Doyle Saylor wrote: > > Greetings Economists; > > On Oct 14, 2006, at 10:30 AM, Doug Henwood wrote: > > > Might be because, contrary to some essentialist feminist thinkers, > > capitalism undermines patriarchy over the long term, by competing > > away gender distinctions in favor of a purer individualism; > > Doyle; > No,
Yes. I think Doug should have left out the "contrary to some essentialist feminist thinkers," but his central point is not only as firmly based as any general proposition about capitalism can be but is one of the most crucial features of capitalist culture and social relations. > On Oct 14, 2006, at 10:30 AM, Doug Henwood wrote: > How many women were in Western boardrooms and > parliaments in the 1970s? > > Doyle; > The board room is for capitalists. Thousands of years ago, women were > queens and so on. You have to account for the mass base processes in a > realistic manner. If people are so individualized how come they want > to marry? Individualism not only offers no barrier to marriage but is a crucial ingredient in modern marriage -- which helps explain why the invention of that institution is to be found in the first capitalist society (England), and its (marriage's) ideology was first worked out in the national poets (Spencer, Shakespeare, Milton) of that state. Modern marriage is the paradigm for all capitalist relations: i.e., what we see in it is two agents, (seemingly) existing prior to and autonomously of all social relations, coming from nowhere as it were, and by an act of will establishing a society where none existed before. > I emphasize that communal ties in Iraq are very strong > against the U.S. The whole globe is capitalist. Not quite true. The whole globe is incorporated in capitalist relations but those relations have not necessarily permeated daily life to the same degree. Daily life in France & Germany in the 19th century, for example, was far less individualized than in England and the U.S. > There is an unreality in your comment. No. It needs lots of fleshing out and qualification, but it is where all understanding of capitalist culture must begin. Carrol > Doyle
