PrintApril 1, 2010
The Abolition of the Family
America is headed down an extremely dangerous path to a potential catastrophe that is rarely discussed. It is the eradication of the family.
Abolition of the family! ... The bourgeois family will disappear, in the course [of history] as its supplement [private property] disappears, and both will vanish with the destruction of capital.
- The Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2, Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels. (My translation.)
The top priority of Marxism was the abolition of the family; Marx laid down the strategy for its destruction. His thesis was simple: Eliminate capital -- exterminate the family [i]. More and more empirical evidence is piling up to show that this is exactly what is happening in America.
Whether or not it is being done intentionally, the federal government, using money from the TARP and Stimulus bills, has taken precise steps to undermine the family. An article titled "How a New Jobless Era will Transform America" in the March 2010 edition of The Atlantic says this:
The weight of this recession has fallen most heavily upon men, who've suffered roughly three quarters of the 8 million job losses since the beginning of 2008. Male dominated industries (construction, finance, manufacturing) have been particularly hard-hit, while sectors that disproportionately employ women (education, health care) have held up relatively well. ... [It] looks possible that within the next few months, for the first time in U.S. history, women will hold a majority of the country's jobs.
Yet very little of the stimulus money has been funneled into the male-dominated industries. Contrary to the popular impression, only a small fraction of the stimulus money has gone into shovel-ready constructions projects (where more men are employed). Outside of the initial tax breaks ($250 billion of $850 billion in the first stimulus bill), the vast majority of the money has been distributed to local and state governments, education, and the health care industries. Almost none of the funds have gone to support small businesses, where the majority of start-up jobs are created in America.
The distribution of the stimulus money is part of the reason why the unemployment rate of young black men in America is nearing a staggering 50%. There are very few shovel-ready construction, manufacturing, or other private enterprise jobs for young men (of any race) in this country. The bulk of the federal money is going into the service industries. The spending strategy of the Obama administration and the current Congress seems intended to ensure that private-sector jobs for men do not appear.
Marx stated that the family would cease to exist with the disappearance of capital. He meant that the family, private businesses, and private property were intimately entwined. And he was right.
Well over a hundred banks have closed their doors in the last two years. Young men (or women) wanting to start and grow a new business have less and less opportunity to borrow capital for such an enterprise. No new businesses means no new jobs.
That economic recessions and depressions destroy the careers of more male than female workers has been long known and often studied. Mirra Komarovsky, in her groundbreaking work The Unemployed Man and His Family (1940), showed that during the Great Depression,
The economic crisis hit blue-collar occupations harder than service jobs; as a consequence, working-class men often found it harder to find work than did their wives. And yet, traditional views of masculinity prevented many men from sharing bread-winning responsibilities: "I'd rather turn on the gas than let my wife work!" one man told her (76).
In my forthcoming book, The Idea of the Family, I demonstrate that it is not "the traditional view" of masculinity that instills in a man the desire to provide for his family. I prove, rather, that work for the male is a biological, psychological, and even philosophical necessity for the preservation of the family.
Once his participation in coitus is over, the man plays no biological part in the creation of his offspring. Unlike the woman, who carries her baby to term and then nourishes the newborn infant at her breast, the man's role in the family is necessarily ideal. He is biologically and psychologically separated from the procreative process. The man needs a reason to stay with his wife and family. If he is to remain with his family, his role (at least initially) can only be that of provider and protector [ii].
The surest and quickest way to eliminate the family is to make certain that a young man (who might wish to marry and start a family) does not have access to a job. This ensures that the young man has no reason to remain with an impregnated female.
It is not by accident that over 70% of black children in America are born out of wedlock. Almost 50% of young black men in America are unemployed. And without a job, a man has no incentive to start or remain with his family.
The Obama administration has done next to nothing to stimulate those parts of the economy that provide employment for young men and, therefore, protect and strengthen the family. This is the dirtiest and nastiest of not-so-secret secrets that no one seems to want to address.
Meanwhile, Karl Marx is laughing in his grave.
Larrey Anderson is a writer, a philosopher, and submissions editor for American Thinker. He is the author of the novel The Order of the Beloved and the memoir Underground. His next book, The Idea of the Family, examines the role of procreation in human self-awareness.
[i] After losing power, Leon Trotsky would claim that the reason that communism had not been successful was that Stalin had not been ruthless enough in his efforts to eliminate the family. See Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed, trans. Max Eastman, New York, 1965, pp. 145ff.
[ii] This does not mean that a man cannot eventually become the caretaker of his children and his wife become the provider -- or that the tasks of provider and caretaker cannot be shared. But the man's initial role in the family, during and shortly after the procreative process, can only be that of provider and protector. Otherwise, there is no reason for a man to stay with his family. Men cannot give birth.
