Robin Blackburn’s The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights was seen in academia as the final part of a significant trilogy on New World slavery, with an impressive empirical scope. However, Marxism’s role is not to praise scholarship for its own sake but to examine the political and theoretical assumptions behind historical narratives. In this aspect, Blackburn’s work does not embody a Marxist synthesis; instead, it reveals the gradual decline of the New Left Review environment and its shift away from revolutionary politics towards the more comfortable, conformist corridors of liberal academia.¹

The tragedy is not Blackburn’s lack of knowledge but his absence of a revolutionary perspective. Without this standpoint, the history of slavery and emancipation—arguably one of the most pivotal moments in the global capitalist development—fails to be fully understood in its world-historical context.

The New Left Review and Robin Blackburn: A Political Intellectual Symbiosis

Blackburn’s political development is closely linked to the growth of the New Left Review. Over the years, the NLR has claimed to represent “Western Marxism.” Yet, it has consistently dismissed key Marxist principles: the revolutionary importance of the working class, the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, and Trotskyism’s internationalist agenda.²

Since Perry Anderson’s early involvement with Maoism and Tariq Ali’s support for Castroism and other nationalist regimes, the NLR has been a center for various pseudo-radical movements, but it has notably excluded the essential: the autonomous political action of the working class against capitalism.

Blackburn’s commitments—like his support for the Cuban Revolution, his sympathy for “third world” nationalism, and his connections to reformist and Stalinist movements—are fundamental rather than incidental, shaping how The American Crucible is understood at every level. The book’s political stance aligns with the academic left: it uses radical language, maintains a liberal content, and generally downplays the revolutionary potential of historical materialism.

The connection between Robin Blackburn and the New Left Review is more than just biographical or institutional; it is structural. Blackburn is not a rare exception within the NLR; he embodies its core ideals. His work encapsulates the political development, theoretical evasions, and class stance of the NLR over sixty years.

To grasp Blackburn’s view on slavery and emancipation, it’s essential to recognize the NLR’s political agenda—a project that has continually favored academic radicalism over revolutionary Marxism and eclectic theory over a strategic focus on the international working class. The NLR’s fundamental contradiction is its Marxism without revolution.

From its beginning, the NLR positioned itself as the successor to a defeated and discredited left — including the Stalinist CPs, the Labour left, and the collapsing post-war consensus. However, instead of reviving revolutionary Marxism, it developed a hybrid approach: Marxist in language, anti-Trotskyist politically, nationalist in sympathies, academic in style, and pessimistic about the working class. This was the NLR’s original sin — attempting to analyse capitalism without seeking to overthrow it, critiquing the system without forming a movement to dismantle it. Blackburn entered this environment not as a dissident but as a loyal architect. With an erudite, cosmopolitan, and empirically strong intellectual persona — qualities highly valued by the NLR — his work’s political content nonetheless reveals the limitations of that milieu.

A hostility to the revolutionary proletariat

The NLR’s suspicion of the working class is not occasional but fundamental. From Anderson’s initial structuralist approaches to Nairn’s nationalist theories, the journal persistently dismisses the Marxist idea of the proletariat as the agent of history. Blackburn reflects this stance by concluding history prior to the rise of the working class. There is a notable fascination with nationalist and Stalinist regimes.

The NLR’s fascination with Cuba, Vietnam, Algeria, and other “Third World” nationalist projects influenced Blackburn’s own political views. He tends to see emancipation more as a national-moral saga than as a class revolution, aligning with liberal human-rights discourse—a form of academic radicalism. By the 1980s, the NLR had become a hub for world-systems theory, post-Althusserian structuralism, and post-colonial critique, all of which replaced class struggle with abstract theory. Blackburn’s focus on “human rights” as a key concept reflects this ideological shift.

The NLR’s Ideological Drift and Its Impact on Blackburn

The NLR’s development can be outlined in three stages, each aligning with Blackburn’s intellectual growth: first, Western Marxism (1960s–70s), which focuses on philosophy and culture rather than revolutionary class struggle, reflecting Blackburn’s early work on slavery that is rich in theory but limited in political strategy.

Second, Academic Leftism (1980s–90s), where the journal becomes a centre for academic radicalism increasingly disconnected from the working class, paralleling Blackburn’s emphasis on structural analysis over class agency. Third, Liberal Human-Rights Marxism (2000s–present), with the NLR adopting NGO perspectives, global civil society, and the moral framework of human rights. “The American Crucible” epitomizes this stage, recounting emancipation through the lens of liberal ideology.

Why Blackburn Cannot Produce a Marxist History of Emancipation

Blackburn’s work reflects a lack of political perspective rather than intellectual deficiency. Since he shares the NLR’s core beliefs, he cannot anchor emancipation in the fundamental conflict between free and enslaved labor, see the enslaved as revolutionary agents, view the Civil War as a bourgeois-democratic revolution, or understand the rise of the modern working class from slavery’s abolition, nor recognize the Civil War’s role in the global evolution of capitalism. Instead, he replaces these with human rights instead of class struggle, moral progress instead of revolutionary breakages, national histories instead of internationalist analysis, and academic neutrality instead of political engagement. This is not coincidental but logically follows from the NLR’s gradual departure from Marxism and the Political Meaning of the Blackburn–NLR Synthesis.

The Blackburn–NLR nexus illustrates a wider trend: the post-1960s left evolving into a professional-managerial class embedded in universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions. This group criticizes capitalism but does not oppose it fundamentally, praises resistance without mobilizing it, and references Marxism while dismissing its revolutionary aspects. Blackburn’s trilogy on slavery exemplifies this political and intellectual formation.

The Fetish of “Human Rights”: Liberal Ideology in Radical Dress

Blackburn’s explicit use of “human rights” as the main framework to interpret the end of slavery clearly reflects this retreat. The subtitle—Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights—is intentionally chosen, indicating a theoretical surrender rather than neutrality.

The language of human rights is not a universal liberation doctrine. Instead, it serves as the legal ideology of the bourgeois system. As Marx showed in On the Jewish Question, the Rights of Man primarily protect the rights of the individual property owner, emphasizing the egoistic rights of a person separated from others and the community.”³ To elevate this ideology to the status of historical motor is to invert the real relationship between class struggle and its ideological forms.

Blackburn’s framework conceals a crucial truth: the abolition of slavery was not merely driven by humanitarian ideals. Instead, it resulted from a fierce conflict between opposing social systems—free labor and slave labor—that could no longer coexist. The enslaved people, through widespread resistance and the general strike from 1861 to 65, compelled this issue to the forefront of history.⁴ The capitalist North, compelled by military necessity and class interest, destroyed a rival ruling class based on slave property. This was not a moral awakening. It was a revolution.

The Civil War: A Revolution Without a Revolutionary Analysis

Blackburn recognizes the revolutionary nature of the Civil War, but his approach diminishes its class significance. His perspective aligns with the “New Historians of Capitalism,’ emphasizing the economic integration of the North and South and minimizing their fundamental social conflicts.

This is a profound distortion. The Civil War was not a fratricidal misunderstanding among capitalists. It was, in William Seward’s famous phrase, an “irrepressible conflict.”⁵ As Marx wrote in Capital, “the veiled slavery of the wage workers in Europe needed, for its pedestal, slavery pure and simple in the new world.”⁶ The destruction of that pedestal was a world‑historical act that reshaped the global trajectory of capitalism.

