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nclar17's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
layton93's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
2.0
I agree with Federici in principle but did not find her writing compelling. She also makes some pretty big claims without citation, which as I understand it, is a habit of hers.
ikahime's review against another edition
Enjoyed the title essay, but the jist of this book was not what I anticipated.
frankie_s's review against another edition
3.0
Lots of information here, but more familiar and far less world transforming than Caliban and the Witch. The final chapter was also much less conclusive. There didn’t seem to be a thesis to this in the way that there was in C&tW. Worth reading anyway, and provides some ways to think those ideas (about accumulation and enclosure) through in the present day, which is needed!
jacquelynjoan's review
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
A million stars for this fantastic book. My first Federico read, I wish I knew about her years ago! She makes everything so clear and sites so many other writers and activists that I have made a list to look up. I really find it so refreshing to agree so much with an author and not feel icky about anything they say or the way they say it or who they leave out. This commons stuff is really basic to a lot of other stuff and understanding it better makes me feel like I understand a lot of other stuff better and I've been finding connections to other stuff I've been reading.
heavenlyspit's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
squirrelfish's review against another edition
5.0
Interesting reminder that economics and feminism can't really be separated. I'm listening to [b:Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America|53056522|Mediocre The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America|Ijeoma Oluo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1569299522l/53056522._SY75_.jpg|66444954] right now too, and male failure on household responsibilities comes up there, but Federici reminds us it's a deeper thing than the habits of time at home. It's an entire neglect of the home and food and childbearing and rearing by economics as a field. An assumption of women getting pregnant, having kids, raising kids, and never getting paid for that, and somehow living while doing it. Federici points out the social networks and urban farming and informal labor and trade practices that so many people have relied on to live are generally operated by women. Early essays point to micro-lending as almost a predation on those social networks, and then show similar incursions into commonly farmed lands and urban farming practices through 'development' programs which threaten the basics of living. There's good excerpts and examples from Africa and Latin America, some discussion of Asia and great footnotes. Definitely one of those books where finishing inspires a few more, in this case some [a:Dolores Hayden|61364|Dolores Hayden|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1504128460p2/61364.jpg] and [b:Compañeras: Zapatista Women's Stories|21971548|Compañeras Zapatista Women's Stories|Hilary Klein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1422216445l/21971548._SX50_.jpg|41281543].
Read through my Kobo e-reader, purchased from the publisher and as part of a political book club, although I forget which one. Sunrise Movement maybe?
Read through my Kobo e-reader, purchased from the publisher and as part of a political book club, although I forget which one. Sunrise Movement maybe?
garberdog's review against another edition
4.0
As a rule, I love Federici’s work, and this volume did not disappoint. However, I must admit that I did not find this collection of republished essays as compelling as some of her other volumes.
I would have liked to have seen more integration between the chapters, updates to the early chapters on “the new enclosures” (originally written in the 1990s), and more theoretically rich chapters. I was also quite disappointed by the one chapter specifically on North American indigenous peoples; it named no specific tribes, relied almost exclusively on the work of one author (Paula Gunn Allen), and seemed to be almost an afterthought. Lastly, Federici sometimes lapses from a Marxist critique of the historically specific forms technology takes to a conservative antipathy to technology as inherently oppressive. Her points that technology cannot be separated from the social relations that produce it, that it is incredibly socially and ecologically destructive in its current manifestation, and that techno-optimism among (non-feminist, male) Marxists is horribly misguided are all well taken. But that doesn’t justify some of the strangely conservative claims she makes about, for example, computers.
All of this said, this remains an excellent text on both the commons and primitive accumulation in our current political moment, and I wish more (especially male) Leftists read it and Federici’s other work. There is a disturbing affinity for state-managed economic planning, high tech futurism, egoistic individualism, and/or a fetishized, militaristic vision of state socialism among too many on the contemporary anti-capitalist left. Federici’s consistent advocacy for a feminist vision of the commons as a form of collective social relation necessary to the reproduction of everyday life remains a compelling and urgently needed alternative to all these masculinist follies.
If you are interested in feminist visions of the commons, collective solidarity, and a world beyond the horrors of racist and patriarchal capitalism, this is an excellent starting place, as are Federici’s other books “Revolution at Point Zero” and “Caliban and the Witch.” Another excellent texts similar themes is “Ecosufficiency and Global Justice” edited by Ariel Salleh. It is these feminist, anti-racist, decolonial, ecological, autonomous/anarchist/grassroots, and humanist visions of Marxism/anti-capitalism that hold true promise for our collective future, not unions of egoists or apologists for state capitalist regimes.
I would have liked to have seen more integration between the chapters, updates to the early chapters on “the new enclosures” (originally written in the 1990s), and more theoretically rich chapters. I was also quite disappointed by the one chapter specifically on North American indigenous peoples; it named no specific tribes, relied almost exclusively on the work of one author (Paula Gunn Allen), and seemed to be almost an afterthought. Lastly, Federici sometimes lapses from a Marxist critique of the historically specific forms technology takes to a conservative antipathy to technology as inherently oppressive. Her points that technology cannot be separated from the social relations that produce it, that it is incredibly socially and ecologically destructive in its current manifestation, and that techno-optimism among (non-feminist, male) Marxists is horribly misguided are all well taken. But that doesn’t justify some of the strangely conservative claims she makes about, for example, computers.
All of this said, this remains an excellent text on both the commons and primitive accumulation in our current political moment, and I wish more (especially male) Leftists read it and Federici’s other work. There is a disturbing affinity for state-managed economic planning, high tech futurism, egoistic individualism, and/or a fetishized, militaristic vision of state socialism among too many on the contemporary anti-capitalist left. Federici’s consistent advocacy for a feminist vision of the commons as a form of collective social relation necessary to the reproduction of everyday life remains a compelling and urgently needed alternative to all these masculinist follies.
If you are interested in feminist visions of the commons, collective solidarity, and a world beyond the horrors of racist and patriarchal capitalism, this is an excellent starting place, as are Federici’s other books “Revolution at Point Zero” and “Caliban and the Witch.” Another excellent texts similar themes is “Ecosufficiency and Global Justice” edited by Ariel Salleh. It is these feminist, anti-racist, decolonial, ecological, autonomous/anarchist/grassroots, and humanist visions of Marxism/anti-capitalism that hold true promise for our collective future, not unions of egoists or apologists for state capitalist regimes.
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