The problem isn't patriarchy - it's capitalist patriarchy

[jake williams]

Yes, the thread title is deliberately provocative. (please read before you reply).

It's also essentially the line of argument I've gotten from a friend in the Communist Party of Canada, of which I'm a member - and which, by the way, is not a Stalinist party in any way in practice. In fact, even when occasionally I meet people in it who call themselves "Stalinist", they're not in terms of the policies, activities and organizational structures they advocate - at least for the most part, no organization is perfect. Moreover, there's a pretty noticeable divide between the older members who grew up with the Soviet Union and the younger members who didn't.

I do a lot of work - in fact, it's my main day-to-day focus - with high schools and "youth liberation". Particularly my own recently former high school, but also a lot of sort of theoretical work around high schools and the politics of youth liberation.

The main project I'm working on I call student democracy - advocating for student participation in the running of that high school. There's different ways we - there's an organization quickly developing of some pretty young students - do it, I could go into it more. The point I want to bring up is a discussion I've had with this CPC member.

While he tried to be diplomatic about it, he basically disagreed with the idea that students should struggle against authority in their schools - which in their everyday experience is embodied in teachers - and for more political and democratic rights for themselves. His argument was, in many ways, that which makes up much of Marxist critique of education - that teachers are part of the working class, and so the solution for problems in schools is for teachers to have control. While that is partly the case, it's hardly the whole story.

Being a member in good standing of a communist party, he was uncomfortable with some language I was using that he felt was unduly influenced by, okay, "anarchism". It was. It was because, for the most part, Marxists have not given a fuck about youth liberation, or even teenagers, except for idealized Working Class teenagers who are founding their own industrial unions and joining a Young Communist League. Anarchists don't always either, but they tend to do it more at least (and for that matter, not always for good reasons, there are a lot of complicated and difficult questions involved about identity politics, anyway).

His sort of position was: we shouldn't be anti-authority just to be anti-authority, that's what "anarchists" do, we should be against capitalist authority - we shouldn't be for student democracy, we should be for socialist democracy. He didn't explicitly say that he disagreed with what I was/am doing, but it was kind of implied.

I think this is effectively the argument that we shouldn't be against patriarchy, but that we should be against "capitalist patriarchy". I think this is a fucking ridiculous argument, and I think virtually everyone who identifies as a Marxist or almost anyone else on the Left would disagree with it. But if you use this line of argument about high school students, it's okay.

[WhitemageofDOOM]

It's just plain ridiculous.
We shouldn't be anti-authority for the sake of it. But we should be anti-authoritarian because it is diametrically opposed to democracy.

[ZeroNowhere]

To be fair, I don't recall seeing anybody ever using an argument like that before, so perhaps it's just that it never comes up. Of course, I'm sure it would have come up more if people actually discussed the subject.

Anyways, what would you say are the implications of the fact that authority tends to be embodied in teachers? To use a comparison I have used fairly often before, teachers are like cops in quite a few ways, but fighting cops doesn't really do a whole lot to diminish the control over us (and them), and they don't really have much of a choice if they want to keep their job, so the main point should be in struggling against the people who control the teachers, rather than the cops. On the other hand, cops are also working class, but this doesn't mean that we should struggle to put them in charge. One could say that many of the people who aren't cops are working class, but this whole 'working class' fetishism is bullshit. Why does one support the working class under capitalism? Because they can overthrow it and abolish classes, including their own. How does putting teachers in charge of students help this along in any way? In fact, I would say that struggle by students for control over their schools would be more helpful towards socialism (in a way quite analogous to class struggle, in fact, though perhaps even more effective if successful, since it's for quite a lot more than higher wages and so on), as, after all, if one is to say there is a 'Marxist view of schools' (I wouldn't say there was, tbh), it would be that schools are largely training grounds for the workers of the future. And, unless we're expecting revolution in a few years, I really do not see how students fighting for control over schools is at all not productive, nor how teachers being in charge could possibly contribute more.

Also, I would be interested in something on what you guys are doing in the schools, should you decide to post on it, and good luck with it.

[gorillafuck]

To be fair, I don't recall seeing anybody ever using an argument like that before, so perhaps it's just that it never comes up. Of course, I'm sure it would have come up more if people actually discussed the subject.

Anyways, what would you say are the implications of the fact that authority tends to be embodied in teachers? To use a comparison I have used fairly often before, teachers are like cops in quite a few ways, but fighting cops doesn't really do a whole lot to diminish the control over us (and them), and they don't really have much of a choice if they want to keep their job, so the main point should be in struggling against the people who control the teachers, rather than the cops. On the other hand, cops are also working class, but this doesn't mean that we should struggle to put them in charge. One could say that many of the people who aren't cops are working class, but this whole 'working class' fetishism is bullshit. Why does one support the working class under capitalism? Because they can overthrow it and abolish classes, including their own. How does putting teachers in charge of students help this along in any way? In fact, I would say that struggle by students for control over their schools would be more helpful towards socialism (in a way quite analogous to class struggle, in fact, though perhaps even more effective if successful, since it's for quite a lot more than higher wages and so on), as, after all, if one is to say there is a 'Marxist view of schools' (I wouldn't say there was, tbh), it would be that schools are largely training grounds for the workers of the future. And, unless we're expecting revolution in a few years, I really do not see how students fighting for control over schools is at all not productive, nor how teachers being in charge could possibly contribute more.

Also, I would be interested in something on what you guys are doing in the schools, should you decide to post on it, and good luck with it.
I could see how a history teacher could be seen as similar to a cop (in that a history teacher promotes the bourgeois view of history), but how is a science teacher or a math teacher like a cop?

