Joan of Mark: Karl Marx

Showing posts with label Karl Marx. Show all posts

Thursday, July 4, 2019

E-Book Release | "CAPITALISM AND DISABILITY: Essays by Marta Russell," ed., Keith Rosenthal

The electronic version of the new book I edited is now available for immediate download through the Haymarket Books website!

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1303-capitalism-and-disability

Capitalism and Disability
Selected Writings by Marta Russell

Edited by Keith Rosenthal

This book comprises a collection of groundbreaking writings by Marta Russell on the nature of disability and oppression under capitalism.

Spread out over many years and many different publications, the late author and activist Marta Russell wrote a number of groundbreaking and insightful essays on the nature of disability and oppression under capitalism. In this volume, Russell’s various essays are brought together in one place in order to provide a useful and expansive resource to those interested in better understanding the ways in which the modern phenomenon of disability is shaped by capitalist economic and social relations. The essays range in analysis from the theoretical to the topical, including but not limited to: the emergence of disability as a “human category” rooted in the rise of industrial capitalism and the transformation of the conditions of work, family, and society corresponding thereto; a critique of the shortcomings of a purely “civil rights approach” to addressing the persistence of disability oppression in the economic sphere, with a particular focus on the legacy of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; an examination of the changing position of disabled people within the overall system of capitalist production utilizing the Marxist economic concepts of the reserve army of the unemployed, the labor theory of value, and the exploitation of wage-labor; the effects of neoliberal capitalist policies on the living conditions and social position of disabled people as it pertains to welfare, income assistance, health care, and other social security programs; imperialism and war as a factor in the further oppression and immiseration of disabled people within the United States and globally; and the need to build unity against the divisive tendencies which hide the common economic interest shared between disabled people and the often highly-exploited direct care workers who provide services to the former.

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1303-capitalism-and-disability

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Marxism, feminism, and accusations of "class reductionism"

I recently engaged in a friendly debate with someone who was arguing that Marxism is antithetical to the contemporary struggle for women’s rights because Marx was a “class reductionist” who ignored women’s oppression as something to be dealt with “after the revolution.”

I felt I would reproduce a snippet of my comments here:

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I just wanted to say a quick word as someone who identities as both a Marxist and a feminist.

(Photo) Elisabeth Dmitrieff was active in her youth in the Socialist circles of Saint Petersburg. In 1868, she travelled to Switzerland, and co-founded the Russian section of the First International. Delegated to London, she met Karl Marx there, who advised her to go to Paris in March 1871, aged 20, to cover the events of the Commune.

(Photo) Elisabeth Dmitrieff was active in her youth in the Socialist circles of Saint Petersburg. In 1868, she travelled to Switzerland, and co-founded the Russian section of the First International. Delegated to London, she met Karl Marx there, who advised her to go to Paris in March 1871, aged 20, to cover the events of the Commune.

In fact, Marx and Engels were well ahead of their time, viz., the stuggle for women’s emancipation. Even a terse reading of some of Marx’s collected works reveal him repeatedly inveighing against women’s oppression, both in society generally, and within the labor and socialist movements. Marx fought to have women included as full and equal members — including in leadership positions — in the various movements he engaged in as against many of his (bigoted) contemporaries.

He wrote that their could be no truly revolutionary movement without mass participation of women; indeed, he makes a point of saying that one can judge the level of development of any society by looking at the degree to which women have won their social emancipation in that society.

His collaborators, Frederick Engels and August Bebel, were among the first anti-capitalists to pen books specifically analyzing the history of women’s oppression. Along with Marx, they contend that a fundamental socio-economic revolution is impossible unless premised upon the complete liberation of the female half of the population (both from class exploitation and gender oppression).

Some of the first American feminists, including Margaret Sanger (the founder of Planned Parenthood), Helen Keller, and Lucy Parsons, were themselves members of the American Socialist Party, and they all cite the works of Marx & Engels as a central contributor to the development of their understanding of women’s oppression and liberation.

In sum, I think it’s wrong to say that Marxism is “class reductionist” or ignores the question of women’s rights as something to be dealt with “after the revolution.” Certainly there have been those who have historically claimed the label “Marxist” who have been guilty of such distortions. But then again, the terms “feminism”, “democracy”, and even “human rights” have also been historically subject to distortions by many of their supposed proponents. Just as we need to struggle against those who have tried to turn “feminism” into a dirty word, I personally think the same is true of “Marxism.”

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Elisabeth Dmitrieff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Dmitrieff

http://www.aleph99.org/hor/sbher.html

http://quod.lib.umich.edu.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;idno=heb04495

http://quod.lib.umich.edu.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;idno=heb04505

http://www.segundaindependencia.cl/text/30

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Marx, Engels, Schweitzer and false accusations of homophobia

This is part of an ongoing research project I've been conducting on the various accusations of Marx and Engels' supposed virulent homophobia. The other two entries I've done on this topic can be viewed here and here.

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I recently stumbled upon a Wikipedia entry titled "Socialism and LGBT rights." Of particular interest to me was the section, "Marx, Engels, Ulrichs and Schweitzer."

Having already dealt elsewhere with most of the fallacious criticisms raised in the section in question (see the two links at top), I wanted to address one particular argument here, which is the following [my italics]:

Known to both Ulrichs and Marx was the case of Jean Baptista von Schweitzer, an important labor organiser who had been charged with attempting to solicit a teenage boy in a park in 1862. Social democrat leader Ferdinand Lassalle defended Schweitzer on the grounds that while he personally found homosexuality to be dirty, the labor movement needed the leadership of Schweitzer too much to abandon him, and that a person's sexual tastes had "absolutely nothing to do with a man’s political character". Marx, on the other hand, suggested that Engels use this incident to smear Schweitzer: "You must arrange for a few jokes about him to reach Siebel, for him to hawk around to the various papers." However, Schweitzer would go on to become President of the German Labor Union, and the first Social Democrat elected to a parliament in Europe.

