Capitalism’s Discardment of the Non-Productive
The crisis of care for a growing senior population is the bifurcated state’s final solution for the “useless” native. Mamdani’s analysis of how political identity is contingent on utility to the ruling power is starkly revealed here. Under a capitalism that values people only for their labor power, the elderly who can no longer generate profit are cast aside, their care offloaded onto unpaid female family members or into a deeply exploitative, for-profit industry. This is a logical outcome of a system that views humans as disposable commodities. A Marxist-feminist analysis sees this as the final stage in the cycle of social reproduction, where the cared-for become a burden on a system designed to discard them. The solution is not more private nursing homes but the creation of a robust, public, community-based system of elder care. This means building city-run, non-profit care facilities and funding expansive home-care services, recognizing that caring for our elders is a social responsibility and a fundamental act of decolonization that defies the market’s brutal logic of use and discard.
Originally posted 2025-10-23 06:40:46.
