An Assessment of the Impact of Identity Politics on Contemporary Western Leftist Movements

Since entering the post-industrial era, faced with the historical predicament of the working class’s waning revolutionary impetus, some Western leftists have drawn inspiration from liberal values such as multiculturalism and have begun to adopt identity politics [1]1 Identity politics: a political approach that frames social and political struggles around the shared experiences and interests of particular groups defined by characteristics such as race, gender, sexuality, or ethnicity, rather than around class or universalist ideologies. as a developmental strategy for breaking through the impasse of leftist movements. Under their guidance and promotion, identity politics has now developed into a significant force within contemporary Western leftist 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 international financial crisis in 2008, Western leftist 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 brazenly appeared on the stage in the guise of “anti-establishment, anti-elite” figures and gained substantial popular support. So, what has happened to the Western left? How should we view this? In response, it is urgently necessary, from the standpoint, viewpoint, and methodology of Marxism, to re-examine the practical consequences of Western leftist movements dominated by identity politics, to deeply analyze the actual impact of identity politics on Western leftist movements and the underlying reasons behind it. This is of great significance for further understanding and observing the future trajectory of Western leftist movements, and thereby for reflecting on how to better promote the revival of world socialism in the 21st century.

自进入后工业时代以来，面对工人阶级革命动力枯竭的历史性困境，一些西方左翼人士从多元文化主义等自由主义价值当中获得灵感，开始将身份政治(identity politics)(1)作为突破左翼运动困境的发展策略。在他们的引导和推动下，身份政治如今已发展成为当代西方左翼运动中的一股重要力量。然而，这种沉迷于差异权利、文化平权和碎片斗争的身份政治在后续的发展中实际破坏了左翼的政治理想，不仅严重削弱了左翼自身的力量，而且造成了一个有利于金融资本扩张的文化与社会结构。特别是2008年国际金融危机爆发后，原本象征批判与进步精神的西方左翼运动在身份政治的诱导下越来越被西方民众视为妨害社会平等的保守力量，而以特朗普为代表的右翼民粹主义势力却堂而皇之地以“反体制、反精英”形象粉墨登场，并获得大量民众支持。那么，西方左翼怎么了?我们应该怎么看?对此，亟须以马克思主义的立场、观点和方法，重新审视身份政治主导下的西方左翼运动的实践后果，深入分析身份政治对西方左翼运动造成的实际影响及背后的深层原因，这对进一步认识和观察西方左翼运动的未来走势，进而反思如何更好推动世界社会主义在21世纪走向复兴具有重要意义。

I. Seeking Politics through Identity: A Typical Strategy of Contemporary Western Leftist Movements

一、以身份谋政治：当代西方左翼运动的典型策略

As a developmental strategy adopted by the Western left in the post-industrial era to break through difficulties, identity politics primarily constructs discursive forms and conducts political mobilization around the issue of “identity,” while taking the realization of diverse and equal treatment for the demands of socially disadvantaged groups as its goal of struggle. Under the leadership and utilization of some leftist groups, identity politics has now become a “powerful weapon” [2]2 The phrase “powerful weapon” is a direct quotation from the source text, reflecting the author’s characterization of how leftist groups view identity politics. within the contemporary Western leftist camp for struggling to narrow economic inequalities between classes. Overall, Western leftist movements dominated by identity politics exhibit the following typical characteristics.

作为后工业时代西方左翼为突破困境而采取的一种发展策略，身份政治主要围绕“身份”(identity)议题来建构话语形态和开展政治动员，同时以实现社会弱势群体诉求的多元和平等对待为斗争目标。在一些左翼群体的领导和利用下，身份政治如今已成为当代西方左翼阵营为缩小阶级间经济不平等而斗争的“有力武器”(2)。总体而言，身份政治主导下的西方左翼运动具有以下几个典型特征。

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.

第一，它不再把工人阶级作为反对资本主义的唯一主体，而是把资本主义社会内部遭受各种压迫的多元身份纳入政治运动主体范畴当中。

Because the improvement in material living standards and welfare benefits in the post-industrial era has weakened the revolutionary character of the working class, some Western leftist theorists have begun to deny the foundational status of the “class” category 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)” [3]3 The original text cites a source here (note 12 in the Chinese original), which has been retained as a reference marker.. This means that only when workers regard capitalism as a social relation that negates their identity, hinders their potential, and obstructs their construction of an ideal society, is the antagonism between labor and capital real, and only then do workers acquire revolutionary consciousness. However, the working class of the post-industrial era, evidently due to favorable living conditions, no longer treats capitalist relations of production as antagonistic, which inevitably leads to their loss of revolutionary subject status.

由于后工业时代物质生活水平和福利待遇的提高削弱了工人阶级的革命性，一些西方左翼理论家开始否定“阶级”范畴在反资本主义运动中的基础性地位，并得出资本主义国家工人阶级已被体制化的结论。在他们看来，一方面，工人与资本家之间的对抗并非产生于资本主义生产关系内部，而是产生于“生产关系与社会行为主体(包括工人)的认同之间”(3)。这意味着，只有当工人把资本主义当作否定其身份认同、妨碍其实现潜能以及阻碍其建构理想社会的社会关系之时，劳资间的对抗性才是真实的，工人也才因此获得革命意识。然而，后工业时代的工人阶级显然已经因为生活条件优渥而不再把资本主义生产关系当作对抗性关系，这必然导致其丧失革命的主体地位。

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” [4]4 The original text cites a source here (note 13 in the Chinese original), which has been retained as a reference marker.. In such a society, “diversity and difference have dissolved all old certainties and universals” [5]5 The original text cites a source here (note 14 in the Chinese original), which has been retained as a reference marker., and the formerly unified class “has been fragmented” [6]6 The original text cites a source here (note 15 in the Chinese original), which has been retained as a reference marker.. At the same time, differentiated and pluralized identity identifications have emerged from the fissures of class, and groups with different identities each have their specific interests and methods of struggle, which inevitably leads to the development of political struggle methods toward pluralization. This means that in the increasingly complex and pluralistic struggles of modern capitalist society, although the “class” category 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” [7]7 The original text cites a source here (note 16 in the Chinese original), which has been retained as a reference marker..

另一方面，当代资本主义压迫早已超出特定阶级的范围，“不仅影响了工人，而且也影响到了其他领域的许多人”(4)。在这样的社会里，“多样化和差异已经消融了所有旧的确定性和普遍性”(5),原有的同一性的阶级“已经四分五裂”(6)。同时，差异化、多元化的身份认同则在阶级的裂缝中产生出来，而拥有不同身份的群体均有其特殊利益和斗争方式，这就必然造成政治斗争方式向着多元化的趋势发展。这意味着，在斗争日趋复杂多元的现代资本主义社会，“阶级”范畴虽未完全退场，但已经转变为主体多元身份的其中之一，因而阶级斗争不过是身份政治的一种，并且在“当代世界中已变得越来越不重要”(7)。

Precisely based on the above understanding, these leftists conceive modern society as a complex field of diverse political struggles, “in which a large number of different subjects must be recognized and accepted” [8]8 Ta-Nehisi Coates (b. 1975) is an American author and journalist known for his writings on race, particularly *Between the World and Me* (2015). Cornel West (b. 1953) is an American philosopher, political activist, and prominent critic of neoliberalism and identity politics.. They believe that as long as identities such as Black people, women, and LGBTQ+ groups, which are based on cultural, value, or conceptual identification, are granted the status of revolutionary subjects, the limitations of the “class” category can be transcended, uniting all those systematically oppressed in capitalist society, across party lines and classes, thereby achieving more effective political mobilization. For example, the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that erupted in the United States in 2011 used the cross-class identity of “ordinary people as the ‘99%’” as its mobilization basis; 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 in conflict of interest with them was “the financial oligarchs as the ‘1%’” [9]9 “Taking a knee” refers to the gesture of kneeling during the U.S. national anthem, popularized by NFL player Colin Kaepernick in 2016 to protest police brutality and racial inequality; it was adopted by Democratic politicians in 2020 as a show of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.. 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 recognition has fully replaced “class” based on economic relations as the important foundation for these leftists to conduct political mobilization. They no longer emphasize class conflict between workers and capitalists, but instead focus more on the conflictual relationship between specific identities, as owners of certain group interests, and other interest owners.

