Radical Feminist Social Reproduction Theory

Radical feminism has always emphasized the key role of social reproduction in the development of capitalism. Early analyses of social reproduction were primarily based on domestic labor, though they also touched on a small amount of unpaid labor in a broader sense. These views held that the process of value creation was only related to the sphere of production, and treated "productive" labor and "paid" labor as synonyms. In contrast, some recent research approaches treat social reproduction as a "theory"; this Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) uses the concept of social reproduction to focus on how labor power is reproduced daily and intergenerationally through private and public institutions under contemporary capitalism. These recent studies seem to focus on analyzing the circuit of care that reproduces workers, circuits that are both connected to and distinct from the circuits of capital and value creation. At the same time, these studies strive to avoid the "dualism" that treats patriarchy and capitalism as separate systems.

激进女性主义始终强调社会再生产在资本主义发展中的关键作用。早期的社会再生产分析主要基于家务劳动，不过也涉及少量的更广义的无偿劳动。这些观点认为，价值生成过程仅与生产领域相关，并将“生产性”（productive）劳动与“有偿”（paid）劳动视为同义词。相反，近期的一些研究方法则将社会再生产视作一种“理论”，这种社会再生产理论（Social Reproduction Theory，SRT）运用社会再生产概念去关注当代资本主义背景下劳动力如何通过私人和公共机构进行日常再生产和代际再生产。这些近期研究似乎关注的是如何分析能够再生产劳动者的照护循环（the circuit of care），这些循环与资本和价值生成的循环既有联系又有区别。与此同时，这些研究也在尽力避免将父权制与资本主义视为各自独立的制度的“二元论”。

The analysis below will begin by reviewing past and present discussions on social reproduction, focusing on the rise and expansion of informal labour and informalised labour, and argues that only by interpreting the sphere and activities of social reproduction as value production can we deepen our understanding of contemporary capitalist labor relations. In fact, the sphere and activities of reproduction not only play a key role in shaping labor relations but also play an important role in the extraction of surplus value, a point that is even more evident in developing countries or regions—that is, the "majority world." Specifically, this article argues that the sphere and activities of social reproduction contribute to the process of value creation through three channels: first, by directly strengthening labor control, which increases the rate of exploitation; second, by absorbing the systematic externalization of reproduction costs by capital, which acts as a de facto subsidy to capital; third, through the process of the formal subsumption of labor to capital, which remains widespread in the majority world. In short, in discussions of the relationship between social reproduction and value creation, excluding informal labour and informalised labour will inevitably lead to a "dualistic" misinterpretation of the development of capitalism. I will conclude by pointing out that emphasizing the value-producing nature of unpaid labor has political implications for an inclusive politics (and theory), a politics (and theory) that can reflect the main characteristics of the contemporary world of labor, with the goal of building mutual support between production struggles and reproduction struggles.

下文的分析将从回顾过去和现在关于社会再生产的讨论开始，着眼于非正规劳动（informal labour）和非正式劳动（informalised labour）的兴起与扩大，并认为只有将社会再生产领域和社会再生产活动解释为价值生产，才能深化我们对当代资本主义劳动关系的理解。事实上，再生产领域和再生产活动不仅在形塑劳动关系的过程中扮演着关键角色，也在榨取剩余价值的过程中发挥着重要作用，这一点在发展中国家或地区——即“多数世界”（the majority world）——表现得更为明显。具体来说，本文认为，社会再生产领域和再生产活动通过三种渠道对价值生成过程作出了贡献：第一，通过直接加强劳动控制，这种劳动控制提高了剥削率；第二，通过吸收资本系统性地将再生产成本外部化，这种外部化成为对资本的一种事实上的补贴；第三，通过在多数世界仍然普遍存在的劳动对资本的形式从属（formal subsumption）过程。总之，在关于社会再生产与价值创造之间的关系的讨论中，如果把非正规劳动和非正式劳动排除在外，将不可避免地导致对资本主义发展的理解出现“二元论”的误读。我将在结论中指出，强调无偿劳动的价值生产特性对于包容性政治（和理论）具有政治意义，这种政治（和理论）能够体现当代劳动世界的主要特征，其目标是构建生产斗争与再生产斗争之间的相互支持。

I. Social Reproduction: Early Discussions and Recent Discussions

一、社会再生产：早期讨论与近期讨论

The recently published collection *Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression*, edited by Tithi Bhattacharya, has reignited discussions on social reproduction and its role and (re)configuration under capitalism. This collection makes contributions in the following areas. First, it proposes to examine social oppression through a Marxist class theory, in which social oppression is not merely an epiphenomenon but should be seen as a co-constitutive element in the process of class formation. Second, it aims to elucidate the reconfiguration and commodification of social reproduction in the neoliberal phase of capitalism. Nancy Fraser stands out in this regard; her article re-outlines the entire history of capitalism according to different regimes of social reproduction and analyzes the current neoliberal phase. At the same time, Susan Ferguson's article on children greatly contributes to our understanding of neoliberal "socialization." Third, it seeks to "reconcile" Marxist and feminist analyses of capitalism within the context of a "unitary theory" of capitalism. The agenda of this theoretical project is certainly valuable, and it successfully demonstrates the key role of social reproduction in contemporary capitalism. However, some of its arguments are overly hostile to other intellectual and political concerns, such as David McNally's rather selective critique of intersectionality theory, or overly hostile to early analyses of social reproduction, which are the main subject of this article. Specifically, early analyses of social reproduction explained the role of the sphere and activities of reproduction in constructing capitalism and creating value through the production of the "unique" commodity (labor power), but some Social Reproduction Theory studies fail to fully recognize these significant contributions. In fact, one could say that packaging social reproduction as a "theory," rightly or wrongly, may be seen as an attempt to reincorporate earlier analyses into a broader (Marxist) research framework.

