Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Sexual liberation and male chauvinism
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 98 13:08:07 -0000
From: Bill Cochrane <bc1961-AT-xtra.co.nz>


Yoshie
You say,
>I haven't read Linda Mcdowell, but food preparation and sex aren't the only
>kinds of domestic labor that women have performed. In fact, one of the most
>burdensome parts of domestic labor is care-giving--raising children, caring
>for the sick, the disabled, the elderly, etc.
I do not think that capitalism would collapse if the sick who could not 
afford treatment, the aged that could not purchase care or derive an 
income, or the disabled where left to their own devices. Just because an 
activity such as caring is under taken in a capitalist society does not 
mean that it is necessary for the reproduction of capitalism, this I 
believe is one of the old traps of Althussers structuralism. Such actions 
as caring are undertaken under capitalism for reasons usually unrelated 
to systemic reproduction, such as  ethical, cultural or historical 
considerations. I think then you confuse the conditions required to 
reproduce capitalism with the functions that have to be undertaken to 
secure a humane society.
The withdrawl of the welfare state has perverse effects as while caring 
is devolved onto the 'family' women are increasingly compelled to under 
take paid labour frequently in commodified caring. While the rich are 
certainly better placed to contract out of 'caring' economic necessity 
compells many of the poor to do so to as the obligation to engage in paid 
labour becomes generalized (things such as work testing the dependents of 
welfare recipients). To me it increasingly appears that we are seeing 
women being forced to undertake their traditional caring roles for low 
pay as opposed to the fordist 'family' wage model.
>The so-called 'post-Fordist' worker/family seems to me to be very
>geographically specific and also historically contingent, and I don't think
>that it can be generalized worldwide.
I dont think such a thing has emerged as post fordism as yet and in fact 
feel there is little evidence that it will in the near future, despite 
the academic cottage industry that has sprung up round post fordism. This 
is actually a source of great irritation to me and I would like to do 
something very creative involving string, peanut butter, a seatless 
unicycle and perhaps a leather clad troll to the likes of Piore and 
Sabel,Hirst and Zietlin or even better Martin Jaques and everyone who 
ever wrote anything in Marxism Today.

Bill Cochrane
Ngaruawahia
New Zealand



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