessary socialist relationship
of production must be defined and developed within the womb of the
capitalist order before the gravediggers of capitalism can become the
builders of socialist society.
But precisely how is that relation of production to be defined? Like
the historical succession of dialectical opposites – slave and master,
serf and feudal lord, wage worker and capitalist – the base of socialism,
over which the socialist superstructure will rise, must2 also be a dialectical
unity of opposites: that of the individual and the collective. And,
after the fashion of the bourgeois revolution, the revolutionary theory
and practice of that new base must develop in the womb of bourgeois
society. But unlike the blind, blundering, hesitant manner of the bourgeois
revolutions, this development of the base for socialism, benefiting
from Marxist historical materialist insights, will be a preconceived,
conscious, foresighted process.
The collective is a group of individuals who are ready and willing
to join in a common purpose, even though each individual knows that
the effort will most certainly require a subordination of some degree of
individual differences in a common interest. Yet the basic constitutional
vitality of the collective depends upon the tension between the
individual and the collective. Inherently, therefore, the most difficult
problem for collectives becomes that of dealing with the individual
deviation. Not every individual deviation serves to advance the
cause of the collective; yet it is in the nature of the collective that
every step in the progress begins with an individual deviation.
(Indeed such deviation may be seen as a necessary attribute of leadership.)
It follows as a corollary that one test of a good collective is not
how many differences it can overcome, but how few it must overcome
in order to minimize the frequency of those instances in which the
unity of opposites becomes the opposite of unity.
II. What does this fundamental concept of base and superstructure imply for the
day-to-day struggles implicitly or explicitly directed against capitalism,
whether in the form of resistance to the present-day worldwide absolute
impoverishment, disguised as "globalization" and "austerity," or in the
form of working-class cooperative enterprises?
In answer to this question, let us apply the advice offered by Marx
and Engels in the Communist Manifesto. First, "In the national struggles
of the proletarians of the different countries, [Communists] . . . bring to
the front the common interests of the entire proletariat." Second, "In
the various stages of development which the struggle . . . has to pass
through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the
movement as a whole."
First, this means grasping the rudimentary fact of the centrality of
the struggle against white supremacism, the historic Achilles' heel of
democratic and socialist movements in the United States. Second,
whatever the anti-capitalist issues in which particular collectives,
including political parties, may be engaged, and despite setbacks
they may encounter, they can take courage in knowing that the realization
of the collective as a dialectical unity of opposites – of individual
and collective – is the building of the base of a socialist society, whatever
may be the precipitating events that usher in the ascendancy of the
working class.
* Notes for a presentation at the Conference on "How Class Works," held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, June 10–12, 2004.
1. Speaking at the Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, December 1920.
2. Because of the eternal unity of opposites – of consumption and production.
Theodore W. Allen
The Invention of the White Race (Verso Books) by Theodore W. Allen
with special emphasis on Vol. II: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America.
Hosted by “The Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society”
Filmed by Fred Nguyen on January 31, 2013
Brecht Forum, New York City
OVER 311,000 VIEWS
Includes Noel Ignatin (Ignatiev) [and Ted (Theodore W.) Allen], “White Blindspot,” Ted (Theodore W.) Allen and Esther Kusick, "A Letter of Support," and Ted (Theodore W.) Allen, “Can White Workers [crossed out] Radicals Be Radicalized?” PDF will Download
Review of Theodore W. Allen’s The Invention of the White Race, New Expanded Edition, 2 Volumes, Vol. 1: Racial Oppression and Social Control; Vol. 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America; Verso Books, by Jeffrey B. Perry in Black Agenda Report CLICK HERE
Theodore W. Allen interviewed by Stella Winston
Over 143,000 Views
Video
Labor History, and the Centrality of Labor Struggle Against White Supremacy
Over 11,000 views.
Interview conducted with Caeser Pink and staff of Arete Living Arts Center (Brooklyn, NY) on Saturday, June 8, 2013, at the Labor and Working Class History Association (LAWCHA) National Conference, at Brooklyn - CUNY Center for Worker Education, 25 Broadway, 7th floor, New York, NY, 10004. Posted on 7 April 2014.
For key insights from Theodore W. Allen on U.S. Labor History CLICK HERE!
For information on Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” CLICK HERE!
For additional writings by and about Theodore W. Allen CLICK HERE!
For writings by and about Hubert Harrison CLICK HERE!
For information on Arete Living Arts Foundation
CLICK HERE!
