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Capitalism or "ruling class"
Having any society that allows for rulers to exist in any form will always result in having a form of patriarchy, among other arbitrary divisions, such as race, whatever "IQ" is, blue vs white collar, who people vote for, etc. not including "the powerful vs the masses".
Divide and conquer is a strategy as old as society.
Abolition of class is a nice idea, but in the meantime, what would you call patriarchy instead?
It's not about what to call it, because patriarchy has a specific definition and is a real issue, but instead, it's about realizing that patriarchy is a symptom of a larger issue of class and to point the finger at the correct issue to better organize with like-minded people to ultimately fix the issue at its core.
History, from the matriarchies of old to the queens of Ancient Egypt, shows that "rulers" and "patriarchy" aren't a package deal. Patriarchy isn't a symptom of hierarchy. It's a distinct engine of oppression. Abolishing class doesn't automatically liberate women from the material reality of unpaid household labor.
We cannot treat gendered or racial division resolving as an inevitable byproduct of a classless society. Cultural superstructures lag behind economic shifts, and these autonomous divisions don’t simply resolve to match a new base.
Praxis is the refusal to treat the domestic struggle as a secondary theater of the revolution. By naming and engaging the material roots of gender, race, and the "IQ" myth today, we forge solidarity with groups historically kept on the sidelines, unifying the masses for the broader class struggle. We don't wait for these hierarchies to evaporate. We name them and bring the fight to them.
Abolishing class would include things like providing all basic necessities to all people along with a universal basic income, thereby eliminating the need to generate an income in order to survive. This alone would liberate the people in society who would prefer to stay home for whatever reason, whether that be raising children, focusing on hobbies, improving personal mental heath, etc. An additional, very important outcome would be the liberation of people in abusive relationships who otherwise are not able to leave or seek the necessary support due to financial reasons.
Aboloshing class would also mean that all businesses that people choose to work for would be democratically run by the workers, and it's hard to think of a situation where workers would specifically choose to, for example, pay women $0.70 on the dollar instead of paying each worker their fair share based on merit. Not saying it's impossible, for example, for a company comprised mostly of sexist men choosing to pay women less solely because they're women, but I do think it would be much rarer. The previous paragraph's points would also eliminate the requirement of working in order to survive, which would allow the freedom of people who are dissatisfied with their jobs to look for different ones.
You are correct on the cultural point in your second paragraph, where cultural acceptance of equality for all humans would lag behind the economic shift, but it ultimately would still happen, and I disagree with your point about that shift not being inevitable. The liberation of people from the class struggles that make them currently beholden to powerful people (most often men, but powerful people in general) would inevitably shift the culture more towards the acceptance of said liberation and personal autonomy.
Your last point about naming individual struggles to bring to power people who have historically been repressed more than whoever is seen as the most powerful group in a given society is important, but at the same time, we need to make sure not to alienate people based on characteristics they cannot change, especially race and gender. While non-whites, queer people, and women do ultimately struggle more than, say in the US, straight, white men, the majority of straight, white men also struggle in terms of class. Ignoring that is a large part of how Trump gained so much power in the first place, since he appealed specifically to straight, white men, except pointing the finger in a bigoted direction instead of at the wealthy elite, and meanwhile Hillary Clinton was also not talking about class at all, and instead talking about identity politics and calling Bernie Sanders supporters sexist (Bernie Bros) because she is a woman and Bernie isn't.
Of course, the reason both Trump and Hillary didn't focus on class is because they are both a part of that wealthy elite and wanted to play divide and conquer politics to distract from the ultimate issue in the US and most of the rest of the world, which is class. That is also the reason why the Democrats feared Bernie so much as to pull levers behind the scenes to ensure that he would lose the primary to Hillary, since Bernie was focusing on class in his campaign.
It is also worth mentioning that in our current system, the rulers are the wealthy elite and money equals power, but you probably already know that.
First, thank you for such a considerate response. I’ve had several interactions on this platform where sincere engagement was met with condescension or attacks, so I truly appreciate the tone you’ve set here. I’d like to offer a different perspective on a few of your points. This isn't a hit on your analysis. It's more of a call to look at the structures we are both fighting.
I think we have to look past just surviving. Communism isn't just about making sure everyone has enough to eat. It’s about human emancipation and flourishing. If a woman is financially safe because of a UBI but is still socially expected to serve others, she isn't emancipated. She’s just a well-fed subordinate. We aren't just fighting for a higher floor. We are fighting to tear down every structure that lets one person rule another in our everyday lives.
Regarding the "lag," I think we have to look at why things linger. Culture can become a self-sustaining engine. The superstructure of a dying base is often sublated into the new social form, where old structures are repurposed to serve the new base. Even the forms that aren't strictly "needed" become integrated into a superstructure that has its own internal logic. These logics can then reach back down and influence the base. As long as these habits retain their "common sense" status, they will be difficult to remove. The superstructure essentially reshapes the base to make its own removal even harder.
Take the feudal idea that a man’s home is his castle. That identity has survived the total destruction of the feudal system that birthed it. In a capitalist society, it no longer serves its original purpose as a place to hold court or hear the grievances of vassals. Instead, it has mutated to focus only on the "dominionship" aspect, which reinforces the logic of private property. It’s hard to predict exactly how superstructural forms like patriarchy will persist in influencing a new base to justify their existence, but history shows they are experts at reinventing themselves. This is why I think we must explicitly address these issues.
Another thing that stuck out to me was the idea of merit in a worker-run business. Even without a boss, merit isn't a neutral bar. If we don’t actively fix the burden of housework and childcare, the person who can stay late or work more will always have more merit than the person holding the home together. If our revolution doesn't reach the kitchen, a worker-run democracy just ends up rewarding people who have a second shift being done for them for free.
Just as surviving wasn't sufficient in the long run, so too we must move beyond meritocracy. Perhaps in lower socialism we can still have, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work." But in high socialism, we must move to "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" Even though the capital class has been abolished, their modes of measure value and worth persist in low socialism. As such, so too will some superstructural forms by the mechanism I mentioned above.
Lastly, I don't think naming these struggles is identity politics that pushes people away. It’s actually an invitation to real solidarity. When we tell a white male worker that the system relies on exploiting his wife’s labor at home to keep him squeezed at work, we aren't attacking him. We are showing him how the system uses his own private life to keep him down. True solidarity isn't about staying quiet to keep the peace. It’s about naming the rot so we can actually stand together.