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The discourse around today's crisis of care responds to the shredding of America's social safety net, but leaves out the most vulnerable almost entirely. In episode 170 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss how this works with Premilla Nadasen, author of Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. They discuss how gender fits into the care industry, the harms of associating care work with emotion, and how the practice of care has been commodified. How is it that we deny the most basic care from those who need it most? What are the harms of framing care workers as family members? And how has racial capitalism produced the explosion of the care economy that we're seeing today? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts think about the distinction between the practice of care and care itself and how labor workers can learn from care workers in their modes of organizing.
Works Discussed:
Arlie Hochschild, The Managed Heart
Premilla Nadasen, Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
Highlight: Racial Capitalism and Care
* Premilla Nadasen highlighted several points where racial capitalism is useful for understanding care
* Racial capitalism = there is not capitalism without racism and in order to even understand capitalism, we must think about race
* The care system is inequitable
* Lower-class people have few care services and support than those with more privilege
* Tends to be people of color, especially women of color, unhoused people, unemployed people, single mothers, formerly incarcerated people, etc.
* As Nadasen says, “there is a racial hierarchy in terms of how we understand poverty and who as access to care support systems and who does not.”
* She also explains that the care economy is profit extraction from life
* Companies (e.g. healthcare, education, housing) make money off of our desire and need to care for ourselves and others
* Slavery, as Nadasen argues, is the best example of this point
* Beyond just labor exploitation, there were insurance companies, slave holders, and shipping companies that profited from life and the care economy
