Marxism as a "totality" or being too reductionist about social oppression?

[KurtFF8]

Over at PoFo, I often have arguments with other Marxists about whether or not Marxism is too "reductionist" about social oppression. For example, most of the Marxists there view Feminism as necessarily liberal or even reactionary, tied up with ideology.

I originally claimed that not all forms of social oppression can be reduced to a class analysis citing the need for things like Feminism to explain specific forms of oppression like oppression tied in with gender. While since I originally began making this argument (and even to a large extent, while I was originally making this argument), I don't/didn't view these other forms of oppression as unrelated or autonomous from capitalist oppression. For example, the oppression of women takes specific material forms, thus it was radically different under Feudalism than under Capitalism.

While I hold to historical materialism quite strongly, I feel that understanding specific forms of oppression help to add our understanding of social change, and thus don't require a substitution of historical materialism for anything like Feminism. Here's the post I made at PoFo:

So I'd like to rehash this argument briefly (especially considering I apparently never even responded to the last criticisms directed at my posts).

I wanted to return to this subject because I was reading an article by Paul Patton titled Marxism and Beyond: Strategies of Reterritorialization (http://books.google.com/books?id=rtpgMCVSopIC&pg=PA123&lpg=PA123&dq=marxism+and+beyond+strategies+of+reterritoriali zation&source=bl&ots=LlwURlizAG&sig=20cKVzz12EgIUEwNIqiTXRcFoIQ&hl=en&ei=-IwyS4e3EpqutgfB9qz8CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAA) where he argues that Marxism attempts to be a "totality" of explanation for social structures, leaving no room for things that Marxism cannot itself explain. So for example, he views Feminism as a more specific, localized attempt to explain a plight of a social group that strict class analysis cannot fully explain.

There's one section that I found particularly interesting in the article though:


One of the ways in which marxism's position as the "master discourse" of human emancipation is maintained is by the tacit privileging of its own perspective in debates with others. Where they are not condemned for failing to respect marxist criteria or assumptions, the positions of feminists, black activists, or environmentalists are reinterpreted in marxist terms, their political and theoretical priorities reordered according to marxism's own causal hierarchy. From the standpoint of those who do not share the commitment to marxism, this is a completely circular process of argument. It is, nevertheless, a powerful technique for enforcing adherence to the faith, commonly deployed, for example, against feminists who take the social relations of patriarch, rather than the social relations of capitalism, as their analytic point of departure. The possibility that both kinds of explanation together might enrich our understanding of society is not entertained: "For historical materialism, causal pluralism cannot be supported."

Now I reject the overall conclusion of Patton's article (it is worth a read though), as he comes to the conclusion that Marxism should cease to become a totality of explanation of discourse. I do, even though you may believe me to be a humanist or a revisionist, still hold historical materialism to be the primary explanatory factor for social oppression/exploitation. The point he brings up that I think is valid, is that things like Feminism do indeed attempt to further explain specifics of social oppression by say gender (in the case of Feminism). This is not necessarily a substitution for a class or historical materialist explanation of how the oppression of women is manifested in a specific way. In the same book that this article appears, Cornel West writes an article about the "Specificity of Afro-American Oppression" where he (although he is not a Marxist) is not willing to give up or substitute historical materialism, but is instead willing to offer cases where the Marxist understanding can be expanded. Just as Gramsci attempted to expand the knowledge of how ideology worked (through his explanation of hegemony, etc.), I believe that Feminisim (if it does what Patton doesn't want it to do: and is reinterpreted in Marxist terms) can do the same for the specific ideological oppression of women.

Again, I don't believe that this is a substitute for historical materialism or a class analysis as you claim I am doing. Patton would, for example, claim that I am just trying to retain the "totality" of Marxism to understand specific social movements and their solutions, and I would agree that I am, but disagree that that's a bad thing.


Thoughts?

[Pogue]

I think it is to a large extent. Sometimes Marxists go over the top in how they fit everything into their analysis, its dogmatic. Also, it makes Marxism unfalsifiable, which is bullshit.

Also, trying to reduce everything, such as you said with feminism, to a class analysis, is flawed, because the oppression of women exists indepedently of capitalism/class and is equally as severe as class oppression.

[Buffalo Souljah]

I think it is to a large extent. Sometimes Marxists go over the top in how they fit everything into their analysis, its dogmatic. Also, it makes Marxism unfalsifiable, which is bullshit.

They say that if everything Marx said was wrong, his method would still survive him. Marxism is all about the methods of liberation (individual, class, race, etc.) and cannot be simplified to class struggle. Of this Lenin writes in The State and Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/), criticizing Karl Kautsky for an overly simplified exegesis of historical materialism. Marxism is about criticism and self-criticism, so at its best, it is revolutionary and anti-dogmatic.


Also, trying to reduce everything, such as you said with feminism, to a class analysis, is flawed, because the oppression of women exists indepedently of capitalism/class and is equally as severe as class oppression.Again, you're over-simplifying Marxism. But, it is true that women are disqualified from many socially advantageous positions (in capitalism) from which they are done so merely on the basis of their gender. This is a truism. But I don't think it's that simple. This chauvenism has the greed of the powerful "class" (men) responsible for its condition. How is understanding women as an oppressed class, just like blacks in America or the working class in any country (which in the U.S. overlaps quite glaringly) anything but a means to better understand the nature of capitalism and its division of labor? I don't think feminism and Marxism are mutually exclusive, and I think feminism itself is a movement inspired out of particular class power distributions, vis a vis, if women were equal in society, there would be no need for it. Therefore, I don't agree that interpreting feminism dialectically or from a Marxist point of view is anything but a tool for empowering women. Marxism is, after all a theory that predicates against oppression of any kind, whether of class, race, gender or ethnicity. Look at Kathy Acker. And your point that the oppression of women exists independently of capitalism is just wrong.

The totality is a concept that attempts to understand society from the viewpoint of the whole of the productive forces working within society and is at such an abstraction of the indivisible whole. It's at root a working concept, an abstraction. In order to understand chauvenism, Marxism would suggest, we must understand the underlying class forces at work and as such unravel and reveal the concealment of the workings of these forces and cast them out into the light of day. It would offer as a solution a reconcilliation of the oppressed (in this case, women) with the entirety of the productive forces, and see these forces redistributed such that they may be allotted their fair share. Look at the statistics on pay differences in women versus men in any capitalist country, and you'll begin to understand how women can be seen as an oppressed class in a logically consistent fashion. Marxism, if anything, can help us shed a light on things so we can fix the problem at its root. Or should I say, rather, women are lesser beings which deserve their place in society?

[RHIZOMES]

It's not so much that it's reductionist as much as a lot of comrades can oversimplify Marxism so that it's reductionist. That's my view anyway.

[Buffalo Souljah]

It's not so much that it's reductionist as much as a lot of comrades can oversimplify Marxism so that it's reductionist. That's my view anyway.
Indeed.

[Pogue]

Nah I'd still argue its reductionist.

Another thing is that it doesn't mential at all the impact of the subconcious or the mental on human behaviour, instead attrbituing it all to class factors.

But your just proving ym point, your making Marxism unfalsifiable and proving its dogmatic here.

[Buffalo Souljah]

Nah I'd still argue its reductionist.

Another thing is that it doesn't mential at all the impact of the subconcious or the mental on human behaviour, instead attrbituing it all to class factors.

But your just proving ym point, your making Marxism unfalsifiable and proving its dogmatic here.

What exactly is the unconscious besides unchecked desire? I'm not trying to simplify your argument. I would just like to understand this from many perspectives. Many contemplative Buddhists, for instance, claim to have dreamless sleep after renouncing all "wordly" desires (mosha). Western psycho-analytic theory is caught up in bourgeouse, reactionary typology and is, at root, dogmatic.

[Pogue]

What exactly is the unconscious besides unchecked desire? I'm not trying to simplify your argument. I would just like to understand this from many perspectives. Many contemplative Buddhists, for instance, claim to have dreamless sleep after renouncing all "wordly" desires (mosha). Western psycho-analytic theory is caught up in bourgeouse, reactionary typology and is, at root, dogmatic.

Heres what I mean. You seem tot hink being a Marxist means having to force everything into that worldview.

I'm referring to the impact of personal experiences on a persons mental health which impacts upon their behaviour, hene why even in class society we have amazing differences in personalities and behaviour. This isn't explained by class society, you could link it in somewhere I suppose, but this is an area of social analysis seperate from marxism, the same way feminism cannot be reduced to a marxist analysis. Its not impossible for there to be more than class struggle dictating the direction of the world.

[Buffalo Souljah]

Heres what I mean. You seem tot hink being a Marxist means having to force everything into that worldview.

I'm referring to the impact of personal experiences on a persons mental health which impacts upon their behaviour, hene why even in class society we have amazing differences in personalities and behaviour. This isn't explained by class society, you could link it in somewhere I suppose, but this is an area of social analysis seperate from marxism, the same way feminism cannot be reduced to a marxist analysis. Its not impossible for there to be more than class struggle dictating the direction of the world.

Again, you're overimplifying Marxism by reducing it to class struggle. This is not the case. Marxism is an ideology that professes to interpret reality dialectically, that is to say in relation to itself. There is nothing to suggest that feminism and psychology cannot be interpreted in a Marxian form, and, indeed, there are feminist Marxists as well as there is a formidable Marxist structuralist school of psychology. Look to individuals like Emma Goldman and Kathy Acker in the former and Jacques Lacan and Roland Barthes in the latter. Marxism is an ideology that typifies the dialectical nature of history and the resolution of contradictions. Class struggle and the like are merely accidental facets, representing a particular stage of production and a particular stage of development.

Personal experiences shape individuals only in so far as those experiences are possible in a certain class structure at a certain stage in history. True, we are each unique and different in our biological and physiological makeup, and Marxism doesn't discount this, but you would admit that there are vastly more similarities between two human beings than there are differences, in so far as they are members of the same species and equipped with the same basic constituting elements.

[mikelepore]

It's important to struggle against the oppression of women and minorities, but in many countries the oppression of women and minorities has already been reduced to a series of individual acts and idiosyncracies, rather than being built-in system features. In the U.S. today, if an employer doesn't give you a job because you're a woman or because of your ethnic membership, it's as likely that someone won't give you a job because they don't like short people, people with freckles, deep voices, New York accents, crooked teeth or thick eyebrows. Racism and sexism are no longer basic parts of the capitalist system itself. For the boss to be capricious and make any sort of arbitrary decisions is part of the system, but no particular arbitrary decision is systematically predetermined.

However, the oppression of the worker is fundamentally built into the structure of capitalism. The capitalist system oppresses the worker the way a car rotates wheels or an airplane has lift. It's part of the system's definition.

The Marxian class analysis remains correct.

[syndicat]

lepore:

Racism and sexism are no longer basic parts of the capitalist system itself.

This is fundamentally mistaken. It represents blinkered, reductionist thinking. To take an example, 3/4 of the low wage workers in the USA are women. Most women work in workplaces that are 70% of more female...female job ghettos. Reduced opportunities for women enables employers to pay them less, treat them worse.

This ghettoization of female workers is partly maintained through sexual harassment in male dominated workplaces. Through rude remarks, sexually graphic items & pictures etc, something that workers & supervisors often collude in in such workplaces, women are made uncomfortable and kept out.

This works to the disadvantage of the class as a whole because then there are pools of workers who can be treated worse, paid less etc.

Structural racism also is very persistent in the USA. In some ways the economic circumstances of the African-American working class is worse than in the '60s, despite destruction of Jim Crow and other changes. About 1.5 million black and Latino men are imprisoned in USA, due to racist and class-biased way criminal justice system & cops operate, and things like the war on drugs, which is race & class biased in itself.

Sexism and racism have to be fought simultaneously, and as a part of, the class struggle.