Blackburn’s failure to emphasize the fundamental clash between free and enslaved labor causes him to overlook the revolutionary role of the enslaved and the importance of the Union victory. The Civil War was the most significant social revolution of the 1800s. Considering it merely as part of the development of “human rights” diminishes its true significance.

The Vanishing Working Class: A Political Omission with Theoretical Consequences

The key omission in Blackburn’s narrative is the working class itself. His account concludes with emancipation and Reconstruction, yet the end of slavery marked only the start of a new phase. From the wreckage of the slave system and the growth of industrial capitalism arose the modern American working class—comprising both Black and white individuals, native-born and immigrant.

The great strike waves of the 1870s, the rise of industrial unionism, the formation of the CIO in the 1930s—these were not peripheral developments. They were the dialectical resolution of the contradictions unleashed by the destruction of the slave power.⁷ The working class, not the discourse of human rights, is the engine of historical progress.

Blackburn’s framework has no place for this. And this omission is not accidental. It reflects the NLR’s longstanding hostility to the revolutionary role of the proletariat. A history of slavery that cannot account for the emergence of the working class is not a Marxist history. It is a liberal history with radical footnotes.

 What a Marxist Analysis Requires

A genuinely Marxist account of slavery and emancipation must begin from the following premises: Slavery was integral to the rise of capitalism, not a pre‑capitalist residue. The enslaved were central agents of their own liberation, not passive recipients of humanitarian benevolence. The Civil War was a social revolution, rooted in the clash between incompatible labour systems. The destruction of slavery set the stage for the emergence of the modern working class. Human rights discourse is an ideological form, not the motor of historical change. The international working class is the decisive revolutionary force. These principles are absent from Blackburn’s work because they are absent from the political tradition to which he belongs.

Conclusion: The Necessity of Revolutionary Marxism

The American Crucible is a thorough scholarly work, but it doesn’t present a Marxist analysis. Instead, it shows the tiredness of the New Left Review tradition, which has replaced revolutionary politics with academic radicalism and shifted from human-rights liberalism to class struggle. Marxism’s role isn’t to dress up liberal ideas with history, but to expose the class forces shaping history and equip the working class with the awareness needed for liberation. To do this, one should look not to Blackburn, but to Marx and Engels, to Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction, to classical Marxist historiography, and especially to the ongoing tradition of the Fourth International.¹⁰.

FOOTNOTES

1. Robin Blackburn, The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights (London: Verso, 2011).
2. Perry Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism (London: Verso, 1976).
3. Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” in Early Writings, trans. Rodney Livingstone (London: Penguin, 1992), 234.
4. W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860–1880 (New York: Free Press, 1998), esp. ch. 4, “The General Strike.”
5. William H. Seward, “The Irrepressible Conflict,” speech delivered October 25, 1858.
6. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1976), 925.
7. Philip S. Foner, History of the Labour Movement in the United States, vol. 1 (New York: International Publishers, 1947).
8. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944).
9. Leon Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution (New York: Pathfinder, 1969).
10. David North, The Civil War in the United States and the Birth of the American Working Class (Oak Park: Mehring Books, 2016).

Pip: If you have ever wanted someone to untangle the historiographical knot tying slavery to capitalism — and then explain why the knot was tied wrong in the first place — freerein61 has a piece for you.

Mara: This episode follows that argument through the debate over modes of production, the American Civil War, and what it all means for how the left thinks about race and class today. Let's start with the core historical question — slavery, capitalism, and whether they belong in the same analytical box.

Slavery, Capitalism, and the Problem of Historical Categories

Pip: The question at the center of this piece is deceptively simple: was slavery a form of capitalism, or was it something structurally distinct? The answer, it turns out, has real consequences for how we understand the Civil War and racial oppression today.

Mara: The post opens by situating David McNally's book against the New Historians of Capitalism and the 1619 Project, both of which argue that American capitalism is deeply linked to racial slavery. The piece credits McNally with more precision than either — but still finds him guilty of the same core error. The charge is laid out plainly: his framework involves "collapsing slavery and capitalism into a single system."

Pip: And the stakes of that collapse are not abstract. If the two systems are the same thing, the Civil War stops making sense — there is no fundamental conflict to explain, just an internal dispute within one system.

Mara: The Marxist framework the post defends rests on distinguishing modes of production by their social relations. In slavery, the producer is property; labour-power itself is not a commodity. Marx put it directly in Capital: "the labourer himself is sold as a commodity," whereas in capitalism "the worker sells his labour-power." Those are different structures, not variations on one.

Pip: The post uses a sharp analogy to drive this home: Manchester manufacturers buying cotton from slave plantations does not make those plantations capitalist, any more than medieval merchants buying wool from feudal estates turned those estates capitalist. Exchange relations and relations of production are not the same thing.

Mara: Marx and Engels applied exactly this distinction in real time. Writing for Die Presse in 1861, Marx described the South as embodying "a specific mode of production based on slavery," and Engels called the planter class a "quasi-feudal aristocracy" with interests fundamentally opposed to the northern bourgeoisie. Their Civil War writings — over fifty articles and letters — treated the conflict as a revolutionary clash between two different social systems, not a family quarrel within one.

Pip: The political implication the post draws is pointed: if slavery is framed as capitalism, then racial oppression looks like a permanent feature of American life rather than a historically specific form of domination rooted in particular social relations — a framing that, the post argues, quietly aligns with identitarian politics rather than class analysis.

Mara: The conclusion holds McNally's book in genuine respect for its empirical depth and its engagement with Marx on primitive accumulation, while insisting that serious Marxist historiography requires keeping these categories clean. Blurring them, however well-intentioned, obscures both the revolutionary significance of emancipation and the mechanisms of oppression that followed.

Pip: Which is to say: precision in historical categories is not pedantry — it is the difference between a framework that can explain the world and one that cannot.

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Mara: The thread running through all of this is that how we categorize the past shapes what we think is possible in the present.

Pip: Right — get the categories wrong and the Civil War becomes inexplicable, and the left loses its analytical footing. That tension between historical clarity and political urgency seems like exactly the kind of thing worth returning to next time.

Abstract

This article critically examines David McNally’s Slavery and Capitalism: A New Marxist History (2020) within the broader discussion of slavery’s connection to capitalism. While McNally seeks to distinguish his view from the “New Historians of Capitalism” (NHC) and the racialist elements of the 1619 Project, his approach ultimately exhibits a common flaw: merging slavery and capitalism into a single, unified system.¹Building on classical Marxist theory, especially the concept of modes of production, this article argues that McNally’s framework conceals the fundamental differences between enslaved people and capitalist relations and fails to fully account for the origins or revolutionary importance of the American Civil War. It concludes by emphasising the importance of preserving clear analytical categories in Marxist historiography.

