79 | What Could It Mean to Say, “Capitalism Causes Sexism and Racism”? with Professor Vanessa Wills
Added 2023-12-18 11:00:07 +0000 UTCIn this episode, we are joined by George Washington University Associate Professor Vanessa Wills to discuss her article “What Could It Mean to Say, ‘Capitalism Causes Sexism and Racism’?” We try to figure out why critics badly understand the Marxist concept of causation as it concerns identity-based oppression, why labor and production provide the conditions of possibility for science, and whether the abolition of capitalism would automatically mean the end of racism and sexism (no, but it sure would help!). And as a treat, Hegel shows up to school us on the appearance/essence distinction!
leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil
References:
Vanessa Wills, “What Could It Mean to Say, ‘Capitalism Causes Sexism and Racism?’” Philosophical Topics 46 no. 2 (2018): 229-246.
Music:
Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com
Comments
May I get a copy of Dr. Wills' paper also?
Terry Tapp
2023-12-28 20:04:20 +0000 UTCCan I get her paper please too? Also, this was probably my favourite guest of yours and maybe my favourite episode. I'm not a Marxist and basically think Marxism (more specifically historical materialism) is a terrible framework for revolutionary socialists to use and am writing some stuff on this at the moment, but Wills pointed to some defences that I should consider in my writing.
David
2023-12-24 09:45:27 +0000 UTCI think the paper and the discussion on the ep mutually clarify each other. The point about causation being at the centre of the argument, brought out by the ep, is not immediately obvious from the paper at first reading. So that was really helpful. I'll throw in a couple of point. AFAICS the issue is the debate between Marxist (or historical materialist for anarcho-Marxists like me) and radical liberal viewpoints on the relation between exploitation and oppression. The Radlibs (at least the Marx-literate wing, like Charles Mills, etc) say that even if they accept that historical materialism is viable analysis of exploitation, that there are at least aspects of oppression that cannot be accounted for in that analysis/research project. I propose that the dominant paradigm for oppression is exclusion. This is for historical reasons, like for e.g. the Jim Crow system created in the backlash against reconstruction and fought against by the CRM, was a system of exclusions (you can't register to vote here, you can't sit here, you can't eat here, you be in this park, etc). The Nuremberg Laws enacted by the 3rd Reich were also codified exclusions (I haven't read Whitman's "Hitler's American Model" but the argument for a direct link between the two seem plausible). The underpinning of Jim Crow exclusions by the violence of lynchings and terror attacks, also find its ultimate metastatization in the 3rd Reich's genocide. In brief, it's only natural that exclusion is the dominant paradigm for what we think of when we think of oppression. But there are cases within these historical examples where the dynamics of exploitation and exclusion appear to face off against each other as mutually incompatible opponents. Most ghoulishly in the time of the holocaust in the struggle between arms manufacturers using prisoner slave labour for war material manufacture and the SS exterminators intent on liquidating the workforce, regardless of the effect on badly needed war supplies (never mind corporate profits). So, I would suggest the radlib axiom here would be something like: "because dramatic recent historical examples exist of cases where the dynamics of exploitation and exclusion (oppression) were in direct conflict, it follows that the causes of exclusion (oppression) need to be sought outside of historical materialism, which only explains the origins of exploitation" Which is usually accompanied, in practice, by an unspoken, unadmitted coda "if exploitation is "rational" then exclusion is, by contrast, irrational". And, in the positivist sense of the irrational as pure absence of reason, this brings us back to the problem of a-causality in the radlib discourse. If the roots of racism, antisemitism or misogyny and transphobia are irrational, then how do we even fight them? If we say that certain "social constructs" are produced not by scientifically tractable processes of social production, but contain elements of some external or transcendent source of "evil" that is unknowable, then where's the horizon for self-emancipation through our own work (in the broad sense)? Things to pursue: you need property to participate in exploitation, but you don't to participate in exclusion. So there's an additional horizontal dimension to exclusion that has historically been taken advantage of to form reactionary cross-class alliances based on shared supremacist identities and agendas (that also have material benefits in terms of preferential access to the labour market, for e.g., by forcibly excluding subaltern workers from certain jobs). My counter-argument (to the radlib axiom & coda) would be that, despite appearances, exploitation and exclusion do not have a purely external relation to each other. Neither do they have a purely internal one, where the former entirely subsumes the latter, otherwise the two dynamics could never come into such direct contradiction, in extreme circumstances. But that the relationship is dialectical, co-constitutive but in a way that allows for contradictions between them. Last point (already too long). A complicating factor for the argument advanced in the paper (i.e. that historical materialism is a theory of material production of sociality, at a high level of abstraction) is the perennially-contested Marxian concept of "unproductive labour". This may seem like an abstruse debate in a remote corner of Marxian value theory, but it quickly becomes relevant in an organising context, in relation to sex work for eg, which is a salient issue for undocumented migrants, trans-folk from poor and w/c backgrounds, etc, etc. Basta.
