The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy: Summary & Key Insights

Marxism has long provided the most robust critique of capitalism, identifying its exploitative structures and its systemic reproduction of inequality. Yet, in my reading, Marxism also contributed to the totalizing image of capitalism as an all-encompassing, self-sustaining force. By defining history through the logic of capital — through its mode of production, its class relations, its global expansion — Marxist theory ironically reinforced the very dominance it sought to oppose. In this book, I revisit Marxist frameworks not to discard them, but to extend and transform them through a feminist lens.

What becomes clear through this reexamination is that Marxist analyses often privilege production and wage labor, leaving other spheres of economy — unpaid domestic work, informal exchange, volunteerism, and emotional labor — in the shadows. These overlooked practices are typically feminized and devalued, treated as supplementary rather than constitutive of the economy. Feminism, however, insists that these forms of work are central to social reproduction and to the sustenance of any economic order.

By bringing this insight to bear on Marxist thought, we begin to see capitalism differently. It is no longer a singular engine that defines all economic life; rather, it is one system among many, reliant on a host of noncapitalist relations that it both depends upon and obscures. My feminist reinterpretation thus reanimates Marxism, turning it toward a more inclusive and diverse understanding of economic possibility.

Capitalism persists not only as a set of material relations but as a powerful discourse — a way of talking about, imagining, and organizing the world. In the twentieth century, especially within academic and political discourse, capitalism came to signify an immense, cohesive structure, so total that resistance seemed futile. This ideological construction created a sense of inevitability that paralyzed transformative thought.

In this chapter, I reveal how the language of political economy has built this myth. The repeated invocation of capitalism as ‘the system’ leaves little room for its others. Even radical critiques often amplify this dominance, painting capitalism as omnipresent and insurmountable. But if capitalism’s power is partly discursive, then changing the discourse becomes an act of liberation. By diversifying the ways we speak about economies — by naming local and alternative practices, by acknowledging non-market exchanges, by foregrounding cooperative and caring relations — we loosen the grip of capitalist realism.

Feminist theory, drawing on poststructuralism, shows us that language is not neutral. Our economic talk creates the boundaries of what we can imagine. To end capitalism ‘as we knew it’ thus begins with changing how we speak of it — from the singular to the plural, from the monolithic to the multiple.