Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 16:16:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: Re Heterosexism (fwd)



But capitalism has contradictory tendenciesw ith regard to sexism,
heterosexism, and all forms of discrimination and group oppression (other
than class). There's the divoide and conquer utility of these attitudes,
>from which capoitalism benefits and which leads some ideologists and
institutions to promote discrimination and oppression. 

There's also the atomizing tendency to reduce all groups to individuals
and to subject all relations to the solvent of the market,w here Black,
felmale, gay, whatever makes no difference. As neoclassical economists
often note, from a certain perspective discrimination is an irartional
taste that deprives market actors of income they could have derived from
customers and employees in the groups they discriminate against. (This
neglects the dividea nd conquer rationality of discrimination, but the
other tendency is real, which countervails against it.) That's the basis
for liberal opposition to discrimination.

I think a lot of bigotry, in the form of attitudes, is a product of
reaction by the oppressed groups to capitalism. Marx noted this tendency
with English and Irish workers in the mid 19th C. English (then) or white
(now) workers look on the Irish (blacks) as inferior and hated in part
because it gives them someone to look down on, in part because they're low
wage competitors--that because of divide and conquer, as wella s because
the cultural differences that make class solidarity hard to attain.

David Roediger has done one studies of how racist ideology was important
in the formation of the white working class in America. See his The Wages
of Whiteness, among other things.

--Justin


> To: marxism2-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> Subject: Re Heterosexism
> 
> Lisa asks:
> 
> >How did capitalism create heterosexism and male supremacy?  Didn't
> >patriarchy, for instance, pre-date capitalism?
> 
> Definite traits of heterosexism and patriarchal modes of behaviour were in
> existence before the arrival of capitalism, from the Spartan's celebration
> of 'maleness' to the witch-hunts of three hundred years ago. What capitalism
> appears to have done is feed upon aspects of life that gave it sustenance
> and stamp upon other facests of pre-capitalism that threatened it such as
> the primitive communism preached by the Levellers.
> 
> Heterosexism is good for capitalism and capitalism is good for heterosexism.
> They suck off each other, like two vampires drinking the other's blood in a
> deadly embrace...
> 
> Fraternally,
> 
> Mike_Jovic-AT-msn.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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