最近出版的由蒂提·巴塔查里亚（Tithi Bhattacharya）主编的文集《社会再生产理论：重绘阶级，重思压迫》重新引发了关于社会再生产及其在资本主义下的作用和（重新）配置的讨论。该文集在如下几个方面作出了贡献。第一，它提出以马克思主义的阶级理论来审视社会压迫，在这一理论看来，社会压迫不仅仅是一种副现象，更应被视为阶级形成过程中的一种共同构成要素。第二，它旨在阐明社会再生产在资本主义的新自由主义阶段的重新配置和商品化过程。南希·弗雷泽（Nancy Fraser）在这方面独树一帜，她的文章根据不同的社会再生产制度重新勾勒出整个资本主义的历史，并对当前的新自由主义阶段进行了分析。与此同时，苏珊·弗格森（Susan Ferguson）讨论儿童问题的文章也极大地促进了我们对新自由主义“社会化”的理解。第三，它希望在资本主义“一元论”（unitary theory）的背景下“调和”马克思主义与女性主义对资本主义的分析。这一理论方案的议题当然是有价值的，它成功地论证了社会再生产在当代资本主义中所扮演的关键角色，但其中的一些论述过于敌视其他兼具知识与政治关切的理论，例如大卫·麦克纳利（David McNally）对交叉性理论所进行的颇具选择性的批评，或者过于敌视对社会再生产的早期分析，而后者是本文讨论的主要对象。具体而言，早期的社会再生产分析阐释了再生产领域和再生产活动在构建资本主义以及通过生产“独特的”商品（劳动力）来创造价值方面所发挥的作用，但是一些社会再生产理论研究却未能充分认识到这些重大贡献。事实上，我们可以说，将社会再生产包装成一种“理论”，无论对错，都可能被视为试图将早期的分析重新纳入更广泛的（马克思主义）研究范围。

Undoubtedly, one of the most controversial points of divergence in discussions of social reproduction, whether early or recent, is whether social reproduction plays a role in the process of value creation. Within Marxist debates, this is by no means a minor issue. In fact, if for some the greatness of early radical feminist analyses of social reproduction lies in their subversive approach to the constitution of value, for others this is precisely the limitation of early feminism. The analysis below aims to emphasize the solid theoretical foundation of early discussions on social reproduction and their view of value. At the same time, it also aims to clarify why we cannot easily dismiss these early analyses and claims, but instead must focus on informal labour and informalised labour in the contemporary world, shifting attention from the "West" to "other regions" (i.e., the majority world, where most people work). In short, as long as we break free from Western-centric analytical paradigms and study the actual characteristics of labor relations for the majority of people globally, we will recognize the role of social reproduction in the extraction of surplus labor and the process of value creation. Simply put, from the perspective of the lives of most people in the world, social reproduction does create value, and it creates value in the Marxist sense.

毫无疑问，在关于社会再生产问题的讨论中，无论是早期讨论还是近期讨论，最具争议的分歧之一就是：社会再生产是否在价值生成过程中发挥了作用？在马克思主义内部的讨论中，这绝非一个小问题。事实上，如果对某些人来说，早期激进女性主义的社会再生产分析的伟大之处在于其对价值构成的颠覆性研究方法，那么对另一些人来说，这正是早期女性主义的局限所在。下文的分析旨在强调有关早期社会再生产的讨论的坚实理论基础及其对价值的看法。同时，它还旨在阐明为什么我们不能轻易地否定这些早期的分析和主张，而是要聚焦当代世界的非正规劳动和非正式劳动，并将关注点从“西方”转移到“其他地区”（即大部分人都在从事劳动的多数世界）。事实上，只要我们摆脱以西方为中心的分析范式，研究全球大多数人实际存在的劳动关系特征，就会认识到社会再生产在剩余劳动榨取和价值生成过程中所发挥的作用。简而言之，从世界上大多数人的生活角度来看，社会再生产确实创造了价值，而且是在马克思主义的意义上创造了价值。

II. The (Important) Value of Social Reproduction: Early Discussions

二、社会再生产的（重要）价值：早期讨论

Undoubtedly, on the issue of the relationship between paid and unpaid labor, discussions of social reproduction first originated with Selma James and Maria Rosa Dalla Costa's 1972 book *The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community*. This is a political pamphlet primarily focused on domestic labor, but in a broader sense, it concerns unpaid labor. It was the first to emphasize how capitalism first depends on the—biological and social—production and reproduction process of workers and the commodity of labor power, processes that mostly occur outside the so-called traditional spheres of production and value creation. Although this pamphlet did not delve deeply into how social reproduction generates value, after its publication, some radical feminist scholars attempted to add the necessary theoretical depth to it.

