Autonomist Marxism, disability and precarious work

Robert Chapman, author of the recent book Empire of Normality, interviews researcher Ioana Cerasella Chis about Marxism and the politics of disability.

As a disabled organiser and disability researcher, I’ve long found Marxist approaches to disability helpful. At the same time, I’ve become more aware of how bound up the tradition has been with more orthodox Marxist theory, where in many matters I’ve found the analyses of the Italian autonomist Marxian tradition to be more helpful. Here I interview Ioana Cerasella Chis, one of a small group of people working on synthesising approaches to theorizing disability politics with the autonomist tradition. I hope this interview will provide a helpful introduction to autonomist disability politics and how this can help us in the struggle against capitalist domination.

How did you start thinking autonomist Marxism would be helpful for thinking about the politics of disablement?

When I started thinking about and researching the politics of disablement and precarious work, I wanted to put forward a perspective that is informed by both Marxism and disability-related perspectives, in some way. I wanted to ensure that the anti-productivist claims made by many disabled people across Britain and beyond would be placed at the centre of my analysis. These claims are critical of the narrow understanding of what it means to be a valuable and ‘productive’ member of society – they also highlight the agency and contributions of disabled people to society, regardless of whether they/we are engaged in waged work. When I started the project, and mostly informed by the perspectives I had developed through my trade union activism, I thought my concern would be strictly with precarity within the sphere of waged work, i.e. within ‘the gig economy’. However, through the discussions I had with precariously employed disabled people and after reading the various literatures around the topics of work and disability, I realised that not much attention has been given to the work that disabled people undertake without compensation via a wage, and which sustains (or counters) capitalism. So, I gradually but steadily became interested in exploring precarity more widely, to consider how various kinds of work are central to oppression/exploitation as well as liberation.

Post-’68 Autonomist, Feminist, and Black Marxisms together with the UPIAS-inspired social model of disability – which I discuss in more detail below – allow for a problematisation of the continuous imposition of both waged and unwaged work upon disabled people. This approach allows us to avoid the age-old reduction of exploitation and ‘work’ to only those activities that take place within the shackles of the wage. So, with this body of thinking, praxis, and scholarship, one can question how to resist, subvert, and prefigure beyond the everyday activities imposed upon us. 

Contrary to the orthodox Marxist concern with the work that mostly takes place in the workplace, through anti-productivist, autonomist and other post-’68 Marxisms, we can pay attention to the wider institution of work and the daily demands that are being made upon us – by the state, employers, ‘professionals’, and others. We can also recognise that all non-capitalists are workers, regardless of whether their work is (or has ever been) compensated through a wage. All disabled people are workers through our subjection to (what I call) disabling capitalism’s processes of domination and accumulation. 

The class composition thesis is important for the autonomist tradition – can you explain what that is and how its relevant for thinking about disability?

The class composition thesis distinguishes itself from the class consciousness thesis. The latter aims to ‘raise’ the consciousness of those who are yet unaware of their exploitation and oppression – this involves a hierarchical relationship of bringing others out of their supposed ignorance. Class composition focuses on how the working class is structured and what forms of organisation are necessary for that structuring to change; it differentiates between the ‘technical composition’ and the ‘political composition’ of class. 

The technical composition of class represents the way in which class is materially constituted under capitalism, i.e. how capital brings us together to form a collective of workers that reproduce it. The political composition of class represents the self-organisation of working class people. Adapted to the context of disabling capitalism and its structural disablement processes, the class composition thesis can also help us understand how all people with impairments, who are chronically ill, d/Deaf, neurodivergent, and/or who experience mental distress form the technical composition of disability. This is because all these groups of people are all subjected to disablement, oppression and exploitation, regardless of whether they are conscious of it. Concurrently, those who self-organise as disabled people, Mad, crip and along various other political lines (including on the right) are part of the political composition of disability. Through an analysis of the political composition of disability, we can identify different political lineages and antagonisms between various self-organised groups. In other words, not all people who are subjected to disablement have the same political outlook and goals in relation to disability and this needs to be recognised and addressed more openly. This is something that you’ve been doing yourself over the past few years!

The social model of disability is arguably the big idea from Marxists interested in the politics of disability. Can you say a bit about the tradition associated with this and its limitations for strategy?

