Family, Welfare, and the State

"Dalla Costa shows that with the New Deal, the state began to plan the 'social factory'--that is, the home, the family, the school, and above all women's labor--on which the productivity and pacification of industrial relations was made to rest. Family, Welfare, and the State leaves no doubt that the New Deal was not only the last resort to 'save capitalism' from the danger of working class revolution, but was also in essence a productivity deal that was structured to maintain a patriarchal and racist order."--Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch

Mariarosa Dalla Costa is an influential author and militant of international feminism who has devoted her theoretical and practical efforts to the study of the female condition in capitalist development. From Potere Operaio, Lotta Femminista, and the International Wages for Housework Campaign, Dalla Costa has for decades been a central figure in the development of autonomy in a wide range of anti-capitalist movements. Her seminal book The Power of Women and the Subversion Of The Community, co-authored with Selma James, has been translated into six languages. Her writings, reflecting on the role of social reproduction in the organization of autonomy as well as the historic development of capital, have consistently been staged within and through social struggles and movements organizing around the questions of land, agriculture, food, and the commons.

Preface by Silvia Federici Introduction Chapter 1. Mass Production and the New Urban Family Order Chapter 2. The Crisis of 1929 and the Disruption of the Family Chapter 3. Forms of Struggle and Aggregation of the Unemployed Chapter 4. From Hoover to Roosevelt Chapter 5. Women Between Family, Welfare, and Paid Labor List of Abbreviations