Antonella Stirati and Antonella Picchio both have books where the "classical"
(Classical Political Economy/Marxist) theory of wages (viewed as a key moment in
social reproduction) is elaborated in the context of patriarchy. Deb Figart and
two co-authors have also produced at least one paper along the same lines. So
has Marilyn Power.
As far as race, things get difficult theoretically, because as we know racism
and patriarchy are not "parallel" social structures, so it is not as if we have
a template where we can insert various forms of
exploitation/domination/oppression. But there is a lot of work that we can draw
on to begin such a project. Botwinick's Persistent Inequality (Princeton U.
Press) is important. Amott and Matthaei have a book on Race, Gender, and Work
that may be helpful. Everything by Rhonda M. Williams should be read by anyone
interested in these issues. (There are *two* sessions in memory of RMW at the
Eastern Economic Meetings, and her brother, the philosopher Robert
Gooding-Williams, editor of Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban Uprising, will be
at the one on Sunday Feb. 25 at 9am, Crown Plaza Hotel, Manhattan). Darity's
(who will also be at the sun. session) work is also important, see his two
volume edited Economics of Discrimination collection, three other edited
collections, two called Labor Economics, both published by Kluwer, one co-edited
with Shulman. And two books, Persistent Disparity, and The Black Underclass,
both co-written with Samuel Myers. Oliver Cromwell Cox's work is also required
reading.
Darity and Williams, together and separately, have taken on on every single
theory of racial inequality there has ever been and every one that comes along,
and to my mind they have effectively refuted them all, an incredible
undertaking. So a lot of their stuff is important for the critique, but we are
taking now about crafting an alternative based on classical/Marxian theory. They
have also contributed here, but things do get tricky. Some of the work on the
patriarchy side has tried to make the social reproduction ('subsistence') wage a
kind of 'positive' framework, where work in the home and child rearing is viewed
as productive labor and the value is incorporated into the 'wage', whereas the
classical Marxian theory was about a theory of what capitalism *is* not about
what it or something else *should be*, so for example, the 'historically and
morally determined subsistence wage' under capitalism can be BELOW biological
subsistence, where workers are forced to either subsidize the marklet wage with
borrowing to live, or out of past saving, or with some kind of other subsistence
activity (an insight I owe to RMW, btw). The people who are working on this have
to figure out are they working on a theory of wages under capitalism, a theory
of what wages *should be* under a reformed capitalism or under socialism or
what. If it is both or all they have to do some careful distinguishing and
discerning. These are all important projects, also there is a lot of work I am
not citing here, people should look through all the back issues of Feminist
Economics. Also, I am interested in Sandra Harding's proposition that there is a
"curious" coincidence" between some feminist and some African-centered critiques
of economics and also feminist and African-centered worldviews. But again, there
are obviously a lot of issues here! See Harding's The Science Question and
Feminism, RMW's comment in Nelson and Ferber's Beyond Economic Man (Nelson's
other books should be consulted also, like Feminism, Objectivity and Economics,
and Albelda). Also Harding's article in an early Rethinking Marxism "Taking
Responsibility for Your Own Gender, Race, Class." RMW also was bringing in
questions of sexual preference, there is an article she co-authored with Lee
Badgett (Badgett is also on the Sun. EEA session) and Badgett's other work.
> the best theory of wages is still the classical/Marxian theory, updated to
> include gender and race considerations: it is institutionally determined by
> historically and morally determined subsistence and bargaining, modified by
> racism and patriarchy.
who are some good resources (books, authors, articles, etc) on the race and
sex modifications?
