This article interrogates these claims, questions the extent to which Federici departs from, critiques, or builds on Marxism, and considers the political implications that follow. Rather than linked in any way to dynamics unleashed by capitalism, liberation comes out of struggle and resistance autonomous from those dynamics. Looking at history from the perspective of women, she claims, tells us why. Federici insists that there has never been anything liberating about capitalism, not its expansions of industry and productivity, not its technology, and not its centralizing and organizing capacities. Federici demonstrates that unpaid labor–especially that of women confined to the domestic sphere and of enslaved workers–is a necessary support for waged labor.Īlthough Federici draws from Marx–the primary contribution of her book is its rethinking of Marx’s account of primitive accumulation–she nonetheless rejects the Marxist-Leninist idea that capitalism has any progressive features. The book examines capitalism’s investment in sexism and racism, showing how the consolidation of the capitalist system depended on the subjugation of women, the enslavement of black and indigenous people, and the exploitation of the colonies. Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch is a classic work of anti-capitalist feminism.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |