Distinguish Caste From Class

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Distinguish Caste From Class Anonymous 2023-06-13 (Tue) 20:23:05 No.18636

This feels like a thread that needs to be made because the left in general has a lot of difficulty wrapping their heads around what a caste is and why it isn't the same as class. Caste oftentimes looks like it's the same as class but it is not.
Caste follows these criteria;
>it is assigned at birth, and oftentimes impossible to change unless certain circumstances like biracialism or inter-caste marriage occur
>marriages and relationships are often not seen as valid unless certain criteria are met, such as the marriage being between people of the same caste, or the lower caste is the marriage-property of a higher-caste person, such as being a member of a harem or being a woman in a patriarchical caste system where only heterosexual marriages are recognized as valid
>upper caste people usually get their legitimacy from the social perception that their rule is ordained by god and that they are destined to rule over the lower castes because they are naturally superior beings
>lower castes are said to be spiritually unclean, and this unclean nature is difficult to describe besides that they are subhumans who live in filth. this reflects in their social roles, which usually involves working in industries and professions considered too disgusting or spiritually destructive for the higher caste to perform, or in the case of gender, these roles manifest as strict gender roles (e.g. "barefoot and pregnant")
>caste is socially constructed whereas class is economically constructed and usually more fluid
There is a lot to be said about castes, but the main thing is that the left often conflates race and gender minorities as being "lower class". We increasingly are seeing that this is not always true, yet the stigmas surrounding race and gender remain. Why? Liberalism insists that racism and gender discrimination are determined only by individual attitudes, and that attitude adjustments and language policing are the highest priority in eliminating racial or gender discrimination. However what we have seen is that the bourgeoisie has a tendency that counteracts these efforts by utilizing caste discrimination to keep people divided, even when the upper echelons of businesses now put a lot of effort into DEI, ESG and HR to counterbalance previous forms of discrimination, usually by just reversing the roles of the caste system rather than abolishing them.
My belief is that trans people and immigrants represent the untouchable caste, which even caste countries usually deny is a caste that exists.

Anonymous 2023-06-13 (Tue) 20:48:49 No.18637

>>18636
The role of Indian communists in both analysis and struggle against caste-ism is not studied enough in the west IMO. It's different but there is something to learn from it. Race in the U.S. is like a caste system.

>Caste really became rigid and fossilised in the medieval era. The colonial system under the British rule both further rigidised the caste-system as well as opened up ways for its weakening. The contradictory processes of limited and colonial industrialisation and semi-capitalist development loosened the caste-bonds, and at the same time created new castes, bondings and rigidities. Factories and mills objectively weakened caste as a structure. The growth of the market including the labour-market, money-commodity exchange and the far greater movement of men and material (roads, railways, etc.) violated caste-barriers. As S.A. Dange was fond of saying, one never knew in whose plate one was eating in an eating-place or which castes and hands in a factory handled the threads in a factory.

>The British colonial system needed the caste-system, at the same time, as a source of cheap, even bonded labour. The disintegrating caste hierarchy was sought to be kept alive as forms of movement of labour. New caste practices came up eulogising the ideology of casteism and ‘glorious’ histories of each one of the castes were written. It has to be realised that casteism is basically a product of colonialism.

>The recruitment of urban labourers, factory hands and even educated personnel took the form of the transfer and migration of people of the same caste, village, district, and language groups to towns, mills and businesses. These castes were basically the most depressed ones. In the rural areas the oppression of the lowermost ‘castes’ (by birth) was most virulent; their members were thus ‘liberated’ by industrialisation and urbanisation, often resulting in the preservation even increase in caste-consciousness.

>Caste began to break up but casteism gained strength.
https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv12n1/caste.htm

Anonymous 2023-06-14 (Wed) 01:28:46 No.18638

>>18637
I'm not sure that i agree that caste systems are exclusive to the indian subcontinent. I cant think of anything that describes, for example, the american jim crow era policies of segregation and banned miscegenation, as anything but a caste system. I think caste is more pervasive than just india, which actually might be why socialism has so much difficulty describing social issues outside of class analysis.

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