Introduction

The connection between slavery and capitalism has become a hotly debated topic in recent history. The emergence of the NHC in the 2010s, along with the 2019 launch of the New York Times’ 1619 Project, triggered a surge of research claiming that American capitalism is deeply linked to racial slavery.² Historians of the Civil War era have criticised these works, asserting that merging slavery and capitalism blurs the fundamental differences between them and makes the Civil War harder to understand historically.³

David McNally’s ‘Slavery and Capitalism’ positions itself as a deliberate Marxist critique. He aims to address what he perceives as the shortcomings of both the NHC and specific Marxist interpretations, which, according to him, draw an overly strict line between slavery and capitalism. His main argument is that slavery was not separate from capitalism but a fundamental part of its rise as a global system, especially in the context of cotton production for British industrial growth.⁴

This article contends that, although McNally’s empirical input is valuable, his analysis ultimately replicates the conceptual collapse typical of the NHC. By focusing on how slave-produced commodities are integrated into global markets, McNally conflates slavery as a mode of production with capitalism as a separate social system.⁵ This blurring carries important historiographical and political implications, especially for grasping the essence of the American Civil War and the mechanisms of racial oppression in the contemporary United States.

The Historiographical Context: The NHC and the 1619 Project

The NHC, including experts like Sven Beckert, Edward Baptist, Walter Johnson, and Matthew Desmond, contends that slavery was not just a leftover from pre-capitalist times but actually played a key role in driving the growth of American capitalism.⁶ Their work highlights the managerial strategies, productivity measures, and global commodity networks that connected the plantation South with the industrialising North and British textile manufacturing.

Critics observe that this method depends more on analogy than detailed analysis. James Oakes contends that the NHC “effectively erase the fundamental differences between the two systems” by emphasising only superficial similarities in commercial practices.⁷ The outcome is a historical account where the Civil War appears inexplicable. If slavery and capitalism are fundamentally the same system, then the underlying reason for the North-South conflict disappears.

The 1619 Project popularised this framework, arguing that racial slavery is intrinsic to American capitalism and that the country’s founding principles are based on racial dominance.⁸ Although McNally does not support the racial essentialism promoted by the 1619 Project, his work is influenced by the historiographical landscape it has helped shape.

McNally’s Intervention: A “New Marxist History”

McNally’s book seeks to reshape the understanding of the link between slavery and capitalism through a Marxist lens. He cites Marx’s concept of primitive accumulation, emphasising that colonial slavery and the transatlantic slave trade were pivotal episodes in the violent sequence of events that set the stage for capitalism’s development.⁹ McNally argues that cotton produced by enslaved people was crucial to the rise of British industrial capitalism, framing slavery as a pivotal part of the development of the global capitalist system.

This argument provides valuable insights. Marx indeed recognised the importance of colonial plunder, such as slavery, in the development of capitalism.¹⁰ McNally correctly highlights that capitalism’s roots are intertwined with centuries of global violence, dispossession, and forced labour, rather than arising in isolation. However, the central question remains whether slavery should be considered a form of capitalist production, not merely whether it contributed to capitalism’s development. This is where McNally’s argument becomes weaker.

Modes of Production and the Problem of Conceptual Precision

Classical Marxism differentiates modes of production based on their core social relations. In slavery, the direct producer is treated as property; labour-power itself is not a commodity. In capitalism, the worker is legally free and sells their labour-power on the market.¹¹ These differences create distinct economic laws of movement, class organisations, and political behaviours. The enslaved individual in the South existed within a slave society. Wealth was rooted in human property, the economy was relatively conservative technologically, and a planter aristocracy dominated the class structure, with interests opposed to those of the northern bourgeoisie.¹² The capitalist North, by contrast, developed based on free labour, industrialisation, and the expansion of an internal market.

McNally’s focus on incorporating slave-produced cotton into global markets causes him to blend these distinctions. However, being part of a world market does not define how the cotton is produced. Merchant capital has historically shown no concern for the social systems involved in trade.¹³ Manchester manufacturers buying cotton from slave plantations does not make the plantations capitalist, just as medieval merchants purchasing wool from feudal estates does not turn those estates capitalist. By confusing exchange relations with relations of production, McNally undermines the analytical framework necessary for Marxist historical analysis.

The Civil War and the Consequences of Conceptual Collapse

The merging of slavery and capitalism profoundly impacts how we interpret the American Civil War. If slavery is viewed as a form of capitalism, then the North-South conflict appears as an internal struggle within the same system, rather than a revolutionary clash between fundamentally different modes of production.¹⁴

This interpretation cannot explain the secession of the slave states, the political economy of the planter class, the industrial and demographic bases of Union victory, or the revolutionary nature of emancipation. Marx himself acknowledged the Civil War as a revolutionary conflict between free and enslaved labour.¹⁵ To collapse the two systems into one is to obscure the historical significance of the war and to undermine the Marxist understanding of its causes and consequences.

Marx, Engels, and the American Civil War: Capital, Free Labour, and the Revolutionary Destruction of Slavery

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels closely examined the American Civil War, creating over fifty articles and letters from 1861 to 1865 that analysed the conflict, its class struggles, and its international implications.¹⁶ Their writings represent the most comprehensive engagement by nineteenth-century socialist thinkers with the issue of slavery and its link to capitalism. Unlike modern views that see slavery as a form of capitalism, Marx and Engels emphasised the fundamental differences between the two systems. They viewed the Civil War not as an internal conflict within capitalism but as a revolutionary clash between two different modes of production: slave labour and free wage labour.¹⁷

Marx and Engels on Slavery as a Distinct Mode of Production

Marx’s analysis of slavery is based on his overall theory of modes of production. In Capital, he differentiates slave labour from capitalist wage labour through the nature of property relations. In slavery, “the labourer himself is sold as a commodity,” while in capitalism, “the worker sells his labour-power.”¹⁸

This distinction was not just legal but structural, influencing how accumulation, production, class relations, and political structures developed. Marx and Engels often pointed out that enslaved individuals in the South were not capitalists. In a 1861 article for Die Presse, Marx described the South as embodying “a specific mode of production based on slavery,” with its expansion driven by the limitations inherent in slave labour.¹⁹ Engels, writing to Marx in 1862, described the planters as “a quasi‑feudal aristocracy” whose economic interests were fundamentally opposed to those of the northern bourgeoisie.²⁰ This analytical distinction is central to their interpretation of the Civil War.

Free Labour and the Dynamics of Capitalist Development

In the mid-1800s, Marx and Engels regarded the North as the most advanced example of capitalism. Its industrial expansion, expanding domestic market, and reliance on free wage labour demonstrated its clear alignment with the process of capitalist accumulation.²¹

Marx argued that free labour was the necessary foundation of capitalist development because it created a mobile, commodified labour‑power and compelled constant technological innovation. Slave labour, by contrast, was economically stagnant, technologically conservative, and dependent on territorial expansion to maintain profitability.²² This divergence produced a structural antagonism between North and South.

The Civil War as a Revolutionary Conflict Between Modes of Production

Marx and Engels viewed the Civil War as a revolutionary conflict between opposing social systems. In an 1861 article, Marx described the conflict as “a war of two social systems,” emphasising it was more than just a political disagreement.²³ The South aimed to maintain a slave-based economy, while the North, despite initial doubts, was driven by the conflict’s logic to abolish slavery. Engels was clearer, stating in an 1863 letter that the war would “necessarily lead to the abolition of slavery,” as the Union couldn’t defeat the Confederacy without disrupting its economic basis.²⁴ This interpretation stands in stark contrast to contemporary frameworks that treat the Civil War as a conflict internal to capitalism.

