A Scientific Approach to Youth Liberation and Family Abolition

I've been writing a lot about youth liberation, education, and family abolition - but only one at a time. But I thought it might be useful to show how these pieces fit together and demonstrate, in dialectical materialist terms, the need for family abolition and youth liberation. This piece is basically a short summary/compilation of these essays:

• Introduction to Materialism
• Introduction to Social Reproduction Theory
• Introduction to Family Abolition
• Introduction to Alienation
• We Don't Need No Education
• Introduction to Youth Liberation
• Why the Youth Liberation Movement Failed

There is plenty of Marxist analysis out there of family abolition and capitalist education (as well as many types of oppression such as racism, sexism, and ableism). But youth liberation has for the most part been explored by anarchists - and even then rather sporadically. There's definitely a lot of room for more Marxist analysis in this space. Here's what it could look like, at least to start:

Social Reproduction Theory

The continued existence of capitalism depends not only on the circuit of production but also the circuit of reproduction. Social reproduction is the process by which the working class prepares and maintains itself for the exchange of labor-power for a wage. This can also refer to how the bourgeoisie maintains its power generationally. Marx introduced this concept in Capital but did not explore it in depth. Marxist feminists such as Silvia Federici, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, and Shulamith Firestone began fleshing out social reproduction theory in the 1970s through both writing (Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex) and action (the Wages for Housework campaign).

There are two scales of social reproduction: day-to-day and intergenerational. The labor pool is replenished via three processes: gestation (having kids), immigration, and slavery.

Day-to-day social reproductive labor is usually carried out by women. This includes the work of cooking, cleaning, budgeting, and all the other work that goes into running a household. The wife in a typical nuclear family does this labor unpaid, but many affluent households choose to hire cheap migrant laborers (usually also women) to carry it out for them.

Intergenerational social reproductive labor is usually understood as the work of raising children - that's as far as it's been theorized in existing Marxist feminist work. But I believe that children are responsible for the bulk of this type of labor. The work of formal and informal education for the dual purposes of developing job readiness and internalizing capitalist norms - this labor is broadly not recognized as labor at all. But I hope that changes in the future.

Capitalist Education

This (unpaid) educational labor occupies most of childhood and its imperative is reinforced by three pillars: the family, the market, and the state. You could argue for the education system to be considered a fourth pillar since it operates somewhat independently of other state apparatuses, at least in the US. It depends on how you look at it. The family, the market, and the state work together (imperfectly, unevenly) to reproduce capitalism.

One of the key features of capitalist education system is establishing the alienation of labor, so that by the time children grow up, they're ready to integrate into a compliant labor force. Another key feature of education is maintaining the reserve army of labor, which works to undercut attempts to organize labor or establish worker solidarity. The neoliberalization and globalization of the economy has extended this second feature of education both to adults and previously inaccessible labor markets around the world.

The Family Form (and its Abolition)

The family is the smallest unit of social reproduction. The nuclear family form developed around the same time as the industrial revolution and its existence is deeply tied to other systems of oppression such as patriarchy, white supremacy, and ableism. The family form in general developed after the agricultural revolution as a mechanism for inheriting wealth and maintaining socioeconomic hierarchies. Families aren't just a source of violence and coercion; they're also most people's primary source of care and support. But abolishing capitalism also necessitates abolishing the capitalist family form (as stated in the communist manifesto).

Family abolition doesn't just mean tearing families apart. It means expanding systems of care so that the family isn't the only place that people can receive it. In their original writing, Hegel, Marx, and Engels all used the word aufhebung to refer to abolition, which is really better translated as "positive supercession." Basically, people should still be able to get care from their families if they like, but it shouldn't be their only option. Marx believed that this principle was well represented in the Paris Commune. I believe that the 2022 Cuba Family Code Referendum also provides a great transitional model.

In respect to children, it is vital to recognize that family abolition is much more than taking power away from parents and giving it to the state. In fact, that would run counter to the goals of family abolition and youth liberation, but it happens regularly under capitalism through the family policing system. Black and Indigenous families are primarily affected, and this system reinforces the white supremacist racial hierarchy implicit in the ideal family form.

Instead, as socialists, we should be working towards youth liberation and recognizing its central role in family abolition.

Towards Socialism

If any socialist/communist movement is going to last, it requires a thorough analysis of minors as an oppressed class. The continued existence of capitalism depends on the extended disenfranchisement of young people until they internalize capitalist norms and prove themselves capable of capitalist reproduction. This process is absolutely key to establishing the alienation of labor. Dialectical analysis of children vs. their parents, children vs. the state, working class children vs. the bourgeoisie is all sorely needed.

Ignoring the oppression of children dooms us to repeat cycles of exploitation and domination even as we try to dismantle them elsewhere. The child (or image of the child) is everywhere: within the fascist family ideal, as the dispossessed indigenous person subject to colonial rule, as the laborers who produce ever-cheaper consumer goods for imperial core markets, as the severely disabled person confined to a conservatorship. Identifying these common threads is only the first step; moving beyond that to actually dismantle youth oppression must be a central effort of any effective socialist movement.

• The Communist Manifesto
• The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels
• Capital by Karl Marx (Heinrich's Introduction to Capital is much more beginner-friendly)
• Marx's 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
• Childhood in World History by Peter N. Stearns
• Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression edited by Tithi Bhattacharya
• Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care by M.E. O'Brien
• Making Workers: Radical Geographies of Education by Katharyne Mitchell
• Schooling in Capitalist America: Education Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life by Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis
• Suffering Childhood in Early America by Anna Mae Duane