I lean towards the position that as late capitalist (how late you say? Hasn't it gone way beyond decadent putrescence yet?) reality is complex, and the various levels of institutional/organizational aggregration...heh, I'll stop there before I parody academic left speak myself, just to say that as one who read Capital, Vol. 1 when I was a teenager (and many other texts not your usual reading matter at that age w/ titles like as a friend jokes, "The Political Economy of 'Yo Mama!, " (Yo Yo Ma?...'Ya Mofo!...Got My Mojo Working!....;-) I don't think I'd understand Capitalism as well I think I do w/o slogging through that abstract text. Beautifully written.
My academic left post of week for bad prose. Name stripped off.Headers too. Remember, Smash the nuclear family! Everyone Must Be Raised by Strangers In State Run Co-ops. Why, that will socialize children, perfectly. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ First of all can we operationalize what does a "welfare state" mean? And second: we all know very well that a plethora of social functions and welfare of a capitalist state's citizens is being dumped onto individuals' shoulders who are taught and socialized into forming this "nuclear" group, which is portrayed as a natural form of social cohesion among the homo sapiens species. If the "welfare state" represented a social formation not based on the ownership of private property, where the mode of production would reflect some higher gradation of egalitarian social relations, then we would be able to speculate that most probably the concept of the nuclear family as we subscribe to it now would loose it's raison d'etre, therefore it would cease to exist. Since, returning to the first question, under the present conditions of the socio-economic social order a "welfare state" is just a) a euphemism for let-it-be-not-so-obvious-cut-throat-capitalism and b) part of the intoxicating brew of capitalistic ideology to keep the sub-classes docile, this "welfare state" in my view simply cannot exist without relying on individual social responsibilitites of its citizens.
On the other hand, should the descriptive "welfare" be dropped and the body of the beast rise from the mucky waters of its base, then, of course, it would be possible to drop the heteronormative blood-and property-related nuclear form of human intimate connection. It would require two conditions (at least): 1. it would have to be profitable (the system would benefit from it) and 2. religious zealots would have to drop their case (they would have to be really well compensated by continuous financial returns to come up with an "alternate" explanation of the notorious hallowed texts concerning the sudden obsolescence of the 'sacred' familial structure).
Is the family structure really breaking down?...........It's been never working well in the first place. Think of all the pretentions and misery people inflict on each other through adhereing to this form of social existence. Every single corner of the capitalist (and yes, the bureaucratized workers states as well) social structural framework is affected by its actors thinking in and acting out their prescribed familial roles. Lets think what would social relations and the whole economic structure of society look like if there were no nuclear families as we know them. I guess, alas, there would be no christmass?!! :):):)::) -------Original Message------- From: Date: Monday, December 01, 2003 08:40:35
To:
Subject: Can the welfare state exist without a certain (nuclear) family structure?
Here's an interesting question I've been thinking
about.
We know for a fact, that one of the functions of the
welfare state from the vantage point of the ruling
class was to reconstruct the family along certain
lines-ie the best way at achieving social reproduction
(if we want an ideal type-the "Leave it to Beaver"
type of family). We can see this function, simply by
pointing to the highly gendered and heterosexist
nature of many of the welfare-state's policies in the
1950s.
Can the welfare state maintain itself if this family
structure starts to break down and the welfare state
can't put this family structure back together again?
.