An Assessment of the Impact of Identity Politics on Contemporary Western Left-Wing Movements

Since entering the post-industrial era, faced with the historical predicament of the depletion of the revolutionary impetus of the working class, some Western left-wing figures have drawn inspiration from liberal values such as multiculturalism and have begun to adopt identity politics as a developmental strategy to break through the predicament of left-wing movements. Under their guidance and promotion, identity politics has now developed into a significant force within contemporary Western left-wing movements. However, this form of identity politics, which indulges in differential rights, cultural equal rights, and fragmented struggles, has in its subsequent development actually undermined the political ideals of the left, not only severely weakening the left’s own strength but also creating a cultural and social structure conducive to the expansion of financial capital. Particularly after the outbreak of the 2008 international financial crisis, the Western left-wing movements, originally symbols of critical and progressive spirit, have, under the inducement of identity politics, increasingly been regarded by Western publics as a conservative force hindering social equality. Meanwhile, right-wing populist forces represented by Trump have ostentatiously appeared on the stage in the guise of “anti-establishment, anti-elite” and gained substantial popular support. So, what has happened to the Western left? How should we view this? In response, it is urgently necessary to re-examine the practical consequences of Western left-wing movements dominated by identity politics from the standpoint, viewpoint, and method of Marxism, and to deeply analyze the actual impact of identity politics on Western left-wing movements and the underlying reasons behind it. This is of great significance for further understanding and observing the future trajectory of Western left-wing movements, and thereby reflecting on how to better promote the revival of world socialism in the 21st century.

I. Using Identity to Pursue Politics: A Typical Strategy of Contemporary Western Left-Wing Movements

As a developmental strategy adopted by the Western left in the post-industrial era to break through its predicament, identity politics primarily constructs discursive forms and conducts political mobilization around the issue of “identity,” while taking the realization of the diverse and equal treatment of the demands of socially disadvantaged groups as its struggle goal. Under the leadership and utilization of some left-wing groups, identity politics has now become a “powerful weapon” for the contemporary Western left-wing camp to struggle to reduce economic inequality between classes. Overall, Western left-wing movements dominated by identity politics exhibit the following typical characteristics.

First, they no longer regard the working class as the sole subject of opposition to capitalism, but instead incorporate the multiple identities suffering various oppressions within capitalist society into the category of political movement subjects.

Because the improvement of material living standards and welfare benefits in the post-industrial era has weakened the revolutionary character of the working class, some Western left-wing theorists have begun to deny the foundational status of the category of “class” in anti-capitalist movements, concluding that the working class in capitalist countries has been institutionalized. In their view, on the one hand, the antagonism between workers and capitalists does not arise from within capitalist relations of production, but rather from “the relationship between relations of production and the identity of social actors (including workers).” [1]1 This is a paraphrase of a view associated with post-Marxist theorists such as Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, who argue that social antagonisms are not necessarily rooted in class relations but in the discursive construction of identities. This means that only when workers regard capitalism as a social relation that negates their identity, hinders the realization of their potential, and obstructs the construction of an ideal society, is the antagonism between labor and capital real, and workers thereby acquire revolutionary consciousness. However, the working class in the post-industrial era, apparently due to comfortable living conditions, no longer regards capitalist relations of production as antagonistic, which inevitably leads to the loss of its revolutionary subject status.

On the other hand, contemporary capitalist oppression has long exceeded the scope of a specific class, “affecting not only workers but also many people in other fields.” [2]2 This reflects the argument of theorists like Alain Touraine or those associated with “new social movements,” who claim that contemporary conflicts extend beyond the working class. In such a society, “diversity and difference have dissolved all old certainties and universals,” and the original unified class “has been fragmented.” [3]3 This phrasing echoes postmodernist and post-structuralist critiques of grand narratives and fixed social categories. At the same time, differentiated and pluralized identity identifications have emerged from the cracks of class, and groups with different identities each have their special interests and methods of struggle, which inevitably leads to the development of political struggle methods towards pluralization. This means that in the increasingly complex and pluralistic struggles of modern capitalist society, although the category of “class” has not completely exited the stage, it has transformed into one among the multiple identities of the subject; consequently, class struggle is merely one type of identity politics and has “become increasingly unimportant in the contemporary world.” [4]4 This is a paraphrase of a position commonly attributed to theorists who prioritize identity-based struggles over class struggle, such as Judith Butler or Nancy Fraser in certain phases of her work.

