[page 13]
Many readers may be amused, angry, enthused, or disappointed by articles appearing in Socialist Woman. Why not write and let us know your thoughts? Two of our readers have done just that. Indeed, both were so moved as to write from abroad. Hilda Scott, author of Women and Socialism, wrote from Austria in reply to a Socialist Woman review of her book. And Gary Kinsman, an activist in the gay movement in Canada, put pen to paper to reply to John Ross's article in the last issue on 'Capitalism, Politics and Personal Life'. The publication of J. Ross's article on capitalism and personal life in Socialist Woman (Vol. 6, No. 2) is an important step in beginning a discussion on this question in the Fourth International and the revolutionary left. Unfortunately while Ross makes a number of important and necessary criticisms of Eli Zaretsky's book Capitalism, the Family and Personal Life, he misses the main point of Zaretsky's work and therefore does not provide an adequate critique of it. His labelling of Zaretsky's work as "anti-Marxist" and 'anti-Leninist", while it may have a certain legitimacy, serves to write off Zaretsky's important contribution rather than establishing a basis for discussion of the real issues involved.
Perhaps a quote from Ross can help to clarify what I'm getting at. He states: *The problem is not, as Zaretsky supposes, the "politicisation of the personal" but the elimination of the political altogether' (p. 13). In other words, he starts off from a point that in the long-term is correct, i.e. that in socialist and communist societies the state and the sphere of politics as a distinct sphere will wither away; but he uses this position to catapult over the real problem we face now which is how capitalism affects 'personal life', and how this relates to revolutionary strategy. Zaretsky is trying to point out how the distinct personal sphere has developed in capitalist society and how this relates to the oppression of women, gays and the working class as a whole. Ross essentially does not deal with this central problematic that Zaretsky develops.
Ross's article makes a number of relevant points. Firstly, he takes up a certain confusion in Zaretsky's work between the private sphere which Marx talked about and the personal sphere which Marx didn't really conceive of, at least in the sense that Zaretsky outlines it. For Marx the distinction between public and private is the distinction, as Ross puts it, between the life of the capitalist state and the real nature of capitalist civil society' (p. 14). However this does not automatically mean, as Ross suggests, that Zaretsky's work is 'anti-Marxist' but rather points out the content of the debate in the last century. It is certainly clear that a distinction can be made in a Marxist framework between socialised labour and domestic labour, in a sense between public life and personal life. This does not negate the distinction that Marx made, which is essential to understanding bourgeois democracy, but is looking at another distinction which can be made, and is made, in mass consciousness in bourgeois society.
Ross also makes an important point in emphasising the political dimension of Marxism against Zaretsky, who sometimes seems to emphasise its "economic reductionist" aspects. Ross correctly points out that the precondition for social liberation is the destruction of the capitalist state and the establishment of workers power. He also correctly points out that Zaretsky does not have an adequate understanding of the development of Stalinism, which leads him to errors in his analysis. However, again Ross misses the main point. Zaretsky is trying to overcome the economist distortions of Marxism (which Ross himself recognises on page 9) by attempting to synthesise socialism with relevant aspects of feminist analysis. He sees Marxism as a total method of analysis and wants to overcome the error which many radical feminists have made of seeing Marxism as only a valid method of analysis for the economic sphere. He sees overcoming this division, which is common to both cconomist Marxism and sectors of radical feminism, 'through a conception of the family as a historically formed part of the mode of production' (p. 31, op. cit.).
Zaretsky explains the main project of his book in the following way:
*The following book examines the division between the private and public, or inner and outer worlds of our society. It explains this division in terms of the impact of capitalism upon the family: on one hand, the decline of the traditional patriarchal family, based upon private productive property; on the other, the rise of a new emphasis on personal life, experienced as something outside work and society' (p.9).
In other words, the distinction he is trying to address (if we use a narrow definition of "political" like Ross does) is between personal (individual) and social life. Zaretsky is trying to examine the co-optive function of the personal' and "subjective" spheres in bourgeois democracy. One of the major ways people are integrated into bourgeois democracy is through this division between public (seen as political, social and industrial) and personal life (the sphere of sexuality, the family, of something the people involved can control as compared to the impersonal outside world). Marxists have to begin to explore this area so we can point out how social and political oppression are perpetuated in inter-personal relations, and how capitalism uses gender roles and emotional structures to maintain its domination over us all. Zaretsky is not arguing for the destruction of the distinct "personal sphere" but is pointing out how 'the personal is political', not in the sense that it directly contests the bourgeois state, but in how forms of oppression and social domination are perpetuated in this sphere. In other words, he is trying to take from the analysis produced by feminism and gay liberation to enrich Marxist theory.
Zaretsky examines how the family has been transformed with
[page 14]
the rise of capitalist society. He explains: With the rise of industry, capitalism "split" production between its socialised forms (the sphere of commodity production) and the private labour performed predominantly by women within the home (p.29).
He explains that, "This "split" between the socialised labour of the capitalist enterprise and the private labour of women in the home is closely related to a second "split" - between our "personal lives and our place within the social division of labour' (p.29). And he further argues: In fact, capitalism has mass-produced specific forms of personal life, and of individuality which simultaneously reinforce and threaten capitalist hegemony' (p. 73).
