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Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentring Oppression
This groundbreaking collection explores the profound power of Social Reproduction Theory to deepen our understanding of everyday life under capitalism. While many Marxists tend to focus on the productive economy, this book focuses on issues such as child care, health care, education, family life and the roles of gender, race and sexuality, all of which are central to understanding the relationship between economic exploitation and social oppression.
In this book, leading writers such as Lise Vogel, Nancy Fraser, David McNally and Susan Ferguson reveal the ways in which daily and generational reproductive labour, found in households, schools, hospitals and prisons, also sustains the drive for accumulation.
Presenting a more sophisticated alternative to intersectionality, these essays provide ideas which have important strategic implications for anti-capitalists, anti-racists and feminists attempting to find a path through the seemingly ever more complex world we live in.
In this book, leading writers such as Lise Vogel, Nancy Fraser, David McNally and Susan Ferguson reveal the ways in which daily and generational reproductive labour, found in households, schools, hospitals and prisons, also sustains the drive for accumulation.
Presenting a more sophisticated alternative to intersectionality, these essays provide ideas which have important strategic implications for anti-capitalists, anti-racists and feminists attempting to find a path through the seemingly ever more complex world we live in.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2017
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3190 people want to read
About the author
Tithi Bhattacharya
14 books88 followersTithi Bhattacharya is Associate Professor of South Asian history at Purdue University. She is a prominent Marxist feminist and one of the national organizers of the International Women's Strike on March 8, 2017. She is a vocal advocate of Palestinian rights and Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
September 29, 2018
This book is not only a theoretical resource. It provides, through a number of different texts, an overview of the Marxist-feminist perspective of struggles which unfolded, and still do, on the terrain of social reproduction (struggles over food, housing, natural resources, public schools, public health care systems, public transportation system, public sites that provide recreation, pensions for the elderly, public social care programs, various forms of allowances and relief, i.e., demands that state should subsidize social reproduction and so on). The perspective shed more light on the question of how are spaces of production of value (production) and spaces for reproduction of labor power (social reproduction) inextricably entwined within capitalism, and why is this important for the outlines of new organisations and strategies.
August 28, 2019
One the most interesting if frustrating stands of left theory and practice in the 1980s was the heated debate around Marxist feminism(s), with its multiple strands emerging out of working class activism and associated intellectual developments in the 1970s critical of a universalising dominant tendency in much feminist work (a class critique paralleling critiques from women of colour) as well as a failure by most Marxist tendencies to address questions of sex and gender. The work developed some powerful critiques, most widely seen in Lise Vogel’s incredibly influential 1983
Marxism and the Oppression of Women
and Michèle Barrett’s 1980
Women’s Oppression Today
(both re-released with extra material in the last few years). This invigorating work got stuck in what seemed to be irreconcilable ruts associated with dual systems theory, with the domestic labour debate and related tendencies.
In recent years we’ve seen a return to many of these debates through a rethinking of the issues and rearticulation of the issues through a simple question about a fundamental aspect of Marx’s work that he refers to but seems to set aside for later work (I hope he did, even if he didn’t get to it). In his most mature work (Capital) Marx explores the nature of commodities as his way into the characteristics of capitalism, noting the one problematic commodity: labour power. The problem simply (and crudely, there is more it than this) is that labour power, the only thing workers have to ‘sell’, is a commodity but one that must pre-exist capitalism so cannot be produced by capitalism (it has to exist for capitalism to exist), so where does this non-capitalist commodity essential to capitalism come from? Perhaps workers made a gradual transition from pre-capitalist to capitalist formations – but things like the brutal eviction of agricultural labourers, the sudden shock of colonial dispossession and the like suggests that is wishful thinking. It was here that Marxist feminist analyses, with a focus on the reproduction of the working class, came back to the fore. The problem with readings of Capital centred on production is that this problem of the making of labour power as a commodity exists beyond production – but a focus on reproduction allows us to look at the making of labour power.
This development was a major recrafting of Marxist feminist thinking and focus away from the mid-to-late 1980s rut of the domestic labour debate, to build on those issues and look more broadly at social reproduction. In some areas the questions are fairly well developed – we’ve been wrangling for years with issues of gender and reproduction; women of colour (think Angela Davis & Toni Morrison, in different ways) have been challenging the whiteness of these domestic labour questions; autonomist Marxists have since the 1960s been working with notions of the social factory; some of the conceptual debates have been grappled with for 30 or more years – but other areas are very new: sexuality is a difficult area in Marxist analysis (feminist or otherwise), while generation is a real challenge. This exceptional collection of essays takes us into current thinking in some of these issues, and in doing so both opens up the field and exposes much of its uneven-ness.
