mind reader

Dear friends,

I am constantly forced to think about Elon Musk and his egomaniacal, loud, and unearned positioning in society and emerging formal role in government in the US. Today I want to talk about consent, particularly in how consent has forged Musk as either a “super genius” or “capitalist success story”. He seems to have been depicted, at least in Australia, as an underdog innovator whose singular fortitude has allowed him to rise to power — this, at least, is Rupert Murdoch’s position on things, and you can bet that he wishes he was Musky, too. Obviously, this is a manufacturing of consent to Musk’s businesses — none of which he has meaningfully contributed anything to — and a demonstration of how consent is built. From “humble beginnings” Musk has “changed the world”, they say, which is a significantly empathetic narrative verging on outright lies. The reality, of course, is that “daddy got rich killing people” and he bought some investments with daddy’s money at a good time at the advice of others. I know which story I’d prefer to be told about me. What interests me, in this, is how even when critiquing Musk, the manufactured complicity and volume of (“quiet”) fascism still forestalls real systemic change.

The reaction to Musk’s Twitter acquisition reveals an interesting contradiction in how social media shapes resistance to oligarchic power. While communities like Reddit’s r/enoughmuskspam and the entirety of first, Threads now, Bluesky, emerged as spaces for critiquing Musk’s growing influence, they ironically seem to be contributing to a form of controlled opposition that ultimately serve his interests. By containing anti-Musk sentiment within echo chambers and focusing on his personal foibles rather than systemic critique, these spaces inadvertently helped normalise his broader accumulation of power. The obsession with Musk as an individual figure — even in opposition — distracted from more substantive analysis of how his ascension represents capital’s broader turn toward direct political control. Or, at least, this is the story I’m telling today. While users shared memes mocking his management of Twitter or cataloguing his numerous failures, his actual consolidation of power through strategic alliances with Trump and other far-right figures continue unchallenged. This phenomenon exemplifies how social media’s tendency to transform political resistance into entertainment and personal grievance can neutralise genuine threats to capital’s interests. Hegemony working as described. Rather than building class consciousness and organised resistance, the energy of critique became contained within platform-managed spaces that posed no threat to Musk’s growing power. If anything, they waited eagerly for the next blunder to fuel new memes. The result was a kind of “safety valve” that allowed people to feel they were opposing oligarchic control while actually participating in structures that enabled its expansion. Eek — but we need to talk about the broader political movements here.

Oligopoly and dictatorship, while seemingly distinct forms of power concentration, share fundamental characteristics in their service to capital accumulation. An oligopoly represents the consolidation of market power among a small number of firms, while dictatorship centralises political power — but both serve to protect and advance ruling class interests. And aspects of both of these power ‘consolidating’ approaches are in effect before our eyes in the US. The blueprint for almost every other western “democracy” the world over due to their amassed imperial power. From a Marxist perspective, these governance forms naturally emerge from capitalism’s inherent interest in monopolisation and the need to maintain class dominance through increasingly direct forms of control. As contradictions within capitalism intensify, the pretence of market competition gives way to oligopolistic domination, just as liberal democracy’s facade crumbles to reveal increasingly authoritarian forms of rule. From indirect manipulation through donations, lobbying and backing favourable candidates to direct filling of government with billionaire capitalists, the future of “democracy” is beyond bleak in the USA.

This shows us the financial capture of ostensibly “democratic” political systems by mega-corporations is but a heartbeat away in the rest of the west. Not only does direct control ensure capitalist interests, it also enables the system to quell dissent and analysis — two things we hold dear here, reader. Whether through the Democratic and Republican parties in the US, Labor and Liberal in Australia, or similar “opposing” party binaries in other nations, corporate funding ensures policy outcomes that protect accumulation regardless of electoral results. But the “two party” systems of these nations serves to narrow the window of acceptable political discourse. The illusion of choice between parties masks their shared commitment to maintaining capitalist hegemony. This process has accelerated as wealth becomes increasingly concentrated among a smaller circle of tech oligarchs and corporate behemoths who can directly shape policy through unprecedented financial influence. Now, instead of pretending there’s a choice between two fascist regressives, some countries are moving to a capitalist populism ruled by oligarchs feeding their angered masses misinformation. What a world.

