Equality and quotas in capitalism

 As we accumulate political experience, we learn what capitalism is a master at: techniques of deceiving and manipulating the masses against their own interests. We remember the emergence of the Left Bloc with the tragic destruction of the PCP(R) and the UDP dissolving into an opportunist coalition with the Trotskyists of the PSR and the Euro-communist current (departure from the PCP) Politics XXI. We remember what the Bloco de Esquerda added to Portuguese politics - in a false left-wing alternative to the PCP, unfortunately also on a path of opportunist degeneration - such as the so-called "fracturing causes" around a liberal program of LGBT, feminist movements and the legalization of called "soft drugs". We identify a particular peak of the theoretical liberalism of the Bloco de Esquerda (BE) when the then leader of BE, Catarina Martins (a follower of the opportunist Francisco Louçã), defended the existence of quotas for women in the institutions of the bourgeois State and on the boards of directors of capitalist companies. This is precisely the point, or the end result, at which the entire LGBT movement and feminist movement constitute concrete ideologies that defend capitalism by placing a focus between "oppressor" and "oppressed" that becomes an obstacle to the class struggle. Contrary to what feminism and the LGBT movement claim, capitalism is not unfair because it is dominated by men and heterosexuals, but rather because of its exploitative nature and the domination of a bourgeois class over other classes (in particular against the proletariat). Contrary to what feminism and the LGBT movement claim, capitalism does not become any different because it is dominated by women or gays - we say neither capitalist companies nor the bourgeois State change for this reason. Without needing any quotas, the reality of capitalism and the current bourgeois State already reveals that where women lead and not men, or where gays lead and not heterosexuals, state institutions and capitalist companies have absolutely nothing changed their exploitative and oppressive nature - nothing has even changed in the oppression of these sectors of the population. It is not true that working women are less exploited by a bourgeois millionaire woman who owns monopoly companies, just as she is no less oppressed by a bourgeois woman head of state.

Liberalism rooted in feminism and the LGBT movement has two inseparable elements: dividing workers (women against men, gays against heterosexuals) and uniting the oppressed sectors with their true oppressors on the basis of identity and disregard for the class struggle (uniting the working woman with the bourgeois woman, uniting the gay worker with the gay bourgeois).

In this critique of quotas we begin at the end because today we are talking about another type of quotas, quotas that are not directly about supporting the bourgeoisie but are supposed to be a palliative for the injustices suffered by workers and the poor. We will now talk about quotas for black people in universities in Brazil and the United States. This type of quotas is particularly related to the concept of "affirmative action", a policy particularly promoted by Obama, himself being used as a symbol of this quota policy.

From Wikipedia: "In the United States, affirmative action consists of voluntary, mandatory, government-approved private programs that grant special consideration to historically excluded groups, specifically racial minorities and women.[1][2] These programs tend to concentrate- access to education and employment in order to correct the disadvantages[3][4][5][6][7] associated with past and present discrimination.[8] Another objective of affirmative action policies is to ensure that public institutions, such as universities, hospitals and police forces, are more representative of the populations they serve.[9]"

The quota policy is suspected of being a bourgeois manipulation precisely because it links the bourgeoisie at the top with the poor and workers at the bottom who want to rise to an intermediate petit-bourgeoisie or "middle class" position, as happens in the purchasing process. of conscience of workers known for the formation of the social stratum of the labor aristocracy.

Apart from these general ideological criticisms, specifically when quotas for black people in universities are introduced, for example, taking into account that statistically black people are much poorer than the rest of the white population in the United States and Brazil, it is not certain that this policy is not bias of injustice because at the very least the universalization of education should promote access to the poor in general (regardless of the percentages of those who are poor) and above all it is not certain that this mechanism will not further promote the division of workers and the co-optation of sectors of workers by the bourgeoisie and bourgeois ideology. Wouldn't it be better for poor black people to obtain the benefit of quotas and/or economic support at universities intended for the poor in general and not according to skin color?

Let us think about how to overcome divisions, inequalities and oppression that have lasted for centuries between workers and other impoverished classes and sectors in socialism. It is known from the experience of building socialism in the Soviet Union and other countries - and also from Lenin's teachings - that the most diverse inequalities, not only between men and women and heterosexual gays, as well as intellectual and manual work, between countryside and city, between backward and oppressed nationalities and ethnic groups and other more advanced ones, etc. are not a simple objective to overcome. This aspect of overcoming complex inequalities is part of the complexity of the gradual process of overcoming the existence of classes that exist in socialism until reaching the level of communism. What we mainly know about the fight against these inequalities is that capitalism only deepens them when it tries to mask them with its reforms. In socialism we cannot say that all the aforementioned inequalities have ended but rather that giant steps have been taken to overcome them and above all a process has been set in the right direction to overcome them.

So in capitalism what interests us is what strengthens the struggle and revolutionary unity of workers as a class against the bourgeoisie. This is what interests us and a hierarchical perspective of who is more and less oppressed within the workers, which is reflected in more or less tolerance by bourgeoisie depending on whether they are white or black and men or women, seems harmful to the revolutionary unity of workers. and to the class struggle.

We reach another point that justifies this reflection when we talk about the policy of quotas within communist parties. We follow the discussions of Brazilian communists who go so far as to consider that racism in communist organizations in Brazil is reflected simply by looking at the number of militants that are more or less white and more or less black. This perspective, which deserves to be criticized as identitarian, goes so far as to forget that the main thing in the communist organization is that it is not only an organization of workers in general but an organization of communists in particular and therefore it is even more absurd to divide the workers here between oppressor whites and oppressed blacks. As much as the majority of black people are oppressed in Brazil, it is necessary to note the objective fact that today in Brazil, just like in Obama's United States, black people include all classes. But even if black people were all workers, which they are not, it would still be necessary for the criterion for entry into a communist party to be the membership of communists and not of workers in general.

We speak here of several examples of how the quota policy in capitalism is expressed in various ways. And these ways range from direct support to the bourgeoisie to undermining the ideological identity of the communist party and the palliatives of the capitalist system, which are questionable to say the least.

We are not trying to make an absolute rejection of the quota policy here. In the case of quotas for disabled people in education, universities and employment, they seem necessary to us because only legal and forced imposition allows these people to be removed from the exclusion imposed by capitalist society based on profit and on exploiting "productive" and disposable people. There may also be disabled bourgeoisie but this is not a relevant phenomenon at the moment, if it were relevant we would also raise awareness in order to defend disabled workers. For now, phenomena of liberal opportunism such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the United States or Catarina Martins in Portugal are relevant. We criticize to strengthen the rights and struggle of workers as a class and in accordance with the political phenomena of the moment, in response to manipulations by the bourgeoisie.