毫无疑问，在有偿劳动与无偿劳动的关系的问题上，对社会再生产的讨论首先起源于塞尔玛·詹姆斯（Selma James）和玛丽亚·科斯塔（Maria Rosa Dalla Costa）于1972年出版的《女性的力量与共同体的颠覆》一书。这是一本主要聚焦家务劳动的政治小册子，但从更广泛的意义上讲，它关注的是无偿劳动。它第一次强调了资本主义如何首先依赖工人和劳动力商品的——生物的和社会的——生产和再生产过程，而这些过程大多发生在生产和价值生成的所谓传统领域之外。虽然这本小册子并未深入分析社会再生产如何产生价值，但在它出版之后，一些激进的女性主义学者试图增加其应有的理论深度。

Leopoldina Fortunati not only focuses on domestic labour but also on sex work; she explores how reproductive work is in fact socially constructed as a domain of “non-value” within the productivist model, thereby being excluded from the Marxist understanding of value generation. She argues that the devaluation of social reproduction should be regarded as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Silvia Federici’s feminist analysis of primitive accumulation is also constructed around a similar theoretical scheme, treating primitive accumulation as a brutal gendered process involving the dispossession, degradation, and domestication of women, as well as the savage mutilation of women’s bodies through witchcraft accusations and trials. In the book *Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation*, Federici points out how capitalism is first built upon the dispossession of empires and colonies, and then upon the exploitation and exclusion of certain populations, preventing them from creating (or appropriating) value. Her feminist theory of primitive accumulation elaborates how all these events predate the more widely known process of enclosure, which is commonly regarded as a characteristic feature of early capitalism. Similarly, Federici’s scheme aims to overturn more traditional analyses of value by presenting the complex (and bloody) politics and history that delineate the social boundaries of value, extending far beyond the transformation of the sphere of production. The entire body of work of the German feminist sociologist Maria Mies begins with the analysis in her 1982 book *The Lace Makers of Narsapur: Indian Housewives for the World Market*, which depicts the state of Andhra Pradesh in India and likewise aims to refute the myth that value is generated only within the sphere of production. In fact, Mies’s analysis of domestic labour challenges theories that completely separate the sphere of production from the sphere of reproduction, and points out how the process of housewifisation systematically obscures the source of value, both concealing women’s productive contributions to the market and devaluing these contributions as non-value production. In the book *Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour*, Mies further expands these insights. Like Federici, Mies elaborates in depth on the connections between patriarchy, capitalism, and imperialism, and analyses the changing process of housewifisation in the global economy. Rhoda Reddock’s research points out that the impact of housewifisation on female slaves and indentured labourers was distinctly different. For female slaves, housewifisation was primarily aimed at controlling the increased costs of slaves and plantation labourers due to death or sexually transmitted diseases. Angela Y. Davis also addresses this point in her book *Women, Race, and Class*, with particular reference to Black female slaves in the United States.

莱奥波尔迪娜·福尔图纳蒂（Leopoldina Fortunati）不仅关注家务劳动，而且关注性工作，她探讨了再生产工作如何在事实上被社会建构为生产主义模式中的“非价值”领域，从而被排除在马克思主义关于价值生成的理解之外。她认为，社会再生产的非价值化应该被视为一种自证预言（self-fulfilling prophecy）。西尔维娅·费德里西（Silvia Federici）对原始积累的女性主义分析也是围绕着类似的理论方案构建的，它将原始积累视为一种残酷的性别化过程，涉及对女性的剥夺、贬低和驯化，以及通过巫术指控和审判对女性身体的野蛮摧残。在《凯列班与女巫：妇女、身体与原始积累》一书中，费德里西指出了资本主义如何首先建立在帝国和殖民地的剥夺之上，进而建立在对某些人群的剥削和排斥之上，使他们无法创造（或占有）价值。她关于原始积累的女性主义理论阐述了所有这些事件如何早于通常被视为资本主义初期特征的圈地运动这一更广为人知的进程。同样，费德里西的方案旨在通过呈现复杂（和血腥）的政治和历史来颠覆更为传统的价值分析，而这种政治和历史划定了价值的社会边界，已经远远超出了生产领域的变革。德国女性主义社会学家玛丽亚·米斯（Maria Mies）的全部研究则始于1982年描写印度安得拉邦的《纳尔萨普尔的刺绣工人：为世界市场生产的印度家庭主妇们》一书的分析，其目的同样在于驳斥价值只产生于生产领域内部的神话。事实上，米斯对家务劳动的分析挑战了将生产领域与再生产领域完全分离开来的理论，并指出了家庭主妇化（housewifisation）过程如何系统地模糊了价值的来源，既遮蔽了女性对市场的生产性贡献，又将这些贡献贬低为非价值生产。在《父权制与世界范围内的积累：国际劳动分工下的妇女》一书中，米斯进一步拓展了这些见解。与费德里西一样，米斯深入阐述了父权制及资本主义与帝国主义之间的联系，并分析了全球经济中家庭主妇化的变迁过程。罗达·雷多克（Rhoda Reddock）的研究则指出，家庭主妇化对女性奴隶与契约劳工的影响是截然不同的。对女奴来说，家庭主妇化主要是为了控制奴隶和种植园劳工因死亡或性传播疾病而增加的成本。安吉拉·戴维斯（Angela Y.Davis）在《女性、种族和阶级》一书中也论及了这一点，并特别提到了美国的黑人女奴。

Antonella Picchio, a Marxist feminist economist little known internationally, reaches similar conclusions regarding the exclusion of social reproduction activities from the source of value. In fact, through a compelling study of the way classical political economy (including Adam Smith and David Ricardo) discusses the cost of labour, Picchio emphasises that excluding reproduction activities from the calculation of value is not only a political issue but also a problem of how the value of labour is discussed across the entire classical political economy literature; that is, treating the value of labour as an exogenous parameter, determined by the overall reproduction of a given society at a specific point in time. This practice of treating the value of labour as an exogenous factor leads to an inaccurate conflation of the value of labour with the cost of labour (i.e., wages), rather than treating the value of labour as an endogenous factor within the capitalist system. Furthermore, whether one has wage income has always been regarded primarily as a political issue, but it is in fact a legal issue, as Picchio points out in her discussion of the English Poor Laws [1]1 The English Poor Laws were a series of laws governing the relief of poverty in England, notably the 1601 Elizabethan Poor Law and the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, which established a system of parish-based relief and workhouses, and distinguished between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor, often along gendered lines. and their legal and gendered distinction between the able-bodied (male) and the unable-bodied.

