"so is being a woman, being queer, or being an animal, etc... what's the difference?" ------ Amadeus, response: Gender, sexuality, race, etc. are subjective culturally- and/or socially-determined markers which the capitalist class can use to divide workers, not to mention clean up on wage differntials. These are abstract concepts created by humans. The concept of race, for example, served as a justification for the enslavement of Africans. Class, while it can be narrowly defined as an abstract cultural identity, can also be determined objectively on the basis of ownership of the means of production.
What are the objective means of defining oppression based on gender, sexuality, or race? Primarily, determining their income, economic mobility, and other material factors! -------
Brian writes: "The class struggle is one of many struggles that people are involved in. There is also the gender struggle, the sexual struggle, the race struggle. The class struggle does not trump all others, nor are all others subsidiary to the class struggle (though according to Lacny Reductive Thinking [LRT] they are)." -------- Amadeus, response: I do not see that John has said that all struggles are subsidiary to the class struggle. However, the class struggle has the substantive difference of being empirically defined (not to say that it is always a simple matter!). And struggles for gender, etc., can only be empirically defined vis-a-vis factors relating to class (ownership, income, etc.). (You could possibly argue, for instance, that women are statistically more likely to get raped, but capitalist women do too, at the same rate as the working class.) While no one will say that identity politics movements haven't achieved important gains within the confines of bourgeois society, one can clearly see the class implications of these movements: Leaders of the civil rights, gay rights, etc. movements from a generation ago-- when they were not co-opted, killed, or imprisoned-- went on to join the ranks of the bourgeoisie or petty bourgeoisie, occupying positions as E.D.s of NGOs, going on speaking tours, gaining tenured positions at important universities. A larger portion of working class gays, women, people of color continue to be oppressed. This is not to say that the intention of the leaders of such movements was to step on the backs of their rank and file, but that was the unfortunate result in a capitalist society. This partly explains the existence, for example, of black conservatives, who benefitted from affirmative action policies and now oppose them, or Log Cabin Republicans who purse economic policies clearly in opposition to the majority of gays who are working class. Their experience taught them that space is limited at the top.
--adx
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