正是基于上述认识，这些左翼人士把现代社会构想成一个充满多样性政治斗争的复杂场域，“在其中，大量的不同主体必须被承认和接受”(8)。他们相信，只要赋予黑人、女性、性少数群体(LGBTQ+)等建基于文化、价值或观念认同之上的“身份”以革命主体的地位，就能突破“阶级”范畴的局限，把资本主义社会中所有遭到系统性压迫的、跨越党派和阶级的人凝聚起来，从而实现更有效的政治动员。例如，2011年在美国爆发的“占领华尔街”运动就是以“作为‘99%’的普通群众”这一跨阶级的身份作为动员基础，其参与主体不仅有工人阶级，还囊括了高校师生、媒体人士、工程师以及一些少数边缘群体等，而与他们存在利益冲突的身份则是“作为‘1%’的金融寡头”(9)。又如，2019年9月在西方多国掀起的“全球气候罢课”(Global Climate Strikes)运动，尽管其主要参与群体为中学生和大学生，但也试图通过“所有人”(Everyone)这一更为宽泛的身份来拓宽其动员范围，并成功吸引一些公司加入罢市的行列之中。这表明，基于文化认同的“身份”已全面取代基于经济关系的“阶级”而成为这类左翼人士开展政治动员的重要基础。他们不再强调工人与资本家之间的阶级冲突，而是更加关注特定身份作为一定群体利益的所有者而与其他利益所有者之间的冲突关系。

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

第二，它不再强调变革资本主义生产关系、实现人的经济解放，而是致力于通过文化批判的方式追求实现人在日常生活或自我意识中的解放。

Along with the form of conflict in post-industrial capitalist society increasingly shifting 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 most publicly concerned issues. In response, some leftists have begun to question the decisive role of the economic base in social structure, tending to believe that conflicts of interest in advanced capitalist societies no longer involve the production sphere of surplus value appropriation, but have shifted to daily life and consumption spheres 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” [10]10 Mark Lilla (b. 1956) is an American political scientist and author of *The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics* (2017), which criticizes the left’s turn toward identity politics. in daily life. Against this background, the main goal of resisting capitalist oppression necessarily shifts from achieving economic equality to achieving pluralistic equality in culture or identity, and the highly politicized cultural field, which carries the perspective of the other, becomes the “zone of struggle” for marginalized people 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 racially distinctive clothing and hairstyles, and they pinned their hopes on using this emphasis on Black racial culture or identity to demand equal status and cultural recognition from the mainstream group, in order to counter the systemic oppression of capitalist society [11]11 The “hierarchy of victimhood” is a concept critiqued by various scholars, referring to a social dynamic where groups compete for moral authority based on their perceived degree of oppression..

伴随着后工业时代资本主义社会冲突的表现形式日益由争夺物质利益的阶级冲突转变为争取平权和承认的身份冲突，种族、性别、性取向等身份不平等取代阶级不平等成为最受社会大众关切的议题。对此，一些左翼人士开始质疑经济基础在社会结构中的决定性作用，并倾向于认为发达资本主义社会的利益冲突已不再涉及剩余价值占有的生产领域，而是转向了工作以外的日常生活和消费领域。在他们看来，发达资本主义社会中各个成员遭遇的不公平待遇并非根源于特定的经济关系和政治制度，而是源自日常生活中“他者视角的歧视和伤害”(10)。在此背景下，反抗资本主义压迫的主要目标就有必要从实现经济平等转向实现文化或身份上的多元平等，而承载着他者视角因而也被高度政治化了的文化领域就成了边缘人群反抗资本主义压迫的“斗争的地带”。以20世纪50年代美国黑人为争取平权而发动的“文化复兴运动”为例，他们希望通过改变黑人象征性词语、展示带有种族特色的服饰和发型等方式，重建黑人的文化和种族特征，并寄希望于通过这种对黑人种族文化或认同加以强调的方式来向主流群体要求地位上的平等和文化上的承认，以抗衡资本主义社会的系统性压迫(11)。

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, entrusting the critique of capitalism and human liberation to the freedom of self-consciousness, perceptual consciousness and aesthetic consciousness, to the artistic practice of technology, politics and life, and pursuing merely the liberation of individuality and desire in the sphere of daily life for the individual.[3]3 The original text cites a source here (note 12 in the Chinese original), which has been retained as a reference marker. Thus it can be seen that the goal of struggle in contemporary Western left-wing identity politics is no longer merely to defend the material interests of workers 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 spheres.

现如今，这种身份政治更是在后现代主义影响下进一步将人的解放限定在偶然性、主观意识、个人独特性和身份确认的领域当中，把资本主义批判和人类解放寄托于自我意识、感性意识、审美意识的自由，寄托于科技、政治、生活的艺术化实践，并仅仅追求一种个人在日常生活领域中的个性和欲望的解放(12)。由此可见，当代西方左翼身份政治的斗争目标已不再仅是维护工人物质利益、实现经济解放，而是追求对差异化身份的承认和对特定文化价值的尊重，以及实现个性和欲望的解放、感性和审美领域的解放。

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

第三，它不再强调传统的政党政治和统一的阶级行动，而是从身份个体差异和自我目标出发主张个体对整个资本主义世界进行单打独斗。

This historical shift of the working class from revolutionary subject to marginalized social group has also profoundly influenced the social-revolutionary outlook of some leftist figures. In their view, the nature of social revolution in the post-industrial era has undergone a fundamental change, from a movement of necessity 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 inner driving force of revolution has correspondingly shifted from the original class will and collective action to the individual’s sustained and consistent negation and subversion of the existing order at the cultural and psychological levels. This transformation of the revolutionary outlook has in turn triggered a shift in the outlook on practice, causing these leftist figures to shift their focus from the systemic oppression of capitalism to the existential condition of the single subject. In this way, the holistic, organized and necessary movement aimed at class struggle and wealth redistribution is abandoned, replaced by the isolated individual’s single-handed fight against the entire capitalist world.

工人阶级由革命主体转变成社会边缘群体这一历史变迁，还深刻影响了一些左翼人士的社会革命观。在他们看来，后工业时代社会革命的性质已发生根本变化，即从历史进程中的必然性运动转变为单纯的偶然性设定。革命的目的也不再是对历史使命和历史规律的深刻体现，而是因缺乏长远规划而只聚焦于眼前的、个别的偶然性目标。革命的内在驱动力也相应地由原本的阶级意志与集体行动，转变为个体持续且一贯地对现存秩序进行文化与心理层面的否定与颠覆。这种革命观的转变进而引发了实践观的转向，使这些左翼人士把焦点从资本主义的系统性压迫转移到了单个主体的生存状态上。这样，以阶级斗争和财富再分配为目标的整体性、组织性和必然性运动就遭到抛弃，取而代之的是一种孤立个体对整个资本主义世界的单打独斗。

Moreover, this mode of political struggle pushes individualism to its extreme, emphasizing the examination of the power structure of capitalist society from differentiated, individualized identity perspectives, with each participating individual endowed with a uniqueness and difference distinct from other subjects. This is why in recent years influential identity-political movements such as Black Lives Matter and Me Too have displayed clear anarchist tendencies. These movements have no unified leading core, clear program of struggle, or tight political organization; from start to finish they have fought separately within capitalist society in a “decentered” mode of action.[4]4 The original text cites a source here (note 13 in the Chinese original), which has been retained as a reference marker. 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, in pursuit of equal rights in cultural recognition or value choice. In this process, a flat organizational structure, rather than a vertical power system, has become the most distinctive feature of this kind of political movement.