[jake williams]

I could see how a history teacher could be seen as similar to a cop (in that a history teacher promotes the bourgeois view of history), but how is a science teacher or a math teacher like a cop?
I went to a middle class high school in a community with a biotech-focused university. The academic science students' parents are almost entirely engineers, professors, doctors, or something similar. My school has one of the "best" science programs in the province. The politics of it is abominable. It's impossibly obvious that they're training people to be apolitical engineers who will design anything the boss tells them to. Michael Albert has talked about how MIT works, and it's basically that in high school form - you don't need engineers who want to bomb Iraq, you just need engineers who will make whatever you tell them to do.

[ckaihatsu]

He didn't explicitly say that he disagreed with what I was/am doing, but it was kind of implied.


I'm sorry to hear of this reaction from a leftist -- this kind of thing happens all too often, even within the revolutionary left. It's sectarianism, plain and simple. From what I can tell it was ego-driven sectarianism, meaning that the guy probably has much of his own being and self-worth invested in his political activism, for better or for worse.

(The other major kind of sectarianism is organizational sectarianism where a *group* differentiates itself by putting down other, like-oriented organizations over trivialities. Hey, we *are* only human here...!)





His sort of position was: we shouldn't be anti-authority just to be anti-authority, that's what "anarchists" do, we should be against capitalist authority - we shouldn't be for student democracy, we should be for socialist democracy.


When I was initially around politics I found this kind of thing to be quite frustrating -- not only are you dealing with superficial sectarianism, but you're also dealing with a mixed context of principles vs. practice, and even a mixing of *contexts* across the particular to the general -- *whew*!

So, yes, we should *not* be anti-authoritarian *in principle* because that would mean that we could *never* form any kind of organizational structure, not even our own small-group kind that remains flexible and accountable. Without *worker-driven* authority the working class essentially shoots itself in the foot, unable to leverage the advantages of organization, which include delegation, representation, task groups, roles, responsibilities, etc.

In *principle* we *are* *absolutely* against *capitalist* authority since it doesn't represent our interests as wage-earners in the least. The fact that he was emphasizing this point to you, a self-identified Marxist, could be taken as being sectarian or preachy, but I wouldn't make a big deal out of it -- it's just one of those things....

To the particulars of a school setting, I think we could say that there should be as much cooperative political organization as is practical and useful, within the bureaucratic-authoritarian school setting, as long as it isn't risking people's individual positions there within the status quo.

Any *serious* labor organizing on the part of the teachers should be formal anyway, as through trade unions and/or their caucuses.

Students should feel more free to organize on their own bases since their interests are unique to that of administrators or teachers, and they are somewhat more protected as minors, especially if they're well-organized. Students can certainly make gains in their immediate environs, while being conscious of their limitations: transient social status, lack of labor-collective power, etc.





I think this is effectively the argument that we shouldn't be against patriarchy, but that we should be against "capitalist patriarchy". I think this is a fucking ridiculous argument, and I think virtually everyone who identifies as a Marxist or almost anyone else on the Left would disagree with it. But if you use this line of argument about high school students, it's okay.


In the current, exploitative / oppressive capitalist context, we could say that the terms 'patriarchy' and 'capitalist patriarchy' are synonymous, because of the prevailing status quo of wealthy white male dominance. But, to be technical, there *is* a substantive difference between the *political term* of 'patriarchy' versus that of 'capitalist patriarchy'.

The soft left of radicals / liberals / "progressives" / reformists / Democrats subscribe to a theory of gender oppression that they *claim* is *equivalent to* capitalist exploitation and oppression. So they'll just lump it all together, as in "racism, sexism, classism". This is decidedly un-Marxist, and is an incorrect grounding as well.

I just recently addressed this topic in another thread:





[No] one can justifiably assert that class, and racism, sexism, and other oppressions, are basically equivalent. Class may be "transformed", or manifested, through avenues of racist and sexist oppression, but we cannot say the same in converse -- there is *no* objective social basis for racism, sexism, etc., because there is no *inherent* advantage, either genetically or societally, to be gained by having one kind of racial or gender background. The effects of racism, sexism, etc., are *only* manifested through commodity relations -- that is, class relations, which stem from the continuous bourgeois-elite control over the means of mass material production.


So in practice what this means is that the various oppressions of women (and other gender minorities) do not come from some kind of "maleness" in men -- they are *entirely* the result of the social position of the bourgeois elite, due to its control of the means of mass production and its exploitation of *both genders* of the working class, through the wages system. The bourgeoisie's elitism *manifests* the favoritism of certain social identities -- wealthy white men -- thereby leading to the *social oppressions* based on race, sex, ethnicity, etc.

The soft left are *not* Marxists because they do *not* accept this foundation of social oppression. They wind up fucking themselves over -- and us hard-leftists and humanity, too, as a whole -- by not *addressing* this ultimate political issue of the class divide. As a result they have no firm foundation for fighting the rule of the bourgeois class and they allow the status quo to fester, including all of the violence of gender oppressions -- a bitter irony.





I could see how a history teacher could be seen as similar to a cop (in that a history teacher promotes the bourgeois view of history), but how is a science teacher or a math teacher like a cop?


My background in secondary education reaches back to my high school and college days, and I have several years of professional experience teaching high school history. (Incidentally I never promoted the bourgeois view of history, nor did I proselytize for Marxist politics. I did, however, introduce materials at times that I thought were relevant to the materialist study of history which may have come from Marxist sources.)

In my experience I have found that the education "industry"'s institutional enthusiasm for the technical fields of math and science serve not only to engender obedience into the future workforce, but it also promotes a Western- and reductionist-biased scientific culture that is compatible with an authoritarian ideological culture.

