From: cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox)
Subject: Re: M-FEM: about peer marriage and domestic work
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 19:49:49 -0600 (CST)


	In the response to Marthat forwarded below from Joanne she
(mis) quotes a line from *Critique of the Gotha Programme*. That 
powerful document seems to be both dated and wonderfully alive, and
just to throw it into circulation, and perhaps give a slightly 
different framework to this discussion, I have printed here a long
passage from the *Critique* which ends with line Joanne alludes to.
Certainly one of the "problems" or issues for an m-fem list ought
to be how to make use of all progressive documents (not just Marx)
written in periods before the rise of second-wave feminism. I had
some difficulty in choosing a starting point in the Critique, but
I had to break in somewhere.
Carrol

>From Critique of the Gotha Programme (Selected Works, Moscow, Vol.
3, pp 17-19:

  	Only now do we come to the "distribution" which the programme,
  under Lasallean influence, alone has in view in its narrow fashion,
  namely, to that part of the means of consumption which is divided
  among the individual producers of the cooperative society.

  	The "undiminished proceeds of labour" have already unnoticeably
  become converted into the "diminished" proceeds, although what the
  producer is deprived of in his capacity as a private individual
  benefits him directly or indirectly or indirectly in his capacity
  as a member of society.

	Just as the phrase "the undiminished proceeds of labour"
  has disappeared, so now does the phrase of the "proceeds of 
  labour disappear altogether.

	Within the co-operative society based on common ownership
  of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their
  products; just as little does the labour employed on the products 
  appear here *as the value* of these products, as a material
  quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist
  society, individual labour no longer exists in an indirect
  fashion but directly as a component part of the total labour.
  The phrase "proceeds of labour," objectionable also today on 
  account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.

	What we have to deal with here is a communist society,
  not as it has *developed* on its own foundations, but, on the
  contrary, just as it *emerges* from capitalist society; which
  is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually,
  still stamped with the birth marks of the old society from whose
  womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives
  back from society --  after the deductions have been made -- 
  exactly what he gives to it. What he has given is his individual
  quantum of labour. For example, the social working day consists
  of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual
  labour time of the individual producer is the part of the social
  working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives
  a certificate from society that he has furnished such and such
  an amount of labour (after deducting his labour for the common
  funds), and with this certificate he draws from the social stock
  of means of consumption as much as costs the same amount of 
  labour. The same amount of labour which he has given to society
  in one form he receives back in another.

	Here obviously the same principle prevails as that which
  regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is 
  exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because
  under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except
  his labour, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to
  the ownership of individuals except individual means of
  consumption. But, as far as the distribution of the latter among
  the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails
  as in the exchange of commodity-equivalents: a given amount
  of labour in another form.

	Hence, *equal right* here is still in principle--*bourgeois
  right*, although principle and practice are no longer at 
  loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity
  exchange only exists *on the average* and not in the individual
  case.

	In spite of this advance, this *equal right* is still 
  constantly stigmatised by a bourgeois limitation. The right 
  of the producers is *proportional* to the labour they supply;
  the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with
  an *equal standard*, labour.

	But one man is superior to another physically or mentally
  and so supplies mroe labour in the same time, or can labour 
  for a longer time; and labour, toserve as a measure, must be
  defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to
  be a standard of measurement. This *equal* right is an unequal
  right for unequal labour. It recognizes no class differences,
  because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it
  tacitly recognises unequal individual endowment and thus 
  productive capacity as natural privileges. *It is, therefore,
  a right of inequality, in its content, like every right*.
  Right by its very nature can consist only in the application
  of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they 
  would not be individuals if they were not unequal) are
  measurable only by an equal standard in so far as they are
  brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one 
  *definite* side only, for instance, in the present case, are
  regarded *only as workers* and nothing more is seen in 
  them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is
  married, another not; one has more children than another, 
  and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of 
  labour, and hence and equal share in the social consumption
  fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will
  be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these
  defects, right instead of being equal would have to be
  unequal.

	But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of
  communist society as it is when it has just emerged after
  prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can
  never be higher than the economic structure of society and
  its cultural development conditioned thereby.

	In a higher phase of communist society, after the 
  enslaving subordination of the individual to the the
  division of labour and therewith also the antithesis 
  between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after
  labour has become not only a means of life but life's 
  prime want; after the productive forces have also increased
  with the all-round development of the individual, and all
  the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly--
  only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be
  crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its 
  banners: From each according to his ability, to each
  according to his needs!

