Michael’s Reviews > Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation > Status Update
Michael
is on page 84 of 285
the introduction of public assistance was a turning point in the state relation between workers and capital... It was the first recognition of the unsustainability of a capitalist system ruling exclusively by means of hunger and terror. It was also the first step in the reconstruction of the state as the guarantor of the class relation and as the chief supervisor of the reproduction and disciplining of the workforce.
— Apr 04, 2026 11:57AM
1 like · Like flag
Michael’s Previous Updates
Michael
is on page 84 of 285
Even the individual's relationship with God was privatized: in Protestant areas with the institution of a direct relationship [with God]; in the Catholic areas by individual confession. As a result, the physical enclosures [were] amplified by social enclosure, the reproduction of workers shifting from the openfield to the home, from the community to the family, from the public space (commons & church) to the private.
— Apr 03, 2026 08:42AM
Michael
is on page 83 of 285
"That in the industrializing regions of Europe, by the 19 c., the most extreme forms of proletarian misery and rebellion had disappeared is not a proof against this claim. Proletarian misery and rebellions ... only lessened to the degree that the super-exploitation of workers had been exported, through the institutionalization of slavery, at first, and later through the continuing expansion of colonial domination."
— Apr 03, 2026 08:30AM
Michael
is on page 82 of 285
"Today, these aspects of the transition to capitalism may seem (for Europe at least) things of the past... But the... new phase of globalization that we are witnessing tells us otherwise. Pauperization, rebellion, and the escalation of "crime" are structural elements of capitalist accumulation as capitalism must strip the work-force from its means of reproductions to impose its own rule."
— Apr 03, 2026 08:27AM
Michael
is on page 82 of 285
"In the middle ages, migration, vagabondage, and the rise of "crimes against property" were part of the resistance to impoverishment and dispossession...Meanwhile, the crime rates also escalated, in such proportions that we can assume that a massive reclamation and reappropriation of the stolen communal wealth was underway. "
— Apr 03, 2026 08:26AM
Michael
is on page 76 of 285
Federici has identified the advent of inflation (!!) in its contemporary form originating from the separation of workers from their means of subsistence, and the prominence of wage labour - supplanting subsistence agricultural labour from land privatization (enclosures) - forcing women into an unwaged "sector" of household reproductive labour, upon which the entire system of capitalist production depends. Monumental!
— Mar 20, 2026 01:39PM
Michael
is on page 75 of 285
"The separation of workers trom their means of subsistence and their new dependence on monetary relations also meant that the real wage could now be cut and women's labor could be further devalued with respect to men's through monetary manipulation. It is not a coincidence then, that as soon as land began to be privatized, the prices of foodstuffs, which for two centuries had stagnated, began to rise."
— Mar 20, 2026 01:28PM
Michael
is on page 75 of 285
"But the economic importance of the reproduction of labor-power carried out in the home, and its function in the accumulation of capital became invisible, being mystified as a natural vocation and labelled "women's labor." In addition, women were excluded from many waged occupations and, when they worked for a wage, they earned a pittance compared to the average male wage."
— Mar 20, 2026 01:26PM
Michael
is on page 75 of 285
"In the new monetary regime, only production-for-market was defined as a value-creating activity, whereas the reproduction of the worker began to be considered as valueless from an economic viewpoint and even ceased to be considered as work. Reproductive work continued to be paid - though at the lowest rates - when performed for the master class or outside the home..."
— Mar 20, 2026 01:24PM
Michael
is on page 74 of 285
"With the demise of the subsistence economy that had prevailed in pre-capitalist Europe. the unıty ot production and reproduction which has been typical of all societies based on production-for-use came to an end, as these activities became the carriers of dif ferent social relations and were sexually differentiated. In the new monetary regime, only... "
— Mar 20, 2026 01:20PM
Michael
is on page 80 of 285
"That the transition to capitalism inaugurated along period of starvation for worts ers in Europe which plausibly ended because of the economic expansion produced by colonization - is also demonstrated by the fact that, while in the 14th and 15th cen- turies, the proletarian struggle had centered around the demand for "liberty" and less work, by the 16th and 17t, it was mostly spurred by hunger... "
— Mar 20, 2026 05:27AM
