Capitalismo canibal: como nosso sistema está devorando a nossa democracia, o cuidado e o planeta e o que podemos fazer a respeito disso

by Nancy Fraser, Aline Scatola (translator)

O capital está destruindo todas as esferas da vida, consumindo a riqueza da natureza, aprofundando o racismo, sugando a nossa capacidade de cuidar uns dos outros e destruindo a prática política. Nesta análise deslumbrante, a importante teórica Nancy Fraser descreve como o apetite voraz do capital está destruindo o planeta, desenvolvendo uma teoria do "capitalismo do século XXI". Com muitos detalhes, Fraser apresenta uma noção ampliada do capital como uma forma de sociedade e revela os ingredientes extra-econômicos que possibilitam a sua expansão.

Canibalizando áreas inteiras e formas de riqueza que são condições prévias essenciais para o desenvolvimento e funcionamento do capitalismo – como riquezas expropriadas da natureza (ar respirável, terras aráveis e água potável) e dos povos subjugados; múltiplas formas de cuidado, subvalorizadas (se não totalmente negadas) e geralmente realizadas por mulheres; bens e poderes públicos que fornecem infra-estruturas materiais e jurídicas de que o capital necessita para funcionar – nosso sistema devora a democracia, o cuidado e o planeta constituindo uma série de conflitos que até agora pareciam estar isolados. Se quisermos acabar com o capitalismo canibal, temos de superar o reducionismo econômico e construir uma visão ampliada do socialismo, sem repetir as experiências que falharam no século XX. Pode parecer uma tarefa difícil, mas é a nossa única esperança. Essa agenda e o seu roteiro são a alma deste livro que já nasce urgente e essencial.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Economics, Philosophy, Feminism, Theory, Social Justice

234 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 20, 2022

About the author

Nancy Fraser is an American critical theorist, currently the Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Political and Social Science and professor of philosophy at The New School in New York City. Fraser earned her PhD in philosophy from the CUNY Graduate Center and taught in the philosophy department at Northwestern University for many years before moving to the New School.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.

See also: Romance author Nancy Fraser

Reviews

[Nathan Shuherk · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved this reframing of capitalism as a social model - it gives a wider context to the value and direction of surplus, instead of a metric for freedom for all, it’s solely a method of control and accumulation of power. Really shatters the myth of capitalism equaling freedom of choice.

[Steffi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to (and pre-ordered) this new book ‘Cannibal Capitalism. How Our System Is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet—and What We Can Do About It’ (it came out about 3 weeks ago) by Nancy Fraser - for me one of the most relevant contemporary (Marxist) theorists. In her previous books she also said everything there is to say about identity politics, can't thank her enough for this :-)

The book is great (and an amazing intro or 101 for those less familiar with the genesis and specific nature of 21st century financialized capitalism) but I guess there’s only so much one can say about capitalism and the, indeed cannibalizing, state of today’s capitalism. As such, the book walks the (already depressed, I guess) reader through kind of four areas devoured by capital: racial/imperial dynamics of capitalism’s expropriation/exploitation division which feed the glutton’s hunger for populations it can punish with impunity (chapter 2); the gendered dynamics of its reproduction/production couple, which stamp the system as a guzzler of care (chapter 3); the eco-predatory dynamics of its nature/humanity antithesis, which puts our planetary home in capital’s maw (chapter 4); and the drive to devour public power and butcher democracy, which is built into the system’s signature division between economy and the political.
For each of these four dimensions she provides a historic perspective, tracking the present from crisis point to crisis point throughout the various stages (regimes) of capitalism – 16-18th century mercantile capitalism; 19th century liberal-colonial regime, 20th century state managed capitalism and the current 21st madness of financialized capitalism (kind of providing two axes of race/gender/ecology/politics versus historic periods). Much of this is a culmination of earlier works or the standard VERSO bookshelf on the various evils of capitalism. Of course, these dimensions are linked, for instance “oil-fueled social democracy at home rested on militarily imposed oligarchy abroad”.

The bottom line is very, very simple: we are in a state of general crisis of financialized capitalism, we cannot ‘green deal’ our way out (I appreciated the book’s reckoning with the green-capitalist imaginary).What is needed is a “new common sense that must transcend the “merely environmental.” Addressing the full extent of our general crisis, it must connect its ecological diagnosis to other vital concerns, including livelihood insecurity and the denial of labor rights; public disinvestment from social reproduction and the chronic undervaluation of care work; ethno-racial-imperial oppression and gender and sex domination; dispossession, expulsion, and exclusion of migrants; and militarization, political authoritarianism, and police brutality.” In other words: it’s capitalism. There is no technological or otherwise fix within capitalism. It’s the logic of capitalism (as it is the logic of war which you cannot overcome within itself).

Sadly, at the present stage, I don’t have any hope whatsoever. And as the final chapters chart actions to build a ‘wide-ranging socialist movement that can recognize the rapaciousness of capital - and starve it to death’ I am like ‘you go, girl’ as I am going to read love novels or watch trash TV. I hope this is temporary and once hope comes back, this razor sharp analysis of how we go into this shit (including a new world war of sorts) and how we could get out will be very useful ☭ ❤

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bizonyára minden társadalomtudós erről álmodik: hogy megtalálja a Bölcsek Kövét, az értelmezési keretet, amelyen belül minden, de tényleg minden válságjelenség megmagyarázható. Elszaporodtak a nácik? Lerohad az iskola? Eszkalálódik a klímaváltozás? Megint megválasztották Trumpot? És egyáltalán: egyre kevésbé érted, mi a toszom folyik itt? Megmondom neked: KANNIBÁL KAPITALIZMUS, az folyik.



