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Title: Statism and Ableism
Author: Oxyaena
Date: 2020
Language: en
Topics: ableism, statism, neurodiversity, disability
Notes: Credit goes to myself, Oxyaena. Contact me at https://twitter.com/realoxyaena, and my Discord ID is Oxyaena#2207.

Oxyaena

Statism and Ableism

As an autistic transwoman, I believe that the best bet for both queer

and disabled liberation is by abolishing the state and overthrowing

hierarchy whereever sees fit. Disabled people under a statist society

will always be at a disadvantage, since statist societies prioritize

able-bodied people over disabled people. The only reason people like me

are seen as disabled and not merely “eccentric” is because we cannot

produce, we cannot contribute to capital’s stranglehold on production.

This is literally the only reason I am disabled. Under a non-statist

society, one based off of true libertarian principles such as mutual aid

and free association, disabled people would not be valued or devalued

solely based off of their ability to contribute to capital, off of their

ability to produce. I propose a synthesis of disabled and anarchist

tendencies called divergent anarchism, to encompass both physiodivergent

and neurodivergent people.

It will serve the same function as queer anarchism, or anarcha-feminism,

or black anarchism etc does, providing a means of analysis that will

provide a true path to liberation for disabled people. Disabled people

can produce items of value comparable to that produced by able-bodied

people, but society as it currently stands does not, and can not, value

the products made by us in the same way it values the products made by

able-bodied people. Nor will it value us as it values able-bodied

people.

Statism is inherently ableist, the systemic issues that come with

statism cannot be solved by mere reforms. All reforms merely serve as

stopgap solutions, to kick the can further down the road for future

generations to deal with, to placate the masses as to not seriously

disrupt the flow of capital. Disability is stigmatized just as

race/ethnicity is, or gender is, or lack thereof, or biological sex is,

etc etc etc. The Fabians and their social democrat/democratic socialist

descendants are stool pigeons for the state and hierarchy by virtue of

being reformist in the first place.

“We’re not like those radicals, see? We want to reform the system, not

abolish it,” cries the socdem/demsoc, but in the end when hierarchy

deems it appropriate they too will be sent to the camps as we are/will.

The Quisling always gets his comeuppance at the end. Appeasement does

not work, reformism does not work. To truly liberate disabled and other

marginalized people, we must abolish the very system that oppresses us,

not make peace with and submit to it as vassals.

Assimilation politics serve the benefit of the oppressor, not the

oppressed. Barack Obama is a keen example of this, being a biracial man,

the son of a Luo Kenyan man and an Irish-American woman, as well as

being the first African-American president of the United States.

Throughout his presidency he was jeered and subjected to hostile

opposition solely based off of the color of his skin, derided as being a

“communist, Muslim, atheist, gay man” etc, having his native born

citizenship questioned, as well as having all of his actions opposed at

every single turn, even when his policies were not too different from

his white, Republican predecessor.

Why, you ask? Because he was deemed black, and therefore “not a True

American” by American society, despite being the personification of

assimilation politics. Take Obama’s example as a lesson for all people

insistent on assimilating into mainstream society, if you are a

marginalized person, you will continue to be stigmatized no matter what

actions you take.

Now I am not black, so I will not comment on what is best for

African-Americans, I will only comment on what I see is best for

disabled folk. Having outlined why statism is inherently ableist, and

why reformism doesn’t work, let’s now take a look at authoritarian

socialist takes on disabled liberation. The same thing applies here, in

all of the so-called “socialist countries” of the world, people have

been valued solely by their ability to produce, even in so-called

“worker’s states.”

If you could not work, or you wanted meaningful control over the

products of your own labor etc, you were deemed an outcast, a criminal,

and marginalized as such. From 1928 onward, striking was a capital

offense in the USSR (Cliff, 1954), and if striking, the most basic of

methods of labor resistance, was outlawed, and labor was oppressed

despite supposedly having control of the means of production, what does

that mean for disabled people, who arguably got/get it even worse than

laborers under such so-called “worker’s states?”

All statism is ableist, end of story.