Precisely based on the above understanding, these left-wing figures conceive of modern society as a complex field full of diverse political struggles, “in which a large number of different subjects must be recognized and accepted.” [5]5 This is a restatement of the political project of “radical democracy” as proposed by Laclau and Mouffe, which calls for the recognition and articulation of multiple democratic struggles. They believe that as long as “identities” based on cultural, value, or conceptual identification—such as Black people, women, and LGBTQ+ groups—are endowed with the status of revolutionary subjects, the limitations of the category of “class” can be transcended, uniting all those systematically oppressed in capitalist society, across parties and classes, thereby achieving more effective political mobilization. For example, the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that erupted in the United States in 2011 was based on the cross-class identity of “ordinary people as the ‘99%’” for mobilization. Its participants included not only the working class but also university faculty and students, media professionals, engineers, and some minority and marginalized groups, while the identity with which they had conflicting interests was “the financial oligarchs as the ‘1%’.” [6]6 “Occupy Wall Street” was a protest movement that began in Zuccotti Park in New York City’s financial district in September 2011, using the slogan “We are the 99%” to highlight economic inequality. Another example is the “Global Climate Strikes” movement that swept across multiple Western countries in September 2019. Although its main participating group was middle school and university students, it also attempted to broaden its mobilization scope through the broader identity of “Everyone,” successfully attracting some companies to join the strike. This indicates that “identity” based on cultural identification has completely replaced “class” based on economic relations as the important foundation for political mobilization by these left-wing figures. They no longer emphasize class conflict between workers and capitalists, but instead focus more on the conflictual relationship between specific identities, as owners of the interests of certain groups, and other owners of interests.

Second, they no longer emphasize transforming capitalist relations of production to achieve people’s economic emancipation, but instead dedicate themselves to pursuing the realization of people’s emancipation in daily life or self-consciousness through the means of cultural critique.

Along with the post-industrial era, the forms of expression of capitalist social conflict have increasingly shifted from class conflicts over material interests to identity conflicts over equal rights and recognition. Inequalities of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., have replaced class inequality as the issues most concerning the general public. In response, some left-wing figures have begun to question the decisive role of the economic base in the social structure, tending to believe that conflicts of interest in advanced capitalist societies no longer involve the sphere of production where surplus value is appropriated, but have shifted to the sphere of daily life and consumption outside of work. In their view, the unfair treatment encountered by each member of advanced capitalist society does not originate from specific economic relations and political systems, but from “discrimination and harm from the perspective of the other” in daily life. [7]7 This refers to the concept of “misrecognition” or “non-recognition” as a form of injustice, central to the work of theorists like Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser. In this context, the main goal of resisting capitalist oppression necessarily shifts from achieving economic equality to achieving pluralistic equality in culture or identity. The cultural sphere, which carries the perspective of the other and is thus highly politicized, becomes the “zone of struggle” for marginalized groups to resist capitalist oppression. Take the “Cultural Renaissance Movement” launched by Black Americans in the 1950s to fight for equal rights as an example. They hoped to reconstruct Black cultural and racial characteristics by changing symbolic words for Black people and displaying clothing and hairstyles with racial features, and sought to demand status equality and cultural recognition from mainstream groups by emphasizing Black racial culture or identity, in order to counter the systemic oppression of capitalist society.

Nowadays, under the influence of postmodernism, this kind of identity politics further confines human liberation to the realms of contingency, subjective consciousness, individual uniqueness, and identity confirmation, placing the critique of capitalism and human liberation in the freedom of self-consciousness, perceptual consciousness, and aesthetic consciousness, in the artistic practice of technology, politics, and life, and pursuing merely the liberation of individuality and desire in the everyday sphere of personal life. Thus, the goal of struggle in contemporary Western left-wing identity politics is no longer merely to defend workers’ material interests and achieve economic liberation, but to pursue recognition of differentiated identities and respect for specific cultural values, as well as to realize the liberation of individuality and desire, and liberation in the perceptual and aesthetic domains.

