Homes in Crisis Capitalism

Gender, Work and Revolution

Marnie Holborow

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2024
• ISBN:
  9781350379978
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Ideologies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Homes in Crisis Capitalism explores the core social reproduction role that individual households fulfil in our societies, and the class and racial effects of this on gender inequality and discrimination. Women now make up nearly half of the paid workforce globally, yet prevailing neoliberal social policy continues to rule out adequate state provision of child- and elder-care, choosing instead to rely on marketized services to fill the gap. It is mainly women who carry out this little valued care work, either in a non-paid or paid capacity, and gender inequality is entrenched across society. Official gender parity policies, often expressed in terms of equality of opportunity, have done little to ease the double burden of domestic and care work for the vast majority of women. Competitive labour markets discriminate against those expected to be the primary caregivers of children, the sick and disabled and older people. In addition, the presence across many societies of an acute housing crisis and soaring inflation have put added pressures on home life. A social reproduction crisis has developed, and it is working class women and women of colour who are paying the price. Holborow analyses homes in crisis capitalism through a Marxist lens of capitalist social reproduction. This book charts the interwoven social and political effects and outcomes of work and care provided in the home, and makes the case for a radical break with capitalism to give social reproduction the material resources and social recognition it deserves.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction. Homes and Social Reproduction: From social crisis to social change
• 1 Homes and Families: Picking up the tab for capitalism
• 2 Engels For Our Times: Oppression, the privatized family and revolution
• 3 Homes and Ideology: ‘Family values’, race and class privilege
• 4 Work in the Home, Care on the Cheap and How Things Could Be Different
• 5 Homes Within a New Feminized, Diverse Working Class
• 6 The Contradictions of Home Life in Capitalism
• 7 Conclusion. Homes, Gender Politics and Anti-Capitalism
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• Imprint