goodwin and hetland, LGBT and capitalism

(2): "We show, however, that the dynamics of capitalism have in fact mattered significantly, and in a variety of ways, for the LGBT movement. We conclude that movement scholars, including scholars of new social movements, need to pay—or, more accurately, re-pay—greater attention to the dynamics of capitalism. It is time to bring capitalism back into social movement studies."

(3-4): [why and how was capitalism important, in the opinion of the 1970s scholars?] "The authors of these groundbreaking works believed that capitalism was crucial for understanding movements because of a variety of important causal mechanisms: Capitalist institutions (factories, railroads, banks, etc.) or institutions that capitalists may come to control (e.g., legislatures, courts, police, etc.) are often the source or target of popular grievances, especially (but not only) during times of economic crisis; these institutions, moreover, shape collective identities and solidarities—and not just class solidarities—in particular ways; they also distribute power and resources unevenly to different social classes and class fractions; they both facilitate and inhibit specific group alliances based on common or divergent interests; class divisions, furthermore, often penetrate and fracture particular movements; and ideologies and cultural assumptions linked to capitalism powerfully shape movement strategies and demands. The effects of capitalism on collective action, for these authors, are both direct and indirect (i.e., mediated by other processes) and are the result of both short- and long-term processes."

(5): for the civil rights movement, as written about by McAdams, capitalism and its shifting dynamics were a condition of possibility (the move, i.e., of many numbers of african-americans from the South to the North)

(6): "Instead, recent scholarship tends to focus on short-term shifts in “cultural framings,” social networks, and especially “political opportunities,” rarely examining the deeper causes of such shifts; in fact, most movement scholars now treat this last set of factors as independent variables, neglecting the ways in which they may be powerfully shaped by capitalism."

(10): maybe an opportunity, here, to elaborate on the paper's theoretical position?--"Indeed, they seem to justify this with the claim that “collective action does not spring automatically from structural tensions,” and so the bulk of their book is “dedicated to the mechanisms which contribute to an explanation of the shift from structure to action”—mechanisms having to do with “the availability of organizational resources, the ability of movement leaders to produce appropriate ideological representations, and the presence of a favorable political context” (della Porta and Diani 2006: 63). But this seems to assume that such resources, ideologies, and political contexts are substantially if not wholly detached from the dynamic structure and practices of capitalism, a view we would of course challenge"

(12): "What happened? What might account for this strange disappearance of capitalism from social movement studies? Here, we can only speculate, but we would argue that this transformation is the result of several linked factors, including the waning after the 1970s of Marxism in the social sciences, the so-called “cultural turn” in academia, and a growing emphasis on micro- and meso-level analysis—including framing and network analysis—in social movement studies proper. Our aim here is not of course to criticize cultural, framing, or network analysis, but simply to point out that these have effectively—and unnecessarily—“crowded out” a concern with political economy in the field. As a result, a number of promising causal mechanisms linked to the dynamics of capitalism are no longer even considered worthy of attention by movement scholars."

(13): "For us, in any event, the key question is not so much why capitalism has disappeared from movement studies, but whether the analysis of movements has suffered as a result. We believe it has."

(13-14): Our reading of the literature on this and other movements suggests that the dynamics of capitalism and political-economic factors potentially matter for all movements in at least four specific ways:

1. Capitalist dynamics alternately inhibit or facilitate the formation of new collective identities and solidarities, including both class and non-class identities. In this way, capitalism shapes the very conditions of existence of many social movements.
2. The balance of class forces in a society powerfully shapes the way movements evolve over time and what they can win for their constituents.
3. Class divisions generated by capitalism may unevenly penetrate and fracture movements. The balance of class forces within movements—sometimes more and sometimes less organized and self-conscious—may powerfully shape movement goals and strategies.
4. Finally, ideologies and cultural idioms closely linked to capitalist institutions and practices may strongly influence movement strategies and goals.

