Lecture as part of UCD School of Social Justice module, inequality in Irish society

17. Capitalism is first and foremost a
historical social system.

18. Capitalism is first and foremost a
historical social system.
What distinguishes the historical
social system we are calling
historical capitalism is that, in
this historical system, capital
came to be used (invested) in a
very special way.
It came to be used with the
primary objective or intent of
self-expansion.

19. The purpose of capitalism
is self-expansion – capital
begets capital – and it
does so by monetizing
social value and human
labour.
This is a circuit of
transformation.

22. -

23. We therefore have to consider an historical process of
transformation in which these separate and
independently powerful forms of capital became
integrated into a purely capitalist mode of production.
David Harvey, Limits to Capital (London: Verso, 2006), 73.

24. We therefore have to consider an historical process of
transformation in which these separate and
independently powerful forms of capital became
integrated into a purely capitalist mode of production.
These different forms of capital had to be rendered
subservient to a circulation process dominated by the
production of surplus value by wage labour.
David Harvey, Limits to Capital (London: Verso, 2006), 73.

25. We therefore have to consider an historical process of
transformation in which these separate and
independently powerful forms of capital became
integrated into a purely capitalist mode of production.
These different forms of capital had to be rendered
subservient to a circulation process dominated by the
production of surplus value by wage labour.
The form and manner of this historical process must
therefore be a focus of attention.”
David Harvey, Limits to Capital (London: Verso, 2006), 73.

31. The purpose of capitalism is self-expansion – capital begets capital – and it
does so by monetizing social value and human labour. This is a circuit of
transformation.
Immanuel Wallerstein, Historical Capitalism (London: Verso, 2011), 15.

33. “Capitalism only triumphs when
it becomes identified with the
state, when it is the state.
(Braudel 1977)

34. “In its first great phase, that of the
Italian city-states of Venice,
Genoa and Florence, power lay in
the hands of the moneyed elite. In
seventeenth-century Holland the
aristocracy of the Regents
governed for the benefit and even
according to the directives of the
businessmen, merchants, and
money-lenders.
(Braudel 1977)

35. “Likewise, in England the
Glorious Revolution of 1688
marked the accession of business
similar to that in Holland.”
(Braudel 1977)

36. The fusion of state and
capital was the vital
ingredient in the emergence
of a distinctly capitalist layer
on top of, and in antithesis to,
the layer of market economy.

50. “Capitalism exploits
more work and
production relations
than just labour
relations.”

53. Social Reproduction
Renewing life is a form of work, a kind of production, as
fundamental to the perpetuation of society as the production of
things.
Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner, ’ Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical
Perspectives,’ Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 15 (1989): 383

54. Social Reproduction
Renewing life is a form of work, a kind of production, as
fundamental to the perpetuation of society as the production of
things.
Moreover, the social organization of that work, the set of social
relationships through which people act to get it done, has varied
widely and that variation has been central to the organization of
gender relations and gender inequality.
Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner, ’ Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical
Perspectives,’ Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 15 (1989): 383

55. Social Reproduction
Renewing life is a form of work, a kind of production, as
fundamental to the perpetuation of society as the production of
things.
Moreover, the social organization of that work, the set of social
relationships through which people act to get it done, has varied
widely and that variation has been central to the organization of
gender relations and gender inequality.
From this point of view, societal reproduction includes not only the
organization of production but the organization of social
reproduction, and the perpetuation of gender as well as class
relations.
Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner, ’ Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical
Perspectives,’ Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 15 (1989): 383

56. The term social reproduction encompasses all the means by which society
reproduces its families, citizens and workers.
„Cuts are a Feminist Issue‟, Soundings (Dec 2011)

57. The term social reproduction encompasses all the means by which society
reproduces its families, citizens and workers.
It includes all the labour that is necessary for a society to reproduce itself: the
biological production of people and workers, and all the social practices that
sustain the population - bearing children, raising children, performing emotional
work, providing clothing and food, and cooking and cleaning.
„Cuts are a Feminist Issue‟, Soundings (Dec 2011)

58. The term social reproduction encompasses all the means by which society
reproduces its families, citizens and workers.
It includes all the labour that is necessary for a society to reproduce itself: the
biological production of people and workers, and all the social practices that
sustain the population - bearing children, raising children, performing emotional
work, providing clothing and food, and cooking and cleaning.
As a concept social reproduction has been key to feminist social theory, because
it challenges the usual distinctions that are made between productive and
reproductive labour, or between the labour market and the home.
„Cuts are a Feminist Issue‟, Soundings (Dec 2011)