并且，这种政治斗争方式把个人主义发挥到极致，它强调从差异化、个体化的身份视角出发来审视资本主义社会的权力结构，每个参与其中的个体都被赋予了有别于其他主体的独特性和差异性。这就是为什么近年来颇具影响力的“黑命攸关”(Black Lives Matter)、“米兔”(Me Too)等身份政治运动均带有明显的无政府主义倾向。这些运动没有统一的领导核心、明确的斗争纲领以及严密的政治组织，自始至终都在以一种“去中心化”的行动模式在资本主义社会中各自为战(13)。这些运动的参与主体不断试图通过确立并强化身份差异性的地位，运用微观层面的多元文化权力对抗总体性的权力结构，以追求一种在文化认同或价值选择上的平等权利。在这个过程中，扁平化的组织结构而非垂直化的权力体系成了这种政治运动最鲜明的特征。

II. Going in Opposite Directions: The Practical Predicament of Contemporary Left-Wing Identity Politics Movements

二、南辕北辙：当代左翼身份政治运动的实践困境

Although carrying out identity politics seems to have brought hope of revitalization to the declining Western left-wing movements, and once pushed forward the cause of left-wing 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 the practical predicament of Western left-wing movements in the 21st century, when capitalist crises are frequent and economic issues have returned to the center of political movements. This outcome is clearly going in the opposite direction from the conception of revitalizing left-wing movements.

尽管开展身份政治似乎给陷入颓势的西方左翼运动带来了振兴希望，并一度推动左翼的反资本主义压迫事业向前发展，但从当代西方左翼运动的实践后果和发展态势来看，身份政治不仅没有真正带领西方左翼运动走出历史困境，反而在资本主义危机频发、经济议题重返政治运动中心的21世纪进一步加深了西方左翼运动在实践层面的困境，这一结果与振兴左翼运动的构想显然是南辕北辙的。

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

第一，身份政治主导的左翼运动片面强调身份或文化上的平等多元而无视资本主义社会事实存在的阶级不平等，这相当于对资本主义统治合法性的变相承认。

From the perspective of identity politics, although capitalist society has this or that kind of inequality, as long as diverse identity recognitions can be treated equally, and as long as different identity groups can have a certain proportion of representation and voice within the existing system, such a society can be considered “faultless.”[5]5 The original text cites a source here (note 14 in the Chinese original), which has been retained as a reference marker. Therefore, this kind of politics’ resistance to capitalism is actually detached from class relations. At the same time, as the bourgeoisie constantly 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 an alliance with “high-end elite forces” from Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Hollywood. In this alliance, progressive forces form a collusion with cognitive capitalism, especially financial capital, and “the former endows the latter with more appeal.”[6]6 The original text cites a source here (note 15 in the Chinese original), which has been retained as a reference marker. This kind of 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.”[7]7 The original text cites a source here (note 16 in the Chinese original), which has been retained as a reference marker. Under such circumstances, professing leftist values or joining leftist movements becomes a speculative means for certain individuals to earn personal fame and achieve class advancement within the capitalist system, while leftist politics degenerates from the original radical politics of promoting social equality through creating difference and emphasizing recognition into a “performance politics” entirely unrelated to anti-capitalist oppression and possessing only abstract aesthetic significance.

在身份政治的视域里，资本主义社会虽然存在这样或那样的不平等，但只要多元化的身份认同能够得到平等相待，只要不同的身份群体能够在既有制度中有一定比例的代表和话语权，这样的社会就可以被认为是“完美无瑕的”(faultless)(14),因此这种政治对资本主义的反抗实际上是游离于阶级关系之外的。同时，随着资产阶级不断通过拥抱多样性、多元文化和妇女权利来释放所谓现代的、具有进步色彩的善意，反种族主义、女性主义、多元文化主义和性少数群体平权等“新社会运动势力”开始与来自华尔街、硅谷和好莱坞的“高端精英势力”结成联盟。在这个联盟中，进步力量与认知资本主义(cognitive capitalism)特别是金融资本力量形成共谋，并且“前者为后者赋予了更多感召力”(15)。这种被平等、多元粉饰过的精英主义不仅消解了左翼的革命精神，更将其政治理想从“超越新自由主义”(over neoliberalism)偷换成“为了新自由主义”(for neoliberalism)(16)。在这样的背景下，标榜左翼价值或投身左翼运动就变成某些人士到资本主义体制内赚取个人名声、实现阶级跃升的投机手段，而左翼政治也从原先那种以制造差异和强调承认来推动社会平等的激进政治，彻底沦为一种与反资本主义压迫无关、仅具抽象审美意义的“表演政治”。

As a successful case of a marginal figure rising into the cultural elite, the rapid ascent of the African American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates in the literary world in recent years has benefited precisely from pandering to the discourse of identity politics.[17]17 The original note (31) is retained as a citation marker; this phrase likely references a Marxist description of class rule. But as the African American democratic activist Cornel West aptly criticizes, Coates, as a representative figure of the American neoliberal camp, owes his meteoric rise to the secret of skillfully exploiting the crocodile tears of neoliberals unwilling to share power or relinquish privilege in order to gain fame within the establishment. His narrow racial tribalism and short-sighted political neoliberalism have in no way touched upon Wall Street’s greed, the many evils of the American empire, or the black elite’s disregard for the problem of poverty.[18]18 The original note (32) is retained as a citation marker; this phrase is a Chinese political critique meaning ostensibly leftist but actually rightist. More seriously, this increasingly degenerate left-wing discourse is now being exploited by the ruling elite of the bourgeoisie, who reduce complex socioeconomic problems to mere differences in ethnic identity, thereby fashioning it into a political tool for deceiving voters. Take the U.S. Democratic Party, which is most adept at this: after the outbreak of the Floyd incident in 2020, Democratic politicians such as Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi successively staged the “taking a knee” [19]19 The original note (33) is retained as a citation marker. routine 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 resorted to a naked moral blackmail of voters using the rhetoric of identity politics. He urged black voters to vote for Harris, a black person “like you,” and harshly criticized black men who did not support Harris, saying: “You’re just not willing to have a woman as president.”[20]20 The term “底层” (dǐcéng) refers to the lower strata of society, often translated as “grassroots” or “subaltern,” but here rendered as “底层 people” to maintain the original’s sociological register. Clearly, these political manipulations by Democratic politicians evade the class roots behind racial inequality and cannot change the plight of disadvantaged groups. Regrettably, the American left today not only does nothing about this but instead “politically willingly acts as the little tail of the Democratic Party’s ‘donkey’ (the party’s emblem).”[21]21 The term “民粹主义” (míncuì zhǔyì) is translated as “populism,” referring to a political approach that pits “the people” against a corrupt elite, often associated with right-wing movements in the contemporary West. This is as Mark Lilla criticizes: although identity politics can make American society more inclusive and bring marginal groups more attention, its reverse logic has caused American politics to degenerate into a “pseudo-politics” of expressing individuality. It colludes with neoliberalism to jointly create a cultural atmosphere of refined egoism.[22]22 The term “去中心化” (qù zhōngxīn huà) means “decentralization,” a key concept in identity politics that rejects unified, centralized authority or class-based leadership in favor of multiple, autonomous struggles.

