The Politics of Political Solidarity

Historically and traditionally, there has existed a political, intellectual and pragmatic gap between feminist theorizations of women’s subjectivity in late capitalism, and marxist theories of the production of an interventionary subjectivity. That is, dominant theories of how women have been positioned in society have not situated women in terms of the contradiction of capitalist labor relations, and historical materialism has not taken into account women’s subjectivity as historically and structurally conflicting with the production of the interventionary subject. Classical marxism, in its examination and understanding of the production of a revolutionary, collective and interventionary subjectivity (i. e. one which understands a need for societal intervention in order to begin transformative change), has not theorized how women’s subjectivity, produced at the site of labor relations and contradictions, places them differently from such intervention; in some sense, which I will map out in more detail later, women are situated and end up farther away from the position of producing transformation than are their male counterparts in this society. That is, how women’s subjectivity is produced through labor relations needs to become foregrounded through historical materialist analysis, so that the complexities of the production of subjectivity can be understood in more detail and applied practically, thus enabling women to be more able to accomplish social intervention. Because much of the focus of classical marxism is on the production of the interventionary subject as a route or mode towards transformation, it follows that those subjects, produced in/through the contradictions of capitalist production (contradictions which arise out of a system and history of class antagonisms and struggle), who are located on the “margins” of society (and therefore have more investment in transformation) need to become producers towards revolutionary change. What arises from this need then, is the necessity of developing complex, rigorous and oppositional theories of whatever social, mechanistic structures, institutions and practices preclude a subject’s ability to exist oppositionally (e. g. the production of a subjectivity which works to maintain an ideology which encourages the consistent support of class exploitation and antagonisms).

As I stated previously, part of the goals of classical marxism, social transformation and revolution, may be more readily and efficiently achieved, so that the systematic emotional “fallout” which consistently occurs when women attempt to and offer political critiques, will be accounted for and theorized, and thus she will be able to remain in the space of oppositional critique; the possibilities for producing revolutionary work will not be inhibited or otherwise shut down. In other words, for societal transformation to ensure itself, it must be aware of all of the complexities which the base of capitalism has created to produce and reproduce itself. The site of one of these complexities begins when women attempt to produce an interventionary subjectivity within themselves and in social systems.

The material base, and the social, historical and subjective consequences of it, about which Marx writes, stems from the society’s mode of production, which is comprised of the forces of production and the relations of production. He writes,

The limits within which the preservation and self-expansion of the value of capital… come into conflict with the methods of production employed by capital for its purposes, which drive toward unlimited extension of production, towards production as an end in itself, towards unconditional development of the social productivity of labor… The capitalist mode of production is, for this reason, a historical means of developing the material forces of production and creating… a continual conflict between this its historical task and its own corresponding relations of social production. (Capital Volume III, 250)

That is, the sum of those who have been positioned for the purpose of production through their own labor power (i. e. laborers or workers) will eventually, because of the very design of capitalism itself, come into conflict and contradiction with the reality of the basis of the relations of production: that those who own the means of production also own the labor power of the workers. Thus, the contradiction begins when ideology tells workers they are in control of their own labor power (i.e. that they are free to choose how many hours to work, what type of work to do, and so on), but in fact, the structure of capitalist production exists through the worker’s continued, exploited output of labor as a worker. Contradictions, then, are inherent in the historical structure of the capitalist mode of production, because it is made up of the forces of production and the relations of production (e.g. subjectivity, class and gender relations, and so on), which consistently oppose each other historically and structurally. That is, the interests of the forces of production of capitalism, its increasing expansion and reliance on increasingly-cheaper labor to produce its needs absolutely necessarily conflict with the needs of the conditions of production in which, and only in which, capitalism can exist and move “forward” (Capital Vol. III, 257).

The economic base of capitalism creates this understanding of the material, from which political theory can then begin a productive method towards theorizing practices which would instigate social transformation. In terms of the production of women’s subjectivity then, the understanding of “materiality,” that is most useful (i.e. one which theorizes women in relation to the dominant, capitalist relations of society in a set of totalizing understandings) for a political project, the one which provides a foundation from which specific historical truths can be employed in order to create an interventionary subjectivity, is the classical marxist theorization of historical materialism. By involving women with the conditions of labor relations, there can begin a political examination of the conditions which create women (as opposed to how these same conditions create men), which position women in a specific, marked place in society, and begin to give reasons why this position (and society itself) needs to be transformed. Also, an examination of the intersections between women’s subjectivity and positionality, and the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, opens up a space wherein specific practices towards transforming these connections can begin.