59. Over the past thirty years, despite their being essential
to human life, neoliberal restructuring across the world
has privatised, eroded and demolished our shared
resources, and ushered in a ‘crisis of social
reproduction.’
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

60. as a result of cuts to benefits and the social wage,
women are also being forced out of the home and into
(predominantly low paid) waged work, as families
increasingly require more income to cover the basic
cost of living.
[In the UK] Proposed benefit reform brutally promises to
`encourage' mothers back to work through compulsory
labour programmes; lone parents will be expected to be
actively seeking work when their children are as young
as five years old.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

61. The combined effects for working women of the
removal of socially provided childcare (which should be
seen as part of the social wage),
the diminishing availability of work that pays an
adequate wage,
and the increase in their responsibilities for unpaid care
work,
tend to push women into informal labour markets,
including sex work, that are unregulated, and in which
workers face high levels of exploitation and, often,
violence.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

62. The effects of all this are not only material; they also
have an impact on our affective lives, and affecting all
the psycho-social elements of society; they make
people less able to care for the emotional and intimate
aspects of each other's lives - because of lack of time,
energy and money - at the very moment in which they
are in need of greater care.
Again, it is typically women who are left to pick up the
pieces. And on top of all this, these pressures are
increasing at the exact moment in which mental health
care provision is being demolished.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

63. Gender and Caring
Notes on Lynch and Lyons, ‘The Gendered Order of
Caring’ in Ursula Barry (ed) Where Are We Now? New
Feminist Perspectives on Women in Contemporary Ireland
(Dublin: Tasc, 2008)

64. There are deep gender inequalities in the doing of care and love
work that operate to the advantage of men.
It is women’s unwaged labour and related domestic labour that
frees men up to exercise control in the public sphere of
politics, the economy and culture.
… there is a moral imperative on women to do care work that
does not apply equally to men ; a highly gendered moral code
impels women to do the greater part of primary caring, with
most believing they have no choice in the matter.

65. The reason love and care matter is because we are relational
beings, emotional as well as intellectual, social as well as
individual. P.165
Feminist-inspired scholars have drawn attention to the salience
of care and love as public goods, and have identified the
importance of caring as a human capability meeting a basic
human need. (1)
They have also exposed the limitations of conceptualisations of
citizenship devoid of a concept of care, and highlighted the
importance of caring as work, work that needs to be distributed
equally between women and men in particular.
1. Nassbaum, Glover (eds) Women, Culture and Development: A Study of Human Capabilities (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995)

66. The Irish government collects
data on unpaid caring within
households in
1. the Census
2. the Quarterly Household
Survey (QNHS).
Within the Census, care is
defined as being given by ‘persons
aged 15yrs and over who provide
regular unpaid help for a friend or
family member with a long-term
illness, health problem or
disability (including problems due
to age). P.167-8

67. The way care is defined in the Census excludes what
constitutes a major category of care work, that of the ordinary,
everyday care of children (unless the child has a recognised
disability). Data on the care of children is compiled in the
QNHS, however, and is also available through the European
Community Household Panel (ECPH) survey. The focus in all
three is on the hours of work involved in caring so we do not
know the nature and scope of the caring involved. P.168

68. According to the [2006]
Census there are less than
150,000 people, 5 per cent
of the adult population in
unpaid care work (mostly
with adults) of whom 61
per cent are women and 39
per cent are men.
However, when we
measure all types of caring
activity, as has been done
in the European
Community household
Panel (ECPH) we see that
there are 1 million people
who do caring who are not
named in the census.

69. Even though it is no doubt
unintentional, the failure
to collect data on hours
spent on child care work
in the Census, means that
child care, which is the
major form of care work
in Irish society, is no
counted in terms of work
hours.
… women are almost five
times as likely to work
long care hours than is the
case for men.
Women spend much more
time at care work than
men, even when they are
employed.

86. PROGRAMME
1. Nationalisation of railways and canals
2. Abolition of private banks and money-lending institutions and establishment of state
banks, under popularly elected boards of directors, issuing loans at cost
3. Establishment at public expense of rural depots for the most improved agricultural
machinery, to be lent out to the agricultural population at a rent covering cost and
management alone.
4. Graduated income tax on all incomes over £400 per annum in order to provide funds
for pensions to the aged, infirm and widows and orphans.
5. Legislative restriction of hours of labour to 48 per week and establishment of a
minimum wage.
6. Free maintenance for all children.
7. Gradual extension of the principle of public ownership and supply to all the
necessaries of life.
8. Public control and management of national schools by boards elected by popular
ballot for that purpose alone.
9. Free education up to the highest university grades.
10. Universal suffrage.