The Communist Manifesto enclose within it traces of the uprisings that birthed it. It is a document whose theories arise from and are amended by social movements. Importantly, it is written for the ordinary worker, who as Engels commented in its 1888 English preface, acknowledged it as their “common platform…from Siberia to California.” It is in this specific sense of a document arising from a movement that we chose to call our work a “manifesto”, for, although in a less grand scale, our manifesto too arose from the wave of feminist strikes, and both contributed to and were recalibrated by them. In this brief reflection I hope to draw out some of the ways in which our Manifesto stands in the tradition of Marxist theorizing of capitalism, and in one key way makes a contribution to it. [Keep reading here…]
Gender
Reading Monique Wittig and Transgender Marxism underscores that Marx’s writings, standing alone, do not properly address sex and gender. For this reason, it is essential that we read Marx through the lens of Wittig’s version of feminist materialism and an abolitionist version of transgender Marxism. Ultimately, if one embraces Marx’s abolitionist position with regard to private property, capital, and class, the resulting vision of society, of solidarity, and of cooperation requires the end of any forms of dominance associated with the category of sex. The abolition of class distinctions calls for the abolition of gender distinctions that create relations of domination. In effect, maintaining the idea of sexual difference undermines the possibility of a genuinely classless society. [Continue reading here…]