If one were to score and order all the ideological enemies which stood in the way of workers’ self-emancipation by a ratio of the damage they caused to the subtlety of their deployment, few, if any, of those enemies would even come remotely close to the enemy of nationalism. It should then be of little surprise in this time of heightened class struggle to see new expressions of nationalism arise from the depths of bourgeois intellectualism. At a time when the U.S. has succumb to direct political control by members (not just representatives) of the ruling elite, the potential for the development of a new left working-class opposition is at the highest it has been in decades. In the past year alone, we have seen three major developments which should lead us in the general direction of cautious optimism.

Firstly, millions of young people received their introduction to politics from an aging independent Senator prone to defending socialism (albeit a concept of socialism which differs from modern state capitalism in little more than name). Secondly, and closely related, was the complete and utter disillusion of the Democratic party, the historic “working man’s party,” as a mechanism for advancing workers’ interests. Third, and finally, was the rise in national visibility of victorious movements defending and expanding the existing gains of the American working class (Fight for 15, Strengthen Social Security Coalition, etc).

This, of course, is not to say that things are good. The danger of the Trump presidency looms large over the heads of working immigrant families, low-wage workers, retired seniors, and women, for whom the right to choose is an essential component of their economic equality. As a result, what appears at first glance to be chaotic despotism ushered in by the victorious Republican party, the liberal defense wing of the capitalist class have taken it upon themselves to protect the status quo against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. Trump threatens so openly to strip the thick layers of veneer so delicately applied by his predecessors to cover up the stains of capitalism that he leaves little room for subtlety. That he is one of their own is of little concern — he has given rise to an opposition which must be thwarted at all costs.

Enter, Yes California.

In our view, the United States of America represents so many things that conflict with Californian values, and our continued statehood means California will continue subsidizing the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children.

What are these “California values” of which they speak?

Are these the values of private property, wage labor, and “democracy?” Are these the same values which enable millionaire mansions to dot the Hollywood Hills while homelessness and poverty fills the banks of Skid Row? Perhaps they are the values that have enabled the mass poisoning of school children by dangerous pesticides in the Salinas valley for years, possibly decades? Or maybe they are the values which killed Alex Nieto, Mario Woods, and Jessica Williams in one of the most “progressive” cities in the United States.

And what is the cause of these “values?”

Although charity is part of our culture, when you consider that California’s infrastructure is falling apart, our public schools are ranked among the worst in the entire country, we have the highest number of homeless persons living without shelter and other basic necessities, poverty rates remain high, income inequality continues to expand, and we must often borrow money from the future to provide services for today, now is not the time for charity.

But of course, it is our charity! For those that stand in disbelief of the notion that our charity is the cause of all our homelessness, environmental racism, and the continuous murder of black and brown people by state officials, all will be answered soon. Alas, it is not our charity to ourselves which is the issue, but our charity to the rest of the country. We have given so much to the rest of the United States that we cannot help but to discard the mentally ill, poison brown people, and fill black bodies with lead in our streets.

Like the abused spouse, we give too much and expect too little all while suffering at the hand of our beneficiary.

It’s time to leave we are told.

However, this independence referendum is about more than California subsidizing other states of this country. It is about the right to self-determination and the concept of voluntary association, both of which are supported by constitutional and international law.

We are asked to believe in the right to self-determination. But where is this right for the working class? We are not a nation, merely a majority oppressed among all nations. This self-determination is not our self-determination. It is, instead, the concept of voluntary association, for nations, wherein men and women are daily forced to sell their labor power or risk starvation, homelessness, and jail. It is the voluntary association of a particular form of our oppressor. The voluntary association to oppress.

Perhaps though we are mistaken:

It is about California taking its place in the world, standing as an equal among nations. We believe in two fundamental truths: (1) California exerts a positive influence on the rest of the world, and (2) California could do more good as an independent country than it is able to do as a just a U.S. state.

Inevitably we are informed that in order to secure our rights, we must first secure the rights of the nation. The rights of nations, we are assured, is more important, or at least a prerequisite for the rights of all humans.

But when has the rights of nations ever secured the rights of all humans? Certainly the founding of the United States secured some rights for some of its inhabitants, did it not? Of course we see that it did! It secured first and foremost the right to property, the right to enrich one’s self through the enslavement of others, the right to genocide native peoples, the right of rich white men to their hard coming, hard fought, hard won self-determination!

Rosa Luxemburg wrote in 1909 on The National Question:

If we recognize the right of each nation to self-determination, it is obviously a logical conclusion that we must condemn every attempt to place one nation over another, or for one nation to force upon another any form of national existence. However, the duty of the class party of the proletariat to protest and resist national oppression arises not from any special “right of nations,” just as, for example, its striving for the social and political equality of sexes does not at all result from any special “rights of women” which the movement of bourgeois emancipationists refers to. This duty arises solely from the general opposition to the class regime and to every form of social inequality and social domination, in a word, from the basic position of socialism.

What then should be the response of those whose duty arises solely from the general opposition to the class regime and to every form of social inequality?

Struggles for national emancipation have long been more than distractions for the international working class. They are consciously divisive mechanism which pin worker against worker arguing instead that we should join with our oppressors for the sake of “our nation.” They are a means by which to secure anew the right to oppress by some disaffected subsection of the ruling class. Where Trump vows to remove the veil, organizations like Yes California swiftly move to place it back on the heads of disillusioned workers, guaranteeing a better life and a more promising future if we would just unite, class aside, for our common national interest. We have no such common interest with our oppressors.

In order to combat this we must resist the urge to see our struggle as one with the forces of national self-determination. We must instead proclaim our continued and unified opposition to the ruling class of all nations and wannabe nations alike. Where capital moves freely across their borders, we do not. Nationalism in all its forms is not the struggle of the working class, but the struggle against the working class as a class united, a class capable of achieving its own self-determination independent of this or that national allegiance. Nationalism is the struggle for the self-determination of capital.

We, the working class, and those who stand with us must stand firm. We are against national interests; against every form of social inequality.