Class Relations, Social Justice and the Political Geography of Difference (Jason)

David Harvey argues that a universal, class-based concept of social justice is necessary to combat a universal, class-based capitalism that has become manifest in the United States since the 1970s through the political-economic policies of the Republican Party. Increasingly fragmented, leftist politics has thus far been unsuccessful at combating the destructive (e.g. Imperial Foods fire) and unified class-interests of capitalist business. There is thus an urgent necessity for the progressive politics of the left to become unified into a class-based movement that will successfully engage (and confront) political-economic processes.

Harvey acknowledges that the postmodern critique of universalism has rendered any practical concept of social justice problematic. Multiple voices, biographies, and competing concepts of social justice and individual rights inevitably lead to fragmentation at multiple socio-spatial scales. Fragmentation leads to paralysis. After summarizing several postmodern and poststructural perspectives on social justice and individual rights, Harvey identifies a line of though that recognizes “that some kind of (unspecified) universals are necessary and that some sort of epistemology (unspecified) is needed to establish when, how and where difference and heterogeneity are significant” (358). Harvey acknowledges that a universal conception of social justice must be advanced by a working-class politics that cross-cuts (while acknowledging, and respecting) vital differences such as race, culture and gender. Indeed, the success of the working-class social movement requires the identification of similarities as well as an acknowledgement of varying degrees of difference and otherness.

Harvey arrives at several conclusions regarding his take on social justice. First, universality is a vital and unavoidable component of any practical conception of social justice and working-class politics with the added nuance that “universality must be construed in a dialectical relation to particularity” (362). Secondly, respect for identity and otherness must be tempered by a principle of exclusion that upholds a universal standard of civility by preventing certain groups from imposing their will oppressively upon others. Thirdly, the acknowledgement of situatedness and/or positionality must assume a vital role in evaluating all proposals for social action. And lastly but most importantly, “the ‘epistemology that can tell the difference’ between significant and insignificant differences or ‘otherness’ is one which can understand the social process of construction of situatedness, places, otherness, difference, political identity and the like” (363). As a theoretical concept, social justice must internalize the dialectical processes that constitute the real world.

In closing, Harvey acknowledges that his formulation of social justice and working class politics is not without internal contradiction. He concedes that “a political program which successfully combats any form of oppression has to face up to the real difficulty of a loss of identity on the part of those who have become victims of oppression” (364). Indeed, revolutionary success ultimately depends on a tangible loss of identity for many at a local level. Conversely, pursuing pure identity politics may perpetuate rather than challenge “status-quo” class-based systems and processes of oppression. Harvey argues that a united politics has far greater potential to check these systems and processes than an identity politics that largely reflects their fragmented results.