Social harmony and oppression
How capitalism uses social difference to justify oppression
Feminism is often defined as promoting the equality of the sexes. This definition opens itself up to an obvious critique: aren’t men and women simply different? What’s wrong with that? Why should they be the same? Often, women feel like they wouldn’t be allowed to enjoy their femininity anymore if they were to join the feminist movement.
Of course the sexes don’t need to be equal. There’s nothing inherently wrong with social roles, even if they are traditional, or originated in a natural difference. The problem is when social roles enable oppression. When women get paid less for the same work because it’s assumed that their income is merely supplemental to what their husband of father makes. When a woman is used as a prop in a man’s sexual fantasy because he pretends to be interested in making a commitment to her.
Gender isn’t the only social difference that has led to oppression: a very obvious one is race. Racial difference enabled treating black and brown people as if they were cattle, simply a natural resource to be exploited. Although legally they now enjoy the same rights as whites, socially they are still effectively second-rate citizens.
Fundamentally, it’s the perverse logic of capitalism that feeds on social difference. Since capitalism naturally causes the concentration of capital in the hands of the few, through the exploitation of the labour of the many, it needs to somehow justify this imbalance in wealth and power. It does so by hijacking social difference to naturalise this class divide.
So how can we have social harmony in a capitalist society? I’m not sure we can, to be honest. The first step would be to guarantee economic human rights to everyone regardless of social role, to offset the potential of economic oppression social difference creates. But more than that, we need to shed the market liberalism ideology that causes us to ruthlessly chase our desires at the expense of others. We need to realise that if we want social harmony, we need to sacrifice our individual desires so we can become part of the social whole.
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