Patel & Moore Chapter 3 Cheap Work

What is the main idea of “Cheap Work”?

Cheap work is essential to capitalism, which relies on undervaluing human labor—especially that of women, Indigenous, and colonized peoples—to keep production costs low and profits high.

What does “cheap” mean in this context?

It means devalued—not just low-cost, but made socially, economically, and politically less valuable.

How did capitalism redefine “work”?

It divided work into paid (productive, waged, masculine) and unpaid (reproductive, unwaged, feminine) labor, devaluing essential forms of care and social reproduction.

What is reproductive labor?

Unpaid labor that sustains the workforce—like raising children, cooking, cleaning, and caregiving—mostly done by women and unrecognized in economic systems.

How did slavery contribute to cheap work?

Slavery provided a vast supply of unpaid, coerced labor that fueled capitalism by producing cheap goods like sugar, cotton, and tobacco.

How did colonialism reinforce cheap work?

Colonial powers used forced labor and racial hierarchies to extract labor and resources from Indigenous and non-European populations at minimal cost.

How is work connected to nature?

Human labor transforms energy from nature, but capitalism treats both human and ecological work as infinitely renewable, leading to exploitation and degradation.

What is the relationship between cheap work and gender?

Capitalism depends on the unpaid, invisible labor of women to sustain the waged workforce, reinforcing gender inequality.

What are modern examples of cheap work?

Sweatshops, migrant farm labor, domestic work, and gig economy jobs where workers are underpaid and lack protections.

How is cheap work maintained today?

Through global inequality, racial and gender hierarchies, weak labor laws, and outsourcing to countries with low wages.

What is a key quote from the chapter?

“Cheap work is not about low wages alone. It is about the system that makes some work visible and valuable, and other work invisible and disposable.”

What role does resistance play in cheap work?

Workers have resisted exploitation through strikes, revolts, and movements demanding recognition, fair wages, and labor rights.

What is the ecological connection in cheap work?

Cheap work parallels how capitalism cheapens nature—treating both workers and ecosystems as expendable resources.

How can cheap work be challenged?

By revaluing all forms of labor, recognizing care and ecological limits, and creating systems that respect human and environmental sustainability.

What is meant by “making work cheap”?

It involves social and political systems that devalue certain groups and types of labor so that their work can be exploited with minimal compensation.

How did industrialization expand cheap work?

The Industrial Revolution intensified labor exploitation, extending cheap work from plantations to factories through wage suppression and worker discipline.

What groups have historically been made “cheap workers”?

Women, enslaved people, colonized populations, racial minorities, migrants, and Indigenous peoples have been devalued to maintain the capitalist system.

How does unpaid care work support capitalism?

It reproduces and maintains the labor force without being compensated, allowing employers to pay workers less while benefiting from their productivity.

Why is cheap work considered a social relation, not just an economic one?

Because it’s maintained through power structures—gender, race, class, and colonialism—that decide whose labor counts and whose doesn’t.

What long-term consequence does cheap work create?

It generates global inequality and environmental crisis by overexploiting people and nature beyond sustainable limits.