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Periodic economic crises are a fundamental feature of capitalism. Just now the capitalist world is going into such a crisis. And, like its predecessors, this crisis is not just a simple economic matter, but has echoes in every part of society.
There is often a temptation to see the parts of the crisis in separation from each other- we say there is a political crisis, a crisis in the colleges, a crisis in the health service and so on.
Such separations have their uses, but the most important thing to do is to expiore the connections of aspects of crisis with the crisis as a whole, and most of all, with its underlying economic causes. This is most true for the generally neglected fields-in particular, it is important to look at what is happening in the family, to sexuality and to the situation of women generally.
### MISTAKE
The most common mistake made in dealing with these topics-one which the women's movement has been in the forefront of overcoming is the artificial separation between work in industry and work at home. A problem that was not fully dealt with in Ann Foreman's contribution to the debate on Domestic Labour in the last issue of Socialist Woman is that such models are static. You cannot explain how the family develops if you look on it as an isolated servicing unit completely apart from its circumstances. Yet at the present time, important changes in the family and for the position of women are underway-and they must be understood.
The Marxist theory of capitalist crises is based on the law of the declining rate of profit. Essentially, this law says that as capitalism replaces people by machines in work places, as it becomes more "capital intensive", so the rate at which profit is made goes down. This is a general tendency at all times but moments come when the decline reaches a low enough point for us to speak seriously of a erisis.
### ATTEMPTS
There are a number of attempts capitalism can make to deal with the declining rate of profit. The simplest is the holding-off manoeuvre of expanding the market the lower rate of profit is not so damaging if it gained on a number of products.
In the present crisis this is one of the least practicable for any capitalism (and most of all, incidentally for British capitalism). Potential new markets, in the 'third world" for example, have been exhausted already.
A big war also helps in some circumstances-it gives outlets to all sorts of products and at the same time attempts to batter rivals out of competition. In the present circumstances, a major war is not a viable idea for any big section of capitalism. The only other real option is a lowering of real wages. If wages are forced down then the amount of value got by the capitalist from a particular piece of work increase in relation to his (or very rarely, her) outlay on labour. This process can jack up the rate of profit. Attempts to lower real wages have been the concern of the ruling class in every major capitalist country in the last few years.
These attempts hit the position of women in a number of very specific ways. The most obvious are the ones that hit women directly to increase the number of women in the work force, because it is understood that their labour power costs less.
There has been a tendency in this direction for instance in the electrical engineering industry. The Equal Pay Act is so loosely formulated as to positively be a help in this processfor instance there is a provision in it that practically excludes the equalisation of pay between two factories in different areas if the workers in one are men, while in the other are women. It has been estimated that the Act even if fully implemented will not affect two-thirds of women workers" wages. A neat device for increasing productivity without granting wage rises!
On the other hand, firms whose worries are less those of keeping up production but are more of reducing costs (and this is becoming the case for more and more sectors of industry) are and will be making their biggest drives to reduce labour costs by lay-offs, cutting out shifts, and so on. And of course it will in many cases initially be women who bear the brunt of this.
### FAMILY
Saying this sort of thing only gets us so far. A number of other aspects of the crisis come to light once we explore the implications of the industrial developments for the family. The success of the capitalist strategy towards wards women workers depends on the maintenance of the family, and of male chauvinism-first of all, because the cheapness of female labour is as much as anything a product of the pressures put on women by their domestic situation that make it so much more difficult for them to become
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has an echo at every level of society. Some alternatives facing the ruling class the crisis and sexuality is examined.
LADIÉS! In the article below, JANICE MILLS examines how the present capitalist crisis are outlined, and the implications for the family of developments now taking place are investigated. The impact of the crisis on women's jobs and of cuts in social spending are related to the family. In addition, the relationship between WORk FOR A. PITTANCE CO. LTD.