The shift from performative “two-party democracy” to direct oligarchic rule through populist manipulation is yet another capitalist mask-off moment. Where previously the ruling class maintained hegemonic control through the illusion of democratic choice between barely distinguishable parties (Labor/Liberal, Democrat/Republican). Their growing confidence for oligopoly capitalism stems from their unprecedented control over information and their successful fragmentation of working class consciousness through sophisticated deployment of identity politics and algorithm manipulation. Oligarchs like Musk can now openly declare their intention to rule directly while using their platform control to manufacture consent through carefully curated misinformation and manufactured outrage. This represents a more “efficient” form of class domination — rather than maintaining expensive electoral theatrics, the billionaire class can simply channel popular anger toward manufactured enemies while consolidating their own power.

As the masks come off figures like Musk move from behind-the-scenes influence to direct political power through Trump’s promised cabinet positions. While this is more obvious than lobbying or political donations, it still evades genuine media analysis. Due more to complicity by billionaire media magnates who see benefit in supporting their capitalist brethren, rather than any actual ideological position. Indeed, the utter lack of morals, culture, knowledge, or ethics is quite the hallmark in contemporary media which would rather revel in capitalist accumulation than shine any investigative light on the massive challenges of today. And this, in part, reconnects with our /r/enoughmuskspam commentary above — too much time spent in the echo chamber, not enough spent critiquing the status quo. The shift from “democratic processes” to oligarchic rule reflects capital’s growing comfort with authoritarian governance as climate collapse and inequality explode past crisis levels. Rather than maintain the expensive facade of democratic legitimacy, capital increasingly embraces fascist solutions to maintain power — particularly as the contradictions of capitalism become impossible to manage through consent alone. The integration of tech oligarchs into direct state power represents a new phase where the distinction between corporate and political power dissolves entirely. And we continue to allow (social) media to control us in this way.

This whole situation demands both mindful awareness of how these systems operate and critical analysis of the narratives used to justify them. The mythology of “free markets” and “democratic choice” serves to obscure the reality of oligarchic control and growing authoritarianism. We need to carve new frameworks for understanding how these systems specifically harm workers and marginalised groups through intersecting forms of oppression. Rather than accepting, at face value, narratives peddled by mainstream media sources, we need to analyse how capitalism’s rapid movement toward fascism emerges from its fundamental contradictions — and it only serves to cement capitalists, not the “fall of society” which right-wing soothsayers peddle. Only through building class consciousness and solidarity across lines of identity can we hope to resist capital’s increasingly naked grab for totalitarian control. The alternative is accepting a techno-feudal future where even the pretence of democracy gives way to direct rule by billionaire oligarchs.

In solidarity,

Aidan

Dear friends,

With the increase in Musky headlines, I cant help but offer a christmas posting on oligopoly capitalism. This, I argue, is the next phase in the torturous helltrip that is our contemporary political economy, particularly if we see that the USA is the blueprint for modern economies all around the globe — particularly in the margins as they control the status quo for trade and economics from their substantial imperial torment. What we are seeing in the USA, to be clear, is an undeniable turn to fascism, which I need to repeat some of here so people understand the full scale and gravity of what Trump and Musk, amongst billionaire cronies are bringing to their people [1] [2]:

• » Gutting abortion access
• » Mass deportations
• » Abusing warrantless surveillance
• » Unleashing force on protestors
• » Severely limiting voting access
• » Censoring critical discussions in classrooms
• » Attacking trans people and regressing fought for rights
• » Changes to government (as already seen) including making the president alone responsible for Judiciary and Military
• » Complete cuts to climate change project funding, and the deregulation of coal and gas
• » Deregulating big tech (as long as they bend the knee), banning access to “woke propaganda” (as defined by Trump, et al.)
• » And many many more horrible details.

Make absolutely no mistake. Trump and Musk, as well as others who have ‘bent the knee’, as the internet has termed it, such as Zuckerberg (Meta/Facebook), Cook (Apple), Sarandos (Netflix), as well as a litany of others literally (soon to be) inducted into his government [3], are all supporters of this plan and each of these points. They are ardent defenders of human suffering. On a list of 1,000 billionaires, big tech CEOs, and other wannabe capitalists you would struggle to identify 1 who genuinely cared and acted towards human liberation. These people, the utterly worthless leeches on society, are the ones running the USA. Now, though, they are in direct control — rather than abstracted through lobbying.