Students, in learning about the history of established science and scientific practices, are not encouraged to think in terms of overall systems, as in the areas of chaos, complexity, and connectionism. Rather, science is presented as that which fits under a microscope, removed from the context in which it's found. Granted, this reductionistic approach to science has yielded tremendous advancements, but it has also obscured much as well.

Applied to the domain of the humanities this approach to inquiry makes people myopic, examining instances on their own, in a void, without seeking to grasp the larger-frame and longer-period historical forces that are at work.


Chris



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[Module]

I don't understand people's issues with teachers. My mum is a teacher, she couldn't be less like a 'cop' if she tried. I've never met a teacher who I thought was restricting my freedom, and I've never associated them with the police. They're just educators. Of course they educate you with what the government informs them to, but so do all public services function under government regulation.
As for 'the problem isn't patriarchy - it's capitalist patriarchy'. When I saw this topic, I just thought 'Yeah..?' 'Patriarchy' in itself, basically speaking, and 'capitalist patriarchy' really can't be meaningfully distinguished. Isn't all social discrimination encouraged by capitalist economic relationships in the first place? Is not the real problem 'Marxists' have with such discrimination that it disempowers working class people?
Issues of student democracy may be important because of the sheer importance of education, as an institution as well in itself. I couldn't agree with the suggestion, then, that countering "authority" in education is being anti-authoritarian for it's own sake.
Patriarchy, in particular, disempowers women. Economically and politically. I don't think I have to explain why you can't separate the social effects from the economic, political ones. They're inherently the same thing. Marxists, I imagine, wouldn't care (shouldn't care) about patriarchy if the political and economic effects of it were nowhere to be seen ... if they were no effects then in what sense would patriarchy still exist? The same goes for any kind of social discrimination. Your friend says one shouldn't oppose authority for it's own sake, but when does authority meaningfully exist if not in a way that maintains political, economic inequality? I don't even think "anarchists" do oppose authority for it's own sake - they don't oppose New Zealand having the best national rugby team in the world. They don't oppose people liking pop-rock more than acid jazz. What they oppose is social prejudice that has the effect of disempowering groups of people. It's obvious that this isn't 'for it's own sake'.

Teachers are undeniably working class. To treat them as the enemy to 'student democracy' is not only counter productive, but just plain ignorant. Just to refer back to examples of 'authority', as well as dominant rugby teams, the authority of teachers should also be on that list. Teachers, in 99.99% of all cases, know more than their students do. That is undoubtably also the case for the majority of 'socialist' students who scoff at every mention of Russia in the textbook and re-write the Communist Manifesto for their essay questions. Whilst I don't know the specific circumstances of your high school, jammoe, it seems obvious to me that teachers should have authority over their students, in the basic sense, because their job is to give students information, information that students just don't have.
To make the most of your education is to submit to that authority, whilst of course just using your brain and not taking everything you're taught at face value. High school in Australia left more than enough room for that to happen, and I imagine I'll find the same thing when I start college here in September. High school issues with student democracy, from what I can imagine, seem a bit... unnecessary! But I'd be interested in hearing your arguments as to why they're not.
Ugh this post has ended up being pretty long. I think I need to learn how to express simple ideas in fewer words.

[Luís Henrique]

I could see how a history teacher could be seen as similar to a cop (in that a history teacher promotes the bourgeois view of history), but how is a science teacher or a math teacher like a cop?

"Shut up and listen to what I am saying!"

"Mr. Doe, is there a reason you are not seating in your own place?"

"Ms. Doe, now explain me why haven't you made your homework."

Come on.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

If teachers are workers, period, then what are students? Raw material?

I am pretty sure that teachers are workers (I am pretty sure that cops are workers, too). But the working class is not homogeneous and unfractured. Teachers are workers, but repression is an inherent part of their work (not, evidently, as much as in cops' "work", but it certainly is).

A school "educates" in many different ways; one of them - even if certainly not the determinant one - is acquainting young people to a factory-like environment: crowded places under the direct authority of someone else (the teacher), where people compete and cooperate, with an arbitrary schedule, etc. Towards his students, the role of a teacher is similar to the role of a boss in a factory.

This is not, evidently, to say that teachers are class enemies, or that the students movement should focus in struggling their authority (though this is certainly a must in case of abusive teachers). Conditions in schools - which include, of course, issues of budgeting - are perhaps more interesting as targets of students' mobilisation; discussion on why and to what end are people being educated is also certainly a necessity.

Luís Henrique

[jake williams]

I don't understand people's issues with teachers. My mum is a teacher, she couldn't be less like a 'cop' if she tried. I've never met a teacher who I thought was restricting my freedom, and I've never associated them with the police. They're just educators. Of course they educate you with what the government informs them to, but so do all public services function under government regulation.
As for 'the problem isn't patriarchy - it's capitalist patriarchy'. When I saw this topic, I just thought 'Yeah..?' 'Patriarchy' in itself, basically speaking, and 'capitalist patriarchy' really can't be meaningfully distinguished. Isn't all social discrimination encouraged by capitalist economic relationships in the first place? Is not the real problem 'Marxists' have with such discrimination that it disempowers working class people?
Issues of student democracy may be important because of the sheer importance of education, as an institution as well in itself. I couldn't agree with the suggestion, then, that countering "authority" in education is being anti-authoritarian for it's own sake.
Patriarchy, in particular, disempowers women. Economically and politically. I don't think I have to explain why you can't separate the social effects from the economic, political ones. They're inherently the same thing. Marxists, I imagine, wouldn't care (shouldn't care) about patriarchy if the political and economic effects of it were nowhere to be seen ... if they were no effects then in what sense would patriarchy still exist? The same goes for any kind of social discrimination. Your friend says one shouldn't oppose authority for it's own sake, but when does authority meaningfully exist if not in a way that maintains political, economic inequality? I don't even think "anarchists" do oppose authority for it's own sake - they don't oppose New Zealand having the best national rugby team in the world. They don't oppose people liking pop-rock more than acid jazz. What they oppose is social prejudice that has the effect of disempowering groups of people. It's obvious that this isn't 'for it's own sake'.

