Re: To Bon Moun re M's comments: in marxism-digest V1 #4856

[nancybrumback@xxxxxx]

* Subject: Re: To Bon Moun re M's comments: in marxism-digest V1 #4856
* From: "bon moun" <sherrynstan@xxxxxxx>
* Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 15:19:46 -0400
<<His remarks about women were perfectly
consistent with the equation of women with "nature" by Engels in OFPPS, and
this is an error. [snip] The implicit foundation of the
marxist failure until very recently to grasp the issue of women's
emancipation, and not merely in a legalistic and economistic, but in a
social and cultural way, is our failure to divest of biological
determinism, and that failure is reinforced by male myopia and privilege.>>

Thank you, gods and goddesses, for a sensible male (?) marxist who
Is willing to share his criticism of marx and Marxists re: women! More of
my personal favorites in your post include

<<No revolutionary theory that consistently demotes the emancipation of half
the planet's population to a "woman question" deserves to be followed by
that half of the population, and it won't.  Not any more.  There is a very
good reason why many feminists still hold marxism at arms length.  We don't
listen.>>

and

<<Ask yourself why so few women participate in this list.  This
stubborn refusal to acknowledge our failure to recognize the errors built
on biological determinism reminds me of Stalin's insistence on Lamark's
version of evolution because it squared more easily with his notion of
dialectical process.>>

I would add only that m's biological determinism rears its ugly head in more
places than attitudes and treatment of women. In my opinion, it is built into
his economic theory and the very notion of dialectics itself. His definition of
surplus value excludes the labor of women in the family as well as other
unpaid or underpaid labor, in addition to the value of the products of nature
that get used up in commodity production. In fact, I think that "primitive
accumulation" may be at least partly based on all this unpaid wealth which
nevertheless winds up into the capitalists' bank accounts once it gets
sucked into the productive process. And the problem of accumulation
might be solved once it is recognized that use value becomes exchange
value but I need to study this some more.

In all the history books that were published after marx, the history of all
society is the history of power struggles, and not necessarily the history
of class struggles.

And what is more deterministic than "dialectical development"? Maybe in
Darwinian evolution, but cultural evolution has an entirely different
dynamic. A thing turns into its opposite and nothing else, ever? People
have the ability to make choices for themselves, at least to some extent.
But that's another issue,not for tonight.

Best regards,

Nancy



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