Mary-Alice Waters' Religious View of History

Photo from The Militant, June 11, 2018

Mary-Alice Waters gave a speech in Havana last April, where she described life in West Virginia as follows:

West Virginia today has the lowest median household income of all fifty states in the union save one, Mississippi. In only three states — Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Mississippi — do teachers earn less than in West Virginia. 

Measured by official US government figures that include so-called “discouraged workers” — those who haven’t been able to find a job for so long that they’ve temporarily given up — unemployment in West Virginia is one of the highest in the country: more than 10 percent in 2017. 

The state is a center of the drug addiction crisis in the US — it has the highest opioid overdose rate in the country.

Her Cuban audience must have been astonished. The people in the picture are well-dressed and well-fed far beyond the dreams of the average Cuban. They're rich enough that they can even afford bespoke t-shirts manufactured just for their union. It's hardly a picture of "carnage" and "devastation" as described by Ms. Waters.

Yet the impoverishment of the working class is not really what the example is supposed to prove. Ms. Waters asks this question:

Did the 2016 electoral victory of Donald Trump register a rise in racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and every other form of ideological reaction among working people in the US? Is that why tens of millions of workers of all races voted for him?

 And offers this answer:

The clearest and most demonstrative answer to the [above] question is being given right now from West Virginia to Oklahoma, from Kentucky to Arizona and beyond by tens of thousands of teachers and other public workers in states Trump carried by a large margin in 2016.

While I share Ms. Waters' opinion that Trump voters are no more racist than the rest of society, surely this picture doesn't make that case. It's a group of middle-aged, middle class, lily-white women demanding more bennies for themselves. West Virginia school children are 91% white. Please, Ms. Waters, tell us how this demonstrates the progressive virtues of the working class.

For all we know, the pictured ladies weren't Trump supporters at all, but are among the 27% of West Virginian voters who cast their ballots for Clinton, who counted teachers among her strongest supporters.

In my title I refer to Ms. Waters' view as "religious." I have hesitated using that term because my Trotskyist friends view it as both disrespectful and insulting--I don't wish to be either. And admittedly, the "religion" analogy doesn't fit perfectly. Trotskyists don't believe in supernatural beings, nor do they acknowledge any benefit in prayer. But (especially having just read and reviewed An Anxious Age) her piece is such a wonderful example of religious argument that it's hard to ignore.

Ms. Waters asks a second question:

Is a socialist revolution in the US really possible? Or are those like ourselves, who answer with an unhesitating “Yes,” a new variety of utopian socialist fools, however well meaning?

I'd replace the (needlessly demeaning) word "fools" with "believers," but otherwise I concur with that second choice.

We in the Socialist Workers Party are certainly among a small minority, even among those who call themselves socialists, who say without hesitation, “Yes, socialist revolution is possible in the United States.” And no liberating movement of millions can ever be imposed “from the outside” on any country.  

We say not only is socialist revolution in the US possible. Even more important, revolutionary struggles by the toilers are inevitable. They will be forced upon us by the crisis-driven assaults of the propertied classes — as we’ve just seen in West Virginia. And they will be intertwined, as always, with the example of the resistance and struggles of other oppressed and exploited producers around the globe.  

What is not inevitable is the outcome. That is where political clarity, organization, prior experience, discipline, and, above all, the caliber and experience of proletarian leadership are decisive.

What Ms. Waters describes here is her "railroad track" view of history. The historical train is moving relentlessly down the track, pulled inevitably forward by capitalist "contradictions" and "crises." Ahead lies a switch, and unless the switch is thrown we're headed off a cliff--toward catastrophe and World War III--eternal damnation. But, follow the "political clarity" of the Vanguard Party (i.e., the Socialist Workers Party) then redemption is at hand and we'll all live happily ever after.

It's a heaven and hell story, albeit with both outcomes existing here on this earth. The outcome depends only on the success of the Vanguard Party to throw the switch in time. While Ms. Waters is the movement's most explicit theologian, pretty much the same dogma is held by all the Trotskyist grouplets I cover, with slight denominational differences.

No religion is complete without a notion of sin. Sin is the one great empirical fact of all religion--all normal people (excepting only small children and psychopaths) understand that there is evil, both in the world and in the individual heart. Religion offers a path to defeat sin: in Hinduism it is reincarnation until Nirvana is reached; in Christianity it will happen when Christ comes again to redeem his world. And so on.

For Trotskyists, the principle sin is inequality--of income, education, health, immigration status, etc. All humans are created equal; any variation amongst us is the result of sin. As Ms. Waters puts it,

The point is that without understanding the devastation of the lives of working-class families in regions like West Virginia (and there are many more) — without understanding the vast increase since the 2008 financial crisis in class inequality, including the accelerating inequality within classes — you won’t be able to understand what’s happening in the United States.

Per Trotskyism, the important sins are not personal (e.g., thou shalt not commit adultery), but rather social (thou shalt not be a bigot). They are, in fact, the same sins put forward by Walter Rauschenbusch, the founder of  the social gospel. (See An Anxious Age for more about this.) Indeed, I'll suggest that the American Trotskyist movement depends as much on Rauschenbusch's thought as it does on Karl Marx.

Finally, please note the style of Ms. Waters' argument. She cites neither statistics nor any historical progression. Instead she lists a series of totemic events--the 1930s Teamsters' strike, the fight against Jim Crow, and the Vietnam-era antiwar movement. And, yes, the recent Red-State teachers' strikes, even though those are already yesterday's news.

There is no logical connection between any of these events, and they have only minimal impact on what happens today. Instead, they represent prophetic fulfillment. For just as Christians draw prophecy from the Old Testament pointing to the death and resurrection of Christ, Trotskyists prophesy from old labor history and the Russian Revolution. The working class really is awakening! The End Times are being foretold!

One can't criticize religion for being not true. I think even devout believers know in their heart of hearts that what they believe in isn't true. But, however false, religion is incredibly useful. It allows one to orient one's life, to find meaning, and to establish reassuring connections with a global community. It's all bound together by ritual and dogma.

Trotskyism isn't true, but unlike Christianity and other world religions, it also isn't particularly useful.

Further Reading:

• Book Review: An Anxious Age
• Sex and the Alpha Male
• Louis Proyect and the Pro-Poverty Girl