Second-wave feminists didn't look for an overthrow of patriarchy. Instead, they analyzed what they were up against and fought it in all of its varied manifestations.
Cynthia KauffmanOne of the problems with traditional anti-capitalist thought is that it defines capitalism as a totality, which encourages us to imagine another totality, socialism, which we can try to replace it with. This totalizing perspective has colonized the imagination of anti-capitalism and left us waiting for a revolution we can never have.
Cynthia KauffmanI think there is a legitimate critique of reformism, as a politics that is content with making small changes in society without asking for bigger and deeper changes. And revolutionary reforms, meaning actions that we take in small ways to make the world a better place and disrupt some of the ways that capitalism is reproduced.
Cynthia KauffmanThe main argument is that capitalism is constituted by a varied of different practices, and so challenging capitalism needs to be about a variety of struggles. I draw on the important work of J.K. Gibson-Graham, who argues that we should model anti-capitalist struggle on feminist struggles.
Cynthia KauffmanThe terms socialist and communist are mostly about describing the world we want after capitalism, and I think they are both important.
Cynthia KauffmanCommunism then defines a society in which there are communal forms for dealing with resources. Many communal forms exist where there are not communist governments. The Mondragon cooperatives in Spain and the thousands of worker-owned cooperatives in the United States, are viable alternatives to capitalism.
Cynthia Kauffman