The claim here is that Marx wanted homophobic jokes to be spread around about Schweitzer in order to further sully his name.

However, if one actually looks at the letter from which this quote by Marx is drawn, and investigates even cursorily the history and relationship of Schweitzer with Marx and Engels, it becomes painfully evident that the above claim is downright untrue. One can only assume that the author of the above Wikipedia entry is either horribly misinformed and ignorant, or simply has an axe to grind with Marx and/or Marxism and therefore willfully twists the facts in order to buttress his or her argument.

Unable to find the above quote by Marx online anywhere, I took a picture of the relevant page in the Marx-Engels Collected Works. For reference purposes, I also took a picture of the letter in which Engels responds to Marx (the next day), and an explanatory footnote from the Collected Works that I thought useful.

(Click on images below for expanded view).

While it is an indisputable part of the historical record that Marx and Schweitzer were bitter political enemies, there is nothing at all from these letters to suggest that Marx had a homophobic attitude towards him, or that Schweitzer's sexuality affected Marx's political assessment of him in any way.

The first thing that strikes one about Marx's letter is that it was written in 1865, a full three years after the incident in which Schweitzer had been charged with pedophilia. It makes absolutely no sense that Marx would just be brining this up to Engels as if it were a fresh scandal to be "hawked around to the various papers." The Schweitzer scandal had already been in all the papers for years before Marx wrote these words.

Second, we have no idea from the context what "jokes" Marx is talking about here, or whether or not they even relate to Schweitzer's sexuality at all (Marx makes no mention of Schweitzer's "incident" in the letter). I don't know why someone would assume that the only "jokes" Marx would have to spread around about Schweitzer would concern sex. Marx and Engels considered Schweitzer an opportunist, a sycophant, a reformist, and a fool. Certainly there wasn't a dearth of material for these two to laugh about and spread around, that would have had nothing to do with sexual matters. Further evidence of this is that in Engels' letter responding to Marx, he makes no mention of Schweitzer's sexuality, but merely comments along the lines of standing criticisms he and Marx shared of Schweitzers' political behavior and writings. This leads the honest observer to just as much assume the "jokes" are political in nature, rather than personal or sexual.

Finally, upon closer reading of Marx's letter, it is not even clear to me that the "jokes" he is asking Engels to "hawk around" even are about Schweitzer at all. Earler in the letter Marx refers to Schweitzer, but then transitions and brings up an article that Schweitzer had recently quoted, which a footnote tells us was written by someone named Karl Blind. Marx comments that Blind's article -- which had just been published 5 days previously -- was arrogant and self-aggrandizing. It is in the very next sentence that he writes: "You must arrange for a few jokes about the fellow to reach Siebel, for him to hawk around to the various papers."

Judged on the basis of syntax, content, and historical knowledge, it seems much more logical that Marx is actually refering to Karl Blind here, rather than Schweitzer. The fact that Blind's article had just been published a few days prior meant that whatever "joke" Marx thinks he deserves would be "newsworthy" from the standpoint of the "various papers," since it still would have been fresh. At least it would have been much more fresh than a three-year-old sexual scandal that had already saturated the press by then.

Whatever else one thinks of Marx, Schweitzer, or the letter in question, it is self-evident that one cannot honestly draw the conclusion that homophobia has anything to do with Marx's quip. One can assume, imagine, or believe, that Marx is addressing Schweitzer's sexuality here, albeit empirically far-fetched. But one cannot present Marx's homophobia as fact here without being utterly disingenuous.

This kind of sleight-of-hand scholarship is akin to the work of Hubert Kennedy, author of an article titled, "The Queer Marx Loved to Hate." The "queer" is Schweitzer, and it is certainly a fact that he was gay. It is also a fact that Marx did come to hate him. However, it is false to insinuate -- as the title does -- that Marx hated Schweitzer because he was queer, rather than for reasons of political disagreement.

In conclusion, my intention is not to impart the idea that Marx and Engels were infallible or beyond reproach on all questions. They weren't.

But what I am opposed to is dishonesty and misinformation. I am adamantly opposed to people who have a prejudiced political view of Marx and Engels inventing various conspiracies and blemishes in an attempt to cast aspersion on the ideas of the latter two. I am against this then being passed off as scholarly work.

Let us disagree on ideological questions. Let us debate historical and theoretical concerns. But let us remain honest in our appraisal of the facts.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

One of Karl Marx's most beautiful and insightful descriptions of social revolution

"Bourgeois revolutions, like those of the 18th century, storm swiftly from success to success; their dramatic effects outdo each other; men and things seem set in sparkling brilliants; ecstasy is the everyday spirit; but they are short-lived; soon they have attained their zenith, and a long crapulent depression lays hold of society before it learns soberly to assimilate the results of its storm-and-stress period.

On the other hand, proletarian revolutions, like those of the 19th century, criticize themselves constantly, interrupt themselves continually in their own course, come back to the apparently accomplished in order to begin it afresh, deride with unmerciful thoroughness the inadequacies, weaknesses and paltriness of their first attempts, seem to throw down their adversary only in order that he may draw new strength from the earth and rise before them again even more gigantic, recoil ever and anon from the indefinite prodigiousness of their own aims, until a situation has been created which makes all turning back impossible, and the conditions themselves cry out:

Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
Here is the rose, here dance!"

-- Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Resources, links, and facts regarding Marx/Engels & accusations of racism, sexism, anti-semitism, etc.