Article 102 of the program of the Socialist Equality Party states that "However, genuine equality does not mean the rationing out of limited education and job opportunities on the basis of race or other categories. Such affirmative action policies benefit only a privileged few, while pitting white and minority workers and students against one another in a divisive struggle for jobs and college admission."
Instead of affirmative action, the SEP makes an amorphous call for "...full equality, within the framework of a massive social investment to guarantee all social needs, including free and open admission to universities."
In other words, instead of using affirmative action, a method with a 69 year track record of providing jobs and educational opportunities for African Americans, Latinos, other people of color and women of all races under real world conditions of scarce opportunities and resources, the SEP makes a utopian call for magically creating opportunities for everybody (basically so White males don't have to sacrifice any of their ill gotten gains to women and people of color).
I disagree.
The fact is, White male workers have very real privileges over women workers and workers of color and the existence of a system of race and gender preferences that benefit White male workers is the backbone of capitalism.
White male privilege is why our unions are so weak in this country and why our left is so marginal. The basis of the Tea Party movement is the defense of White male privilege. Socialism in America is impossible without a frontal assault on White male privilege, because the system of White male privilege is what ideologically ties White male workers to the capitalist system and the bosses.
To answer the often asked liberal question, "what's the matter with Kansas?" White male privilege is what's the matter!
Beyond that, the reality is, for a very long time after the triumph of a successful revolution, a workers state will be managing scarcity. It is essential that that scarcity be managed in such a way that women and people of color get our fair share of scarce resources. If an American socialist government failed to do that, they'd be doing nothing more than engaging in White American national socialism, and we do not need that.
So the SEP needs to unconditionally support affirmative action and the destruction of White male privilege in America.
Gregory, you cite "real world
Gregory, you cite "real world scarcity of opportunity" as justification for affirmative action, and deride equal access to education as utopian. Well, the SEP insists that the resources are present for high quality, universal education, as well as all of the other standards of modern life. The resources, organized rationally under socialism, could be marshaled for such a thing.
You seem to think you are a socialist, but frankly, if you think that the "backbone of capitalism" is racial privilege you know nothing of Marx. The basis of capitalism is the exploitation of labor, whether it be white, black, or Latino. Inequalities between different sections of workers certain exist, but the common tie of wage exploitation is far more powerful.
Frankly, one reason why the left is so marginal precisely because of the divisive doctrines of identity politics that you are promoting. And the weakness of unions is defense of white male privilege? Maybe you should talk to workers of any race in the UAW about why they think their union is an enemy; I'm quite sure most will say because it works on behalf of the corporations. And that stems from the nature of unions themselves.
You state again - a workers state will be managing scarcity. Says what? This is the United States in 2010, not Russia, starved of productive development under Tsarism and then thrown into years of war.
Scarcity only exists in the United States so long as the rich are allowed to monopolize wealth and social planning.