In
previous chapters we looked
at the basic economic exploitation at the heart of capitalism.
However,capitalist societies also use and intensify
a range of other social mechanics
to maintain bourgeois rule.
This includes gender, race and
ideological oppression.
Social divisions rooted in race and n r differences are often used in a capitalist economy to protect the level of profitability and to create divisions among the working class. Patriarchy refers to male domination in all spheres of society, including the economy, the household, the state, the law, schools and religion. Patriarchy takes different forms in different societies, and affects women from different classes and race groups differently.
Three important ways in which gender and race divisions help to en-sure profitability include the performance of unpaid labour, discrimination, and segmentation.
The advent of capitalism, and its interrelationship with patriarchal domination, resulted in the intensification of the household sexual division of labour, and the marginalisation of women in the waged work created. Sexual division of labour refers to a situation where men and women per-form different kinds of work. There is evidence that the sexual division of labour existed before the advent of capitalism in most countries and capital adopted and utilised divisions such as gender and race to its own advantage. In pre-capitalist society there was no geographical separation between different forms of work, which made the impact of the sexual division of labour less severe, and women played a significant role in production. The development of industrial capitalism resulted in an in-crease in commodity production outside of the household, and - the separation of the household from the waged workplace. Men entered into waged work away from the household, women came to be regarded exclusively as housewives, and the work they did was not seen as productive labour. The physical location of production therefore shifted away from the household, with capital making no provision for childbearing or rearing, this being regarded as undesired cost.
This situation meant that women experienced difficulties in combining waged work with childcare and domestic work, resulting in an intensification of the sexual division of labour. Childcare became an increased responsibility for women, as it could no longer be easily incorporated with their economic activities.
Domestic ideology developed along with the separation of the household from the waged workplace, to reinforce women's household role. Women and men are regarded differently, with women seen primarily as domestic workers, and expected to give priority to this work over waged work. This division of labour and the associated domestic ideology greatly increased women's economic dependence on men, and their subordinate position in the household.
The surplus produced in a capitalist economy is protected by a substantial amount of unpaid labour per-formed primarily by women. A substantial amount of labour is performed in households in any economy. Services such as preparing meals, maintaining the home, raising and educating children, and caring for the sick, disabled, and elderly ire a substantial amount of labour time.
Much of this labour is unpaid and even when paid (e.g. domestic service workers) it is . This unpaid household labour is called reproductive labour, because it is necessary for households (both worker and capitalist) to reproduce themselves.
Without someone working to raise children, for example, the next generation of workers would not be available to keep the economy going. Therefore, a capitalist economy depends critically on this substantial amount of non capitalist unpaid labour.
Discrimination in terms of wages received - in which men and whites receive higher wages than do women and people of other racial classifications can be used to protect profitability. The availability cheap labour means that profits can be maintained and increased by sing more highly exploited workers. For example, the mining industry in South Africa highly dependent on inexpensive migrant African labour in order to generate a profit likewise, women are often employed in low age industries, for example, textile manufacturing, as a way of protecting the surplus produced.
Segmentation is a broad term and it refers to people being separated into different industries, different types of jobs, and rent levels of skill and responsibility. Patriarchal ideology influences definitions skill, with waged work carried out by omen almost always regarded as less skilled d less valuable. It also influences the type of work that women and men do, with women mostly doing caring or cleaning work (similar the work they do in the household). Women tend to be nurses while men tend to be doctors. Women tend to be clerical workers while men tend to be managers. Because the work that women do is undervalued, they are often segmented into relatively lower paying and lower status jobs.
The same applies to racial classifications. Whites tend to be segmented into higher skilled, more "professional," and higher paid jobs, while people belonging to other racial classifications are segmented into lower paid, unskilled employment.
Segmentation supports the capitalist drive for profitability by creating divisions among workers. Such divisions make collective action on the part of workers more difficult and weaken the overall power of labour. Categories of race and gender are socially constructed - they are inventions of society which have become incorporated into the functioning of the economy. While these categories are simply social inventions, they have dramatic real consequences - high levels of poverty and deprivation among women, children and op-pressed racial groupings. Both these characteristics - the artificial nature of the divisions and their real historic and current consequences - must be kept in mind when analysing race and gender dynamics within a capitalist economy.
Finally, race and gender divisions are often conflated with class divisions. For example, white men dominate the capitalist class and women perform the majority of the unpaid labour in society. It should be stressed, however, that class divisions are not the same as race and gender divisions. White workers can be racists in order to protect their privileged position and labour unions can maintain a high level of sexism within the rank and file.
Not all the profits produced in an economy will be reinvested in the process of accumulation. The surplus produced under capitalism is often distributed in such a way as to secure the system's conditions of existence and allow k to reproduce itself In such a way, the capitalist system can have a major impact on laws, culture, education, technology, and lifestyles.
For example, a capitalist might use some of the surplus produced to in-vest in advertising and to buy some control over the media. This influence over the media can help a firm to sell its product - through advertising to influence people's preferences. But the media can also be used to portray a society where the gap between rich and poor appears much smaller than k is, to reinforce motors around gender and race, and to shape public perceptions. These and other influences help secure the position of the economic system within popular culture. Surplus could also be distributed in the form of campaign contributions, lobbying services, and other means of influencing the shape and direction of legislation in a country. This then could have an impact on critical areas such as labour law, trade restrictions, industrial policy, licensing and competition policy and would be used to help maintain the capitalist economy. Likewise, contributions to educational and research institutions can shape the way knowledge is formed and transmitted in society. Accumulation is only one way that the surplus can be distributed in order to maintain the conditions of existence of a particular economic system. Accumulation is necessary because of the pressures of competition. But competition could also be limited (or enhanced) through legislation. Likewise, advertising and cultural influence could be a primary way of insuring that a commodity remains competitive.
