Barcelona Metropolis

The crisis also manifests itself as a care crisis. In patriarchal societies, it is mostly women who have assumed the task of nursing and caring for the needs of vulnerable people, because that is the role imposed by the sexual division of labour. This occupation is practised in the private and invisible arena of homes, dictated by the rules of family institution or dealt with through the precarious work of women, largely migrants hailing from the same places as the raw materials that keep economies “rich”.

Precarity is the lack of stability or security; it is the extension and amplification of vulnerability and neglect as a result of it. The life of many human beings is increasingly precarious. Vulnerability becomes hardship when life’s basic necessities are destroyed and the ties and social bonds that allow us to take care of one another are shattered.

The security concept

Security is one of the buzzwords in the speeches delivered by political and economic powers. Security against terrorism and religious fanaticism; migration, not as a political and ethical issue, but as a threat to places of privilege; security for investors and businesses; insurance companies for everything… The concept of security must be challenged and turned upside down.

No economy, no life, no security are possible apart from what the Earth provides, but the far-reaching dynamics of capitalist accumulation has turned the economy into a kind of digestive system, which devours finite resources and excretes waste so rapidly that it has ended up overstepping the planet’s biocapacity. Moreover, it does so in a very unequal manner. “Advanced” economies are not sustained by the resources available in their own territories, but are upheld by the extraction and plundering of the territories of other peoples, whose lives become precarious and insecure.

Building safe lives for the social majorities calls for the radical transformation of a metabolism that fosters the growth of monetary aggregates and conceals the depletion and deterioration of material foundations and the exploitation of work – performed mainly by women – to sustain life, while the system attacks it. If we wish to survive, the economy and politics must make the security of actual and everyday lives a priority. Not the security of investments, or that of business. Not security understood as the shield of the elite or as the isolation of hardship. The path that runs from the patriarchal fantasy of individuality to an eco-feminist imagination set in nature and in bodies, presents a series of indisputable conditions that force us to dispel the myths and misconceptions to which we referred previously and on which the cultural narrative of our societies is built.

The physical limits of the planet

The first condition is related to accepting the inevitable shrinking of the economy’s material resources. It is not so much a principle as a starting point. It is the actual physical limits of the planet that call for it. The material resources will dwindle one way – in other words, in a planned and fair manner – or another – in an abrupt, unjust and violent manner. If we assume we must inevitably adapt to the planet’s limits, it is clear we have to accept that societies must necessarily be more austere in the use of materials and in waste generation, rely on renewable and clean energies, and be based on the surrounding area; they will thereby close cycles, preserve diversity and will have to be much, much slower.

The second condition is related to interdependence. Usually, the concept of dependence is usually associated with childrearing, the care of the sick or those with some form of functional diversity. However, as we have seen, dependence is not something specific to certain population groups, but is as inherent to the human condition as birth and death. It is the representation of our vulnerability. Accepting interdependence means that society as a whole must be responsible for welfare and social reproduction. Only in societies where care work is not determined by sex, gender, race or class, can the ideal of equality or social justice make sense. The concept of work must therefore be broadened and work must be reorganised, such that the obligations intrinsic to being a species and having a body are shared.

A third condition is the distribution of wealth. If we have a planet with limited, partially deteriorated and shrinking resources, the only possibility for justice is the distribution of wealth. Fighting against poverty is fighting against excessive wealth. The reconversion of the economy following this line of reasoning will imply addressing three questions posed by the feminist economy: what needs must be met for one and all? What productions are required for these needs to be met? What are the socially necessary jobs to achieve these productions?

The social metabolism arising from resolving these three issues fairly is the one that can allow us to rebuild the severed ties with nature and between people. The transformation is not only economic; it calls on us to learn to live more austerely material-wise, obviously justly. It involves learning to live by making the maintenance of lives, good lives for all, a priority of social organisation.