The collection is structured to work from the ‘more mature’ to the newer. Salar Mohandesi and Emma Teitelman’s essay appealed to my historian-self where they pose the question, what happens to US history (there is a powerful North American focus throughout) if we shift its central focus from economic production to social reproduction, and in doing so reshape a periodisation and recast the motives and drivers of a capitalist order in suggestive ways (it is 30 pages, there is a lot they can’t do). When read alongside Tithi Bhattacharya’s substantive essay (she also wrote a compelling introduction, which alongside Nancy Fraser’s richly evocative framing essay charts the problems extremely well) suggesting two cycles in capitalism – one productive (the one we know from Marx) and one reproductive – intersecting at the point of production, this essay suggests a powerful rethinking of capitalist society. Likewise, David McNally’s critical Hegelian dialectical unpacking of a Marxist feminist/intersectionality interrelation constitutes a profound critique of intersectionality while showing its importance as a tool to think with, and in doing so mounts a convincing argument to rethink Angela Davis’s Women, Race & Class and its insights.
Of the later essays, it might be that it is a key area of my work, Susan Ferguson’s discussion of childhood and capitalism resonated in ways that have challenged me to question some of the key assumptions underpinning some current debates, while shoring up aspects of my critique of romanticising views of childhood. Less convincing were Serap Saritas Oran’s exploration of pensions and Alan Sear’s on sexuality – but in both cases their questions are much less developed and, especially in the case of pensions, pose extremely challenging problems of political economy. The decolonial in me liked Carmen Teeple Hopkins argument that the experiences of migrant women domestic workers show clearly that we need to rethink spatial aspects of these questions, and especially the presumption that reproductive work takes place ‘in the home’: here are women (the majority of the ‘social reproduction’ workforce, paid and unpaid, for whom ‘the home’ is not a place of community and security (as is not for many women, but these women are distinctive if they are ‘live in’ that the home is their place of paid work). It’s not the most convincing of arguments given the specific characteristics of the small scale underpinning research project, but the questions and challenges are significant and important.
All in all, the collection marks both an important statement of where this recently reinvigorated area of theory- and practice-in-struggle has sharpened its key points. It is also a rich introduction for new readers – some of the chapters will be challenging (take your time) but they do not necessarily presume a background in the area (McNally’s and Bhattacharya’s are perhaps most distinctive in their basis in dialectical reasoning and in political economy respectively, but they lay out their practice clearly). There is much here to inspire those of us who’ve been around these issues longer than we care to admit, and those for whom the complexity of our social order needs explication. Amid all of this, there is a profound disruption of much left social theory that continues to work with productivist models that explore only part of the world we’re in.
Highly recommended to the point of essential.
In recent years we’ve seen a return to many of these debates through a rethinking of the issues and rearticulation of the issues through a simple question about a fundamental aspect of Marx’s work that he refers to but seems to set aside for later work (I hope he did, even if he didn’t get to it). In his most mature work (Capital) Marx explores the nature of commodities as his way into the characteristics of capitalism, noting the one problematic commodity: labour power. The problem simply (and crudely, there is more it than this) is that labour power, the only thing workers have to ‘sell’, is a commodity but one that must pre-exist capitalism so cannot be produced by capitalism (it has to exist for capitalism to exist), so where does this non-capitalist commodity essential to capitalism come from? Perhaps workers made a gradual transition from pre-capitalist to capitalist formations – but things like the brutal eviction of agricultural labourers, the sudden shock of colonial dispossession and the like suggests that is wishful thinking. It was here that Marxist feminist analyses, with a focus on the reproduction of the working class, came back to the fore. The problem with readings of Capital centred on production is that this problem of the making of labour power as a commodity exists beyond production – but a focus on reproduction allows us to look at the making of labour power.
This development was a major recrafting of Marxist feminist thinking and focus away from the mid-to-late 1980s rut of the domestic labour debate, to build on those issues and look more broadly at social reproduction. In some areas the questions are fairly well developed – we’ve been wrangling for years with issues of gender and reproduction; women of colour (think Angela Davis & Toni Morrison, in different ways) have been challenging the whiteness of these domestic labour questions; autonomist Marxists have since the 1960s been working with notions of the social factory; some of the conceptual debates have been grappled with for 30 or more years – but other areas are very new: sexuality is a difficult area in Marxist analysis (feminist or otherwise), while generation is a real challenge. This exceptional collection of essays takes us into current thinking in some of these issues, and in doing so both opens up the field and exposes much of its uneven-ness.