<End of quotation>

Note (from Carrol). From the viewpoint of the struggle of labor over
the last 50 years, one obvious amendment to this passage comes to
mind. In at least two respects real and not merely bourgeois equality
would be possible and desirable from the beginning, because they are
already possible and desirable demands of struggle *inside* capitalism:
free medical care and free socially provided child care.


From: Joanne Callahan <jmcalla1-AT-airmail.net>
Subject: Re: M-FEM: about peer marriage and domestic work (fwd)

> 
> >From owner-marxism-feminism-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Sat Oct 18 14:27:09 1997
> Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 13:12:16 -0600 (MDT)
> From: Martha Gimenez <gimenez-AT-csf.Colorado.EDU>
> Subject: M-FEM: about peer marriage and domestic work
> 
> 
> The idea of equality within household tasks is a way of introducing market
> relations and forms of consciousness in the context of interpersonal
> relations in the home and arguing that it would be desirable that people
> experience in the home the same kinds of formal equality in civil and
> political rights they are entitled to outside the home. 

Wait a minute, Martha!  As I said before, this movement would be largely
non-legislative.  It would focus on education, "role models", and
hopefully, some cultural change.  I know one cannot legislate equal
marriage anymore than one cannot legislate marital fidelity, but we can
use other means to educate and influence culture.  There I go again,
speaking like a "liberal".  And being a good, action-oriented liberal,
I just can't sit around and navel gaze. :-)

>To do so would
> abstract from everything else men and women are to each other reducing
> them to the roles of exploiter and exploited.  But households, if we are
> to look at them dialectically, are a unity of opposites, characterized by
> relations of cooperation and relations of inequality because structured
> gender inequality permeates and underlies those relations.  Does this mean
> that exploitation is going on always and in all households?  Does it mean
> that the desirable thing would be to divide household work equally?

Martha, you've got to be kidding. :-)  We feminists are extremely aware
that NO relationship is 50-50 every single minute of the day.  Still,
there are persistent injustices that have very little do with healthy
female-male interdependence and everything to do with patriarchal
privilege.  It's extremely unfair to dump all the responsibility of
enlightening the husband on the wife.  

> To view domestic relations as exploitive relations
> abstracts from the contributions men make to their wives and children's
> well being and from the benefits wives and children derive from their
> husband/father.

I didn't say domestic relations are *inherently* exploitive.  I just
said that patriarchy has made them exploitive.  I am not against the
nuclear family; I am just against what patriarchy has done to the
nuclear family.  I don't think marriage and family are *inherently*
oppressive (yes, I know the Latin origins of the term, family.  Perhaps
we should invent a new term like "livelong love commitment" :-))      

>Because household relations are not market relations
> there are no standards to measure those contributions so that they turn
> out equal. 

Again, relationships cannot be "measured", but here we go again--there
are persistent patterns of injustice which must be addressed.  I would
say we should have guidelines and new customs rather than "standards".


> Of course, in the households of the upper class, capitalist households and
> the upper-middle class, the issue of domestic work does not even arise
> because it is done by a variety of hired workers (e.g., housekeepers,
> cooks, maids, nannies, gardeners, etc).

And guess who makes sure the housekeepers, cooks, maids, nannies and
gardeners do their jobs?  The "lady of the house", because why should
the "lord of the manner" be bothered by such "trivia"!

> This raises a different issue:  the extent to which domestic labor is
> exploited labor because it is done by poorly paid women, often immigrants,
> often undocumented.

Right on!  BTW, I have said prophetically to the feminist economists'
group, "We need to build a society where ALL jobs are designed with the
view that ALL workers have family nurturing responsibilities."  I know
that ideal will never completely be realized, but still, we need to say
such things just to raise consciousness.

You may be shocked to hear that I got the idea from "After Eden: Facing
the Challenge of Gender Reconciliation", a very fine book by several
Christian feminists from a wide variety of disciplines.  

> 
> Equality in the division of domestic labor is, consequently, an idea that
> makes sense only among women who are forced to do it themselves most of
> the time and who would rather do other things with their time. 

Martha, I know working class women who complain about their husbands
not taking equal responsibility.  But then, some studies have shown
that working class husbands are more likely to take responsibility for
childcare than husbands in other classes.  I think this issue is much
bigger than the yuppie, two-career stereotype.  

