File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1996/96-12-15.190, message 90


Date: 15 Dec 96 03:50:29 EST
From: Chris Burford <100423.2040-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: M-I: Re: Red Feminism


Although Louis P and I seem to have been giving each other quite a hard
time recently ,I want to say positively that the piece he posted yesterday


"From "After Transnationalism and Localism: Toward a Red
Feminism", by Teresa Ebert in the November/December "Against the
Current". "

is important.

I was not sure how much was a direct quote from Teresa Ebert,
how much was a summary of her by Louis P, and how much a comment
by Louis, possibly because the Digest which is what I read, truncates
the mail headings, down to a bare 3 lines.

Three comments of my own.

1) The emphasis on the experience of a global civil society dominated by the 
triumph of commodity production, of course one-sidedly under-emphasises 
issues of working class exploitation directly at the place of work, but 
nevertherless emphasises an objective and extremely important aspect of late
20th century capitalism. It is consistent with Marx's dialectical and 
ambivalent description of civil society: as a expression of the absolute
abstract equality of the exchange of commodities, progressive often in relation to 
previous oppressive social structures, but chaotic and deadening in relation
to the socialist, sensuous and interconnected society which we need.
The feminist movement may particularly contribute by criticising the psycho-social 
effects of the triumph of this sort of civil society.


2) The transnationals are the most powerful, far-sighted, ruthless but also
intelligently tactical of the concentrations of capital. Their agenda is the 
triumph of civil society world wide as providing the best conditions for 
them to accumulate, taking advantage of benefits of scale and superior global
communications. They lobby, influence and shape powerfully at the level of 
individual governments and also world bodies, or emerging world bodies.
The battle with them as to whether their policies are progressive or 
reactionary on each issue is a crucial one for marxist analysis.

3) As has been pointed out on these lists already, there is a 
subtle distinction possible, and IMO necessary, in the marxist interpretation 
of the state. 

>>The state, in
capitalism, is the historically specific exercise of power on behalf of
the ruling class: "The executive of the modern State is but a committee
for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie".<<

The lines in double quotes above " "  from the Communist Manifesto, do not 
say "The modern State is but a committee
for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie". 

They say
"The executive is but a committee
for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie".

Bear in mind that in 1848, the government of nation states were indeed
very small committees. 

The issue here is that arguably Lenin bent the wand a little in his 
drive to build an effective Bolshevik Party able to seize state power. 
Various other 20th century marxists including Althusser and the Frankfurt 
school have emphasised other factors such that the state must be located within
a wider culture. In order for one class to continue oppressing and exploiting
another, there must be a state structure and ideology that appears to stand
above classes, and there must be processes, including cultural, professional
and educational ones, that reproduce the conditions for this to continue. 
These arenas have their own contradictions and themselves form terrains of 
struggle. 

Gramsci's emphasis on civil society is also taken by his admirers
to stress this point. The risk is taking this emphasis one sidedly. 
Civil society is a most important arena of struggle, more than the more
dogmatic would be followers of Lenin recognise, but it is very far from being
an unmitigated Good Thing. Perhaps as the Red Feminism article illustrates, 
sections of the feminist movement can help to correct that balance.

The challenge seems to me, how to take on board all these complex aspects 
without losing perspective in the worst of post modernists hazes. How to 
stay focussed without being dogmatic. 

Chris Burford
London.



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