Teachers are undeniably working class. To treat them as the enemy to 'student democracy' is not only counter productive, but just plain ignorant. Just to refer back to examples of 'authority', as well as dominant rugby teams, the authority of teachers should also be on that list. Teachers, in 99.99% of all cases, know more than their students do. That is undoubtably also the case for the majority of 'socialist' students who scoff at every mention of Russia in the textbook and re-write the Communist Manifesto for their essay questions. Whilst I don't know the specific circumstances of your high school, jammoe, it seems obvious to me that teachers should have authority over their students, in the basic sense, because their job is to give students information, information that students just don't have.
To make the most of your education is to submit to that authority, whilst of course just using your brain and not taking everything you're taught at face value. High school in Australia left more than enough room for that to happen, and I imagine I'll find the same thing when I start college here in September. High school issues with student democracy, from what I can imagine, seem a bit... unnecessary! But I'd be interested in hearing your arguments as to why they're not.
Ugh this post has ended up being pretty long. I think I need to learn how to express simple ideas in fewer words.
While I certainly agree with a lot of what you're saying - I agree that no one is against authority "in and of itself" - I disagree that someone who identifies as a Marxist has to simply be concerned about the relationship between patriarchy and economic exploitation within a capitalist society. It's possible, as far as I can tell at all, to have a capitalist society essentially free of patriarchy, at least hypothetically, and to have a sort of socialism which socially and/or economically oppresses women. And I think any sane person would, in the first case, prefer a capitalism free of patriarchy (insofar as is possible), and in the latter case, not accept a patriarchal socialism. For the most part, socialists worldwide are committed to eradicating patriarchy within their own movements, organizations, and understandings, and I think that's right - not in and of itself, but because of its effects on people, primarily women.

[ckaihatsu]

It's possible, as far as I can tell at all, to have a capitalist society essentially free of patriarchy, at least hypothetically, and to have a sort of socialism which socially and/or economically oppresses women.


I have to respectfully disagree here. Your statement is indicative of anarchism, not of Marxism.

Capitalist socieites can *never* be free of patriarchy and other social oppressions because capital can never be equitably distributed -- it's forever being expropriated from the surplus value being produced by labor, siphoned upwards and hoarded into greater and greater concentrations. Today we only have to look as far as hedge funds and other private capital (equity) funds to witness the build-up of gargantuan reserves of capital that would instantly turn the world's economy into the epitome of meaninglessness if the reserves were actually put into circulation.

So instead the expropriation and hoarding continues, entirely mechanistically, just so that it can maintain the practice, laboring people's lives away in the process.

It is within this machine that the elites of ownership are materially interested in maintaining a system of differentiation for those who work for them. While workers doing the same or similar work in one location will instinctively develop a sense of togetherness from their shared lives' work and common experience, the bosses will *not* benefit from the workers feeling a sense of solidarity and labor empowerment. The bosses will use all kinds of divide-and-conquer strategies, including a tiered system of job roles and compensation that favors certain racial or gender types with better-quality jobs, paying them more, for everyone to see.

These arbitrary biological and cultural differences become *reinforced* in the material layout of society, with wealthy white men enjoying a disproportionate amount of what the world has to offer, while social minorities like blacks and women (and others) experience life much differently, materially and socially.

Even if we could somehow "hit the reset switch" and start over from scratch these racist and patriarchal dynamics would re-assert themselves for the reasons stated above. In short, introducing arbitrary, petty competitions within the workforce on arbitrary, petty differences is a successful way to keep workers eyeing each other instead of realizing and acting on the fact that they're all in the same boat together, against the bosses. I suppose paying women less than men for the same work done is just *one* economic strategy, and *doesn't necessarily* have to be one used by the bosses, but in the real world I sincerely doubt that it *would* be left unimplemented.





It's possible, as far as I can tell at all, to have a capitalist society essentially free of patriarchy, at least hypothetically, and to have a sort of socialism which socially and/or economically oppresses women.


By the same token it would be *impossible* to have a sort of socialism that socially and/or economically oppressed women, as far as I can tell, because *that* would be the equivalent of "rocking the boat" in a type of society that is materially egalitarian by definition. An analogy can be made to anyone's situation in which they've found some relative measure of stability in their lives -- would they want to *experiment* with their material means, or take on a lot of unnecessary risk that could jeopardize the baseline livelihood that they're enjoying? No, and it works the same way for society as well -- once the parasitic layer of capitalists are removed humanity would know well enough to keep things on a fairly even keel throughout the whole of society. Workers wouldn't want to risk indulging sectarian, separatist political / social movements that advocated some sort of favoritism on the basis of gender.

We can reasonably conclude that a world of self-empowered workers would be loathe to see the return of petty social distinctions, especially ones that attempted to leverage special material advantages from their group identity.

It remains to be seen *how much* "social engineering" might be used by a global workers collective -- certainly an outright *ban* on sectarianism could be enforced, or perhaps such groups might just be formally ignored, as religious cults are today.





I disagree that someone who identifies as a Marxist has to simply be concerned about the relationship between patriarchy and economic exploitation within a capitalist society.




