The Care Collective intends to unite marginalized groups behind the neoliberal movement, consolidating the wealth of the elite. Universal benefits are a method of disembodiment which disregard the needs of women.

Everyone needs care, women are expected to provide more than men, the rich are better able to buy it than the poor, and the work of care is often assigned to those who have little choice but to perform it. The organization and distribution of care are structured by social norms, legal rules, and patterns of wealth ownership that reinforce unequal responsibilities and opportunities. The “care sector” of the economy produces, develops, and maintains the human capabilities on which the larger economic system depends. It also accounts for the aspects of social wealth that cannot be measured in money terms: health, education, and happiness all have intrinsic value. Their provision requires vast resources, effective administration, and difficult decisions. The Care Collective treats neoliberal capitalism less as a specific structure of institutionalized power than as an invidious state of mind. They have a point: free-market ideology (I would never call it “logic”) urges every man for himself, survival of the fittest, and devil take the hindmost. Most introductory economics courses still encourage students to believe the individual pursuit of self-interest promotes the common good, and that efforts to “do good” actually end up doing harm. This ideology serves the interests of a small, financially engorged elite. Yet it also serves the interests of all those in a position of relative advantage—those who fear that obligations for the care of others would reduce their competitive edge. Racism and nationalism, in their populist incarnations, are just as bad, if not worse than neoliberalism, and completely inconsistent with neoliberal ideals of free markets and capital mobility. The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers who helped storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 did not speak for the capitalist class. A large swath of the non-college-educated white working class in the United States supports Republican policies antithetical to both their class interests and their national interests. There is nothing patriotic about multinational corporations that chase the lowest possible global labor costs and routinely shift domestic profits to foreign tax havens. The real marvel of conservative power lies in its apparent ability to channel populist sentiments to its own advantage despite these contradictions—to market itself as a strong and manly path to a national prosperity unencumbered by responsibility for other people’s needs. This power is generally enhanced by racial/ethnic divisions, fear of immigrants, mobilization against those defined as “others” even when they pose no threat. Social media often take the blame for apparently irrational political alliances, but we should also look to the cultural romance of white supremacy and the solipsistic masculinity of video games such as World of Warcraft. The Care Collective clearly agrees that the care agenda must directly address social divisions based on gender, age, sexuality, race/ethnicity, and citizenship, as well as class. They just do not say much about specific obstacles that cannot be blamed on capitalist institutions: domestic violence, sexual harassment, police brutality, hostility to sexual nonconformists, anti-immigrant xenophobia. It would be far easier to challenge the concentration of wealth in the hands of the top 1 percent of global wealth holders if the 99 percent were less divided. Unity cannot be assumed—it must be achieved. Hopes for building a strong care coalition rest on the potential to convincingly demonstrate benefits for the overwhelming majority of the population, financed in ways that reduce gross inequalities of wealth and income. In policy terms, this points toward universal benefits such as family allowances and/or a guaranteed basic income rather than means-tested programs that stigmatize the poor. Equally important is the development of efficient public services that avoid both the perverse incentives created by for-profit provision and the bureaucratic inertia of top-down administration. Such policies could help reduce social division and build the solidarity required to successfully address a host of other pressing global problems, such as climate change