Emancipation and the Transformation of the War

Marx praised the Emancipation Proclamation as a pivotal step in the revolution. In his 1863 speech for the International Working Men’s Association, he stated that Abraham Lincoln had “inaugurated a new era of the ascendant working class. .²⁵ Emancipation changed the war from merely defending the Union into a revolutionary attack on slavery. Marx and Engels highlighted the active role of enslaved people, pointing out that widespread self-emancipation—such as fleeing to Union forces, stopping work, and fighting—was crucial in weakening the Confederacy.²⁶.

VI. The Global Significance of the Civil War

Marx and Engels regarded the Civil War as a significant moment in world history. They believed that abolishing slavery in the United States would eliminate a major barrier to the growth of the global labour movement.²⁷ Engels noted that the British working class overwhelmingly supported the Union despite the cotton famine, demonstrating the international solidarity of labour against slavery. This solidarity was, for Marx and Engels, evidence that the struggle against slavery was inseparable from the struggle for socialism.²⁸

Marx and Engels Against the Collapse of Historical Categories

Marx and Engels’ analysis sharply differs from modern interpretations that conflate slavery and capitalism into one system. Their works emphasise the structural differences between enslaved people and the capitalist modes of production, highlight the revolutionary significance of the Civil War, and underline the importance of free labour in the development of capitalism.²⁹ To treat slavery as capitalism is to negate the theoretical foundations of their analysis and to render the Civil War historically unintelligible.

Marx and Engels’ writings on the American Civil War represent a highly detailed analysis of slavery, capitalism, and revolutionary change in nineteenth-century political thought. Their focus on the fundamental conflict between enslaved people and capitalist modes of production provides clarity that remains vital in modern historiography. At a time when the line between slavery and capitalism is becoming increasingly unclear, their analysis offers a solid alternative based on historical materialism. It emphasises the revolutionary importance of the Civil War and reaffirms the essential role of free labour in the development of capitalism.

Political Implications: Race, Class, and the Contemporary Left

The breakdown of the connection between slavery and capitalism in historiography has political implications. If slavery is seen as a form of capitalism, then racial oppression appears as a permanent aspect of American society, rather than a historically specific form of domination rooted in particular social relationships.³⁰ This framework aligns, however unintentionally, with the racialist politics that have gained prominence in contemporary liberal and pseudo‑left circles.

McNally’s political background within the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) is significant here. The ISO’s politics were influenced by the interests of the professional-managerial class, frequently substituting racial categories for class analysis. Although McNally’s scholarship is more precise than the ISO’s public messaging, his analytical approach still tends to blur class boundaries and align with dominant ideological trends.³¹

Conclusion

David McNally’s Slavery and Capitalism is a serious and ambitious contribution to a contentious field. Its empirical material is valuable, and its engagement with Marx’s analysis of primitive accumulation is welcome. However, its conceptual framework ultimately reproduces the NHC’s central weakness: collapsing slavery and capitalism into a single system.

A Marxist historiography must maintain clear analytical distinctions between modes of production. Only by doing so can it adequately explain the origins and dynamics of the American Civil War and provide a coherent framework for understanding the persistence of racial oppression in the modern United States. McNally’s “New Marxist History,” despite its intentions, represents a retreat from this clarity.

ENDNOTES

1. David McNally, Slavery and Capitalism: A New Marxist History (London: Verso, 2020), 3–5.
2. For an overview of the NHC, see Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (New York: Knopf, 2014); Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 2014); Walter Johnson, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).
3. James Oakes, The Scorpion’s Sting: Antislavery and the Coming of the Civil War (New York: Norton, 2014), 12–15.
4. McNally, Slavery and Capitalism, 27–30.
5. Ibid., 41–45.
6. Beckert, Empire of Cotton; Baptist, Half Has Never Been Told; Johnson, River of Dark Dreams; Matthew Desmond, “To Understand the Brutality of American Capitalism, You Have to Start on the Plantation,” New York Times Magazine, August 14, 2019.
7. Oakes, Scorpion’s Sting, 14.
8. Nikole Hannah‑Jones, “Our Democracy’s Founding Ideals Were False When They Were Written,” New York Times Magazine, August 14, 2019.
9. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1976), 915–926.
10. Ibid., 915.
11. Marx, Capital, 270–72.
12. Eugene D. Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery (New York: Pantheon, 1965), 7–12.
13. Robert Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre‑Industrial Europe,” Past & Present 70 (1976): 30–75.
14. For a critique of this collapse, see Charles Post, The American Road to Capitalism (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 45–52.
15. Karl Marx, “The North American Civil War,” Die Presse, October 20, 1861.
16. See the collection in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Civil War in the United States (New York: International Publishers, 1937).
17. Marx, “The North American Civil War.”
18. Marx, Capital, 271.
19. Marx, “The North American Civil War.”
20. Friedrich Engels to Karl Marx, June 1862, in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 41 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1986), 389.
21. Marx, Capital, 713–15.
22. Ibid., 716–20.
23. Marx, “The North American Civil War.”
24. Engels to Marx, January 1863, in MECW, vol. 41, 453.
25. Karl Marx, “Address of the International Working Men’s Association to Abraham Lincoln,” January 1863.
26. W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935), 67–108.
27. Marx, “Address to Lincoln.”
28. Engels to Marx, February 1863, in MECW, vol. 41, 470.
29. Marx, Capital, 270–72; Engels to Marx, June 1862.
30. Adolph Reed Jr., “The Limits of Anti‑Racism,” Left Business Observer 121 (2009).
31. For a critical history of the ISO’s political evolution, see Paul D’Amato, The Meaning of Marxism (Chicago: Haymarket, 2006), though the ISO’s later racial‑political turn is better analysed in Reed, “Limits of Anti‑Racism.”

Pip: A Trumpet of Sedition arrives this week with a piece that asks whether "sex work is work" is a rallying cry or a concession — and then spends several thousand words explaining why it might be both.

Mara: freerein61 is working through the Marxist critique of how capitalism turns intimacy into a commodity, and what the reformist left gets wrong when it tries to fix that from the inside.

Pip: Let's start with where bourgeois reformism runs out of road.

The Limits of Bourgeois Reformism on Sex Work

Mara: The central tension here is between two ways of responding to the commodification of intimacy: regulate it better, or abolish the conditions that produce it. The post argues that reformist frameworks — however sympathetic — can only ever do the first.

Pip: The critique lands hardest on Benjamin Weil's Baffler piece, which the post reads as a well-meaning document that never escapes its own premises.

Mara: The framing is direct: "Weil's suggestions essentially amount to requesting that the capitalist state better oversee the exploitation it already oversees."

Pip: So the problem isn't that Weil is wrong about the facts — it's that diagnosing inequality within a platform economy and then asking the state to fix it leaves the engine running.

Mara: Exactly, and the post extends this to the "sex work is work" slogan itself. The argument is that defending against criminalisation is legitimate, but the slogan stops short of the deeper question — not whether selling sexual services counts as work, but what kind of social system makes selling your body a survival strategy in the first place.

Pip: The OnlyFans example does a lot of work here. The post calls it capitalism in its most current and pure form — employer responsibilities stripped out, risk transferred entirely to the individual. Calling that democratisation of pornography is, to put it charitably, optimistic.

