Yoshie asks: >… What sort of political activity makes sense in this context? <
How about: (1) movements for a living wage? (2) movements to unionize maids and janitors? (3) movements to defend immigrant rights? (4) the effort to defend civil rights and civil liberties? (5) the movement (partly by ACORN) to rebuild New Orleans based on community organization? (6) think about it: get out of the depressive depths of this decade's dilemmas and look at _what's actually happening_. Each of these is clearly defensive and/or reformist, but seems the basis for a broader movement and even for structural reforms. Yoshie. back then: >>> I basically wish to highlight the fact that the entire theoretical debates on such question petered out (without making judgment about this or that participant's theory in the debates); and in a similar fashion, the Marxist/socialist feminist debate on domestic labor faded. <<< me, back then: >> could it be that the discussion of domestic labor was (a) solved or (b) deemed to be unimportant? << Yoshie, more recently:> In this case, as in the other, the debate died because the political context of the debate -- women's movement in which left-wing women had a niche in this case -- disappeared. < You totally ignore the possibility (that I posed and was reproduced above) that the theoretical question of domestic labor has been _solved_. I think that discussions by Mike Lebowitz in his BEYOND CAPITAL (both editions) of this question are pretty much the final word.[*] Look also at Maxine Molyneux's discussion in her "Beyond the Domestic Labor Debate" in the NEW LEFT REVIEW a few years ago (the 1970s?) I agree that the key fact is not the death of the domestic labor debate but the fact that the women's movement was beaten in many ways (partly because of the over-emphasis on the ERA and mostly due to of the New Right's efforts). Part of the problem is that for middle class women, many of the feminist demands were actually _won_. (Look at all the women in law these days, even in economics!) Yoshie: >The domestic labor debate was actually not so much a debate on domestic labor as one on gender and social reproduction. Seen this way, the question remains. < Who said that the question _didn't_ remain? I didn't. It might be solved in theory, but it hasn't been _in practice_, which is what's important. (Middle- and upper-class women have solved this question in practice for themselves (only) by hiring servants.)
Even if you look at socialist and social democratic countries,
care-giving labor is still mainly performed by women, at home or through welfare-state institutions or both. It is now also a question of migrant labor, as the North ages rapidly, and women from the South migrate here to take care of native-born children and old people and staff many service-industry jobs that meet some of the needs of social reproduction. This aspect of the question was raised again recently, for instance, by Barbara Ehrenreich in her well-received Nickel and Dimed.< the fact that that book was (almost?) a best-seller suggests that the question remains. This book is also very practical in orientation.
And it should be also mentioned that remittances from those migrant women from the South are huge [along with those of the men, BTW], one of the major factors in sustaining economies of countries like the Philippines. So, this question is actually linked to the question of imperialism, too, <
I thought you believed that theoretical questions concerning imperialism were a distraction. I guess I was wrong. I'm totally unclear about what you're arguing for (or against), Yoshie. Are you anti-theoretical (lambasting leftist economists for being interested in crisis theory and the like) or not?
On a separate note, one of the old demands of some feminists ...
involved in the old domestic labor debate, however, actually became a reality in Venezuela: Article 88 of the Bolivarian Constitution states that "The state recognizes work at home as an economic activity that creates added value and produces social welfare and wealth. Housewives are entitled to Social Security in accordance with law." If the old debate had continued, this might have been one of the issues that feminist women could have discussed. < the last sentence should be "if the old [movement] had continued…" The actual debate is secondary to the social movement. me:>> for relatively limited questions such as the political economy of Iran, empiricism isn't all bad. You don't need much theory to figure out that the mullahs rule there and use oil revenues for their own benefit, allowing them to slowly (or in some cases rapidly) join the capitalist class.<< Yoshie:> But, if you had been watching Iran in the 1960s and 1970s, would you have said to yourself, "In Iran, it will be clerics who will lead a revolution to overthrow the Shah's regime"? I doubt it. < first of all, my phrase was "empiricism isn't _all_ bad" (emphasis added). That is NOT an advocacy of empiricism. I don't understand why you didn't see that. Please read what I write rather than reading your vision (or lack thereof) into it. Back in 1979-80, if I remember co4rrectly, the people I hung out with were saying that there were three ways that Iran could go. (1) the Shah or his regime would be restored; (2) the mullahs would take power; or (3) popular working-class organizations would take power. This was based on empirical study. Theory told us that we couldn't predict the future and that option (3) -- the one we supported -- was the least likely. Back in the late 1970s, it was clear that there was a clerical-led mass movement going on, with people copying and distributing cassette tapes of speeches by Ayatollah the K and his guys among the overseas and domestic Iranian communities. The possibility of that movement taking over was there. And the Marxian movement was (or should have been) aware of previous "clerical fascist" movements (before and during WW2). (Sorry to use the f-word. It's in quotes, not attributable to me.)[**]
