S08E01: Nan­cy Fras­er on “Can­ni­bal Capitalism” 

This episode explores the pit­falls of under­stand­ing cap­i­tal­ism as a mere­ly eco­nom­ic sys­tem. How does this nar­row con­ven­tion­al view obscure dis­tinct sources of non-eco­nom­ic wealth? And what is revealed by exam­in­ing cap­i­tal­ism instead as a social order includ­ing aspects of expro­pri­a­tion, domes­tic labor and deple­tion of nature? Final­ly, why must pro­gres­sive social move­ments rec­og­nize the com­mon roots of struc­tur­al prob­lems against which they struggle?

Guest fea­tured in this episode:

Nan­cy Fras­er is a pro­fes­sor of phi­los­o­phy and pol­i­tics at The New School for Social Research in New York. She has been one of the fore­most author­i­ties in sev­er­al fields: social and polit­i­cal the­o­ry, fem­i­nist the­o­ry, con­tem­po­rary French and Ger­man thought. From her first book, Unruly Prac­tices: Pow­er, Dis­course, and Gen­der in Con­tem­po­rary Social The­o­ry, pub­lished in 1989 through Fem­i­nist Con­tentions: A Philo­soph­i­cal Exchange, which she co-authored with Sey­la Ben­hab­ib, Judith But­ler and Dru­cil­la Cor­nell, all the way to For­tunes of Fem­i­nism, and Fem­i­nism for the 99%: A Man­i­festo, Nan­cy Fras­er has made invalu­able con­tri­bu­tions to fem­i­nist crit­i­cal the­o­ry.
Her most recent works are about cap­i­tal­ism. In 2018, she pub­lished Cap­i­tal­ism: A Con­ver­sa­tion in Crit­i­cal The­o­ry, co-authored with Rahel Jaeg­gi, The Old is Dying and the New Can­not be Born, in 2019, and in 2022, Can­ni­bal Cap­i­tal­ism: How Our Sys­tem is Devour­ing Democ­ra­cy, Care, and the Plan­et – and What Can We Do About It.