Collective Action Over Political Power

In his 1983 book Black Marxism: the Making of the Black Radical
Tradition, political theorist Cedric Robinson examines the formation of
modern capitalism in Europe, elucidating the particular identities, social
movements, and societal structures that shaped basic market forces. “European
civilization is not the product of capitalism,” he writes; “on the
contrary, the character of capitalism can only be understood in the social and
historical context of it’s appearance.” Robinson’s observation rests at the
core of my approach to economic policy, an approach largely informed by both
the political economy of southeast Michigan – my home – and its residents who
have organized on the basis of economic justice.

For decades, economic welfare has ranked as the primary policy
concern for many Michigan residents. Unfortunately, the demand for policy
intervention to confront unemployment, poverty, and wage stagnation has been
met with an insufficient set of solutions. Residents continue to experience the
human cost of downsizing, outsourcing, federal and state cutbacks, and
automation of industry. Attempts to address economic welfare – such as vocation
programs, Community Development Corporations, and basic welfare provisions –
have often been critically underfunded, unevenly distributed, or implemented
within too narrow of a context.

As an alternative to successful economic policy, community groups
continually engage in collective action for political power, in hopes that a
more active, innovative government can aid in the struggle for economic reform.
Their work indicates the importance of viewing economics not only through a
lense of efficiency, but of power as well, with markets existing as fundamental
spaces of political contest. Yet such an orientation conflicts with the
predominance of neoliberal economic thought, which invokes an explanatory power that too often
naturalizes conditions of inequality, poverty, and discrimination in the labor
and housing market. Under this paradigm, privatization, financialization, and
upwards redistribution of wealth operate as the primary, if not only, means of
government oversight over the economy. As the previous institutional frameworks
that upheld market conditions throughout the 20th century are unraveled,
neoliberal economic policy pushes historical analysis of structural market
failures to the periphery.

Instead of following this tradition, I believe policy analysts
should complicate economic policy in at least three ways. First, policy
research must investigate hierarchies of civic status as inextricable factors
of economic activity. Race, gender, citizenship status, and other modes of
social identification have always played a role in determining economic order,
and will continue to do so in dynamic and evolving ways. How can we configure
economic policies attentive to this realization, and move beyond causal
explanations of discrimination (or worse, blind ignorance) in an analysis of
economic welfare and opportunity?

Second, by framing markets as political institutions, the
structures of markets themselves must be scrutinized for abuse of market power.
Factors such as price, output, and procurement are not solely efficient
outcomes of a rational economy: they are often determined through a pursuit of
market power at the potential cost of both consumer and producer welfare. The
risk of market concentration obligates government to establish industry
frameworks, playing the role of arbiter amongst a network of interests.

Finally, policymakers must take seriously the political responses
that localized, impacted groups have posited in response to rising economic
inequality, and learn from their insights and initiatives. Beyond a superficial
commitment to participatory policymaking, analysts should consider building
their research around alternative theoretical approaches to development that have emerged in resistance to dominant economic
paradigms.

Michigan continues to be an important site of conflict over
economic policy. For example, community activists and scholars have
demonstrated how the tax foreclosure process in Wayne County, Mich. has exacerbated racial and economic
inequality in the region, challenging specific mechanisms such as the tax
foreclosure auction and uneven implementation of water shutoffs. Their work has linked tax-foreclosures to a flurry of
private development in Detroit, with approximately one third of Detroit
tax-foreclosed homes in the auction purchased by speculative developers.
Simultaneously, large-scale real estate developers have used a “dereliction by design”
strategy to drive down land value in hopes of cornering Detroit’s real estate
market, indicating a need for increased regulation and consumer protections
from dominant market actors.

In response to these processes, policy alternatives such as
comprehensive land-banking and a moratorium on tax-foreclosures have emerged.
These ideas suggest a value of homes beyond market listings, taking into
account how foreclosures affect the long-term health of residential
neighborhoods. Meanwhile, political struggles over evictions, school closures,
and various forms of
displacement continue. This work
takes place as part of a lineage of resistance to an unjust, racialized
economic order in Detroit, from the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement’s engagement with workplace racism in the 1960s to the Detroit Alliance for a Rational Economy’s reindustrialization agenda of the 1980s, all of which
offer lessons to policy analysts.

As discussions of economic reform intensify across the country,
the potential for once again altering the national economic framework
increases. In entering this conversation, policy analysts would do well to
operate under a conception of political economy, keeping in mind these three
points. Through the process of thinking outside the conventions of public
policy, the basis for a more politically just economic order can be built.