Mara: David Walsh's analysis of Kate Nash's turn to OnlyFans gets brought in to make this concrete — not as a curiosity about one musician, but as a symptom of a society that neglects its artists until financial desperation makes the decision for them.

Pip: And then there's the NGO-academic "sex-positive" industry, which the post treats as the ideological arm of the same system — rebranding coercion as agency, economic desperation as entrepreneurship.

Mara: The post puts it plainly: terms like "agency," "choice," and "bodily autonomy" mask underlying coercion. The Marxist counter-position, drawing on Engels, is that prostitution and the commodification of sexuality are products of class society and private property — not fixed features of human life, and not correctable by better regulation.

Pip: Reform contains capitalism's contradictions. It doesn't resolve them.

Mara: That's the post's closing line of argument: the task isn't to make exploitation more humane, but to dismantle the social relations that make it structural. Legislation can't do that. A socialist reorganisation of production, the post argues, is the only framework that removes the economic pressure at the root.

Pip: Which leaves the question of what comes after the critique — and that's territory for another episode.

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Mara: The through-line this week is about what reform can and cannot reach — and where the boundary sits between managing a system and replacing it.

Pip: Next time, we'll see what other contradictions freerein61 finds worth naming. There's no shortage of candidates.

Today, The Guardian serves more as an ideological hub for a privileged, self-satisfied professional-managerial class than as a traditional newspaper. Its editorial stance is driven not by the needs of the oppressed or working people, but by the concerns, ambitions, and economic interests of a narrow social group whose wealth and status rely on the stability of capitalism.1

Identity politics serves as the common language within this environment. It acts as an ideological tool that dissolves class conflicts, replacing them with a moral classification based on identities, privileges, and ‘‘positionalities.’’ The Guardian has adopted this perspective as a comprehensive interpretive model—one that accounts for everything except the fundamental structure of capitalist society. Consequently, the publication consistently champions notions of ‘‘justice’’ while upholding the social system that prevents true justice from being achieved.2

The Guardian’s identity-politics framework is based on a straightforward yet politically impactful idea: that race, gender, and sexuality are the main factors shaping social life, not class. This idea is not only incorrect but also reactionary in its political implications. 3

By framing social conflict as a clash between identity groups, the Guardian conceals the core opposition between the working class and capitalists. It shifts from material analysis to moral judgment, from structural critique to therapeutic talk, and from political action to personal confession. This isn’t a mere coincidence but a reflection of the interests of a class that stands to lose much.

The Guardian’s racial discourse operates as a closed system, with core assumptions left unchallenged: that racial identity is a crucial political factor, that whiteness has a longstanding influence, and that the working class—especially its largest part—is inherently suspicious. In this view, social progress is attributed to elite-led “representation” rather than widespread activism. As a result, the working class is often seen as problematic—regarded as too backward, provincial, “privileged,” or overly white. The Guardian’s writers usually discuss workers with a mix of fear and condescension, akin to Victorian liberals’ view of the “dangerous classes.”

The Guardian’s approach to identity politics tends to erase historical context. It overlooks key events like the interracial strikes of the 1930s, the CIO’s extensive organising campaigns, multiracial alliances in the civil rights movement, and the integrated struggles of miners, autoworkers, and dockworkers. It also ignores the global history of socialist and anti-colonial movements rooted in class solidarity. Recognising these facts would mean accepting that racial divisions are not fixed or impossible to overcome—that, through struggle, the working class has repeatedly bridged racial divides.

Instead, the Guardian advances a historical narrative that portrays racial oppression as the only driving force in American and British history, while rendering class struggle invisible or disguising it as racial conflict. This is not true history; it is mythology used to suppress political engagement. The Guardian’s focus on identity politics serves a key political role: it redirects social anger from the capitalist system onto the working class itself.

By framing white workers as the main barrier to progress, the Guardian provides a convenient scapegoat for liberal capitalism’s failures. This perspective helps the Democratic and Labour Parties, along with their wealthy supporters, avoid facing their own roles in austerity, war, inequality, and the dismantling of public services. Identity politics then serves as a moral excuse for a political elite that has long abandoned even superficial social reform. Consequently, the Guardian’s editorial stance benefits the ruling class by dividing and demoralising workers, reducing their political activism, while leaving the fundamental structures of capitalist power intact.

The Class Basis of Grundy’s Argument

This is why the paper favours academics like Saida Grundy. Her thesis—that white workers are inherently reactionary—mirrors the worldview of The Guardian rather than being an isolated view. Saida Grundy, a sociologist at Boston University, exemplifies the ideological stance of the current professional-managerial upper class. Rather than offering true scholarship or sociological analysis, her article acts as a political tool aimed at dividing the working class. Its goal is to “sow division, contempt, and fatalism,” serving as a pseudo-intellectual justification for the Democratic Party’s shift away from class-based politics towards racialist frameworks.

Grundy’s argument is based on the material interests of the wealthy upper-middle class she represents. Her claim that white workers “choose racial domination over putting food on the table” is not only factually questionable but also mirrors the political fears of a social group that depends on maintaining capitalism and suppressing class consciousness.

This argument aligns with a broader ideological view that emphasises racial identity over class as the main focus of political analysis. It weakens universalist politics and portrays most of the American working class as inherently reactionary. This perspective favours a privileged group that views both white and non-white workers with distrust and hostility.

The Falsification of Electoral Reality

Grundy argues that white workers mostly vote Republican because of racial hostility. However, this claim is based on misleading and biased data. The main story of the 2016 U.S. presidential election was not the large number of white workers switching to Trump, but rather the nearly 99 million eligible voters who abstained, reflecting widespread disillusionment with both capitalist parties. Among those who did vote, economic issues were the dominant concern.4

The 2020 election highlights the limitations of the racialist narrative.5 Joseph Biden’s wins were mostly among white workers, especially those without college degrees. Conversely, Trump saw increased support from wealthier African American, Latino, and LGBT voters. These patterns suggest that economic class, not racial identity, is the key factor influencing voting behaviour. Grundy’s framework misses this fact, as it relies on dismissing class differences and replacing them with racial essentialism. This approach aligns with the Democratic Party’s political aims and the social groups it represents.6

The Cynical Abuse of W.E.B. Du Bois

Grundy references W.E.B. Du Bois’s idea of the “psychological wages of whiteness” to bolster her argument. However, this use significantly warps Du Bois’s original Marxist analysis.7

In Black Reconstruction in America, Du Bois contended that the Southern elite used the concept of a “public and psychological wage” to persuade poor whites to accept their economic exploitation.  Importantly, Du Bois saw this as a tactic by the ruling class to hinder interracial working-class unity.8

Grundy challenges this analysis by framing the “psychological wages” as an inherent trait of white workers, rather than as a historically specific tool used by the bourgeoisie. This shift not only distorts Du Bois’s argument but also removes its revolutionary significance. The document highlights that Grundy’s reinterpretation is effectively “a betrayal of Du Bois’s Marxist method.”

Erasing the History of Interracial Class Struggle

Grundy’s narrative reflects the racial essentialism seen in the 1619 Project, portraying American history as an ongoing lineage of white supremacy and omitting the importance of class struggle.

