•  
  •  
 

Abstract

Romantic love, like many other kinds of love, appears to be just a relationship between two individuals, but upon closer analysis it is more than that. Love is a deeply social process. It is also more than a spontaneous neuro-biological impulse. Love involves conscious activity, both subjective and material. Love is a social process both at the level of human society and at the level of class society, including capitalism. Private property relations and related logics of accumulation in all forms of class society shape relations of love. Love in capitalism reproduces love with capitalism. Because love is social, it is political. It is political in part because it has a role to play in the fight against capitalism and in the construction of socialism. Love must be rescued both from the principle of love of two humans, as in romantic love in modern societies, and from the principle of love of all humans. In place of these principles, there is a need for new principles of love that promote or advocate love of class brothers and sisters, within the context of love of the struggle against class enemies, in a manner that does not ignore erotic love between individuals and that does not make exaggerated claims about the political power of love. A critical examination of love from the standpoint of materialist dialectics makes it possible to address the question what kind of love might exist under communism, and how it might be different from love under capitalism, and why?

Download

Share

COinS