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A review by garberdog
Re-Enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons by Silvia Federici
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.