Marx and the gendered structure of capitalism

Science & Society 85:1, 2021

The plausibility of "gendered exploitation" as a sine qua non of capitalism, as articulated by both classic Marxist-feminism since the 1970s and more recently by authors of social reproduction theory, stands or falls with the evaluation of Marx's theory of value. From the standpoint of both Marx's monetary theory of value and the problem of quanti cation, the use of "women's oppression" in capitalist social reproduction appears to be questionable. This also necessitates a deeper analysis of the use of "gender" in the wider eld of pertinent Marxist-feminist literature. Arguments for "gendered exploitation" often hinge on unsound premises that introduce a naturalizing view of social relations. Analogous to Barbara and Karen Fields' intervention against "Racecraft," the term "Gendercraft" may represent this argumentative move. The notion of gender as the site of speci cally capitalist exploitation is thus challenged and countered with a new emphasis on struggles against the wage relation as the site of anticapitalist resistance.

CONTINENTAL THOUGHT & THEORY: A JOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM , 2017

The aim of this article is to examine a series of recent contributions to the reading of Marx's Capital that stress its specific determination as a dialectical investigation of objectified or fetishised forms of social mediation in capitalist society: on the one hand, the so-called Neue Marx-Lektüre originated in Germany towards the end of the 1960s and, on the other, the more widely circulated work of authors associated with so-called Open Marxism. The interesting aspect of these works is that they draw the implications of Marx's critique of political economy not only for the comprehension of the fetishised forms of social objectivity in capitalism, but also for the comprehension of the forms of subjectivity of the modern individual. More specifically, all these contributions broadly share the insightful view that the content of the simplest determination of human individuality in the capitalist mode of production is its alienated existence as 'personification of economic categories'. However, this article argues that the limits of these perspectives become apparent when it comes to uncovering the grounds of the revolutionary form of subjectivity which carries the potentiality to transcend capitalist alienation. For these perspectives fail to ground the revolutionary form of subjectivity in the immanent unfolding of capitalist forms of social mediation. In the case of the Neue Marx-Lektüre, it quite simply leaves the problematique of the revolutionary subject outside the scope of the critique of political economy. In the case of Open Marxism, despite valiant attempts at overcoming all exteriority in their conceptualisation of the relationship between human subjectivity and capital, they end up grounding the revolutionary transformative powers of the working class outside the latter’s alienated existence as personification of economic categories; more specifically, in an abstract humanity lacking in social determinations. In contrast to these perspectives, this paper develops an alternative approach to the Marxian critique of political economy which provides an account of the revolutionary potentialities of the working class as immanent in its full determination as an attribute of the alienated or fetishised movement of the capital-form.

In this article excerpted from the International relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity, edited by Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith. It examines Marx’s arguments against capitalism. For a summary of ideology opposed to capitalism. Criticism of Capitalism ranges from expressing disagreement with the principles of capitalism in its entirety, to expressing disagreement with particular outcome of capitalism. In discussions of world politics, it is not uncommon for Marxism to be dismissed out of hand as being preoccupied with economics rather than politics, and concerning itself with domestic rather than international social relations. In this article I will suggest to the contrary that Marxist theory aims at a critical understanding of capitalism as an historically particular way of organizing social life, and that this form of social organization entails political, cultural, and economic aspects which need to be understood as a dynamic ensemble of social relations not necessarily contained within the territorial boundaries of nation states. Viewed in this way, Marxism can yield insights into the complex social relationships—on scales from the workplace and the household to the global—through which human beings produce and reproduce their social relations, the natural world, and themselves. Marx was one of the most incisive critics of a peculiarly modern form of social life capitalism. For Marx, capitalism was not to be confused with markets or exchange, which long predated capitalism. Rather, capitalism represented a form of social life in which commodification had proceeded to such a degree that human labour itself was bought and sold on the market. One of Marx’s central insights was that this situation presupposed the development of historically specific class-based relations and powers: the concomitant development of capital—socially necessary means of production reconstituted as the exclusive private property of a few—and wage labour as the compulsory activity of the many. Under the class relations of capitalism, direct producers are not personally tied to their exploiter, as were slaves in bondage to their master or feudal serfs bound to the lord’s estate.

Value without Fetish, 2021

This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the cc by-nc-nd 4.0 license. chapter 1 Introduction-Marx's Critique of Fetishism as Method Cryptocategories of Marxism: Exchange value is the most wellknown. To cryptologically uncover the hidden categorical determinations of existence is not to reveal a metaphysical essence, but rather the 'surface' of things, their appearance itself. hans-jürgen krahl (1971)1 … … in the capitalist process, every element, even the simplest, the commodity for example, is already an inversion … karl marx (1861-3 Economic Manuscripts)2 ∵ This book wants to put the critique of the 'fetishism of the bourgeois relations of production' back into the Critique of Political Economy.3 Its aim is to demonstrate that the disavowal of the critique of fetishism strips the Marxian project of its critical core, its raison d'être. Disavowing, disregarding, or even rejecting Marx's critique of fetishism, as we will show, resorts to the framework of classical and neoclassical bourgeois 'economics' which no longer offers an incentive to change or question the capitalist mode of production as a historically specific society. This book, however, precisely sees itself as a theoretical contribution to the overcoming of the capitalist predicament, and therefore as an intervention against the obliviousness to the problem of fetishism. To pursue this task, we will highlight the pivotal role of Marx's critique of the fetish-characteristic forms of value, or the value forms, as the key method for

Massimiliano Tomba’s book, Marx’s Temporalities, stresses the centrality of the body for the critique of exploitation and suggests that a new phenotype is produced by consumerism and by the dynamic of capitalist accumulation, with its plural temporalities. However, both the body of the worker and the new phenotype do not appear to have a sex or a gender in Tomba’s book. In this intervention, I read some of Tomba’s insights about the body, the new phenotype, and primary accumulation in the light of a critical gender and feminist perspective.

The social struggles associated with the New Left in the late 1960s and early 1970s sparked a popular resurgence of Marxist and feminist theory and practice. In the early phase of these struggles, many left-wing social activists regarded the two traditions as inherently compatible, and urged (or even assumed) their "marriage" 1 . Over the following decade, however, socialist feminists noted that the marriage was at the very least "unhappy", sparking a vigorous debate over the extent to which the "sex-blind" categories of Marxism could be utilized to address feminist concerns. This review essay assesses two foundational contributions to the debate: Heidi Hartmann's "dual systems" theory and Iris Young's "single system" response 2 . While the two accounts are seemingly counter posed, a comparative analysis of their respective strengths and weaknesses points the way toward a truly historical materialist theory of women's oppression in capitalist society. Such a theory must seek to explain the material basis for a specifically capitalist patriarchy, without employing trans-historical structures (as Hartmann does) or functionalist reasoning (as Young does). In the end, I suggest that an alternative Marxist framework can be utilized to integrate the greatest insights of both accounts, while overcoming their debilitating limitations.

Review of Radical Political Economics, 1996

Starting from Marx's theory of value and commodity-fetishism, in this paper I address the question of how fetishised categories of bourgeois economics are organically linked with the reality of the capitalist class relation of work and of the class struggle. The paper is thus structured. I first point out that Marx's critique sees the limitation of classical political economy in the confusion between "substance" and "form" (the case of Smith) or in the inadequate treatment of "substance" and therefore the lack of a theory of "form" (Ricardo). I then discuss