From: Carrol Cox <cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Class, Race, sex,
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 22:46:14 -0600 (CST)


Bill Cochrane writes
> 
> Comrades,
<SNIP>
> This leads me to several potentially unpopular conclusions;

> - non-class relations of oppression may well be resolvable within a 
> conceivable capitalism.

> - the destruction of antagonistic class relations does not imply the 
> destruction of non-class oppressions.

> - In actually occurring capitalist societies non-class oppressions can 
> only be understood in their relation to antagonistic class relations.

These are all I believe correct, even tautological. It is their *meaning*
(and also whether they have the same meaning at different times and
places) that must be struggled over.

For example, the first one (concretized as gender): Let us suppose that in
principle the oppression of women may be abolished within capitalism.
*What follows from that*? Or, in fact, does it not make any difference,
but that whether or not the contradictions of gender may be resolvable
within capitalism, we must struggle to resolve them anyhow, for only
within that struggle will it be possible to unify the working class and
make it fit for the abolition of capitalism?

One of the most widespread of theoretical errors is the assumption that
correct theory translates directly into correct practice. In fact though
the task of thinking only *begins* with the arrival at the correct
theoretical position on any question.

Carrol

> Now I must run a way and hide before I say anything else that might 
> incriminate me.


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