Family Abolition: A New Concept

Someone on a message board recently introduced me to the concept known as

FAMILY ABOLITION.

I never knew such a thing existed. So I went to look it up.

This article was interesting to me.

Family Abolition isn't about ending love and care but extending it to everyone

"The idea of family abolition may invoke visions of violent interventions into the loving and caring homes that some of us are lucky enough to have. Where its proponents are really coming from, however, is to argue for a society where mutual nurturance and support are not dependent on a genetic lottery. This is not merely about pointing out that a disconcerting number of homes are not actually safe places but hold acute threats of violence particularly to the women who live there. Instead, if we can learn anything from the experiences that Covid-19 has unleashed, it is that the linked ideologies of the home, the nuclear family and neoliberal individual responsibility are ill-equipped to provide the care that we are all dependent on."

Here is a college class on it:

What is Family Abolition?

"The abolition of the family has long been a demand of Marxist and socialist agitation. Marx and Engels called for family abolition in the Communist Manifesto (“this infamous proposal”); and French utopians had done the same, some decades earlier. Then as now, the foremost popular reaction to the proposal “abolish the family” is one of gut-deep, pre-conscious shock and horror. Even after that initial aversion has passed, sometimes the objection remains: but I love my family, I don’t want to abolish them! In fact, there is little in the history of family abolitionism to imply a ban on living with the people one loves. Rather, the demand, when it has been raised, has been for universal welfare; communal luxury; queer self-determination; a classless society; and transgenerational freedom from emotional scarcity and blackmail. But, what does the concept of family abolition itself mean? And, how does it figure within a larger logic of emancipation—from labor exploitation, racism, sexism, and sexual oppression?"

Six Steps to Abolish the Family

"The family is a lifeboat for those abandoned by capital, but fails and thwarts far too many. We need other ways to organize care and organize ourselves."

I don't have blanket support, there's definitely dangers that can come with societal experiments. I read too many books about broken up families in Maoist China and about Utopian cults gone bad like the Shakers who forbade sex, marriage and nuclear families. Other cults also changed family dynamics who had too many humans seize power anyway. How do you keep the malicious malignant narcissist in your cult, tribal pod, or commune from becoming "Big Daddy" or "Queen Mother?"  Children often faced the worse abuses too when traditional structures were dismantled. Some tribal societies definitely have ways to work around that of course. Those are some hard questions and concerns. 

The family set up definitely ostracizes many people in America society who don't have a family. Sadly so much of our society is set up to exclude those with no family. It seems they want people to have their social lives totally dependent on family now even more since Covid. Single people without families, must still be experiencing unprecedented loneliness. 

Those who believe in family abolition though do have many good positions that make sense, nuclear families are failing in society, the same closeness and more is not there. Family for many people has become an abusive memory or people they must wear a mask around or a competition club that adds plan and strife to their lives. Families in some ways are too small now, who is around extended relatives anymore even as a child, to serve the same purpose they once did. Tribes operated better then families but as modernity took over, tribes for most peoples went by the way side. Human beings are social creatures and families don't serve the same social needs anymore and in American society have grown more toxic. 

Questioning the Nuclear Family