This depiction is historically incorrect. U.S. history features many instances of working-class solidarity across races, such as the CIO’s extensive organising in the 1930s, multiracial wildcat strikes post-World War II, and civil rights-era movements driven by socialist and labour activists.9

These episodes show that racial divisions, though real and historically important, are neither fixed nor insurmountable. Eliminating these divisions is essential for Grundy’s argument, which relies on depicting white workers as naturally opposed to progress. As the document notes, recognising this history would “expose the bankruptcy of her racial essentialism.”

The Political Function: Justifying the Democrats’ Rightward Turn

Grundy’s article functions more as a political statement than an academic analysis. Its goal is to defend the Democratic Party’s emphasis on Wall Street, intelligence agencies, and the affluent upper-middle class.10

If white workers are viewed as hopelessly racist, the Democratic Party need not prioritise their economic issues. Instead, it can continue to support the financial elite while advocating for “racial justice.” This approach advantages a privileged social segment that fears the working class more than the far right. The Guardian is central to this strategy, acting as a hub for racialist politics promoted by the professional-managerial class.

The Socialist Alternative

This article challenges racialist myths by emphasising the unity of the American working class, described as “the most diverse in the world” and including people of all races, nationalities, and backgrounds. Their commonality lies not in their individual identities but in their shared relationship to the means of production. Socialists seek to build a movement that bridges racial gaps and promotes the collective class interests of all workers. Racialist ideas—whether promoted by The Guardian, the Democratic Party, or the identity-politics scholarly industry—are employed by the ruling class as tools to prevent the development of a united, politically conscious working class.

The solution to Trumpism is not to demonise white workers, but to build a revolutionary socialist party that can lead the working class in its fight against capitalism.

Notes

1.   “It is not scholarship. It is not an analysis. It is a political weapon aimed squarely at the working class…”

2.   Ibid.

3.   For analysis of identity politics as a class ideology, see Adolph Reed Jr., Class Notes (New York: New Press, 2000).

4.   “The abstention of 99 million eligible voters…”

5.   See Pew Research Centre, “Voters’ Issue Priorities in 2016,” 2016.

6.   “Biden’s gains came from white workers… Trump increased his support among wealthier African American, Latino, and LGBT voters”.

7.   W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860–1880 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935), 700–701.

8.   “This is a falsification of history and a betrayal of Du Bois’s Marxist method”.

9.   See Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990).

10.See Jeremy Brecher, Strike! (Boston: South End Press, 1997).

Introduction: The World Cup as a Mirror of a Disintegrating Social Order

Few events in culture draw the worldwide focus of the FIFA World Cup. Every four years, billions of viewers watch a month-long event that, on the surface, seems to go beyond politics, social class, and national conflicts. It is promoted as a global celebration of humanity, emphasising talent, creativity, and shared happiness. However, behind this glittering surface, an undeniable truth persists: the World Cup has evolved into a powerful symbol of the deepening crisis within global capitalism.

Jonathan Wilson’s recent history of the tournament, together with the admiring review it received in the London Review of Books, assembles a devastating record of corruption, authoritarianism, and human suffering. They recount Mussolini’s 1934 fascist pageant; Videla’s Argentina, where the cheers of crowds drowned out the screams of the tortured; the thousands of migrant workers who perished in Qatar; and the grotesque spectacle of the Trump–Infantino axis presiding over the 2026 tournament, with ICE agents patrolling stadiums and entire national teams subjected to humiliating visa restrictions.

However, the liberal approach in these critiques makes them politically ineffective. They list abuses but fail to identify their root causes. They highlight corruption without explaining why it is widespread. They criticise the ‘politicisation’ of sport but neglect to recognise that, under capitalism, sport is inherently political. This leads to moralistic complaints that do nothing to challenge the social system itself.

A Marxist perspective holds that the World Cup is not tainted by capitalism; rather, it is a manifestation of capitalism itself. Its development mirrors the history of the capitalist system, ranging from imperialist expansion and fascist mobilisation to post-war rebuilding, neoliberal globalisation, and the current authoritarian decline of bourgeois democracy. Analysing the World Cup offers insight into the broader world that shaped its existence.

The World Cup as Commodity-Spectacle

The modern World Cup developed during the rise of monopoly capitalism in the early 20th century. As Marx noted in the Grundrisse, the growth of capital leads to the “generalisation of commodity relations across all areas of life.” Originally a working-class pastime, sport quickly became a commodity—its worth now measured not by enjoyment but by profit-making.

By the mid-20th century, the World Cup had evolved into a global spectacle driven by several factors: the expansion of mass media broadcasting, the integration of sports into advertising and consumerism, the dominance of multinational corporations, the geopolitical rivalry among imperial states, and the commercialisation of leisure time. Its economic framework is closely tied to political aims, serving as a tool for capital accumulation and perpetuating bourgeois ideology. Behind the festive public image, the event masks underlying social relations like exploitation, coercion, and state violence, turning them into a symbolic celebration that hides these realities.

This explains why every effort to “clean up” FIFA is destined to fail. The corruption isn’t just a flaw; it serves as the system’s way of managing a worldwide commodity spectacle in a world divided by inequality.

FIFA as a Transnational Bourgeois Apparatus

Many liberal commentators continue to see FIFA as a once-virtuous organisation betrayed by corrupt officials. However, historical evidence shows the opposite. Since its early days, FIFA has operated as a para-state entity aligned with the global bourgeoisie, serving as an intermediary among imperial powers, emerging capitalist leaders, authoritarian regimes seeking legitimacy, multinational corporations hunting for markets, and media conglomerates seeking content.

The evolution from Havelange to Blatter and Infantino signifies a structural transformation rather than a moral decline. With the rise of global capitalism into its neoliberal stage, FIFA grew more centralised, financially dependent, reliant on authoritarian hosts, intertwined with geopolitical tactics, and increasingly detached from democratic oversight.

Assigning tournaments to Mussolini’s Italy, Videla’s Argentina, Putin’s Russia, and the Qatari monarchy reflects not just rare exceptions but the natural result of an institution that transforms political influence into economic gain, and economic gain into political legitimacy.

The Trump–Infantino alliance epitomises this development. The 2026 World Cup marks the first to explicitly embody the convergence of oligarchic wealth, authoritarian state power, xenophobic nationalism, militarised policing, and the suppression of political dissent. The disturbing image of Infantino handing Trump a massive ticket to the final—“row 1, seat 1, ticket no. 45/47”—is more than a curiosity. It symbolises the new political landscape: the world’s most popular sport has been taken over by the most reactionary segments of the global elite.

The Working Class: From Invisible Victim to Revolutionary Subject

A notable aspect of liberal commentary on the World Cup is how it largely omits the working class as an active political force. The migrant workers who died in Qatar, the displaced residents of Rio’s favelas, the shack dwellers evicted in Cape Town, and the North Korean labourers building stadiums in St. Petersburg are all depicted solely as victims, rather than as agents with agency.

This is not an oversight; rather, it is a political necessity for bourgeois journalism, which may reveal abuses but cannot recognise the social force capable of ending them. A Marxist perspective emphasises that the migrant worker in Doha, the favela resident in Rio, the shack-dweller in Cape Town, the stadium labourer in St. Petersburg, and the fan priced out of 2026 are not isolated victims. Instead, they are part of a single, international class. Their exploitation is systemic, not accidental, and their suffering is integral to the functioning of global capitalism.

