Marx’s ‘costs of consumption’
A new framework for analysing the economic character of ‘reproductive labour’
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11951186 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Chenxi Gao (0000-0003-3617-5876, Kyushu Sangyo University, corresponding author), Mingze Bai (0000-0002-0112-2750, University of Hong Kong) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-31 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Capital & Class (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0309-8168 • E-ISSN: 2041-0980 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/03098168261415847 |
| OpenAlex | W7126457151 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 18 |
This study resurrects Marx’s concept of ‘costs of consumption’ to resolve persistent theoretical impasses in the domestic labour debate. We argue that attempts to analyse ‘reproductive labour’ through production categories stem from a fundamental methodological mismatch. By systematically reconstructing Marx’s distinction between productive and individual consumption, we demonstrate that ‘reproductive labour’ corresponds to Marx’s ‘labour indispensable for family consumption’, operating within costs of consumption in individual consumption. This labour – whether performed as unpaid ‘expenditure of labour in the house’ or as marketised services requiring ‘increased expenditure of money’ – maintains its character as unproductive labour fulfilling essential ‘family functions’. The two forms of costs of consumption – labour expenditure by domestic labour and monetary expenditure through services – offer theoretical grounds for explaining the dynamic relationship between production and reproduction in social reproduction theory; a genuinely Marxian analysis of ‘reproductive labour’ requires a fundamental theoretical reorientation from production to consumption as the appropriate analytical lens
Character (mathematics · Consumption (sociology · Production (economics · Reproduction · Social reproduction · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Political Economy and Marxism · Reproductive Health and Technologies
Appendix
Care, Gender, and Justice
Social Reproduction Theory
How Not to Skip Class
The Role of Household Production in the Determination of Wages and the Process of Capitalist Production
Capitalism, Patriarchy, and Job Segregation by Sex
Crisis of Care? On the Social-Reproductive Contradictions of Contemporary Capitalism
Labor Power
Social Reproduction Theory,” Social Reproduction, and Household Production
Beyond the Domestic Labour Debate
Women’s Domestic Labour
The Housewife and Her Labour Under Capitalism
The Political Economy of Women's Liberation
The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |