Social Reproduction at Work, Social Reproduction as Work: A Feminist Political Economy Perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Susan Braedley ◽  
Meg Luxton
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Mass Movements ◽  
Conceptual Confusion ◽  
Recent Attention ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Social reproduction has received considerable recent attention from academics and activists aiming to stimulate and advance transformative political change. Yet, an understanding of social reproduction as “work” has sometimes slipped away, leaving behind important anti-racist feminist insights. Engaging with recent contributions from scholars in the U.S., U.K., and Canada, we argue that social reproduction is most useful as a concept, not as a theory, and is best understood as “work”. We point out quandaries and ambiguities that have produced conceptual confusion in scholarship on social reproduction and argue for a conceptualization offered by feminist political economy. We conclude that social reproduction, when understood as work, can support efforts to build the mass movements and solidarity necessary for effective anti-capitalist politics if its relationship to, and contradictions with, the processes of dispossession and capital accumulation are taken into account.

From Theory of Accumulation to Social-Reproduction Theory

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 37-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ankica Čakardić
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Social Reproduction Theory ◽  
Preliminary Application ◽  
Dynamic Link

AbstractThe paper functions as a contribution to feminist analyses that are methodologically based on Rosa Luxemburg’s critique of political economy and her understanding of capital accumulation, but also as a contribution to contemporary social-reproduction theory which aims to integrate Luxemburg’s legacy alongside that of Marx. The essay offers a sketch for a ‘Luxemburgian feminism’ consisting of (1) an overview of Luxemburg’s critique of bourgeois feminism and (2) a preliminary application of Luxemburg’s ‘dialectics of spatiality’ to contemporary social-reproduction theory. With Luxemburg’sThe Accumulation of Capitalin mind and her several essays on the so-called ‘women’s question’, we shall attempt to relate Luxemburg’s explanation of the dynamic link between capitalist and non-capitalist spatialities with the commodification of women’s reproductive labour.

Social-ecological reproduction and the substance of life in commodity frontiers: Newfoundland fisheries in world market shifts

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-560
Author(s):  
Paul Foley
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Power Production ◽  
World Market ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Production Relations ◽  
Ecological Relations

The purpose of this article is to deepen analyses of life production relations that are of central concern to the feminist global political economy frameworks around which this special issue is organized. While the original approach recognized ecological relations in its methodological synthesis of power, production, and social reproduction, most subsequent research engaging the approach focuses on areas such as household labor, health care, education, migration, and macroeconomic governance. Much less work, however, analyzes relations between capital accumulation and ecological life-producing relations that ultimately sustain human and non-human life. The article draws on elements of a ‘world-ecology’, commodity frontier perspective, to argue for the integration of primary – ecological – production of the substance of life into the power, production, and social reproduction global political economy framework. The article draws on this synthesis to conduct a long-term analysis of one of the earliest commodity frontiers in capitalist history, Newfoundland fisheries in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Through an analysis of changing patterns of ecological production, household and community reproduction, state enclosure of ocean life production, and world market shifts, the article suggests that we need to move beyond narrow consequentialist analyses of the role of capital accumulation in ecological exhaustion toward broader, integrated analyses of change that reveal dynamic and perhaps more hopeful struggles and potential for sustainable and progressive conditions of intergenerational social-ecological reproduction.

scholarly journals The Neoliberal Politics of “Smart”: Electricity Consumption, Household Monitoring, and the Enterprise Form

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Levenda ◽  
Dillon Mahmoudi ◽  
Gerald Sussman
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Electricity Consumption ◽  
Création De Valeur ◽  
Nous Examinons ◽  
Energy Grid

This article investigates how digital technologies in the energy sector are enabling increased value extraction in the cycle of capital accumulation through surveillant proceesses of everyday energy consumption. We offer critical theory (Gramsci, Foucault) and critical political economy (Marx) as a guide for critical understanding of value creation in ICT through quotidian processes and practices of social reproduction. In this regard, the concept of the “prosumer” is extended beyond notions of voluntary participation in Web 2.0 to the political economy of energy use. Within this broad framework we investigate national and local level “smart grid” campaigns and projects. The “smartening” of the energy grid, we find, is both an ideological construct and a technological rationalization for facilitating capital accumulation through data collection, analysis, segmentation of consumers, and variable electricity pricing schemes to standardize social practices within and outside the home. We look at BC Hydro as one illustration of where such practices are being instituted.Cet article examine comment les technologies numériques dans le secteur de l’énergie sont en train de permettre, grâce à la surveillance de la consommation de l’énergie au quotidien, une extraction de valeur dans le cycle d’accumulation du capital. Dans cet article, nous avons recours à la théorie critique (Gramsci, Foucault) et à l’économie politique critique (Marx) pour atteindre une compréhension critique de la création de valeur permise par les technologies de l’information et de la communication dans le cadre de pratiques et processus de reproduction sociale au quotidien. À cet égard, nous élargissons le concept de « prosommateur »  au-delà de notions de participation volontaire au Web 2.0 en y ajoutant celui d’économie politique de l’utilisation de l’énergie. Dans cette optique, nous examinons des campagnes et projets sur les réseaux électriques intelligents aux niveaux national et local. À notre avis, l’idée qu’il faille améliorer le réseau énergétique est à la fois une construction idéologique et une rationalisation technologique pour faciliter l’accumulation de capitaux au moyen de la collection et l’analyse de données, de la segmentation des marchés et de l’imposition de prix variables sur l’électricité afin de standardiser les pratiques sociales à la maison et au-delà. Nous examinons BC Hydro comme exemple d’un endroit où de telles pratiques ont lieu.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louçã Francisco ◽  
Ash Michael
Keyword(s):  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
First Century ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Global Restructuring ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Diffusion ◽  
Political Decision Making ◽  
Mode Of Production

