[lbo-talk] money and s*x

Ted Winslow egwinslow at rogers.com
Wed Apr 7 08:38:55 PDT 2010


Dennis Claxton wrote:


> I think more important than whether or not we agree with this is
> that it highlights why work like Judith Butler or Susie Bright, et.
> al. do was (is) so badly needed by the left. Marx wasn't very good
> on sex and gender.

Marx's treatment of "sex and gender," like his treatment of all human phenomena, is based on ontological and anthropological assumptions very different from Butler's.

These assumptions underpin an idea of ideal human relations, including ideal sexual relations, as relations of "mutual recognition."

It's on this basis that he points to the relation between men and women as an index of the extent to which "freedom" has been actualized in human relations

"In the approach to woman as the spoil and hand-maid of communal lust is expressed the infinite degradation in which man exists for himself, for the secret of this approach has its unambiguous, decisive, plain and undisguised expression in the relation of man to woman and in the manner in which the direct and natural species-relationship is conceived. The direct, natural, and necessary relation of person to person is the relation of man to woman. In this natural species- relationship man’s relation to nature is immediately his relation to man, just as his relation to man is immediately his relation to nature – his own natural destination. In this relationship, therefore, is sensuously manifested, reduced to an observable fact, the extent to which the human essence has become nature to man, or to which nature to him has become the human essence of man. From this relationship one can therefore judge man’s whole level of development. From the character of this relationship follows how much man as a species- being, as man, has come to be himself and to comprehend himself; the relation of man to woman is the most natural relation of human being to human being. It therefore reveals the extent to which man’s natural behaviour has become human, or the extent to which the human essence in him has become a natural essence – the extent to which his human nature has come to be natural to him. This relationship also reveals the extent to which man’sneed has become a human need; the extent to which, therefore, the other person as a person has become for him a need – the extent to which he in his individual existence is at the same time a social being." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm

The development and ultimate actualization of the "powers" constitutive of "species-being" is brought about through "self- estrangement" within relations of production.

An essential feature of capitalist self-estrangement is "money" as the estrangement of these "powers."

“The distorting and confounding of all human and natural qualities, the fraternisation of impossibilities – the divine power of money – lies in its character as men’s estranged, alienating and self- disposing species-nature. Money is the alienated ability of mankind.” http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/power.htm

When self-estrangement is finally transcended, fully developed "powers" as the essence of fully "free individuality" are the basis of fully free activities within fully free relations of "mutual recognition."

"Assume man to be man and his relationship to the world to be a human one: then you can exchange love only for love, trust for trust, etc. If you want to enjoy art, you must be an artistically cultivated person; if you want to exercise influence over other people, you must be a person with a stimulating and encouraging effect on other people. Every one of your relations to man and to nature must be a specific expression, corresponding to the object of your will, of your real individual life. If you love without evoking love in return – that is, if your loving as loving does not produce reciprocal love; if through a living expression of yourself as a loving person you do not make yourself a beloved one, then your love is impotent – a misfortune." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/power.htm

This is different from Butler whose elaboration of "mutual recognition" as "giving an account of oneself" is implicitly grounded in ontological and anthropological assumptions different from and inconsistent with Marx's.

Specifically, she, following Foucault, makes use in this elaboration of the idea of what is claimed to be an inescapable and ungroundable "regime of truth" that "constrains what will and will not constitute the truth of his self, the truth that he offers about himself, the truth by which he might be known and become recognizably human, the account he might give of himself."

This idea is inconsistent with their being any rational ground on which to prefer the ontological and anthropological assumptions, the "regime of truth," on which it is itself implicitly based to the very different assumptions underpinning Marx's idea of relations of "mutual recognition," including his idea of "mutual recognition" in sexual relations.

Ted



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list