Clerics in Iran were a category of people Gramsci would have called "traditional intellectuals," the type that [all? -- did you do an opinion poll?] Marxists tended to think would (in the event of social revolution) _follow_ either the bourgeoisie or the working class, rather than _lead and subordinate_ them, as they actually did in the Iranian Revolution. Imposing theory without empirical studies doesn't help.<
Yes, that's why I advocated (a partial application of) empiricism above. You confuse me, Yoshie, by first criticizing empiricism and then doing a 180-degree turn and lambasting (someone unnamed's) theory. (Not everyone on the Marxist left embraced Gramsci.) Having a conversation with you is very confusing, Yoshie. It's hard to tell what you're for or against. At the same time, you seem to criticize strawMarxes again and again. Anyway, NO theory should be "imposed." Any theory only helps us understand what's going on (when it does that), by allowing us to filter and prioritize information. Strictly speaking, any theory consists of questions used for interrogating empirical reality. It does not provide us with predigested answers. It is a total mistake to confuse theory with dogma, as the dogmatists and the anti-theoretical (empiricist) types do. Further, ANY theory (even one in physics!) has to _evolve_ when faced with new issues and facts (and new theoretical proposals). It's unclear, Yoshie, whether you're criticizing theory in general or some specific theory attributed to unknown authors. Please be clearer about the point of your missives. I just hit the big 55 and sometimes it feels like early-onset Alzheimer's has hit me. It's confusing.
Also, in today's Iran, do clerics all belong to the same class, the capitalist class in particular, or are clerics a professional category whose members belong to different classes? Some clerical members of Iran's power elite are obviously capitalists: Rafsanjani is the best example. But are the rest? Khomeini, for instance, had power, but was he involved in surplus value production as a capitalist? If so, how? What of Khamenei, and members of the Guardian Council and the Assembly of Experts today? Do they just have power or do they also have a lot of personal wealth? If the latter, how much? Do they gain wealth as Soviet power elites did, through control of the state and parastate instituttions, or as capitalists directly involved in production or finance? What about clerics who do not have any positions of power in the state? What class do they belong to? We can't know these things without studying them.<
I guess, Yoshie, that the point of your contribution here is simply that you have a bunch of burning questions that you want people (moi?) to answer. It's not about criticizing empiricism or theory as much as having a semi-random conversation about things that are on your mind. I'll let someone who's an expert on Iran answer the above. Crucially, I don't understand the assertion that >We can't know these things without studying them.< Since when have I or anyone else on pen-l been _against_ studying things??? BTW, I come from the political tradition of the late Hal Draper, who did not impose the silly dichotomy of EITHER socialism OR capitalist restoration on revolutions such as that of Iran. There's also state capitalism (as in Algeria) and bureaucratic collectivism (as in the old USSR) and other "modes of production." Samir Amin had a pretty good list of possible modes of production. Crucially, there are mixed forms, forms in transition, etc. within the concrete "social formation" (to use French structuralist/Althusserian lingo). Yoshie: > The same thing should be said about other societies in the Middle East. What do class structures look like in the Gulf states, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc., etc.?
And how are their economies integrated into global economy respectively?
Is there a good theory of imperialism today, which is strongly focused on the Middle East, that takes into account solid empirical studies of economies and class structures of these societies? I have yet to find one.<
I thought you dismissed leftist economists for being concerned with questions of imperialism. I'd give you my theory of imperialism, but you don't seem to be interested in what I say. [*] It's the Marxist version of the New Testament, goddamnit! ;-)> [**] The Sparts seemingly made a big effort to discredit the theory of "clerical fascism" (as they did with most Marxian theory) by using that term to slander the Polish Solidarity movement. However, there were some aspects of Solidarnosc that reflected that tendency, just as there were capitalist restorationist tendencies in that movement -- and socialist tendencies. As with any mass movement, it was a mixed phenomenon, not some pure paragon of purity, some worldly manifestation of some theoretician's vision. -- Jim Devine / "The truth is more important than the facts." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