I am not calling for, here, what Gail Omveldt has termed “sexual class struggle,” which is her theorization of how gender and class meet up politically (The Insurgent Socialist, Vol. 13, No. 3, 34), but rather I am trying to look at how the capitalist mode of production maintains a patriarchal superstructure, with women taking up one generally subordinate position, and men occupying a generally dominant, more powerful position. Feminisms can not afford to view patriarchy as a system of codes which is”separate from but interact(ive) with. . .relations of production that are ‘class relations’ in the traditional marxist sense,” (37, additions mine). Doing so implies at best that political theory can at some point not take up the question of class antagonisms, and at worst leads theory toward taking up one issue (or group of oppressed people) at a time, so that those issues and people need to begin vying against each other in order to get their needs met, and no real change occurs. In other words, oppositional theory, and for this essay, specifically feminism, needs to theorize women’s subjectivity within the classic marxist terms. It is not so much that Marx has no theory of gender (for however one interprets marxism, there is always a theory of gender; even a theory of disavowal is still a theory), but that feminism to date has only understood marxist accounts of gender when feminists redefine other marxist terms and theories (e.g. that women represent their own class in capitalist society, that “labor” needs to be redefined to incorporate domestic labor, and so on) so that their own theorizations make sense. I am suggesting here that the most beneficial understandings of women’s subjectivity and positionality will come out of the study of women within the classical marxist theorizations of the capitalist mode of production.

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx writes about the commodification of the worker, that is, the worker does not own his own labor, the capitalist own the labor power of the worker. This ownership is mediated by capitalism’s need for ever-increasing profit, and so the wages which are paid for labor power exist at the bare minimum. He writes,

The average price of wage-labor is the minimum wage, i.e. that quantum of the means of subsistence, which is absolutely requisite to keep the laborer in bare existence as a laborer. What, therefore, the wage-laborer appropriates by means of his labor, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. (Marx-Engels, 485)

An ideology which justifies the surplus labor which is produced in this paradigm of working is created, in part so that capitalism will maintain its pool of laborers (i.e. so that the owner of the means of production can explain the contradictions of labor relations, and so that the workers will believe there are no inherent problems with being a worker, and with work itself), and that those laborers will continue to produce commodities, which are sold to accumulate more surplus wealth, and so on. Ideology, then, is the superstructural means of maintaining the system of capitalism. Marx writes about the worker, but it is a male worker. How do women figure into this picture?

Gender as it is produced through the mode of capitalist production is a consequence of the unequal division of labor, the idealistic manifestation of the isolated, alienated individual, which stems from the mode of production itself. Women, as one of two recognized possible sexes in capitalist society, have been affected by this unequal distribution both quantitatively and qualitatively (Marx-Engels, 159). That is, women, because they exist within the subordinated position their gender occupies, have less access to the accumulated surplus wealth of capitalist society (in that they do not as often occupy petit bourgeois spaces in industry, and therefore earn less wages), and that they have differentially less access to labor and its products in that much of the labor women perform they perform as “slaves of the husband,” (159), or as third world slaves of multinational corporations.

What occurs for women then, is that the effects of the contradictions of capitalist production are such that (superstructural) ideology justifies (i.e. naturalizes what is needed for the mode of production) for women, from the start of their lives (and from the beginning of the production and creation of their subjectivity), reasons why they should not create for themselves, desire, or exist in a social and personal space where there is greater access to the accumulated existing surplus wealth, derived from the labor of the worker.

Gender and women’s oppression takes place within the contradiction of the capitalist means of production, and as such, they have real effects on women’s lives; they determine the way in which women exist in society. That is, even as women work towards emancipation based on the absorption of the real individual into the abstract citizen (46), they remain inside and within the conditioning of their society, which, as part of the content of that conditioning, tells them, as women, that they are not very able to think abstractly, or that they do not have enough autonomy to work towards real emancipation. It is therefore of great importance that women who strive against the effects of capitalist society to produce a new subjectivity which prioritizes opposition and intervention as methods to create and sustain social transformation (and not just social reform, but total societal emancipation as described above), must be supported, implicitly and explicitly. I define support in this sense here not as either an anti-intellectual, moral based, all-encompassing support of women in general, just because they are women, nor as a wholly individualized reactive process, but as a political engagement of interventionary work, towards which traditionally, women have had less access. That is, “support” is that method, designed towards the change of capitalist societal systems and structures, through which interventionary and oppositional thought and work, when it is done by women, is recognized, critiqued (and critiqued in a way so as not to isolate her from working on oppositional issues in the future), and perhaps, affirmed.

It is in best interests to ensure that feminist theory begins to take place in conjunction with marxism, so that by theorizing and offering new understandings of what creates the subjectivity of women, and of what that subjectivity consists, a theory may be developed which in more detail understands and can combat the historical, social and structural forces which would set women in a space away from producing political critique, when women, in part due to their place in capitalist society, have so much investment in its production.