Third, it no longer emphasizes traditional party politics and unified class action, but instead, starting from individual differences in identity and self-set goals, advocates for individuals to fight the entire capitalist world single-handedly.

This historical shift of the working class from revolutionary subject to marginalized social group has also profoundly influenced some leftists’ view of social revolution. In their eyes, the nature of social revolution in the post-industrial era has fundamentally changed, from a necessary movement within the historical process to a mere contingent setting. The purpose of revolution is no longer a profound embodiment of historical mission and historical laws, but, lacking long-term planning, focuses only on immediate, individual contingent goals. The internal driving force of revolution correspondingly shifts from the original class will and collective action to the individual’s continuous and consistent cultural and psychological negation and subversion of the existing order. This transformation in the view of revolution further triggers a shift in the view of practice, causing these leftists to shift their focus from the systemic oppression of capitalism to the existential state of the single subject. In this way, the holistic, organized, and necessary movement aimed at class struggle and wealth redistribution is abandoned, replaced by a solitary individual’s single-handed fight against the entire capitalist world.

Moreover, this mode of political struggle pushes individualism to its extreme, emphasizing an examination of the power structure of capitalist society from differentiated, individualized identity perspectives. Each participating individual is endowed with uniqueness and difference distinct from other subjects. This is why influential identity politics movements in recent years, such as “Black Lives Matter” and “Me Too,” have all exhibited clear anarchist tendencies. These movements lack a unified leadership core, a clear program of struggle, and tight political organization, operating from start to finish in a “decentralized” mode of action, each fighting its own battle within capitalist society. The participating subjects of these movements constantly attempt to establish and strengthen the status of identity difference, using micro-level multicultural power to confront the totalizing power structure, pursuing equal rights in cultural identity or value choice. In this process, a flat organizational structure, rather than a vertical power hierarchy, becomes the most distinctive feature of such political movements.

II. Poles Apart: The Practical Predicament of Contemporary Left-Wing Identity Politics Movements

Although launching identity politics seemed to bring hope of revitalization to the declining Western left-wing movements and once pushed forward the cause of anti-capitalist oppression, judging from the practical consequences and developmental trends of contemporary Western left-wing movements, identity politics has not only failed to truly lead Western left-wing movements out of their historical predicament, but has further deepened their practical difficulties in the 21st century, a period of frequent capitalist crises and the return of economic issues to the center of political movements. This outcome is clearly poles apart from the vision of revitalizing left-wing movements.

First, left-wing movements dominated by identity politics one-sidedly emphasize equality and diversity in identity or culture while ignoring the class inequality that factually exists in capitalist society, which amounts to a disguised recognition of the legitimacy of capitalist rule.

From the perspective of identity politics, although capitalist society has various inequalities, as long as diverse identity recognitions are treated equally, and as long as different identity groups have a certain proportion of representation and voice within the existing system, such a society can be considered “faultless.” Therefore, this kind of politics’ resistance to capitalism is actually detached from class relations. At the same time, as the bourgeoisie continuously releases so-called modern, progressive goodwill by embracing diversity, multiculturalism, and women’s rights, “new social movement forces” such as anti-racism, feminism, multiculturalism, and LGBTQ+ equal rights have begun to form alliances with “high-end elite forces” from Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood. In this alliance, progressive forces form a conspiracy with cognitive capitalism, especially financial capital, and “the former endows the latter with more appeal.” This elitism, whitewashed by equality and diversity, not only dissolves the revolutionary spirit of the left but also swaps its political ideal from “over neoliberalism” to “for neoliberalism.” In this context, professing left-wing values or engaging in left-wing movements becomes a speculative means for some individuals to earn personal fame and achieve class mobility within the capitalist system. Left-wing politics thus degenerates from a radical politics that once promoted social equality by creating differences and emphasizing recognition into a “performance politics” entirely unrelated to anti-capitalist oppression and possessing only abstract aesthetic significance.