安东内拉·皮基奥（Antonella Picchio）是一位在国际上鲜为人知的马克思主义的女性主义经济学家，她就社会再生产活动被排除在价值来源之外得出了类似的结论。事实上，通过对古典政治经济学（包括亚当·斯密和大卫·李嘉图）探讨劳动成本的方式进行令人信服的研究，皮基奥强调指出，将再生产活动排除在价值计算之外不仅是一个政治问题，而且还是一个如何根据整个古典政治经济学文献来探讨劳动价值的问题；即把劳动价值作为一个外生参数，它由特定社会在特定时间点的总体再生产决定。这种将劳动价值作为外生因素的做法，导致了将劳动价值与劳动成本（即工资）不准确地混为一谈，而不是将劳动价值视为资本主义制度的内生因素。此外，是否拥有工资收入一直被认为主要是一个政治问题，但它事实上是一个法律问题，正如皮基奥在谈到英国的《济贫法》及其对有劳动能力者（男性）与无劳动能力者的法律和性别区分时所指出的那样。

Undoubtedly, it is the reification and fetishism of wages as the value of labour rather than the cost of labour that provides the premise for understanding value generation in a productivist manner. Clearly, productivist Marxism does not treat wages as the “true” value of labour power, because it must take the rate of exploitation into account. However, its goal is to resolve the problem of the value of the commodity labour power within the same model—that is, using labour power as the standard for measuring the value of all other commodities. In fact, this is the main problem with productivist analysis. It seeks to extend the scope of the labour theory of value beyond the sphere of commodity production. Specifically, it attempts to apply this theory to evaluate the value of the commodity labour power, which serves as the measure of value. This leads to a paradox: although the special commodity labour power is recognised as a special commodity by social reproduction theory, when it comes to its value, it seems to be reduced to the same treatment as other “vulgar” commodities.

毫无疑问，正是作为劳动价值而非劳动成本的工资的物化和拜物教，为以生产主义的方式理解价值生成提供了前提。显然，生产主义的马克思主义并没有将工资视为劳动力的“真正”价值，因为它必须考虑剥削率。然而，其目标是在同一模式——即把劳动力作为衡量其他所有商品价值的标准——中解决劳动力商品的价值问题。事实上，这就是生产主义的分析的主要问题所在。它想把劳动价值论的范围扩大到商品生产的范围之外。具体而言，它试图运用这一理论来评估作为价值衡量标准的劳动力商品的价值。这就导致了一个悖论：虽然特殊的劳动力商品被社会再生产理论认可为特殊商品，但当涉及其价值时，它似乎沦为与其他“庸俗”的商品一样的待遇。

In the analysis of capitalism, is the labour theory of value at the core of Marxist theory? This is a question worth exploring. For example, David Harvey has recently attempted to find a consistent theory of value in Marx; in other words, whether the original Marxist analysis aimed to demonstrate the limitations of Ricardo’s understanding of value. As another feminist economist, Diane Elson, incisively pointed out, what one finds in Marx is not only a labour theory of value but also a value theory of labour. However, I believe we do not need to raise more complex ontological questions about labour in order to prove that social reproduction can generate value. We only need to point out that this issue lies entirely outside the scope of the labour theory of value. Furthermore, as social reproduction theory acknowledges (consistent with the views of the early feminist scholars on social reproduction analysed above), Marx rarely addressed the circulation of the most special commodity—productive labour power—under capitalist conditions.

在关于资本主义的分析中，劳动价值论是否处于马克思主义理论的核心位置?这是一个值得探讨的问题。例如，大卫·哈维（David Harvey）最近试图在马克思那里找到一个一以贯之的价值理论，换言之，最初的马克思主义分析是否旨在表明李嘉图对价值的理解的局限性。正如另一位女性主义经济学家黛安娜·埃尔森（Diane Elson）精辟地指出的，人们在马克思那里发现的不仅仅是价值的劳动理论，还有劳动的价值理论。然而，我认为我们不必为了证明社会再生产可以产生价值而对劳动价值提出更复杂的本体论问题。我们只需指出，这个问题完全超出了劳动价值论的范围。此外，正如社会再生产理论所承认的那样（与上文分析的早期女性主义学者关于社会再生产的观点一致），马克思很少涉及资本主义条件下生产工人这种最特殊的商品的循环。

One way to resolve this theoretical problem is to expand the labour theory of value to include how capitalism produces the worker. This seems to be the choice of many scholars studying social reproduction theory, who emphasise the importance of distinguishing between use-value and exchange-value when differentiating “labour” (regarded as use-value) from “labour” (regarded as exchange-value). This view belongs to a Marxist interpretation that tends to treat all activities capable of reproducing “labour power” as related to use-value, and therefore as activities that do not generate value, while treating all activities related to “labour” as activities that produce value. The Marxist scholar Paul Smith adopts this research path, and some of his analyses also rely on this view. Smith denies that domestic labour can generate value based on the distinction between use-value and exchange-value, and deduces from this binary opposition that reproductive labour can never become social labour. However, this view seems merely tautological; it does not prove that social reproduction does not generate value, but rather takes it as an assumption of the argument.

