“The possession of a tangible place of production, the womb, situates women as agents in any theory of production. Marx’s dialectics of externalization-alienation followed by fetish formation are inadequate because he has not taken into account one fundamental human relationship to a product and labor.”Why does no theory of production bother with the womb or the testicles? The answer is that labour is not born into a market, it enters after maturation. A womb and a pair of testicles in one country can produce labour which enters a market in a different country many years later. Spivak's mother womb and her father's testicles were not agents in the production of her academic activity at Columbia. By contrast, the Queen's womb and Prince Phillip's testicles were agents in the production of the Prince of Wales. However, monarchical services are not Labour, they are not Economic; neither Marx nor the Market are concerned with them.
If a womb or a pair of testicles is an agent in the production processes- for e.g. in the making of a Prince or a hereditary Prelate- then no 'externalisation- alienation' occurs. It is not the case that the Queen is alienated from the product of her labour. Rather the Prince of Wales has to pledge fealty to her. If he rebels against her, he can be confined to a dungeon in the Tower of London. He may even be executed for Treason.
One may certainly speak of 'fetish formation' and 'taboos' as operating where wombs and testicles are agents of production. However, there is no commodity fetishism involved. It is not true that Bill Gates can buy Prince Charles and use the fellow as a foot-stool. By contrast, there is no commodity Gates can't buy and use as he likes.
Marx, himself an immigrant, could see that Victorian England did not need to pursue pro-natalist policies in order to increase its population and hold down real wages. The Poor House was not a baby farm. There was no English equivalent of Rousseau's Foundlings Hospital.
Britian did not even have to resort to the slave trade because people were willing to immigrate to its farms and factories to work long hours for low wages.
Furthermore, the power of the British Navy kept the Kingdom secure. Unlike France, whose power was eroding because of its lower birth rate, the Brits had no cause for anxiety.
Successful economies, with powerful Navies, facing no invasion threat, don't need to bother with demographic issues. They can always get as many immigrants as they need.
Marx himself, and most British Leftists, believed that Socialism would raise real wages and improve productivity and efficiency. Thus even if indigenous women had fewer babies, immigration would supply the deficit. Even large scale emigration to the New World could not impede Britian's demographic rise.
Spivak takes a different view-
A Marxian account of externalisation-alienation would feature the new born baby subjugating its mother. However, mothers have the option of selling the baby to someone who wants a child. No doubt, they may be coerced to look after the little shit- but they can beat the fuck out off it while drunk off their head on Gin. No doubt, mothers can gripe about how they'd like to throttle their kids and, with out question, some mothers who bash in their babies heads, do end up in Prison; still Marxism does not need to have an account of how Baby subjugates Mummy because, in the vast majority of cases, Mums love their kids and are loved by them. Neither exploits the other. Kids quickly grow up and start looking after their parents.
A Marxist theory of 'class struggle' did capture a feature of Industrial Capitalism- viz. the fact that workers' interests diverged from the interests of the Capitalists. There is no need for a Marxian theory of the struggle between Mummies and Babies. It is not the case that wealthy Babies formed Cartels and employed black-legs and Pinkerton Agents to break up strikes by Mummies. Even the film 'Boss Baby' does not feature any such dark doings.
Spivak herself admits that unlike a machine which is produced by Labour but which subjugates Labour to its own needs, because the machine is owned by the Capitalist Employer, a baby belongs to its parents. It has not been alienated- i.e. sold to someone else.
How do we know which man 'produces' a particular child? If there is a marriage contract or if the mother is in the power of the man, then a property right of the sort Spivak describes may exist. However, 'legal rights' are such as a Court might enforce. In practice, Courts look at the best interest of the child because, soon enough, it will be a full citizen. The case of slavery is different. But slavery can be abolished by law.
The 'current struggle over abortion rights' has not foregrounded a Male agenda having to do with owning kids. Why? The law has changed. One can't send the little shit down a coal mine to earn money for one's beer and skittles. Instead, one can get arrested for not spending enough time and money on this supposed piece of property which can emancipate itself the moment it is earning more than its keep.
Many women seek abortions because the father can't be located or is undesirable for some reason. The 'pro Life' movement appears motivated by a Religious scruple. No doubt, they castigate Radical Feminism as atheistic and opposed to 'family' values and the traditional National ethos. However, it is not the case that the pro-Life movement is motivated by a concern with Father's rights- as in the 'Families need Fathers' campaign. Thus the struggle over improving paternal rights to custody is completely separate from abortion.
Suppose women are captured by used for breeding purposes. Then, it may be that the son they suckle will 'sell them down the river' on attaining majority so as to buy more breeders for himself.
There may be women who believe that this is what is actually happening in America or India or Germany. They may wish to create a Feminist Marxism- a reading of 'Marx beyond Marx' which would feature not 'class struggle' but the struggle of Mummies against Babies.
Spivak does not herself make any such suggestion. Instead she starts talking about Freud. In other words, though what she has written is nonsense, still it might exist as a neurosis. The problem here is that any woman who suffers from such a neurosis will be less likely to give birth to, or keep, a child. Moreover, this 'neurosis' is no longer recognised as a medical illness. Your Insurance won't pay for its treatment. Psychosis is the way to go. Talk of 'penis envy' or 'womb envy' won't cut it. You need to set fire to your head and run around Waitrose naked.
This is not the route Spivak herself has taken. She explains that though her theory is nonsense, still it can be used in Literary Theory. She herself has achieved an enviable eminence by doing so. But was that not a function of her race in the era of 'aesthetic affirmative action' ? Is she not the Academic equivalent of Indrani Aikath Gyaltsen?
Spivak is saying that because she is the wrong sort of Brown to have any experience or understanding of American racism, she is therefore the only person worthy of American intellectual affirmative action. The fact of the matter is that African American scholars write sensibly. However, they tend to specialise in useful, alethic, disciplines. African American Economists and Jurists are second to none. Thus affirmative action should reward only stupid people from Calcutta because their brains have clearly been irreparably damaged by 'White hegemony'. Social Choice theory- once it became 'India's Subject'- like Subaltern Studies and Post Colonial Theory should be supported by the Ivy League because such support represents reparations for that second Black Hole of Calcutta which cramming at Presidency College has produced.
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