https://doi.org/10.1177/04866134211043284 Review of Radical Political Economics 1–8 © 2021 Union for Radical Political Economics Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/04866134211043284 rrpe.sagepub.com Conference Proceeding Unproductive Workers and State Repression Kirstin Munro 1 Abstract Social Reproduction Theory, as advanced by scholars such as Bhattacharya (2017) and Ferguson (2019), is at its core a theory of the revolutionary capacity of “unproductive” workers such as teachers, nurses, and social workers who are disproportionately women and disproportionately employed by the state. However, Social Reproduction Theory overlooks the contradictory and antagonistic role of the state in the lives of people, as the reproduction of labor power in capitalism proceeds via antagonism and state repression. The task of teachers, nurses, and social workers is the production of not just any life but that of a docile, exploitable worker. JEL classification: B51, B54, P1, I3 Keywords contradictions, gender welfare, poverty and well-being, Marxist theory, productive labor versus unproductive labor, women 1. Introduction Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) is a recent offshoot of Marxist-feminism (Arruzza 2016; Bhattacharya 2017; Ferguson 2019) that argues for the revolutionary capacity and working-class position of unproductive workers whose waged and unwaged work is involved in the reproduc- tion of the commodity labor power. From Dalla Costa and James (1975), SRT borrows the idea that women who perform tasks on an unwaged basis related to the reproduction of labor power are members of the working class and thus capable of participating in class struggle. From Lise Vogel ([1983] 2013), SRT borrows the notion that labor power is reproduced not only in the fam- ily household on an unwaged basis by mothers and wives, but also on a waged basis by unpro- ductive workers. In combining these two insights from twentieth-century Marxist-feminist scholarship to argue for the revolutionary potential of workers outside the “productive” economy, SRT has done much to overturn Marxist orthodoxy and shed light on the importance of unpro- ductive labor carried out by disproportionately women of all races and racialized men. While Bhattacharya and Ferguson gesture toward it in places, this SRT does not specifically examine how the reproduction of labor power relates to the crisis-ridden reproduction of capitalist society. What Ferguson and Bhattacharya offer instead is a foreshortened account in 1043284RRP XX X 10.1177/04866134211043284Review of Radical Political EconomicsMunro research-article 2021 1 University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX, USA Date received: March 2, 2021 Date accepted: August 12, 2021 Corresponding Author: Kirstin Munro, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, 1201 West University, Edinburg, TX 78539-2999, USA. Email: kirstin.munro@utrgv.edu