解决这一理论问题的一种方法是拓展劳动价值论，将资本主义如何生产工人也包括在内。这似乎是许多研究社会再生产理论的学者的选择，他们在区分“劳动”（被视为使用价值）与“劳动”（被视为交换价值）时强调区分使用价值与交换价值的重要性。这种观点属于马克思主义解释，它倾向于将所有能够再生产“劳动力”的活动都视为与使用价值有关，因而是不产生价值的活动，而将所有与“劳动力”有关的活动都视为生产价值的活动。马克思主义学者保罗·史密斯（Paul Smith）就采取了这一研究路径，他的一些分析也依赖于这种观点。史密斯基于使用价值与交换价值的区别否定了家务劳动能产生价值，并从这种二元对立中推导出再生产劳动永远无法成为社会劳动。然而，这种观点似乎只是同义反复，它并没有证明社会再生产不产生价值，而只是将其当成了论证的假设前提。

III. From the West to the “Other” Regions

三、从西方到“其他”地区

Geography has always been important to how we explore the world and explain the logic of its operation. Early feminist scholars concerned with social reproduction—most of whom worked or studied in countries where unpaid labor was prevalent (and not limited to narrowly defined domestic labor)—were keen to emphasize the value-producing character of social reproduction. For example, the research of Italian scholars such as Costa, Fortunati, and Picchio may have been influenced not only by the widespread unpaid domestic labor of women in Italy (and elsewhere), but also by the prevalence of unpaid and informal labor in Italy’s overall development. Federici’s thought was clearly shaped by observations of the working conditions of women and men in former colonies during the Fordist and post-Fordist periods. And Mies, who studied India throughout her life, clearly found her observations of household work and housewifization in Narsapur crucial to the development of her entire research program.

地理学对于我们探索世界和解释世界运行逻辑的方式始终很重要。早期关注社会再生产问题的女性主义学者——大都在盛行无偿劳动（并且不局限于狭义的家务劳动）的国家工作或学习——热衷于强调社会再生产的价值生产特性。例如，科斯塔、福尔图纳蒂和皮基奥等意大利学者的研究不仅可能受到了意大利（和其他地区）大量存在的女性无偿家务劳动的影响，还可能受到了意大利整体发展中普遍存在的无偿劳动和非正规劳动的影响。费德里西的思想显然受到了对福特主义和后福特主义时期前殖民地女性和男性工作条件的观察的影响。而米斯终其一生都在研究印度，她对纳尔萨普尔的家庭工作和家庭主妇化的观察，显然对她整个研究工作的发展都至关重要。

In contrast, scholars within the field of social reproduction theory typically focus on Europe and North America. In practice, they focus on the capitalist institutional construction of care regimes and their transformation during the neoliberal phase, which is closely tied to the development trajectories of these regions. However, the development of these regions cannot represent the development of the world economy as a whole. Moreover, social reproduction and care are not synonyms; this imprecision has become a feature of certain liberal feminist economic analyses. Social reproduction theory also acknowledges that the term social reproduction has a far broader meaning than the concept of care, encompassing simultaneously the reproduction of life and the reproduction of capitalist relations, that is, the reproduction of labourers and the reproduction of labour power. Yet, within the camp of social reproduction theory, there are not many scholars who focus on labor relations, labor practices, or labor processes. In fact, social reproduction theory seems to focus primarily on what Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner define as “societal reproduction,” thereby shifting the analytical perspective toward a more classical Marxist concept of reproduction, namely the propagation of capitalist inequality. While this is indeed a worthy field of study, it risks narrowing the scope of the discussion on social reproduction. Furthermore, if we focus primarily on institutional issues, it becomes difficult to grasp concerns about the nature and boundaries of value, because in Marxist analysis, the source of value is labor. Arguably, once we shift our attention from care regimes (or more narrowly defined social reproduction) to the dominant labor relations in contemporary capitalism, and move our geographical focus from the “West” to “other regions,” that is, to how the majority of the world’s population toils, then we cannot easily dismiss the subversive radical claims of early feminist social reproduction theorists.

相比之下，社会再生产理论研究领域内部的学者们通常关注欧洲和北美地区。实际上，他们重点关注照护机构的资本主义制度建构及其在新自由主义阶段的转型，这与这些地区的发展轨迹密切相关。然而，这些地区的发展并不能代表整个世界经济的发展。此外，社会再生产与照护并非同义词，这种不准确性已经成为某些自由主义的女性主义经济学分析的特征。社会再生产理论也承认，社会再生产一词的含义远比照护概念广泛得多，它同时包含了生命的再生产与资本主义关系的再生产，即劳动者（labourers）的再生产与劳动力（labour power）的再生产。然而，在社会再生产理论阵营中，关注劳动关系、劳动实践或劳动过程的学者并不多。事实上，社会再生产理论似乎主要关注芭芭拉·拉斯莱特（Barbara Lasslett）和约翰娜·布伦纳（Johanna Brenner）所界定的“社会性再生产”（societal reproduction），因此将分析的视角转向了更经典的马克思主义再生产概念，即资本主义不平等的传播。虽然这确实是一个值得研究的领域，但它有可能窄化了关于社会再生产的讨论的范围。此外，如果我们主要关注制度问题，就很难理解对价值的性质和边界的关切，因为在马克思主义的分析中，价值的来源是劳动。可以说，一旦我们将注意力从照护制度（或者更狭义的社会再生产）转向当代资本主义中占主导地位的劳动关系，并且把我们的地理聚焦点从“西方”转移到“其他地区”，也就是说，着眼于多数世界的人口如何辛勤劳作，那么我们就不能轻易否定早期女性主义的社会再生产理论家的颠覆性激进主张。

