Marxism, feminism and individualism
Daniel Fabra
Deceased short of 65 in 1883, Prussian political theorist Karl Marx put forth some of the
most radical ideas ever to reverberate across the whole edifice of human economic
conceptions. He envisioned a perfect society which we had originally come from and
towards which we had better start proceeding. Such insights have gone on to shape
multifarious social demands, political shifts, and economic adventures to this day.
Born to a strong Hegelian environment, he accordingly contrived an idealised
conception of a primeval human society in which production –in Marx’s view, the
ultimate expression of every human sphere of action– existed free from alienation, i.e.
the coerced, involuntary production of goods by means not owned by the individuals
producing them.
Marx understood that human beings define themselves and are defined by what they
produce and how they do it. He perceived this condition as true for every area of human
action –and therefore, work– in such a way that every single person steals from another
the product of their labour to create exploitation, class differences and throws one
human being against another in a desperate struggle for survival. This is the origin
of Marx’s rejection of division of labour and his support for a return to work as action for
its own sake, or the Aristotelian praxis, rather than labour, the forced production
through alienated means.
As this form of production gives way to economic differences and class division –Marx
saw– the State is an instrument of control by the dominant classes over the exploited
ones. He foresaw a revolution by the working classes as the only way to access the
State and, through a dictatorship of the proletariat, to supress the dominating class,
and finally the State, the superstructure for the capitalist ideology of exploitation.
In his work, The German Ideology, Marx described this new society:
In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each
can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general
production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another
tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening,
criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter,
fisherman, herdsman or critic.
It is precisely in this theoretical framework that modern feminism places gender
differences and inequality. They see that the capitalist economic system relies heavily
on the division of socially necessary labour such as childcare or domestic work, and
that traditional economic approaches do not account for all the amount of labour
provided by unwaged work in order to sustain the whole system. They see the family
as privatised by such capitalistic demands, and unless domestic labour is made
visible as work– they claim– gender inequality and exploitation will not be overcome.
Far from a disruptive dictatorship of the proletariat, Marxist feminist Kathi Weeks
asserts that gender division of labour has been a powerful machinery for the
reproduction of inequity. She has analysed current demands in socialist democracies
for a waged acknowledgement of invisible labour. While some have criticised such
demands as an overt capitalist approach, in that it provides money but fails to create
the infrastructure to uproot the problem, she sees it as a positive advance.
Weeks advocates for a new political pact that creates a minimal livable income that
might enable, both women and men, on the one hand to part-take in domestic work
free from the drawbacks of unwaged activity and on the other, to opt out of other waged
activities as a possibility to reinvent oneself in times of crisis and make employers
consider offering better wages. Universal basic income, a historical leftist demand,
could nowadays lead to “the invention of new ways of organizing and sharing work and
of making it meaningful”, in Weeks’ own words.
Why such an unorthodox demand, so divergent from Marx’s stance of a proletarian
revolution? Marxist torch-bearers of today –arguably the sole valid interlocutors on
the leftist side of politics after the resounding failure of hard-lined Marxism-Leninism
of the Soviet era– are social democrats, the alternative leftist movement
originated after WWII to denounce both capitalism and Marxism-Leninism. The critics
heavily drew on Keynesian liberal theories and came to accept capital and other
capitalist instruments to peacefully “evolve” into socialism.
In this line, Weeks’ proposal admits that some forms of revolution create more
problems than solutions under present-day political and economic circumstances, and
allows for economic and social interventionism to follow through with their idea of
bringing exploitation and inequality to an end.
Even though many social democratic political decisions have tended to some forms of
social justice, it seems unlikely that Weeks’ proposed reforms are anywhere near.
Socialist democratic ideology continues to appear as unrealistic as the utopian Marxist
orthodoxy. How far is society willing to go, in the light of the increasing burden of
taxation with purported, more socially just purposes? We might well be witnessing the
death blow on Marxism or –as can be inferred from Weeks’ proposal– a masterful
move that allows it to reinvent itself, now fuelled by pressing individualism.
Webgraphy
Dillow, C. (2009) Marx’s important error . Retrieved 06/09/2019 from Stumbling and
Mumbling:
https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2009/04/marx
s-important-error-.html
Löwy, M. (1987) The Romantic and the Marxist Critique of Modern Civilization.
Retrieved 06/09/2019 from Springer: http://sci-
hub.tw/https://www.jstor.org/stable/657542
North, G. (1969) Marx's View of the Division of Labor. Retrieved 06/09/2019 from
Political Critique: https://fee.org/articles/marxs-view-of-the-division-of-labor/
Souvils, G. (2017) Feminism and the refusal of work: an interview with Kathi Weeks.
Retrieved 06/09/2019 from Foundation for Economic Education:
http://politicalcritique.org/world/2017/souvlis-weeks-feminism-marxism-work-
interview/