This transformation, unfortunate mostly for the already marginalised US citizens directly impacted by this soon-to-arrive despotism, is not unique to the US. It is not even the beginning of capitalist meddling in government and decision making infrastructure. Lobbying, back-room deals, and boys clubs have been hallmarks of our “democracies” worldwide, with little real power ever handed to the citizens — unless they believe their best interests are served by deregulating billionaires (and there are many stupid enough to believe that). Reinforced through media hegemony, c.f. Murdoch, the status quo has always favoured those with ill-gotten wealth — no, not pirates, something far worse, the capitalist class. The wool pulled over the peoples collective eyes, however, was somewhat lifted by the emergence of analytical thought on the internet. But we can’t have that — it creates a crisis of capitalism. That crisis has led to the fall of democracy, even notionally.

This ‘modern oligarchy’ represents capitalism’s (forever) penultimate triumph in consolidating both economic and political power within an increasingly small circle of elites. As Gramsci theorised, hegemonic control requires both coercion and consent, and today’s oligarchs have mastered this dual approach through their ownership of cultural institutions, media empires, and increasingly, direct political offices. The billionaire class no longer operates through intermediaries but directly shapes policy and public discourse, from Murdoch’s media manipulation to Zuckerburg’s platform control. This concentration of power serves capital’s interests by ensuring that any potential challenge to accumulation can be quickly neutralised, whether through manufactured consent in the media or direct suppression through captured state institutions. The oligarchy’s control extends beyond traditional economic dominance into algorithmically-mediated social control, using ownership of digital platforms to shape discourse and prevent class consciousness from emerging.

Between these forces there is little room for human freedom. The billionaire class do not care about you. The billionaire class want you to die to build their hoards. They want you to suffer while you work. To keep you distracted and fighting your peers. They want all of us to be angry, dumb, and lashing out at each other. The same way the deranged farmer herds cows by the thousands to their cruel deaths, the billionaires have you in their trap — right where they want you. This violence, the same violence used on animals, the same violence used to enclose humans, the same violence used in colonial projects, that violence never goes. Rather, that violence remains a threat. If you don’t “look right”, “act right”, “speak right” — if you don’t comply, you are eradicated, removed and marginalised — and this is naturalised through conceptions of a Just World™.

The Just World theory, which posits that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, serves as a powerful tool of hegemonic control by naturalising systemic violence and inequality as inevitable outcomes of individual choices rather than structural conditions. This ideology, deeply embedded in what Gramsci termed “common sense” (as opposed to critical “good sense”), allows privileged groups to rationalise their position while blaming the oppressed for their own suffering. Through this lens, poverty becomes a moral failing rather than a necessary feature of capitalist accumulation, racism becomes a matter of individual prejudice rather than systemic oppression, and billionaires’ wealth appears as earned reward rather than stolen labour value. The Just World fallacy works hand-in-hand with capitalist meritocracy myths to transform questions of structural power into matters of personal responsibility, effectively masking how privilege operates through intersecting systems of class, race, gender, and ability. By positioning success and failure as purely individual outcomes, this ideology helps maintain hegemonic control by preventing the development of class consciousness and solidarity among oppressed groups. We see this operating powerfully in contemporary discourse around everything from housing access to climate change, where systemic violence is reframed as natural consequence rather than deliberate policy choice. This framing is particularly insidious because it doesn't just justify privilege to the privileged — it often convinces the oppressed themselves to internalise responsibility for their own exploitation, transforming potential revolutionary energy into self-blame and preventing recognition of shared class interests. Remember when you were told growing up that “good things happen to good people”, yeah that was a load of shit to justify colonial capitalism’s deep violence. Violence ardently vanguarded by Musk, Trump, Cook, and countless others — and they don’t even pretend its not violent any more.

