The Crisis of U.S. Hegemony and the Black Liberation Movement.

• Date: 22 March 2000
• Author: Oden, Robert Stanley
• Published date: 22 March 2000
• Author: Oden, Robert Stanley

Rod Bush, We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century. New York: New York University Press, 1999.

IN ATTEMPTING TO ASSESS THE PROSPECTS FOR AN EGALITARIAN SOCIAL TRANSFORMAtion in the U.S. and indeed in the world, one is immediately challenged by the complexity and enormity of the proposition. Seeking to transform the capitalist world-economic system has been the expression of the "Old Left" and the "New Left" since the beginning of the 20th century. As we embark upon a new century, the theorizing and practice of Seeking an egalitarian social transformation seem more formidable than ever.

Attaining that level of social transformation requires insightful analysis of the past, particularly of social movements. Challenges to the capitalist world-economy have occurred primarily through social movements of the Left. The trajectory of social movements and their attempts to recast existing social and economic hierarchies into a cooperative, socialistic culture that privileges people over profit can be examined in several ways. One is to look at how class relations and forces of production have changed over time and to position the struggle for working-class democracy as the fulcrum of social change as it relates to the productive processes of capitalism. Operationalizing the class struggle as the primary lens through which to analyze the social transformation of capitalist relations of production is the paradigm of Marxist analysis for revolutionary change. Race is another dimension that has affected the direction of social movements for social transformation.

Theories of class as they relate to social transformation are well documented. The use of race or a combination of both categories, however, has been undertheorized in the sociological and political literature in relation to social movements for economic and social transformation. In short, few social and political commentators have analyzed the intersection of race and the class struggle in the U.S. Dr. Rod Bush's recent book, We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century, is therefore a significant contribution. The book provides an analytic framework for the tendencies of Black nationalism that significantly affected U.S. and international race relations. It examines the relationship of capital accumulation to the process of understanding the nature, scope, and prospects for Black liberation in the U.S. Finally, it provides a framework for Black radicals, as well as progressives and radicals from all communities, to understand the complex underpinnings of U.S. racia l and economic hegemony.

Bush's theoretical framework for understanding the race and class dimensions of the Black liberation struggle in the U.S. is derived from world-systems theory, formulated by Immanuel Wallerstein (1979, 1983). This theory conceptualizes and historicizes capitalism within a global economic framework and positions the world-economy in a hierarchy with core, semiperipheral, and peripheral states. The core states are the highly industrialized, capital-intensive, and high-technology ones; the lesser-developed industrialized states are in the semiperiphery; and the underdeveloped states, primarily in the Third World, are located in the peripheral zone. This global hierarchy has class and race distinctions. These zones are reproduced within states in the form of class and race stratification. Bush effectively utilizes world-systems theory to situate the race and class struggle in the U.S.

Bush's theoretical framework draws upon Gramscian insights when he assesses the nature of U.S. hegemony. He argues that the momentous events of 1968--including the French May, Prague Spring, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Tet Offensive, insurgent political movements in the U.S., and other similar actions--represented a decisive moment in the antisystemic movements of the Left. He contends that the U.S. assumed hegemony over the world system at the end of World War II, but the events of 1968 demonstrated that a strong anti-hegemonic bloc had formed to...