作为边缘群体跻身文化精英的成功案例，美国黑人作家塔那西斯·科茨(Ta-Nehisi Coates)近年在文坛上的迅速崛起正是受益于对身份政治话语的迎合(17)。但正如美国黑人民主活动家康奈尔·韦斯特(Cornel West)恰如其分的批评那样，科茨作为美国新自由主义阵营的代表人物，其声名鹊起的奥秘就在于巧妙利用了那些不愿分权或舍弃特权的新自由主义者的鳄鱼眼泪来赚取体制内的名声，其狭隘的种族部落主义和短视的政治新自由主义观丝毫没有触及华尔街的贪婪、美利坚帝国的诸多恶行以及黑人精英对贫困问题的无视(18)。更严重的是，这种日趋堕落的左翼话语如今更被资产阶级统治精英所利用，把复杂的社会经济问题简单归因为族群身份差异，进而将其打造成欺骗选民的政治工具。以最深谙此道的美国民主党为例，在2020年弗洛伊德事件爆发后不久，拜登、佩洛西等民主党政客就相继上演“单膝跪地”(19)的戏码来争取黑人选民支持。在2024年美国大选期间，前总统奥巴马在为民主党总统候选人哈里斯助选时，更是以身份政治话术对选民进行赤裸裸的道德绑架。他敦促黑人选民必须把票投给哈里斯这种“跟你们一样”的黑人，并对不支持哈里斯的黑人男性横加指责：“你们就是不愿意让女性来当总统”(20)。很显然，民主党政客这些政治操弄回避了种族不平等背后的阶级根源，不可能改变弱势群体的窘境。遗憾的是，如今的美国左翼不仅对此无所作为，反而“在政治上心甘情愿地充当民主党这只‘驴子’(民主党的党徽)的小尾巴”(21)。这正如马克·里拉(Mark Lilla)批评的，尽管身份政治能使美国社会变得更包容、使边缘群体更受关注，但其反向逻辑却造成美国政治蜕化成表现个性的“伪政治”(Pseudo-Politics),它与新自由主义沆瀣一气，共同营造出一种精致利己主义的文化氛围(22)。

This also shows that the “de-classing” 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, but it also allows Western leftist values to reach a certain subtle consensus with the logic of capital, even distorting the developmental logic of contemporary Western leftist movements into a manifestation of the ruling logic of contemporary capitalism.

这也表明，身份政治“去阶级化”的斗争方式已经把西方左翼运动引向碎片化的文化改良主义道路，这不仅不能对资本主义制度造成任何实质冲击，反而使西方左翼价值与资本逻辑达成某种微妙的共识，甚至使当代西方左翼运动的发展逻辑被扭曲为当代资本主义统治逻辑的一种表现形式。

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 popular force against capitalism. 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 in capitalist society and politicizing them. This makes the construction of a subject’s identity increasingly dependent on the “affective solidarity” formed among subjects through sharing victimization experiences, causing Western leftist politics to increasingly degenerate into a kind of “victim politics.” However, the prerequisite for completing political mobilization through constructing a “victim identity” is that this group is indeed oppressed and, to some extent, harmed. This mode of mobilization essentially promotes the politicization of identity and completes identity construction by intensifying one’s own experience of suffering, rather than eliminating the root causes of that suffering. Thus, while the victim experience is emphasized, the social roots that give rise to 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 relationship of oppressor and oppressed between marginal groups and mainstream society, hoping to establish a reverse “hierarchy of victimhood” in society.[23]23 The phrase “不自觉的工具” (bù zìjué de gōngjù) is a reference to a concept from Marx, where individuals or movements serve the interests of capital without being aware of it, acting as “unconscious instruments” of the system they oppose. Under this system, the more “victim identities” one possesses, the more one can demand privileges by “playing the sympathy card.”

第二，身份政治主导的左翼运动以一种“受害者政治”不断在社会上引爆身份冲突与价值对立，这相当于给民众联合成反资本主义的整体力量设置障碍。如今的身份政治深受“个人的即政治的”(personal is political)原则的影响，尤其重视吸纳单个主体在资本主义社会中的独特受害经验并将其政治化，使主体的身份建构越来越依赖于主体间透过共享受害经验所形成的“情感联结”(affective solidarity),造成西方左翼政治日益蜕变成一种“受害者政治”。然而，通过建构“受害者身份”来完成政治动员的前提在于这个群体的确遭受压迫，并在一定程度上受到伤害。这种动员方式本质上是通过强化自身的痛苦体验推动身份的政治化并完成认同建构，而不是要消除这种痛苦产生的根源。由此，受害者经历尽管被强调，但引发不平等的社会根源却从未得到实质性批判；同时，一种脱胎于痛苦体验的“受害者政治”的出现反而会加深不同群体之间的隔阂，它不再憧憬权利平等和人类解放，也不满足于获得主流社会的尊重和承认，而是不断强调少数边缘群体与主流社会之间压迫与被压迫的关系，并希望在社会上确立反向的“受害者等级制”(23)。在这一制度下，谁拥有越多“受害者身份”,谁就越能通过“打悲情牌”来要求特权。

Thus it can be seen that the “victim complex” is essentially the self-admiring logic of the bourgeois elite class. It only magnifies the self-interested individual rationality of civil society, causing political movements to be “confined to the margins of society and in danger of degenerating into narcissism, hedonism, aestheticism, or personal therapy,”[24]24 The Second Centenary Goal refers to the goal of building China into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful by the middle of the 21st century, marking the centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (1949–2049). ultimately reducing Western leftist movements to mere tools for specific groups to pursue narrow interests. In this context, although the necessity and importance of the popular masses uniting 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.

由此可见，“受害者情结”本质上是资产阶级精英阶层孤芳自赏的思维逻辑，它只会放大市民社会中自私自利的个人理性，使政治运动“限制在社会边缘，并且处在退化到自恋、快乐主义、唯美主义或者个人治疗的危险之中”(24),最终造成西方左翼运动彻底沦为特定群体追求狭隘利益的工具。在这样的背景下，尽管民众联合成反资本主义整体力量的必然性和重要性已日益凸显，但身份政治所主导的西方左翼运动却已然成为阻碍这一历史进程的绊脚石。

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

第三，身份政治主导的左翼运动遵循的差异化认同机制，在实践中会使狭隘群体利益取代社会整体利益而成为运动的主要目的，这相当于在追求一种异化的斗争目标。

The basis of the identity mechanism lies in the differences between different subjects. Once a subject becomes aware of some difference between itself and other groups, this difference reversely stimulates its identification with its own group, and this identification can provide momentum for the identity politics movement.[25] Under the dominance of differential identity, the principle of individuality is pushed to the extreme. Each participating subject in the 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 different identities are not fixed, and new identities are continuously constructed through the emphasis on these differences. This point determines that constructing a specific identity is insufficient to counteract the fluidity of postmodern social values, nor can it re-stabilize the increasingly alienated interpersonal relationships in the postmodern context. Instead, identity shifts frequently as the subject’s attention changes.

