To Combat Oppression, it Must be Class Struggle
The Louisville Workers Brigade
3/7/2025
Our world is rife with a myriad of diseases that fall under the banner of oppression. Racism, misogyny, queerphobia, nativism, nationalism—all of these chauvinisms run rampant, causing serious and often deadly harm to sections of the working class, who are also forced to contend with the unyielding exploitation wrought by the ruling class and its many institutions. The origins of each of these oppressions is a long, complicated history rooted in the ever-changing material conditions of society; nonetheless, their results are clear and visible for all to see, but what is less obvious is the forces behind it. When we analyze these oppressions, we assume that this is an issue of “good” and “bad” ideas, between ignorance and enlightenment, and while this is true when we’re talking with other working people who have subscribed to these beliefs, our society doesn’t operate off ideas without a material basis.
Our society, under our present economic system, continues to be subjected to all manner of oppressions for one reason: it maintains the status quo. While the outward character of oppression is the favoring of one grouping of people over another, oppression serves the dual purpose of producing profits and maintaining a divided working class. Through discriminatory practices, the owning class creates a subsection of the working class that is treated with contempt by the more privileged sections of the working class. This subsection is alienated from the rest of their class, which fuels division between them and the rest of their class and leaves the former more vulnerable to greater levels of exploitation. This secondary purpose of oppression secures the owning class an extra source of profit while also keeping the various sections of the working class fighting each other over their identities instead of uniting to fight for their shared interests. From this, oppression solidifies the rule of the owners over the workers, ensuring that the workers are unable to rise up and challenge the parasitic economic system we’re forced to toil under. History has demonstrated the power and impact of oppression, with the story of the Labor Movement being deeply impacted by systems like racism, which allowed for conservative- and reactionary-minded labor policies that blunted the militancy of the broader labor movement and allowed for the encroachment of class collaborationism based on supposed “shared interests” with the bosses, which only served to reinforce the exploitation and oppression that working and oppressed people face.
This makes the issues of oppression deeply intertwined with the class struggle. In addition to the moral argument of condemning the injustices afflicted upon marginalized communities, another reason we must combat oppression is that it hampers and derails the liberation of working and oppressed people. As mentioned, oppression allows for division between working people, limiting the ability of different groups of workers to develop a shared class consciousness and stand as members of the same class. Ultimately, oppression weakens the expression of the power we, working people, have as the ones who keep society running. Take racism—one of the long-standing chauvinisms in the US. Prior to the formation of the CIO and a prominent push for interracial solidarity and organizing, the preeminent labor federation, the AFL, was drenched in racism, making them inconsiderate and hostile to the plight of Black workers. Despite labor unions being one of the primary vehicles for workers to combat exploitation, when the largest labor federation of the time was opposed to organizing Black workers, this caused these workers to become apathetic and hostile to unions, whom they saw as groups meant only for white people. This example, and many others, ultimately damaged the struggle for working and oppressed peoples' liberation and prolongs the suffering of everyone.
Going beyond the workplace and unions, chauvinisms harm all working people in different ways. For example, the inflaming of xenophobia after 9/11, gave Republicans and Democrats the backing they needed to pass the Patriot Act, one of the most extensive domestic surveillance bills ever passed that we’re still dealing with the fallout from—23 years later. Furthermore, the inflaming of divisions is used by the Republicans and Democrats to pit us against one another and use us as a source of support for their anti-worker agendas as long as “our group” isn’t harmed too badly. This leads to a whole host of other areas that oppression reinforces, such as the overbloated funding of police departments, the restricting and dismantling of social services, the weaponizing of valid oppression for political gain (i.e., Zionism), etc.
As we can see, there is a pressing need to combat oppression, but how do we combat it? The mainstream arguments fall into one of two camps: individual struggle or reformism. The first argument, individual struggle, though not directly advocated, is heavily emphasized with all the “feel good” and “empowering” stories of a person from a marginalized community pushing through the odds despite their identity to become fierce, independent champion of their own interests, as they climb the ranks to join the rest of the owning class. Once they achieved the “American Dream” for themselves, these individuals attend numerous conferences and talk shows to recount their struggle, with the interviewer and audience just eating up their re-packaged version of the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” mentality. These “success stories” claim each of us can “rise above” oppressive systems and partake in the promised “American Dream” if we just shut up and take the beating. This line of thinking, compatible with status quo, demonizes any form of progressive change, placing the blame for the effects of oppression on the individual, and asserting that we each need to “hustle” and push ourselves to the limit to overcome oppression. None of this is true, not in the slightest. No matter how many workers of marginalized groups “ascend,” the vast majority is left behind to suffer the full weight of oppression and exploitation.
