The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

The struggle against slavery in America

The point of democracy, of course, is to afford some protection for the interests of the plebeians.

But that counts in democracy's favor chiefly in the eyes of the plebs.

Abolition of slavery is likewise an immediate and evident boon to the slaves.

Well, to most of them, and broadly speaking, anyway.

And so?

The arguments of the abolitionists - well, declamations, really, mixed with absurd appeals to pity based on willful blindness to the condition of the free, white working class of the age - were primarily religious or moral.

Just what you would expect from the sort of American bourgeois reformers who would later give us Prohibition.

Were there in America no socialists or radicals from the European Revolutions of 1848 to argue the necessity of proletarian solidarity?

To insist on the unity of interest of all those subject to remorseless exploitation, and their interest in unity?

Or was race too great a barrier for even their commitment to solidarity among the  oppressed?

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