Social Reproduction Theory and the Form of Labor Power

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21728968
AutoresAaron Jaffe (Purdue University West Lafayette, autor correspondente)
Ano2020
Volume22
Fascículo2
Data de publicação2020-08-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoCLCWeb Comparative Literature and Culture (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1481-4374 • E-ISSN: 1481-4374
EditoraPurdue University (bepress) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.7771/1481-4374.3838
OpenAlexW3046365014
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas11

Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) centers the production and reproduction of labor power under capitalism. This power to labor is determined individually, socially, and in relation to the totality of capital. These powers are produced and reproduced in and through social relations that, while capitalist, have tremendously diverse local conditions and histories. SRT provides a framework to think through the oppressive logics shaping the production, reproduction, and potencies of labor powers understood as diversely constituted. It argues that SRT is committed to the diversity of these labor powers over and against conditions that constrain both these powers and their actualizations in forms amenable to capital. It shows how SRT can offer resources to value the powers to work to satisfy human needs beyond exploitative and other oppressive social dynamics. Specifically, the paper highlights how a normative commitment to labor power can help SRT respond to charges of productivism, ableism, and narrow versions of workerism that are often leveled against left commitments to labor power. Building upon what I understand to be SRT’s normative critique of the form of labor power as constituted through capitalist social relations, the paper concludes by pointing to how SRT can promote struggles for social relations in which labor power could produce, actualize, and reproduce itself in freer ways

Capitalism · Economic system · Economics · Labor relations · Labor theory of value · Labour economics · Microeconomics · Neoclassical economics · Normative · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Relations of production · Reproduction · Social capital · Social reproduction · Social science · Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Political Economy and Marxism · Political Philosophy and Ethics