The “mask-off” nature of contemporary billionaires, particularly their direct assumption of state power, signals capitalism’s growing comfort with openly authoritarian governance. Where previous generations of capitalists maintained a facade of democratic legitimacy through professional political proxies, figures like Trump exemplify a new breed of oligarch-politician who openly flaunts their “wealth” while claiming to represent “the people”. This turn isn’t an aberration, it is another step in capital’s need for ever-greater control as contradictions intensify. The billionaire class increasingly drops any pretence of serving the public good, instead nakedly wielding power to protect their accumulation while the planet burns. Their assumption of direct political control shows both a faux confidence in their hegemonic position and fear of growing systemic instability. Insurrections which must be quelled to ensure they die “king of the hill”.

Today’s billionaire class has perfected the art of manufacturing division while posing as populist champions. Through sophisticated deployment of identity politics stripped of class analysis, they redirect legitimate working class grievances into tribal conflicts that prevent solidarity from emerging. Figures like Musk exemplify this strategy – playing the role of free speech warrior and anti-establishment rebel while actively working to fragment worker consciousness and prevent organised resistance. Their performative, often “bumbling”, personas mask sophisticated manipulation of media narratives and platform algorithms to keep workers fighting each other rather than recognising their shared class interests. This manufactured conflict serves capital by preventing the development of genuine class consciousness while providing cover for accelerating exploitation.

The cultivation of toxic masculinity, at this juncture, serves as another tool of capitalist hegemony, redirecting legitimate male alienation and economic precarity into reactionary politics rather than class consciousness. As traditional paths to masculine identity through stable employment and economic security become increasingly unavailable under late capitalism, oligarchs and their cultural apparatus actively channel male anger toward marginalised groups rather than systemic critique. Figures like Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, and various “manosphere” influencers — promoted heavily by Zuckerberg’s platform algorithms due to “engagement” — offer superficially appealing narratives that transform structural critiques of capitalism into individualised grievances against feminism, “wokeness”, and other manufactured enemies. And quite literally fomenting violence, from the streets where rape and murder of women continues to be a significant problem, to the internet where misogynistic comments and cyberbullying also claim lives. This process serves capital’s interests perfectly – rather than recognising their shared exploitation with other workers, angry men are encouraged to view feminist, LGBTQI+, and racial justice movements as threats to their “status” (not that they ever had any), effectively fracturing potential class solidarity. The billionaire class actively cultivates these reactionary masculine movements, understanding that redirecting male rage toward cultural grievances prevents it from developing into genuine anti-capitalist consciousness. Due to the deliberate echo-chambers run by Zucc which practically speaking are the only social media platforms on the web a self-reinforcing cycle emerges where any ‘legitimate’ male suffering under capitalism is rapidly transformed into support for precisely the system causing that suffering, with toxic masculinity serving as the perfect vehicle for maintaining hegemonic control while preventing class consciousness from emerging. Anger, its a hell of a drug.

As capitalism’s contradictions become increasingly difficult to manage through consent alone, we see its mask of democratic legitimacy falling away to reveal naked authoritarianism. Anger, denial, hate, fear and rage are harnessed here to keep the violence lateral, rather than systemic. Angry men as enforcers of Trump’s empty bullshit, weak men as the defenders of Musk’s exploitative, murderous and despotic plans, and so on. The system’s fundamental incompatibility with genuine democracy becomes impossible to conceal as climate collapse and inequality reach crisis levels — ‘crisis’ so deep that they can’t contain CEOs being murdered. Rather than risk genuine popular control that might interfere with accumulation, capital increasingly embraces fascist solutions to maintain power. This shift isn’t happening in traditionally authoritarian states but in the heart of “liberal democracies”, where capital abandons democratic pretences in favour of direct domination.

These developments are deeply interconnected: the oligarchy’s consolidation of power enables the billionaire class’s despotic turn, while their manipulation of popular consciousness provides cover for capitalism’s shift toward naked authoritarianism. The system’s inherent drive toward fascism emerges from its need to maintain accumulation in the face of mounting crises, with the billionaire class serving as both architects and beneficiaries of this transformation. Their success in redirecting popular anger away from systemic critique and toward manufactured enemies enables capital's increasingly open embrace of anti-democratic governance.

This is precisely why we need to continue fighting for democracy. From our workplaces, to our government decision-making. Because once we loose the pretence of democracy, we loose our rights. When dumb, angry men are dictators of our society, we will truly have arrived at the hell on earth the billionaires use their bible to warn us about (“scary socialists”) — only hell is their plan — hell for us, heaven for them.

