Cannibal Capitalism: How Our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet -- and What We Can Do About It - Nancy Fraser
Published in 2022 by Verso, London, UK and New York, NY
208 pages
ISBN: 978-1-83976-123-2
Available at: Cannibal Capitalism: How Our System Is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet—and What We Can Do About It
It might be obvious to the point of banality to say that capitalism today is in a state of crisis. Rising social and economic inequality, increasing alienation and loneliness, and the looming threat of global climate disasters all have their roots in the deeply flawed and inherently contradictory system of capitalism. Far from external pressures working on an otherwise just system, capitalism, Marx argued, would always lead to crisis due to the accumulation and centralization of wealth into the hands of the few. Given enough time, capitalism will always devour itself alive.
Yet, in the years since Marx’s prescient analysis, scholars have rightly emphasized the ways in which capitalism is also deeply intertwined with social reproduction, the exploitation of natural resources, and the repression of populist democratic sentiment. Following this line of anti-capitalist critique, Nancy Fraser argues in her latest book, Cannibal Capitalism: How Our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet -- and What We Can Do About It, that capitalism also gradually wears down these structural supports that keep it afloat.
Overview:
For Fraiser, while Marx’s economic critique of capitalism serves as an accurate model for analysis, it remains insufficient. Her central thesis is that we cannot view capitalism as merely an economic system, but also as the social order that allows the economy to run smoothly. She calls us to view capitalism more broadly, “as an institutionalized societal order that encompasses not only ‘the economy’ but also those activities, relations, and processes, defined as non-economic, that make the economy possible” (82).
As such, the book is framed around the four dimensions that undergird the smooth running of the economic order of capitalism: social reproduction, the expropriation of labor from the periphery, environmental extraction/waste, and the legitimation of power through democratic processes. While capitalism depends on each of these non-economic pillars to sustain itself, Fraser argues, it also undermines and eats away at each of them, thus making the system unsustainable and prone to internal crises. Capitalism, Fraser argues, is “a social order that empowers a profit-driven economy to prey on the extra-economic supports it needs to function…one that authorizes an officially designated economy to pile up monetized value for inventors and owners while devouring the non-economized wealth of everyone else” (xiv-xv). In this way, capitalism is like an ouroboros, or a snake that chases and devours its tail in an act of self-immolation.
Once this framework has been established, Fraser provides a historical perspective of each of these domains, tracing the various crises of capitalism through four distinct periods: the mercantile capitalism of the 16th-18th centuries, the colonial powers of the 19th century, the post-war Keynesian capitalist system of the mid-20th century, and the current era of financialized capitalism. By showing us how these crises have arisen throughout these distinct periods of history, Fraser shows that to overcome any one of these antagonisms (racism, destruction of climate, gendered burden of social reproduction, and the decline of democracy), we cannot attack them individually, but rather as parts of the whole problem of capitalism.
Deeper Dive:
In Chapter One, Fraser gives us an overview of her central argument. Although Fraser sees Marx’s insights as vital, she believes that his economic critique is limited in a few key ways. For Fraser, capitalism viewed exclusively through an economic perspective is not enough; rather, we must be attentive to the non-economic background conditions that make capitalism possible (ecology, social reproduction, political power, and the expropriation of wealth from racialized peoples). As she writes, “To understand capitalism, therefore, we need to resituate Marx’s front story in relation to these four backstories. We must connect the Marxian perspective to other emancipatory currents of critical theorizing: feminist, ecological, political, anti-imperialist, and anti-racist” (17).
In Chapter Two, she begins her analysis by examining three central ways of interpreting capitalism: 1) as merely market exchange, which completely ignores the political and social backgrounds that make capitalism possible, 2) the Marxist view of economic exploitation in the labor exchange, which, while much better, ignores the racial element of capitalism and the conditions that make exploitation possible (ie. unequal dynamics of labor exchange dependent on the geographical proximity to the imperial core/periphery), and 3) the standpoint of expropriation, which broadens the frame of exploitation from only the metropole to the peripheries of empire. She makes a clear distinction between exploitation and expropriation, as she writes, “The subjugation of those whom capital expropriates is a hidden condition of possibility for the freedom of those whom it exploits” (33-34). Capitalism exploits the labor of those within the imperial core through the institution of wage labor, while it can freely outsource and expropriate the labor of racialized subjects within the periphery, often within the Global South.
