Equal Distribution of Inequality: Totality and the Limits of Identity Politics

Abstract

This essay tracks the limits of identity-based politics, arguing that such political programs fail to adequately theorize their embeddedness within capital and the liberal state. Following Marx, Moishe Postone distinguishes between precapitalist societies, in which overt social relations mediate labor, and capitalist societies, in which labor is abstracted and comes to mediate social relations, creating a social totality. Following Postone, it can be argued that noncapitalist forms of domination, such as racism and patriarchy, are overt forms of domination in which social relations directly mediate labor and its distribution. This claim seemingly strengthens identity politics, but not when considering political programs based on identity lines, which ultimately must adopt and perfect a liberal logic that, rather than eradicating inequality, ensures its more even distribution. This essay shows, for example, how state-driven identity politics based on ethnic difference in Israel/Palestine fails to account for neoliberal reforms that remake the encounter between Jews and Arabs.