The understanding of this contradictory effect of capitalism on "personal life', for example of the "sexual revolution' of the late which simultaneously laid some of the basis for the women's and gay movements and integrated aspects of sexual rebellion into capitalist commodity relations, is important for Marxism to understand and integrate into its revolutionary strategy and practice.
Zaretsky is trying to provide the material basis for understanding the ideology of the personal sphere'. While he may be somewhat schematic we must give him credit for this pioneering Zaretsky also provides some clements for a critique of Marx and Engels' position on the sexual sphere and the liberation of woren. To vulgarise somewhat Marx and Engels' position, they argued that the integration of women into social production and the socialisation of domestic labour would lead to the liberation of women. In other words, economic changes would somewhat spontancously lead to the liberation of women. Zaretsky correctly points out that while these economic changes are absolutely necessary, they are not in and of themselves sufficient to bring about women's liberation. He points out the need for a conscious social and political struggle if women's liberation is to come about.
Marx and Engels also tended to see the forms of sexuality around them (generally monogamous heterosexuality) as the 'normal' or 'natural' form of sexuality. Because of the underdevelopment of scientific knowledge of the sexual sphere at the time, they were unable to apply a historical dialectical approach to this sphere of 'personal life'. Zaretsky also points out that Lenin didn't adequately understand the need for a conscious struggle around these questions. Zaretsky is trying to explain why we need to accept the basis that Marxism has provided for understanding between the family and economic and development, but why we must go beyond this to develop an understanding of how personal life' can be transformed along with the mode of production. It can also be pointed out that there is an inter-dependence between these two processes, and that without the transformation of personal life', further economic transformation will no longer be possible after a certain point.
Ross also raises a number of questions that are not directly related to Zaretsky's work. While he sees the importance of learning from the women's and gay movement, he seems to suggest that the revolutionary party should not take positions on many of the questions raised by Zaretsky. While he makes a number of valid points around the relationship of the revolutionary organisation to questions of culture, art and society, he leaves a lot of unclarity. For example, he suggests that while a revolutionary organisation would oppose all laws against gays, it should not take TOUR year (48 issues), £9. £19).
La broader position on homosexuality. Again Ross is missing the point. The questions of women's and gay oppression are important political questions and if we are to fight sexism and hetero-sexism in mass consciousness we must take a broader position than simply support for law reform and formal equality. On gay liberation, for example, we must be able to explain why gays are oppressed, be able to combat theories of 'abnormality" and "sickness", point out that homosexuality is as legitimate a homosexuality and the gay struggle question rigid gender roles and the sexual division of labour.
Ross goes on to point out that many activists in the women's movements have a sceptical organisations. He tries to explain this attitude by suggesting they demand too much of a position on 'personal life'. While this has a relevant aspect it again misses the point. If we look at the relation historically between the left and women's and gay liberation we will see many inadequacies and errors on the part of the left. It is for these reasons that many feminists and gay activists are hostile or sceptical in relation to revolutionary organisations. The revolutionary left must go beyond these limitations of the past and develop an understanding of the importance of the fight for women's and gay liberation in the total revolutionary process. When the left corrects its past errors many feminist and gay activists would have reason to take a more positive attitude towards the left.
Ross seems to have a somewhat narrow conception of what a revolutionary party's tasks are. He seems to limit the party to helping to create the conditions for the smashing of the bourgeois state, the establishment of workers' power and to "political" matters in the workers' state. Again there are relevant aspects to his analysis, but it begins to blur the important role a revolutionary organisation has to play in raising the political consciousness of the working class and oppressed before, revolution. The revolutionary party must constantly be raising the consciousness of workers and the oppressed around such issues as sexual oppression, not only to unite the working class prior to the insurrection but to be able to establish an adequate understanding of how to build a socialist society. Clearly the autonomous movements of the oppressed have an important role to play in this respect, but the revolutionary organisation still has a central role to play. It is only through a conscious social and political struggle that the family and present "personal life' will be overcome and replaced by new forms of social organisation. And again these new forms of social organisation replacing the family and sexual division of labour will be necessary if a socialist and communist society is to be built. The function of a revolutionary organisation is a more dialectical process than Ross outlines and requires an understanding of how social and personal affect the political sphere (narrowlydefined).
In conclusion, Ross's article, while it opens up the debate, is inadequate in a number of respects which I have tried to point out. It is important for the revolutionary left to be able to learn from the women's and gay struggle and to expand Marxist analysis to include the problems of the personal sphere'. While Zaretsky does not provide many answers to this problematic, he does pose the important questions, and whatever its limitations his work on this question is still the best available in English ( as far as I am GARY KINSMAN NEW INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL A single united weekly journal reflecting the views of the Fourth International has just commenced publication, combining Intercontinental Press and the English language edition of Inprecor. It will specialise in fast, accurate information and interpretation ot world events ol particular interest to the labour, socialist, colonial independence, black and women's liberation movements.
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