As a successful case of a marginalized figure rising to cultural elite status, the American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, as Cornel West aptly criticized, owes his meteoric rise to fame to skillfully exploiting the crocodile tears of neoliberals unwilling to share power or give up privileges, thereby earning a reputation within the system. His narrow racial tribalism and short-sighted political neoliberalism have not touched upon Wall Street’s greed, the many evils of the American empire, or the black elite’s disregard for poverty. More seriously, this increasingly degenerate left-wing discourse is now being exploited by the bourgeois ruling elite, reducing complex socioeconomic problems to simple differences in ethnic identity, and thereby forging it into a political tool to deceive voters. Take the Democratic Party, the most adept at this, as an example. Shortly after the George Floyd incident in 2020, Democratic politicians like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi successively performed the “taking a knee” act to win support from black voters. During the 2024 U.S. presidential election, former President Barack Obama, while campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, even used identity politics rhetoric for blatant moral blackmail. He urged black voters to vote for Harris, a black person “like you,” and scolded black men who did not support Harris: “You’re just not willing to have a woman as president.” Clearly, these political maneuvers by Democratic politicians evade the class roots behind racial inequality and cannot change the plight of disadvantaged groups. Regrettably, today’s American left not only does nothing about this but “willingly acts as the little tail of the Democratic Party’s ‘donkey’ (the party’s emblem).” As Mark Lilla criticized, although identity politics can make American society more inclusive and bring marginalized groups more attention, its reverse logic has caused American politics to degenerate into a “pseudo-politics” of expressing individuality. It colludes with neoliberalism, jointly creating a cultural atmosphere of refined egoism.

This also shows that the “de-class-ified” mode of struggle in identity politics has led Western leftist movements onto a fragmented path of cultural reformism. Not only does this fail to deliver any substantive blow to the capitalist system, it actually allows Western leftist values to reach a certain subtle consensus with the logic of capital, and even distorts the developmental logic of contemporary Western leftist movements into a manifestation of the ruling logic of contemporary capitalism.

Second, leftist movements dominated by identity politics constantly ignite identity conflicts and value oppositions in society through a kind of “victim politics,” which effectively erects obstacles to the formation of a united anti-capitalist popular force. Today’s identity politics is deeply influenced by the principle that “the personal is political,” placing particular emphasis on absorbing the unique victimization experiences of individual subjects within capitalist society and politicizing them. This causes the subject’s identity construction to rely increasingly on the “affective solidarity” formed through the shared experience of victimization among subjects, gradually reducing Western leftist politics to a kind of “victim politics.” However, the precondition for political mobilization through the construction of a “victim identity” is that the group in question is indeed oppressed and, to some extent, harmed. This mode of mobilization essentially pushes forward the politicization of identity and completes identity construction by intensifying one’s own experience of suffering, rather than aiming to eliminate the root causes of that suffering. Thus, while the victim experience is emphasized, the social roots of inequality are never substantively critiqued. At the same time, the emergence of a “victim politics” born from painful experience actually deepens the estrangement between different groups. It no longer aspires to equal rights and human liberation, nor is it satisfied with gaining respect and recognition from mainstream society. Instead, it constantly emphasizes the oppressive relationship between marginalized minority groups and mainstream society, and seeks to establish an inverted “hierarchy of victimhood” in society. Under this system, the more “victim identities” one possesses, the more one can demand privileges by “playing the sympathy card.”

It can thus be seen that the “victim complex” is essentially the self-indulgent logic of the bourgeois elite. It only magnifies the selfish individual rationality within civil society, confining political movements “to the margins of society and at risk of degenerating into narcissism, hedonism, aestheticism, or personal therapy,” ultimately reducing Western leftist movements to mere instruments for specific groups to pursue narrow interests. In this context, although the necessity and importance of uniting the people into an overall anti-capitalist force are increasingly evident, the Western leftist movements dominated by identity politics have already become a stumbling block to this historical process.

Third, the mechanism of differentiated identity that leftist movements dominated by identity politics follow, in practice, causes narrow group interests to replace the overall interests of society as the main objective of the movement, which amounts to pursuing an alienated goal of struggle.