The collection is structured to work from the ‘more mature’ to the newer. Salar Mohandesi and Emma Teitelman’s essay appealed to my historian-self where they pose the question, what happens to US history (there is a powerful North American focus throughout) if we shift its central focus from economic production to social reproduction, and in doing so reshape a periodisation and recast the motives and drivers of a capitalist order in suggestive ways (it is 30 pages, there is a lot they can’t do). When read alongside Tithi Bhattacharya’s substantive essay (she also wrote a compelling introduction, which alongside Nancy Fraser’s richly evocative framing essay charts the problems extremely well) suggesting two cycles in capitalism – one productive (the one we know from Marx) and one reproductive – intersecting at the point of production, this essay suggests a powerful rethinking of capitalist society. Likewise, David McNally’s critical Hegelian dialectical unpacking of a Marxist feminist/intersectionality interrelation constitutes a profound critique of intersectionality while showing its importance as a tool to think with, and in doing so mounts a convincing argument to rethink Angela Davis’s Women, Race & Class and its insights.
Of the later essays, it might be that it is a key area of my work, Susan Ferguson’s discussion of childhood and capitalism resonated in ways that have challenged me to question some of the key assumptions underpinning some current debates, while shoring up aspects of my critique of romanticising views of childhood. Less convincing were Serap Saritas Oran’s exploration of pensions and Alan Sear’s on sexuality – but in both cases their questions are much less developed and, especially in the case of pensions, pose extremely challenging problems of political economy. The decolonial in me liked Carmen Teeple Hopkins argument that the experiences of migrant women domestic workers show clearly that we need to rethink spatial aspects of these questions, and especially the presumption that reproductive work takes place ‘in the home’: here are women (the majority of the ‘social reproduction’ workforce, paid and unpaid, for whom ‘the home’ is not a place of community and security (as is not for many women, but these women are distinctive if they are ‘live in’ that the home is their place of paid work). It’s not the most convincing of arguments given the specific characteristics of the small scale underpinning research project, but the questions and challenges are significant and important.
All in all, the collection marks both an important statement of where this recently reinvigorated area of theory- and practice-in-struggle has sharpened its key points. It is also a rich introduction for new readers – some of the chapters will be challenging (take your time) but they do not necessarily presume a background in the area (McNally’s and Bhattacharya’s are perhaps most distinctive in their basis in dialectical reasoning and in political economy respectively, but they lay out their practice clearly). There is much here to inspire those of us who’ve been around these issues longer than we care to admit, and those for whom the complexity of our social order needs explication. Amid all of this, there is a profound disruption of much left social theory that continues to work with productivist models that explore only part of the world we’re in.
Highly recommended to the point of essential.
January 2, 2018
A wonderful, deeply necessary expansion on the groundbreaking theory first fully articulated by Lise Vogel in "Marxism and the Oppression of Women." This volume further lays out the theoretical and philosophical groundwork of social reproduction theory in important ways. Its reach is extended into questions of race, imperialism, ability/disability, sexuality, "species-being", financialisation, and intersectionality, and other typically controversial issues in Marxism. All of these issues, maybe for the first time, feel comfortable and complementary alongside each other in this volume. It also puts its money where its mouth is by applying the theory to several empirical and historical examples, including live-in migrant caregivers in Montreal, pension reform in the Global North, and primitive accumulation in the US, opening up countless insights in the process.
As can be expected of an essay collection about a relatively new theory, not every chapter or position is perfect. The chapter on migrant labour tries to reconcile some of the differences between autonomist and social reproduction conceptions of labour power's value using concepts from geography, but comes off messy and without a clear conclusion. The chapter on sexuality is also unsatisfying, and a little bit too eager to find a straightforward correspondence between the labour-capital relation in the workplace and the sexual dynamics of men and women in broader society. In my opinion, the nuanced differentiation of these relationships, rather than their conflation, is a key tenet of social reproduction theory. It also suffers from an unclear vision of how social reproduction theory can help us reach sexual liberation, beyond vague calls to "democratise
our everyday lives by building power from below."
Regardless, the debates themselves are exciting and fairly cutting-edge. There's an inspiring enthusiasm and passion in this volume that reflects the real, exciting possibilities for this theory to intervene in gaps and developments that have been plaguing Marxism for its whole existence. The "eureka" feeling I had when I first read Lise Vogel feels more warranted than ever.
As can be expected of an essay collection about a relatively new theory, not every chapter or position is perfect. The chapter on migrant labour tries to reconcile some of the differences between autonomist and social reproduction conceptions of labour power's value using concepts from geography, but comes off messy and without a clear conclusion. The chapter on sexuality is also unsatisfying, and a little bit too eager to find a straightforward correspondence between the labour-capital relation in the workplace and the sexual dynamics of men and women in broader society. In my opinion, the nuanced differentiation of these relationships, rather than their conflation, is a key tenet of social reproduction theory. It also suffers from an unclear vision of how social reproduction theory can help us reach sexual liberation, beyond vague calls to "democratise
our everyday lives by building power from below."
Regardless, the debates themselves are exciting and fairly cutting-edge. There's an inspiring enthusiasm and passion in this volume that reflects the real, exciting possibilities for this theory to intervene in gaps and developments that have been plaguing Marxism for its whole existence. The "eureka" feeling I had when I first read Lise Vogel feels more warranted than ever.