Happy fucking christmas, “consume it all”,

Aidan.

[1] https://www.aclu.org/project-2025-explained

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c977njnvq2do

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/12/22/the-billionaires-trumps-picked-for-next-administration-elon-musk-tilman-fertitta-and-more/

Dear friends,

I have been thinking about labour and the nature of exploitation. Not the political party, though they could easily fit under a similar topic sentence. I’m also quite sure you’re thinking “you, thinking about labour? ha!” as though you don’t know precisely what you’re in for reading these dispatches. But I have a configuration of theoretical terrain which I think might be useful to sketch out, and I’m yet to find time to do this in an academic text, so we’re doing it here!

You may have heard of essentialising, and the sin of oversimplification. Well let’s do our absolute best to oversimplify the basic equation of the basis of the “economy”. This is a fun one, because who you ask will depend on what part, here, is considered the economy, but enough disclaimers...

Productive labour

Labour Power + Means of Production = Total Value Created
Wages < Total Value Created
Where the difference (Total Value Created - Wages) = Surplus Value extracted by the capitalist

Great, so in one fell swoop I’ve alienated economists, sociologists, Marxists, and more. But we’re not through the looking glass just yet, folks. I want to add a level to this that helps us understand epistemology. Regardless, I think we can agree that we are missing a big chunk of the labour that powers our contemporary “economy”. This work is almost exclusively done by women-identifying folk, and therefore has been oft excluded from academic texts...

Reproductive labour

Unpaid Domestic Labour + Community Care Work + Intergenerational Reproduction + Emotional Labour + Education/Skills Transfer = Regeneration of Labour Power

You might see, here, that we can’t get anywhere without this labour. Therefore, it is at least equally essential to the functioning of society, because without it, we literally die out as a species. So when we piece this together, the new “productive labour” model might look like:

(Re)productive labour

(Reproductive labour) → Labour Power + Means of Production = Total Value Created

These are, with derivations for socio-cultural understandings and configurations of labour, the basic building blocks of any human society, in a sense. For the western world, of course, we might hope for a system without the capitalists tacking on the surplus value extraction and despotically controlling society to face a global heat death. But these systems do not maintain themselves, the require a social cohesion which the capitalists like to claim can only be maintained by them for evil ends. However, the actual tools and systems of social and cultural connection are deeply universal. Let’s add another layer atop our (re)productive labour base (yeah, the base - Marxists, looking at you - is deeply dependent on women’s’ labour). What we’re missing, now, is the superstructure, which comes in parts (because it has, in the capitalist world, supplanted culture)...

Environmental extraction

Resource Depletion + Ecological Degradation + Climate Disruption = Material Base for Production

Why is this superstructural, even though it relates to the material base? Because we do not need to destroy our planet in order to live. No, I won’t elaborate.

Imperialism

Territorial Dispossession + Resource Appropriation + Labour Arbitrage + Debt Bondage = Global Accumulation

Again, superstructural, because no one needs to steal others land in order to live. But we’re not quite done...

Intersectionality

Gender Hierarchy + Racial Subordination + Ability-based Exclusion + Sexual/Gender Conformity = Differential Exploitation

Here we are verging into more traditionally superstructural considerations. Anything depicted as “social” can be rendered, at least by insensitive Marxists, into superstructure. But the overlook that occurs here is that intersectional violence is fundamentally required for the division of labour, the maintenance of capitalist hegemony, and the continued justification of imperialism. So these all interlock. Next, we have a layer of enforcement, to ensure that people follow these conditions.

State violence

Police Power + Carceral Systems + Border Regimes + Surveillance Apparatus = Coercive Enforcement

Let’s take these parts together and weave in some of Gramsci’s thinking on how this fits together to capture the modus operandi of a society. Importantly, for Gramsci, this was a changeable thing — we are not locked into one way of operating. We can change how we work, think and create, we just have to want to.

