In _A Man for All Seasons_, a wonderful movie about that less than admiriable politico turned saint, Thomas More, there's a line I vaguely remember that seems relevant here. At the end of the trial, More turns to Sir Richard Rich, the wannabe who fabricated the evidence that would send More to the block, and says, "But Richard all this (the lies) for Wales?" Rich was awarded some royal office or title in Wales for his testimony.
Not to be too glib here but for white (workers) and males (workers) racism and sexism have their sordid sortment of Wales (with due apologies to the Welsh). Yoshie, what you are keen on denying, which is odd since I think there's more than enough theoretical space for it, is betrayal. Whether the rewards are material or symbolic, real or imaginary, they're there nonetheless.
> _If_ white workers can gain jobs, credit, housing, etc. _only_ at the
> expense of black & other discriminated-against workers, yes, but
> _even under capitalism_ economy (whether one sees it nationally or
> internationally) does not have to be seen as a zero-sum game (since
> capitalism is a dynamic process of M-C-M...'
I think viewing exploitation as a zero-sum has lots of problems and its static nature is certainly one of them. Its crappy except that the alternatives have their own train of restrictions. Value theory, for example.
> The problem is ideological in the sense
> that many white workers assume that economy can be only a zero-sum
> game because it doesn't occur to many that they can & should fight &
> extract more (more jobs, more housing, more wages, more benefits,
> more vacations, etc.) from capital.
I'm not particularly interested in advancing a theory that might
gain adherents within the flat-earth society or among white
supremecists, but you're underestimating your foe if you
frame their benefits as ideological. In any event, the zero
sum quality only serves to underscore the connection between
dominant group advantages and subordinate group disadvantages.
>
> >And the gains that blacks or women or
> >a cross-racial/gender anticapitalist social movement might get or
> >take would result in a loss of advantages and privileges for whites
> >and men.
>
> They won't if the gains in question are not gains in a game of musical chairs.
>
Huh? You're begging the question about what racism or sexism represent.
Sometimes "symbolic compensation" is a tidy bundle of cash in the
bank. Shortsighted? Probably. But it doesn't mean that its gonna
make sharing that cash any easier.
Dennis Breslin