Ruben Sol contextualises the rise in misogynistic ideology among young men.
Many Comrades have likely experienced first-hand, or seen recent reports of, the growing reactionary subjectivity of young men. We can observe in the visible groupings of reaction, in the “incels”, “black pills” and “red pills” and many other labels on the internet self allocated by young men a clear layer of reactionary attitude. The plague of male reactionary sentiments has of course always been present, but the recent rise is undoubtedly a cause for concern.
New polls indicate this trend is increasing internationally, while previous ones saw a drift to the right in young men while young women drifted to the left. This trend was most pronounced (from the countries polled) in South Korea (figure 1.), a country experiencing heightened capitalist exploitation with 18 hour work days, and undergoing a social reproduction crisis with the lowest birth rates in the world (now at 0.78).
Of course, with these surveys we should be critical of the vague and confusing standards by which academics use the “conservative” and “liberal” labels. A much clearer and more apt description would be between ‘Revolutionary/progressive’ and ‘reactionary’ subjectivities, as I have used in this article. Still, this data doubtlessly points to a turn to the right, consciously or unconsciously, amongst young men.
Our analysis of this phenomena must focus on the drives of this reactionary surge amongst the male youths and what concrete solutions/actions communists should be taking in response.
The roots of this male reactionary turn focus on a crisis of social reproduction in the developed capitalist countries. Itself stemming from the success of the bourgeois feminist project in the latter half of the 20th century, in which a massive proportion of women have been fully integrated into the workforce (as shown in figure 2.). The initial motivation was a co-optation of the liberatory motivations of women from the oppression of patriarchy (the integration of women into the workforce liberated women partially from the coercive control of husbands as ‘breadwinners’) into the increasing and stabilising of the rate of profit, through increasing the pool of exploitable labour.
This amongst other victories for women’s legal equality and rights to abortion, and legal equality for many queer people in later gay marriage legislation, have partially assimilated these sections into the direct value cycle. However, this legitimisation of women’s and queer rights has led to a crisis in social reproduction, While women still perform the vast majority of social reproductive labour, their requirement to full time work has had a clear effect on birth rates. Over this period, birth rates in all developed capitalist countries have declined to below reproduction rates (2), necessitating immigration from the global periphery where birthrates were still high (but also declining). It must also be noted that, despite full legal equality for women and queer people, their integration into the direct value cycle nevertheless allows for the stratification of the proletariat and discriminatory wages and working conditions.
Yet with birth rates in global decline since 1963, now at 2.3 (2021 data, fig 3), capital faces a global crisis of social reproduction. The drought of incoming new young workers rapidly approaching threatens fundamentally the viability of capitalist accumulation. Thus the entirety of the bourgeois press constantly, desperately, howls of declining birthrates and an ageing population, agonising at the prospect of disappearing surplus value. Left liberal state loyalists such as Aron Bastani stress over low baby numbers in fulfilling their social-imperialist management and ‘luxury communism’.
The short-term success of the liberal feminist movement in harnessing the struggle for women’s rights to integrate women into the labour pool has led to a long term crisis in social reproduction. Thus a long term crisis in the total reproduction of capitalism, and thus a crisis for the continued survival of the capitalist system.
This crisis in social reproduction is necessarily a crisis of patriarchy. This enforcement of the oppression of women has historically guaranteed the social reproduction of society by relegating women to the position of child bearing and rearing, and it is still an omnipresent power in society today. It materialises in the continued suppression of the wages of women and queer people, thus perpetuating the domination of men, in the structural violence and the norms and values of the patriarchal system. However, it is now failing to guarantee the social reproduction of capitalist society, and must thus turn to far more reactionary means and ideals in order to ensure its survival.
This failure to ensure social reproduction is the primary factor driving the rightwing turn of young men. It embodies the patriarchal desire to ensure their continued domination in dismembering the weak and insufficient rights established by bourgeois feminism, pushing back against pressure for real queer and women’s liberation, particularly amongst young women.
So how is this consciousness implemented and spread among young men over the revolutionary proletarian consciousness of universal emancipation?
This need for a reactionary turn, emphasising the masculine subjectivity over class, is broadcast through bourgeois ideology with figures at its head such as Jordan Peterson, Matt Walsh and Andrew Tate. These figures articulate the demands for a return to ‘traditional family values’ loudly as reactionaries have always done, but with increasing appeal to terminally alienated sub-cultures of online men.
Additionally, petite bourgeois consciousness further fuels the reactionary desire for patriarchal domination.
These sentiments emerge organically from the reactionary male subjectivity’s impulsion to protect and advance its domination, aligning with the interests of a male patriarchal identity. The figureheads of these sentiments advance this naturally emerging desire for reaction from alienated men, who are pressured by the crisis of patriarchy.
Super-structural elements have always cultivated the reactionary identity of men. Yet the internet, and the increasing separation of young men from real relationships with other humans due to ongoing social collapse under capitalism, has amplified this trend; aided by the increasing importance of restoring social reproduction to the bourgeoisie.
However, despite the growing numbers of young men won by this reactionary program of capital, ultimately this ideological turn is futile. To re-establish social reproduction to sustainable levels would require the removal/reduction of women from the workplace, causing a wholesale collapse in the rate of profit, dooming the world system to oblivion. The desire for new family policy in Poland and other capitalist nations has historically failed to reverse the trends of declining birth rates, as with general capital accumulation it seems only the mass destruction of a world war can temporarily reverse declining birth rates.
Even the inevitable turn to fascist politics of this social base can only serve to save capital in that it allows for mass world war and the destruction of living standards to the extent that capitalism can rebuild. This will be the ultimate project of capital with these reactionary men; thus, it is imperative that we work to disrupt and oppose it. But how?
Should Socialists appeal to Men’s rights and make compromises on the promise of women’s and queer liberation? Should we become advisers for capital on how to effectively increase birth rates? No. Communists must win ‘men’ not as ‘men’ but as workers to a program of universal emancipation, emphasising the capitalist system as the root of their oppression. We must win workers to class positions under the creation of mass movements and a mass Socialist workers Party. One that can fight to provide a real positive alternative to these reactionary appeals and to the broken lies of Neoliberal capitalism for a program of Universal self-emancipation. We will fight this bourgeois reactionary ideology everywhere it appeals, fighting for class unity and the liberation of the proletariat. Communism is the real movement that abolishes the current state of things, a movement that will win, that will abolish Gender, Class and all other! Forward to the Mass Communist Workers Party! Forward to the Democratic Socialist Republic and Forward to Communism!
PARTISAN! 
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