Hegemony

Superstructural Totality =
(Hegemonic Apparatus[Cultural Institutions • Media Control • Educational Systems]
×
Environmental Extraction[Resource Depletion • Ecological Crisis • Climate Disruption]
×
Colonial Power[Territorial Theft • Resource Appropriation • Global Labour Arbitrage]
×
Intersectional Oppression[Gender Hierarchy • Racial Subordination • Ability-Based Exclusion]
×
State Violence[Police Power • Carceral Systems • Border Regimes])
→ Manufactured Consent + Systemic Reproduction + Material Exploitation

Our × is multiplicative, so if you happen to fall into a space where these things pertain to you more than others, you are more likely exploited from, and feel the weight of hegemonic enforcement much more viscerally, and often violently.

Marx and Engels provided the foundational analysis of labour under capitalism, demonstrating how the commodification of human work power serves as the basis for capital accumulation. Their examination revealed how capitalism transforms concrete human activity into abstract labour time, enabling exploitation through the extraction of surplus value. This analysis showed that workers become alienated not only from the products of their labour, but from their very creative and productive capacities as human beings. The they expose how capitalism reorganises the entirety of social relations around this fundamental exploitation, creating a system where human creative potential becomes subordinated to the endless drive for profit accumulation. It’s a gross person’s world out there, we’re just (forced to be) living in it.

The industrial revolution’s transformation of work processes made this abstraction of labour increasingly concrete in workers’ daily experiences. And we’ve only seen intensification and abstraction away from any awareness of our own exploitation since. Marx and Engels’ analysis provided the theoretical tools to understand how technological changes served not to liberate workers, but to increase capital’s control over the labour process itself — ever cementing the hegemony of capitalism (systemically). This set the stage for later theorists to examine how scientific management and automation would further fragment and degrade workers’ autonomous creative capacities.

Building on this foundation, Braverman’s labour process theory explored how scientific management techniques systematically deskilled and degraded work under monopoly capitalism. His analysis showed how management’s drive to control the labour process led to the separation of conception from execution, transforming skilled craftspeople into interchangeable machine operators. This scientific management served to increase surplus value extraction while simultaneously undermining workers’ ability to resist through the destruction of their craft knowledge and autonomy. Braverman revealed how automation and computerisation accelerated these tendencies, creating increasingly alienated forms of work. Even if some of his claims were dubious and romanticised the kind of work that might be of value in a society (the theory helps, but is far from perfect, as with any theory).

These processes of deskilling and control continue to evolve with new technologies, though often in less obvious forms. Specifically, new thought technologies in management and corporate settings which “creep” rather than being advertised broadly as revolutionary changes to workforce management. Braverman’s insights help us understand how contemporary management techniques — from algorithmic control to agile methodologies — represent new iterations of capital’s eternal drive to subordinate living labour to dead labour, worker to machine. The degradation of work remains central to capital accumulation, especially as it takes on new digital forms (call it “enshittification” all you like, it’s just capitalism). And let me take a moment of digression here to explain living and dead labour (can’t just drop you in the deep end like that, you know).

The fundamental tension between living and dead labour lies at the heart of capitalism’s necessity to transform human creative capacity into mechanised, controllable processes. Thought technologies, like Fordism (factory, production line), advanced this in particular ways. Living labour represents the vibrant, autonomous potential of human creative and productive powers — our ability to imagine, adapt, and shape the world around us. Dead labour, embodied in machines and algorithms, represents the crystallisation of past human knowledge and effort into forms that can be owned and controlled by capital (anyone else noticed the AI bubble bursting and fading into the background, while AI continues to replace human jobs?). The eternal necessity to subordinate the former to the latter reveals capitalism’s inherently anti-human character. Capitalism is a literal cancer — and it has already claimed many of us. Okay, back to the main show.

Gramsci’s crucial contribution was to examine how capitalism maintains its dominance not just through economic exploitation, but through cultural hegemony achieved through, in part, the manufacturing of consent. His analysis showed how civil society institutions work to naturalise capitalist social relations and prevent the development of revolutionary consciousness. These are the tools that give us “common sense” a social construct that makes us say stupid shit like: “what do you want to do when you grow up?”. Gramsci demonstrated that successful resistance requires not only economic struggle, but the development of counter-hegemonic movements capable of challenging capital’s cultural power. Quite literally, capitalism, the cancer we’ve just talked about, has subsumed culture — its elites, the ruling class, have only accumulation, nothing else that resembles culture in any form we might recognise.