July 16, 2019
Daha çok Marksist ve feminist araştırmacıların iç polemiklerinden doğmuş gibi görünen, ama özellikle birkaç yazısıyla bunun ötesine geçebilmiş bir derleme. Hikaye kısaca şöyle:
Kapitalizmin malların, sermayenin ve emeğin sadece üretimini değil, yeniden-üretimini de örgütlemesi gerektiği fikri Marx'la gündeme geldi. Daha sonra 1960'larda Marksist ve feminist kuramcılar bu tespiti alarak önce ev-içi emeğe uyarladılar ve kadının emeğinin akşam eve yorgun ve aç dönen işçiyi yeniden ürettiğini, bu bakımdan da kapitalizm için çok önemli bir görevi yerine getirdiğini ortaya koydular.
İlerleyen yıllarda bu çıkarımlar dallanıp budaklandı. Baskının yalnızca emek/sermaye ya da kadın/erkek ekseninde işlemediği, beyaz/siyah, engelli/engelsiz, genç/yaşlı, heteroseksüel/homoseksüel gibi başka eksenlerde de etkin olduğu gösterildi. Daha sonra 1990'larda Marksizm ve sosyalizm yörüngesinden uzaklaşmayla birlikte, araştırmacılar baskı biçimlerinin çoklu ve kapitalizmden bağımsız olduğunu savunan kesişimsellik (intersectionality) teorisini ortaya attılar.
Kitap özünde bu kesişimsellik teorisini eleştiriyor ve toplumsal baskının farklı biçimlerini yeniden kapitalizm ekseninde ele almaya başlamanın neden zorunlu olduğunu anlatıyor. Bhattacharya ve McNally'nin makaleleri genel teorik yaklaşımı özetlemeleri açısından özellikle dikkate değer. Sonraki makaleler vaka çalışması.
Kapitalizmin malların, sermayenin ve emeğin sadece üretimini değil, yeniden-üretimini de örgütlemesi gerektiği fikri Marx'la gündeme geldi. Daha sonra 1960'larda Marksist ve feminist kuramcılar bu tespiti alarak önce ev-içi emeğe uyarladılar ve kadının emeğinin akşam eve yorgun ve aç dönen işçiyi yeniden ürettiğini, bu bakımdan da kapitalizm için çok önemli bir görevi yerine getirdiğini ortaya koydular.
İlerleyen yıllarda bu çıkarımlar dallanıp budaklandı. Baskının yalnızca emek/sermaye ya da kadın/erkek ekseninde işlemediği, beyaz/siyah, engelli/engelsiz, genç/yaşlı, heteroseksüel/homoseksüel gibi başka eksenlerde de etkin olduğu gösterildi. Daha sonra 1990'larda Marksizm ve sosyalizm yörüngesinden uzaklaşmayla birlikte, araştırmacılar baskı biçimlerinin çoklu ve kapitalizmden bağımsız olduğunu savunan kesişimsellik (intersectionality) teorisini ortaya attılar.
Kitap özünde bu kesişimsellik teorisini eleştiriyor ve toplumsal baskının farklı biçimlerini yeniden kapitalizm ekseninde ele almaya başlamanın neden zorunlu olduğunu anlatıyor. Bhattacharya ve McNally'nin makaleleri genel teorik yaklaşımı özetlemeleri açısından özellikle dikkate değer. Sonraki makaleler vaka çalışması.
January 31, 2022
A fantastic collection of essays that expands marxism with a feminist and intersectional lens. I have either read marxist texts that focus on the realm of waged labor and the struggles of the worker or texts from black/indigenous/feminist writers that analyze the system that causes their oppression, but I had not seen both analyzed together so well until I read this book.
Social Reproduction Theory (srt) expands marxism to the field of social reproduction, that is, all of the activities that permit the reproduction and restoration of workers therefore sustaining capitalism. This includes childbirth, caregiving, mental health care, education, sex work, house cleaning, and many others.
Most of the activities in the field of social reproduction are unpaid, and are often done by marginalized groups. Understanding the field of SRT is key to understand how an intersectional analysis is crucial to any critique of capitalism, as the oppression of certain groups makes it possible to keep things running.
I often wondered how feminist protests, calls for justice for the murder of transgender people, fights for the rights of sex workers, the racial protests in the US, and many other movements fit with the traditional labor organizing inspired by Marx. This book helped me connect these two pieces of the puzzle and has given me a much better understanding of things.
Social Reproduction Theory (srt) expands marxism to the field of social reproduction, that is, all of the activities that permit the reproduction and restoration of workers therefore sustaining capitalism. This includes childbirth, caregiving, mental health care, education, sex work, house cleaning, and many others.
