An ethics of care can solve and deconstruct capitalistic violence – unity and affective relationships are key to resistance

Spinoza's relational view of power means that people preserve themselves by forming associations. Members join these associations and organizations because they agree with other members.® The associations, as Gatens and Lloyd describe, "congeal into institutional forms, such as juridical norms, through which the inevitable disagreements between individuals (as members, subjects, or citizens of a complex body) will be settled. Initially, however, the formation of viable associations will depend mostly upon the passions of hope and fear and will create common causes for these passions.... The simplest means for securing agreement within a collective is by creating common causes of hope of reward and fear of punishment. Such associations draw their force from Spinoza's notion of passion and imagination, rather than reason. "67 Harmony occurs when the individual person's power is aligned with that of the collective. There must be unity. The individual and the collective, in other words, are mutually reinforcing. According to Gatens and Lloyd, "The political problem (how do we form associations) is analogous to the epistemological problem (how do we come to form adequate ideas?"68 These forms become mutually reinforcing. Together, they form a well-functioning unity. All people must seek harmony to enhance their power. A community, therefore, revolves around the principle that the more virtuous people are, the more power they have. The most desirable community, moreover, is one where this type of power has spawned peace or harmony.70 A critical conception of care An ethic of care based upon Spinoza's view of common notions and Deleuze's interrelated conception of difference offers us a morality that could humanize capitalism. Unlike the social constructionists' work on an ethic of care, this ethic would not be based on humanist metaphysics. Care would not stem from benevolence or the kindness of family members and strangers, something that makes some ethicists wary. Grounding a care ethic on critical theory means that it would be founded upon a different conception of what it is to be human. Nonetheless, this critical care ethic still retains the four pillars of the old one. First, the idea that human beings are relational is interwoven into the very fabric of a critical conception of care. Spinoza's idea that people depend upon each other is not derived from the fact that we are "good" people. Neither Spinoza, Deleuze, nor Guattari rely on altruism. To them, Man is God to Man and Woman. People depend upon each other not because it makes them feel better, but because they realize that it is in their own self-interest. The abstract notion of an individual that drives capitalism and liberalism is not independent, as Hobbes and Locke argue, but rather interdependent, as Spinoza points out. This critical morality makes needs, not care, the operative term. Needs should be taken into account not because of benevolence or because women are more caring than men. Benevolence smacks of paternalism. The problem is that others impose their will. Hirschmann and Eisenstein are properly cautious about second guessing. A care ethic should not mean that independent people (read caregivers) are dictating what dependent people (care-receivers) should do. Both the independent and the dependent should be free. This freedom stems from the realization that all human beings are interdependent. We depend upon each other to survive. The theoretical myth of autonomy that liberalism, and capitalism perpetuate must be broken. An ethic of care should recognize needs and individuality as part of the human condition. This condition is based on doing rather than being. The state and society should have no preconceived notion of norms or identities. Rather, an ethic of care should start with "you need this to do that." It should be based on a positive conception of liberty that is not burdened by the Rousseauian dilemma of second-guessing because everyone is involved in determining needs. Integrating such a care ethic into the workplace would introduce sociability--no worker would stand alone. A harmonious workplace is one that promotes the capacities and powers of its workers, not for their sake alone but for the sake of the entire workplace. The needs of the individual and the collective are mutually reinforcing. To be sure, the doing of the individual must be juxtaposed with the doing of the collective. The individual pursuing his difference would not be trampled if a system of proportional representation, not winner take all, is instituted. If a man stays home with the children, then he will have certain needs that emerge not from his identity as a man, but as a person interested in painting. An ethic of care based on individuality acknowledges both the mind and the body and its infinite possibilities.A Spinozian ethic of care retains the second pillar of the feminist morality. It too makes no distinction between the public and the private spheres, as do capitalism and liberalism, which are governed by an ethic of rights. The public is simply an extension of the private. For Spinoza, how two people get along is multiplied and extended to all of the state and society. The personal is the political. Spinoza, Deleuze, and Guattari argue that the body is a microcosm of society and the state. Beginning with a body, they extend their idea to all bodies- the individual can be extended to the multitude. As explained earlier, Spinoza coins the term common notions to illustrate how everyone should be regarded as interdependent and that there is no distinction between personal and public spaces. The third pillar of an ethic of care-difference-is exhibited in its critical incarnation. A critical conception of a care ethic begins with the notion of difference. Spinoza, Deleuze, and Guattari, however, perceive of difference not in terms of identity or being, but in terms of doing. They agree with the ethicists that difference is not second best. Their notion of difference and becoming helps create an ethic of care based on needs that are not static or rigid. Needs can be universal and yet not phallocentric as long as the Cartesian dualism is replaced with Spinoza's monism. The final, fourth pillar that an ethic of care is discursive is also an integral part of the new conception of care. A critical ethic of care rests on the idea that there are no universals. Spinoza, Deleuze, and Guattari reject universals from the point of Cartesian epistemology. They all question knowledge. These critical theorists go further than the traditional ethic in that they reject the duality of the mind and body. Examining our corporeality transcends the categories of sex, gender, race, and sexuality. Location, location, location Creating an ethic of care in the workplace could also put bodies in revolt. Difference can be transformed into resistance. Critics of Foucault insist that his work is so pessimistic that it offers no chance for reform.? If Foucault argues that power is everywhere, then is there any room for resistance?72 Jurgen Habermas sums up Foucault's paradox simply as "why fight? 73 Foucault's critics, however, overlook his argument that power relations can be unmasked in local areas. Casting aside universals, Foucault claimed that power and resistance exist in specific locations, like a prison or a workplace. 4 Foucault treats power and resistance as analytical conditions of each other by deconstructing dualisms like power and powerlessness or the individual and society. To Foucault, resistance, like power, is a socially constructed category. It cannot be perceived as "out there" or as a freestanding category.75 Resistance is both an element of the functioning of power and, as Dierter Freundlieb describes it, a source of its perpetual disorder.76 Resistance is associated with self-creation." Hence, there is a possibility for resistance wherever power is exercised.78 Furthermore, Foucault insists that particular exercises of power should be understood in terms of the resistances they confront, generate, or even promote.? Resistance is what eludes power. As a result, power seeks out resistance- its adversary. For power to minimize resistance, Foucault maintains, it must divide-and-conquer, or as he explains it, "individua-lize" the forces of the institutions that it creates. Inequality constitutes an essential element of power, whereas resistance must be associated with an absence of hierarchy in what Foucault calls "counterpower." Resistance or counterpower, however, cannot be characterized as antimatter or a negation of power, though Foucault links resistance with horizontal conjunctions and equality. Like power, it can also be productive or affirmative. Resistance relies on strategic knowledge and represents Foucault's ideas of revolutionary action.80