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tion, Marcuse argues in Marxist fashion, relates to an economy of
scarcity characterized by an acute competition for the objects of
desire. Social domination is also a function of the early phase of in–
dustrialism when the economy is being transformed into one of
abundance. What occurs is a paradox (a Weberian rather than
Marxian insight) in which the productive conditions of industrial
civilization require the repression of desires multiplied and fostered
by industrial revolution . The expansive sense of desire and power is
given to us, for instance, in this passage from Elizabeth Gaskell's
North and South:
[Margaret Hale] liked the exultation in the sense of power
which these Milton men [industrialists of the north] had. It
might be rather rampant in its display, and savour of boasting;
but still they seemed to defy the old limits of possibility, in a kind
of fine intoxication, caused by the recollection of what had been
achieved, and what yet should be.
If
in her cooler moments she
might not approve of their spirit in all things, still there was
much to admire in their forgetfulness of themselves and the pre–
sent, in their anticipated triumphs over all inanimate matter at
some future time which none of them should live to see.
In practice, of course, the working conditions of factory life require
the regulating of this "fine intoxication." Marcuse writes at a mo–
ment when, it would seem, the economy of abundance has outgrown
its repressive origins and surplus repression is no longer an historical
necessity. He envisages a democratic society of material abundance
which reduces necessary labor to a minimum and frees the person to
live a life of creative leisure. Such a life has been historically possible
for a small privileged class: Marcuse wants to make it available to
everyone. The possibility of leisure, however, is not enough . What is
required now is a transformation of psychic life in which work be–
comes play, an erotically charged nonutilitarian activity.
In distinguishing between repression that enforces social domi–
nation and "repression" required for survival, Marcuse opens up the
possibility of lifting taboos against so-called perversion. Heterosex–
ual genital sexuality need not be the only permissible sexuality. In
fact, it is, in the Marcusan view, gratuitously repressive of the full
range of sexuality, which is by "nature" polymorphously perverse
and not exclusively genital. Perversions may threaten social or
patriarchal domination but not survival.
It
is important to note that
