The communism of love : an inquiry into the poverty of exchange value

A reminder of the most powerful and sustaining force in our lives. And that it's under constant threat. Exploring the meanings and powers of love from ancient Greece to the present day, Richard Gilman-Opalsky argues that what is called love by the best thinkers who have approached the subject is in fact the beating heart of communismunderstood as a way of living, not as a form of government. Along the way, he reveals with clarity that the capitalist way of assigning value to things is incapable of appreciating what humans value most. Capitalism cannot value the experiences and relationships that make our lives worth living and can only destroy love by turning it into a commodity. The Communism of Love follows the struggles of love in different contexts of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and shows how the aspiration for love is as close as we may get to a universal communist aspiration. "Exploring the meanings and powers of love from ancient Greece to the present day, Richard Gilman-OpalsKy argues that what is called "love" by the best thinkers who have approached the subject is in fact the beating heart of communism--understood as a way of living, not as a form of government. Along the way, he reveals with clarity that the capitalist way of assigning value to things is incapable of appreciating what humans value most. Capitalism cannot value the experiences and relationships that make our lives worth living and can only destroy love by turning it into a commodity. The Communism of Love follows the struggles of love in different contexts of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and shows how the aspiration for love is as close as we may get to a universal communist aspiration."--Publisher's description Dedication 3 Introduction 4 Chapter 1: The Logic of Love as a Communist Power 17 Chapter 2: Plato’s Symposium and the Many Powers of Love 64 Chapter 3: The Love of Communists 90 Chapter 4: Love as Praxis: Critical Theory and Psychoanalysis 154 Chapter 5: Love and White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy 214 Chapter 6: Liquid and Chaos 255 Chapter 7: Unalienation 280 Chapter 8: Conclusion: For and against 307 Index 327 Copyright 343 Friends of AK Press 344