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cited in Moretti 2013, 6). Social Reproduction

Ankica Čakardić
But this refusal of self-identification as a class, I would argue, is paradoxically con-
stitutive of its very identity and functioning as a class. The identification of the
bourgeois with its own class is “displaced” in the psychoanalytic sense, either onto
a fictitious middle class or onto the plane of generic humanity, so that when the
bourgeois says “we” he never means “we, the bourgeoisie”, but “we, humanity”,
“we, the people”. This displacement of one’s identity as the ruling class, and the
concomitant evacuation of power from the realm of public representation, presents
a unique problem for the practice of ideology critique. Although the task of cri-
tique is still to unmask the image the bourgeois falsely upholds of himself, here it
is in fact the absence of a clear image, of a delimited class identity, that must be
countered, by constructing such an image through which the bourgeois is forced
to become, for himself, part of the class that he refuses to identify with. Always
stalling reconciliation, satirical invective is one of many critical tools at Marx’s dis- If our task is to propose a theoretical and historical model best suited for
posal for generously inviting the bourgeoisie to finally become what it is – and understanding the origins of the oppression of women under capitalism, then we
suffer from it. should without a doubt consult Marx. Although we cannot speak of a systematic
analysis of the oppression of women in any of Marx’s work, his explanatory
References methodological framework is key for a feminist analysis of women’s oppression.
Marx’s critique of the trans-historical assumptions of classical political economy,
Bataille, Georges. 1985. Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927- 1939. Minneapolis: University of his definition of the specificity of capitalist societies as a “collection of
Minnesota Press. commodities”, as well as his account of the circulation of capitalist production and
De Brosses, Charles. 1760. Du culte des dieux fétiches: ou Paralléle de l“ancienne religion de l”Egypte reproduction as a whole, are fundamental elements of social reproduction theory
avec la religion actuelle de Nigritie. (SRT). Starting from these theses developed by Marx in Capital (Marx 1982), SRT
focuses on one specific aspect of the relation between productive and reproductive
Gay, Peter. 1984–1998. The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, 5 vols. Oxford University Press.
labour which is left under-theorised and undeveloped in Marx. What we are
Gandesha, Samir and Johan F. Hartle (eds.). 2017. Aesthetic Marx. London: Bloomsbury referring to are the implications of Marx’s famous theory of the circular course of
Moretti, Franco. 2013. The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature. London; New York: Verso. capital, which describes how surplus value is created through the processes of
production and reproduction. It is exactly this theory that serves as a starting point
Sutherland, Keston. 2011. Stupefaction: A Radical Anatomy of Phantoms. London: Seagull books.
for SRT because it provides an entry into the “tacit” issue on the link between the
Ullman, B.L. 1913. “Satura and Satire.” Classical Philology 8 (2): 172–194. market and household relations. Following from the above, the goal of SRT is to
grasp also what is not “visible” in the process of production – it asks what kind of
Wilson, Edmund. 1940. To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History. New
York: New York Review Books.
 Social Reproduction
Ankica Čakardić
processes enable a worker to show up at her workplace and examines the conditions
of her existence and the social processes related to those conditions.
In order for society to survive it needs to reproduce. SRT points out that
‘reproduction’ may allude either to the process of the regeneration of the conditions
of production which enable society to survive, or to the regeneration of
humankind. Rosa Luxemburg in her Theory of Accumulation (Luxemburg 2015)
explains that reproduction is repetition, a ‘renewal of the process of production’,
hence implying that the regular repetition of production is the general
precondition of regular consumption and human existence (Čakardić 2017). In
what way do we use these kinds of Marxist premises while thinking in terms of
SRT?
If we use the example of classic industrial labour in the capitalist mode of
production, the capitalist secures through the market the means needed for the
operation of a factory and the workers’ wages. Wage labour enables the working
class to secure/consume the items and services necessary for life – like food, clothes,
covering household expenses – however, those needs are met in the household, not
on the market. Moreover, in order to eat, one needs to take into account the
preparation of food; if one buys clothes, they need to be washed and maintained;
and, also, physical care needs to be provided to elderly members of the family or
children. Unlike labour in the ‘productive’ sphere of society, domestic labour
belongs to the ‘reproductive’ sphere. Both capitalists and labourers consume food,
one way or another, prepared at home; their clothes must be washed, or they
depend on some other kind of reproductive labour. Therefore, their life and work
in the productive sphere is mediated through a range of activities belonging to the
domestic sphere. SRT claims that this structural and spatial gap between the
reproductive and productive spheres of society indicates the fundamental reason
for the oppression of women in capitalism. On what basis can we make this claim?
Following tradition, historically, the reproduction of the working class is
undertaken by women outside the productive sphere, and is unpaid. It essentially
refers to three interconnected processes: a) the regeneration of workers and their
livelihood; b) the maintenance of non-workers which relates to the care of
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children, the elderly and the unemployed in general; and c) childbirth as the
reproduction of new labour force. This indicates the ontological level of the
problem: activities not defined as labour (food preparation, cleaning, care, breast-
feeding, giving birth), and lacking any market value, are not considered labour. The
mathematics is clear here: if the labour in question is transferred to, for example,
a capitalist with an employee, she would be obliged to organise a range of activities,
investing time and money into procuring services which are traditionally free and
a burden to the household.
Marxist feminism has tackled the problem of social reproduction in various ways
and therefore we cannot speak about one unified SRT tradition. Feminists
supporting the ‘Wages for Housework’ campaign, close to the Marxist autonomist
1
tradition in a dual-system manner, offered one approach. A second (materialist)
approach is found in Christine Delphy’s characterisation of social reproduction as
a series of actions within the domestic sphere, which she sees as a separate mode
of production (Delphy 1980). Finally, Lise Vogel offers a ‘unitary’ approach, in
which social reproduction is taken to mean the simultaneous reproduction of both
the labour force and class society (Vogel 2013). It is also worth recognizing that
socialist-feminist approaches, for example that of Aleksandra Kollontai or Rosa
Luxemburg, also offered an important account of the relation between productive
and reproductive work.2 The main difference between the autonomist Marxist-
feminist tradition, based on dual-system theory, and the unitary approach
suggested by Lise Vogel, is in the understanding of surplus value. Unlike dual-
system theory, Lise Vogel rightly argues that reproductive labour does not produce
surplus value, only use-values. Despite the afore-mentioned difference, it is
important to note that even if the domestic-labour debate established a view of
domestic work as productive labour and a process upon which the reproduction of
capitalist society as a whole depends, this debate undoubtedly served as a
springboard for establishing a ‘unitary’ analytical framework to theorise domestic
labour as an integral part of the capitalist mode of production.
What is also important for SRT is that it treats the question of (multiple)
oppression (gender, race, sexuality) in a direct relation to capitalist production
rather than in the fashion of an “add-on” strategy which treats oppression through
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a functionalist lens. To put it succinctly, SRT is a sort of methodology used to
explain labour and labour power under capitalism, by which we further develop
Marxist theory and use its implications for applying SRT to our current
conjuncture.3
Luxemburg, Rosa. 2015 [1913]. “The Accumulation of Capital: A Contribution to the Economic
Theory of Imperialism.” In The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg. Volume II: Economic Writings
2, edited by Peter Hudis and Paul Le Blanc. London: Verso.
Marx, Karl. 1982 [1867]. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume One. Harmondsworth:
Penguin.

