Class three of three on feminist economics, hosted by the Belfast Feminist Network

1. Feminist Economics
3: Cuts are a Feminist Issue
19 June 2014
Belfast Feminist Network
Realta Social Space Dr. Conor McCabe
King St. Belfast UCD School of Social Justice

3. By the end of the nineteenth century, most
economists had come to agree that all paid
services should be considered productive, and
many advocated the term “unproductive” be
dropped from the language of their discipline.
Yet, almost to a man, they also agreed that
nonmarket services lay outside the realm of
economics and therefore did not contribute to
economic growth.
While paid domestic servants were considered
part of the labour force, unpaid domestic
workers were not.
Nonmarket production – a wife’s work in the
home, for instance – was implicitly defined as
unproductive.
Nancy Folbre, ‘The Unproductive Housewife: Her Evolution in
Nineteenth-Century Thought’, Signs, Spring 1991; 16, 3, p.470

5. Census data consist of ordered sets of numbers. They appear objective and value-
free, but their meaning grows out of socially constructed concepts that are laden with
cultural and political values.
“Statistical reports exemplify the process by which visions of reality, models of social
structure, were elaborated and revised,” writes Joan Scott [in Gender and History,
1988)
Nancy Folbre, ‘The Unproductive Housewife: Her Evolution in Nineteenth-Century Thought’, Signs, Spring 1991; 16, 3, p.463-4.

6. Over the past thirty years, despite
being essential to human life,
neoliberal restructuring across the
world has privatised, eroded and
demolished our shared resources,
and ushered in a ‘crisis of social
reproduction.’
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’,
Soundings (Dec 2011), p.73.

11. research

13. activism

15. The purpose of capitalism is self-expansion – capital begets capital – and it
does so by monetizing social value and human labour. This is a circuit of
transformation.
Immanuel Wallerstein, Historical Capitalism (London: Verso, 2011), 15.

21. Over the last quarter of a century
something fundamental seems to
have changed in the way in which
capitalism works.
The tendency since 1970 has
been towards greater
geographical mobility of capital.

27. Rational Economic Man
• An autonomous agent
• able bodied, independent,
rational, heterosexual male
who is able to choose from an
number of options limited
only by certain constraints.
• Weighs cost and benefits to
maximise utility
• Self interested in
marketplace; altruistic at
home

29. 11 May 2010
Dear Chief Secretary,
I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left.
Sincerely,
Liam Byrne.
chief secretary to the Treasury.

30. “The British Government has
run out of money because all the
money was spent in the good
years.”
George Osborne, 25 February
2012

31. “So we cannot just carry on as we are. Unless we reform our
economy - rebalance demand, restructure banking, and restore the
sustainability of our public finances - we shall not only jeopardise
recovery, but also fail the next generation.”
Mervyn King,TUC Conference, 15 September 2010.

32. 5 March 2009. QE : £75
billion
10 October 2011. QE : £75
billion
2009 – 2011. corporate bond
purchase via asset purchase
facility : £375 billion
2012: Monetary Policy
Committee approve a further
£50 billion.
“So we cannot just carry on as we are. Unless we reform our
economy - rebalance demand, restructure banking, and restore the
sustainability of our public finances - we shall not only jeopardise
recovery, but also fail the next generation.”
Mervyn King,TUC Conference, 15 September 2010.

33. Long Term Refinancing Operations
(LTRO)
21 December 2011: €489.2 billion to
523 banks – 3yrs @ 1 per cent
29 February 2012: €529.5 billion to
800 banks – 3yrs @ 1 per cent

34. Long Term Refinancing Operations
(LTRO)
21 December 2011: €489.2 billion to
523 banks – 3yrs @ 1 per cent
29 February 2012: €529.5 billion to
800 banks – 3yrs @ 1 per cent
“Some banks, particularly in Spain and Italy, used
portions of those funds to buy higher-yielding bonds
issued by their governments at a time when most
investors remained skittish, and it helped reduce
government borrowing costs.
But many banks primarily used the funds to pay down
maturing debts or simply deposited the money at other
banks or with the ECB itself, even though they yield less.
The infusion fell short of some politicians' hope that it
would stimulate bank lending to customers in struggling
European economies.”
Wall Street Journal, 1 March 2012