Value vs. Measure. Social Reproduction and the Critics of Political and Ecological Economy
by Federica Giardini
pp. 64-81 Issue 17 (9,1) – January-June 2022 ISSN (online): 2539/2239 ISSN (print): 2389-8232 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14718/SoftPower.2021.8.2.4
Abstract
Assuming the activities of reproduction as the paradigm of the present times allows to recognize and reconfigure the problematic and conflictual field to be addressed. Reproduction has been the blind spot of the economic and political tradition of Western modernity, and it is on this blind spot that capitalism’s grip is being reconstituted, between domination and exploitation. Feminist thought has developed well-tested tools to grasp the way in which ethics and economics interact in the constitution of the criteria of valorization and devaluation, which distinguish, select and organize activities – from naturalization, which makes them invisible and unspeakable, to valorization, which places them in a circuit that is both hierarchical and quantitative.