Most of the activities in the field of social reproduction are unpaid, and are often done by marginalized groups. Understanding the field of SRT is key to understand how an intersectional analysis is crucial to any critique of capitalism, as the oppression of certain groups makes it possible to keep things running.
I often wondered how feminist protests, calls for justice for the murder of transgender people, fights for the rights of sex workers, the racial protests in the US, and many other movements fit with the traditional labor organizing inspired by Marx. This book helped me connect these two pieces of the puzzle and has given me a much better understanding of things.
December 31, 2018
Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) is a most promising development in Marxist Theory that seeks to broaden it by exploring concrete conditions under which labor power is produced and reproduced by incorporating insights from Marxist Feminism and Intersectionality Theory. SRT deepens our understanding of the ways in which social oppressions of race, sexuality, ability, gender and more inhabit, shape and are shaped by the processes of creating labor power for capital. SRT gounds the insights of intersectionality theory in a more dynamic theory that seeks to demonstrate that the different forms of oppression are deeply interrelated and interwoven and co-constitutive, not totally separate systems of oppression that sometimes intersect. Intersectionality theory suffers theoretically from this static metaphor of the intersection, which does not convey adequately the intricate and dynamic interrelations between these different forms of oppression. David McNally's essay on "Intersections and Dialectics" does great job of detailing the differences between the two theories and critiquing intersectionality theory. Other essays demonstrate the strength of SRT by using it to explore various issues, from housework and paid domestic labor to pensions and the welfare state to even the raising of children and sexuality (i.e. the social reproduction of heteronormativity). A must read for all progressives.
July 14, 2022
Very good book. The chapters “How Not to Skip Class: Social Reproduction of Labor and the Global Working Class” by Tithi Bhattacharya, “Intersections and Dialectics: Critical Reconstructions in Social Reproduction Theory” by David McNally, and “Children, Childhood and Capitalism: A Social Reproduction Perspective” by Susan Ferguson were fantastic. I know for a fact that I will be returning to these chapters constantly. This book is not without critique. It l shied away from discussing sex work and the sex trade and I would like to learn how social reproduction theory might theorize this reality. Some of the chapters did feel less interesting compared to the strength of the ones I mention above. Overall very good book.
January 29, 2023
hardest theory text i've read so far (really because my foundations in marx are Not Good!), took me a good 2+ years to finish this, but so fucking worth it. life-changing book.
Read
January 25, 2022Recommended by Dr Lilia Giugni
One of the most interesting and innovative picks on feminist and social justice theory, and a great introduction to the study of complex systems of inequalities.
One of the most interesting and innovative picks on feminist and social justice theory, and a great introduction to the study of complex systems of inequalities.
December 16, 2020
For the most part I found this collection of essays from various advocates of "social reproduction theory" or the "unitary" tradition of Marxist-feminism very good. It includes a very good overview of the significance of the family in capitalist society and the ways that domestic labour is central to the oppression of women. It explains clearly the ways that the control of capital is not relinquished outside the workplace but is manifest in a variety of social locations. Of course, the focus is here is especially on how capital exercises control of intimate, domestic, and family life rather than other arenas of capitalist control outside production. Several of the essays here are genuinely remarkable, ambitious attempts to contend with macroscopic histories of capitalism and the family, sexuality, childhood. Others are very solid, granular theoretical engagements (eg Bhattacharya, McNally). Of course, as with any edited collection, some pieces are weaker than others. For me, the pieces by Hopkins and Aruzza are the least satisfactory. Hopkins's essay feels inessential and is written in the wooden style of an academic social scientist. It also appears to be rehabilitating the intersectionality theory which McNally had previously polemicised against. Arruzza's piece manifests many of the political weaknesses in the book.
There are numerous shortcomings and gripes I have here.
One is to do with a glaring absence: there is no mention whatsoever of Engels's book 'Origins of the Family', despite that work's classic, indispensable status in Marxist analyses of women's oppression and social reproduction. The authors are instead exclusively concerned with responding to absences and unfinished thoughts from Marx's Capital and the Grundrisse. This is typical of a widespread intellectual contempt for Engels, even though in some key respects I think this collection is a step backward from Engels.
To elaborate on that last, provocative point... The core argument here is that social reproduction is conditioned by the power of capital and is an essential arena of class struggle. So far, so good. But it seems to me that the actual political conclusion reached here (and from what I know, this is confirmed in the manifesto co-authored by several contributors here, titled Feminism for the 99%) is that class struggle in the sphere of social reproduction is equally as threatening to capital as more traditional class struggle at the point of production. The authors seem relatively content to build a movement focused on struggles over social reproduction (ie on community-based or identity-based issues) in conjunction with (but giving no special place to) class struggle at the point of production. This seems to me to be a retreat from Marx and Engels and a path to failure. The book makes very convincing arguments that struggles in these two fields (production, reproduction) are insoluble, but it does not follow from this that struggle at the point of production should be regarded merely as a single moment or aspect of class struggle. Production is where surplus value is extracted and where profit is derived: it has a unique strategic significance which is given short shrift here. One does not have to be a syndicalist to recognise the absolutely central significance of this sphere for shaping the sphere of social reproduction and for bringing about an end to capitalism.
