File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-04-03.022, message 14


Date: Mon, 31 Mar 1997 21:00:43 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: M-I: Workers'/Women's Struggles, State/Civl Society, and Neoliberalism


Reading together a number of recent posts that touch on gender-equality
issues, I am beginning to feel we must address those issues in connection
with the following subjects.

1) Louis Godena's rebuttal of Mark Jones's charges against Zeynep as well
as Doug's characterization of Adolfo as "aristocratic" traitor to his class
origin put an interesting gloss on Louis Proyect's characterization of
feminism as "cross-class movement." Haven't the "actually existing" marxist
movements always had "cross-class" inflections? Recognizing this reality, I
believe, modifies our analyses of the relationships between marxism and
other social movements.

2) The State has been assailed by different forces for different reasons.
The State has been attacked from below by those who are disgusted by
visible corruption, failures of modernization/development, etc. The State
has been also targeted by neoliberal ideology and practice from above. The
intersection of these lines of attacks has much to do with a rising
interest in civil society/social movements.

3) Non-profit sectors constitute an important area of marxist analyses,
esp. in the age of neoliberalism. "Reprivatization of welfare" has and will
increase their prominence and is likely to exacerbate the contradictions
within social movements as well as capitalism. If the "welfare state" has
made reproduction of labor power partially public, neoliberalism will try
to reprivatize it.

4) Sociological literature on social movements has a component called
"resource-mobilization theory." The funding sources (such as the World Bank
and liberal foundations) as well as "cultural capital" have and continue to
enable those who are liberal and middle class to mobilize resources to
maintain their organizations. On the other hand, religious organizations,
conservative foundations, etc. provide those who are conservative and
middle class with resources to organize and mobilize people under their
banners. I suggest that the question of bourgeois feminism be addressed
under this rubric.

Sorry to be very sketchy. I am pretty sick today and don't have energy to
develop what I said above. I hope somebody will pick it up.

Yoshie




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