That would be more incidental than systematic. For a lot of other groups resolving social oppression wouldn't necessarily alleviate economic exploitation in the same way.
I mean oppression against gay people, particularly outside of gay white guys, is definitely systematic. Worker protection laws lacking a clause about sexuality and gender identity is certainly systematic for instance.
If oppression against gay people dissapeared then certainly we wouldn't be exploitable in the same way that african americans or women are. Then against if racial discrimination against a group dissapeared (the Irish for instance in the US) then they wouldn't be exploitable in the same way.
All other forms of social oppression could dissapear and it wouldn't fundamentally be any different than the end of oppression against LGBT people in so far as it wouldn't address economic class issues.
There are working class and rich LGBT people, there are working class and rich women, there are even working class and rich minorities. Undoing those other forms of social oppression would make working class and rich oppressed peoples lives better and wouldn't solve working class issues in and of themselves sure, but it still would disproportionately help the working class people in those groups.
I agree, but would it be fair to say LGBT aren't as systematically exploited as groups like blacks or women? Just to be clear, I don't want to suggest that the plight of LGBT in this society is any less difficult, on the contrary, groups that aren't readily exploitable often suffer far more brutal forms of abuse simply because their oppressors have no stake at all in their well-being.
It's difficult to measure something like that, I would argue that the experience is simply fundamentally different and comparisons between race and sexuality in terms of oppression are just really iffy and hard to draw properly.
I think that pretty well answers the question. The bulk of oppressed and exploited minority populations won't meaningfully benefit from social equality without a corresponding political and economic equality. Bourgeois liberalism will leave most of us behind.
Gay people are no more or less working class for having gay rights than minorities or women would be any more or less working class for having social equality with their working class peers.
There is nothing about women lib, or racial justice, or gay rights that upends the class system. It simply improves those peoples lives.
At best I could point out that such social equality would remove those lines between working class people that often confound solidarity on economic issues. Race for instance is something that clearly splits many working class whites from ever being willing to stand with african americans for stuff you want to see happen on the working class front.
My main contention with marxists on this issue is not that I believe this type of social justice is all that matters. It's that marxists want to dismiss these issues as identity politics meant to distract from economic issues when these issues are very real and make economic issues harder to address so long as they exist. I contend that you can't solve class issues without dealing with social issues not because solving social issues will solve economic issues but because enough of humanity is happy to accept whatever else as long as they get to stand over an oppressed minority. They will and have rejected even minor moderate wellfare programs for fear of welfare queen black women with a million kids for instance.
These issues are real and not something that can be dismissed to address class issues and indeed wont be addressed solely through addressing class issues. I'd further argue that until you address these cultural hatreds and inequalities you are going to be spinning your wheels on class issues.
My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.