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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.
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.