The mechanism of identity is based on differences between subjects. Once a subject becomes aware of a certain difference between itself and other groups, this difference reflexively stimulates its identification with its own group, and this identification can provide momentum for identity politics movements. Under the dominance of differentiated identity, the principle of individuality is pushed to its extreme. Every participant in an identity politics movement displays a distinct self-uniqueness and clear demarcation from others, thereby facilitating the construction of a specific identity. However, this sense of identity and belonging is actually rooted in imagination and is subjectively arbitrary. Therefore, the differences between identities are not fixed; new identities are continuously constructed through the emphasis on these differences. This characteristic means that constructing a specific identity is insufficient to resist the fluidity of postmodern social values, nor can it re-stabilize intimate interpersonal connections in the postmodern context of increasing social alienation. Instead, identity shifts frequently as the subject’s attention changes.

More importantly, because different subjects in fact have diverse interests and demands, this inevitably causes the subject’s identity to change as its interests change, ultimately leading the subject to pursue “differentiated identity” as the goal of the movement itself. Affected by this, contemporary Western leftist identity politics no longer pays attention to power relations of oppression and institutional structures, but instead emphasizes the freedom of lifestyle differences, as if all different differences have equally important political significance. It “extremely emphasizes the importance of a particular identity while being indifferent to the social and political ethics that connect different identities,” and may even in practice reduce the freedom of the majority to satisfy the freedom of the minority.

This explains why some subjects of identity politics movements today are not satisfied with being treated equally, but constantly force mainstream society to acknowledge the distinctive characteristics that make them different, so that they can, when necessary, use the method of “refining identity” to pursue their own narrow interests. Take Asian Americans as an example. This group always seeks to maximize the interests of their small ethnic group within the existing U.S. racial system. They no longer pursue expanding the common interests of all ethnic groups, but merely attempt to redistribute existing interests in a way favorable to their own group. This further fractures an already fragile pan-ethnic identity under the pressure of interest struggles. This shows that the internal contradiction of the differentiation mechanism in identity politics has caused narrow group interests to replace the overall interest of resisting social injustice as the main goal for subjects engaging in political movements, thereby creating an even more fragmented society of “identity tribalism.” For the Western left, which hopes to strengthen anti-capitalist forces by absorbing various identities, this is undoubtedly a fatal blow.

Fourth, the struggle philosophy of leftist movements dominated by identity politics, which targets cultural pluralism and equality, can no longer resonate with the people, which effectively allows right-wing forces to “steal” the left’s own issues.

After the outbreak of the international financial crisis in 2008, the myth of sustained capitalist economic prosperity was shattered. The economic situation of lower- and middle-class whites, the mainstream group in the West, deteriorated continuously, with some even worse off than poor ethnic minorities. Taking the United States as an example, the worsening economic situation shattered the “American Dream” of class advancement for mainstream whites, triggering an identity crisis and racial resentment. This led them to view unemployment and wealth polarization through the “colored glasses” of racism, gradually evolving into a kind of “racialized economics.” In the eyes of these whites, the minority marginalized groups who have benefited from identity politics are all “queue-jumpers” who have stolen their opportunities for development, while they themselves—hardworking whites who truly bear the tax burden—have become “aggrieved groups” in the waves of economic globalization and social pluralism, lacking both a sense of belonging and recognition. In this context, the leftist camp, by launching political movements based solely on the identities and interests of marginalized groups and targeting the lower- and middle-class whites who are also harmed by the parasitic accumulation of finance capital, not only fails to eliminate inequality in capitalist society but further intensifies conflicts between grassroots people of different skin colors. Take “Dallas Justice Now” as an example. This Black organization once publicly demanded that whites promise not to send their children to the top 50 Ivy League schools, but instead give up their admission slots to people of color, in order to “make sacrifices” to correct historical racist wrongs. This practice, which clearly exceeds the boundaries of affirmative action, greatly hurt the feelings of white people and only deepened their antipathy toward the leftist camp.

This shows that, in an era of crisis where finance capital severely harms the material interests of the people, the Western left’s abandonment of resistance against capitalist oppression in favor of pursuing so-called equal rights or preferential treatment through identity politics has pushed ordinary white people, who should have been united, in the wrong direction toward right-wing populism, thereby weakening the left’s own strength.

