International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

Marching to a Different Drummer

Sue Ferguson — 2023-07-18T11:41:00Z

Capitalists and Marxists both have long studied how capitalism imposes a time-work discipline on waged workers. And some Marxists—most famously perhaps Henri Lefebvre— have suggested that time structures social life more generally. In what follows, I think about this question from the more specific perspective of social reproductive labor time. That is, what can be said about the temporalities of life-making in capitalist societies? How might an analytic focus on time and temporalities help us better understand how capitalism concretely conditions the work of life-making? And how might social reproductive labor time, despite being conditioned by capitalist productive relations, contradict and be deployed to resist capitalism?

- Feminism / Marxism, Women, Features

Engaging Federici on Marx, Capitalism, and Social Reproduction

Sue Ferguson — 2022-02-21T18:26:49Z

The introduction to Patriarchy of the Wage suggests that the collection is inspired by “the feminist return to Marx” [1]. What follows, however, is not an extended and developed critique of Marx's relevance to understanding gender and feminism—this Federici promises to deliver in a forthcoming, second volume. Instead, readers get a “return to Federici.” Outside of a short introduction, the volume showcases no new writing. Yet, while readers looking for something new from this prolific and provocative feminist theorist will be disappointed, the collection of essays delivers a relatively cohesive critique of the bearded man's ideas and influence—one that is, to my mind, balanced if not always fair.

- Reviews section / Marxism, Women, Reviews

Social Reproduction Beyond Intersectionality: An Interview

David McNally , Sue Ferguson — 2017-05-05T15:35:24Z

This interview with David McNally and Sue Ferguson was published in October 2015, on the occasion of the publication of a new version of Lise Vogel's Marxism and the Oppression of Women, for which they wrote a new Introduction.

- Feminism / Marxism, Canada, Women, Sexual politics