And I think any sane person would, in the first case, prefer a capitalism free of patriarchy (insofar as is possible), and in the latter case, not accept a patriarchal socialism. For the most part, socialists worldwide are committed to eradicating patriarchy within their own movements, organizations, and understandings, and I think that's right - not in and of itself, but because of its effects on people, primarily women.


Certainly we as socially progressively minded, political people do not want to perpetuate on a local level the social ills that we're fighting against in the larger society -- I think that, in practice, any given group of activists will get a sense of what each other's strengths and weaknesses are, taking into account that we've *all* been raised and conditioned in the larger racist and sexist capitalist society. I won't attempt to generalize here about how well or poorly activists are at weeding out incidents of prejudice that pop up in their own ranks -- I'd rather note that, to be precise, the term 'patriarchy' *only* applies to an *overall*, society-wide (economic) context -- not to small-scale (activist) organizations. The reason is because activist groups are ultimately voluntary, while living in the larger capitalist society is *not* up to individual discretion.

Bad situations can crop up in *all kinds* of social contexts, but what ultimately counts is the person's *material* situation -- can a woman who's being harassed, for example, escape to more peaceful accomodations, or is she in some way materially *trapped*, by poverty, to remain in a certain hazardous environment? Conditions of 'patriarchy' exist when an entire gender, *as a whole*, is trapped into overall, inescapable social conditions of discrimination and oppression.

The reason Marxists are Marxists is because of objective conditions like this one -- or because of *any* that are time-sensitive / emergency situations -- they serve to highlight and illustrate the more general *reality* of exploitation and oppression that exist in varying degrees for practically everyone who has to work for a living.

[black magick hustla]

Tbh i´ve met a ton of teachers who's lives have been made miserable by a bunch of rude student pricks to have much sympathy for the whole "youth liberation" regarding schools. Teaching is incredibly difficult, and in fact, teachers sometimes form some of the most militant workers.

My viewpoint is this. Teachers should teach whoever they want and students should go with whoever they want. In that way, teachers can kick out the students that are pieces of shit and students dont need to take the shit of asshole teachers. I just can feel the nothingness a teacher feels when entering the classroom, excited to teach some math or literature, only to realze that a lot of the students care more about talking about cars or doing sexist remarks.

[yuon]

I have to respectfully disagree here. Your statement is indicative of anarchism, not of Marxism.
I have to respectfully say that, Marxism isn't always necessarily correct.


Capitalist socieites can *never* be free of patriarchy and other social oppressions because capital can never be equitably distributed -- it's forever being expropriated from the surplus value being produced by labor, siphoned upwards and hoarded into greater and greater concentrations.
I respectfully disagree with you. (And, I'm not quite sure how your examples (not quoted) are meant to prove your point.)

Capitalism tends towards progressivism. As time passes, "liberal democracies" become more and more places where racism, sexism etc. are unacceptable. We can see that in just the twentieth century there have been huge gains in many areas.
Women, once barely able to get a job, and expected, once married, to stay at home, were able to vote, own property independently (or did that happen before the 20thC?), do almost all possible jobs on offer (if physically able) etc. And societal expectations and opinions on women have changed at the same time.

Of course, it is the case that women are still paid generally less than men (often for the same work), are still expected to be the primary career for children etc. But, it's slowly changing.

Same with racism, the USA is a perfect example of a minority 'race' ('black' folks) gradually gaining successively more rights, even to the point where a person considered by most to be 'black' has been elected to the Presidency (could not have been dreamt of 100 years ago).

There is still a lot of oppression towards queer folk, but even here, society has changed. It used to be a crime in most "liberal democracies", but now, as far as I know, is not in any of them.

Capitalism actually benefits by reducing discrimination. By having an otherwise equal workforce, intelligent people are able to be recruited no matter their skin colour or other physical characteristics.

Yes, it is true that in the short term certain capitalists benefit by being able to play off one segment of the working class against another, based on a inalienable physical characteristic, but in the long run, it's better for capitalism as a whole not to discriminate.

By the same token it would be *impossible* to have a sort of socialism that socially and/or economically oppressed women, as far as I can tell, because *that* would be the equivalent of "rocking the boat" in a type of society that is materially egalitarian by definition.
I'm not sure I agree with your reasoning, but I do agree with the conclusion. In a truly socialist society, there won't be any patriarchy.

However, it is certainly possible for there to exist racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination, even after capitalism has been done away with. That's simply because, a revolution isn't going to change people's attitudes over night. But it will happen. (Where have I heard that before?)

To put it simply, it will take time for a perfect socialist society to rise from the ashes of capitalism. But, I suspect, within two generations sexism, racism etc. will be regarded as as absurd as discrimination against left-handers is today.

[ckaihatsu]

I have to respectfully say that, Marxism isn't always necessarily correct.


Look, I'll come clean here -- the *only* reason why I'm a Marxist -- since my early college days -- is because it *is* correct. If I had the *slightest* sense otherwise and had come to the conclusion that there was still something positive about capitalism in the present day, I would be out in the streets *right now* waving a giant flag with Ayn Rand's face on it.

Having come up into the world through an education, sociology, and history background I feel like it was inevitable that I would have encountered the political realm sooner or later. So, doing my research in the process, I have come to this conclusion for myself, as well as so that I can relate to the world as it is, and *not* *project* some fictitious fantasy in front of me as I make my way through.

If Marxism *wasn't* correct I would ditch it in an instant.





Capitalism tends towards progressivism. As time passes, "liberal democracies" become more and more places where racism, sexism etc. are unacceptable. We can see that in just the twentieth century there have been huge gains in many areas.


