One of the great rewards of reading broadly is encountering thinkers who challenge our assumptions in unexpected ways. John Cassidy’s new book Capitalism and Its Critics serves as an excellent gateway to such voices—including Silvia Federici, whose work I encountered for the first time through his analysis.
Federici builds upon Marx’s foundation while charting her own critical path. Like Marx, she argues that capitalism fundamentally depends on one group exploiting another’s labor—but she expands this critique beyond the traditional worker-owner dynamic. Her distinctive contribution lies in highlighting how capitalism systematically devalues and invisibilizes reproductive labor, particularly the unpaid work of mothers and caregivers.
Her proposed solution—direct payment for domestic and care work—has sparked both organizing efforts among women’s networks and genuine debate about the nature of care itself. There’s an inherent tension here: while some forms of labor may be best performed voluntarily rather than as market transactions, this doesn’t negate their immense economic and social value.
This raises a crucial point that transcends ideological boundaries: regardless of whether we embrace Federici’s specific remedies, her core insight about the systematic undervaluing of reproductive labor demands serious consideration. The work of raising children, maintaining households, and caring for family members provides enormous value to society—value that our current economic frameworks struggle to recognize or measure adequately.
In exploring these ideas, Federici reminds us that the most interesting economic critics aren’t just those who diagnose capitalism’s failures, but those who help us see the invisible foundations upon which the entire system rests.
Home Economics 