To avoid reductionist thinking, I would highly recommend reading "Where We Stand: Class Matters" by bell hooks, a revolutionary black feminist writer. This book rejects any form of reductionism...gender reductionism ("gender is the primary contradiction"), race or nationality reductionism ("race or national oppression is the primary contradiction") or class reductionism. She is most well known as one of the originators of the concept of intersectionality, especially via her 1984 book "Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center". Intersectionality emphasizes the idea that in dealing with struggles that arise out of a particular oppression (class, race, gender) it is necessary to keep in mind how the other structures of oppression intersect in the lives of the people involved.

[kalu]

Edit

[cenv]

This is why we need to view Marxism as a method, not an ideology. This is partly what Lukacs was getting at when he said:


Let us assume for the sake of argument that recent research had disproved once and for all every one of Marx’s individual theses. Even if this were to be proved, every serious ‘orthodox’ Marxist would still be able to accept all such modern findings without reservation and hence dismiss all of Marx’s theses in toto – without having to renounce his orthodoxy for a single moment.

If you think of Marxism as a rigid ideology that determines absolute truth and asserts a mechanical relationship between economic forces and gender relations, individual personality, whatever, then yes, that's reductionist. But if you understand that Marxism is not an attempt to simplify a dynamic reality into static, absolute, all-encompassing principles, then Marxism becomes a very powerful method.

Grasping Marxism as a method allows us to understand that economic forces are everywhere. Nothing exists in a vacuum, and things like gender relations or individual personality really are shaped within the framework of capitalism. But understanding the method of Marxism helps us analyze the way in which these aspects of social reality develop -- which is completely different than positing a simple, mechanically deterministic relationship between the means of production and the totality of capitalist society.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Classlessness means that no repression, oppression or authoritarianism can fit in with Marxism.

Those thing's create class.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Classlessness means that no repression, oppression or authoritarianism can fit in with Marxism.

Those thing's create class.


Actually it's the other way around.

[RHIZOMES]

But your just proving ym point, your making Marxism unfalsifiable and proving its dogmatic here.

Never saw you as a Karl Popper fan, what makes anarchism falsifiable in contrast then?

[Die Rote Fahne]

Actually it's the other way around.

Repression, authoritarianism and oppression don't create class?

Are you serious?

[RHIZOMES]

Repression, authoritarianism and oppression don't create class?

Are you serious?

No, capitalism creates class. Repression, authoritarianism and oppression towards the bourgeoisie by the proletariat is entirely necessary for a classless society to come into existence.

[Niccolò Rossi]

No, capitalism creates class.

Classes existed long before the advent of capitalism.


Repression, authoritarianism and oppression towards the bourgeoisie by the proletariat is entirely necessary for a classless society to come into existence.

This doesn't really prove your point at all. On the contrary, Propghandi's remark is a typical response to your claim. Whilst he has got it backwards, so have you.

[kalu]

The book the OP quotes from btw (Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. by Nelson and Grossman) is a bible of post/marxist thought. Some seminal essays that have defined the fields of feminist, marxist, postcolonial, and cultural studies appeared in that volume. I think I might buy it, it's worth owning. I never noticed the Paul Patton essay...

[mykittyhasaboner]

Repression, authoritarianism and oppression don't create class?

Are you serious?
Wholly.

"Repression, authoritarianism, and oppression" cannot exist in some vacuum or merely in abstract theoretical terms--thus one must question how these attributes of our society have come into being. We must ask how has "repression, authoritarianism, and oppression" played a part through out history, and how these attributes affect our society today. Once we ask this question it becomes abundantly clear that owing to the class divisions of our society, one class cannot rule over the others without using "repression, authoritarianism, and oppression." So with out the class divisions in society, where one class maintains the position of ruling class, there would be no such thing as repression or authoritarianism.

That's what I meant when it's the "other way around". "Repression, authoritarianism, and oppression" don't create class--these things are endemic of class society.

[KurtFF8]

I also want to add that I read an article in the same volume by A. Belden Fields that criticized this same article by Patton. Fields argued for sticking with a more traditional view of critiquing the political economy that authors like Patton seem to be wanting to move us away from. I'll get back to this later but I think that Fields' criticism is quite dead on.