Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation

Capitalism is an economic system that originated in Europe during the early modern era and dominates today’s global economy. Under capitalism, wealth is privatized and the economy is market centered. Marxist theory holds that feudalism prefigured capitalism’s rise. Moreover, capitalism has a global reach that originates with European imperialism and colonization. Silvia Federici contends that its realization hinged on the exploitation and division of Europe’s working class, the degradation of women’s work and thus women’s status, and the exploitation of enslaved peoples and Indigenous populations in colonized lands.

Feudalism is a historical construct that refers to relationships of mutual political and military support that existed in some parts of medieval Europe. According to this construct, vassals pledged loyalty and agreed to provide military service to local overlords in exchange for land. This land, known as a fief, operated as a manorial estate that included countryside, villages, and towns where free peasants rented land as small farmers or worked as laborers. Many serfs also worked the lord of the manor’s fields in exchange for small plots of land. Serfs were bound to the estates, required to provide labor to their lord a certain number of days each week, and owed various dues to the landlord.