Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) takes as its starting point the recognition that household activity in the capitalist mode of production constitutes far more than the production of use values. The activities that take place within households are understood to be part of the entire process of reproduction of society, i.e. social reproduction. The proponents of SRT have stimulated much valuable empirical research on these activities. However, there are major problems in the SRT framework within which these activities are placed. Although presented in the form of a contribution to Marxist theory, SRT contradicts the most basic precepts of this theory. SRT diverges fundamentally from Marxist theory in its use of the term "social reproduction," and in the related distinctions between "reproductive" and "productive" labor, and between "paid" and "unpaid" labor.

The concept of “caring labor” obscures the process of surplus extraction in the capitalist mode of production. In particular, the government’s provision of services such as preschool child care needs to be understood as having the effect of substituting for the care provided by the household rather than adding to it. The process of substitution is one that involves a decrease in household labor and a corresponding increase in wage labor, in particular that of women. Within the capitalist workplace, the labor time “saved” by the development of a “more efficient” form of child care (as a component of the labor necessary for the reproduction of the working class) is appropriated by the capitalist class. The increasing labor force participation rate of women that results from this process of substitution does not necessarily constitute a decrease in their oppression. JEL Classification: B14, B54, H53

In a socialist mode of production, human activity is no longer constrained by the capitalist need to maximize surplus labor, and correspondingly minimize necessary labor. The guiding principle for its organization can therefore be the development and realization of human potential. Some idea of what this could consist of can be derived from observations of the struggle by both wage laborers and household laborers for such goals within the capitalist mode of production, a struggle that is distinct from that necessary to resist the capitalist appropriation of surplus labor. In so doing, it directs attention to the large proportion of the human activity of the working class within capitalist societies that takes the form of household labor, relative to wage labor, and thus its potential significance for the restructuring of human activity in a socialist mode of production.

chapter is sometimes lost. Although the chapter aims to highlight external policies and interventions that benefit foreign capital and allow transnational corporations to deepen their stranglehold in the region, this argument is frequently overshadowed by broad conversations on US hegemony. This could have been remedied if Sprague simply asserted that transnational corporations are backed and allied with various transnational capitalists in the United States, which help shape policies in their favor. The chapter title is thus not fitting for the content, and a more appropriate descriptor of the chapter would have been “the role of empire and the United States in facilitating Caribbean transnational processes.” This title better describes the information that Sprague does share, which largely focuses on the role of the United States in maintaining imperial structures in the Caribbean, as well as the international sidelining of popular movements in the Caribbean by empires, and later on, by the West more broadly.

Wages in the capitalist mode of production must be sufficient to ensure the resources necessary for the production/reproduction of labor power. As such they constitute a supplement to the production by the working class in the form of household production and petty-commodity production. The growth of capitalist production, and the increase in the proportion of total labor time that takes the form of wage labor, can thus be understood as resulting from the reduction over time in the labor allocated by the working-class household to these two other forms of production. These changes must be distinguished from the changing gender/age composition of the components of labor.

Labor power is a "peculiar" commodity. It does not conform to the standard "rules" governing the exchange of commodities, unless it is assumed that capital has "conquered all production" so that household production does not exist. Marxist theorists, when recognizing its existence, have addressed this "dilemma" in several ways. The distinction between necessary and surplus production in all class societies provides a different solution to this dilemma. This solution addresses both the proportion of wage labor in the total labor of the working class (including that which takes the form of household labor and petty commodity production) and the wage that is paid for this labor power. In doing so, it contributes to an understanding of the role of women in household production.

When the Review of Radical Political Economics (RRPE) editorial collective posted a call for papers for a special issue on the European Union (EU), it cast a wide net for topics relevant for the period marked by the great financial crisis and recession that began in 2007. It became increasingly clear that this was a period characterized by rising inequalities between the core elite and the peripheral nations. Austerity policies were accompanied by rising unemployment and an alarming increase in xenophobia, even before the overwhelming refugee influx that has become so dominant in discussions of recent crises and the future of the EU. Contributors were invited to apply a radical political economic focus on a variety of topics that at the time appeared broad, divergent, and not related in an immediately obvious way by common treads other than their EU connection. Included among the topics were those that are symptomatic of fractures in the very structure of the EU, notably the Eurozone and the future of the euro; the most recent recession and austerity policies; fiscal federalism; sovereign and private debt; and the future of social democracy. Most recent analyses of the EU have linked today’s crisis more to the specifics for the formation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) that was part of the Maastricht Treaty (Stiglitz 2016; Taylor 2016; Kamal 2017). Others, like Ash (2012), argue that the problems that make the EMU incomplete or badly conceived can be traced back all the way to the initial conception of the European Community in the years following the end of World War II.1 Talks of the unification of Europe focused on peace and economic cooperation among a group of nations, rather than on a group of people who were to be seen as equals regardless of national origin. The memory of the devastations of the recent world war was initially giving impetus to forging agreements related to coal, steel, energy, and this was followed by the customs union, and eventually the EU, created by the Maastricht Treaty, which also created the EMU. The contributors to this special issue agree that the EMU has shortcomings that exacerbate financial crises in peripheral deficit countries, and that structural austerity measures imposed in

This paper consists of a brief presentation of modes of production in class societies, highlighting the significance of household production in these. This is followed by a new approach to the conceptualization of the (non-class) communist mode of production and the place of household production in such a society.

Marx's “Universal Class,” Relations of Production, and Relations of Sex–Gender–AgePaddy QuickPaddy QuickDepartment of Economics, St. Francis College, 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201. [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:December 2014https://doi.org/10.1521/siso.2015.79.1.114PDFPDF PLUS ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations About Previous article Next article FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 79Issue 1Jan 2015 Information© 2015 by S & S Quarterly, Inc.PDF download

Marxism, Class, and the HouseholdPaddy QuickPaddy QuickDepartment of Economics, St. Francis College, 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201. [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:October 2011https://doi.org/10.1521/siso.2011.75.4.579PDFPDF PLUS ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations About Previous article Next article FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 75Issue 4Oct 2011 Information© 2011 by S & S Quarterly, Inc.PDF download

The all-too-common neglect of household pro- duction in mainstream Marxist analyses of capitalism finds its counterpart not only in the neglect of non-field production in feudalism, but also in a failure to recognize the performance of surplus labor within the households of feudal lords. Recognition of both of these leads to a new perspective on the transition from feudalism to capitalism and, in addition, on the changing struc- ture of gender relations that accompanied this transformation of class relations. Specifically, capitalism substituted contractual relations between capitalists and individual wage-laborers for the feudal relationships between heads of households. At the same time, the surplus produced by servants within ruling-class house- holds, which once contributed to the reproduction of feudal rela- tions within the ruling class, came to be seen as a deduction from the funds that could be used for the accumulation of capital.

Focusing on the “value-added” approach to computing Gross National Product encourages students to see their role as a producers, rather than only as consumers. It also offers an alternative approach the distribution of income between labor and capital from that provided by marginal productivity theory.

The terms used to describe women's household production contain implicit theoretical conceptualizations of this work that are often problematic, but may have rhetorical power.