The Johnson-Forest Tendency, radicalising Gunnar Myrdal’s American Dilemma

Abstract

One of the studies that influenced US policies on race and integration the most after the second world war is Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma from 1944. At the time of publication, it received much praise from leading intellectuals, including W. E. B. Du Bois and the novelist Richard Wright. In this article, however, the author explores a neglected Marxist critique of Myrdal’s work by Raya Dunayevskaya, who then worked closely with C. L. R. James and Grace Lee Boggs in the Johnson-Forest Tendency (JFT). In addition to criticising Myrdal’s liberal position, the JFT developed a critique of class reductionist Marxists. Hence, this article examines the JFT’s critique of Myrdal’s An American Dilemma as a resource to advance further Marxist debates on the relationship between race and class today.