I think you're confusing *material* progress for *political* progress -- there has been *no conscious, directed plan* to phase out social ills, not even virulent ones like poverty and AIDS -- if any improvements have been realized it's been because of *secondary* effects -- that some technologies become so refined and mass produced that their price drops, making them more economically available to more people -- but that does *not* equate to a *political* enlightenment or social progress of any sort. The *conditions* that underlie race and sex discrimination still remain intact, and so those social ills are still with us. Today we have only to look at unemployment statistics, for example, to see the rampant discrimination as it manifests in the jobs market. There are plenty of other indicators as well:





The United Nations has stated (2006) that women struggle to break through a "glass ceiling," and that "progress in bringing women into leadership and decision-making positions around the world remains far too slow."[52] The Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues, Rachel Mayanja, said, "The past ten years have seen the fastest growth in the number of women in parliaments, yet even at this rate, parity between women and men in parliaments will not be reached until 2040."[52]

The term "glass ceiling" is used to describe a perceived barrier to advancement in employment and government based on discrimination, especially sex discrimination. In the United States, the Glass Ceiling Commission, a government-funded group, stated: "Over half of all Master’s degrees are now awarded to women, yet 95% of senior-level managers, of the top Fortune 1000 industrial and 500 service companies are men. Of them, 97% are white." In its report, it recommended reverse discrimination, which is the consideration of an employee's gender and race in hiring and promotion decisions, as a means to end this form of discrimination.[53]

Transgendered individuals, both male to female and female to male, often experience problems which often lead to dismissals, underachievement, difficulty in finding a job, social isolation, and, occasionally, violent attacks against them.





Capitalism tends towards progressivism.




Women, once barely able to get a job, and expected, once married, to stay at home, were able to vote, own property independently (or did that happen before the 20thC?), do almost all possible jobs on offer (if physically able) etc. And societal expectations and opinions on women have changed at the same time.

Of course, it is the case that women are still paid generally less than men (often for the same work), are still expected to be the primary career for children etc. But, it's slowly changing.



Your theory that "capitalism tends towards progressivism" would necessitate some kind of across-the-board *consistency* in what you're saying. Just because the gender and race relations among the inhabitants of the more industrialized and economically advanced (imperialist) (Western) countries have liberalized, relative to more materially backward days, does *not* mean that the same can be said for the rest of the world. Plenty of Third World areas *still* remain un-industrialized, un-modernized, and underfinancialized, leaving their social relations as backward as those of centuries past for Western societies -- note the gender relations and work roles in any given traditional ("tribal") societies....





Same with racism, the USA is a perfect example of a minority 'race' ('black' folks) gradually gaining successively more rights, even to the point where a person considered by most to be 'black' has been elected to the Presidency (could not have been dreamt of 100 years ago).


The *key* definition here is "gain" -- exactly *how* did minorities like blacks gain successively more rights? Was it due to "capitalism's progressivism", as you've claimed here? Or was it more realistically due to the minorities' struggles for some kind of parity and social acceptance within the larger, racist society?





Even as it presented itself as the global champion of democracy and freedom, the Democratic Party depended for its electoral success on its control of the “Solid South,” which was based on its defense of racial apartheid in much of the US.

These contradictions would play a major role in the mounting crisis that beset the Kennedy administration and its successor, that of Lyndon B. Johnson, whose Great Society program of social reform collapsed under the weight of the disastrous war in Vietnam and economic problems linked to the unraveling of the post-war economic boom.

John Kennedy’s political career spanned the halcyon days of US global dominance and the beginning of the breakdown of that dominance. Kennedy was elected president in 1960 as a Cold War liberal. In the White House, he attempted to marry a program of moderate domestic reform with a more aggressive projection of American power internationally. His administration was quickly caught up in the contradictions of American capitalism both at home and abroad.

Initially indifferent to civil rights, Kennedy became embroiled in the political reverberations arising from the mass mobilization of African-Americans in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and early 1960s.

http://wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/pers-a27.shtml





There is still a lot of oppression towards queer folk, but even here, society has changed. It used to be a crime in most "liberal democracies", but now, as far as I know, is not in any of them.


Ditto for gay rights -- look at how recent a development it's been as a legitimate issue in mainstream politics. The struggle was nascent in the '60s and '70s, became more of a standard activist issue in the '80s, and wasn't really on the table in bourgeois politics until the '90s.





Capitalism actually benefits by reducing discrimination. By having an otherwise equal workforce, intelligent people are able to be recruited no matter their skin colour or other physical characteristics.


Incredible -- and you call yourself an anarchist? With *this* statement you've breezed past liberalism and are now to the right of it, making arguments that typically come from nationalists and libertarian ideologues. Do you *really* think that capitalism is a meritocracy, and that its continued existence is fueled by the "intelligence" of its workforce? If this *were* the case then there would definitely *not* be any racism, sexism -- or unemployment, for that matter....

Racism continues to be *very* well exhibited in indicators like wealth ownership, property ownership, and job titles.





Yes, it is true that in the short term certain capitalists benefit by being able to play off one segment of the working class against another, based on a inalienable physical characteristic, but in the long run, it's better for capitalism as a whole not to discriminate.


If it's "better for capitalism not to discriminate" then why are there national borders at all? Why do Western countries make *any* distinctions of "legality" or "illegality" based on national origin?





However, it is certainly possible for there to exist racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination, even after capitalism has been done away with. That's simply because, a revolution isn't going to change people's attitudes over night. But it will happen. (Where have I heard that before?)




To put it simply, it will take time for a perfect socialist society to rise from the ashes of capitalism. But, I suspect, within two generations sexism, racism etc. will be regarded as as absurd as discrimination against left-handers is today.