Paul Bowman
2023-12-20 11:32:20 +0000 UTCAs if by magic ;), the paper is now available via libgen for anyone who doesn't have institutional access. Remember kids, uploading papers is illegal, so definitely don't do it. But if you do do it, always use a TOR browser for your own and everybody else's safety (and be aware there's a delay of 24-48 hours to get past moderation review)
Paul Bowman
2023-12-20 10:50:26 +0000 UTCGot it, thank you!
Max Aragon
2023-12-19 15:25:24 +0000 UTCYou should have it in your email now!
Gil Morejon
2023-12-19 15:03:17 +0000 UTCMay I have a copy of Professor Wills' paper, too, please?
Max Aragon
2023-12-19 15:00:29 +0000 UTCI’ll see your ME Gimenez and raise you Sylvia Wynter. There is another way of knowing the world other than trying to change it. You can try to talk to it. 11 min to go and Slavery hasn’t been mentioned once yet? My bugbear is rather with ‘Scientism’ (The Rorty , Foucault et al critique). Newton HAD to do it that way (to quote Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now, ‘you can’t go out into space maaan!! At least not in the 17tg Cent.). But we can try to talk to people itself. Professor Anthony Bogues at Brown Uni has this idea of Black Critique, whereby you can see (according to his approach) that capitalism started in Dutch plantations in the 17th Century, and not in Manchester 100 years later. The problem with Marxists I think is that they’re still stuck in Koningsberg with Kant. They thought of some cool stuff and noe they’re ‘charged’ and ready to ‘impose’ these ideas on the world. Why not try talking to the world first? Just as an aside, there are no lines to read between here. I’m not a liberal. But I do think that the ‘other ways of being and knowing’ that a scholar like Wynter (or Foucault, or Wittgenstein) talk about, or important. Still 11 mins left, maybe the crescendo will be Slavery! Full disclosure. I’m an architect doing a PhD where Hegel has emerged as a major target. Historically we (architects) have really messed things up by trying to help. The idea that we should talk to people first before trying to help is getting traction in certain quarters, but you know what? The mainstream is really resistant to it, because we like our cool shit and we don’t wanna give it up!
Michael Badu
2023-12-19 08:38:58 +0000 UTCThis paper is super useful, Vanessa rocks. Thinking in terms of production instead of class reminds me of Nancy Fraser’s “expanded” view of capitalism from “Behind Marx’s Hidden Abode” - which always struck me as a good way of incorporating reproductive labour into economic analysis.
pelicans123
2023-12-18 21:22:43 +0000 UTCOK. I would like a copy of the article and I can make sure it gets to the right places to be generally accessible
Paul Bowman
2023-12-18 19:36:47 +0000 UTCI don’t need to re-read it. I understood perfectly and that’s why I responded by saying that it is possible to be made available to the outside world. You offered your comment as a “grumble” or critique and I offered to meet that grumble by sending you the article if you wished. But I haven’t the foggiest idea why you’d offer a criticism of the journal industry as a criticism of the pod itself.
Gil Morejon
2023-12-18 18:56:05 +0000 UTCPlease re-read what I said. I'm complaining that the paper is not available to the outside world
Paul Bowman
2023-12-18 18:52:21 +0000 UTCWill, here. I’m not speaking for the pod here. I absolutely disagree with this. Vanessa is a good friend of mine and we make this episode available for free. She has insights that are important philosophically and politically. If anyone wants access to the paper they can ask and I will provide it.
Gil Morejon
2023-12-18 18:50:57 +0000 UTCMinor grumble. A little ironic that your follow-up to Anderson's lambasting Western academic Marxism for its isolationism from real movements is a discussion on a paper that's only available to academics (not on Sci-Hub or anywhere else the proles can use to get around the firewall of privilege)
Paul Bowman
2023-12-18 18:48:46 +0000 UTC