The working class pioneered modern football by building stadiums, producing players, and cultivating the culture that turned the sport into a global phenomenon. The takeover of football by oligarchs and authoritarian regimes reflects the larger trend of social life being appropriated by finance capital. The goal isn’t just to reform FIFA but to rally the working class as a revolutionary force to reclaim both sport and society from capitalist control.

Nationalism as Bourgeois Ideology

Wilson’s cultural analysis of national football styles—such as Argentina’s pibe mythology, Brazil’s futebol arte, and Dutch totaalvoetbal—is perceptive but not comprehensive. It views national identity mainly as a form of cultural expression rather than as a political tool.

Nationalism in sport isn’t a vibrant tradition but a bourgeois ideology that serves specific functions: to obscure class conflicts, divert collective emotion from political struggles, legitimise the nation-state as the core of capitalist growth, divide workers with shared interests, and provide a controlled outlet for aggression and identity. The ‘black-blanc-beur’ myth of 1998 and the racialised accusations of 2010 aren’t contradictions but different expressions of the same ideological toolset. The ruling class uses multicultural symbols when convenient and racial scapegoating when advantageous. Both serve as instruments of control.

The World Cup serves as a key tool for promoting nationalist ideology today. It makes workers experience their collective emotions primarily as Argentines, Brazilians, or Englishmen—not simply as members of a global class.

The 2026 World Cup and the Authoritarian Degeneration of Capitalism

The 2026 tournament signifies a significant shift. The merging of sport, state violence, and oligarchic influence has advanced to a point where liberal illusions are now outdated. Some notable features include: ICE agents stationed at stadiums, Iranian players banned from spending a night in the US, Haitian players ordered to remove symbols commemorating Napoleon’s defeated slave-reimposition army, Somali referees detained for eleven hours and expelled, dynamic pricing excluding the working class, and Trump threatening military action against co-host Mexico while accepting a “Peace Prize” from Infantino. This is not an anomaly but the logical culmination of a process that has been developing for decades: the authoritarian decline of global capitalism. The World Cup now serves as a stage on which the crisis of bourgeois democracy is vividly displayed.

Historical Case Studies: The World Cup as a Political Instrument of Capitalist Rule

1934: Mussolini’s Fascist Pageant and the Birth of the Political World Cup

The 1934 World Cup in Italy is often dismissed as an embarrassing anomaly—perceived as a moment when an authoritarian regime politicised the event. However, it actually marked the first explicit display of the tournament’s political role within a capitalist context. Benito Mussolini viewed the World Cup as an instrument of statecraft. The fascist government organised mass rallies, choreographed crowds, militarised police, propaganda posters, diplomatic pressure on referees, and intimidation tactics aimed at opposing teams. Their goal was to turn the tournament into a showcase of national unity and imperial ambition. Italy’s victory was not just a sporting achievement but a carefully staged celebration of fascist ideology.

The idea that FIFA was “helpless” before Mussolini is proved false upon closer examination. FIFA actively collaborated with the regime, with officials praising its “efficiency” and “organisation.” The tournament showed that, from its early days, the World Cup could be exploited by authoritarian regimes because its centralised, opaque, and commercially driven structure made it susceptible to political influence. The 1934 tournament wasn’t an exception; it revealed the true nature of the World Cup’s vulnerability to political misuse.

1978: Videla’s Argentina and the Counterrevolutionary Function of Sport

The 1934 World Cup showed its susceptibility to fascist influence, while the 1978 tournament in Argentina exposed how it also served the counterrevolutionary strategies of the bourgeoisie. After a US-backed military coup in 1976, the Argentine junta, which took power, was responsible for 30,000 disappearances, organised torture, the killing of trade unionists, students, and left-wing militants, and suppressed all democratic rights. The World Cup was a key part of the junta’s political plan to internationalise the dictatorship, build national unity, silence the voices of the tortured within the ESMA detention centre near the stadium, and shift social unrest into nationalist fervour.

The junta’s interference in the tournament grew grotesque. The notorious 6–0 win over Peru—achieved through diplomatic pressure, economic incentives, and military threats—was a political move by the regime. It secured Argentina’s place in the final and gave the dictatorship a symbolic victory amid worsening economic conditions. The 1978 World Cup was more than just “tainted”; it was a covert counterrevolutionary effort. It showed that the tournament could serve both to legitimise authoritarian governments and to suppress revolutionary movements.

3. 2014: Brazil, Neoliberalism, and the Militarisation of Urban Space

The 2014 World Cup in Brazil exemplified the integration of the tournament into the neoliberal framework. While the Workers’ Party (PT) government promoted it as a symbol of national progress and global stature, it actually functioned as a testing ground for urban militarisation and the displacement of impoverished communities. This included the forced eviction of over 200,000 residents, destruction of informal housing, deployment of militarised police forces, creation of “exclusion zones” near stadiums, criminalisation of protests, and the transfer of billions in public money to private firms.

The PT government, praised by Western liberals as a model of “progressive governance,” functioned as an agent of FIFA and the Brazilian bourgeoisie. It used tear gas, rubber bullets, and mass arrests to suppress widespread protests. The favelas were militarised under the guise of “pacification.” The 2014 World Cup exposed neoliberalism’s true nature: the merging of corporate influence and state violence, the commercialisation of public spaces, and the prioritisation of global capital over social needs.

2018: Putin’s Russia and the Normalisation of Authoritarian Capitalism

The 2018 World Cup in Russia received widespread praise from Western journalists for its “smooth organisation” and “friendly atmosphere.” However, this praise was not just naive; it was politically motivated. It helped normalise Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian capitalist regime and hid the social conditions that enabled the tournament to take place.

The Russian state used forced labour, including North Korean workers, along with mass surveillance and suppression of political opposition. It also cleared homeless populations from city centres and built stadiums amid corruption and exploitation. The tournament aimed to: restore Russia’s international image following the annexation of Crimea, strengthen Putin’s political legitimacy domestically, showcase the ability of an authoritarian capitalist regime to organise large-scale events, and deepen Russia’s integration into global financial markets.

The enthusiastic coverage of the 2018 tournament exposed the ideological failure of Western journalism. It demonstrated that authoritarian regimes are often justified—sometimes even praised—when they produce a spectacle that aligns with FIFA’s commercial goals and entertains the middle class.

2022: Qatar and the Apotheosis of Oligarchic Power

The 2022 World Cup in Qatar marked a significant shift in the event’s political and economic landscape. An authoritarian government did not just host it; it was supported by a labour system that can be characterised as neo-slavery. Construction workers faced a tragic toll, with over 6,500 migrant workers dying during the process. The event was built on practices such as the kafala system—binding workers to their employers, confiscation of passports, unpaid wages, extreme heat, hazardous working conditions, suppression of trade unions, and criminalisation of dissent.

Qatar spent more than £200 billion on the tournament, exceeding the GDP of many nations. This wasn’t a reckless spend but a calculated move by a petro-monarchy aiming to gain geopolitical influence, international legitimacy, integration into Western security frameworks, economic diversification, and to strengthen its ruling elite. The 2022 World Cup exemplifies how modern tournaments serve as platforms to turn human suffering into geopolitical leverage and commercial gain.

