American Civilization

American Civilization is one of those pivotal texts of CLR James often ignored or omitted from discussion. However, upon reading it, one gains new insights with regards to how James conceived the relationship between popular movements and their leaders. It also serves as a testament to the intellectual development of the Johnson-Forest Tendency of ca. 1950. Indeed, inklings of a rejection of vanguardism and the autonomous socialist vision of James manifest in American Civilization, which also triumphs for its forward-looking conception of American popular culture, individualism, and the the threat of totalitarianism. 

Indeed, American Civilization is refreshingly bereft of most of Adorno's disdain for US popular culture, while sharing a similar concern with the danger of alienation and totalitarian Plans. Like his other works of the period, James commits himself to a rejection of Stalinism, overly centralized bureaucracies, Catholic Humanism, and the disconnect between intellectuals and workers. Instead, the separation of labor of the body and mind is increasingly unnecessary as laborers have mastered new technology and benefit from mass produced literature, arts, and production. To paraphrase another line of James, philosophy must be proletarian. 

One supposes the remaining question is, what does one make of the actual trajectory of US civilization after 1950? The miners, UAW workers, and others, supposedly responding to a collectivized individual need for control of production, may be found among wildcat strikes today. However, what happened to the new socialism? The New Left and its failure during the resurgence of the Right and neoliberalism? I cannot help but think American Civilization successfully identified the problem of alienation and its impact on US popular culture and responses to it, but perhaps James incorrectly assumed the labor movement would, through spontaneous action and the need to control production, ultimately overthrow the capitalist order. To his credit, James avoids foretelling the future, but the struggle against alienated, mechanized existence seems as pressing as ever.