III. "Unconscious Instruments": Reflections on the Predicament of Left-Wing Identity Politics

From the above it can be seen that when contemporary Western left-wing groups use identity politics to resist capitalist oppression, this is less an expansion of left-wing forms of resistance than a deconstruction of them. This mode of struggle does not resolve the class question through a new political form; rather, it dissolves that question, so that the fact of “the unlimited despotic rule of one class over others” [n] in capitalist society is, with the completion of this transformation, completely screened out of the field of vision of identity politics. This is not only a loss of the true enemy and the correct direction, but also a betrayal of the working class, which is rich in the spirit of struggle. This alone confirms the “left in form, right in essence” nature of identity politics. It also foretells that indulgence in identity politics will only cause left-wing movements to drift ever further in the wrong direction, ultimately degenerating completely into “unconscious instruments” that consolidate the rule of contemporary capitalism.

III. “Unconscious Instruments”: Reflections on the Predicament of Left-Wing Identity Politics

As Adolph Reed Jr. has said, “Whenever racial difference is used as a lens for observing inequality in American society, the intensifying inequality caused by the American capitalist system and class rule is obscured.” [n] Because it negates the Marxist category of class and the analytical perspective of relations of production, identity politics perceives the systemic oppression of capitalist society only from an identity/cultural perspective (for example, taking “white male hegemony” as the main enemy). It therefore fails to see the important economic fact that the lower and middle strata within the white group are also objects of capitalist oppression, and it is even less able to understand that the heightened identity crisis and populist sentiment among white groups since the twenty-first century are essentially a reflection at the ideological level of their deteriorating material living conditions. Consequently, identity politics always one-sidedly interprets right-wing populism as a new resurgence of white racism, and mistakenly understands the “economic/class struggle” triggered by the contemporary capitalist crisis as an “identity/cultural conflict.” Within the field of vision of identity politics, society is not horizontally divided into two major “classes,” the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but vertically divided into numerous “identities” such as Black people, women, and sexual minorities. Through this division, the ruling elite of the bourgeoisie can cleverly hide within various identities, becoming merely one of many factors causing inequality in the perspective of identity politics. Moreover, as long as they adopt a tolerant posture of respecting multiple identities, they can easily whitewash themselves, or even transform themselves into promoters of democratic progress.

The most direct harmful consequence of this misjudgment is that the Western left-wing camp completely loses sight of the true enemy of the working class: capitalism. In reality, it can be clearly observed that when some current left-wing figures mobilize marginalized groups to resist systemic oppression from mainstream society, although they correctly criticize backward and reactionary ideologies such as “white supremacy” and “racism,” they simultaneously forget that behind these ideologies lie some reasonable interest demands of lower- and middle-class whites. They forget that these demands are the banner for the most resolute struggle against capitalism. Consequently, they always mistakenly direct the spearhead that should be aimed at the financial oligarchs against the lower- and middle-class whites who are also in a position of being oppressed within capitalist relations of production. Ultimately, they continuously push the lower- and middle-class whites, who should be united as the basic force of revolution, to their own opposite side. This is why, in recent years, the more vigorously left-wing identity politics has been pursued, the more Western people, especially lower- and middle-class whites, have tended to bind themselves to right-wing forces, and the more besieged the left-wing camp has become. This also means that, against the backdrop of a large number of whites suffering from economic hardship and growing weary of left-wing political discourse, if Western leftists continue to cling to the one-sided cognitive model of identity politics that divides friend from foe by “skin color,” they will find it difficult to grasp the true enemy—the power of capital—hidden behind identity conflicts, and even more difficult to activate the revolutionary potential against capitalism latent among the broad masses of lower- and middle-class whites. This brings new uncertainties to the cause of revitalizing contemporary Western left-wing movements.

Second, the excessive reliance on cultural struggle leads identity politics to disregard the real material interest demands of the people, which inevitably causes the left-wing movements it dominates to deviate from the correct direction of struggle and thereby lose their appeal to the masses.