Notes Vogel, Lisa. 2013 [1983]. Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory. Histor-
ical Materialism Book Series. Chicago: Haymarket Books.
1] Compare for example Dalla Costa and James 1975; Fortunati 1996; Federici 2012.

2] Compare for example Luxemburg 2004; Kollontai, “Communism and the Family”.

3] For a more detailed recent account on SRT compare Bhattacharya 2017.

References

Bhattacharya, Tithi, ed. 2017. Social Reproduction Theory. Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression.
London: Pluto Press.

Čakardić, Ankica. 2017. “From Theory of Accumulation to Social-Reproduction Theory. A Case

for Luxemburgian Feminism.” Historical Materialism 25 (4): 37–64.

Dalla Costa, Mariarosa and Selma James. 1975 [1972]. The Power of Women and the Subversion of
the Community. Bristol: Falling Wall Press Ltd.

Delphy, Christine. 1980. “A Materialist Feminism Is Possible.” Feminist Review 4: 79–105.

Federici, Silvia. 2012 [1975]. “Wages against Housework.” In Revolution at Point Zero: Housework,
Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle. New York: PM Press/Autonomedia.

Fortunati, Leopoldina. 1996 [1981]. The Arcane of Reproduction: Housework, Prostitution, Labor and
Capital. New York: Autonomedia

Kollontai, Alexandra. 1977 [1920]. “Communism and the Family.” Marxist Internet Archive. Ac-
cessed May 10, 2018. https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/communism-family.htm.

Luxemburg, Rosa. 2004 [1912]. “Women’s Suffrage and Class Struggle.” In The Rosa Luxemburg
Reader, edited by Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson. New York: Monthly Review Press.