In Chapter Three, Fraser examines the gendered dynamics of social reproduction, as women bear the overwhelming burden of unpaid domestic labor. Placing a feminist critique of capitalism at the forefront of analysis, Fraser argues that capitalism depends on the unpaid labor of social reproduction, such as childbirth, childcare, cleaning the home, providing clothing, and elder care. Traditionally performed predominately by women, the task of social reproduction has been neglected and outsourced to underpaid (and often racialized) laborers as capitalism continues to dissolve the boundaries between the public and private spheres of life, and both parents of the traditional family unit are forced to work long hours for inadequate wages. This cannibalization of social reproduction marks a fracturing point of crisis within the capitalist system, as Fraser writes, “commodity production is inconceivable absent the unwaged activities of social reproduction that form and sustain the human beings who perform wage labor” (82).
In Chapter Four, Fraser turns her focus to the ecological foundation on which capitalism depends, both as a source of resource extraction and a site of disposal and waste. As Enlightenment philosophy demarcated a clear distinction between nature and humanity, capitalism has historically operated on this assumption that nature exists as an object that we can manipulate and use to our advantage. As such, while capitalism depends on the extraction of natural resources to produce commodities, short-sighted policies often neglect the long-term consequences of such actions, thus leading to large-scale conflicts over resources and enduring climate crises. For Fraser, these recurrent crises cannot be solved through green initiatives that leave the structural integrity of capitalism untouched. Rather, deep structural changes must take root if the environment is to remain habitable for future generations (81).
Fraser then turns her attention to the ways in which capitalism devours public power and democratic order in Chapter Five. As capital accumulates into the hands of the few, the democratic power on which such accumulation is founded becomes increasingly unstable as corporations purchase political influence and shape policy. Fraser notes how, far from acting irrationally, right-wing politicians and voters in America are responding to a real crisis in our democracy. The issue is that they misplace their resentment, blaming immigrants, racial/religious minorities, and the LGBTQIA+ community for the ills that plague society rather than the billionaire class. For Fraser, braggadocious, authoritarian figures such as Trump, Bolsonaro, and Erdogan are reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz, strutting around their machismo and giving cover to the forces of capital who quietly control policy decisions.
Meanwhile, progressives have thus far not been able to give a cogent alternative to this rise in right-wing extremism, often playing into their hands. Fraser gives a scathing critique of these liberals, as she writes,
Far from unmasking the powers behind the curtain, dominant currents of “the resistance” have long been entangled with them. That’s the case for the liberal-meritocratic wings of such popular social movements as feminism, anti-racism, LGBTQ+ rights, and environmentalism. Operating under liberal hegemony, they have functioned for many years as junior partners in a progressive-neoliberal bloc that also included ‘forward thinking’ sectors of global capital (IT, finance, media, entertainment). (136)
As opposed to the progressive wing that has been co-opted by the forces of capital, Fraser suggests that we need a unified Left that can take all of these struggles and unite them under a single cause that can provide an alternative to the self-destructive forces of capitalism.
In Chapter Six, Fraser posits an expanded definition of socialism that “must overcome not only capital’s exploitation of wage labor, but also its free riding on unwaged carework, public powers, and wealth expropriated from racialized subjects and nonhuman nature” (142). In this framework, Fraser aims to cast a vision of socialism for the 21st century, avoiding both the Soviet-style Communism of the twentieth century on one hand and the social democracies of Europe that still allow capitalism to thrive unchallenged on the other. To do this, a socialist society must democratize the allocation of social surplus and deinstitutionalize the imperative toward infinite growth that drives capitalist society to instability, positing the question of economic growth to the political realm of democratic control. (154).
Fraser then dedicates the Epilogue to discussing how the Covid crisis has further exacerbated and revealed the cracks and fissures in our capitalist society. She writes, “By ratcheting up the system’s inherent defects to the breaking point, it shines a piercing beam on all the hidden abodes of our society” (164). She once again reiterates that the pandemic has shown how capitalism consumes the natural world, drains our capacity for social reproduction, destroys public power, and feeds on the health and expropriated labor of the working class. All of these issues are deeply interconnected and cannot be resolved through technology or gradual policy reforms. We cannot simply attack one head of the hydra; we must strike at the heart of the beast, which is capitalism.