This is not to claim that culture, laws, identities, and knowledge are determined by the economic system alone and how the surplus is distributed. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that economics does have a significant impact on different aspects of society.
We have seen that capitalist society is exploitative to workers. The inequality of the capitalist system leads to poverty and unemployment. It also contributes to crime, drug abuse, and social disintegration. So why don't workers simply down tools and refuse to work under the capitalist system?
You have probably come up with some of the material reasons for the dependence of the working class on the capitalist system. They include:
the fact that in economies where capitalism was developing, the ruling class introduced various legal and economic measures to remove peasants from their land (their source of income). This meant that workers were forced to work in factories. They were forced to sell their labour in order to survive. A very clear example of this can be seen in South Africa, where the system of migrant labour was imposed. In order to pay money for taxes, young men were forced to work in the mines;
also, the capitalist system has entrenched the social organisation of the nuclear family, in which the family is largely dependent on the wages of the father / husband. This makes it more difficult for the male wage worker to be militant and withdraw his labour, as his family will starve;
capitalism also creates a reserve army of labour the unemployed. Thus workers are constantly threatened with the prospect of being replaced by other workers who will settle for poorer working conditions out of desperation.
These are some of the material reasons for workers being trapped into capitalism. But there are also what we call ideological reasons. This means that workers See that the system is unfair, but they Simply accept it, and do not attempt to change it.
Under capitalism the ideas of the capitalist class are everywhere - in schools, in newspapers, on the television, in films, in advertisements, even at times in churches and religious institutions. These ideas convey a simple and dear message - that the capitalist system is good, that k is natural and inevitable. Inequality is not seen as part of the system, or as something that is caused by the system. Instead, it is seen as a result of individual differences.
The advertisements that we see every day, and the message that we get through films and other media is that anyone who works hard enough can make k in the capitalist system.
These ideas also introduce materialistic values. People are made to think that if you own lots of things you are powerful and respectable. Capitalism, particularly the advertising industry, make people think that they need things which they actually do not need at all. this is what we call consumerism - the urge to constantly buy more and more material things, and the belief that these things will bring happiness and fulfilment. Capitalism also tells us that we cannot rely on other people, that everyone is naturally greedy and corrupt, and that we live in the world of "each to his own" and "dog eats dog".
The key elements of capitalist ideology promote consumerism, individualism and passivity, and acceptance of all forms of oppression. The ideology disguises and hides oppression, or blames it on the groups that are oppressed.
If these groups hear the message often enough, they too begin to believe it. We call this internalised oppression. For example, working class people are made to feel that they cannot think, that they are not intelligent, and that their only value is the work they do. Women are made to think their only use is to make a man happy and look after children. The society judges and values people by the work that they do, and people are given an inferior or superior status on that basis.
Under the capitalist system, workers are forced to sell their labour - they have to choose between working for the capitalists or destitution. Workers are caught in a vicious cycle in which their labour makes the rich richer and at the same time makes the society more consumerist and money-oriented. They become cogs in the system. The capitalist ideology tells workers that they can get pleasure through commodities advertisements tell us that if we buy a certain perfume or deodorant we will meet the man of our dreams, or if we drive a certain car, women will be queuing up. Marx argues that humans are social beings that can only find real meaning and satisfaction in life through relating to each other and doing truly productive, creative work, We have discussed the ideology of the capitalist system which partly explains why many workers have "accepted" the system. But what about situations where the working class in some countries have voted conservative governments into power governments that support the interests of the capitalist class? This cannot be explained in material terms, and is usually explained by the notion of false consciousness.
Theory generally refers to a set of ideas, while ideology refers to the relationship between ideas and society or a particular social class. Marx argued that ideas are rooted in reality. Ideas influence society and society influences ideas - this is a two-way process (a dialectic).
Theory is not neutral - it is based on power relations in class society. Ideas are strongly influenced by the way in which society is organised, how we get food and shelter, how we produce and distribute goods, the material "mode of production". This means that our thinking and our ideas do not exist in a vacuum, but are strongly influenced by our class, race, gender, and other social positions and experiences.
Marx argued that "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas". He argued that the ruling class controls the means of material production, but also controls intellectual production.
Think of the mass media. News-papers, television stations like CNN and many radio stations are actually businesses. So they are more worried about the profits and the concerns of businesses in general than about in-forming the public. University professors are usually people from the capitalist class.
So the people who create ideas and knowledge in society are usually from the capitalist class. And this ruling class ideology presents the way the world is, the current situation (often referred to as the status quo) as natural and given.
Ideology is what blinds workers to the injustice of exploitation. Marx refers to this as "false consciousness", meaning believing the ideology of the ruling class, but believing that k is your own individual thought or belief. Organisations that mobilise the working class aim to challenge the ideas that support injustice, and to create a new set of ideas (ideology) for liberation. Thus, capitalist ideology can make workers passive, and wing to accept their oppressions, but revolutionary ideology prepares workers for struggle to change society.
