The Capital Limit: Feminist and Marxist Control Points

There is a school of thought in feminism suggesting that matriarchal societies predominated prior to the rise of civilization, patriarchy, and state-sponsored religion. They argue that the view of women being associated with the Earth was strikingly universal across many cultures, dating back to prehistory. It has to do with nesting habits and body cycles, which are also tied to the moon. Goddess worship was more frequent; ritual and governance were more in tune with nature than the state, due to seasonal cycles. Part of what motivated the feminist movement was reclaiming that divinity, also known as wicca.

Raine Eisler, Merline Stone, and Monica Sjoo were powerful writers on the subject, though Sjoo did not have a degree. In past years I was more open to this line of reasoning, without any evidence to go along with it. Let's just say it would not surprise me if the theory were true that most societies were matriarchal. I would like to believe that sex didn't matter at all; that a society was equally likely to be matriarchal as patriarchal. One thing is clear: patriarchal societies developed with the rise of civilization, regardless of location or religion. Perhaps it was because growing fertility rates required women to focus more on childbearing than politics and government. The coinciding growth of patriarchal religions like Christianity reflect this trend, allowing men to have more power by the spectacular claim that God had written the Bible and not them. If women had written it, perhaps we would live in a matriarchy.

Things would be better, wouldn't they? More emphasis on caring, sharing, and compassion, not competition and greed. As women distribute equality and fairness among their children, so would they in a matriarchal democracy. We wouldn't have to worry about the planet suffering from nuclear winter or global warming, for she evidently cares more about the planet than the "treadmill of production" men have built. The wrench in the system was overpopulation- how it put women on the sidelines and gave men more freedom to roam. It was she who gave men this gift, at the expense of all she held sacred.

During the rise of civilization, groups could only survive by monopolizing resources, leading to a core capitalist ideology. But I want to point out this didn't happen everywhere. The Native Americans did not practice this and were more in touch with the environment, or natural world, so a Marxist geography did not develop. There are still isolated tribes in the world today that have nothing to do with civilization or capitalism. It seems that it is only civilization that harvests the root for capitalism that pollutes the planet, while the periphery gets swept off its feet defending it. Capitalism isn't the root of who we are, but a product of our behavior when there are too many people to sustain.

The central point is this: the capital limit is the point at which women, nature, labor, and freedom all suffer lapses from a growing population. Bureaucracy inflates, there are too many men, so they must specialize in things that make the system grow. This system has made us victims of our own success.