The second argument, reformism, is a much more widespread and appealing path toward combating oppression, and why not? It's easy—anyone can attend a meeting in support of a policy, anyone can canvas door-to-door to get an initiative or political party on the ballot, anyone can vote on a bill before it becomes law, etc. Even the mainstream historical telling of events reinforces the appeal for reformism, with the deeply powerful stories of Martin Luther King Jr. and the rest of the Black community engaging in nonviolent actions to achieve the various Civil Rights legislation told to every child ad nauseum. However, what is conveniently missed from this heavily sanitized story is the fact that the FBI targeted Dr. King or that Dr. King was becoming far more radical and disillusioned with mere legislation and the narrow focus of legal rights. Stories such as these are to give the illusion that achieving reforms is easy and that once they’re in place the struggle for empowerment and liberation is no longer needed. As we have seen time and time again, reforms under our present economic system are not powerful enough to fundamentally alter the system of exploitation nor are they strong enough to withstand the power of the owning class. At the end of the day, these reforms can only ever go so far and they are always subject to the whims of the owning class.
In the individual struggle and through reformism, working and oppressed people are forced into a continued state of siege as they must withstand the onslaught of oppression and exploitation, allowing the rule of the owning class to remain unchallenged and their world to remain intact. If working and oppressed people are to rid the world of oppression, we need to move past the defensive struggle and must engage in offensive struggle. As stated previously, the thing that unites all working and oppressed people is their shared experience of exploitation. This is what makes the workplace the primary arena in the struggle between the workers and owners, as this is where the chains of all working people are forged. The workplace is also the nexus where exploitation and oppression meet, as we can see from the history of racism, sexism, queerphobia, etc. In this, the workplace is a key battleground for the dual abolition of exploitation and oppression, and to achieve this aim, we must be guided by class struggle unionism. Class struggle unionism, the manifestation of revolutionary organizing, demands a relentless fight for all working and oppressed people against exploitation and all forms of oppression. Under a class struggle perspective, workers of all stripes, industries, backgrounds, etc. unite as a class and fight for their interests against the owning class. In both the workplace and the community, class struggle unionists unite the fight against exploitation and oppression, with them equally fighting tooth-and-nail to end wage theft and end systemic racism.
Every single day, working and oppressed are driven to the edge of ruin. Taking centerstage for all working and oppressed people is the exploitation we experience and its myriad of effects—having to decide to pay the electric bill or purchase groceries for the month, avoiding visits to the doctor while our health continues to decline, sacrificing time for rest as we take more and more shifts at work or work mutiple jobs to make ends meet, etc. All of this is made worse by oppression, which cuts up the working class into different sections and adds an extra layer of suffering, which not only harms the group oppressed but also allows the bosses to exploit them more and divide them from the rest of the working class. In this, exploitation and oppression are partners in crime that divide and conquer working and oppressed people in the name of sustaining the rule of the owning class. This is why we must fight oppression and exploitation together, not one or the other, but both. In our struggle, whether in the workplace or in the community, we must be driven by class struggle unionism and fight against both in equal measure. Only through class struggle, not individual struggle and not solely with reforms, can working and oppressed people wage an effective and longstanding struggle against exploitation and oppression. It is only through class struggle that a world for working and oppressed people, devoid of either, is possible.
The Louisville Workers Brigade will always stand in unwavering solidarity with workers and their struggles. The fight against exploitation and the fight against oppression are struggles we hold close to our hearts and we will always stand in equal measure against both. As 2025 continues to unfold, we welcome working people of all stripes and backgrounds to come together, to recognize our shared experiences and desires, to identify the shared source of our suffering, and to unite into an unbreakable class based on solidarity of all kinds, as we march forward to a future where exploitation and oppression relegated to the dustbin of history.
Power, Peace, and Liberation to all working and oppressed peoples!