Relatedly, the book's political conclusion makes no attempt to link movement-building activism to party-building. This is perhaps more predictable in a work authored by academics and focused on theorizing social reproduction. But as the editors evidently seek to draw some political conclusions from the collected essays, the absence of the question of the revolutionary party (which Lenin postulated was the agent which united the multiple strands and fields of class struggle with a general programme) is a painful omission.
Basically, the book is theoretically insightful and impressive in numerous respects. But it also has some serious political defects.
There are numerous shortcomings and gripes I have here.
One is to do with a glaring absence: there is no mention whatsoever of Engels's book 'Origins of the Family', despite that work's classic, indispensable status in Marxist analyses of women's oppression and social reproduction. The authors are instead exclusively concerned with responding to absences and unfinished thoughts from Marx's Capital and the Grundrisse. This is typical of a widespread intellectual contempt for Engels, even though in some key respects I think this collection is a step backward from Engels.
To elaborate on that last, provocative point... The core argument here is that social reproduction is conditioned by the power of capital and is an essential arena of class struggle. So far, so good. But it seems to me that the actual political conclusion reached here (and from what I know, this is confirmed in the manifesto co-authored by several contributors here, titled Feminism for the 99%) is that class struggle in the sphere of social reproduction is equally as threatening to capital as more traditional class struggle at the point of production. The authors seem relatively content to build a movement focused on struggles over social reproduction (ie on community-based or identity-based issues) in conjunction with (but giving no special place to) class struggle at the point of production. This seems to me to be a retreat from Marx and Engels and a path to failure. The book makes very convincing arguments that struggles in these two fields (production, reproduction) are insoluble, but it does not follow from this that struggle at the point of production should be regarded merely as a single moment or aspect of class struggle. Production is where surplus value is extracted and where profit is derived: it has a unique strategic significance which is given short shrift here. One does not have to be a syndicalist to recognise the absolutely central significance of this sphere for shaping the sphere of social reproduction and for bringing about an end to capitalism.
Relatedly, the book's political conclusion makes no attempt to link movement-building activism to party-building. This is perhaps more predictable in a work authored by academics and focused on theorizing social reproduction. But as the editors evidently seek to draw some political conclusions from the collected essays, the absence of the question of the revolutionary party (which Lenin postulated was the agent which united the multiple strands and fields of class struggle with a general programme) is a painful omission.
Basically, the book is theoretically insightful and impressive in numerous respects. But it also has some serious political defects.
May 14, 2022
Interesting and thoughtful collection of essays on social reproduction theory, which puts human labour at the heart of creating/reproducing society as a whole, and is primarily concerned with understanding how categories of oppression, such as gender, race, and ableism, are coproduced in simultaneity with the production of surplus value
In particular I enjoyed the essay by Salar Mohandesi and Emma Teitelman that explored how the New Deal revolved around social hierarchies among workers and re-established gendered divisions of labour e.g. women whose husbands worked for the government were fired from the civil service, married women were denied jobs, and institutionalised racism into the most used social programs such as denying social insurance to domestic and agricultural workers, industries in which African Americans predominated
I also particuarly enjoyed the essay by Tithi Bhattacharya on the importance of class in the social reproduction of labour, which refutes the narrow vision of a "working class" (a worker is simply a person who has a specific kind of job) and instead reactivates the fundamental Marxist insights about class formation using social reproduction theory
Finally the essay on social reproduction, migration and paid domestic work by stood out by Carmen Teeple Hopkins in which social reproduction is referred to the biological reproduction of people (e.g. breastfeeding, commercial surrogacy, pregnancy), the reproduction of the labour force (e.g. unpaid cooking, caring and cleaning tasks), and individuals and institutions that perform paid caring labour (e.g. personal home care assistants, maids, paid domestic workers)
The author discusses three distinct traditions that analyse unpaid domestic labour:
1. Autonomist Marxist feminists hold that unpaid domestic labour generates exchange value and that the realm of reproduction is temporally and spatially separate from the sphere of production
2. Marxist feminists define unpaid domestic labour only along the terms of use value
3. Black feminists show that unpaid labour began during the transatlantic slave trade and deconstruct the neat divisions of home/work time and private/public space
In particular I enjoyed the essay by Salar Mohandesi and Emma Teitelman that explored how the New Deal revolved around social hierarchies among workers and re-established gendered divisions of labour e.g. women whose husbands worked for the government were fired from the civil service, married women were denied jobs, and institutionalised racism into the most used social programs such as denying social insurance to domestic and agricultural workers, industries in which African Americans predominated
