abolitionism is just spicy reformism: a critique
The class character of the current, police/prison-focused abolitionist movement is quite similar to that of the “classical” 18th/19th century movement it’s named after, which aimed to outlaw legalized black chattel slavery. It’s led by imperialist (or at best, empire-ambivalent) upper class professionals whose strategy & politics reflect that background. Let’s examine the political character of both movements in more detail in order to understand how & why this is true.
Across the various european-rooted empires, the classical abolitionist movement advocated for reforms which would supposedly liberate enslaved black people. This advocacy was based on humanist liberalism and did not, by and large, promote socialist politics. The following quote is how William Lloyd Garrison — considered a “radical” abolitionist for insisting slavery be outlawed immediately rather than gradually — responded to the growing socialist movement of his time:
There is a prevalent opinion, that wealth and aristocracy are indissolubly allied; and the poor and vulgar are taught to consider the opulent as their natural enemies. Those who inculcate this pernicious doctrine are the worst enemies of the people, and, in grain, the real nobility. . . . It is a miserable characteristic of human nature to look with an envious eye upon those who are more fortunate in their pursuits, or more exalted in their station.
Imperialist governments were therefore able to co-opt and absorb such movements quite easily, for example by using the crusade against slavery to justify the Scramble for Africa.
Abolitionists also just didn’t free that many people in direct actions, compared to events like slave revolts. In Philadelphia, for example, the abolitionists usually credited with attacking the system by appealing to slaveowners - most famously Quakers - in reality freed a few dozen slaves. The decline in black slavery there was mostly because the colonial city’s slaves died off without having children, & local slave traders didn’t buy many people to replace them. Not exactly liberatory.
John Brown represents another canonized hero of abolitionists both past & present. The fact that he took up arms, beginning an insurrection known today as the attack on Harper’s Ferry, makes him a figure of militant heroism, standing above others who used primarily “nonviolent” tactics to advance their cause.
Few of his contemporary fans, however, are aware that his politics were very much circumscribed by his social position as a wealthy white colonizer . He insisted on fighting under the flag of the united states (over the objections of Black ex-slaves), & also excluded women from the planning of the uprising. Even fewer are aware that Osborne Perry Anderson—the only black participant to write a memoir of the insurrection — stated in his writings that the rebellion would have spread further if Brown himself did not refuse to press against slaveowners, instead choosing to treat them delicately as prisoners & giving up the element of surprise. (The slaves themselves, naturally, were enthusiastic & wanted to go harder against their oppressors.) Even at its most militant, then, abolitionism’s politics were closely entangled with those of empire. Brown thought it would be wrong for his uprising to take advantage of any international opposition to the u.s., & as detailed above, he put the brakes on its own supposed ambitions once the sanctity of white life was challenged.
Today, we see the same thing. Abolitionists frequently criticize reformists even while they themselves lead reformist campaigns: asking (rather than forcing) the government to shut down jails, stop building new prisons, eliminate cash bail, & disband local police departments. Meanwhile, tactics like prison breaks and direct attacks on the police are generally absent from the repertoire of these loyal “rebels”.
Appealing to an imperialist state to better itself, even if you’re doing so confrontationally as many abolitionists do, is still fundamentally reformist. It’s particularly annoying how modern abolitionists—still predominantly white (but with ~BIPOC inclusion~ this time!), still generally upper class (as indicated by the omnipresence of college degrees & salaried jobs), still invested in liberal humanism (hence the hostility to theoretical approaches which center antiblackness)—choose to play the electoral politics game. They often openly campaign for “progressive” imperialists by arguing they’re voting “against” the farthest-right mainstream candidate. It’s counter-revolutionary bullshit.
So when abolitionists act shocked to see reformists coopt their tactics, like the whole "defund the police" mess, they are either being 1) ignorant of or 2) dishonest about their own history & politics. Probably a little of both.
Because the abolitionist movement, at its core, is a reformist movement. It refuses to engage with social death on its own terms, and until it does so its political horizons will have the same shortcomings as those of the past. We are already witnessing modern abolitionist “victories” which strongly resemble those of the 19th & 20th centuries: slavery by another name.
