I may mean a number of different things. But none of them has much to do with anarchism.
At times, term “classism” shows up in a row of various evils “activists” are against – for example a group declares that they are “against racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, ablism and classism”. Apparently such groups and initiatives come from certain (liberal) anti-discrimination activist paradigm, but also want to put themselves to vaguely anti-capitalist context. However such declarations fail to do that, as capitalism has nothing to do with classism, that is, “discrimination on base of the class”.
Anarchism has two cornerstones – freedom of individual and mutual aid. Unlike such political theories as liberalism, fascism and social-democracy, anarchism does not admit any fundamental contradiction between these two. Because anarchism is for individual freedom, just as liberalism, anarchism is obviously against racism, sexism, homophobia and ablism as these constitute hindrances to free development of individuals – but these are also hindrances against mutual aid as any prejudices divide working class and humanity in general. Liberalism, as ideology of capitalism, is however not concerned about mutual aid. Ideal society of liberalism is a total survival of the fittest between “free individuals”, where only skills of individuals matter, not their backgrounds. Of course there exists also left-wing liberalism, but it is not really an ideology but rather a self-contradicting compromise between social-democracy and liberalism, endlessly oscillating between the two. In the end of the day, “equal opportunities to everyone” is a fundamentally capitalist idea – everyone should be allowed to participate to the race where one out of million becomes a billionare and all the rest will eat shit all their lives.
Is capitalism for classism? No it is not.
If by classism we understand class division, this is obviously something individual capitalists try to maintain in order to preserve their own interests. However system as a whole needs to exploit enterpreneurship skills of everyone who has them, not just skills of those who got capital by heritage. There is nothing anti-capitalist from making it from poverty to riches, actually system needs such stories both for its legitimization and renewal. Class mobility is no any fundamental problem for capitalism, as for any upward movement there will be corresponding downward mobility. Actually, any hindrances of class mobility in developed capitalism are not due to capitalism itself, but either due to efforts of individual capitalists, due to external restraints or due to residues of the previous system which was fundamentally based on restricting class mobility, that is, feudalism. And to some extent these residues are still here, for example some UK capitalists come from families which date their privileges back to Norman conquest.
If by classism we understand wage differentials between workers and CEO's, the whole concept is just nonsense. Corporations do not pay workers less because they are “prejudiced” against workers, they pay workers less because that helps them to make more profit. And when it is profitable to pay more, they will – best football players may earn millions but they are still workers. Some, even many bosses may hate workers, but this has nothing to do with capitalism – it is rather a feudalist mindset which is a hindrance to capitalism.
Capitalists may use vicious ways to play workers against other, but again in most of the cases it is nothing personal – just for the profit. In general, capitalism has nothing against workers as such as long as workers do not block capital accumulation. And even if workers organise, that may be beneficial for capitalism as a whole as long as self-organisation happens on purely economical, business union terms. In suitable economic situation, increased wages gained by collective action of workers only boost economy and make capitalism more healthier (however due to increased external constraints of capitalism those days of Keynesian accumulation may be now gone for good).
Individual capitalists often engage to activities which benefit themselves alone or are just plain irrational, but are harmful to capitalist system as a whole: they form cartels, evade taxes, mislead shareholders, sack workers just because they do not like them, cut wages which makes recession more severe etc. However, one should never confuse these typical capitalist deeds with the system as a whole. For system as a whole, ideal capitalist has nothing against workers, and he is always eager to pick most ambitious and skilled amongst them to be future foremen, managers, shareholders and even executives.
However is such an “anti-classist” capitalist any better than his crony class equivalent? From point of view of a liberal definitely yes, from point of view of an anarchist there is no difference between them. Capitalist is always protagonist of the ruthless, exploitative system which will always benefit only few and keep majority at the bottom. Capitalist who got rid of his feudalist or other prejudices, is no any better than any other capitalist.
Sometimes capitalists may promote racism or sexism in order to divide workers – however they need such methods only if threatened by a mass action of workers, racism and sexism as such have no any value for capitalism. Migration barriers may benefit some individual capitalists, but fundamentally it is not capitalists but workers of the developed countries who hope to protect their short-terms interests by voting for anti-migration candidates and supporting anti-migration initiatives. And of course, there are times when capitalism is temporarily using prejudices in their own interests in order to decrease workforce in times of economic downturn. Women are agitated to be housewifes, blacks were forced to go back to cotton fields (19th century method) or just put to prison (21th century method), migrants are deported and all this is legitimized by sexist and racist mainstream media. However, capitalism is based on necessity of accumulation of capitalism, thus no matter how inevitable recessions are in capitalism, they are always just a temporary setbacks. In the end of the day, capitalism must integrate everyone to a highly mobile and flexible, ever-enlarging system of production – this is why fundamentally capitalism is neither racist, nor sexist, anti-migrant, homophobic, ablist or even classist, quite a contrary.
Anarchism does not want to get rid of prejudices towards workers or towards capitalists. It is perfectly normal to dislike working-class existence, as there is nothing satisfying in it. It is also perfectly normal not to like capitalists – their personal qualities do not matter as long as they are exploiters. Anarchists want to get rid of the capitalist class as whole. Although anarchists do not want to kill individual capitalists , they want to get rid of that relation of production. Thus anarchists are not only prejudiced against capitalists as a class, we want to get rid of all of them. Thus anarchism is perhaps most classist theory of them all.
Thus groups and initiatives which refer to “classism” both misrepresent goals of anarchists and fail to get rid of the liberal, pro-capitalist “anti-discrimination” theoretical framework where their roots are. Of course, such terms could be of use when discussing with people who first become politically aware while influenced by some liberal one-case initiatives, we should reach out to these people just as much to everyone else. But in the end of the day concept of “classism” confuses issues, as capitalism not just one form of discrimination. If even anarchists do not understand what capitalism is about, we may never get rid of it. Thus next time you come across with people referring to “classism” or “anti-classism”, please point them to this text.
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I've had problems with that word too, but the way I've seen it used in a group is more of the internal dynamics thing. Such as, judging someone by their class background and treating them negatively because of it. This type of stuff comes up pretty constantly in student organizations where members that come from a more affluent background shut down, belittle or ignore the words and efforts of those from a lesser well off background. While maybe 'classism' isn't the perfect word to describe this, this problem exists.