A hagyományos közgazdasági szemlélet szerint a kapitalizmus gazdasági kategória, ami elkülönül a létezés egyéb síkjaitól. A kapitalizmus termel, piacot alkot, a többi meg (a politika, a környezet, a társadalmi reprodukció) gondoskodik arról, hogy ezek a piacok megfelelően működhessenek. A világ akkor funkcionál jól, ha ezek egyensúlyban vannak, és a klasszikus közgazdaságtan szerint ez az alapállapot, minden ettől való eltérés csak a rendszer apró működési zavara, amit előbb-utóbb helyretesz az ún. "láthatatlan kéz". Csakhogy Fraser szerint ez csak mese, önbecsapás. A kapitalizmus ugyanis jellegéből fakadóan nem barátja az egyensúlynak. Ugyanis ott van lényében a hajlam a kannibalizmusra: hogy felfalja azt, amiből táplálkozik. Ami technikailag úgy néz ki, hogy sajátos törvényeit, a haszonelvűséget, a profit kisajátítására való törekvést ráerőlteti környezetére. Pénzgyárat csinál az iskolákból, kórházakból, sőt: börtönökből, amikor a magánintézményeket preferálja, az államiakat pedig hagyja összeomlani. Ellentételezés nélkül kifosztja a természeti erőforrásokat, miközben magasról tesz arra, mi marad az unokáknak. Rasszizmust gerjeszt, hogy a proletariátus jogos haragját átcsatornázza azok felé, akik még a munkásosztálynál is szerencsétlenebbek. Mindezzel persze saját sírját ássa meg, mert középhosszú távon felszámolja saját működési feltételeit, de ez csekély vigasz, mert közben minket is kifiléz. De ez nem érdekli. Mert kannibál. Sőt jobbat mondok: zombi. Agy nélküli szörny, aminek egyetlen motivációja az éhség.

Nekem tényleg csak egy problémám van az egésszel. Fraser kiinduló állítása frenetikusan erős, és valóban alkalmas arra, hogy a világ szétszórt válságait egyetlen értelmezési keretbe terelje. Ugyanakkor a főszöveg óhatatlanul olyan lesz ettől, mint azok a körülményes, kacskaringós krimik, ahol már előre elspoilerezték, ki a gyilkos. Hisz mi értelme van elolvasni egy negyven oldalas, sűrű szakmaisággal megírt fejezetet arról, mi áll a rendszerszintű rasszizmus mögött, ha úgyis tudom, hogy a kannibál kapitalizmus?

Különben meg azt hiszem, nem is a szakmai alátámasztás itt a lényeg. Hanem egy agresszív, mozgósító erejű megametafora megteremtése. Hogy az elégedetlenek fragmentál csoportjai minden nyűgük mögött meglássák ugyanazt a kolosszust. Ne aprózzák el magukat egy erdősávért, egy összeszerelő üzemért, egy iskoláért vagy egy identitáskérdésért való küzdelemben. Ne ragadjanak le azon, hogy vesszen Orbán vagy vesszen Trump, hanem lássák meg, ezek a politikusok csak bábok - a kannibál kapitalizmus termékei vagy tünetei. Ha pedig felismertük, hogy valójában ugyanaz a már-már mitikus démon valamennyiünk antagonistája, akkor az erőinket is egyesíthetjük ellene. Ez ad ennek a kötetnek némi kiáltványszerű mellékízt - az újfajta szocializmus létrehozásának vágya. Amivel amúgy nekem nincs gondom. Értitek, itt a baloldal zászlaja majd két évtizedig Gyurcsány volt - ehhez képest bármilyen új szocializmus előrelépésnek tűnik.

[sologdin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eminently reasonable, this text seeks out further 'hidden abodes' of capitalism beyond the exploitation of wage labor, in the non-economic realms of gender-dominated carework, environmental extractivism, racial expropriation of those marked out as homo sacer, and the political processes of democratic governance--all of which are its conditions of possibility and each of which capitalism has a tendency to consume destructively. Many astute observations and useful historical schema. Ends with a useful reconception of socialism as well as a coda regarding the pandemic.

Verso sent this as the main selection for its September 2022 book club. Good on them.

[Morgan Blackledge · Rating 5 out of 5]

GREAT BOOK.

So….

Critical analysis of capitalism is back.

And….

Now it’s being integrated with green ecology, feminism, queer theory and anti-racism.

And…

We’re having a little moment with it.

It’s feeling VERY 90’s (in this regard).

The kids are digging theory and burning cop cars again.

Now if y’all can PLEASE MAKE SOME GOOD MUSIC.

Anyway.

Anticapitalism is a thing again.

And…

Here ya go!

THE CRISIS:

- ecological collapse
- financial boom and bust
- patriarchy
- racism
- LGBTQ-phobia
- addiction
- global pandemic
- for profit healthcare
- affordable housing crisis
- inflation
- unlivable wages in the gig economy
- student debt

THE GAME:

- get on top
- let wealth generate passive profit
- let China make all the stuff with essentially salve labor
- borrow all the money from China
- don’t pay it back
- buy all the oil from the Middle East
- save ours for later
- let BIPOC and LGBTQ have live action role play (LARP) with MAGA whites on CNN and FOX while the rich get richer.
- exploit cheap (care) labor.
- build a wall.
- let the rest of the world become a desert
- duke it out with Russia in the end of time

In other words, LATE CAPITALISM.

