The Insidious Morality
Trans-Rights and the Protection of the Moral Economy of Capitalism
Morning Comrades.
Truthfully, all that had to be said about last weeks Supreme Court ruling in the UK in regards to Transgender rights, or the lack thereof, has already been said, both here and on IG. Irrespective of that, I have not been able to shake my rage at the ever constructed culture war at the hands of some of our most insidious enemies. To add additional fuel to my own fire, Britain’s Communist Party sided with said enemies, again, something hardly surprising for anyone that has had the unfortunate experience of being involved in that club of nefarious reactionary, middle class boomers. I refute all of it and this place being what it is, we will be getting into it a little deeper than I could be bothered to do on IG.
In the ongoing struggle against capitalist domination, the terrain of morality is one of the most insidiously policed and manipulated fronts. Bourgeois morality—constructed historically alongside capitalist development—presents itself as neutral, eternal, and universal, while in truth it is an ideological tool designed to uphold private property, hierarchical labor, and rigid social stratification. One of the most revealing sites of this ideological project in the present moment is the growing anti-trans and so-called "gender-critical" movement, often euphemistically framed as the defence of "biological reality" or "women’s rights." At its core, this movement—commonly referred to in shorthand as TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) ideology—does not challenge capitalist patriarchy, but rather upholds and reinforces its most reactionary moral assumptions. Anti-trans discourse is not a deviation from bourgeois morality, but a strategic manifestation of it.
The bourgeois conception of sex and gender is rooted in the need to create socially legible, biologically determinist categories that support capitalism's division of labour, inheritance structures, and family formations. It was capitalism, not biology, that reinforced the nuclear family as an economic unit, designated reproductive roles based on anatomical sex, and aligned gender identity with productive and reproductive function. As Silvia Federici and other feminist Marxists have shown, the capitalist state has always been invested in defining and disciplining bodies in ways that maximise economic efficiency and social control. The transgression of binary gender roles, then, represents not merely a cultural or moral challenge, but a political rupture in the capitalist order’s reproduction of labor, identity, and social value.
The anti-trans movement, in its alliance with reactionary forces, moral traditionalism, and increasingly with state power, functions as an ideological police force. It seeks to reassert the “naturalness” of the sex binary and the sanctity of traditional womanhood—not to protect the oppressed, but to protect the moral economy of capitalism. TERF ideology, while borrowing the language of feminism, ultimately reaffirms the same capitalist moral codes that define people by their productivity, anatomy, and conformity to bourgeois respectability. Just as capitalist morality once declared the wage labourer "free" even as they were bound by structural necessity to sell their labour, it now declares gender to be "immutable" even as it is violently enforced through laws, cultural narratives, and institutions.
Bourgeois morality—far from being a benign or apolitical ethical system—was historically created and is actively maintained to enforce submission to capitalism. With that, let us trace its development from feudal to liberal capitalist moral orders, explore its philosophical underpinnings, and expose how it is used to discipline not only class relations but also bodies, identities, and ways of living. In doing so, we will show that the anti-trans/TERF movement is not an aberration but a logical extension of bourgeois ideology—an ideological attack on human liberation disguised as moral concern. It is not simply anti-trans; it is anti-revolutionary. To confront it is not only a matter of identity politics, but of class struggle and moral decolonization.
The Mask of Morality
Morality, in bourgeois society, is portrayed as neutral, eternal, and universally applicable. But as Karl Marx wrote in The German Ideology, “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.” Morality, far from being a transcendent good, has always been historically and materially determined by the dominant class. In capitalist societies, bourgeois morality—centered on individual responsibility, property rights, hard work, meritocracy, and the sanctity of contracts—is not an ethical neutral, but a deeply ideological framework designed to legitimise capitalist social relations and suppress resistance.
Historical Genesis: From Feudal Virtue to Bourgeois Ethics
Feudal morality was anchored in divine right, religious duty, and hierarchical obligation. It justified a rigid social structure in which mobility was nearly impossible. With the emergence of the bourgeois class in the late medieval period and especially during the Enlightenment, this moral framework came under attack—not to liberate all humanity, but to dismantle the constraints on capital accumulation and free labour.
The Protestant Reformation, particularly in its Calvinist forms, reinterpreted moral life in terms of worldly success as evidence of divine favour. Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism explores how these values helped normalise ascetic labour and capital accumulation as moral imperatives. The bourgeoisie adapted this ethic to justify their social ascendancy and to instill submission among the emergent working class.
Enlightenment Rationalism and the Codification of Bourgeois Norms
Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, Adam Smith, and Immanuel Kant laid the groundwork for bourgeois morality by transforming feudal virtues into liberal principles: liberty became the liberty to own; equality was limited to legal equality; fraternity meant competition under the guise of civility. Locke’s theory of property, which asserted that mixing one’s labour with the earth gave one moral title to property, became the philosophical linchpin of capitalist exploitation.