By examining the role of intellectuals and cultural institutions in maintaining capitalist hegemony, Gramsci provided tools for understanding how exploitation is normalised and resistance contained. His insights into how ruling class ideas become “common sense” (literally vs “good sense” or perhaps “better sense” which requires training and comradery to perform deep analysis) remain essential for analysing contemporary ideological control, particularly as digital platforms create new mechanisms for manufacturing consent. This laid groundwork for understanding how gender, race and other forms of oppression intersect with class exploitation. But it also shows us how the superstuctural elements are reciprocally connected to the base in a way that cannot be subordinated to the base. i.e., the biggest bone of contention between Gramscian theory and Marxist theory is which part needs to change first, and how it comes to be changed. Marxism has a kind of stasis — not on all fronts of course, where Gramscianism is a deliberately activist and mobile configuration of theory that gives us ‘outcome’ rather than process. But this isn’t the final piece necessary for our full conception.

Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) builds on these foundations while centring the often invisible labour required to reproduce the working class itself. SRT scholars like Silvia Federici showed how unwaged domestic labour — performed primarily by women — is essential to capitalism’s functioning while being systematically devalued. This analysis reveals how gender oppression is not incidental but fundamental to capitalist accumulation, as the system relies on the unpaid work of social reproduction while refusing to acknowledge its value.

This connects to Gramsci’s insights about hegemony, as the devaluation of reproductive labour requires extensive ideological work to appear natural rather than constructed. SRT shows how capitalism’s apparent separation of productive and reproductive spheres serves to obscure their essential connection, while creating additional axes of exploitation and oppression. This theoretical development helps explain how various forms of oppression intersect with and reinforce class exploitation while pointing toward the need for truly intersectional resistance movements. Let me make this slightly more explicit, though, as we aren’t going to get far without strong theoretical connection between SRT and Gramsci (which, as far as I know, has not been done widely elsewhere).

The naturalisation of reproductive labour as “women’s work” represents a deeply successful hegemonic achievement. Operating at the intersection of base and superstructure to ensure the continued reproduction of labour power, but mystifying its essential role in capitalist accumulation — i.e., not valuing it, rewarding it, or incentivising it like other work (government initiatives to stimulate population growth do not count here). Gramscian theorists (at least this one you’re reading) would identify this as a deployment of common sense, the biological fact of childbearing has been ideologically expanded to justify the gendered assignment of all manner of social reproductive labour - from childcare to emotional support to community maintenance. All unpaid. All significantly undervalued. This common sense operates through multiple cultural institutions (superstructure) to make the exploitation of reproductive labour appear as natural law rather than a constructed social relation essential to capital’s functioning (base). This hegemonic operation transforms historical contingency into apparent necessity. The fact that women can bear children becomes twisted into an ideological justification for their performing all manner of unpaid labour necessary for capitalism’s reproduction ... and men’s comfort. This naturalisation serves capital in multiple ways: it ensures the reproduction of labour power while keeping these costs external to wage calculations, it creates gendered hierarchies that fragment working class solidarity, and it obscures how reproductive labour forms an essential part of capitalist production rather than existing in a separate “private” sphere. The hegemonic success, here, is so complete that even radical political movements often struggle to recognise reproductive labour as labour, demonstrating how thoroughly this particular configuration of common sense has been embedded in our collective consciousness. It also shows the genius of feminists in recognising and fighting this “common sense”.

Across these theoretical terrains we see an arc of increasingly sophisticated understanding of how capitalism operates through multiple, interconnected, systems of exploitation and control. We are also able, in a relatively unique way, to connect these theories and understandings to grapple with capitalist ontology (or capitalist realism). Each builds on previous insights while expanding the analysis to new domains, helping us understand both the totality of capitalist domination and potential paths for resistance. The contemporary challenge is to synthesise these perspectives into forms of praxis capable of addressing capitalism’s evolving mechanisms of control while building genuine alternatives. The work of identifying these alternatives is the most difficult, but also achievable if we can share a framework for understanding our exploitation.

I have rambled for long enough, but I hope to better connect these theoretical territories as I continue working in this space. This work, too, would not be possible without Piper who is co-creating these ways of working and seeing the world with me.

In solidarity,

Aidan