“Capitalism only triumphs when it becomes

identified with the state, when it is the state.

In its first great phase, that of the Italian city-states

of Venice, Genoa and Florence, power lay in the

hands of the moneyed elite. In seventeenth-century

Holland the aristocracy of the Regents governed for

the benefit and even according to the directives of

the businessmen, merchants, and money-lenders.

Likewise, in England the Glorious Revolution of

1688 marked the accession of business similar to

that in Holland.” (Braudel 1977)

The fusion of state and capital was the vital

ingredient in the emergence of a distinctly capitalist

layer on top of, and in antithesis to, the layer of

market economy.

the distinction of sectors between what I have called the ‘economy’ (or the market economy) and ‘capitalism’ does not seem to me to be anything new, but rather a constant in Europe since the Middle Ages.

There is another difference too: I would argue that a third sector should be added to the pre-industrial model – that the lowest stratum of the non-economy, the soil into which capitalism thrusts its roots but which it can never really penetrate.

This lowest layer remains an enormous one.

(Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century vol.II: The Wheels of Commerce, London: Collins, 1982, pp.229-30.).

Above it, comes the favoured terrain of the market economy, with its many horizontal communications between the different markets:

here a degree of automatic coordination usually links supply, demand and prices.

(Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century vol.II: The Wheels of Commerce, London: Collins, 1982, pp.229-30.).

Then alongside, or rather above this layer, comes the zone of the anti-market, where the great predators roam and the law of the jungle operates. This – today as in the past, before and after the industrial revolution – is the real home of capitalism.”

(Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century vol.II: The Wheels of Commerce, London: Collins, 1982, pp.229-30.).

Going beyond Braudel’s original argument, household production can be

considered as a case in point for such daily, unconscious routines. This

then signals one trajectory for understanding aspects of social

reproduction over time.

Indeed the politics of the everyday offers a current consideration of the

separation of life purposes (such as working life, family life and sex life)

and the social construction of such spaces.

It should be noted that, despite Braudel’s many valuable conceptual

inroads, he does not apply gender to his analysis and does not explicitly

consider the sexual division of labour in his trilogy.

However… his conceptualisations of material life can aid us in

understanding the historical dynamics that underpin social reproduction.

Isabella Bakker (2007) ‘Social Reproduction and the Constitution of a Gendered

Political Economy’, New Political Economy 12:4.

Going beyond Braudel’s original argument, household production can be

considered as a case in point for such daily, unconscious routines. This

then signals one trajectory for understanding aspects of social

reproduction over time.

Indeed the politics of the everyday offers a current consideration of the

separation of life purposes (such as working life, family life and sex life)

and the social construction of such spaces.

It should be noted that, despite Braudel’s many valuable conceptual

inroads, he does not apply gender to his analysis and does not explicitly

consider the sexual division of labour in his trilogy.

However… his conceptualisations of material life can aid us in

understanding the historical dynamics that underpin social reproduction.

Isabella Bakker (2007) ‘Social Reproduction and the Constitution of a Gendered

Political Economy’, New Political Economy 12:4.

Social Reproduction

Renewing life is a form of work, a kind of production, as fundamental to the perpetuation of society as the production of things.

Moreover, the social organization of that work, the set of social relationships through which people act to get it done, has varied widely and that variation has been central to the organization of gender relations and gender inequality.

From this point of view, societal reproduction includes not only the organization of production but the organization of social reproduction, and the perpetuation of gender as well as class relations.

Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner, ’ Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical Perspectives,’ Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 15 (1989): 383

Conventional androcentric assumptions have not been critically

examined in scientific and technological (S&T) culture; in the

international, national and local mediating agencies that deliver

S&T development; or in the communities that are the recipients

of development.

However, because women are primary deliverers of community

welfare on a daily basis to children, the sick and elderly, their

households, and the larger social networks that maintain

communities, the failure of development projects with respect to

women is automatically felt by social groups who depend on their

labour and social services.

Sandra Harding (1995) ‘Just add women and stir?’ Missing Links: Gender Equity in Science and Technology for Development.

Over the past thirty years, despite

being essential to human life,

neoliberal restructuring across the

world has privatised, eroded and

demolished our shared resources,

and ushered in a ‘crisis of social

reproduction.’

‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’,

Soundings (Dec 2011), p.73.

As a concept social reproduction

has been key to feminist social

theory, because it challenges the

usual distinctions that are made

between productive and

reproductive labour, or between

the labour market and the home.Feminist Fightback, Cuts are a Feminist Issue

Feminist Fightback, Cuts are a Feminist Issue

Labour in this sphere is often

devalued and privatised, and is

typically performed by women in

their ‘double day’ or ‘second

shift’, alongside paid wage

labour.

But reproductive labour of this

kind is just as central to capitalist

accumulation as are other forms

of labour, which means that

struggles over its structure and

distribution are fundamental to

any understanding of issues of

power and the relationships

between labour and capital, as

well as the potential for their

transformation.