For all their patriarchalism, the Promise Keepers at least admitted that
men need to do *some* housework and childcare.  So a teeny weeny shift
is occurring in society.  Yes, it's co-optation, but I still pay
attention to these small changes.  

> Among
> women who view their domestic skills (both the drudgery and the creative
> parts) as their contribution to their families, as their share in the
> process of making a house a home and expressing their love and "doing
> gender,"  the idea might not be very appealing because they might see it
> as a potential loss of their indispensibility.

Yes, I understand.  But again, I think things are shifting a little bit.
It's due to a combination of economic instability and the women's
movement.

> But people marry or live together for many reasons, one being that men
> and women are still interdependent not just economically but emotionally
> and they build that interdependence through, among other ways, their
> relations of cooperation in the division of labor.

Can't argue.  However, there are healthy divisions of labor and 
dysfunctional divisions of labor.  Unfortunately, the later far outstrip
the former.

>  In terms of
> hours, men do much less domestic work than women.  Presumably they benefit
> from women's extra hours.  But how about what men do when they are not
> home, earning the money that the household needs?

Martha, men benefit ENORMOUSLY from women's extra hours.  Just read
Pepper Schwartz' great chapter, Ending the Provider Role, in "Love
Between Equals:  How Peer Marriage Really Works".  It consolidates their
patriarchal power.  And in this society, it diminishes the woman.  His
contribution is highly over-rated, her contribution is highly under-
rated.  

But then, I've noticed in news articles about "role reversal" families
that the breadwinner mother's career aspirations are ignored while the
father's "great job with the kids" is highly over-praised.  While I'm
sure he's a competent caretaker, he shouldn't get extra kudos because
he's male. 

> How about women's
> gained social status in a society that still views unmarried people,
> especially women, with suspicion? 

Well, Martha, considering all my female friends who are getting divorced
after several years of unpaid labor in the home, I don't think they care
much about society's suspicion anymore.  They know society has cheated
them, so why care?  I'm stunned by their courage.

> How about women's sense of
> accomplishment about what they do? I am no Martha Stewart (she is the
> equivalent to those workers Taylor used to speed up the assembly line :)
> but I love cooking as a wonderful form of non-alienated labor 

I also enjoy cooking.  I love decorating.  I am probably more affirming
of women's homemaking accomplishments than most people.  Actually,
feminists are the most affirming of work in the home.  

>the
> kind of peer marriage and equal division of labor that make sense to upper
> middle class educated or professional women could be threatening to
> working class women for whom some of their household labor might be the
> main contribution and even the most creative thing they do.

I understand, but again, I think this issue has become broader than the
yuppie, two-career stereotype.  Obviously, in an equal marriage 
movement, we'll have to be as multiclass and multicultural as possible.
I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do know we have to start
doing something other than writing books.

> 
> I think that rather than struggle for peer marriages/relationships i would
> struggle for community, for the organization of eating and childcare and
> personal maintenance on a communal basis, doing away with privatized
> households and establishing the conditions for people to be able to share
> their domestic labor with others 

I would argue for peer marriage within that community context.  Indeed,
it will take *communities* to make peer marriages work.  That's why we
need this non-legislative movement, to make all our institutions realize
they must be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

Even if we had a marxist-style communal society, we'd still have to work
on those peer marriage issues.  Housework and childcare are the tip of
the iceberg.  There's sex, communication, conflict resolution, birth
control, etc.

We just can't get away from that family . . . or that lifelong love
commitment!    

>so that the collective receives from
> "each according to their ability and to each according to their needs,"

Martha, as I remember, Marx said, "Each according to his(sic) ability
and each according to his(sic) needs".  :-)  I don't sanitize people's
sexist language.  I want the world to know about the sexism that was
not only tolerated, but actively encouraged.

> which is the way many couples happily enjoy their unequal division of
> labor today.

I wish I could agree with you.  But sadly, most women in *all* social
classes do NOT enjoy their unequal division of labor.  Male-female
interdependence has been corrupted by . . .sin (Yes, I have been
influenced by the Christian feminist Mary Stewart vanLeeuwen, author of
"Gender and Grace" and "After Eden:  Facing the Challenge of Gender
Reconciliation").

Joanne Callahan
jmcalla1-AT-airmail.net