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NEWS & LETTERS, November-December 2005What is the relationship between women’s liberation and social revolution?by Anne Jaclard Today, most women around the world are as poor and oppressed as at the start of the Women’s Liberation Movement nearly 40 years ago, in spite of the movement circling the globe. In this reactionary period, women want to know whether it will ever be possible to construct a society in which women are free; otherwise, there is no reason to continue struggling for it. That is why feminists urgently need to theorize how a non-capitalist, non-sexist alternative to this society could function, and how it might become reality. To that end, some of us have begun to reinvestigate the relationship between women’s liberation and the concept of social revolution. We begin by looking at the relationship of women to capitalism through the eyes of Marx’s greatest work, CAPITAL. CAPITAL reveals the true relations disguised by the capitalist mode of production, and the real possibility of creating its absolute opposite, based on the contradictions within current reality--workers’ revolts and capitalism’s inherent instability. So too do we want to show the possibility of women’s liberation that continues on to full individual and societal freedom, in contrast to past revolutions which ultimately left most women in drudgery. Capitalism is not just one aspect of our world. It is a system that fills and shapes every nook and cranny, driving to mold even personal aspects of life into its service. Very briefly: Capitalists do not care what use values they produce, but only the rate of profit they make. The system’s aim is self-expanding value; value expands by pumping labor out of workers. Capitalist production tends to increase the relative magnitude of means of production in relation to workers through the means of technological change, leading to the continuous lowering of "socially necessary labor time," the industry-wide average amount of time needed to produce a commodity. VALUE DOMINATES ALL WORKERS As the exclusive determinant of a commodity’s value, socially necessary labor time is the very essence of the capitalist mode of production. Because any expenditure of labor that exceeds socially necessary labor time counts for nothing, capitalists are compelled to minimize production costs. In this way, socially necessary labor time controls production relations, workplace conditions, women’s labor, and all the other faces of work in this society, which alienates us from our own mental and physical capacities. Today, a huge amount of value is produced by women in sweatshops around the world. The lives and labor of women who do not work for wages, such as peasants, are also dominated by the value-oriented world system. Some ancient relations of oppression serve capitalism well, so those relations, including sexism, have been transformed and incorporated into modern life. For example, sexism and racism help capitalism to pit workers against each other--"divide and conquer." If we do away with value production, socially necessary labor time will end, and we can change the nature of work to an entirely new, human basis. This will lay the material basis for women, men and children to work out new human relations and to construct an entirely new kind of society. SOCIAL RELATIONS Thus, capitalist production is not mere background for the profound misery of most of the human race. It is not only the process of production and reproduction of things, but the process of production and reproduction of that misery, and the process of production and reproduction of social relations. Marx discusses this in many writings, including CAPITAL and THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY. "Be [her] payment high or low, the worker’s lot must grow worse," writes Marx in CAPITAL, Vol. I. He is referring not only to wage workers, but to the whole family. The passage that reaches this conclusion talks about an alienated work process, beginning with the alienation of mental from manual labor and extending into all aspects of work--and tainting all human relations outside of work as well. So it is wrong to posit an opposition between women’s issues and workers’ issues. Counterposing the "mode of production" to "women’s oppression," as if they exist within separate realms, compounds many so-called Marxists’ and feminists’ failure to understand the totalizing effects of capital. Conditions on the shop floor and in the home flow out of the mode of production and it cannot be otherwise. Unfortunately we are saddled with a vulgar materialist legacy and an anti-Marxist feminist legacy, both of which perpetuate just such a false opposition. The fact that capitalism is the system within which sexism is perpetuated today does not mean that there is a purely economic solution to sexism, any more than sexism and economics are separable now. In subsequent essays, we will explore why changing the mode of production is necessary, but not sufficient, to establish socialism and women’s liberation. A women’s liberation movement is essential before, during and after revolution. Further examination of Marx and Dunayevskaya’s philosophy will lay the ground for developing these concepts. |
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