transcript
show notes
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