No, you're incorrect, and the proof is that you're basing your conception of economics on the *secondary* quality of 'social attitudes'. Economics has *nothing* to do with attitudes or individual psychology. Economics is entirely mechanistic, though mitigated by mass political movements, and is *not* composed of the aggregate of individual social attitudes.

Once a working class revolution has done away with the ruling class' economic basis for exploitation and oppression then there *will be no basis* for post-capitalist discrimination -- *everyone* will have the material freedom to go wherever they want, whenever they want, knowing that wherever they go there will always be ready access to the basic means of living, free from the constraints of private property. In this environment there would be no basis for power politics since there would be no extortion possible over people's continued healthy existence.

[jake williams]

...
I'd rep you but I can't.

To dada: cops hate their jobs too. They have to deal with "the worst people", they say; it's draining. Poor them.

[black magick hustla]

While there are cop like elements in teachers, do you honestly think teaching mathematics is the same as breaking up strikes or beating up petty thieves. :rolleyes:

Furthermore, do you think teachers are not necessary?

[jake williams]

While there are cop like elements in teachers, do you honestly think teaching mathematics is the same as breaking up strikes or beating up petty thieves. :rolleyes:
They're certainly not the same, but they're related, and they're both potential arms of state control - very different kinds of state control with significant differences, but nonetheless. There's certainly potential for radical teachers to get good things done, and education in and of itself is a necessary function of any society -


Furthermore, do you think teachers are not necessary?
I absolutely don't, and furthermore it astounds me how often the question is asked.

[black magick hustla]

They're certainly not the same, but they're related, and they're both potential arms of state control - very different kinds of state control with significant differences, but nonetheless. There's certainly potential for radical teachers to get good things done, and education in and of itself is a necessary function of any society -
literacy and free education has been a significant socialist demand throughout history. "cops in our streets" have not. A ton of teachers were socialists too - I doubt a ton of cops were. That is because there is a significant difference. I am not denying the repressive characteristics in both, but there is also an important difference. Good teachers are stepping stones, good cops are not. Good teachers care for their students, good cops do not care about their victims. A good math teacher will help you step out of your misery, a good cop not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante


I absolutely don't, and furthermore it astounds me how often the question is asked.

So what is your alternative?

[yuon]

I'd rep you but I can't.
No worries ;).


Look, I'll come clean here -- the *only* reason why I'm a Marxist -- since my early college days -- is because it *is* correct. If I had the *slightest* sense otherwise and had come to the conclusion that there was still something positive about capitalism in the present day, I would be out in the streets *right now* waving a giant flag with Ayn Rand's face on it.
Hey, so, you would go from one extreme to the other? You aren't a Marxist because you want a better society for all? You're only in it for yourself?
Crazy that you think that if Marxism is wrong, that therefore capitalism is wonderful... I think you need a little bit of empathy (just maybe...).


As for the rest, yeah, I guess I have to disagree with you here as well. I honestly think, that if capitalism survives, national boundaries will collapse (the EU is just a start).
Oh, and I don't really understand the obsession with saying that the entire world is capitalist. Sure capitalism covers the globe, but if you pick a country, it isn't necessarily capitalist. An example from Europe at the turn of the 20thC. Russia was not capitalist in 1905 (or 1917). So, neither is Afghanistan in 2009. But, pick a European country today, capitalist almost all of them, and they are progressively becoming better socially. That's a consequences of various things.
Umm, and another thing, aren't Marxists of the opinion that capitalism is more progressive than previous modes of production?

[Rascolnikova]

A school democracy should be for all the people who work there, of all ages.

[ckaihatsu]

Hey, so, you would go from one extreme to the other?


No, you're just making stuff up with *that* statement -- there are no "extremes" in anything we've discussed -- just various degrees of collectivization -- that's what society is....





You aren't a Marxist because you want a better society for all? You're only in it for yourself?
Crazy that you think that if Marxism is wrong, that therefore capitalism is wonderful... I think you need a little bit of empathy (just maybe...).


Well I appreciate the empathy, but again you're making stuff up -- I think you're forgetting that in economic terms we're all more or less the same -- we have certain infrastructure needs, and we'd like the resources necessary to pursue our personal interests. If I'm a Marxist because I want to make sure that I have a correct understanding of the world within which to operate, then by extension it goes to say that *anyone else* would *also* be helped by having a correct understanding of the world -- certainly I don't keep my politics to myself, obviously.

And -- Marxism is *not* wrong, and capitalism is *not* wonderful.





As for the rest, yeah, I guess I have to disagree with you here as well. I honestly think, that if capitalism survives, national boundaries will collapse (the EU is just a start).


No, they won't, because various sections of capital *depend* on locale-oriented government entities like the U.S. military to provide the muscle for their business dealings. Capitalist business, while somewhat cooperative, is too private-centered for it to have the incentive and initiative to want to melt away national borders altogether. There will *always* be some kind of basis for inter-entity competition over markets....





Oh, and I don't really understand the obsession with saying that the entire world is capitalist.


There is no other way to participate in the global economy except through the use of commodity-based value, or money. Sure, there may be pockets of rudimentary self-sufficiency here and there, but those local co-ops would be *very* limited micro-economies in relation to what's available on the *global* capitalist market.





Sure capitalism covers the globe, but if you pick a country, it isn't necessarily capitalist.


No, you're incorrect. I'm quite sure that there is no more autarky anywhere, for *any* country.





Umm, and another thing, aren't Marxists of the opinion that capitalism is more progressive than previous modes of production?