Commendations:
There are several commendable respects to this multifaceted work. Fraser’s analysis is essentially an updated Marxist economic critique of capitalism which expands it to include the domains of social reproduction, expropriation, ecological concerns, and the degradation of democracy. Capitalism is not merely an economic system; it is also a collection of social and political phenomena that are deeply connected with one another. Fraser clearly uncovers these “hidden abodes” of capitalism that undergird and support it, while also brilliantly illustrating how they are slowly being cannibalized by it.
Fraser’s analysis is important to consider, especially for those who are looking for a more holistic and multifaceted critique of capitalism. Fraser is interdisciplinary in her approach as she astutely connects the dots between political analysis, feminist critique, environmentalism, and decolonial thought. While her conclusions might be easily read as dour, Fraser does offer a hint of hope to those who are working to organize and struggle against these forces of oppression and domination that capitalism engenders. Those who believe that capitalism can be gently reformed will find themselves disabused of such a notion by the trenchant analysis that Fraser offers in the volume.
Critique:
On the other hand, there are a few small weaknesses to Fraser’s volume. First of all, the book starts with an admittedly technical and dense preface and first chapter, which makes it a bit difficult to get into at the beginning. For those unfamiliar with contemporary political and social theory, this work might start off a bit rough, although this difficulty does ease up significantly as it progresses. This is because Fraser consistently repeats her central thesis throughout each chapter, constantly connecting her supporting evidence to her main idea. While this aids in accessibility, this repetition does start to wear thin relatively quickly as she constantly retreads ground she’s already covered time and again. This makes the book read like a series of independent essays that have been stitched together to fit her overall thesis, which, while done more seamlessly than many other similar works, still makes the volume overly repetitive.
Additionally, while Fraser’s ability to diagnose the cannibalizing aspects of capitalism is astute and timely, her proposed solution is not necessarily new or novel. While I agree that we need to turn toward creating a new system (most likely a form of transitional socialism), Fraser’s final chapters on such a project are much less developed than her previous chapters and serve more to reiterate her main thesis without providing much in terms of action. Her critique of capitalism’s innate tendency to cannibalize its own sources of reproduction is apt, yet she does not connect this to the right-wing reaction against this cannibalization. For example, one could interpret the recent rise of the trad-wife among right-wing women as a response to this alienation and decline of social reproduction. Like an autoimmune response attacking its own body, fascist ideology is a reactionary counter-response to these contradictions within liberal capitalism (following Todd McGowan, turning contradiction into opposition). As such, it would have been productive to see Fraser analyze these reactions that right-wing movements have mobilized in response to these economic and social pressures that capitalism has wrought.
Finally, as a tiny quibble, it should be noted that the ouroboros (the snake that eats its own tail) is not an inherently negative image. As a religious studies scholar, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the ouroboros positively represents the eternal nature of life and the dialectic relationships between creation and destruction. While I fully understand Fraser’s use of the image to show capitalism as a self-immolating, cannibalistic system, it implies that this destruction is also a source of creation. While Fraser believes that this destructive quality of capitalism will inevitably lead to its end, the image of the ouroboros would suggest that it will instead indefinitely survive, albeit in new forms. Again, this point may seem pedantic on the surface, but I believe it can serve as an interesting reflection on the destructive nature of capitalism and its future: will it inevitably cannibalize itself and be replaced with something else, or will its destructive qualities slowly transform it into something slightly different.
Conclusion:
Overall, Cannibal Capitalism is a well-argued and timely critique of contemporary capitalism and how it eats away at the non-economic conditions that undergird it. While repetitive in places and short on solutions, Fraser’s critique calls us to expand our understanding of Marx’s critique of capitalism to not only its economic dimension but its social and political dimensions as well. By connecting classical Marxism to the four dimensions of ecological, feminist, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist critiques, Fraser broadens our perspective and sharpens our tools of criticism. She deftly connects capitalism’s voracious appetite to the disintegration of our environment, the collapse of democracy, the dissolution of social reproduction, and the expropriation of labor from the Global South, which depends on racial violence. By exposing these “hidden abodes” of capitalism, Fraser provides an immensely useful historical trajectory of the insatiable appetite of capitalism, as well as a loose blueprint for how to starve it to death.