“Knowing how to arrange things”: Reproductive surplus and social reproduction in contemporary capitalism

Abstract

This article develops the concept of reproductive surplus to explore how the labor involved in social reproduction generates capacities that both support and exceed capitalist accumulation. Drawing on ethnographic research in the post-industrial Portuguese city of Setúbal, it examines how households organize survival through networks of care, reciprocity, and institutional negotiation amid deindustrialization, precarious employment, and austerity. While these practices are often understood as mechanisms for reproducing labor power, the article argues that they also generate relational, moral, and practical capacities—forms of social knowledge, communicative competence, and moral judgement—that are crucial for navigating labor markets and welfare institutions. Bringing Marx's analysis of surplus value into dialogue with Maria Mies's feminist critique of reproductive labor and Simone de Beauvoir's philosophy of ambiguity, the article shows how contemporary capitalism increasingly relies on capacities produced through social reproduction, even though these capacities remain embedded in social relations that cannot be wholly subordinated to accumulation.