The majority of people in this world are engaged in informal economic activities or bound by informal labor relations. According to International Labour Organization data, in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, the Arab States, and the Americas, 85.8%, 71.4%, 68.6%, and 53.8% of total employed persons, respectively, are engaged in informal labor (in the informal economy) or informal work (in the formal economy, but effectively based on informal relations). The estimated share of informal employment in the total employed population across all emerging and developing economies is 69.6%. Given that this economic bloc accounts for a significant portion of the global total labor force, even globally, 61.2% of total employed persons are classified as informal or non-standard labor. Temporary workers and the self-employed are included in this vast world of informal and non-standard employment, also referred to as the “working class”; they may be highly vulnerable petty commodity producers or various disguised wage laborers. Once upon a time, informality was mistakenly seen as a primary feature of the “backward” and “traditional” socio-economic structures within developing regions, but in the neoliberal global era, informality is not only growing exponentially but has also found new channels of dissemination. With the rise of the gig economy, crowdwork, and the so-called “precariat,” these channels continue to systematically reproduce a labor force characterized by highly unstable relations in developing regions—and now also in developed regions.

这个世界上的大多数人都在从事非正规的经济活动，或者受到非正规的劳动关系的约束。根据国际劳工组织的数据，在非洲、亚太地区、阿拉伯国家和美洲的总就业人口中，分别有85.8％、71.4％、68.6％和53.8％的人在从事非正规劳动（在非正规经济领域）或非正式劳动（在正规经济领域，但事实上仍然基于非正规关系）。整个新兴经济体和发展中经济体的非正规就业总人口占比估计为69.6%。鉴于这一经济体在全球总劳动力中所占的比重相当大，即使在全球范围内，仍有61.2％的总就业人口被归类为非正规或非正式劳动。临时工和自营职业者包含在这个庞大的非正规和非正式的就业世界之中，也被称为“劳动阶层”，他们可能是高度脆弱的小商品生产者，也可以是各种变相的雇佣劳动者。曾几何时，非正规性（informality）被错误地视为“落后”和发展中地区国内“传统”的社会经济结构的主要特征之一，但在新自由主义的全球时代，非正规性不仅在呈指数级增长，而且还找到了新的传播渠道。随着零工经济、众包工作和所谓“不稳定的无产者”的崛起，这些渠道就是继续在发展中地区——并且现在也在发达地区——系统地再生产这种具有高度不稳定关系的劳动力。

In particular, the rise of global commodity chains and production networks has facilitated an endless cycle of the spread, redefinition, and expansion of informal labor relations. In surplus-labor economies like India or China, global commodity chains can rely on informal labor in various ways. Informalisation can be based on rural-urban mobility, mediated by legal status, as seen in China and its reliance on the hukou system [2]2 The hukou system is China’s household registration system, which classifies citizens as either rural or urban residents and restricts access to social services and formal employment based on one’s registered place of residence, thereby mediating rural-to-urban migration and informal labor relations., which mediates the flow of approximately 300 million migrant workers annually from rural to urban areas. Alternatively, informalisation can rely on “traditional” forms of social stratification, intertwining social oppression with class oppression; for example, informal labor in India is structured along lines of gender, caste, and mobility, thereby shaping forms of “conjugated oppression,” where the extraction of surplus value interacts with a regime of subjugation to social stigma.

特别是全球商品链和生产网络的兴起，促进了非正规劳动关系的传播、重新定义和扩张的无限循环。在印度或中国这样的剩余劳动力经济体中，全球商品链可以通过各种不同的方式依赖于非正式劳动力。非正式化（informalisation）可以以城乡流动为基础，以合法身份为中介，例如，中国及其对户口制度的依赖为每年大约3亿农民工从农村流向城市提供了中介。另外，非正式化也可以依赖于“传统的”社会分层形式，将社会压迫与阶级压迫交织在一起，例如印度的非正式劳动是按照性别、种姓和流动性来建构的，从而塑造了“联合压迫”（conjugated oppression）的形式，并且榨取剩余价值与屈从于社会污名化（social stigma）的统治制度是相互作用的。

Crucial to the argument presented here is that, under the complex conditions where informal and non-standard labor relations are widespread and expanding, strictly distinguishing between value-producing and non-value-producing spheres and activities based on tasks and/or remuneration is extremely difficult and entirely misleading. In fact, analysis of how exploitation unfolds in these contexts shows that the sphere and activities of social reproduction play a direct and key role in constructing the process of extracting surplus labor, expanding the rate of exploitation, and thereby generating (exchange) value. Specifically, the reproductive sphere and reproductive activities can directly generate value in at least three ways.

对于这里提出的论点至关重要的是，在非正规和非正式劳动关系普遍存在且不断扩大的复杂情况下，严格基于任务和/或酬劳来区分价值生产与非价值生产的领域和活动是十分困难且完全具有误导性的。事实上，对剥削在这些背景下如何展开的相关分析表明：社会再生产领域和社会再生产活动对于构建榨取剩余劳动的过程、扩大剥削率、进而产生（交换）价值具有直接的关键作用。尤其是，再生产领域和再生产活动至少可以通过三种方式直接产生价值。

First, by strengthening control over workers’ labor outside of working hours. Evidence from countries such as Vietnam, the Czech Republic, and India shows that the rise of factory dormitories is expanding employers’ ability to control the labor force far beyond the actual labor process. Based on the concept of the “dormitory labor regime” as defined by Pun Ngai and Chris Smith, intensified labor control has a direct impact on expanding the rate of exploitation. In this context, any distinction between working time and reproduction time becomes blurred, as social reproduction becomes highly individualized and incorporated into the value-creation process. Furthermore, as Hannah Schling points out in the case of the Czech Republic, in dormitories, “non-working time” becomes the basis for producing a compliant labor subject.