On the one hand, because it fails to understand that the various forms of identity conflict are essentially derivatives of socioeconomic inequality in capitalist society, and fails to understand that people’s real material interest demands often override their value beliefs or cultural identities to become the deep logic regulating their political behavior, identity politics not only disregards the obvious economic fact that the real material interests of the底层 people [n] are being infringed upon by financial capital, but also one-sidedly exaggerates the role of cultural critique in resisting capitalist oppression. It even hopes to attract people to participate in the struggle against capitalism through empty value concepts or specific identity affiliations. Unfortunately, “‘ideas’ once they leave ‘interests’ will certainly make themselves look ridiculous.” [n] This “unity in ideas” built on value concepts cannot escape the entanglement of material interests. Not only does it find it difficult to effectively respond to the real material interest issues that concern the底层 people, especially lower- and middle-class whites, but it also shifts the focus of struggle from eliminating socioeconomic inequality under capitalism to pursuing false goals such as cultural diversity and equality. This is why, in an era when the material interests of the people are deeply harmed by financial capital, despite left-wing figures vigorously promoting identity politics, Western left-wing movements still cannot reverse their current decline. Instead, they can only watch helplessly as popular movements are hijacked by the bourgeois right wing into the wrong direction of populism.

On the other hand, identity politics also attempts to oppose capitalism through individual self-identity, self-consciousness revolution, critique of everyday life, and performative nonconformity, all while detached from real economic relations. This essentially shifts the goal of struggle from abolishing capitalism to coexisting with it. This is because these so-called cultural or ideological revolutions share the same theoretical premise as capitalist ideology: they posit the social subject as an “individual” detached from real relations of production and living in isolation, and this “individual” only achieves a圆满 unity [n] of physical life, emotional will, and free individuality at an abstract level. Although this kind of politics emphasizes the concreteness and comprehensiveness of the “individual” and the fullness and integrity of “individual life,” it forgets the concreteness and historicity of the fact that the “individual” is always situated within certain relations of production. It even more neglects that economic liberation is the true “universal human liberation.” [n] Consequently, when faced with the systemic oppression of capitalism, the left-wing movements currently dominated by identity politics do not seek to liberate people from the bonds of capitalist relations of production, but merely pursue a critique of self-consciousness and everyday life, and an abstract individual freedom and liberation. Although such political movements appear radical, they are ultimately nothing more than a subjective struggle hovering on the margins of society and a political performance with only aesthetic significance, fundamentally insufficient to shake the foundations of contemporary capitalist rule.

Third, the complete abandonment of revolutionary action and party politics based on class identity leads to the increasing fragmentation of the modes of struggle of identity politics, which inevitably prevents the left-wing movements it dominates from truly gathering the holistic force sufficient to shake the capitalist system.

Today the entity that rules Western society is finance capital, which penetrates stealthily into the economic, political, social and other spheres by manipulating currency issuance, debt structures, marketable securities and the real-estate market. This social reality determines not only that the “decentered” struggles launched around differentiated identity are insufficient to shake the comprehensive rule of contemporary finance capital over Western society, but also that the revolutionary subject can only be the association formed by the working class under the conditions of socialized mass production. Yet identity politics, which negates unified class action, is clearly incapable of bearing the great mission of uniting the working class.

On the one hand, although identity politics, by focusing on the existential condition of individuals, can more clearly reveal the alienation that capital inflicts on micro-level individuals, and to a certain extent makes up for the deficiency of class politics’ grand narrative, which cannot fully attend to the condition of individuals, this micro-narrative inevitably depicts modern society as a fragmented picture, thereby obscuring the systematic domination of modern social life by finance capital. It prevents identity politics from seeing the class essence of social producers as associated workers, and the logic, strength and hope of their collective action. Precisely because of this, identity politics merely pushes individual critique to the extreme, using a magnification of the degree of individual oppression to stimulate an “oppressed consciousness” in isolated individuals, and then mobilizes them, under the inspiration of this illusory “identity of the oppressed,” to launch fragmented movements to struggle against the entire capitalist world. Yet in reality it can be clearly seen that this kind of rebellious action based on isolated individuals has never, as identity politics wished, posed a substantive threat to the foundations of capitalist rule. What identity politics loses in its radical expression is precisely the important fact that individuals are linked by capital into social associated workers, precisely the capacity and potential to transform the capitalist system that only exists when workers unite.