Dr. Jeffrey Perry Discusses the New Expanded Edition
The Invention of the White Race (Verso Books, 2012)
Interview by Gary Glennell Toms
January 29, 2013
Over 39,000 Views
June 18, 2016, talk on
“Theodore W. Allen and ‘The Invention of the White Race’"
by Jeffrey B. Perry
at "Multiracial Organizing Conference"
on "Organizing Poor and Working Class Whites:
The Challenge of Building a Multiracial Movement"
Greensboro, N.C.
by Jeffrey B. Perry
Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” Slide Presentation/Talk by Jeffrey B. Perry at Washington Project for the Arts, 2124 8th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001 on Friday, April 28, 2017. To view the presentation in 5 parts CLICK HERE
Presentation on Theodore W. Allen's "The Invention of the White Race" by Jeffrey B. Perry for the James Connolly Forum, Troy, New York, May 11, 2013
“Hubert Harrison, Theodore W. Allen,
and the Centrality of the Struggle Against White Supremacy"
by Jeffrey B. Perry (Introduction)
July 26, 2014
The Commons, Brooklyn, NY
October 19, 2013
Saturday, 2 PM - 4:30 PM -- Theodore W. Allen's The Invention of the White Race (Verso Books) especially Volume 2 The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America is discussed in a slide presentation/talk by Jeffrey B. Perry at the Dudley Branch Library 65 Warren Street, Roxbury, MA. See HERE
October 20, 2013, Jeffrey B. Perry discusses "Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism and Theodore W. Allen's "The Invention of the White Race," at the Center for Marxist Education Cambridge, MA. Watch a video of the event HERE!
Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race,”
(Presentation by Jeffrey B. Perry)
"Terbospeed," the screen name of a viewer of the video of Theodore W. Allen's "The Invention of the White Race," took the time to select some key points in the presentation and provide excerpts and links to the exact sections in the video where the points are discussed.
What "Terbospeed" has done can be very helpful for viewers and I draw from "Terbospeed's" outline here --
"When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no ‘white’ people there; nor, according to the colonial records, would there be for another sixty years.”
Main thesis 1) the white race was invented as a ruling class social control formation in response to labor solidarity as manifested in the latter civil war stages of Bacon's rebellion 2) a system of racial privileges was deliberately instituted by the late 17th century Anglo-American bourgeoisie in order to define and establish the white race, and establish a system of racial oppression 3) the consequences were not only ruinous to the interests of African-Americans, they were also disastrous for European-American workers
1:20 "[Hubert] Harrison Arrived in NY [from Caribbean] in 1900 and encountered a viscous white supremacy unlike anything he knew before" CLICK HERE
3:30 Contrast of Caribbean/US Slavery CLICK HERE
4:50 "Politically, the Negro is the touchstone of the modern democratic idea. The presence of the Negro puts our democracy to the test and reveals the falsity of it." (touchstone is black stone which tests the purity of gold) CLICK HERE
07:40 "This understanding of black labor as proletarian is essential to a whole new reinterpretation of US history" CLICK HERE
10:15 Originator -- "white skin privilege" concept, 1965 CLICK HERE
16:25 "Invention's" Main Theses CLICK HERE
23:00 "Three Major Crisis of US: 1870s, 1890s, 1930s" CLICK HERE
23:20 "Why no socialism in the US?" "Why was there a generally low level of class-consciousness in the US?" Review/criticism of left/labor/general historians - "Architects of Consensus" CLICK HERE
24:07 Six-pronged rational: (Consensus explaining low level of class consciousness) Early right to vote and other constitutional liberties Heterogeneity of the working class Free-land safety valve Higher wages Social mobility "Aristocracy of labor" Each is a myth, and needs to be reexamined in the light of Racism/White Supremacy CLICK HERE
37:50 'whiteness' - "the white race is an actual objective thing", "an abstract noun, an attribute of some people, not their role" it's a historically developed identity of European-Americans and Anglo-Americans and so has to be dealt with" CLICK HERE
38:22 "my book is not about, and does not pretend to be about `racism'" "it is about the white race, it's origin and method of functioning" "I stay way from using the word `racism' because of the ruinous ambiguity white supremacists have managed to give it" CLICK HERE
39:40 Slavery or Racism, which came first? CLICK HERE
40:55 "Look at some Howling Absurdities of ``Race''' CLICK HERE
43:45 "The Irish Mirror" "The reflector of Irish history affords insights into American racial oppression and white supremacy" Irish History "presents a case of racial oppression without reference to 'skin color' or, as the jargon goes, 'phenotype'." CLICK HERE
44:12 Core Argument - Comparative study of: 1) Anglo-Norman rule and 'Protestant Ascendancy' (1652-) in Ireland 2) 'white supremacy' in continental Anglo-America (in both its colonial and regenerate United States forms) CLICK HERE