Well, yeah, *relatively* -- certainly it's better to have some mobility and options in picking a prospective employer than to be a slave or a serf, stuck on the master's property from cradle to grave. But the current condition of wage-slavery is *less* progressive than a global society of inter-dependent self-emancipated labor that controls humanity's means of mass production in common.

[Luís Henrique]

I have to respectfully say that, Marxism isn't always necessarily correct.

Marxism isn't "correct" or incorrect; it is a method. You can use a ruler to measure an object, and get a wrong result if you don't use it properly. You can use Marxism (or "Marxism", ie, something else with Marxist phraseology) to analyse some situation or society, and get wrong results. Especially if you apply a Marxist analysis on wrong data.


Capitalism tends towards progressivism.

No, it doesn't. It is able, to a certain point, to accept progressive influences from the working class and other social layers, but for capitalists alone, factories today would be the same as in the XIX century, with 15 hours journeys, children of 5 or 6 working, and no regulamentations on dismissals.


As time passes, "liberal democracies" become more and more places where racism, sexism etc. are unacceptable. We can see that in just the twentieth century there have been huge gains in many areas.

Capitalism != Liberal democracies.

In the present conjuncture, most capitalist countries have liberal democratic (or, better saying, social democratic, quite different from XIX century liberal democracy) governments. But by the "present conjuncture" I mean the last 30 years; it was not like that before, and we should not be so sure that it will be like that in the future. There were more "democracies" in Europe in the late XIX century than between the wars; the naïve belief of Edwardian people that progress was linear was indeed one of the causes of the 1914-18 maelstrom (see for instance The Great Illusion by Norman Angell). There were more "democracies" in Latin America between the wars than in the sixties and seventies.

All gains under "democracy" are conquests of non-bourgeois layers of society; workers, peasants, middle class, students, State bureaucrats, or specific sectors of society (women, gay people, disabled people, Jews, Blacks, etc) and have been extracted from the ruling class at great human cost.


Capitalism actually benefits by reducing discrimination. By having an otherwise equal workforce, intelligent people are able to be recruited no matter their skin colour or other physical characteristics.

Yes and no. Capitalism always needs stratification, even if it does not need necessarily any specific kind of stratification, and stratification always relies in discrimination and prejudice. You are confusing the fact that stratification became international (and you can see that the discrimination against immigrants hasn't eased at all - on the contrary - just like intervention within poorer countries internal affairs is only limited by the relative strenght of imperialist powers, not by a supposed "progressive" nature of capitalism) and so, to some extent less visible within a narrow national persperctive, with its effective reduction.


However, it is certainly possible for there to exist racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination, even after capitalism has been done away with. That's simply because, a revolution isn't going to change people's attitudes over night. But it will happen. (Where have I heard that before?)

To put it simply, it will take time for a perfect socialist society to rise from the ashes of capitalism. But, I suspect, within two generations sexism, racism etc. will be regarded as as absurd as discrimination against left-handers is today.

See, evidently personal prejudices against Blacks, Jews, gays, women, or whatever else, are perfectly possible in a post-capitalist society; but if it is effectively post-capitalist, then those prejudices cannot be either supported by State or manipulated by the accumulation of capital. And that is what effectively constitutes racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

I honestly think, that if capitalism survives, national boundaries will collapse (the EU is just a start).

They will not and they cannot. Different legislations are absolutely essential to maximise profits. It serves capital to have countries with higher living standards, where high-tech industries are located and where surplus value is increased by increasing labour productivity (ie capital intensity, relative surplus value), and countries with lower living standards, to where low-tech, labour intensive industries are moved and where surplus value is increased by increasing labour intensity/duration (ie, absolute surplus value). Both these situations (not only the former) are capitalism, and only the combination between the two constitutes capitalism/imperialism as a world system.


Oh, and I don't really understand the obsession with saying that the entire world is capitalist.Or the obsession with saying that water is composed by hydrogen and oxygen.

There may be a few pre-capitalist States (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait) rulling predominantly capitalist economies (labour in Saudi oil fields is certainly not feudal or otherwise pre-capitalist), but they certainly can only survive, even as pre-capitalist States, by fulfilling some role in the capitalist international division of labour. Oil may pay the maintenance of a semi-feudal oligarchy in these countries, but capital, and only capital, pays for oil.

There may also be some pre-capitalist local economies here and there (Afghan hinterland, etc), but these are smallish when compared even with the smallish capitalist sectors of those countries, and ruled by capitalist States.


An example from Europe at the turn of the 20thC. Russia was not capitalist in 1905 (or 1917).Russian State was a feudal autocracy. Russian economy had a still important - though dwindling - pre-capitalist sector. But all Russian industry (and Russia manufactured its own weapons in WWI) was run in a capitalist way - and a significant part of its agriculture also.


So, neither is Afghanistan in 2009.Afghan economy certainly has a relatively important (relatively because the whole Afghan economy is not really important in and of itself) pre-capitalist sector. But it also has an urban, capitalist sector. And the Afghan State is no longer pre-capitalist - nor it was under the Taliban or Najibullah.


But, pick a European country today, capitalist almost all of them, and they are progressively becoming better socially. That's a consequences of various things.

Among them, the fact that Europe has exported labour-intensive branches of production elsewhere - namely Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Southern Asia.


Umm, and another thing, aren't Marxists of the opinion that capitalism is more progressive than previous modes of production?In and of itself, yes, it is. But when it subordinates pre-capitalist modes of production, then you have the worst of capitalism combined with the worst of pre-capitalism.

Luís Henrique

[ckaihatsu]

USA: How Our Health System Screws Over Women

http://www.ippf.org/en/News/Intl+news/USA+How+Our+Health+System+Screws+Over+Women.htm