Capitalism and the transforming family unit: A marxist analysis

This paper is concerned with the manner in which Marx envisages the nuclear family unit as being designed to support the continuity of the capitalist system and the positions of privilege it perpetuates. The suitability of the nuclear family structure for capitalism can in turn be utilised as a basis for understanding the manner in which the alternative family formation of lone parents, are constructed as an ‘other’ in society. It will be argued that discourses and state policies disadvantage lone parents, constructing them as an economic liability to the capitalist economy, which in turn operates to preserve capitalist interests by obscuring the structural barriers which impede workforce entry for this group.