44:55 Specific Examples of Racial Oppression 1) African Americans in the U.S. both pre/post emancipation 2) American Indians in the 19th century 3) Irish from early 13th century until 1315, and after 1652 CLICK HERE
45:08 Essential Elements of Discrimination (against Irish in Ireland and Afro-Americans) which gave these respective regimes the character of racial oppression, were those that: 1) Destroyed the original forms of social identity & 2) Excluded the oppressed group from admittance into the forms of social identity normal to the colonizing power. CLICK HERE
45:33 4 Defining Characteristics of Racial Oppression (Virginia 18th century) 1) de-classing legislation, directed at property-holding members of the oppressed group 2) deprivation of civil rights 3) illegalization of literacy 4) displacement of family rights and authorities The Hallmark of Racial Oppression: "the reduction of all members of the oppressed group to one undifferentiated social status, beneath that of any member of the oppressor group" CLICK HERE
46:04 Maximize Profit, Maintain Social Control "Where the option was for racial oppression, a successful policy was one that could maximize the return on capital investment, while assuring its perpetuation through an efficient system of social control" CLICK HERE
Audio
Host Allen Ruff interview with guest Jeffrey B. Perry on A Public Affair, WORT 89.9 FM Madison, Wisconsin, July 10, 2014. . They discussed the life and work of Hubert Harrison (“The Father of Harlem Radicalism"), the work of Theodore W. Allen (author of “The Invention of the White Race”), and the centrality of the struggle against white supremacy. Listen HERE
Jeffrey B. Perry discusses Theodore W. Allen's "The Invention of the White Race" on June 9, 2013, at the Community Church in Boston, Mass. To listen CLICK HERE
Jeffrey B. Perry WBAI Radio interview/discussion with host Hugh Hamilton on Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” (Verso Books) and on Hubert Harrison “The Father of Harlem Radicalism”
Jeffrey B. Perry interview/discussion with host Hugh Hamilton on Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” (Verso Books) and on Hubert Harrison “The Father of Harlem Radicalism.” WBAI Radio (99.5 FM, NYC) Broadcast, Thursday, March 14, 2013 from 4 to 5 PM. To listen please go HERE -- (to the second hour of the two-hour radio program) [Special thanks to Michael G. Haskins for his assistance with this program]
Chris Stevenson Interview with Jeffrey B. Perry on "Who Was Hubert Harrison?" c. May 1, 2013.
The Invention of the White Race
“When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no ‘white’ people there; nor, according to colonial records, would there be for another sixty years” writes Theodore W. Allen on the back cover of Volume 1 of his seminal, two-volume, "The Invention of the White Race." Allen meticulously details how the “white race” was invented as a ruling-class social control formation in response to labor unrest in the wake of Bacon’s Rebellion (1676-77), how it was created and maintained through “white race” privileges conferred on laboring class European Americans relative to African Americans, how these privileges were not in the interest of African Americans or laboring class European Americans, and how the “white race” has been the principal historic guarantor of ruling-class domination in America.
Since publication in the mid-1990s, "Invention" has been recognized as a “classic.” Volume One reviews the origin of racism debate and utilizes the "mirror" of Irish history to show the relativity of “race” and racial oppression as a form of social control not based on “phenotype.” Volume Two focuses on colonial Virginia and describes the invention of the “white race” as a ruling class social control formation and the development of racial oppression and racial slavery in Anglo-America.
"Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery: The Invention of the White Race"
When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no "white" people there; nor, according to the colonial records, would there be for another sixty years.
Throughout much of the seventeenth century conditions in Virginia were quite similar for Afro-American and Euro-American laboring people and the "white race" did not exist.
There were many significant instances of labor unrest and solidarity in Virginia, especially during the 1660s and 1670s, and it is of transcendent importance that "foure hundred English and Negroes in Arms" fought together demanding freedom from bondage in the latter stages of Bacon's Rebellion.
The "white race" was invented as a ruling class social control formation in response to the labor unrest in the latter (civil war) stages of Bacon's Rebellion of 1676-77.
The "white race" was developed and maintained through the systematic extension of "a privileged status" by the ruling class to European-American laboring people who were not promoted out of the working class, but came to participate in this new multi-class "white" formation.
The non-enslavement of European-American laborers was the necessary pre-condition for the development of racial slavery [the particular form of racial oppression that developed in the continental plantation colonies].