I also particuarly enjoyed the essay by Tithi Bhattacharya on the importance of class in the social reproduction of labour, which refutes the narrow vision of a "working class" (a worker is simply a person who has a specific kind of job) and instead reactivates the fundamental Marxist insights about class formation using social reproduction theory
Finally the essay on social reproduction, migration and paid domestic work by stood out by Carmen Teeple Hopkins in which social reproduction is referred to the biological reproduction of people (e.g. breastfeeding, commercial surrogacy, pregnancy), the reproduction of the labour force (e.g. unpaid cooking, caring and cleaning tasks), and individuals and institutions that perform paid caring labour (e.g. personal home care assistants, maids, paid domestic workers)
The author discusses three distinct traditions that analyse unpaid domestic labour:
1. Autonomist Marxist feminists hold that unpaid domestic labour generates exchange value and that the realm of reproduction is temporally and spatially separate from the sphere of production
2. Marxist feminists define unpaid domestic labour only along the terms of use value
3. Black feminists show that unpaid labour began during the transatlantic slave trade and deconstruct the neat divisions of home/work time and private/public space
February 23, 2018
This was a great collection of essays focusing on old questions of Marxist-Feminism with new insights. I'm particularly impressed by David McNally's essay on "Intersections and Dialectics". From that part,
"From the standpoint of "the effect"-radicalized capitalism-we can say definitely that racism is a necessary feature of the historical capitalism in which we live. The effect has thus become a cause-and it is systematically reproduced in and through the reproduction of the capitalist mode of production. In the "single, historically created system" in which we live, all of these relations of social power-from gender, racial and sexual domination to capitalist exploitation-form a complex social whole, one in which "each of the individual moments is essentially the totality of the whole." This, it seems to me, precisely what Bannerji intends when she urges that "'race' cannot be disarticulated from 'class' any more than milk can be separated from coffee once they are mixed, or the body divorced from consciousness in a living person." These relations do not need to be brought into intersection because each is already inside the other, co-constituting one another to their very core. Rather than standing at intersections, we stand in the river of life, where multiple creeks and steams have converged into a complex, pulsating system."
"From the standpoint of "the effect"-radicalized capitalism-we can say definitely that racism is a necessary feature of the historical capitalism in which we live. The effect has thus become a cause-and it is systematically reproduced in and through the reproduction of the capitalist mode of production. In the "single, historically created system" in which we live, all of these relations of social power-from gender, racial and sexual domination to capitalist exploitation-form a complex social whole, one in which "each of the individual moments is essentially the totality of the whole." This, it seems to me, precisely what Bannerji intends when she urges that "'race' cannot be disarticulated from 'class' any more than milk can be separated from coffee once they are mixed, or the body divorced from consciousness in a living person." These relations do not need to be brought into intersection because each is already inside the other, co-constituting one another to their very core. Rather than standing at intersections, we stand in the river of life, where multiple creeks and steams have converged into a complex, pulsating system."
July 6, 2025
The quality of the essays vary a lot. All of them treat very interesting topics, but I felt some of them could deliver their thesis and conclusions in a much precise and compelled way than others. This is also understandable in the sense that the framework is relatively new (or is reemerging), and people are still trying to define it, to connect it to other frameworks and to identify the most promising areas to apply it to. The reader should be aware that this is an academic book, so it can be dry at times or sound uninspired (you know when an academic includes a paragraph that just needs to be there for the sake of completion, but it is not very engaging). So if you are interested in the topic and used to read papers/academic writing, I recommend the book to learn both about social reproduction theory and the history of some social struggles of the past century.
July 6, 2021
If you subscribe to Marxian ideas of Capitalism then you understand that production is from workers but a consideration of social reproduction is how are workers produced who can provide the labor. This is social reproduction theory. It is where Marx meets women's issues. Women often wind up providing the labor (housework, cooking, emotional labor, reproduction itself) to keep a pool of workers necessary for capitalism able to labor away. So women's issues are integral to the functioning and hopefully surpassing of capitalism. Just putting a spotlight on this neglected sector of the political economy provides a much-needed service to people who care about women's issues, freedoms, and toil. Socialism that addresses labor will have to come to grips with the source of labor or workers.
February 20, 2019
This book outlines the role that social reproduction plays within capitalism as both a site of oppression and a site of potential resistance. I read it in my 'Feminism for the 99%' reading group and we found that it ignited interesting and thoughtful discussion. We especially enjoyed discussing the chapter on children and the chapter on sexuality. Cinzia Arruzza's final chapter was a passionate call to arms to an expansion of class struggle to the struggles of everyday life. After discussing that chapter, the members of my reading group felt extremely inspired to act.