This book investigates two questions, how did finance become hegemonic in the capitalist system; and what are the social consequences of the rise of finance? We do not dwell on other topics, such as the evolution of the mode of production or the development of class conflict over the longer run. Our theme is not the genesis, history, dynamics, or contradictions of capitalism but, instead, we address the rise of financialization beginning in the last quarter of the twentieth century and continuing into the twenty-first century. Therefore, we investigate the transnationalization of the circuits and processes of capital accumulation that originated the expansion and financialization of the mechanisms of production, social reproduction, and hegemony, including the ideology, the functioning of the states, and the political decision making. We do not discuss the prevailing neoliberalism as an ideology, although we pay attention to the creation and diffusion of ideas, since we sketch an overview of the process of global restructuring of production and finance leading to the prevalence of the shadow economy....

Income, Economic Voting, and Long-Term Political Change in the U.S., 1952- 1996

Social Forces ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 1339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clem Brooks ◽  
David Brady
Keyword(s):  
Political Change ◽  
Economic Voting ◽  
The U.S

scholarly journals The Sociology of Agriculture in Transition: The Political Economy of Agriculture after Biotechnology

2010 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela Pechlaner
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Agricultural Biotechnology ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Patent Infringement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Corporate Ownership ◽  
Seed Saving ◽  
Traditional Agricultural Practices ◽  
Sociology Of Agriculture

ABSTRACT Due to its particularities as a nature-based process, agriculture’s ‘exceptionalism’ to capitalist industrialization has garnered much debate. One of the more productive consequences of this debate has been the development of conceptual tools that account for its distinction from typical capital accumulation patterns, such as Goodman, Sorj and Wilkinson’s (1987) classic concepts of “appropriationism” and “substitutionism.” The advent of agricultural biotechnology is now testing the limits of even these more refined conceptualizations, however, as the technology’s associated proprietary framework is reorganizing many traditional agricultural practices. Drawing on empirical examples of biotechnology-induced change—e.g. restrictions on seed saving, grower contracts, and patent infringement lawsuits—this paper argues that there is a need for a new concept in political economy of agriculture theory, which I term “expropriationism.” This concept identifies several aspects of an agricultural reorganization premised on legal means to enhance capital accumulation and on separating corporate ownership from liability.

Income, Economic Voting, and Long-Term Political Change in the U.S., 1952-1996

Social Forces ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 1339-1374
Author(s):  
C. Brooks ◽  
D. Brady
Keyword(s):  
Political Change ◽  
Economic Voting ◽  
The U.S

The “laborless fuel”: Landscape, energy transitions and natural gas in the postwar U.S.

2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862098712
Author(s):  
Carlo Sica
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Energy Landscapes ◽  
Technological Systems ◽  
Energy Transitions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Landscapes

The dire need for an energy transition to mitigate and reverse global warming is inspiring scholars to reexamine political influences on technological systems. The multi-level perspective of the socio-technical transitions framework acknowledges how technological systems are affected by the social and political landscapes where they are built. Energy landscapes literatures elaborate on the socio-technical transitions framework by explaining how the boundaries of landscapes are negotiated in the context of energy transitions. Energy scholars have found that negotiations over the form and purpose of energy landscapes frequently skew in favor of capital accumulation instead of social reproduction. Studies of landscapes in human geography and labor history have shown how the power imbalance energy scholars observed can be corrected by workers and their communities struggling against business owners and the state. Using archival data, I show how U.S. natural gas legislation in the postwar period was intended to limit coalminers’ demands for landscapes of social reproduction. This point matters because the vulnerabilities of industrial capitalism to energy worker organization could be exploited to push for a just and sustainable energy transition like the Green New Deal.

The Work That Plants Do

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Value Creation ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Plant Science ◽  
Environmental Humanities ◽  
Societal Dynamics

Whether driven by developments in plant science, bio-philosophy, or broader societal dynamics, plants have to respond to a litany of environmental, social, and economic challenges. This collection explores the `work' that plants do in contemporary capitalism, examining how vegetal life is enrolled in processes of value creation, social reproduction, and capital accumulation. Bringing together insights from geography, anthropology, and the environmental humanities, the contributors contend that attention to the diverse capacities and agencies of plants can both enrich understandings of capitalist economies, and also catalyze new forms of resistance to their logics.

SPECIES OF PROPERTY: THE AMERICAN PROPERTY-TAX UNIFORMITY CLAUSES RECONSIDERED

2001 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 974-1008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin L. Einhorn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Uniform Property ◽  
The U.S

Economic historians have traced the origin of the uniform property tax in the United States to the insertion of uniformity clauses into state constitutions in the Northwest and to efforts to tax commercial wealth. This article shows that the tax was created by legislation in the Northeast and that the first constitutional clauses were adopted in the South to protect slaveholders. It is time for historians of the U.S. political economy to abandon the dated paradigms of the “progressive history” tradition.

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