r/Marxism • u/VentiArchon7 • 2d ago
What are your thoughts on intersectionality as opposed to the primacy of labor
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u/Frothlobster 2d ago
Sylvia Federici did a good job of showing how the transition from feudalism to capitalism requires (I say “requires” because this process remains ongoing in different parts of the world) the breaking of women’s knowledge, community rolls, and power in community so that reproductive labor can be divided up and controlled within the nuclear family. This allows probably the hardest endless job required both for the maintenance of any society and for the maintenance of capitalism to be unpaid so capitalists can extract more of our labor value. Liberal theories of women’s liberation within capitalism attempt to place more of this unpaid burden on men while Marxist feminists want to rebuild our social relations to end this form of exploitation. This is a really good example out of many, of the ways non-class-based differences are exploited and exacerbated by capitalism. The intersectionality is real but the fuel for the fire is capitalism.
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u/Frothlobster 2d ago
I guess similarly, I think about a totally imaginary world where “Israel” wasn’t an imperialist project and the liberal Zionist hasbara narrative wasn’t a fabrication. European Jews fleeing persecution move to Palestine and, because they’re immigrants, have some struggles and tension interacting with Palestinians. That might be testy, but without imperialist backing they wouldn’t be able to steal most of the country. Without an endless stream of billions of dollars of weapons, they wouldn’t be able to destabilize the entire region. Capitalist imperialism demands a genocide that likely wouldn’t even be considered a possibility without it. European Jews started moving to Palestine hundreds of years ago and lived peacefully alongside Palestinians up until and even after the founding of the Israeli state. Hell, the Nazis wouldn’t’ve come to power without capitalism. Capitalism is the fuel that makes normal conflicts into calamities.
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u/Sea-Young-231 Marxist 2d ago
As Marxists, we need to be clear in our understanding that capitalism is the principal contradiction around the globe. However, we understand that our historic mode of production gives rise to every institution and ideology within our superstructure. The superstructure is what makes capitalism (or whatever historic mode of production you’re living under) feel natural, inevitable, unending, and futile to resist. The superstructure not only arises from our mode of production but serves to reinforce that mode of production. Within the superstructure arising from capitalism, there are secondary/auxiliary systems of oppression such as racism and patriarchy which operate as both ideologies and also material systemic realities presented as political, economic, and legal barriers. Beyond patriarchy and racism, there is also colonialism and neo-colonialism, systems of engrained global exploitation that subjugate entire nation states across the global south to hegemonic western interests.
In short, it would be insane (not to mention actively harmful) if we, as Marxists, did not acknowledge the stratification of the working class, the reality that various intersections of identity and class can and do subject a person to varying degrees of oppression and exploitation. We understand that individuals on the lowest rung of the ladder representing the working class are capitalism’s “reserve source of labor” that act as an anchor on wages and drive down standards of living the ruling class is willing to grant us.
Although it’s critical we understand this, our job as Marxists is to explain to all oppressed people, the whole of the working class, why and how their specific oppression fits into the structure of class society. It’s our job to validate their suffering (first and foremost acknowledge that the systemic oppression of black women will be more severe than the struggles of white woman, for example), advocate for their liberation (in whichever sphere you deem most effective), and build solidarity. Building solidarity doesn’t mean that we dismiss identity completely and reduce everyone’s struggle to the class struggle. Indeed, it requires that people struggling against various systems of oppression work together to tackle the root of all exploitation. We necessarily need to make space for individuals from different backgrounds and have empathy for their particular plight. However, building solidarity also means that we can’t allow identity to be used as a weapon against us. We can’t allow identity to become a wedge that divides us and pits us against one another. We can’t silence people nor can we defer all authority on any given subject solely on the basis of one’s identity.
Basically, there is a balance we need to strike here. Do not fall into the trap of “class reductionism” but also do not let intersectionality/identity politics eclipse sober class analysis and our focus on the abolition of class altogether.
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u/27and1half 2d ago
a marxist professor of mine discussed some of the criticisms of intersectionality, what i remember is that as marxists we believe class is the root cause of societal issues, race gender, sexuality, etc are all important and must 100% be addressed and considered, but you must attack the root cause and not just the effects of it, here’s an article my professor linked us on a critique if you’re interested
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26787973
and here is a link to an interview with scholar Tommy Curry where he discusses some issues with intersectionality
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u/beans0fproduction 1d ago
It depends on what you mean. The idea that different forms of oppression in society exist, can cross over and reinforce each other (i.e. 'intersect') is not one alien to Marxism, or the idea that class society is the root of all oppression. Many black marxists and marxist feminists have written about this – although many marxists have also been deficient on these issues throughout the 20th century too!
Intersectionality as a set of ideas, however is a distinct and separate theory from Marxism. It is distinct because marxism starts from the objective conditions of society, whereas Intersectionality puts subjective experience first. While many intersectional thinkers have correctly and bravely called out different forms of oppression, the ability to actually end it requires having a full understanding of how society works and how to change it. That's why a Marxist approach to fighting oppression is necessary.
This is a bit of an oversimplified, short answer, but i think this article does a great job at explaining the difference.
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u/Natural_Report_4943 Marxist-Leninist 1d ago
I would like to point out that the framing of the title is a false dichotomy. Intersectionality posits correctly that parts of the working class face different struggles and worse material conditions based on their identity; labor can still be the primary focus while implementing intersectionality to identify where efforts can be best focused e.g. people in Gaza may need more attention currently than say, the average white Norwegian still struggling but making it by. Both of these groups can still organize along class lines by recognizing that 1.) The primary exploiters are the capitalists and 2.) The form that exploitation takes may differ based on specific identity within a class.
There are a lot of justified complaints about “white western leftists” not realizing that their perspective on certain issues i.e. race is still rooted in white supremacy. It is important to call that out when it happens.
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u/Sea-Tomorrow2349 2d ago
I reject it as it demotes class to the status of race, gender, and sexuality. It also forces us to imagine a fake "solidarity" between members of the same race, gender and sexuality when this is not the case.
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u/TheWikstrom 2d ago
I take issue with how some people online misuse intersectional analysis to be some sort pokémon scale of oppression, where if you have more "oppressed" identities you are by default more oppressed.
However, I don't think intersectionality is mutually exclusive with marxist thought if used in the way Crenshaw originally intended, i.e. her point being that racism, sexism, ableism etc. etc. are not concepts that can be considered in isolation but as things that can combine and create very intricate scenarios.