On the other hand, identity politics’ development strategy of replacing “class” with “identity” as the basis for political mobilization also reveals the fatal defect of its neglect of the decisive role of economic factors. When carrying out political mobilization, identity politics not only fails to understand that the root cause of extreme inequality in capitalist society lies not in disputes over values and ideas but in the injustice of the distribution of material interests, but also fails to see that the reason why the identities of different subjects differ, and why they constantly change or subdivide, is that behind them “all carry special, narrow, and therefore mutually isolated economic interests.” This causes subjects mobilized by culture or identity to have enormous divergences in the formation of demands, the defense of culture and identity, the pursuit of goals, and the means of implementation. Therefore, the identity mechanism on which the left-wing camp has placed high hopes can at most construct an illusory association at the level of ideas; once it encounters the challenge of material interests in reality, it immediately disintegrates. This shows that a political movement that negates class unity and ignores the material interest demands of the people cannot gather the overall force to transform the capitalist system, and thus cannot escape failure.

Conclusion

Admittedly, in post-industrial Western society, where the left-wing spirit is in decline and class politics is waning, identity politics can, with its keen insight into the times, successfully reveal new problems and new contradictions in capitalist society, and can, by politicizing identity, successfully mobilize minority and marginalized groups within Western countries to resist the vested interests and discursive hegemony of mainstream groups, thereby once advancing the cause of social equality in capitalism. Its historical progressive significance is obvious. However, because it has abandoned class politics and the demand for transformation of the economic base, this left-wing movement, which aims at equalizing identity, still attempts, in the face of the economic fact that the material interests of the people are being infringed upon by the power of capital and that unequal social relations urgently need to be changed, to replace “material interests” with “cultural rights” and to replace the real “economic emancipation of people” with abstract “self-consciousness liberation.” This inevitably reduces it to an “unconscious instrument” that strengthens the power of capital. What must be particularly guarded against is that, as identity politics unfolds with great intensity, Western popular antipathy toward the left-wing camp has grown day by day in recent years, and more and more people have even begun to embrace the right-wing forces. This is undoubtedly a huge blow to the left-wing camp, which had placed its hopes on reviving anti-capitalist forces by emphasizing identity or value consensus.

Regrettably, just as Western politicians are keen on performing political correctness, many Western left-wing theorists today still conduct their reflections on identity politics and the right-wing populism associated with it as academic critiques lodged under the roof of the capitalist state. Although these theories appear radical and righteous, as long as their reflections on identity politics never aim at transforming capitalist relations of production, and as long as they remain indifferent to the disastrous consequences that the capitalist mode of production brings to the material interests of ordinary people, including middle- and lower-class whites, their theories are still nothing more than a discursive tool that provides a disguised defense for contemporary capitalist rule, and the various new-style anti-capitalist movements on which they have placed high hopes will still be unable to escape the fate of being co-opted by capitalism.

In short, as a strategic choice of the Western left in the post-industrial era, which both desires equality yet cannot break through the existing framework of capitalism, identity politics cannot realistically change the many inequalities caused by economic inequality under capitalist conditions. Instead, it will continuously lead the Western left-wing movement down a road of no return that deviates from the socialist ideal and the interests of the working class, and thus it is difficult for it to lead the contemporary Western left-wing movement to truly escape its historical predicament. In stark contrast to this, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a New Era, marking that scientific socialism has shown unprecedented vitality and dynamism in 21st-century China. This historical process fully demonstrates that the key force leading the world socialist movement out of its historical predicament and promoting the revival of scientific socialism in the 21st century is precisely China. Therefore, we have the responsibility to unswervingly adhere to the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, to comprehensively build a great modern socialist country and achieve the Second Centenary Goal [22]22 The Second Centenary Goal refers to building China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful by the middle of the 21st century, the second centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (2049)., and to contribute China’s strength to the revival of world socialism through the superiority of the socialist system and the new achievements of socialist construction.

(About the author: Chen Yuntao, Associate Professor, School of Marxism, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Online editor: Tongxin