身份认同机制的基础在于不同主体之间的差异性，某一主体一旦意识到自身与其他群体之间存在某种差异性，这种差异性就会反向激发其对所属群体的认同，而这种认同就能够给身份政治运动提供动能(25)。在差异性身份认同主导下，个性原则被推向极致，每个身份政治运动的参与主体均彰显出鲜明的自我独特性及与他者的明确区分，从而促成了一种特定身份的建构。然而，这种身份的认同感与归属感实际上是根植于想象之中的，具有主观任意性。因此，不同身份的差异性并非固定不变，而新身份正是在对这些差异性的强调中被持续建构。这一点规定了建构特定身份认同并不足以抗衡后现代社会价值理念的流变性，也无法在人际关系日益疏离的后现代情境中重新稳固人与人之间的亲密联系，反而是使身份认同随着主体注意力的转移而频繁变动。

More importantly, because different subjects in fact have diverse interest demands, this inevitably causes the subject’s identity to change as its interest demands change, ultimately leading the subject to pursue “differential identity” as the goal of the movement itself. Affected by this, contemporary Western leftist identity politics no longer pays attention to power oppression relations 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 socio-political ethics that connect different identities,”[26] and may even, in practice, diminish the freedom of the majority to satisfy the freedom of the minority.

更重要的是，由于不同主体事实上存在着多元化的利益诉求，这就必然造成主体的身份认同会随着其利益诉求的变化而发生变化，最终造成主体把追求“差异化身份”作为运动的目的本身。受此影响，当代西方左翼身份政治不再重视权力压迫关系和体制结构，而更多地强调生活方式的差异自由，似乎所有不同的差异都具有同等重要的政治意义；它“极端强调某一种特殊的身份的重要性，而对联系不同身份的社会政治伦理漠不关心”(26),甚至会在实践中减损多数人的自由而满足少数人的自由。

From this one can understand why some subjects of identity politics movements today are not satisfied with being treated as equals, but constantly force mainstream society to acknowledge the differentiating characteristics that make them distinctive, so that they can, when necessary, rely on the method of “refining identity” to fight for their own narrow interests. Take Asian Americans as an example. This group always seeks to maximize the interests of a small ethnic group within the existing racial system of the United States. They no longer pursue the expansion of the common interests of all ethnic groups, but merely attempt to redistribute existing interests in a way that benefits their own ethnic group. This causes the already fragile pan-ethnic identity to further fracture under the struggle for interests.[13]13 The original note (27) is retained as a citation marker; the specific reference is not provided in the source text. This shows that the internal contradiction of the differentiation mechanism of identity politics has already caused narrow group interests to replace the overall interest of resisting social injustice as the main goal for subjects engaging in political movements, thereby bringing about a more fragmented society of “identity tribalism.” This is undoubtedly a fatal blow to the Western left, which hopes to strengthen anti-capitalist forces by absorbing various identities.

由此便能理解，为什么如今一些身份政治运动主体并不满足于被平等相待，而是不断强迫主流社会承认那些使他们与众不同的差异性特征，以便他们能在必要时凭借“细化身份”的方式争取自身的狭隘利益。以美国亚裔为例，该群体总是在美国既有种族体系下谋求小族群的利益最大化，他们不再追求扩大所有族群的共同利益，而仅仅试图对现有利益进行对自己族群有利的再分配，这就使本就脆弱的泛族裔认同在利益斗争下进一步破裂(27)。这说明，身份政治差异化机制的内在矛盾，已经造成狭隘的群体利益取代反抗社会不公这一整体利益而成为主体投身政治运动的主要目标，进而带来一个更加碎片化的“身份部落主义”社会，这对寄希望于通过吸纳各种身份来壮大反资本主义力量的西方左翼而言无疑是致命打击。

Fourth, the struggle philosophy of left-wing movements dominated by identity politics, which takes cultural pluralism and equality as its goals, can no longer resonate with the people. This is tantamount to allowing right-wing forces to “steal” the left’s own issues.

第四，身份政治主导的左翼运动以文化多元和平等为目标的斗争理念已无法在民众中引起共鸣，这相当于纵容右翼势力“窃取”左翼自身的议题。

After the outbreak of the international financial crisis in 2008, the myth of the sustained prosperity of the capitalist economy was shattered. The economic situation of the middle- and lower-class whites, the mainstream group in the West, deteriorated steadily, and some even found themselves in worse circumstances than poor ethnic minorities. Taking the United States as an example, the worsening economic conditions shattered the “American Dream” of class advancement for mainstream whites, triggering their identity crisis and racial resentment, prompting them to view unemployment and wealth polarization through the “colored glasses” of racism, which gradually evolved into a kind of “racialized economics.” In the eyes of these whites, the minority and marginalized groups that have benefited from identity politics are all “queue-jumpers”[14]14 The original note (28) is retained as a citation marker. who have taken away their opportunities for development, while they themselves—the hardworking whites who truly bear the tax burden—have become an “aggrieved group” in the waves of economic globalization and social diversification, lacking both a sense of belonging and being valued.[15]15 The original note (29) is retained as a citation marker. Against this backdrop, the leftist camp, by launching political movements based solely on the identities and interests of marginalized groups and directing its spearhead at the middle- and lower-class whites who are also victims of the parasitic accumulation of financial capital, not only fails to eliminate inequality in capitalist society but instead further intensifies contradictions among the lower-class 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, so as to “make sacrifices” to correct historical racist wrongs.[16]16 The original note (30) is retained as a citation marker. This practice, which clearly exceeds the boundaries of affirmative action, greatly hurts the feelings of white people and only deepens their antipathy toward the leftist camp.

2008年国际金融危机爆发后，资本主义经济持续繁荣的神话被戳破，作为西方主流群体的中下层白人的经济状况每况愈下，甚至有些人的处境比少数族裔穷人还要恶劣。以美国为例，经济状况的恶化击碎了主流白人实现阶级跃升的“美国梦”,引发了他们的身份危机和种族怨恨，促使他们透过种族主义的“有色眼镜”看待失业问题与贫富分化，并逐渐演化出一种“种族化经济学”。在这些白人看来，那些在身份政治中获益的少数边缘群体统统是夺走自身发展机会的“插队者”(28),而他们这些辛勤工作、真正承担赋税的白人却在经济全球化和社会多元化的浪潮中沦为“受害者群体”(aggrieved group),既没有归属感，也不被重视(29)。在此背景下，左翼阵营仅仅基于边缘群体身份及其利益发动政治运动，把矛头对准同样被金融资本寄生性积累侵害的中下层白人，就不仅不能消除资本主义社会的不平等，反而会进一步激化不同肤色的底层民众之间的矛盾。以“达拉斯正义联盟”(Dallas Justice Now)为例，该黑人组织曾公开要求白人承诺不会将自己的孩子送到排名前50的藤校就读，而是把入学名额让给有色族裔，以便为纠正历史上的种族主义错误而“作出牺牲”(30)。这种明显超出平权界限的做法极大伤害了白人民众的感情，只会加深他们对左翼阵营的反感。

This shows that in an era of crisis where financial capital severely damages 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 the ordinary white people who should have been united toward the wrong direction of right-wing populism, thereby weakening the left’s own strength.

