I’ll begin from this insight: certain kinds of personal relationships seem to ‘fit’ better with certain economic forms. That’s one (possible) implication of the ‘base and superstructure’ thesis, after all. But that’s just a starting point.
I think of this in roughly the same way Marx did, so long as we interpret Marx in a way that avoids any kind of hardcore historical determinism or teleology. The relationship between economic relations and personal relations isn’t one way and deterministic. The notion of a causal feedback loop is better, though that, too, has its shortcomings.
Rather, it’s a dialectical relation. As David Harvey points out in his Companion to Marx’s Capital, we’re talking here about a highly fluid and transformative relation. One that’s always in motion. The base and superstructure co-evolve, as it were. The base perhaps sets a basic tone, or a set of limitations, and/or an ‘easier’ path. But it’s much more open-ended than any deterministic relation or feedback loop allows.
And so, let’s start with some basic questions. What kinds of relationships best fit our current situation in the United States, which we might describe as ‘neoliberal capitalism’ or ‘financialized capitalism’? How do those relationships differ from those that fit the Keynesian consensus? Or the even earlier stages of industrial capitalism?
I’m writing here about polyamory in light of this background.
What is Polyamory?
I don’t want to get too bogged down in definitions or semantics. But what I have in mind by ‘polyamory’ is what’s commonly called ‘ethical non-monogamy.’ This is a model of relationships that are open to multiple romantic and/or sexual partners, and where everyone involved in the relationship explicitly (and non-coercively) agrees to that format.
Again, there are certain niceties I’m avoiding. But that definition lines up pretty well with what the websites and books say. And I think it should work well enough for what I have in mind.
We know a couple of things about polyamory. One, non-monogamy itself is an extremely old and common form of relationship. It’s arguably the most common form of relationship in human history. But most of those relationships are what the polyamorists would call ‘unethical’ and hence, on their view, not real polyamory.
Two, polyamory (i.e., ’ethical non-monogamy’) has gotten really popular in the last couple of decades. Some of this is probably due to the Internet, which was important for lots of more marginal groups or movements. But I think it also captures something specific about life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. At least in the US.
Neoliberalism and Flexibility
Neoliberalism makes somewhat unique demands of workers. They must be ‘flexible,’ which is code for a number of things.
One, it means that workers must be willing to work for ‘free,’ in forms like unpaid internships, working ‘off the clock’ outside of work hours, and so on. One reason companies do this is because they want to intensively vet employees before hiring them to actual positions.
Another reason companies do this is they’re making a flat-out grab for money, or they’re reaching for extra extraction of surplus-value. They depress the value of labor-power by not paying for it, by inculcating a kind of social expectation of working for free, which degrades the workers’ means of subsistence, to put it into explicitly Marxist terms. This has predictable results.
Two, flexibility means that workers must be willing to work part-time, on short-term contract, be willing to change their schedules on short notice, etc. Not only must they be willing to do this, they must be willing to pretend they like it. Young people are constantly bombarded with empirical literature claiming they do like it. Even though what the literature actually shows is that young people like flexibility on their own terms, not on the boss’s.
Three, workers must be willing to switch jobs. They’re constantly prepared for layoffs, and they’re considered ‘stale’ if they stay in the same role for longer than some defined period (3 years? 5 years? 10 years?). The days of the Organization Man are more or less finished.
Four, workers must be geographically flexible. It’s not enough to have an education and a perfect resume. One must also be willing to move across the country, or to another country, to seek work. While the surge of remote work is helping somewhat with this issue, the default expectation among young people now is that you might need to leave, partners or relatives be damned.
Who’s Into It?
I guess I had to have a section on this. But mostly I want to set this issue aside. I haven’t noticed any major distinctions between who’s into polyamory and who isn’t. I suspect people into polyamory are, on average, more highly educated and a bit nerdier than the general population. They’re probably more socially liberal.
I’ve seen some sanctimoniousness for sure, and the phrase ‘ethical non-monogamy’ practically reeks of it. But, whatever. Plenty of people into polyamory aren’t sanctimonious at all. And lots of smaller groups have a few members like this. Vegans, anyone?
What I’m saying here is that I don’t think there’s any specific type of person especially likely to be polyamorous. Nor is polyamory an explicitly political movement in most cases.
Polyamory and Neoliberalism
So what’s the connection between polyamory and neoliberalism?
First of all, it’s not that polyamory is the best fit with neoliberalism, or that neoliberalism forces upon people a social form that punishes them for straying from some kind of polyamorous party line. That’s far too strong a thesis, and our social and legal structures still even punish people for choosing polyamory.
But we can move to a different thesis that, I think, holds up well. This is that in a world where people are prepared to leave town at the drop of a hat, where people change jobs or careers frequently, and where we think about sexuality as more fluid, some people have good reason to see polyamory as a great way to address these issues.
It’s a way, though not the only way. Some people try long-distance, monogamous relationships. Others change career plans to accommodate a partner. And yet still others try serial monogamy, short-term sexual encounters, or purchase the services of sex workers. Some mix and match.
In short, I think the neoliberal world, and the flexibility it engenders, creates for many people a situation to which polyamory is a reasonable, sensible response. And it does so in a way that wasn’t really available to many people before about 1980.
Polyamory and Keynesian Capitalism
Prior to 1980, it was still pretty common in the US to stay with one or two companies for your entire career. It was also possible, for many people, to get a decent enough job without a college degree.
This system was, of course, quite limited. Limited more than anything by gender and race. Black Americans never had full access to this system, and only had partial access in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Women, even white women, didn’t have access to the ‘family wage.’ But there was a brief opening, which lasted from about 1945 to 1975, when a critical mass of American workers lived within striking distance of what people call the ‘American Dream.’
Comparatively, it’s unlikely polyamory would’ve been a mass movement in this system in the way it is now. And it wasn’t. I’m sure there were individual cases of it. But there was no general social sense, at least in the US, that polyamory was a kind of life led openly. It wasn’t a sensible response. That didn’t come until later.
We could talk about the situation in the US prior to the Keynesian consensus, but it wasn’t a period of normalized polyamory, either. It’d be much like the Keynesian story, with an extended family rather than a nuclear family.
Is Polyamory Subversive or Regressive?
So, neoliberalism creates a certain space where polyamorous relationships make sense as a response. And it makes sense in a way it previously didn’t. Is polyamory, then, a regressive response to neoliberalism or a subversive one?
I have some thoughts on this, but I’ll mostly take a pass on the question. It’s best left to the reader.
What I’ll say is that I think polyamory is less subversive than its more politically explicit practitioners think. But it’s more subversive than its leftist critics think. It probably carries some potential to help break down barriers to solidarity, like jealousy or envy. But it’s not a magic wand, and it can import any and all of the problems often found in monogamous relationships.
