Conclusion - Towards Beloved Community
Section Notes¶
Review of Care and Family Abolition¶
Care: activities that help us reproduce ourselves physically, emotionally, socially
A set of forms of labor
Under capitalism, mostly privatized under the family or as a market commodity
Collectivised under communism after the abolition of class society, including private property
Martin Luther King Jr.'s Beloved Community¶
Marxists haven’t written that much about what it would feel like to live in a liberated society
MLK Jr. did focus on this more, in connection with Christian theology
MLK Jr.'s idea of beloved community as the endpoint of nonviolence
An example of revolutionary horizon
Alienation as separation from oneself, beloved community as rejoining
Gemeinwesen¶
Concept of ‘community’ has a lot of associations under capitalism
Expected to fill in gaps of capitalist society while reinforcing its institutions
Neoliberalism tears aparts communities even as it praises them
Gemeinwesen can be translated as ‘community’ or ‘the communal being’
Marx talked about it a bit
Jacques Camatte explored Gemeinwesen as goal of revolution
Red Love¶
Collectivized care must stretch beyond our current conceptualizations of humans and human life
Beyond capitalism, we will be able to rely on one another in ways we cannot even think of right now
Quotes¶
“Family abolition is the creation of the material conditions for full human flourishing and for mminimizing and redressing harm. It is a commitment to making nonalienated care available to all. It means unlocking care from its restriction to the private family and transforming it into something that is collectively and democratically shared. Family abolition is the dimension of care specific to a classless society. Family abolition is the communization of care.” (pp. 236-237)
“The abolition of the family must be the positive creation of a society of generalized human care and queer love. Family abolition and communist social relations are the realization of the beloved community. A society based on communist social reproduction would be the chance to genuinely care for each other, to be cared for, and for that care to extend through the vast global fabric of our interdependence.” (pp. 246)