这表明，在金融资本严重侵害民众物质利益的危机时代，西方左翼这种放弃反抗资本主义压迫，转而以身份政治来追求所谓的平权或优待的斗争方式，已经造成本应加以团结的白人普通民众被不断推向右翼民粹主义的错误方向上，这反而削弱了左翼自身的力量。

III. “Unwitting Tools”: Reflections on the Predicament of Left-Wing Identity Politics

三、“不自觉的工具”:对左翼身份政治困境的反思

From the above, it can be seen that the contemporary Western leftist groups’ use of identity politics to resist capitalist oppression is, rather than an expansion of leftist forms of resistance, a deconstruction of them. This mode of struggle does not resolve class issues through a new political form, but dissolves them, so that the fact of “the unlimited despotic rule of one class over other classes”[17]17 The original note (31) is retained as a citation marker; this phrase likely references a Marxist description of class rule. in capitalist society is completely screened out of the horizon of identity politics as this transformation is completed. This is not only a loss of the true enemy and the correct direction, but also a betrayal of the highly combative working class. This alone confirms the “essence of being left in form but right in substance”[18]18 The original note (32) is retained as a citation marker; this phrase is a Chinese political critique meaning ostensibly leftist but actually rightist. of identity politics. This also indicates that indulging in identity politics will only cause left-wing movements to drift further and further in the wrong direction, ultimately completely degenerating into “unwitting tools” for consolidating contemporary capitalist rule.

由上可知，当代西方左翼群体利用身份政治来反抗资本主义压迫，与其说是左翼反抗形式的拓展，不如说是左翼反抗形式的解构。这种斗争方式并不是以一种新的政治形态使阶级问题得到解决，而是将这一问题加以消解，从而使资本主义社会中“一个阶级对其他阶级实行无限制的专制统治”(31)的事实随着这一转变的完成而被完全屏蔽在身份政治的视域之外，这不仅是对真正敌人和正确方向的迷失，更是对极富斗争精神的工人阶级的背叛，仅此一点就坐实了身份政治“形左实右的本质”(32)。这也预示着，沉迷于身份政治只会造成左翼运动在错误的方向上渐行渐远，最终彻底沦为巩固当代资本主义统治的“不自觉的工具”。

First, the wholesale negation of the category of “class” makes identity politics unable to see through the class inequality hidden beneath the chaos of identity conflicts. This inevitably makes it difficult for the left-wing movements it dominates to unite true friends in order to attack the true enemy.

第一，对“阶级”范畴的全盘否定，导致身份政治无法透视被身份冲突乱象掩盖的阶级不平等，这就不可避免地使其主导的左翼运动难以团结真正的朋友以攻击真正的敌人。

As Adolph Reed Jr. put it: “Whenever racial difference is used as a lens to observe inequality in American society, the increasing inequality caused by the capitalist system and class rule in the United States is obscured.”[19]19 The original note (33) is retained as a citation marker. By negating the Marxist category of class and the analytical perspective of relations of production, identity politics only perceives systemic oppression in capitalist society from an identity/cultural perspective (for example, taking “white male hegemony” as the main enemy). Therefore, it fails to see the important economic fact that middle- and lower-class people within the white group are also objects of capitalist oppression, and is even less able to understand that the rising identity crisis and populist sentiment among whites since the 21st century are essentially a reflection at the ideological level of their deteriorating material living conditions. Consequently, identity politics always one-sidedly understands right-wing populism as a new resurgence of white racism, mistakenly interpreting the “economic/class game” triggered by the contemporary capitalist crisis as an “identity/cultural conflict.” Within the horizon of identity politics, society is not horizontally divided into two major “classes” of capitalists and proletarians, but vertically divided into numerous “identities” such as Blacks, 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 under the horizon of identity politics. Moreover, as long as they adopt a tolerant posture of respecting multiple identities, they can easily whitewash themselves, even transforming into promoters of democratic progress.

正如小阿道夫·里德(Adolph Reed Jr.)所言：“每当种族差异被用作观察美国社会不平等的透镜时，美国的资本主义制度和阶级统治所造成的日益加剧的不平等就被掩盖了。”(33)由于否定了马克思主义的阶级范畴和生产关系分析视角，身份政治就仅仅从身份/文化视角来认知资本主义社会的系统性压迫(比如将“白人男性霸权”视为主要敌人),故而看不到白人群体中的中下层人士同样是资本主义压迫对象这一重要经济事实，更无法理解21世纪以来白人群体高涨的身份危机和民粹情绪本质上是他们日益恶化的物质生活境况在观念层面的反映。因此，身份政治总是把右翼民粹主义片面地理解为白人种族主义的新一轮回潮，把当代资本主义危机所引发的“经济/阶级博弈”错误地理解成“身份/文化冲突”。在身份政治的视域里，社会并不是被横向划分为资本家和无产者这两大“阶级”,而是被纵向划分为黑人、女性、性少数群体等诸多“身份”。经此划分，资产阶级统治精英便能巧妙地躲藏在各种身份当中，而仅仅成为身份政治视域下造成不平等的众多因素之一，并且他们只要摆出尊重多元身份的宽容姿态就能轻松洗白自己，甚至摇身一变成为民主进步事业的推动者。

The most direct harmful consequence of this misjudgment is that the Western leftist camp has completely lost sight of capitalism, the true enemy of the working class. In reality, it can be clearly seen that when some current leftists mobilize marginalized groups to resist systemic oppression from mainstream society, while correctly criticizing backward and reactionary ideologies such as “white supremacy” and “racism,” they simultaneously forget that behind these ideologies lie some reasonable interest demands of middle- and lower-class whites. They forget that these demands are the banner for the most resolute struggle against capitalism. Thus, they always mistakenly direct the spearhead that should be aimed at the financial oligarchs toward the middle- and lower-class whites who are also in an oppressed position within capitalist relations of production, ultimately pushing these whites, who should be united as the basic force of revolution, to the opposite side. This is why, in recent years, the more vigorously left-wing identity politics has developed, the more Western people, represented by middle- and lower-class whites, have tended to align themselves with right-wing forces, and the more besieged the leftist camp has become. This also means that, against the backdrop of many whites suffering from economic hardship and growing weary of leftist political discourse, if the Western left continues to cling to the one-sided cognitive model of identity politics that divides friend from foe by “skin color,” it will be unable to grasp the true enemy—the power of capital—hidden behind identity conflicts, and even less able to activate the revolutionary potential against capitalism latent among the broad masses of middle- and lower-class whites, thereby bringing new uncertainties to the cause of revitalizing contemporary Western left-wing movements.

这种误判最直接的恶果，便是西方左翼阵营彻底迷失了资本主义这一工人阶级的真正敌人。在现实中能够明显看到，当前一些左翼人士在策动边缘群体反抗来自主流社会的系统性压迫时，尽管正确批判了“白人至上”“种族主义”等落后的、反动的意识形态，但同时又忘记了这些意识形态背后隐藏着中下层白人的一些合理利益诉求，忘记了这种诉求是同资本主义作最坚决斗争的旗帜，因而总是把本应针对金融寡头的矛头错误地指向在资本主义生产关系中同样处于受压迫地位的中下层白人，最终把作为革命基本力量因而本应加以团结的中下层白人不断推向自己的对立面。这就是为什么近年来左翼身份政治越是如火如荼地开展，以中下层白人为代表的西方民众就越倾向于同右翼势力进行捆绑，左翼阵营就越是四面楚歌。这也意味着，在当前大量白人饱受经济困境煎熬、对左翼政治话语日益厌烦的背景下，西方左翼如果继续固守身份政治以“肤色”划分敌我的片面认知模式，就难以抓住隐藏在身份冲突背后的资本力量这一真正的敌人，更无法激活潜藏在广大中下层白人当中的反对资本主义的革命潜力，从而给当代西方左翼运动的振兴事业带来新的不确定性。

Second, the excessive reliance on cultural struggle causes identity politics to disregard the real material interest demands of the people. This inevitably makes the left-wing movements it dominate deviate from the correct direction of struggle, thereby losing their appeal to the broad masses of society.