So what (precisely is) late capitalism.

POWER, PRIVILEGE AND POLLUTION:

According to my interpretation of Fraser’s argument, late capitalism is at essence a LAND, CARE and NATURE guzzling LEVIATHAN.

Essentially one big MLM PYRAMID SCAM, with a (Vegas odds) stacked deck, and WHITE, upper class heterosexual men as the house, and everyone else (BIPOC, women and LGBTQ gambling with their lives e.g. TIME, ENERGY CREATIVITY and CARE, hoping to hit a jackpot, or at least a livable wage, a home, and some security in old age. But probably (in the literal/statistical sense of the word) won’t.

In the meantime the ENTIRE GLOBE dries, warms and BURNS. As all of the earths resources (including HUMAN) are CONSUMED and CONVERTED to WEATLH of a FEW.

Hens the addition CANNIBAL to CAPITALISM and the image or the OUROBOROS, the oft recycled archetypal image of the SANKE EATING IT OWN TAIL.

Fraser asserts, quite convincingly, that there is no reforming capitalism into a GREEN, SOCIALLY JUST, RACIALLY EQUITABLE, QUEER AFFIRMATIVE RAINBOW.

If you remove ecological, and human exploitation from the mix.

Than capitalism disappears.

NEW WORLD ORDER:

Fraser RESISTS the notion that capitalism is simply an ECONOMIC model.

Fraser reconceives capitalism as an institutionalized SOCIAL ORDER that includes: COLONIALISM, RACISM, SEXISM, HOMOPHOBIA, EXPLOITATION OF NATURE, MASS INCARCERATION, BOOM AND BUST and BIG MONEY BAILOUTS as non-economic conditions for a capitalist economy to exist.

THE FOUR HORSEMEN:

Fraser lists the 4 “non-economic preconditions of capitalism as follows:

CONDITION 1: COLONIALISM & RACISM

Fraser states that the first non-economic precondition for capitalism “is a large fund of wealth expropriated from subjugated peoples, especially from racialized peoples, consisting above all in land, natural resources, and dependent unwaged or under-waged labor. Effectively stolen, this wealth serves as an ongoing stream of free or cheap productive inputs for which capital pays little or nothing.”

Capitalism converts stolen LAND and stolen (or underwater) PEOPLE into PROFITS.

In other words: capitalism needs stolen/colonized land, and subjugated/enslaved or otherwise disempowered people (BIPOC and poor whites) for free or cheep labor.

CONDITION 2: SUBJUGATION OF WOMEN

Fraser states that the second non-economic precondition for capitalism “a sizeable fund of unwaged and labor devoted to social reproduction, labor that is mostly performed by women. This carework, which “makes” human beings, is indispensable to what the system calls production, which makes things in order to make profits.”

Capitalism GUZZLES care.

In other words: capitalism also needs caretakers (mostly women) to make babies, raise children, and take care of men… for free or for cheep if you hire “help”.

CONDITION 3: EXPLOITATION OF NATURE

Fraser states that capitalism needs “a large fund of free or very cheap inputs from nonhuman nature. These supply the indispensable material substratum of capitalist production: the raw materials that labor transforms; the energy that powers machines; the foodstuffs that power bodies; and a host of general environmental prerequisites such as arable land, breathable air, potable water, and the carbon-carrying capacities of the earth’s atmosphere.”

Capitalism CONSUMES nature.

In other words: capitalism also needs natural resources to exploit and consume.

CONDITION 4: JAILS AND BAILOUTS

Fraser states that capitalism needs “a large body of public goods supplied by states and other public powers. include legal orders, repressive forces, infrastructures, money supplies, and mechanisms for managing systemic crises.”

In other words: capitalism needs police and prisons, a military industrial complex, big banks and fat bailouts for when they tank.

Capitalism imprisons BIPOC and poor people, TAXES the FUCK out of the middle class, and BAILS OUT rich the white men at the TOP when the BUBBLES POP and the BANKS TANK.

Fraser asserts that by identifying these background conditions for capitalism, we arrive at a definition of Capitalism that is not simply an economic model , but a type of social order, with colonialism, exploitation of nature, racism, and subjugation of women at its foundation.

As such, Fraser further asserts that there is no way to reform capitalism to be green, socially just, and racially equitable. That’s like trying to reform a house by eliminating the possibility of having a floor, walls, doors and a roof. You take all that away, and you’re left with nothing but a FAT MORTGAGE AND PROPERTY TAXES.

THE SOLUTION:

Fraser is the first to admit, that there probably isn’t one. But if there was. Then it would probably look an awful lot like SOCIALISM.

But not your grandma’s SOCIALISM.

And hopefully not Hitter, Stalin or Mao’s either.

What Fraser is envisioning is something like the following.

Trans-socialism: is an intersectional mode of socialist politics, economy, sexuality, and ecology.

Eco-socialism: is an egalitarian economic, political, and social structure that aims to harmonize human society with non-human ecology and meet human needs. Eco-socialists believe that eco-socialism is the only sufficient solution to the current ecological crisis.

Global trans-ecological-socialism: is a smash up of the two.

Put simply.

