Attacks in the social reproductive sphere
VERY WELL done, Tithi. A truly excellent piece of work, well written and very succinctly applying the lessons of Lise Vogel's and others' work on social reproduction to the current crises of capitalism (Tithi Bhattacharya, "What is social reproduction theory?").
It should be noted that we in Scotland have the extra dilemma, along with those other Western European capitalist welfare democracies, of facing austerity-based attacks on the "social wage"--cuts to benefit payments to the disabled, the unemployed, mothers and the long-term sick.
The class struggle being waged by David Cameron and Nick Clegg in the UK is cruel, vicious, divisive and nasty, but it is strategically planned and deliberately designed to divide and conquer. The capitalists are attacking workers not just in the production sphere but primarily attacks in the social reproduction sphere is their main tactic in imposing the crisis on us.
They have, of course, also cut wages and retrenched hundreds of thousands of public-sector jobs to such an extent that the average household in Britain has seen a reduction of £1,500 a year in income--with most of this being cuts to benefits and tax credits. Quite understandably, people are fearful of losing their jobs by taking industrial action in this climate of imposed insecurity.
But the importance for Marxists of the concept of social reproduction is that it helps us to explain why the crisis has not resulted in so massive a fightback in Britain compared to other countries. For a start, the cuts have come primarily in the social reproductive sphere. The Conservative/Lib Dem coalition still have two-thirds of the way to go in their cuts program, which means even more intense battles over the next two years.
The massive resistance here has begun in the social reproduction sector--with benefits claimants, the disabled fighting back in Anti-Bedroom Tax Federations and Benefit Justice Campaigns. Quite literally, thousands of claimants have died in Britain--something like 70 people a week have committed suicide or died prematurely from medical conditions after losing their benefit payments and being assessed "fit to work" in a climate where there are no jobs to go to.
The reductions in living standards have been far, far worse in countries like Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, but as we have seen with the pan-lid protests in Greece, Spain and Portugal, the anti-bin tax and water charges movements in Ireland, and the Indignados and house occupation movements in Spain, it is very often mass protests located in the social reproductive sphere that spark mass protests in other sectors.
All of these movements have been primarily led by working-class women, and this is very true of Scotland and Britain's Anti-Bedroom Tax (ABT) movement. In Scotland alone, over 120 local ABTs have been formed, each launched with mass public meetings of between 50 and 100 people, mostly women and many of them carers for family members.
It is no wonder given that across Europe, women have been the prime losers in these austerity-driven series of counter-reforms imposed by the European Union governments. They are forcing working women and their families to absorb more if not all of the costs of social reproduction, which is why women have been and are central to the fightback.
The capitalists hope to make us all too occupied to fight back against them on the attacks in the productive sphere--wages at work, job losses. But women are showing the way forward, and Marxists will need to understand and be able to explain the processes involved with a theory that works. The social reproduction perspective allows us to do precisely that.
Yours in solidarity,
Graham Campbell, Glasgow North SWP, Scottish Steering Committee