首先，在工作时间之外加强对工人劳动的控制。来自越南、捷克、印度等国的证据表明，工厂宿舍的兴起正在扩大雇主控制劳动力的能力，使其远远超出实际的劳动过程。基于潘毅（Pun Ngai）和克里斯·史密斯（Chris Smith）所界定的“宿舍劳动体制”概念，加强劳动控制会对扩大剥削率产生直接的影响。在这种背景下，工作时间与再生产时间之间的任何区分都会变得模糊不清，因为社会再生产变得高度个体化并被纳入价值创造过程。此外，正如汉娜·施林（Hannah Schling）在谈到捷克时所指出的那样，在宿舍中，“非工作时间”成为生产顺从的劳动主体的基础。

Second, a second way in which the sphere and activities of social reproduction directly contribute to value creation in today’s “global factory” is by systematically externalizing the costs of absorbing social reproduction. In the majority world, where informality and non-formality are high, the sphere of social reproduction (households, villages, communities) and its activities (domestic labor and other forms of unpaid work typically performed by women) are treated as a systemic subsidy to capital. In fact, where neither employers nor the state bear the labor costs of social reproduction, all costs are shifted onto workers and their relatives, borne by families and communities. In Western societies, although the externalization of reproduction costs is interpreted as a care crisis or a broader crisis of social reproduction, in contexts that have not experienced the welfare state and its constraints on capital, this externalization can be better understood as directly serving capitalist relations, by treating unpaid and unwaged work and life as a direct subsidy to production. The result is likewise: employers can expand the rate of exploitation by cutting wages and social contributions, while production losses are absorbed and digested by poor laborers and their socio-economic networks.

其次，社会再生产领域和社会再生产活动直接促进当今“全球工厂”价值创造的第二种方式是，将吸收社会再生产的成本系统性地外部化。在非正规和非正式程度很高的多数世界中，社会再生产领域（家庭、乡村、社区）和社会再生产活动（家务劳动以及通常由女性从事的其他形式的无薪工作）被视为对资本的系统性补贴。事实上，在雇主和国家都不承担社会再生产的劳动成本的情况下，一切成本都被转嫁到工人及其亲属身上，由家庭和共同体来承担。在西方社会，虽然再生产成本的外部化被解释为照护危机或更广泛的社会再生产危机，但在没有经历过福利国家及其对资本的约束的情况下，可以将这种外部化更好地理解为旨在直接服务于资本主义关系，其方式是将无偿的和无薪的工作与生活作为对生产的直接补贴。这样做的结果同样是：雇主可以通过削减工资和社会性缴费来扩大剥削率，而生产损失则被贫穷的劳动者及其社会经济网络所吸收和消化。

Finally, as I have discussed in detail elsewhere regarding the sweatshop system, a third way in which the sphere and activities of social reproduction directly generate value is through the process of expanding the formal subsumption of labor to capital, made possible by the fragmentation and dispersal of the global labor process. The proliferation of tasks and activities of the labor army dispersed into households indicates that the formal subsumption of labor to capital still plays a key role in value generation. This process of formal subsumption is not, as often described, a remnant of the past, but rather renders any distinction between production and social reproduction—or work and life—irrelevant, because their times are mixed together and both are subject to the law of value. Since Mies wrote *The Lace Makers of Narsapur: Indian Housewives Produce for the World Market*, thousands more villages have been swallowed by the logic of contemporary neoliberal capitalism. In this logic, “unfree” labor relations represent a stable “form of exploitation.” These informal and unwaged laborers live both inside and outside the capitalist world, subverting and blurring our theoretical categories and challenging our political perspectives.

最后，正如我在其他地方提到血汗工厂制度时所详细讨论的那样，社会再生产领域和社会再生产活动直接生成价值的第三种方式是通过扩大劳动对资本的形式从属这一过程来实现的，而全球劳动过程的碎片化和分散化使之成为可能。分散到家庭中的劳动大军的任务和活动的激增表明，劳动对资本的形式从属在价值生成的过程中仍然发挥着关键作用。这种形式从属过程并不像人们通常描述的那样，是过去的残余，而是使得生产与社会再生产——或者工作与生活——之间的任何区分都变得无关紧要，因为它们的时间被混合在一起，并且都受到价值规律的约束。自从米斯撰写《纳尔萨普尔的刺绣工人：为世界市场生产的印度家庭主妇们》以来，又有成千上万的村庄被当代新自由主义的资本主义逻辑所吞噬。在这种逻辑中， “不自由的”劳动关系代表了一种稳定的“剥削形式”。这些非正规的和无薪的劳工同时生活在资本主义世界的内部和外部，颠覆和模糊了我们的理论范畴，并对我们的政治观点提出了挑战。

IV. Conclusion

四、结语

At the end of this article, one might ask: if we can politically overcome these theoretical differences, why should we still pay attention to them? In short, if politics can transcend the boundaries of commodity production, can we still support theories that anchor value creation within the sphere of commodity production? I think this is difficult, for two reasons.