We need:
- a socially just
- queer affirmative
- feminist
- antiracist
- sustainable
- definancialized
- anticapitalist social order
- with growth in tech, goods and services
- without passive wealth accumulation

And it HAS to be GLOBAL.

Or we’re ALL (or most of us) GOING TO DIE.

If any of this seems interesting.

I URGE you to give this one a go.

It’s not an easy read.

It’s got a post modernist academic, Marxist (dis-mat) queer theory (Frankfort school) linguistic flare. But it’s TOTALLY doable.

And TOTALLY worth it.

Good fun.

5/5 stars ⭐️

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was donated to Heirloom Books by David Schweickart, himself a political economist focused on matters of worker control socialism.

Deeply rooted in the Marxist traditions of social analysis, Fraser's 'Cannibal Capitalism' goes beyond Marx and Engels to consider the vital importance of non-economic factors in sustaining capitalism. These include such as the reproductive costs of labor, the environmental costs of treating nature as ownable and freely exploitable, and the expropriation of peoples at the margins of the capitalist core, in order words, colonialism and imperialism. Added to these considerations in her description of the historical evolution of capitalist social systems is the current centrality of debt and its extra-political, which is to say 'international', dimension.

While this book is very good in updating Marxist theory to include such contemporary concerns as race, gender and the environment, Fraser's writing style is rather dry and her points are repeated beyond necessity. Such a study could be fleshed out and made to seem more practicable in its prescriptions by the inclusion of some case studies of socialist alternatives.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this has increased my awareness of all the shit that goes on in this world and how it's all connected. I'm happy to have learned so much, but also immensely distressed because of it

[Debbie Notkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nancy Fraser's basic thesis is that thinking of capitalism as an economic system is true, but insufficient. This book is first an argument for broadening our understanding of capitalism to embrace not just worker/owner relations, but also systems of care (often called "social reproduction"), environmentalism and sustainability, and democracy as we know it. Once she sets out her framework, her thesis is that capitalism by its nature is destructive in all four domains, and cannot be otherwise -- and that to make real progress in any of these areas, we must see the problem whole, and address it as one problem.

She divides the history of capitalism into four periods, and in each of her domains, she lays out how and why capitalism is essentially bound to be a destructive force. She draws heavily on Marx and Engels, as well as more contemporary thinkers, and she has acerbically little patience with liberal or progressive band-aid solutions.

The book gave me a couple of real insights. I had a general understanding of her distinction between exploited workers, who can theoretically expect to be paid a living wage and receive some benefits from the system, and expropriated workers--everyone from care workers to colonialized people to prisoners--who are not even given cosmetic choices, and whose work and lives are the property of the owning class, but I didn't have such clear language. And I had never given thought to the invention of the steam engine as specifically a transfer of work from "animal muscle" (humans and farm/labor animals) to fossil power, and exactly how that changes not only what can be done, but who can be forced to do it.

I struggle with her inclusion of democracy in her four domains, because I want her to be wrong and I fear that she's right, that any true democracy cannot exist under capitalism because of the unequal distribution of power.

The book falls down at the end--the epilogue is too much of a recap of the book and has far too little analysis of what socialism could be if it were viewed through the same broad lens. And her brief addendum regarding COVID and the pandemic is the only part of the book that I thought was truly too one-sided and simplistic. Nonetheless, a really interesting way to think about the history and disastrous future of life under capitalism.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kirja, joka kaikkien yhteiskunnassa toimivien (ja elävien) kannattaisi lukea. asap.

[Ana Álvarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sin duda lo mejor que he leído en el año y, sospecho, lo mejor que leeré en mucho tiempo. La autora conjunta varias visiones críticas del capitalismo para lograr una relectura de éste. La claridad y forma de argumentar es lo que más me tiene pasmada. En cierto sentido este libro es toda una clase de epistemología: observa el objeto de estudio, ve cómo lo han observado los demás, lo repiensa través de las críticas y formula algo nuevo en el sentido de que logra conjugar varios puntos que, si bien no se han pensado excluyentes, no se toman en consideración cuando se privilegia cierta perspectiva. Hermoso.

[c · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting in theory, but very repetitive. Especially as someone who has some prior knowledge of capitalism and sustainable economic theory, most of this was not exactly new to me. I do think it confirms and puts into logical arguments what most of us know without knowing how to articulate it: that the present’s capitalist system is “devouring” us.
Nonetheless, Fraser repeats the same arguments time and time again, and I find I could summarise the book in about 2 pages and contain most of what was important in those pages.
Lastly, I was disappointed by her call for ending capitalism, without clearly pointing to an alternative. Sure, she explored socialism in one of her latest chapters, and she rightly pointed out that her musings (and other musings) at this stage are preliminary and need to be fleshed out. But because of that, I found the structure and ideas of the book somewhat redundant. I’d hoped for something that characterises more clearly what socialism should be - in detail, not in broad strokes, and not just what it shouldn’t be based on the concept of what (cannibal) capitalism is.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The central premise of this excellent new book is that capitalism is not an economic system, but a social system that exists by devouring “non-economic” resources such as the free human care provided mostly by women, wealth expropriated from racialised others, our much-cherished democracies, and of course nature.

It’s a great way of connecting the dots between different struggles such as environmentalism, racial justice, feminism, and the fight to preserve democracy. By cannibalising all of these things it depends on, capitalism is like an ouroboros—a snake eating its own tail. It’s a thought-provoking analysis, and I’d strongly recommend it!

