Should it be abolished?
How should it be abolished?
What it be replaced with? (e.g. a bigger extended family, a commune or phalanstery, or nothing/individualism)
I think the family is the basic mutual aid structure and should be strengthened. People with good family support are more materially and emotionally secure. Strengthening/changing the family can be called “abolishing the bourgeois family”, depending on how the terms are defined.
The nuclear family (a term that didn’t exist when the Communist Manifesto was written) is not a great mutual support system, mostly because of its fragility. If one parent dies suddenly, or is mentally ill, or something, the whole thing gets disrupted, everyone’s lives get messed up. But it’s not the only system. Lewis Henry Morgan in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family talks about six kinds of family from different traditional cultures; there’s all sorts of possible models.
I don’t really agree with the “just choose your family!” stuff that neoliberals say. That’s a symptom of atomisation. Consanguinity is here to stay.
Another point is that a political program shouldn’t attack the family. That’s gonna be unpopular. Replace it gently.
The economy in modern America has already pretty much murdered the family for many Americans. Marriage is seen as the bedrock of the family, and money issues are constantly listed as the #1 reason for divorce, if not then many people get or stay married not out of a need or way to confirm love for another person but to save money on taxes. Communists dont have to kill the superstructural form of the family, the base economic forms will when the proletariat is forced to move away from extended or even close family for work, when the stresses of capital make family a bother to deal with. We already see reports of loneliness and alienation continually increasing.
Perhaps the scariest thought to me about the superstructural issues like this, is that the best way to keep them alive or rejuvenate them would be to instill a communist or socialistic ethic to them. Its the best talking point to give to cultural conservatives, who might otherwise take the “socialism” of the family and keep the capitalist structure. We flirt with fascists in that brief moment.
I want a pod full of other autistic people where we all have space to be alone as well as to be together and can choose when to switch to have our needs met
Restore the Gemeinwesen
i’ve been partially estranged from my bio family for most of my life even if i was forced to move back in/out a few times. always did surrogate ‘families’ and now it’s just me and my partner and all my “family” are scattered everywhere and we can never see each other due to $ reasons. maintaining contact is hard because my anxiety and it hurts i would rather be in the same room.
i think those of us left would love living on a campus or other arrangement and probalbly bring our various partners with us. we’re all creative neuro/gender diverse millennial weirdos. but i think these things should be choices. not all my surrogate family people have shitty relationships with their biological families.
unless we don’t bother to liberate disabled/elderly/poor people/women in an inclusive way, which would be uncool and probably counterproductive
This will be an inevitable transitional phase; can’t do it all at once.
