Revolution at Point Zero

‘They say it is love. We say it is unwaged work.’

This ground-breaking collection of essays reflects forty years of Silvia Federici’s thinking on social reproduction theory. Placing the reproduction of human beings central to every economic and political system, Federici demystifies the mechanisms of capitalism, its penetration of social spheres, and the devaluation of women’s work upon which it is built.

Federici argues that the hidden, unwaged labour of women that reproduces waged labour makes it a ‘ground zero’ for revolutionary practice against capitalism. This common thread connects the essays in this book covering the Wages for Housework campaign, the international restructuring of reproductive labour, and collective forms of reproduction. Federici clarifies new forms of political subjectivity and strategies that force capital to organise more favourable social relations.

Silvia Federici is a feminist activist, writer and educator. She is the author of Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation (1988), and the editor of Enduring Western Civilization: The Construction of the Concept of Western Civilization and Its Others (1995). Federici is cofounder of the International Feminist Collective and the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa and she is a member of the Midnight Notes Collective. She lives in New York City.