Adam Smith, while often idealised for his advocacy of free markets, also presented a moral framework where self-interest, regulated by "sympathy" and the "invisible hand," was considered not only natural but morally righteous. In both cases, the market and private property became sanctified—any deviation from these norms became immoral.
Philosophical Structure: Bourgeois Morality as Ideological Superstructure
Marx and Engels viewed morality as a superstructural element—part of the ideological framework that arises from and helps sustain the material base of society. In Critique of Gotha Programme and The German Ideology, Marx showed that moral ideals such as justice, freedom, and equality are always interpreted within the bounds of class relations. Under capitalism, these ideals are hollowed out and redefined to support the wage-labor relationship.
Justice, for example, is transformed into the justness of market exchanges, even though the wage labourer is structurally coerced into selling their labour to survive. Freedom becomes the freedom to participate in market transactions, ignoring the structural violence of poverty and unemployment. Thus, bourgeois morality masks exploitation with the illusion of fairness.
Kantian Ethics and Capitalist Formalism
Immanuel Kant’s deontological ethics, though abstractly universal, became functionally compatible with capitalist discipline. His categorical imperative—act only according to that maxim whereby you can will that it should become a universal law—valorises duty, self-discipline, and rule-following, which became essential characteristics of the modern labourer. The Kantian moral subject is atomised, rational, and self-governing—ideal traits in a capitalist subject, trained to internalise discipline and obey not through fear, but through conscience.
Instruments of Maintenance: Education, Law, and Culture
Modern education systems, particularly public schooling in capitalist nations, are less about liberation and more about moral conditioning. The curriculum promotes punctuality, obedience, competition, and individual achievement—bourgeois virtues disguised as objective good. Morality lessons in schools often frame poverty as a result of moral failing and wealth as a product of hard work, despite overwhelming structural evidence to the contrary.
Legal Morality and the Sanctity of Property
Capitalist legal systems encode bourgeois morality into law. Theft is immoral not because of any inherent evil, but because it violates private property, the keystone of capitalism. Contracts are enforced even when they mask exploitation (e.g., labour contracts), while actions of survival—squatting, mutual aid, sabotage—are criminalised. Legal systems claim moral neutrality while upholding the class interests of capital.
Media, Religion, and Pop Culture
Media and religion play key roles in moral reproduction. Religious institutions have long been co-opted by capitalist ideologies that equate wealth with virtue. Prosperity gospel teachings and neoliberalised spirituality encourage submission to economic suffering as a path to moral or divine reward. Pop culture celebrates billionaires, praises hustle culture, and vilifies those who reject wage labor, reinforcing the idea that poverty results from personal vice.
Resistance and the Moral Imagination of Communism
Revolutionary movements have consistently challenged bourgeois morality by asserting alternative ethical frameworks rooted in solidarity, collective ownership, and human liberation. Marx rejected abstract moralism but advocated for a future where morality would no longer be dictated by class interests. Lenin, in The Tasks of the Youth Leagues, argued for a new communist morality grounded in the struggle for socialism.
Che Guevara famously wrote that the revolutionary must be guided by great feelings of love—not sentimental love, but a deep commitment to human emancipation. This alternative morality defies capitalist individualism and posits collective human flourishing as the true moral goal.
Beyond Capitalist Conscience
Bourgeois morality did not arise from human nature, divine order, or rational consensus—it emerged historically alongside the capitalist class and continues to function as an ideological tool of domination. Through philosophy, law, education, and culture, it produces obedient subjects who see the capitalist order not only as inevitable but as morally right.
To dismantle capitalism, one must also dismantle its moral architecture. This means unmasking the ideological character of bourgeois ethics and reconstructing a new moral horizon grounded in class struggle, solidarity, and the liberation of human potential. Morality must cease to be a weapon of the ruling class—and become, instead, a vision of collective emancipation.
All of which, isn’t particularly necessary to argue for the inclusion of trans-rights into our societies and their existence, whether or not a minority disapproves of its existence or not - it is simply isn’t a debate. Humanity, in all its possibilities is just that, Human. Nevertheless, I do hope the above can and will give anyone a little more context, if needed. As David Lynch so clearly said in the second season of Twin Peaks: “When you became Denise, I told all of your colleagues, those clown comics, to fix their hearts or die.”
As always, thank you for your time and attention,
Yours, warmly,
V
References
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The German Ideology. Progress Publishers, 1968.
Marx, Karl. Critique of the Gotha Programme. Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1951.
Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Trans. Talcott Parsons, Routledge, 2001.
Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. Mary Gregor, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Liberty Fund, 1982.
Lenin, V.I. The Tasks of the Youth Leagues. Progress Publishers, 1970.
Guevara, Ernesto. Socialism and Man in Cuba. Pathfinder, 2005.
Althusser, Louis. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. Monthly Review Press, 1971.
Vital transmission here. The morality battleground needs good maps like this. The trans challenge to patriarchal power is the tip of the spear.