The social model was coined by scholar-activist Mike Oliver, following its actual development through the disabled people’s organisation called The Union for the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS). In the early 1970s, UPIAS made the important distinction between impairment (a neutral, non-moralised feature of one’s body) and disability (the result of the social restrictions that are socially imposed upon people with impairments). So, it is society that actively disables people with impairments. Over the years, as it often happens, the language of the social model has been coopted and diluted by liberal academics and activists, as well as by the state; at times, even the Department for Work and Pensions has claimed that it adopts ‘the social model’. Also, both on social media and in scholarly publications, there has been considerable misrepresentation and simplification of ‘the social model’. That’s why simply saying that one favours ‘the social model’ is no longer enough, as it means many different things to different people. I would encourage readers to take on the task of engaging with the UPIAS-inspired social model and to expand it further.

On my part, I have tried to contribute specifically to the perspectives developed by the UPIAS-inspired social modelists. Whilst I agree that society disables people, I have highlighted that the source of oppression and exploitation of disabled people comes from and through capitalist social relations – not just through ‘society’ in general. Also, although UPIAS argued (in the 1970s) that people with impairments are those who are disabled by society, the term ‘impairments’ has been interpreted and contested over the past few decades – in both useful and problematic ways. At times, contestations of the meaning of impairment and the impairment-disability distinction have led to divisions between self-organised groups of disabled people. A way of avoiding divisions, I suggest, is to be more explicit about how all people with impairments, who are chronically ill, d/Deaf, neurodivergent, and/or who experience mental distress are subjected to disablement. Through the term ‘subjects of disablement’, I try to adopt a more expansive approach to the neutral features of one’s bodymind on the basis of which exploitation and oppression occurs. 

A lot of the time Marxists and trade unionists are understandably focused on the workplace. But disablement impacts us far beyond the workplace. Can you say more about that?

Absolutely! Processes of structural disablement (like those of racialisation, gendering, and heteronormativisation) are inherent to capitalism and vice-versa. They are embedded within the social relations of capitalism, which include both waged and unwaged activities. So, it’s not just the work we do for a wage that needs to be opposed, critiqued, transformed, and/or abolished – but all forms of work that legitimise and reproduce a way of relating to one another that is filtered through productivism and accumulation. 

Workplace-based organising and oppositions to the wage system are absolutely crucial struggles that need to be connected to all other aspects of our lives. For instance, people subjected to disablement who use social security have to go through the appalling ordeal of disablist assessments, surveillance, endless job searches, training, and regular Job Centre appointments. At the same time, they are portrayed as ‘passive’ and a ‘burden’ on society. Instead, all of these activities constitute work that large sections of disabled people are forced to undertake to avoid sanctions and destitution and, currently, with no collective bargaining power. Trade unionists and all anti-capitalists should understand top-down demands for work without compensation as part-and-parcel of the maintenance of the structures and institutions that oppress and exploit working class people who are subjected to disablement. 

What are some important campaigns or issues relating to disability in the UK which people can support right now?

I’m going to start by saying simply that all issues are related to disability – so, finding out how they are related would be an important first step for anyone to undertake, from the place they find themselves in. Beyond that, the campaigns that come to mind immediately are those that oppose the Assisted Suicide Bill, social security and social care cuts, and the invasive surveillance of people who experience mental distress. Rank-and-file anti-precarity campaigns that take place through and beyond trade unions (and against trade unions’ leadership and non-elected officials), as well as the ongoing activities of Disabled People’s Organisations, the – very few remaining – unemployed workers’ centres, union branches for unemployed people and anti-austerity/welfare activist collectives also play a crucial role in challenging the imposition of work, alienation, disablism, and impoverishment in our lives. That said, much more coalitional organising is needed, both in Britain and across/against borders. 

Other bottom-up struggles against imposed work are those of campaigns which oppose the ideological, austerity-driven closures of Day Centres or other collective institutions and infrastructures, as well as cuts to social security. Through these policies, assistance and self-assistance work (often regarded as ‘care work’) is transferred onto people subjected to disablement, with no resources and infrastructures to support these activities. Through organising, reconceptualising the way we relate to one another and creating new infrastructures, we can hold space for much needed alternatives to the horrors of our current times. I’ll end this response with a shout-out to the Marxism and Disability Network – since January 2023, this international activist and scholarly network has supported the development of pluralist Marxist perspectives on disablement through monthly talks, discussions, and reading group sessions.