[Iman · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars for the strength of the argument made about the background conditions of capitalism, and the analytical clarity in linking this to the classical marxian account of exploitation in capitalism, and super nice to then link this to future social changes that a new world must encompass that reside outside “merely” doing away with exploitation as traditionally understood, located within the economic (social) relations between actors.

but she does repeat herself over and over so it ends up being a bit frustrating the more you read it.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a hard-hitting, non-nonsense overview of how capitalism continues to ravage not only the lives of multiple millions of people, but also is a primary contributor to ecological plunder and global warming.
There is among many, Ms. Fraser says, “a growing awareness that the heterogeneous ills – financial, economic, ecological, political, social – that surround us can be traced to a common root; and that reforms that fail to engage with the deep structural underpinnings of these ills are doomed to fail.”
Her central thesis – captured in the title of this short book (only 165 pages) – is that unchecked or unregulated capitalism exploits everything. What I regard as the most important of her contributions is that capitalism is not “just an economic mechanism,” as it has become interwoven in every aspect of our lives: the way “the system” works – and it is a sprawling, complex system – is that it influences not just wages, benefits, and working conditions, but also family life, social interactions, and our political system. In keeping with her title image, it eats up everything in order to feed its bottomless insistence on expansion of wealth for the relative few. Like the classical cardinal sin of greed, its voraciousness knows no end.
In her book, she shows in detail both just how this system works and how it has evolved over time.
It is precisely because “the economy” has become so interwoven with all aspects of our lives – and, thereby, rendering its operations upon us effectively invisible – that we so often fail to “put the pieces together.”
Just to illustrate a few of the ways “the system” – and its various social and political enablers – act upon every aspect of our lives, consider:
 Despite the huge increase in wealth disparity between the 1% and “the rest of us” – not just in the US but around the world – real wages for the majority have largely stalled for the past 30 years in terms of purchasing power

 Since the “new economics” embraced by figures such as Reagan and Thatcher, government policies throughout most of the West have moved toward supporting the unrestricted operation of “the economy” while dropping the post-war focus on building and maintaining a solid and growing middle class

 The power of those outside the executive suits and boardrooms has been greatly diminished, in large measure because of the decades-long war being waged against unions by corporations and their well-funded, non-neutral “think tanks”
 All of this has disrupted family life as it has become much more difficult for one partner to earn enough to support a family, and this in turn has had important impacts on provisions for raising and educating children

 Corporate balance sheets do not properly measure or quantify the true cost of inputs and outputs, disguising for the rest of us the real “cost of doing business”; think of how so many industries “use” natural resources as being “cost-free” to themselves, even though they diminish the existence and availability of these same resources for the larger community! Even with a more recent type of “environmental consciousness,” it is questionable how much of the cost (damage) they inflict is somehow repaid to the larger community.
o In our daily lives we drive right by examples everywhere, and yet do not notice: plants located along rivers, for example, using their waters for their processes, yet paying minimal prices for both water extraction and the fouled waters they pump back into the rivers when they have served their purposes.
o Factories consuming vast amounts of electricity or other fuel sources and then pumping their effluents into our air, including vast amounts of global warming causing emissions.
o Some of the most damaging consequences can be seen in states that were once colonies of the West where their once largely sustaining economic structures were transformed in order to serve the needs of the industrial West.

 The cost of running for, and staying in, public office has allowed those with the greatest monetary resources the ability to control not just who runs for office in the first place, but also over the kinds of policies allowed to be considered after they are elected. This is why so many governments at all levels in the US have frustrated efforts to protect and improve their environmental systems, including the purity of land, water, and air.

Solutions?
In sum, a desperate need for a reawakened democratic policy that is designed to promote and protect all of us – including the only home we have in the universe. In one sense, this means regulated capitalism and not laissez-faire or hands-off “free market,” globalism fantasies. But the extent to which we must tackle “the system” in effect would bring about a significant transformation of our society in many ways.

In Ms. Fraser’s words:
“The struggle to resolve the present democratic crisis, like that crisis itself, cannot be limited to one sector of society, or one strand of the overall crisis. Far from concerning political institutions alone, it poses the most fundamental and general questions of social organization: Where will we draw the line delimiting economy from polity, society from nature, production from reproduction? How will we allocate our time among work and leisure, family life, politics, and civil society? How will we use the social surplus we collectively produce? And who exactly will decide these matters? Will the profit-makers manage to turn capitalism’s contradictions into new opportunities for the accumulation of private wealth? Will they co-opt important strands of rebellion, even as they reorganize social domination? Or will a mass revolt against capital finally be, as Walter Benjamin wrote, ‘the act by which the human race travelling in [this runaway] train applies the emergency brake’?”

