RE: https://toot.cafe/@baldur/116307441029006075

This is a good article about Cory Doctorow's weird and self-serving misunderstanding of Audre Lord's famous observation about the master's tools. The author explains that Doctorow takes the line out of context and then tells us that his example of antitrust law "would be a defensible claim if that was the argument Audre Lorde was making in the first place."

In other words she seems to agree with Doctorow that antitrust law is an example of the master's tools dismantling the master's house, or at least not to completely dismiss this claim. But even though Lorde wasn't talking about this kind of tool her analysis still holds, even for antitrust law and other regulatory structures that superficially seem to limit capitalist exploitation.

One of capitalism:s biggest maintenance problems is that their victims inevitably realize what's being done to them and rebel. The ruling classes inevitably respond by moving things around so that the exploitation can continue but in more hidden ways. For instance Anglo-American chattel slavery was not only horrific but obviously visibly horrific. Everyone could see the horror. There was a huge abolitionist movement in Britain and ongoing slave rebellions, including the consequential 1831 Baptist War, which apparently involved around 60K of the 300K enslaved people in Jamaica.[1] Just two years later the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 took effect.[2] The British government didn't abolish slavery to protect slaves from exploitation but to protect capitalism from short-sighted capitalists who didn't recognize the peril their whole project was in due to popular resistance. The Brits offshored slavery's contributions to their economy to the American south, where it was still viable, at least for a while.

If the very abolition of slavery didn't dismantle the master's house there's no reason to expect that breaking up a monopoly or two is going to destroy capitalism. The ruling class doesn't create laws they can't work around. They wait till popular resistance threatens their exploitative project and then pass laws that silence the resistance but don't actually solve the problem. The Pure Food and Drug Act, all of FDR's social welfare measures, etc. These are not tools with which the master's house can be dismantled. They're tools our masters use to strengthen their house's foundations.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptist_War

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833

#AudreLorde #CoryDoctorow #TheMastersTools #Slavery #Abolition #AntitrustLaw #Capitalism