Rethinking the rules of reproduction and the transition to capitalism: Reading Federici and Brenner together

Abstract

The continuity of an organized system of gender oppression throughout the transitions from pre-capitalist to capitalist modes of production has been the topic of heated debates across the socialist and radical feminist traditions. In Caliban and the Witch, Federici makes a significant intervention into these debates by revisiting the transition from a specifically feminist lens and investigating the structural components that allow and facilitate the continuation of exploitative gender relations. However, Federici’s investigation relies on world systems theories’ overly expansive geographic and temporal reading of the transition, and, thus, does not spell out a historically specific account of the transition. This chapter works with the best aspects of Federici’s feminist intervention while recognizing and critically addressing theoretical shortfalls that leave unfinished the project of accounting for both the emergence of capitalist social property relations and the continuation of women’s oppression. I argue that critical engagement with political Marxism provides an opportunity to build from the methodological work of social reproduction feminists, such as Federici, and to properly reorient feminist approaches to the question of capitalism’s origins.