[Macho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yet another "ADJECTIVE Capitalism" book, but finally one unabashedly calling for the end of capitalism as a system, instead of just calling to rein in some perceived recent excess or "perversion". Fraser goes beyond the classical labour vs. capital socialist dichotomy to focus on four other pillars that she says the system couldn't maintain itself without: (1) expropriation, which is a huge category that more or less covers various types of theft, generally from people of colour, including theft of indigenous lands, slave-like labour in the periphery and in the context of mass incarceration, etc., (2) unremunerated social reproduction work, largely done by women, (3) free riding on the environment to the grave detriment of ecosystems and the climate, and (4) the hollowing out of the political state/power and of democracy. In Fraser's telling, capitalism's reliance on these "non-economic" pillars is done unsustainably so that the pillars are being eaten away in a "Marxist contradiction"-type of way, although she remains fairly cagey about whether that means the edifice will collapse on itself. She closes by calling for an expanded view of socialism to mirror her expanded one of capitalism, but as best I could tell she essentially says the socialist should not lose sight of the need to take down each of those four pillars because they're unjust. I personally am a fan of grand metanarratives so it was refreshing to read a book with the ambitious goal of describing not just capitalism as an economic system, but as an even broader social system, and there's a lot to like about the analysis provided, although the one drawback is that inevitably there's a lot of key stuff that's just completely glossed over (e.g. what exactly do you envision by "democracy"?, to name one of many).

[Alba · Rating 4 out of 5]

no es un mal libro pero se hace muy muy muy repetitivo

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fraser provides a helpful resume of Marx's 'core features' of capital which she presents as:
1/ Private property in the means of production;
2/ A market in free labour (ie not enslaved)
3/ A systemic thrust in the form of the compulsion to accumulate capital
4/ The distinctive role of markets in allocating the inputs into commodity producti0n and also in determining how the social surplus will be invested.

She views the latter as its 'most perverse characteristic' in that it hands over crucial decisions about the development of society to ther expansion of monetrised value. But in putting it in this way she also challenges the idea that markets in and of themselves lead towards the total commodification of society. What is central to her argument is her insistence on the tendency within capitalism to create 'semi-proletarianised' arrangements which preserve non-capitalist features, though always requiring them to function as adjuncts to capitalist accumulation. The most striking example here is the form of the private household, which utilises labour and allocates inputs into its reproduction in ways which are not analogous to profit-seeking.

She counters the idea that the fate of all and everything under capitalism is to be transformed into a commodity, each occupying a space as allocated by the market. Capitalism cannot do this without undermining an essential condition of its own existence – namely the capacity to plunder other systems of life which have been constituted by non-market means. Semi-proletarianisation is not a transitional phase to full-prolerianisation but rather a reversion to a mode in which workers are unable to sustain themselves on the basis of a wage and come to subsist on a variety of strategies which involves some waged work supplemented by petty trading and gift-giving exchanges. This trend has been under-scored by neoliberalism which has an accumulation strategy based on “expelling billions of people from the official economy into informal grey zones, from which capital syphons off wealth.” Her crucial point is that “marketised aspects of capitalist society coexist with non-marketised aspects.” In fact capitalism would not be able to live without the sustinance it draws from its parasitic dependence on the non-market world - a relationship which she likens to cannibalism, and hence the title of the book.

This framing of the story of capitalism brings the concept of expropriation into full focus, taking its place alongside exploitation as a driving force of capital accumulation. As considered in Marx’s Capital in volume one, expropriation mainly features as a force that operated back at the dawn of the capitalist period in during the time of ‘primitive accumulation’. The destruction of common land during the time of enclosure and the eviction of peasant farmers formed the basis of this period, with colonial expansion and the annihilation of non-capitalist modes of production in order to create space for markets forming another element. Fraser joins Harvey and others who have approach the subject through the lens of geography to insist that expropriation is not a largely spent historical force but an ongoing process of active eternal reconstitution of capitalist society. It shows up particularly acutely in the relationship between capitalism and the natural world, with the plunder of resources across the biosphere, minerals, energy and climate. Without the effectively free lunches that the natural world provides to capitalist society in the form of land, energy, water, animal power, they system would not be able to function.

This means that we have to think of capitalism as something more than just a type of economy: rather as a society in fact. In her argument this becomes important because the instance on its economic character leads to error Lukasc made in seeing commodification reified to the point where it becomes the consciousness of the entire people. Fraser’s instance on the maintenance of non-economic-capitalist zones within capitalist society mean that other forms of consciousness exist besides those sustained by market relations. The existence of public space tends to support democratic aspirations, for example. The scientific understanding of the human relationship with the natural world allows ecology and green politics to get a hearing on the political spectrum. Even the violence of expropriation, or rather resistance to it, sustains consciousness of the human need for re-integration and equality.

For Fraser capitalist society isn’t so different from feudalism, in that both are made up of structured segments with each being governed by its own set of values and norms, but which become coherent through the exercise of hegemonic power. The boundaries between the structural zones are not fixed permanently and continuously tense under the stress of specific historical conjunctures – mercantile capitalism, liberal-imperial capitalism, state monopoly capitalism and financialised capitalism becoming “four historically specific ways of demarcating the various realms that comprise capitalism. But this is not to imply that the non-economic segments are totally subordinate to capital accumulation. “Each of these ‘hidden abodes’ harbours distinctive ontologies of social practice and normative ideals…” which give rise to ‘boundary struggles’ which play a constitutive role in shaping the structure of capitalist society.

Boundary struggles also generate deeper problems which go beyond deciding what type of capitalism capitalist society might be at any particular time. Fraser sees them as expressing the contradiction which exists between capitalist accumulation and the background conditions for its existence – “between production and reproduction, society and nature, economy and polity, exploitation and expropriation.”

“Their effect … is to incite a broad range of social struggles, narrowly defined, at the point of production, political power and expropriation [and] boundary struggles over ecology, social reproduction, political power and expropriation.”

