Marxism?

[Millie]

What exactly is feminist marxism? Just how far does it reach? And how does feminist marxism deal with a certain commodity, aka prostitution? It's a topic that's going to come up on friday at the Socialist Society and I'd feel like an idiot if I didn't know what was going on...:crying:

[ind_com]

Communism cannot happen without the emancipation of women, so Marxism is inherently feminist. In communism, prostitution will cease to exist as a profession.

[Lowtech]

i can't speak for feminist marxism. however to address your mention of prostitution. the act itself is not a commodity, however society exploits the prostitute in extremely similar fashion that workers in general are exploited. all people in society are subjected to artificial scarcity and are forcibly made dependent on a market economy. market economies give exchange value to many horrible things, the drug trade, human trafficking and prostitution. and people will do whatever they are economically compelled to do in order to survive. its not incentive, it is forced servitude.

more simply put, if you aren't already subjected to artificial scarcity, as we are under capitalism, the conditions that would lead someone to compromise their own integrity simply to survive would be absent.

prostitution is a symptom of poverty, which it itself in turn is an expression of artificial scarcity, it is not a profession.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

On a similar note, would it be correct to analyze prostitution as an example of rent? A sex worker -- or most commonly, the person for whom she works -- draws surplus value from monopoly control over her body.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

On a similar note, would it be correct to analyze prostitution as an example of rent? A sex worker -- or most commonly, the person for whom she works -- draws surplus value from monopoly control over her body.

No, because the body is not a means of production; at most it is a good that is constantly re-produced - it can be sold via prostitution but it is not 'used up', it is immediately available for re-use.

[Lowtech]

at most it is a good that is constantly re-producedI disagree.

human beings are not themselves a commodity. assuming so simply based on "exchange value" is the false assumption that a market tells us the worth of things and people.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

No, because the body is not a means of production; at most it is a good that is constantly re-produced - it can be sold via prostitution but it is not 'used up', it is immediately available for re-use.
Commodities don't necessary have to be physical objects; services can equally be commodities as well (as long as they embody both use value and Value.) Sex workers use their bodies to produce the service of sexual pleasure, no? Also, there's no rule that a means of production has to be fully consumed with each act of production. Some are fully consumed with certain acts of production, others are not.

[Lowtech]

Commodities don't necessary have to be physical objects; services can equally be commodities as wellyou're describing a pseudo economy, where abstract value is allowed to mix with accountable physical value. and the idea of a "service" comes out of the market paradigm.

needs will not be met by industries, companies or services. Rather by a unified infrastructure.

Moreover, sexual pleasure is hardly a need that is to be met by a "service."

In a marketless economy where people are not subjected to artificial scarcity, many bizarre behaviors will simply disapeared as the conditions that compelled them to occur will no longer exist.

[Red Enemy]

I guess one could say that Marxist-Feminism is more or less feminism from a Marxist perspective. Not a specific tendency within Marxism.

I know that Raya Dunayevskaya is a Marxist-Feminist. You could probably check her works out.