Anti-Capitalist Feminism with Selma James

At 95, Selma James is a voice from another world. Born to working-class Jewish parents in Brooklyn, she married the Caribbean revolutionary CLR James and shared his anti-colonial, libertarian Marxism. She was a founder of the Wages for Housework campaign in the 1970s, and remains active with Global Women's Strike, the Crossroads Women's Centre in north London and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. In conversation with Barnaby Raine and her son Sam Weinstein, she recalls her influences — from Trinidad to Tanzania to Italian feminism — and her anti-state, anti-work, anti-vanguardist conception of socialism. We offer this interview as part of the historical record of a tradition on the left.

This is episode 3 of postscript, reflecting on the future of the left after the passing of twentieth century assumptions.

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction

(01:04) - Childhood

(04:38) - Meeting CLR James

(09:06) - Trinidad and London

(13:27) - Jamesianism

(15:30) - A Woman's Place

(19:15) - The Second Sex

(20:08) - Against work

(23:13) - Middle class feminism

(24:11) - Wages for Housework

(30:18) - Against the state

(33:36) - Vietnam

(35:20) - Tanzania

(39:57) - Working class unity

(47:56) - Free time

(49:50) - AI

(51:10) - Palestine Action

(51:51) - Jewish Anti-Zionism

(55:01) - Organising strategies

(58:24) - Marx

(1:00:36) - Hope