在本文结束时，有人可能会问：如果我们可以在政治上克服这些理论分歧，那么为什么还要关注它们呢？简言之，如果政治能够超越商品生产的界限，我们还能支持仍然将价值创造锚定于商品生产领域的理论吗？我认为这很困难，原因有二。

First, theoretical differences are always political. The theoretical exclusion of the sphere and activities of social reproduction from value generation is nothing more than an implicit or explicit assumption of a hierarchy of exploitation, while simultaneously constructing the category of “labor” under highly unequal conditions premised on the wage form. Since wages are the cost of labor, not necessarily its value, this choice implies a capital-centered conceptualization of labor, productivity (often conflated with exploitation), and remuneration. From a political perspective, the view that labor struggles can be combined with struggles of the unwaged is not entirely the same as expanding the social scope of labor struggles to include all those whose work is more covertly subjected to and subsumed under the domination of capitalist relations. The former theoretical insight still presupposes a distinction between paid and unpaid labor in struggle; it indirectly accepts the “primacy” of paid labor in work, and therefore inevitably undermines solidarity. In contrast, the latter theoretical insight is more likely to provide a broader basis for political organization, incorporating all struggles (of the waged or unwaged) into labor struggles (and ultimately, struggles over reproduction).

其一，理论上的分歧总是政治性的。从理论上将社会再生产领域和社会再生产活动排除在价值生成之外，不过是或明或暗地假定了一种剥削的等级制度，同时也在以工资形式为前提的高度不平等的条件下构建了“劳动”范畴。由于工资是劳动的成本，而不一定是劳动的价值，因此这种选择意味着以资本为中心将劳动、生产率（往往与剥削相混淆）和报酬概念化。从政治角度看，认为劳工斗争可以同无薪者的斗争相结合，与认为扩大劳工斗争的社会范围、从而包容那些其工作以更隐蔽的方式受制于并从属于资本主义关系支配的所有人，并不完全是一回事。前一种理论见解仍然预设了有偿劳动与无偿劳动在斗争中的区别，它间接地接受了有偿劳动在工作中的“优先地位”，因此会不可避免地破坏团结。相比之下，后一种理论见解更有可能为政治组织提供更广泛的基础，并将所有的斗争（有薪者或无薪者的斗争）都纳入到劳工斗争（以及最终的再生产斗争）中。

Second, if we truly need to develop a “monism” of capitalism to escape a dualistic understanding of the mode of production, then we cannot conflate the (current) Western experience of labor and work with the “normalized” experience of the world economy. In fact, the Western experience hardly reflects how the majority of the world’s population toils. Against the backdrop of the dominance of the informal economy and informal labor—the way nearly two-thirds of the world’s population makes a living—attempts to draw a strict distinction between labor that produces surplus value and labor that does not are based on an inaccurate, highly dualistic understanding of how capitalism operates. There is no doubt that we need to avoid the dualism that treats capital and patriarchy as social relations with their own autonomy; but at the same time, we cannot create any monism of capitalism in understanding value, as such an understanding would generate other problematic binary oppositions.

其二，如果我们真的需要发展资本主义的“一元论”，以摆脱对生产方式的二元论理解，那么我们就不能将（当前）西方的劳动和工作经验与世界经济的“常规化”经验混为一谈。事实上，西方的经验很难反映多数世界的人口是如何辛勤劳作的。在非正规经济和非正式劳动——世界上近2/3的人都在以这种方式谋生——占主导地位的背景下，试图在生产剩余价值的劳动与不生产剩余价值的劳动之间进行严格区分的做法，是基于对资本主义运作方式的一种不准确的、高度二元论的理解。毫无疑问，我们需要避免那种把资本与父权制视为各自具有自主性的社会关系的二元论；但与此同时，我们也不能在理解价值的问题上制造任何资本主义的一元论，因为这种理解会产生其他问题重重的二元对立。

Barbara Harriss-White and Nandini Gooptu, in depicting the vast world of unorganized labor in India, highlight how large numbers of informal and non-formal laborers in India and other regions engage in class struggle not so much as participating in class struggle, but rather as still confined to “struggles over class.” They are still struggling to be recognized as the working class and to develop their class consciousness. Therefore, only by first developing inclusive theoretical and analytical categories can we help the unwaged in their struggle for recognition and support them through inclusive politics.

芭芭拉·哈里斯-怀特（Barbara Harriss-White）和南迪尼·古普图（Nandini Gooptu）在描绘印度无组织劳动力的庞大世界时,突出强调了印度和其他地区的大量非正规劳工和非正式劳工参与阶级斗争的方式，与其说他们是在参与阶级斗争，不如说他们仍然局限于“为阶级而斗争”（struggles over class）。他们仍在为了被承认为劳动阶级并发展他们的阶级意识而斗争。因此，我们只有首先发展包容性的理论和分析范畴，才能帮助无薪者为争取承认而斗争，并通过包容性的政治支持他们。

(Author: Alessandra Mezzadri, SOAS University of London; Translators: Yan Jinmin, Dai Xuehong, School of Marxism, Nanjing University)

（作者：亚历山德拉·梅扎德里（Alessandra Mezzadri），英国伦敦大学亚非学院；译者：闫金敏、代学鸿，南京大学马克思主义学院）

(This translation is a phased outcome of the project “Value Guidance and Gender Justice Construction of a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind,” funded by the Special Fund for Basic Scientific Research Operating Expenses of Central Universities.)

（本译文系中央高校基本科研业务费专项资金资助项目“人类命运共同体的价值引领与性别正义建构研究”的阶段性成果）

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