We don't have to disentangle (economic) class from anything except in a very abstract way. Instead, we can find it at the _root_ of other forms of oppression. For instance, in the work of those who attribute the appearance of racism to the needs of European, nascent-capitalist imperial expansion at the beginning of the modern era. Or, with Engels, we could find gender oppression _preceding_ other forms of oppression and turning into a more important, more general economic class oppression (in his theory of the origins of the family and the State). The central theme in either case would be class. Then the ownership or control of the means of production by the people or the workers would be the way to overthrow the oppression(s), and you could be a socialist for the definition of socialism I gave before. The alternative would seem to throw Uncle Karl and a lot of other people out the window and get y'all cosying up with anarchists and the like.
I don't agree with expanding the definition of socialism to include the Welfare State; I think the Welfare State is anti-socialist. Just as a matter of literary criticism, it appears to me that _socialism_ is being poorly defined here. 1971? Could be 1871.
-- Gordon
Kelley:
> ...
> i could use an example of how a "non class" issue is unrelated to production.
>
> then i'd like to know what production actually is. after all, in gordon's
> utopia, we won't work so much. that'll mean a lot of our lives is spent in
> so called "non productive" activities. what would (is) that realm of our
> lives be called? is it really a residual category, this "non-production"?
> and what about "reproduction" (in the marxist sense and in common sense)?
>
> the point at issue, intially, was that someone claimed that socialist meant
> that economic class issues were far more important than gender issues.
> firstly, i don't see how one could possibly disentangle class analysis from
> and analysis racialization, nationalism, and sexuation. how could you even
> start with a "class analysis"? racialization, nationalism, and sexuation
> are processes (not things, processes) of that work together to form a
> system of oppression that is constitutive of and constituted by a
> capitalism mode of production AND reproduction. racialization, nationalism,
> and sexuation --all of these are intimately bound up with the rise of
> capitalism and have evolved along with the changes in capitalism in
> significant ways.
>
> that is why one can't given pride of place to "class" analysis because it
> doesn't exist separately in some archimedean point, untainted by icky sex
> stuff and uncomfortable race stuff or the embarrassing imperialism stuff.
> ...
Grant Lee:
> >Greetings from a newbie. Gordon said socialist analysis starts with
> >economic class. He didn't say "begins and ends". I would take economic
> >class to mean _all_ factors, impediments and advantages in access to the
> >means of production. So gender/race/sexuality/etc are "economic" when they
> >have a bearing on access to the means of production. It isn't the case
> >that they _always_ do have a bearing.
> >
> >I think as well, if we accept the "quantity theory of socialism", such as
> >that offered by Martin Schiller (on a parallel thread) then we have a
> >situation where everyone to the left of (say) Hayek and Nozick is partly
> >"socialist". And as the (global) neo-liberal experience of the '80s showed
> >us, this is a "socialism" which is easily rolled back. It doesn't seem
> >like much to aim for, really.
Doug:
> > >Weird, Gordon. It's as if you're saying gender has no bearing on
> > >access to the means of production, or one's place in the division of
> > >labor.