• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Rampant Logo

Rampant Magazine

  • Home
  • We Are Rampant
  • Support Rampant
  • Contact Us
  • Topics
    • Antiracism
    • Black Politics
    • Borders
    • Chicago
    • Cops
    • Debates
    • Editorial
    • Electoral Politics
    • Environmental Justice
    • Gender Politics
    • History
    • Indigenous
    • Labor
    • Left theory
    • Mutual Aid
    • Political economy
    • International
    • Socialism
    • The South
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Home
  • We Are Rampant
  • Support Rampant
  • Contact Us
  • Topics
    • Antiracism
    • Black Politics
    • Borders
    • Chicago
    • Cops
    • Debates
    • Editorial
    • Electoral Politics
    • Environmental Justice
    • Gender Politics
    • History
    • Indigenous
    • Labor
    • Left theory
    • Mutual Aid
    • Political economy
    • International
    • Socialism
    • The South
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

Against Unity

The inauguration of Joe Biden arrives with the liberal establishment proclaiming the need for unity. But unity is not what we want.

Anderson Bean, brian bean · January 21, 2021

Biden’s inauguration was a paean to national unity. “To restore the soul and secure the future of America requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy: unity.” The president used the word “unity” seven times in his address, urging us to “come together” and “renew the nation.” Speaker after speaker sounded the same note. 

But unity is not inherently good, and division is not inherently bad.

Of course, there are certain “divisions” that we need to oppose. The ruling class wants to divide working people along lines of race, sex, gender, nationality, etc., in spite of the interests we share. These divisions hurt working people and help the ruling class maintain their power over us. In company with Marx we should say, “Workers of the world unite!”

But there are other “divisions” within our society that cannot be met with calls for unity. The divisions between the exploiters from the exploited, and between the oppressors from the oppressed, need to be underlined so that everyone can pick a side. These divisions were not created by us. Conflicting class interests exist whether we recognize them or not. Those who own the means of production or who do their bidding (billionaires, CEO’s, hedge fund managers, big pharma, the police, etc.) have material interests that are antithetical to those of the rest of the population. What is good for them is not good for us, and what is good for us is not good for them. 

Liberal cliches about unity obscure our situation. They suggest that the problems of this country are somehow the result of people failing to work together to resolve shared problems, and therefore that the solution is to find common ground. But we share no common cause with the bosses, the billionaires, the exploiters, and oppressors. The police should be abolished, the nazis should be run off the street, and the billionaires should have their wealth stripped from them. Racism, inequality, and the politics of Trumpism are not unfortunate aberrations of the system but belong to its core functioning.

In the face of a global pandemic, an economic crisis, and the growth of racist far-right extremism, what we need is not more unity, but sharper division, properly drawn.

  • Anderson Bean - Anderson Bean is a North Carolina based activist and author of the book The Communal State: Venezuela’s struggle for participatory democracy in a time of crisis, forthcoming from Lexington Books.
  • brian bean - brian bean is a member of the Rampant editorial collective and an editor and contributor to the book Palestine: A Socialist Introduction from Haymarket Books.
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Electoral Politics, Socialism Back to top

Get Rampant in your inbox

  • Learning from Multiracial Radical Organizing in 1930s Chicago
  • “We will be defined by liberation”
  • Introducing the Sprout Slate
  • There’s No Such Thing as “Pro-Life” Feminism
  • A still from a PAAU propaganda video.
  • The Actuality of Abolition
  • Rank-and-File Amazon Workers Can Organize Themselves
  • Amazon workers organizing all over the world

All articles

Mutual Aid

Antiracism

Chicago

Cops

Black Politics

Environmental Justice

Electoral Politics

Labor

The South

History

Editorial

Debates

Indigenous

Socialism

International

Gender Politics

Left theory

Borders

Political economy

Interviews

Book Reviews

Copyright © 2023 · Rampant Magazine · All Rights Reserved