From this perspective social struggles in any of these areas might acquire an anti-capitalist character if they have the effect of sealing off a particular segment from the deprivations of capital accumulation. Trade union struggles to fully compensate workers for the effect of inflation on their living standards; of Black and ethnic minority people to liberate the socialisation of their children into a subordinate place in society; of a green new deal to effect a socially just transition to zero carbon would all demonstrate this tendency to move beyond capitalism. But, just as capitalism owes its continued existence to it success to date in containing anti-capitalist logics in each of these sub-structures, so the success of a post-capitalist politics will depend not just on success in any one area, but in significant advance across all segments.

The theoretical shape of Fraser’s argument is set out in the opening essay in this collection, each of which has appeared before in leftist and academic journals. Following chapters illustrate its key points by considering concrete case studies with regard to the role racism plays in capitalist society, the crisis of social reproduction under capitalism and its struggle for emancipation from the logic of capital accumulation, and similar with regard to green/environmental politics and democracy itself. A book I would place alongside Mike Davis’s ‘Old Gods, New Enigmas’ as a deeper dive into the contradictions of late capitalism which returns the reader to Marx in order to go quite a few paces beyond him.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es un libro breve y directo. Hacia el final, quizás pierde un poco de la sustancia con la que explica las cosas al inicio, pero no me parece que sea importante para la comprensión del contenido.
El libro se resume en la analogía del uróboro: la identificación y el esfuerzo del capitalismo trascendiendo la categoría de sistema económico, reconociendo que alcanza y condiciona todas las esferas de la sociedad, la consume y, consecuentemente, termina poniendo en riesgo la propia existencia del capitalismo.
Al ser un libro reciente, se ven muchas actualizaciones respecto a las críticas al capitalismo (por ejemplo, la manera en la que se enfrentó la pandemia del COVID-19), y, sobre todo, sus alternativas. En todo el libro se asume la dificultad de la tarea de destronar al capitalismo, justamente por su alcance e implicancia en toda la vida, y desacelera bastante la nostalgia de un socialismo soviético, apuntando a nuevas soluciones para nuevos problemas. Aunque menciona puntos a tener en cuenta para un "socialismo del siglo 21", la aceptación de la complejidad de una alternativa, casi de la desesperanza, es muy refrescante.

[Jeroen Kuiper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fraser wants to expand the meaning of capitalism to include societal elements, and how it exploits and expropriates these. How it is racist, sexist, destroying the planet and democracy. These four views are each traced in four historical stages.

The best thing about this book is that it shows how capitalism relies on and exploits the non-economic like natural resources, human reproduction, systems of law and education, etc. It draws connections, finds 'hidden abodes', that's the reason to read this book.

But its overall thesis makes capitalism too generic: it's basically modern society and its history. And it lacks convincing examples (esp. non-US ones), which makes the historical traces seem formulaic. The proposed sketch at the end of its opposite, that should combat capitalism, (eco) socialism, is the weakest part of the book. Capitalism seems almost total here; how should socialism avoid the same issues and fight capitalism?

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...the pandemic is the point where all of cannibal capitalism’s contradictions converge: where cannibalization of nature and carework, of political capacity and peripheralized populations, merge in a lethal binge. A veritable orgy of capitalist dysfunction, COVID-19 establishes beyond all doubt the need to abolish this social system once and for all."

Nancy Fraser

[Roc Padró · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sempre pedagògica i amb ganes d'introduir categories i fer anàlisis útils, la Nancy Fraser és la teòrica marxista sobre les condicions de funcionament del capitalisme de la que més útil i aplicable em sembla l'enfocament. I aquest llibre, com a resum del què ja havia anat escrivint, m'ha semblat molt ben mesurat. Especialment amb la consolidació de la tensió imperialisme-racisme-expropiació que no tenia tant desenvolupat en fases anteriors.

[Sebastià Caldentey · Rating 2 out of 5]

No li recomanaria ni al meu pitjor enemic. Una idea repetida trenta vegades no és un llibre, és un pamflet. Dues estrelles perquè malgrat tot hi ha qualque cosa bona entre tanta palla.

[Michela nonostante · Rating 5 out of 5]

Per niente banale, una critica minuziosa e attualissima al sistema capitalista, con tanto di criticità e alternative.

[LaanSiBB]

Nothing new about back nuance stories of capital-social study, but using cannibalism as a metaphor is bit ahistorical to our ancestors who survived through eating each other (prion and gene), when the author is clearly living off exploitative mass agricultural system, that is excluded in the book but clearly is one of the underlying fundamentals on feminist, black, labour and migrant activism.

[Álvaro Mercado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un ensayo muy iluminador sobre las condiciones de posibilidad no económicas del capitalismo, de las que este depende y que a la vez depreda, amenazando su propia existencia: la expropiación, los cuidados, la naturaleza y las instituciones políticas. Fraser proporciona una nueva visión al problema de las crisis más cercana a los planteamientos de la teoría de la escisión del valor de Kurz y ve en ellas la posibilidad de, en primer lugar pensar una crítica al capitalismo adaptada al siglo XXI para, en segundo lugar, proponer una reflexión sobre los lugares que tal vez proporcionen una escapatoria al uróboro que no deja de comerse la cola, para "matar de hambre a la bestia y poner fin de una vez y para siempre al capitalismo caníbal". Únicamente le criticaría un excesivo tono moral al deseo de lucro de una clase, creo que es más acertado incidir en los aspectos estructurales e irracionales que en el juicio de valor donde tendríamos la batalla perdida antes de comenzar.

