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Marx on the Family...some brief thoughts...
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Dusty Track
Oct 1, 2021, 4:10:54 AM10/1/21
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Page references are to the on line transcribed edition (MIA)...
Looking at the Communist Manifesto, one can see that Marx was preoccupied (p. 31-) in decrying i) the hypocrisy of the “bourgeois family” (the hypocritical character of the family of the “ruling class”) and ii) the hypocrisy of bourgeois critics of “Communism” who asserted that the Communists wanted to destroy the family of the workers when their very system constantly required the destruction of all social and economic relationships.
Thus Marx held the view that the “proletarian family” was an almost non-existent social category.
The issue was, what would “society” do to replace it? He dismissed (p.59-) the (well intentioned) aims of the earlier socialists to wind the clock back to earlier forms of the family (&etc) as Utopian constructs/schemas and instead (p. 84) we have this:
“What will be the influence of communist society on the family? It will transform the relations between the sexes into a purely private matter which concerns only the persons involved and into which society has no occasion to intervene. It can do this since it does away with private property and educates children on a communal basis, and in this way removes the two bases of traditional marriage – the dependence rooted in private property, of the women on the man, and of the children on the parents.
And here is the answer to the outcry of the highly moral philistines against the ―community of women.‖ Community of women is a condition which belongs entirely to bourgeois society and which today finds its complete expression in prostitution. But prostitution is based on
private property and falls with it. Thus, communist society, instead of introducing community of women, in fact abolishes it.”
This is without a doubt – the “socialisation of the family”: the replacement of the “destructive social effects of the capitalist system” with the socialisation of family functions.
BUT one should note – and this is critical – that Marx NEVER proposed the social engineering of the Family under “capitalism”….which is precisely what almost all of the Left and Far Left seek to do under this modern system of Oligarchic Globalising Imperialism (“Neo-Liberalism”). Whether he would DEFEND what remains of the working class family against that, however, is problematic. Perhaps he would condemn it as “Utopian” (!). Or, given that in his policy for Germany, he, inter alia advocated this:
12. All civil servants shall receive the same salary, the only exception being that civil servants who have a family to support and who therefore have greater requirements, shall receive a higher salary.
– indicating sympathy for the position of the Family – he may have taken the former position.
Looking at the Communist Manifesto, one can see that Marx was preoccupied (p. 31-) in decrying i) the hypocrisy of the “bourgeois family” (the hypocritical character of the family of the “ruling class”) and ii) the hypocrisy of bourgeois critics of “Communism” who asserted that the Communists wanted to destroy the family of the workers when their very system constantly required the destruction of all social and economic relationships.
Thus Marx held the view that the “proletarian family” was an almost non-existent social category.
The issue was, what would “society” do to replace it? He dismissed (p.59-) the (well intentioned) aims of the earlier socialists to wind the clock back to earlier forms of the family (&etc) as Utopian constructs/schemas and instead (p. 84) we have this:
“What will be the influence of communist society on the family? It will transform the relations between the sexes into a purely private matter which concerns only the persons involved and into which society has no occasion to intervene. It can do this since it does away with private property and educates children on a communal basis, and in this way removes the two bases of traditional marriage – the dependence rooted in private property, of the women on the man, and of the children on the parents.
And here is the answer to the outcry of the highly moral philistines against the ―community of women.‖ Community of women is a condition which belongs entirely to bourgeois society and which today finds its complete expression in prostitution. But prostitution is based on
private property and falls with it. Thus, communist society, instead of introducing community of women, in fact abolishes it.”
This is without a doubt – the “socialisation of the family”: the replacement of the “destructive social effects of the capitalist system” with the socialisation of family functions.
BUT one should note – and this is critical – that Marx NEVER proposed the social engineering of the Family under “capitalism”….which is precisely what almost all of the Left and Far Left seek to do under this modern system of Oligarchic Globalising Imperialism (“Neo-Liberalism”). Whether he would DEFEND what remains of the working class family against that, however, is problematic. Perhaps he would condemn it as “Utopian” (!). Or, given that in his policy for Germany, he, inter alia advocated this:
12. All civil servants shall receive the same salary, the only exception being that civil servants who have a family to support and who therefore have greater requirements, shall receive a higher salary.
– indicating sympathy for the position of the Family – he may have taken the former position.
Dusty Track
Oct 2, 2021, 5:26:44 AM10/2/21
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But it (DT: today's deliberate and multi-faceted attack on the Family) cannot be attributed to Marxism because the system in which we live is a perverted (“high” (!)) form of Capitalism. There is no indication in Marx’s writings that he would have supported (as just one example) the destruction of the Family UNDER CAPITALISM – in this case Globalising Ultra-Imperialism, “Neo-Liberalism”. There is, however, evidence that he would have supported the family, rather in the manner of what used to be “Catholic Action”. See my full post on this in this thread, but, within the Communist Manifesto, under the policy for Germany, he, inter alia advocated this:
12. All civil servants shall receive the same salary, the only exception being that civil servants who have a family to support and who therefore have greater requirements, shall receive a higher salary.
– indicating great sympathy for the position of the Family – with a policy to match, far beyond anything ever contemplated in the “what’s he WORRRRTH” ethos of the US of A throughout its entire history.
12. All civil servants shall receive the same salary, the only exception being that civil servants who have a family to support and who therefore have greater requirements, shall receive a higher salary.
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