第二，对文化斗争的过分倚重，导致身份政治漠视民众的现实物质利益诉求，这就不可避免地使其主导的左翼运动偏离正确的斗争方向，进而丧失对社会大众的感召力。

On the one hand, because it fails to understand that the various forms of identity conflict are essentially derivatives of the socioeconomic inequality produced by capitalism, and fails to understand that people’s demands for their real material interests tend to override their value beliefs or cultural identifications and thus become the deep logic governing their political behavior, identity politics not only disregards the obvious economic fact that the real material interests of the底层 people have been harmed by financial capital, but also one-sidedly exaggerates the role of cultural critique in resisting capitalist oppression, even hoping to attract people to participate in the struggle against capitalism through empty value concepts or specific identity identifications. Regrettably, “‘ideas’ that depart from ‘interests’ will inevitably make themselves look ridiculous” (34). This “unity in ideas” constructed by 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 the lower-middle-class whites, but it also shifts the focus of struggle from eliminating capitalist socioeconomic inequality 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, although some left-wing figures are vigorously promoting identity politics, the Western left-wing movement still cannot reverse its current decline, and can only watch helplessly as popular movements are hijacked by the bourgeois right wing into the wrong direction of populism (35).

一方面，由于不懂得形形色色的身份冲突本质上是资本主义社会经济不平等的派生物，不懂得人们的现实物质利益诉求往往会压倒人们的价值信仰或文化认同而成为规范人们政治行为的深层逻辑，身份政治不仅对底层民众的现实物质利益遭到金融资本侵害这一明显的经济事实不以为意，反而片面夸大文化批判对于反抗资本主义压迫的作用，甚至寄希望于通过空洞的价值理念或特定的身份认同来吸引民众参与到反抗资本主义的斗争中。遗憾的是，“‘思想’一旦离开‘利益’,就一定会使自己出丑”(34),这种靠价值理念构筑的“观念中的团结”并不能摆脱物质利益的纠缠，它不仅难以有效回应底层民众特别是中下层白人普遍关心的现实物质利益问题，更会将斗争的焦点从消除资本主义社会经济不平等转移到寻求文化多元和平等这类虚假目标上。这就是为什么在当前民众物质利益深受金融资本侵害的时代，尽管有左翼人士在大力推动身份政治，但西方左翼运动却依然无法扭转当前颓势，反而只能眼睁睁看着民众运动被资产阶级右翼裹挟到民粹主义的错误方向上(35)。

On the other hand, identity politics also attempts, while detached from real economic relations, to oppose capitalism through means such as individual self-identity, self-consciousness revolution, critique of everyday life, and performing eccentricity. This essentially shifts the goal of struggle from eliminating capitalism to coexisting with capitalism. 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, at an abstract level, the perfect unity of physical life, emotional will, free individuality, and so on. 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 that the “individual” is always situated within certain relations of production, and even more so ignores that economic liberation is the true meaning of “universal human liberation.” Consequently, when facing the systemic oppression of capitalism, the current left-wing movement dominated by identity politics does not seek to liberate people from the shackles of capitalist relations of production, but merely pursues a critique of self-consciousness and everyday life, pursuing an abstract individual freedom and liberation. Although this kind of political movement appears radical, it is ultimately nothing more than a subjectivist struggle lingering on the margins of society and a political performance with only aesthetic significance, fundamentally incapable of shaking the ruling foundation of contemporary capitalism.

另一方面，身份政治还试图在脱离现实经济关系的前提下，通过个体的自我身份认同、自我意识革命、日常生活批判和表演特立独行等方式来反对资本主义，这本质上是将斗争目标从消灭资本主义转移到了与资本主义共存上。这是因为，这些所谓的文化或意识形态革命与资本主义意识形态共享着相同的理论前提，即把社会主体设定为脱离现实生产关系的、离群索居的“个人”,并且这种“个人”仅仅是在抽象层面实现了肉体生命、情感意志和自由个性等的圆满统一。这种政治纵然强调了“个人”的具体性、全面性，强调“个人生命”的丰满和完整，但却忘记了“个人”无时无刻不处在一定生产关系之中的这种具体性和历史性，更忽视了经济解放才是真正意义上的“普遍的人的解放”。正因此，当前由身份政治主导的左翼运动在面对资本主义系统性压迫时，就不去寻求将人从资本主义生产关系的束缚中解放出来，而仅仅追求一种对自我意识和日常生活的批判，追求一种抽象的个性自由和解放。这种政治运动尽管看似激进，但终究只是一种盘桓于社会边缘地带的主观主义斗争和仅具审美意义的政治表演，根本不足以撼动当代资本主义的统治根基。

Third, the complete abandonment of revolutionary action and party politics based on class identity has led to the increasing fragmentation of the methods of struggle in identity politics. This inevitably means that the left-wing movements it dominates cannot truly gather the holistic force sufficient to shake the capitalist system.

第三，对基于阶级同一性的革命行动和政党政治的彻底抛弃，导致身份政治的斗争方式日趋碎片化，这就不可避免地造成其主导的左翼运动无法真正汇聚起足以动摇资本主义制度的整体性力量。

Nowadays, the main body ruling Western society is financial capital, which penetrates stealthily into the economic, political, social and other fields by manipulating currency issuance, debt structures, securities, and the real estate market. This social reality not only determines that the “decentralized” struggles launched around differentiated identity identifications are insufficient to shake the comprehensive rule of contemporary financial capital over Western society, but also determines that the revolutionary subject can only be the association formed by the working class under the conditions of large-scale socialized production. However, identity politics, which denies unified class action, is clearly incapable of undertaking this great mission of uniting the working class.

现如今统治西方社会的主体是金融资本，其通过操控货币发行、债务结构、有价证券以及房地产市场等方式隐秘渗透到经济、政治、社会等领域当中，这一社会现实不仅决定了围绕差异化身份认同而发起的“去中心化”斗争并不足以动摇当代金融资本对西方社会的全面统治，更决定了革命主体只能是社会化大生产条件下的劳动者阶级构筑的联合体。然而，否定了统一的阶级行动的身份政治显然无法承担联合劳动者阶级这一伟大使命。

On the one hand, although identity politics, by focusing on the state of individual existence, can more clearly reveal the alienation caused by capital to micro-level individuals, and to a certain extent compensates for the deficiency of the grand narrative of class politics in fully attending to individual conditions, this micro-narrative inevitably portrays modern society as a fragmented picture, thereby obscuring the systemic domination of modern social life by financial capital. It prevents identity politics from seeing the class essence of social producers as associated workers, as well as the logic, strength, and hope of their collective action. Consequently, identity politics merely pushes individual critique to the extreme, stimulating the “oppressed consciousness” of isolated individuals by exaggerating the degree of their oppression, and then mobilizing them, under the inspiration of this illusory “identity of the oppressed,” to launch fragmented movements to struggle against the entire capitalist world. However, in reality, it can be clearly seen that this kind of rebellion based on isolated individuals has never, as identity politics wished, posed a substantial threat to the ruling foundation of capitalism. What identity politics loses in its radical expression is precisely the important fact that individuals are connected by capital into socially associated workers, and precisely the capacity and potential to transform the capitalist system that can only be possessed when workers unite.

