Social Reproduction Under Lockdown: Capital, Labor, and Gender

Abstract

This article argues that the pandemic-related growth of the gendered burden of care work in the Global North ought to be understood as symptomatic of the entangled contradictions between capitalist accumulation and social reproduction, on the one hand, and between value-production and wealth-creation, on the other. The article addresses whether social reproductive labor produces value. The article, moreover, shows that pandemic-induced lockdowns have extended crises of social reproduction to relatively privileged middle-class households in OECD countries and particularly the US. The article argues that efforts to improve the conditions of reproductive work must move beyond proposals for a more equitable distribution of care work and the expansion of care infrastructure.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Social reproduction is integral to capitalism but also points beyond capitalism.

• Marxian value-critique helps us better understand social reproduction.

• The COVID-19 pandemic extended crises of social reproduction to more households.

• The pandemic showed the need for radical solutions to crises of social reproduction.

• Redistributing reproductive labor and/or expanding public services is not enough.

• Wealth-production must be liberated from the capitalist value-form.

KEYWORDS:

• Capitalism
• class
• social reproduction
• household-labor time
• unpaid household work
• caregiving

JEL Codes:

• B51
• B54
• J16

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We wish to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their astute comments on an earlier version of this article. Thanks for sharing your expertise with us. It goes without saying that any remaining errors are our own.

Notes

1 We think that the theoretical arguments of non-feminist and relatively orthodox Marxian authors, Michael Lebowitz and Moishe Postone, can help us shed light on the feminist debates over the relations between social reproduction and capitalist accumulation.

2 We use the ideologically laden term “middle-class” in a purely descriptive manner, on the assumption that most members of the middle-classes – except those who primarily live off the work of others and are, thus, small capitalists – enjoy considerable access to expanded reproduction and, thus, form a privileged faction of the working class. Most members of the middle-class still have to sell their labor-power, albeit in privileged segments of the labor market and for a salary rather than a wage. “Middle-class,” thus, refers to an intra-class status-group rather than to a separate class.

3 In practice, labor-power produces more value than it is paid for. Yet, even though fundamentally correct, this formulation suggests that what’s at stake are forms of unequal exchange in the labor market. Although Marx was aware that unequal exchange and the outright theft of labor-power happen all too frequently, he proceeded from the premise that equivalent is exchanged for equivalent. This allowed him to present a much more forceful critique of capitalism by showing that exploitation is systemic and necessary rather than accidental and contingent. What makes capitalism oppressive for workers is not only that they are paid too little (though this happens often enough), but also that they become subject to the brutal logic of value, even if they are paid enough to allow for their expanded reproduction. So, what enables capital to extract surplus value from labor – even under condition of equal exchange – is “the specific use-value which this commodity [labor-power] possesses of being a source of not only value, but of more value than it has itself” (Marx 1976: 301, our emphasis).

4 Household-based social reproductive work occurs in all households, from single-person to multi-generational households, but the amount of necessary social reproductive work as well as the division between the genders depends on household-size and configuration. Ultimately, this is an important empirical question, but we assume that although single-person households may rely more on commodified forms of social reproduction, such as restaurants, food-delivery, and laundry services, etc. (Our thanks to reviewer 1 for pushing us on this.)

5 Some forms of working-class consumption are more beneficial to capital than others. This is why there has always been a lot of public concern over irresponsible forms of working-class consumption.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Markus Kienscherf

Markus Kienscherf is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the John F. Kennedy Institute of North American Studies. His research and teaching centers around critical political economy, policing, and the sociology of work as well as race, class, and gender.

Clara Thumm

Clara Thumm is an MA graduate of the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research focuses on feminism(s) and work, unwaged reproductive work, and neoliberal feminism. She wrote her thesis on the current relevance of the Marxist feminist movement Wages for Housework under neoliberal capitalism.