Is it all just a part of political theater meant to propel Meatball Ron into the spotlight, or are there deeper causes that this legislation is being created in reaction to? The purposeful dismantling of the education system seems like one piece, but what else is going on?
theres literally nothing economic about it. i dont think theyve even attempted to make one up. Fascists didnt have an economic reasons for why gay people shouldnt marry so why would they start now?
TIL cis hetero patriarchy has no economic basis
(serious)ok then please explain to me how then trying to exterminate trans people helps them economically. im not saying they don't do ANYTHING on an economic basis, i just havent heard an economic argument for the anti-trans bullshit.
Transphobia as newer expression of latent homophobia that pervades all conservative and reactionary thought. These in turn are also linked with misogyny which again is also embedded in that ideology.
Conservative ideology is about maintaining (and expanding?) hierarchies where white cishet men are at the top. It’s not many steps removed from the idea that the family is the elemental unit of that hierarchy and oppression with the patriarch as the elemental oppressor.
These partriachal systems must be upheld in order to make "women's work" something that capital doesn't have to pay for. Trans people fly in the face of the structure which allows capital to profit freely off of social reproduction. So does feminism generally (or at least the good ones)
That's the argument Ive seen
Totally. This is also what I’ve seen.
the superstructure floats above the material base, that's like saying "I don't know why coca cola is hiring Colombian death squads to do Pinkerton shit against unionizing workers, I thought they made soda!"
good non-answer
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You're right; one of the principle contradictions of fascism is the tension between all this irrational, costly reactionary stuff and the rational, profit-maximizing drive of industry. Look at all the strain between MAGA Republicans and neocons.
It's a deflection strategy. When you're getting mad about trans people you're not getting mad at your boss, in fact you might even organise with him because he's also a transphobe.
But fascism has an economic basis and reasoning to it, even if the choice of victim isn’t attached to it. They don’t need to understand their own reasoning or motivations to act, but as Marxists trying to produce sound analysis we should
fascism is protecting capital instead of workers and enforcing that with violence, while simultaneously fighting a culture war that is used to get their brownshirts energized. What was the economic reason for the Jewish genocide? Because they were taking up all the money i guess? that's the only reason I could make up now. Marxism is scientific, fascism isn't. They are incompatible ideologies so i wouldnt try to use one to explain the other.
:wtf-am-i-reading: You're saying there's no economic factors driving patriarchy and racism? And no link between the immense crisis in German capitalism, the rise of the Nazis, and the intensification of oppression against their targets over time? They forced people into slavery in the camps, and if they couldn't work stole their possessions and commodified their very bodies. Completely unrelated to economics.
Marxism is scientific, yes, which means it is able to explain fascism even if fascism can't explain itself. No investigation, no right to speak.
we're talking about modern day Florida and anti-LGBT legislation. We're not covering the grand scope of fascist history. Hitler probably did say killing the Jewish people was good for the economy since he claimed they had so much wealth and power. what wealth and power does the LGBT community have? not enough to matter currently. Maybe they say trans healthcare is a drain on the healthcare system? i havent heard that though, i just made that up. I was just trying to answer the question posed in the title of this thread.
It's the same story, the first targets of the Nazis were disabled people and trans people after all. US capitalism is in deep crisis and the response is playing out similarly (and differently). People have already made some good points tying patriarchy (including LGBT+ oppression) to social reproduction via uncompensated domestic labour etc. Trans people get the worst of it because they challenge patriarchal structures most directly, and provide an opportunity to mobilize and organize reactionary forces.
There's much more to it, but the most important part is that just because fascism is irrational doesn't mean the directions it takes are incomprehensible. In fact, it's essential for Marxists to understand the similarities and differences between what's going on today and what's happened in the past.
Remember, the thing we're looking for is to understand the economic reasons why Florida is trying to genocide trans people. Fascists themselves aren't going to say "trans people are groomers, and also they represent an ideological threat to the system of social reproduction of labor" or whatever. Maybe you can get some hints from the bourgeois funders of fascists, but I would not expect to see economic reasoning straight from politician's mouths.
they did argue about the cost of gender affirming healthcare for trans people in the military but like that wasn't the actual reason why, it was just a convenient argument to advance the already-existing project of trans oppression
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But that's not the real reason. E.g. conservatives put on the "small government" mask when they try to cut the welfare state. But they're not trying to get rid of unemployment benefits because they are just strong believers in a balanced budget*. They're trying to get rid of unemployment benefits because capital needs a reserve army of labor.
* well maybe individual political actors are. But we're interested in the reasons the bourgeoisie selects these guys.
There's more complexity to it than that.
Forced labour had an economic basis. And several industries could be spawned from transforming work camps into death camps, for one disgusting example - you can make wigs from the hair gathered from the dead.
You find inside this transformation from forced labour to death machine the basis of different groups of the bourgeoisie having an economic incentive to see that transformation happen. But even more so is the unsustainability of it all in a system where fixed costs are too high, when maintaining your slaves becomes unsustainable economically you just start killing them all off because that's cheaper.
This whole video is very worthwhile, but I've linked to a relevant portion of it, only need to watch 10 minutes or so. https://youtu.be/QO-7cymgtqo?t=4622
ok i understand the economic basis behind Jewish genocide, but the main topic here has been what is the economic reason for anti-trans laws in Florida. im open to hearing ideas of that, cause i have no clue. I dont think ive heard a conservative say why getting rid of trans people helps the economy.
My personal take is that it has to do with the labour pool and aging of society. The ratio of young workers to old retirees is ever increasing and this leads to a labour shortage.
The solutions? One solution is immigration. They don't like that. Another solution is birthrates.
So how do we achieve more births? We need to do patriarchy. Trans people are the first victims of a patriarchal revival intended to subjugate women and raise birthrates. Trans people are necessary victims in this revival because their very existence threatens patriarchy as they exist outside of any conceptual family that patriarchy can produce.
As society ages and as the ratio of young workers to elderly ever increases this crisis of labour continues to increase and the urgency of their solution to it increases.
With immigration off the table because of a culture of white supremacy, this is all I have that makes economic sense.
Jews did on average have surprisingly strong economic standing for being such a hated minority in Germany. Pushing them out meant that their white competitors could steal their market share. That's a large part of the economic basis of the persecution of Jews in Germany, it deflects from the basic contradictions of falling profit by creating artificial growth for a brief period to the targeted benefit of the Nazi's popular base.
and that makes sense to me. im trying to find a similar reason to apply to anti-LGBT laws in Florida as well.
I agree that it is harder to understand. My personal theory is that trans people are targeted conversely because they are such a tiny and obscure part of the population that they are relatively helpless (along with other aspects like Christian paranoia of sexual deviancy) and, critically, they can be linked to "them" (elites [Jews]) by being cast as a product of woke ideology and urban decadence and so on. I think trans people are being targeted so they can be basically an appetizer for the death machine.
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as the neoliberal (fascist!) Margaret Thatcher once said, "there is no such thing as a society, there are only individuals and families". This explains why the hollowed out "nuclear family" exists, it is under this industrial paradigm of dissolving human solidarity with your kooky aunt or uncle that allows for socialism to be something we can fight for. If your elders live in a "retirement home", why would you need Medicare 4 all?