Greetings Economists, On Oct 15, 2006, at 6:06 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
This may be so (that women "like" this or that), but it is a dangerous and possibly false premise to proceed on. Women are pushed into care-giving; there is no evidence that their liking for it accounts for the role.
Doyle; One cannot escape the implications of emotion work by demanding that we remove any sort of connection to it. The work process produces a value unlike say the alienated labor on the assembly line. Hence we are unable to come to grips with many aspects of a Marxist view of where real revolutionary change would come from. Here and like before where you claim the arrow of capitalism is toward ultimate break down of all social relations to the individual you in effect deny the reality of what social connections do. More below. Carrol; I think psychology is most apt to lead us astray in considering the condition of women. We need to look at social factors, if only because it is only social factors (and not individual psychology) that we can affect by political action. Doyle; Social factors, the class structure are the determinant in this situation. You take the idea of psychology as a black box we can't know. Let's step back, women are oppressed. From what labor and how is this done? Care giving work? In what sense then can one not say; like? Can you possibly say of any Mother who says to their child I love you, they aren't reporting a truthful statement? What is the work process? Of course this does represent a significant shift in the direction of Marxism. What is knowledge production? What does language do when people talk to each other? These are open material questions. However, let's not get into pronouncements here. This is not a forum for depth. I'm trying here to give a reason for a departure between you and I. On the whole you often write what I agree with. In this case I would propose to take this as a debate in progress in which a friendly but contentious process needs to be done in as they say a socialist milieu to be productive and of interest to others. thanks, Doyle
