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."

My point is not that anti-racism and anti-sexism are not good things. It is rather that they currently have nothing to do with left-wing politics, and that, insofar as they function as a substitute for it, can be a bad thing. American universities are exemplary here: they are less racist and sexist than they were 40 years ago and at the same time more elitist. The one serves as an alibi for the other: when you ask them for more equality, what they give you is more diversity. The neoliberal heart leaps up at the sound of glass ceilings shattering and at the sight of doctors, lawyers and professors of colour taking their place in the upper middle class. Whence the many corporations which pursue diversity almost as enthusiastically as they pursue profits, and proclaim over and over again not only that the two are compatible but that they have a causal connection – that diversity is good for business. But a diversified elite is not made any the less elite by its diversity and, as a response to the demand for equality, far from being left-wing politics, it is right-wing politics.

international solidarity in the movement for gay rights, and government involvement:
The need for international solidarity among LGBT activists has not diminished. Indeed, a detailed new report from the International Lesbian and Gay Association documents how today, in 2007, "no less than 85 member states of the United Nations still criminalize consensual same-sex acts among adults," including nine countries which impose the death penalty for homosexuality. The report is available online in English, Portugese, Spanish, and French. In releasing this report, ILGA said that, because "May 17th is the International Day against Homophobia (IDAHO), ILGA has chosen this time of the year to launch a report on State homophobia around the world to raise awareness of the extent of institutionalized homophobia around the world."

what sarkozy brings:
A whopping record 86% of French voters went to the polls today to give an unambiguous victory to the autocratic, demagogic, hard-right nationalist Sarkozy, who campaigned on promises of a "rupture" with France's mixed economy and its welfare state, one of the most extensive in Europe.
(...) The crowd in the hall where Sarkozy declared victory after the polls closed repeatedly sang the national anthem, La Marseillaise -- with its famous xenophobic refrain, "Marchons, marchons! Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!" (Translation: Let us march, let us march, May impure blood soak the furrows of our fields.) And Sarkozy's campaign was marked by incessant appeals to racism and the fear of immigrants, symbolized by his adoption of a slogan used by the neo-fascist leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, "France, love it or leave it," and by his proposal for a new "Ministry of Immigration and National Identity," which was widely criticized by the left and by anti-racist groups for amalgamating the two concepts and suggesting a fundamental opposition between the two.
(...) That lurch to the right five years ago by a significant portion of formerly left voters was confirmed by today's vote, in which more than two-thirds of former Le Pen voters -- many of them from the one-time Communist-dominated working class suburbs -- went for Sarkozy, according to the exit polls.
(...) But in reality, what Sarkozy's victory means for France is something closer to the so-called "Reagan Revolution" in the U.S. that began in 1981 the process of dismantling and destroying the institutional New Deal legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Chirac was a Gaullist, and the political heritage of General Charles De Gaulle, who led France from 1958 to 1969, included a vigorously statist approach to the economy and defense of a wide series of social protection and social safety-net measures that had been instituted by the left's Popular Front government in the mid-1930s, and which were renewed and extended by post-war governments dominated by the political activists of the Resistance movement to Nazi occupation, who had a conception of government as a guarantor of economic security for all. Sarkozy is of a new generation than Chirac and, ideologically, not a Gaullist -- but rather in phase with the "Chicago school" of economics led by Milton Friedman, which believes in minimal government, a slimmed-down state that interferes as little as possible in the economy, an aggressively laissez-faire approach that is dear to the economic barons of the MEDEF, the French business leaders' association, whose tycoons were solidly behind Sarkozy's candidacy. Sarkozy has already promised to, in effect, abolish the ISF (the tax on large fortunes), accord more tax breaks to big business and the upper-middle-classes, and make more cuts in the state-run national health system (declared by a U.N. survey to be the finest in the world in terms of delivery of health services and quality of care.) Sarkozy's economic program is designed to help the already-privileged classes retain and extend their socio-economic position, to the detriment of the have-nots (the massive pro-Sarkozy vote in the upper-income neighborhoods today confirms that they understood Sarko's message to them.) And he has promised a major down-sizing of the civil service employed by state agencies.
(...) Life for the have-nots will become even more difficult under Sarkozy's hard-right, anti-immigrant, law-and-order society. He has announced "zero tolerance" for illegal immigration, has deported tens of thousands of immigrants during his two terms as Interior Minister and split up immigrant families while making it tougher for them to become French citizens. He has proposed strict minimum sentences for all sorts of crimes, thus removing all discretion from French judges, and France's already-crowded prisons will soon be overflowing with expanded, and younger, populations. French prisons, like ours, are training institutes for criminals, and by sending ever-larger numbers of young people to them for petty offenses Sarkozy will, in fact, be manufacturing new generations of hardened voyous (thugs in French.)
(...) And, in a major campaign speech just days before the election, Sarkozy surprisingly devoted 20 minutes of his discourse to a violent denunciation of the May 1968 student-worker revolt (Sarko was only 14 at the time of that rebellion.). The heritage of May ';68, Sarko thundered, must be "liquidated." He blamed it for a generalized attitude of "laxisme," for France's having become a country "in which work has no value, in which people think they can do anything they feel like doing, in which people are lazy," and on and on. May '68 was, of course, the fountain of social ferment that led to the sexual revolution, to women's liberation and the legalization of abortion, the gay liberation movement and the eventual repeal of laws criminalizing homosexuality, and a whole series of cultural changes that opened up a stuffy, arteriosclerotic French society. But May '68 was also a general strike by 11 million French workers that gained union recognition in many factories, higher wages, and that won a reinforcement of the social safety net in an agreement (negotiated on behalf of then-President Georges Pompidou by a young Jacques Chirac) that became known as "les accords de la rue de Grenelle" (the agreement of Grenelle Street). What was unstated in Sarko's anti-May '68 speech was that all that sort of thing, too, must be "liquidated."