(17): first specific way, for the LGBT movement--"According to D’Emilio, the initial emergence of a collective and publicly visible gay and lesbian identity in the United States was dependent—just as for the African-American civil rights movement—upon the expansion of wage labor. This process of “proletarianization” diminished the economic importance of the family unit, thereby undermining the material basis for “traditional” heteronormative sexual relations and creating at least the possibility for more fluid sexual practices and identities (see also Therborn 2004). The urbanization that resulted from capitalist industrialization, furthermore, facilitated the formation of communities based on sexualities and lifestyles. The large, anonymous cities created by capitalist industrialization made possible the emergence of hidden, “underground” gay and lesbian subcultures, typically centered around commercial bars, clubs, and other establishments."

(19-20): second specific way, for the LGBT movement--"the strength the organized labor movement—especially what Hunt terms “the extent of [its] historical commitment to ‘social unionism’” (1999b:7)—has been of crucial importance for LGBT movements over time, across a variety of national contexts, and at the sub- and transnational levels... the character of welfare states have had an important influence on LGBT movements... Rayside finds that the rights of LGBT populations have advanced the furthest in northern European nations, such as the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark, which are also, not coincidentally, countries where social-democratic or labor parties have been strongest... Rayside also finds that individual union support for LGBT issues is often greatest when unions (1) I and (2) are confronted with significant membership losses and demographic shifts." [interesting, especially this latter point]

(21): "While there are of course many “non-material” factors to consider here, including the stigma and psychological costs of exclusion from a central cultural rite, analysts of same-sex marriage should not underestimate the importance of the economic benefits that attach to marriage in the United States. One recent study found that the price of being a gay couple in the U.S. can amount during a lifetime to over $467,000..." [question of the status of the 'non-material' in the analysis not being made explicit. there's a strong argument, which would suggest that it can ALL be explained. and then a weaker argument. is that fair?]

(24): third specific way, for LGBT movement: "As Hollibaugh points out, this is but one example of many ways in which class divides the LGBT movement: “Much of the gay movement, in my experience, has been willing to forego substantive discussion about anything of concern to anyone but a privileged and small part of homosexuality in this culture. The politics of these gay movements are determined by the economic position of those who own the movement” (2001:74)."

(25-27): fourth specific way, for LGBT movement: "We turn, finally, to a brief discussion of the pervasive and, for us, insidious role of capitalist ideology in the LGBT “workplace” movement in the U.S. )... [T]he extension of benefits and workplace rights to LGBT employees is most often explained through what Raeburn calls an “ideology of profits” (2004: 250). In this “profit-centered account,” the explanation for why corporations extend benefits to LGBT employees rests on the “bottom line”—that is, the reason corporations adopt LGBT-friendly policies is not because of social movements, but because it is profitable to do so... As Raeburn demonstrates, in contexts like the contemporary United States, where market ideology is pervasive, the efficacy of social movement activists can come to depend upon their ability to successfully frame movement success in market-friendly terms."

(26): interesting question about 'isomorphic' pressure (given summers' argument, that is): "These factors include changes in the external political environment, isomorphic pressure from competing companies, and internal pressure from LGBT activist networks operating within a given firm. Raeburn sees this last factor as the most important of all (although she notes that isomorphic pressure within a given industry may increase in importance over time)."

(28): is this not one of the most gross generalizations? shouldn't it be framed differently? ("Typically, whether one employs a Marxian or Weberian framework, capitalism is treated as a purely economic system (Marx 1992 [1867]; Weber 2003 [1923]). But the concept of “political economy” underscores the need to examine the political role of the state within the economy, a role that has of course grown considerably over the past two centuries.")

(28): the need for a more 'sociological' view of capitalism--fair enough, but isn't this theorized non-rigorously? or, perhaps, this framing should have been incorporated better into the rest of the paper -- there's a sense in which it this 'sociological' view is not explicit or implicit at the outset. "Introducing a more “society-centric” view of capitalism, in which issues of culture and ideology assume an important role, does not necessitate abandoning economic and political analysis. It does, however, suggest the need to reverse the direction of our causal arrow, investigating not only how capitalism shapes the LGBT and other social movements, but also the reverse, how the LGBT and other social movements shape capitalism as well—as Raeburn’s study powerfully demonstrates."