January 21, 2023
Other reviews of this on here say useful things about the context and content, but just generally I’d say social reproduction theory repeatedly proves to be one of the most rigorous and interesting areas of Marxist writing. Even the couple of essays in this collection I don’t particularly agree with I thought were engaged and sensitive in ways you don’t often see. Tithi Bhattacharya’s article is particularly great, and also available here online: https://viewpointmag.com/2015/10/31/h...
October 25, 2021
Great book for those wanting to explore the Marxist concept of Social Reproduction Theory.
Before this I had read Marxism and Women's Oppression by Lise Vogel, which is also brilliant, however very heavy on explaining the concept in theoretical terms.
In Contrast, 'Social Reproduction Theory' is a much easier read, being focused on practical examples and applications of social reproduction theory, from child-raising, migrant domestic labour, to gender and sexuality
Before this I had read Marxism and Women's Oppression by Lise Vogel, which is also brilliant, however very heavy on explaining the concept in theoretical terms.
In Contrast, 'Social Reproduction Theory' is a much easier read, being focused on practical examples and applications of social reproduction theory, from child-raising, migrant domestic labour, to gender and sexuality
March 8, 2022
Bon llibre per aprofundir en aquesta corrent teorica, criticant i donant perspectiva a distints análisis de la producció-reproducció, teoria de l'interseccionalitat, sistemes duals, etc.
Lo millor: Com s'enfoca la crítica a l'interseccionalitat
Lo pitjor: Alguns capitols que pareix que estiguen per engrossar llibre, repetitius, sense molta xixa i on no queda clara la finalitat.
Lo millor: Com s'enfoca la crítica a l'interseccionalitat
Lo pitjor: Alguns capitols que pareix que estiguen per engrossar llibre, repetitius, sense molta xixa i on no queda clara la finalitat.
December 20, 2024
I thought this was interesting and practical, even if I don't know how much is new to me. I mostly went through this to get a survey of what to expect from scholars of the social-reproduction-feminism discipline and I was pleasantly surprised. I got what I was looking for and I think I'll keep pursuing this thread in the future.
January 6, 2025
Such a lovely collection of so many different thinkers. This book has deeply enriched my vocabulary to describe our current crises and working through it over the past couple of months has been such good medicine. The essays, of course, varied in tone and not all were home-runs, but together, they made for such a wonderful, expansive, needed assemblage.
April 13, 2021
This is an incredibly necessary wealth of history and information that every person should read. The only unfortunate thing about this book is that the language used will not be accessible to everyone. It is political theory, however, therefore it is expected to be heady.
May 17, 2022
Hi ha articles imprescindibles, sobretot el de Tithi Bhattacharya, per entendre les relacions socials capitalistes en l'esfera reproductiva. Altres són bastant prescindibles i es queden en simples curiositats o estudis puntuals.
June 1, 2024
Pretty good coverage of social reproduction theory and a welcome extension to Marx's work, it does tend to fall into the standard Marxist pitfalls with an (often forced) over-commitment to a class basis for all its analysis, but that was expected anyways. 7/10
September 24, 2018
Great book that restructures some of Marx's ideas to include modern struggles of the working class
April 30, 2020
Forever changed the framework of my politics
June 2, 2020
So sense and academic and theoretical and long winded I couldn't get through it
May 1, 2021
Having read this side-by-side with Capital Volume I, with confidence I can say that this anthology greatly expands on Marx's critique of political economy.
Social reproduction theory's strength is its ability to provide an analytical framework from the formation of a child's subjectivity (how capitalist logic shapes how we parent and school our children) to the destruction of public pension funds, and how everything else in between is a site of class struggle.
In other words, it provides insights into how capitalist relations penetrate all aspects of our everyday lives.
I look forward to reading deeper into social reproduction theory, as it offers a way to conceptualize class struggles outside of the workplace.
Social reproduction theory's strength is its ability to provide an analytical framework from the formation of a child's subjectivity (how capitalist logic shapes how we parent and school our children) to the destruction of public pension funds, and how everything else in between is a site of class struggle.
In other words, it provides insights into how capitalist relations penetrate all aspects of our everyday lives.
I look forward to reading deeper into social reproduction theory, as it offers a way to conceptualize class struggles outside of the workplace.
September 23, 2021
Phenomenal. Really enjoyed McNally's piece.
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September 18, 2022Dili nisbətən qəlizdir ve mövzuya giriş üçün uyğun deyil. Amma bu nəzəriyyə çərçivəsində müxtəlif mövzulara toxunur ve ümumilikdə nəzəriyyənin ümumi prinsiplərini başa düşmək üçün yaxşı mənbədir.
October 4, 2022
what this book doesn't talk about is more explicative of what it does talk about
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