Zero Identity – Robert Kurz
In this essay, German philosopher Robert Kurz criticizes the concept of personal identity. Kurz argues that not only are identities such as "German" or "white," synthetic and socially constructed, under capitalism all of these synthetic identities are subsumed under the "absolute zero identity" of money. In other words, the only identity we truly have as capitalist subjects is our identity as money-subjects that have to earn money in order to survive. It's an important critique of modern identity politics that doesn't rely on simply declaring things like racism and sexism "secondary."
"The unbearable nature of this subject form gives rise all the more strongly to a desire for a substantive, significant, and meaningful identity that is simultaneously meant to escape the mad and ceaseless form of change or remain independent of it; but since one’s own zero-identity as a money-subject must nevertheless remain unquestioned, from now on it can only ever be a matter of synthetic pseudo-identities – in themselves and a priori untrue, laboriously propped up, and then evaporated once again by the restless nirvana of money, by the actual zero-identity."