Hello, from "Kliman's cat." Why you call us that, we don't know, because
there are two of us. CatS.
In his otherwise very thorough glossary, Juriaan curiously did not define "can
opener." Remind us not to get stranded on a desert island with him. A can
opener is a highly developed force of production used to open cans.
We also take issue with his definitions of "cat" and "forces of production":
"'Cat' - a species of domesticated mammal that rarely functions as a force
of production, being on the whole content to be fed by its owner and go its
own way."
"'Forces of production' - i.e. means of labour (means of production) i.e.
equipment, implements, tools, technology, as well as human labour power."
It seems to us that cat labor-power is just as much a force of production as
is human labor-power, and that much of what Juriaan calls "go[ing] its own
way" is indeed production. For instance, we produce entertainment services
for ourselves individually, and for each other. You may wish to call this
"play," but what do you call it when Michael Jordan does it? (BTW, in
relation to our sizes, we can jump far, far higher than he can.) Is it not
true that when we engage in these material practices, we are "engaging in
domestic labour, in a domestic mode of production"?
Juriaan also argues that relations between cats and humans are not "social":
"The relation between you and the cat isn't a social relation, because the cat
is an animal." Let us point out that humans are also animals. Would
relations between one human and another then be non-social?
We think the important problematic to tackle is to theorize the variety of
domestic modes of production -- those between cats, those between humans,
those between cats and humans, etc. -- and how these are complexly articulated
with one another. Also, how these are complexly articulated with non-domestic
modes of production, e.g., the antelope, Asiatic, boar, capitalist, elephant,
feudal, puma, etc. modes of production.
In OPE-L Solidarity,
Emily and Bob Le'on