The "white race" social control formation, racial slavery, the system of white supremacy, and white racial privileges were ruinous to the class interests of working people and workers' "own position, vis-à-vis the rich and powerful . . . was not improved, but weakened, by the white-skin-privilege system."
Slavery in the continental colonies was capitalism, the slaveholders were capitalists, and the chattel bond-servants (including those enslaved), were proletarians.
QUOTATIONS FROM THEODORE W. ALLEN
“When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no ‘white’ people there; nor, according to the colonial records, would there be for another sixty years.”
The Invention of the White Race, Vol. 1, 1994
(Written after searching through 885 county-years of Virginia’s colonial records)
“In the latter half of the seventeenth century, [in] Virginia and Maryland, the tobacco colonies . . . Afro-American and European-American proletarians made common cause in this struggle to an extent never duplicated in the three hundred years since.”
Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery: The Invention of the White Race, 1975
“ . . . the plantation bourgeoisie established a system of social control by the institutionalization of the ‘white’ race whereby the mass of poor whites was alienated from the black proletariat and enlisted as enforcers of bourgeois power.”
Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery: The Invention of the White Race, 1975
“ . . . the record indicates that laboring-class European-Americans in the continental plantation colonies showed little interest in ‘white identity’ before the institution of the system of ‘race’ privileges at the end of the seventeenth century.”
The Invention of the White Race, Vol. 1, 1994
“ . . . their (the poor “whites”) own position, vis–a-vis the rich and powerful . . . was not improved, but weakened, by the white-skin privilege system.”
Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery: The Invention of the White Race, 1975
“Given this understanding of slavery in Anglo-America as capitalism, and of the slaveholders as capitalists, it follows that the chattel bond-laborers were proletarians. Accordingly, the study of class consciousness as a sense the American workers have of their own class interests, must start with recognition of that fact.”
“On Roediger’s The Wages of Whiteness,” 2001
“The most vulnerable point at which a decisive blow can be struck against bourgeois rule in the United States is white supremacy. White supremacy is both the keystone and the Achilles heel of U.S. bourgeois democracy, the historic font of bourgeois rule in the United States.”
“The Most Vulnerable Point,” 1972
“ . . . among the masses of white workers, the bourgeoisie established the dominance of race consciousness as against proletarian class consciousness.”
“Presentation for a Panel Discussion,” 1972
“All the while their white blindspot prevents them from seeing what we are talking about is . . . the ‘white question,’ the white question of questions – the centrality of the problem of white supremacy and the white-skin privilege which have historically frustrated the struggle for democracy, progress and socialism in the US.”
“White Blindspot,” 1967
“(In) three periods of national crisis [Civil War and Reconstruction, Populist Revolt of 1890s, and the Great Depression of the 1930s] characterized by general confrontations between capital and urban and rural laboring classes . . . The key to the defeat of the forces of democracy, labor and socialism was in each case achieved by ruling-class appeals to white supremacism, basically by fostering white-skin privileges of laboring-class European-Americans.”
[New] “Introduction” to “The Kernel and the Meaning:
A Contribution to a Proletarian Critique of United States History,” 2003
“[This ‘white race’] . . . this all-class association of European-Americans held together by ‘racial’ privileges conferred on laboring class European-Americans relative to African-Americans – [has functioned] as the principal historic guarantor of ruling-class domination of national life”
“Summary of the Argument of The Invention of the White Race,” 1998
“The ‘white race’ is the historically most general form of ‘class collaboration.’”
Taped Interview with Chad Pearson, SUNY-Albany, May 13, 2004
“ . . . the ‘white race’ must be understood, not simply as a social construct, but as a ruling class social control formation.”
“Summary of the Argument of The Invention of the White Race,” 1998
Theodore W. Allen's Four Challenges for the Work Ahead
Shortly before his death, Allen, as both an intellectual and an activist, posed four basic challenges for the work ahead:
1. To show that white supremacism is not an inherited attribute of the European-American personality.
2. To demonstrate that white-supremacism has not served the interests of the laboring-class European-Americans.
3. To account for the prevalence of white-supremacism within the ranks of laboring-class European-Americans.
4. By the light of history, to consider ways whereby European-American laboring people may cast off the stifling incubus of "white" identity.
"An Introduction to Theodore W. Allen” by Jeffrey B. Perry
"Insights From the Work of Theodore W. Allen, on
'White Skin Privilege,' The Invention of the White Race,
and the Centrality of the Struggle Against White Supremacy"
Slide Presentation/Talk by Jeffrey B. Perry, at “The Center for Marxist Education,” Cambridge, Massachusetts
Filmed by Doug Enaa Greene on October 25, 2014.
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