An eye-opening reckoning
with the care economy, from its roots in racial capitalism to its
exponential growth as a new site of profit and extraction.
Since
the earliest days of the pandemic, care work has been thrust into the
national spotlight. The notion of care seems simple enough. Care
is about nurturing, feeding, nursing, assisting, and loving human
beings. It is “the work that makes all other work possible.” But
as historian Premilla Nadasen argues, we have only begun to
understand the massive role it plays in our lives and our economy.
Nadasen
traces the rise of the care economy, from its roots in slavery, where
there was no clear division between production and social
reproduction, to the present care crisis, experienced acutely by more
and more Americans. Today’s care economy, Nadasen shows, is an
institutionalized, hierarchical system in which some people’s pain
translates into other people’s profit.
Yet
this is also a story of resistance. Low-wage workers, immigrants, and
women of color in movements from Wages for Housework and Welfare
Rights to the Movement for Black Lives have continued to fight for
and practice collective care. These groups help us envision how,
given the challenges before us, we can create a caring world as part
of a radical future.