James surpassed Trotsky by theorizing beyond labor into popular culture

Evidence

Though it is difficult to get her to say it, Sylvia Wynter confirms James’ self-assessment: “The co-evolution of new popular forms of social organization, i.e., trade union organizations, political parties, international organization, organizational forms of struggle for popular democracy with the rise of the desire for organized sports all within the decade 1860–1870 provide the basis for the Jamesian reflection on the complexity of human needs, for his implicit affirmation that the ‘realization of one’s powers’ at both the individual and the group level is the most urgent imperative of all … [it] was a conjunction that hit James, only because unlike Trotsky he had moved outside the monoconceptual Labor frame to the wider frame of a popular theoretics.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2399

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the distinction between a ‘monoconceptual Labor frame’ and a ‘wider frame of a popular theoretics’ — a key concept for locating James in the Black radical tradition.
• SEED: The simultaneity of labor organization, party formation, and organized sports in 1860-70 is a striking demographic coincidence worth an essay on popular culture as a site of political consciousness.