[Zita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Als ich das Buch gekauft habe, war ich voller Vorfreude, die leider zum größten Teil enttäuscht wurde.
Fraser verspricht, bisher übersehene Verhältnisse des Kapitalismus aufzudecken. Dass der Kapitalismus Natur, Sorgearbeit und den globalen Süden ausbeutet und enteignet, schien mir aber keine neue Erkenntnis. Spannend fand ich, wie sie das Verhältnis zwischen Kaptial und diesen 3 bereichen über die letzten 200 Jahre beschreint.
Insgesamt hätte ich mir mehr konkrete historische/empirische Beispiele gewünscht und dafür weniger Wiederholungen.
Für mich war das Buch leider nur okay.

[Emily Bradshaw]

Honestly understood so little of this book I don’t even know if I’m allowed to say I read it x I like the central metaphor though

[José Inés Castillo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Un ensayo cargado de ideología sin fundamento ni datos para encontrar soluciones. Realmente decepcionante, deje el libro después del primer capítulo.

[José Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fraser gives a great general perspective to understand how the current economic crisis that is occurring all over the world is not contingent but deeply embedded in the very essence of capitalism and is even sharper with its current form: financialized capitalism. Although long-time ignored and diagnosed only as a disease of "the corrupt third world," now, when the majority-ethnic middle-class citizens of richer countries are also feeling the mouth of this devouring beast getting closer and closer, everyone seems to be alarmed and are starting to look for answers... better late than never, I hope!

The book seeks to redefine what capitalism means in terms that are compatible with the 21st-century landscape. It claims that capitalism is kept very narrowly defined on purpose by its defenders in order to easily dodge criticism and avoid explaining why the theoretical model has such a mismatch with empirical evidence. Normally, capitalist advocates define it as an economic-only system that is part of a much bigger and dynamic macrosystem that includes politics, culture, social and geographical resources among others; hence, a liberal capitalist must only answer to the markets and navigate everything else, since other factors are only external.

According to Fraser, this view is not only flawed but perverse, since it encourages the privatization of all aspects of life (beyond the economic realm) while at the same time not being held accountable for the disorder and destruction that it creates in the "other realms". In these incomplete definitions, the resources that enable the self-perpetuating growth in which capital happen are taken for granted as if they came from an infinite supplier that cannot be disturbed. And here is where the cannibalization occurs: declaring ever expanding economic growth can only be achieved if one excludes all the losses that it also generates: expropriation of resources from underrepresented groups (at the national level) and less developed economies (at the international level), gender-biased division of labour where care and social reproduction are unpaid, militarized "law enforcement" and "anti-terrorism" to extort weaker political territories, racialised division of labour, treating nature as an unlimited supply of resources (before production starts) and a dumpster (after all possible wealth surplus was taken) without any responsibility for replenishment, and last but not least, the privatization of profit and socialization of debt and losses in times of crisis.

The text is direct, clear and (although sometimes overly repetitive) is an uncomplicated and transparent diagnostic of the current state of affairs. Sadly, as it usually happens with these classic left-wing theorists, the diagnosis is excellent but the recommended treatment is nothing but vague. Without entering a bigger and endless debate on politics, it is also not expected that someone can solve such a convoluted problem in less than 200 pages. This is a great book, and it delivers what the title announces: a diagnosis that pinpoints why capitalism is devouring itself and the whole planet and how a sharp change in worldview and ideology is mandatory to fix this mess. Proposing the usual patches within capitalism won't work. The solution calls for much bigger change, as capitalism by definition, provokes all these problems, far from just being a series of unfortunate and collateral coincidences, the problems are a structural result of our current global economical and political platform and they won't go away if there is no radical change that takes into account all these factors and especially all involved actors and stops focusing on the solutions that only work for the elites.

[Floris De Jongh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty good book of a thesis that could be called a unification project of capitalist problematics. What Fraser is essentially doing is unifying multiple sites of social struggle into one singular frame (gender oppression, structural racism, ecological exploitation and deterioration of politics). The cause of these social struggles according to Fraser? Capitalism, and its tendency to subject and feed on other domains of society to sustain itself. However as other social domains are fundamental to capitalism's working it could be said that capitalism is cutting off the branch it is sitting on.

In my honest opinion, the book is cutting some corners on ascribing structural causation to the address of capitalism. For instance, she claims that capitalism structurally causes racism because of core/periphery dynamics; the core is where workers are exploited for their labor but at least receive a pay for it and the periphery is where workers are expropriated from their property, assets and/or labor autonomy. Since the split between core and periphery is historically drawn between western and non-western countries, the split is drawn in between races. This claim might have held more merit during colonial times, however in todays society I just don't buy the applicability. Does capitalism still cause structural racism today? Is it just a source of resentment for people that feel their job security being jeopardized by "the outsider" and could that then be called racism? Do the workings of capitalism not inherently revolutionize the workforce and make everyone equally exploitable in spite of race?

The biggest problem I have with the book is that some claims made in the book are simply too strong. To me, it is much more likely that capitalism is not structurally responsible for racism but rather that racism is one aspect of social existence that capitalism is in negotiation with. Capitalism, in other words, does not cause racism but it shapes an already existing human tendency and gives it its social configuration within our neoliberal capitalist society. Capitalism is not just overly determining social life but is also itself influenced and shaped by social dynamics.