Two types of social contradictions — those between ourselves and the enemy and those among the people themselves confront us. The two are totally different in their nature. (Mao Tse Tung)

Intra-class income inequality, and its corresponding social contradictions, is not a simple issue, and is certainly not satisfactorily addressed by dismissing concerns in favor of a “grotesquely oversimplified conception” of a complex situation.

DSA members have really struggled with a coherent analysis of the effect of money on personal politics, with individual wealth arising as a point of criticism leveled at both organizers and endorsed candidates. Instead of engaging with the nuances specific to each circumstance, only two stances dominated the discourse: being rich is fine as long as you’re a worker OR it absolutely bars you from socialist organizing. Though opportunists switched back and forth depending on the subject being criticized, they were still (hypocritically) loyal to the binary.

The root of this struggle over individual wealth is a lack of Marxist political education, specifically on the topics of opportunism and the handling of contradictions other than class. Socialists, of course, must understand the nature of class and maintain a focus on fighting the actual enemy. We know communists “never cease, for a single instant, to instill into the working class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat…”

But Marx does not ask us to sacrifice critical examination of fellow workers, socialists, and opportunists within our organization. Refusing to do so results in infantile analysis that stunts the political development of an organization or party, and leads to the mess like recent internal disputes in DSA.

It is important to first identify the central questions being asked, and not being answered satisfactorily: Can a socialist organizer be wealthy? Do wealthy workers have the same interests as poor workers? Should we be skeptical of rich politicians? How do we reconcile contradictory material interests within a broad working class?

Obviously, the answer to the first question is: of course. The people pretending otherwise are disingenuous and not deserving of a patronizing overview of past class traitors.

The other questions are more complicated and understandably gone unaddressed by most socialist. We’re still in the beginning stages of raising class consciousness and naturally shy away from more complex analyses of contradictions. But since the topic has revealed rifts, in order to grow we should try and resolve it.