Struggle and Progress

Jacobin #18

by Jacobin

Jacobin's Summer 2015 issue celebrates and commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Union victory and Emancipation with interviews, essays, and more.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics

100 pages, Unknown Binding

First published August 1, 2015

About the author

Jacobin is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture. The print magazine is released quarterly and reaches over 10,000 subscribers, in addition to a web audience of 600,000 a month.

Reviews

[Timothy Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far the best issue from Jacobin that I've received. I felt that I knew much of what there was to know about this time period, even of race relations during this time, but I still learned quite a bit. The writing is excellent and accessible to everyone (unlike some of their issues). The story of Reconstruction and its premature ending needs to be the focus of the post Civil War period for all history classes. That period pretty much decided everything to come for the next 150+ years and not just in the South-though primarily. I think the gist of it all can be summed up by that since Reconstruction wasn't done properly and the giant upheaval and admittedly difficult decisions were not done by Democratic leaders of the time, this country continues to struggle with an insanely unbalanced, financially unequal system of economics, employment an most importantly, land ownership. These inequalities have allowed Blacks to be perceived as the "other" in large swathes of the country where anxious and semi-employed white continue to scapegoat them for their misery and poor lot in life and therefore making large scale reform almost impossible. It would've been much easier in the post-war period.
I've concluded that whenever the federal government steps away or closes its eyes on what happens in the South, horrible injustices happen and are perpetuated. Example: new electoral laws in the south preventing people from voting due to Voting Rights Act expiring.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

The articles are written in the spirit of quality journalism, not only did they offer a new perspective on things, but they taught me completely new things. Whether or not I agree with the stance taken is irrelevant, qualitatively, the style used here should be emulated in all modern news, unfortunately it's not.

But content independent analysis aside, I also happen to agree with the overall message, spirit, and intent of the writing. I have learned about The American civil war, and its consequences from a leftist perspective. I have learned about things that are not readily mentioned in today's public discourse: Reconstruction, Jim Crow, The Knights of Labor.

The article that is dearest to my heart is "Our Forgotten Labor Revolution", it features some very interesting passages:

Page 63:

Here was a possible meaning of Reconstruction: all forms of economic dependence are incompatible with free citizenship. In the name of freedom, being without property and depen- dent on employers was a condition that also had to be abolished. Free people had a right to some share of the means of production — be it land or some other productive property. They even had a right to take it from those who opposed this equal freedom.

Page 64:

Casting their concerns in a familiar, post–Civil War idiom, they[The Knights of Labor] asked, “Is there a workshop where obedience is not demanded —not to the difficulties or qualities of the labor to be performed —but to the caprice of he who pays the wages of his servants?” They called the new wage labor “wage slavery” and they wanted “to abolish as rapidly as possible, the wage system, substituting co-operation therefore.”

Page 66:

Former slaves were now modern workers and the Knights trumpeted the same emancipatory language throughout the nation, heralding “co-operation” as a solution to the problems facing wage laborers everywhere. They sought a reconstruction not just of the South but of the entire country.
This program of liberation through cooperative self-organization, articulated in the transracial language of making all workers into their own bosses, scared Northern industrialists just as much as Southern planters.

It took former slaves to realize that wage labour wasn't much of an improvement from their previous situation.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely fantastic issue of 'Jacobin' on the history of Reconstruction...