Defining Care: Activity vs. Identity
In A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Raj Patel and Jason Moore outline seven things that have become cheap under capitalism. In “Chapter 4: Cheap Care,” they criticize the lack of recognition and compensation for care work. Although Patel and Moore discuss care extensively, they never actually define it. It falls to the reader to deduce what the exact definition of care might be. At the beginning of the chapter, Patel and Moore equate care with the “work of cooking, teaching, nurturing, healing, organizing, and sacralizing” (99-101). This list of activities implies that care work is inherently different from other types of labor. That implication opens the door to a discussion of whether care or labor is more valuable, inviting comparison. Later in the chapter, Patel and Moore adopt an identity-based approach to care. They explain that it has historically fallen to women, minorities, and oppressed groups of people to provide care (117-119 of 276). By analyzing care through the lenses of gender, race, and class, Patel and Moore better account for the complexity of their topic. The definition of care comes to rest on who care workers are, not on what they are doing. If care differs from labor because of what it is, then it might be fair for capitalism to value it differently (not necessarily less, but differently). However, if care differs from labor because of who performs it, then a comparison of the two types of work cannot take place. Capitalism’s cheapening of care simply becomes an act of discrimination and subordination. This latter proposal seems to more closely resemble Patel and Moore’s argument. The authors might better support their argument by explicitly defining care work as identity-based.
William Blake, Europe, Supported by Africa and America, 1796. Source: Stedman 1796, 394.
Works Cited
Patel, Raj, and Jason W. Moore. A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things : A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet, University of California Press, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/davidson/detail.action?docID=4820021.