2026: The Trump–Infantino Axis and the Authoritarian Degeneration of Bourgeois Democracy

The 2026 World Cup, jointly hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada, signifies a political shift in the tournament. It is the first to openly reflect the merging of oligarchic wealth, authoritarian government, xenophobic nationalism, militarised policing, and suppression of dissent. During the Trump era, the tournament has become a stage for ICE agents monitoring events, Iranian players being banned from overnight stays in the US, Haitian players ordered to remove symbols honouring Napoleon’s defeat, Somali referees detained for eleven hours before expulsion, and pricing strategies excluding the working class. Trump has also threatened military action against co-host Mexico while accepting a “Peace Prize” from FIFA’s Infantino.

The shocking image of Infantino handing Trump a large ticket to the final—“row 1, seat 1, ticket no. 45/47”—is more than just an oddity. It symbolises the decline of global capitalism into authoritarianism. The 2026 World Cup is not a break from its past; it represents its inevitable culmination.

Looking at these six instances—1934, 1978, 2014, 2018, 2022, 2026—the pattern is clear: the World Cup consistently serves as a political tool for the ruling class throughout different stages of capitalism. The World Cup is not corrupted by capitalism. It is capitalism.

Marxism, Sport, and Ideology: Why a Marxist Theory of Sport Is Necessary

The liberal perspective views sport as a pure domain—an independent cultural space driven by merit, creativity, and fairness. When issues such as corruption, exploitation, or authoritarianism arise, they are seen as external influences. The goal of this approach is to “shield” sport from political interference.

Marxism starts from a different assumption. Sports, like all aspects of society, are influenced by the material conditions of their creation. It is not an independent domain but a social relationship intertwined with capitalism’s economic, political, and ideological systems. To grasp the significance of the World Cup is to understand: the commodification of leisure, the perpetuation of bourgeois ideology, the function of the nation-state, the global division of labour, the methods of social control, and the contradictions inherent in capitalist modernity.

Sport and the Commodity Form

Marx’s analysis of the commodity form provides the foundation for understanding modern sport. Under capitalism, human activity becomes a commodity—something produced for exchange rather than for its intrinsic value. Sport is no exception.

The transformation of play into a commodity

In pre-capitalist societies, games served as communal recreation. With capitalism, they transformed into: ticketed events, broadcast products, advertising platforms, vehicles for corporate sponsorship, and instruments of state diplomacy. The athlete becomes a commodity, with their labour bought and sold. Fans become consumers whose emotional ties are monetised. The match itself becomes a product, its value realised through broadcasting rights, merchandise, and worldwide distribution.

Just as commodity fetishism hides the social relations of production, the sporting spectacle masks several realities: the exploitation of workers, state violence, capitalist interests, and ideological control mechanisms. The World Cup is presented as a celebration of unity, yet it relies on migrant workers’ labour, displaces people with low incomes, and reinforces oligarchic power.

Obscuring class antagonisms

Sport serves as a symbolic space where class conflicts are projected onto harmless rivalries. Workers facing exploitation at work are often encouraged to identify not with their class but with a club, a nation, a team, or a star player. This form of identification masks the genuine conflict between labour and capital.

The World Cup serves as a potent means of reproducing nationalist ideology today. It converts the nation-state—originally a tool of capitalist dominance—into a source of emotional pride. Workers from different countries, who share similar interests, are led to view each other as competitors. In reality, workers do not have a direct conflict; their ruling classes do. 

Sport is not an escape from capitalism but a key tool of capitalism. The World Cup exemplifies the influence of global capitalism’s political, economic, and ideological systems, rather than being tainted by politics.

Conclusion: The Socialist Reappropriation of Sport

The World Cup at the End of Capitalist Modernity

It is hoped that the reader concludes from this article that the World Cup is not an anomaly within capitalist society but a concentrated expression of it. Its history—from Mussolini’s fascist mobilisation in 1934 to the Trump–Infantino authoritarian spectacle of 2026—reflects the evolution of global capitalism: the ascent of imperialism, the consolidation of monopoly capitalism, the use of mass spectacle as a political tool, the neoliberal commodification of all aspects of life, and the authoritarian decline of bourgeois democracy.

The World Cup exemplifies capitalism worldwide: a spectacle based on exploitation, controlled by oligarchs, sanctioned by governments, and watched by a public whose enthusiasm is more about national pride than class struggle. The liberal criticism that “football has turned political” overlooks history; football has always held political meaning. What changes is the current phase of capitalist decline in which this politicisation happens.

The Working Class as the Agent of Reappropriation

The working class isn’t just a victim of the injustices surrounding the World Cup; it is also the origin of modern football and the key social force to reclaim it. Modern football developed from Britain’s industrial working class, the communal culture of factory towns, the collective rhythms of proletarian life, and the desire for recreation amid exploitation. The sport’s beauty—its spontaneity, creativity, and collective intelligence—stems from working-class culture. Today, the working class constructs stadiums, produces players, fills stands, creates the atmosphere, sustains the global fanbase, and provides the labour that makes matches possible. Meanwhile, the oligarchs who dominate football offer nothing culturally; they only extract value from it.

The working class must reclaim the game.

Reclaiming football is intertwined with the wider fight for socialism. It involves expropriating FIFA, ending the profit motive in sports, establishing democratic control over sporting institutions, enforcing international labour standards, dismantling nationalist competitions, and transforming sport into a public good. This is not an impractical ideal but the logical outcome of the historical analysis outlined in this article.

4. What a Socialist Reorganisation of Sport Would Mean

A socialist transformation of sport would not abolish competition or eliminate excellence. It would liberate them from the distortions of capital. Under socialism, sport would become: a form of collective self-expression, a means of physical and cultural development, a site of international cooperation, a public good accessible to all.

The beauty of football—the creativity of the dribble, the intelligence of the pass, the collective movement of the team—would no longer be subordinated to the demands of profit, nationalism, or authoritarian spectacle.

Internationalism instead of nationalism

The socialist reorganization of sports would shift focus from nationalist rivalry to international cooperation, aligning with the true interests of the global working class. The Argentine and English workers are not enemies; their oppressors are. A socialist sports culture would reveal this reality instead of hiding it. As Peter Schwarz mentioned in the WSWS’s critique of the Qatar World Cup, “Cultural progress and genuine sport, which are unaffected by commerce, are only achievable through the fight for socialism.” This statement is factual, not just rhetoric. To restore the true essence of the game, we need revolutionary change, not nostalgia, moral appeals, or reform.

The task ahead

The socialist reclaiming of sport is part of a larger effort to expropriate the oligarchy, abolish the profit-driven system, dismantle the nation-state, build an international socialist movement, and reorganize society around human needs. Football belongs to all of humanity and must be taken back by the people.

The current shape of the World Cup stands as a symbol of capitalist decline. However, the passion it evokes—manifested through collective joy, creativity, and shared humanity—transcends capitalism. It demonstrates that ordinary people can craft beauty, solidarity, and purpose even amid exploitation.

Socialism’s goal is to free these abilities from capital’s control. The working class created modern football, keeps it running, and must take it back. Only through global socialism can the beautiful game and the world that cherishes it be truly enhanced.