Alternatives to a logic of utility

["Mr P.A. Van Heusden" <pvanheus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Early on in this discussion of family values, Doug Henwood extensively
quoted Kristin Luker on the value sets underlying 'pro-life' and
'pro-choice' worldviews. Here's part of that quote:

"[according to religious 'pro-lifers', after one abandons the concept that
the world is ordered by a Supreme Being] ...one becomes more interested
in material goods and develops a world view that evaluates things (and,
more importantly, people) in terms of what Marxists would call their "use
value." ... When the belief in God (and in an afterlife) are lost,
pro-life people feel that human life becomes selfish, unbearably painful,
and meaningless."

Now it seems to me that a number of the issues that have arising in the
current arguments are related precisely to the logic of assigning a 'use
value' to people's actions (or people themselves). In capitalist society
the 'use value' of the majority of humanity is its possibility to
contribute to the profits of the capitalist class (that's why, I would
argue, the continuing crisis of competition in 'advanced' capitalist
countries has had the dual result of eroding the 'specialness' of the
service oriented 'white collar' layer of society and creating mass
psychological anxiety in that layer - but that's another argument). Of
course, women present a contradiction to the capitalist class, in that
they possess two conflicting 'use values' - reproductive and productive.

The post-WWII situation in 'advanced' capitalist countries presented the
emergence of a number of forces, which allowed (and, through the efforts
of women for their own liberation, forced) for the first time a new level
of flexibility in the organisation of capitalist society. The 1960s
women's movement managed to effectively challenge the social conception of
women that held that their primary use in live was having children (of
course, poorer women had always worked - but the hegemonic picture of
human existence seldom cares about the realities of the poor). That
victory was partial - the extent of women's liberation  permitted by
capitalist society was that women were allowed to express their use value
as productive workers - i.e. a new layer of women got to work.

The forces that Andy mentioned - demands for mothers to be allowed to
enter the workforce on the same terms as non-mothers - and the lack of
freedom that Margaret mentioned - are results of the partial nature of the
victory of the women's liberation movement. Women did not win freedom -
they merely won a bigger number of ways in which they could 'prove' their
usefulness in society.

To return to my initial point - I would suggest that the attraction of a
logic rooted in a 'Supreme Being' is primarily its value in psychological
defence. In the face of alienation and defeat, an absolute authority is a
useful crutch. Such a crutch is only necessary when experience suggests
that life is a painful thing. The alternative on offer - the logic of
'utility', of 'usefulness' - is, however, in my mind no alternative. As
Marx said (Crit. of Hegel's Phil. of Law): 'Criticism has torn up the
imaginary flowers from the chain not so that [woman] shall wear the
unadorned, bleak chain but so that [she] will shake off the chain and
pluck the living flower.' and 'To abolish religion as the illusory
happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness.'

In my mind, to accept the logic of 'family support' is to accept that
people's needs should be confronted first and foremost as their needs
fulfill the 'needs' of society. The basis of Marxist critique is
precisely, however, the statement and demand that there is no distinction
between the individual and society, and the basis of Marxist demands on
this issue, like any other, should be the free development of each and
all.

In order to politically put forward that demand it is necessary to fight
against skimping, against 'efficiency' and 'right sizing' - to fight the
illusion of scarcity, and demand our access to the riches which we know
our species has produced.

Peter