一方面，尽管身份政治通过聚焦个体生存状态能够更清晰地揭示资本对微观个体造成的异化，在一定程度上弥补了阶级政治的宏大叙事无法充分观照个体状况的缺憾，但这种微观叙事又不可避免地会把现代社会描绘成一个支离破碎的图景，进而遮蔽金融资本对现代社会生活的系统性支配，使身份政治看不到社会生产者作为联合劳动者的阶级本质，以及他们集体行动的逻辑、力量与希望所在。正因此，身份政治就只是将个体的批判推向极端，以一种夸大个体受压迫程度的方式来激发孤立个体的“受压迫意识”,进而动员他们在这种虚幻的“受压迫者身份”的感召下掀起碎片化运动，去同整个资本主义世界进行斗争。然而，在现实中能够清楚看到，这种基于孤立个体的反叛行动从来就没有如身份政治所愿对资本主义统治根基构成实质性威胁。身份政治在其激进表述中所遗失的，恰恰是个人被资本联结成社会联合劳动者的重要事实，恰恰是那种只有劳动者联合起来才具备的变革资本主义制度的能力和潜力。

On the other hand, identity politics’ development strategy of replacing “class” with “identity” as the basis for political mobilization also reveals its fatal flaw of ignoring the decisive role of economic factors. When carrying out political mobilization, identity politics not only fails to understand that the fundamental reason for extreme inequality in capitalist society lies not in disputes over values and concepts, but in the injustice of the distribution of material interests, but also fails to see that the fundamental reason why the identities of different subjects differ, constantly change, or subdivide is that they all “carry special, narrow, and therefore mutually isolated economic interests” (36). This causes subjects mobilized by culture or identity identification to have huge differences in the formation of expressions, the defense of culture and identity, the pursuit of goals, and the means of implementation. Therefore, the identity identification mechanism, on which the left-wing camp has placed high hopes, can at most construct an illusory association at the conceptual level. Once it encounters the challenge of material interests in reality, it will immediately disintegrate. This shows that political movements that deny class identity and ignore the material interest demands of the people cannot gather the holistic force to transform the capitalist system, and thus are doomed to fail.

另一方面，身份政治以“身份”取代“阶级”作为政治动员基础的发展策略，同样暴露了其忽视经济因素决定性作用的致命缺陷。身份政治在开展政治动员时，不仅无法理解资本主义社会存在极端不平等的根本原因并不在于价值理念上的争议，而在于物质利益分配上的不公，更看不到不同主体的身份之所以存在差异、之所以会不断变动或细分的根本原因在于它们背后“都承载着特殊的、狭隘的因而也是相互隔绝的经济利益”(36),而这一点会造成被文化或身份认同动员起来的主体在表述的形成、文化与身份的捍卫、目标的追求和实施的手段等方面存在巨大的分歧。因此，被左翼阵营寄予厚望的身份认同机制至多只能在观念层面构筑一个虚幻的联合体，它一旦在现实中遭遇物质利益的挑战就会立刻瓦解。这表明，否定阶级同一性和忽视民众物质利益诉求的政治运动，并不能汇聚起变革资本主义制度的整体性力量，因而难逃失败命运。

Conclusion

结 语

Admittedly, in the post-industrial Western society where the left-wing spirit is declining and class politics is waning, identity politics, with its keen insight into the times, has successfully revealed new problems and contradictions in capitalist society, and has successfully mobilized minority marginal groups within Western countries to resist the vested interests and discursive hegemony of mainstream groups by politicizing identity, thereby once promoting the cause of social equality in capitalist society forward. Its historical progressive significance is obvious. However, because it has abandoned the demands of class politics and economic base transformation, this left-wing movement, which aims at identity equalization, still attempts to replace “material interests” with “cultural rights” and replace the abstract “liberation of self-consciousness” with the real “economic liberation of people” in the face of the economic fact that the material interests of the people are being harmed by the power of capital and unequal social relations urgently need change. This inevitably reduces it to an “unconscious tool” that strengthens the power of capital. What particularly requires vigilance is that, as identity politics develops in full swing, in recent years, Western people’s antipathy towards the left-wing camp has increased day by day, 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 hopes to revitalize anti-capitalist forces by emphasizing identity identification or value consensus.

诚然，在左翼精神衰落和阶级政治式微的后工业时代的西方社会，身份政治能够以敏锐的时代洞察力成功揭示出资本主义社会的新问题和新矛盾，并能够以将政治身份化的方式成功动员西方国家内部的少数边缘群体去反抗主流群体的既得利益和话语霸权，从而一度推动资本主义的社会平等事业走向前进，其历史进步意义是显而易见的。然而，由于抛弃了阶级政治和经济基础变革的诉求，使得这场以身份平等化为目标的左翼运动在民众物质利益遭到资本力量侵害、不平等社会关系亟须改变的经济事实面前，仍企图用“文化权利”代替“物质利益”、用抽象的“自我意识解放”代替现实的“人的经济解放”,这就不可避免地使自身沦为增强资本力量的“不自觉的工具”。尤其要警惕的是，随着身份政治如火如荼地开展，近年来西方民众对左翼阵营的反感与日俱增，甚至有越来越多人开始投入右翼势力的怀抱，这对寄希望于透过强调身份认同或价值共识来重振反资本主义力量的左翼阵营而言无疑是一个巨大打击。

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

令人遗憾的是，就像西方政客热衷于表演政治正确一样，当前仍有不少西方左翼理论家对身份政治及与之关联的右翼民粹主义的反思都是寄居于资本主义国家屋顶之下的学术批判，尽管这些理论看似激进且正气凛然，但只要他们对身份政治的反思始终不以变革资本主义生产关系为目的，对资本主义生产方式给包括中下层白人在内的普通民众在物质利益上带来的灾难性后果始终不以为意，他们的理论就依然不过是一种变相地为当代资本主义统治提供辩护的话语工具，他们所寄予厚望的各种新式反资本主义运动就依然摆脱不了被资本主义收编的命运。

In sum, identity politics, as a strategic choice of the Western left in the post-industrial era—one that seeks equality yet cannot break through the existing framework of capitalism—not only fails to realistically change the multiple inequalities generated by economic inequality under capitalist conditions, but also continuously leads Western left-wing movements down a road of no return that deviates from the socialist ideal and the interests of the working class. Consequently, it is difficult for identity politics to guide contemporary Western left-wing movements out of their historical predicament. In stark contrast, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a New Era, marking that scientific socialism has demonstrated unprecedented vitality and momentum in 21st-century China. This historical process fully reveals that the key force capable of 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, it is our responsibility to unswervingly adhere to the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, comprehensively build a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful, and achieve the Second Centenary Goal [24]24 The Second Centenary Goal refers to the goal of building China into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful by the middle of the 21st century, marking the centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (1949–2049)., so as 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. (References omitted)

总之，身份政治作为后工业时代西方左翼既希望追求平等却又无法突破资本主义既有框架的一种策略性选择，不仅无法现实地改变资本主义条件下由经济不平等引发的诸多不平等，反而会将西方左翼运动不断引向一条背离社会主义理想和工人阶级利益的不归路，因而难以引领当代西方左翼运动真正摆脱历史困境。与此形成鲜明对比的是，在中国共产党的领导下，中国特色社会主义进入新时代，标志着科学社会主义在21世纪的中国展现出了前所未有的生机与活力。这一历史进程充分昭示，引领世界社会主义运动摆脱历史困境、推动科学社会主义在21世纪走向复兴的关键力量，正是中国。因此，我们有责任坚持中国特色社会主义道路不动摇，全面建成社会主义现代化强国、实现第二个百年奋斗目标，以社会主义制度的优越性和社会主义建设的新成就，为世界社会主义的复兴贡献中国力量。（参考文献略）

(The author is an associate professor at the School of Marxism, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.)

（作者系中国科学院大学马克思主义学院副教授）

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