DW Redux

So I've been thinking about the Dyer-Witheford discussion on Thursday, and I'm not going to bring this up again in class, at least not for a while, but I'm having some second thoughts about the way in which we dealt with his arguments. To recap, I think the substance of his claim regarding the role played by capitalism in social struggles is not so much one of ethical hierarchy (that capitalist forms of oppression take precedence or priority over other forms of oppression in terms of gravity) as it is one of social structure: that within a capitalist society other forms of oppression will, in some way or other, manifest themselves necessarily in economic form (because of the central role played by the economy as an autonomous entity (not purely subordinate to other societal institutions) in the era of global capitalism). This interpretation seems to explain his claims that:
1) All other social struggles will necessarily run up against capital at one point or another (and the weight here is on necessity -- this is not a purely contingent connection). That is to say, sexism, racism, homophobia, will, in important ways, manifest themselves in economic terms, because of the important role played by the market in a capitalist society. So, for example, struggles will, at some point, encounter the manifestation of discrimination in economic forms: employment, housing, access to information, education, etc.
2) that claim no. 1 is not reversible. I.e., that is it not necessarily the case that struggles against class-based forms of opression will run up against racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. The deeper substance of this claim, as I understand it, is that, in a capitalist society/world economic relations play a necessary role in the organization of social relations, whereas, other forms of oppression aren't necessary to capital per se. That is to say, capitalism might be able to function without race-based, gender-based, etc. forms of oppression (although it hasn't done so to date) but it cannot function without class-based forms of oppression.

What follows from these claims?
I don't think it's the claim that non-class based forms of oppression are less important to register or oppose. Rather, I think it is the claim that there are non-contingent grounds for solidarity across forms of oppression. What is so crucial about this point? Why not assert contingent grounds for solidarity and leave it at that? As I understand it, his response is that a historically grounded approach needs to recognize the non-contingent role played by capitalist social relations in other forms of contemporary oppression, or to risk misrecognizing, misunderstanding or mischaracterizing the sytem that is being challenged.

Those seem to be somewhat different claims than the ones we addressed in class, so I thought it might be worth laying them out for further debate/critique: have at them!