The Burning Times & The Birth of Capitalism: Silvia Federici's 'Caliban and the Witch' Revisited

Introduction: When the Smoke Clears – Witch Hunts and Capitalism's Dawn

The image of "The Burning Times" – the centuries of brutal witch hunts that swept across Europe – often conjures notions of religious fanaticism and mass hysteria. But what if this horrific chapter of history was not merely a footnote of superstition, but a calculated and crucial campaign of terror intimately tied to the birth of capitalism? This is the explosive and meticulously argued thesis of Silvia Federici's groundbreaking work, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation.

Federici, a scholar and activist whose work bridges Marxist theory, feminist critique, and radical history, challenges us to see the witch hunts anew. She argues they were a fundamental instrument in the "primitive accumulation" of capital – the violent process by which the emerging capitalist order dispossessed commoners, enclosed lands, and, critically, subjugated the female body to create a new patriarchal order functional to its needs. This post revisits Federici's powerful analysis, exploring how the demonization and persecution of "witches" was instrumental in forging the chains that bind women and exploited peoples to the engine of capital. Prepare to have your understanding of history, and of capitalism itself, profoundly shaken.

Beyond Superstition: The Witch Hunts as Class War & Gendered Terror

To understand Federici's argument, we must first move past the simplistic notion that the witch hunts were solely a product of religious superstition or ignorance. While religious ideology certainly provided the language and justification, Federici uncovers a deeper, socio-economic agenda at play. The figure of the "witch," she contends, was a socially constructed enemy, and the hunts were a targeted campaign of terror.

Key aspects of Federici's analysis include:

Targeting Resistance and Autonomy: The women accused of witchcraft were often not random victims. Many were poor, elderly, or lived outside traditional family structures. Crucially, they were frequently community healers, midwives, and keepers of traditional knowledge about contraception and abortion. These women held a certain social power and represented a form of female autonomy that was incompatible with the new capitalist order's need for a disciplined, procreating workforce. Those who resisted the enclosure of common lands or challenged the emerging social hierarchies were particularly vulnerable.
Destroying Communal Bonds: The witch hunts sowed terror and suspicion, atomizing communities. Neighbors were encouraged to denounce neighbors, and family members to testify against each other. This breakdown of solidarity was essential for imposing new forms of social control and individualizing blame for systemic problems like poverty and famine, which were actually consequences of early capitalist policies.
The Expropriation of Women's Knowledge and Bodies: The persecution of female healers and midwives coincided with the rise of a male-dominated medical profession. This wasn't just about replacing one set of practitioners with another; it was about devaluing and criminalizing women's traditional knowledge of the body and reproduction. Federici argues this was a crucial step in asserting patriarchal control over women's reproductive capacities, transforming the female body into a machine for the production of new laborers.
Enforcing a New Patriarchal Order: The witch hunts were, in essence, a war against women. They served to redefine women's role in society, confining them to the domestic sphere, demonizing their sexuality, and instilling a deep-seated fear of female power. This new, more rigid patriarchy was not a holdover from feudalism but a necessary precondition for capitalist development.

By reframing the witch hunts in this way, Federici reveals them not as an irrational aberration, but as a rational, albeit brutal, strategy in the transition to capitalism – a way to crush resistance and reshape social relations to serve the needs of accumulation.

Primitive Accumulation: Not Just About Land, But About Bodies

The concept of "primitive accumulation," most famously articulated by Karl Marx, refers to the historical process of divorcing producers from the means of production – primarily through the enclosure of common lands and the dispossession of peasant populations. This created a propertyless proletariat forced to sell their labor power to survive, a necessary precondition for capitalist industry. However, Federici argues that Marx's account, while foundational, overlooked a crucial dimension: the accumulation of bodies, specifically female bodies.

Federici's vital contribution is to show that the new capitalist order required not only land and resources but also a disciplined and ever-expanding workforce. This necessitated a profound transformation in the social position of women and the valuation of their labor:

The War on Women's Reproductive Control: The witch hunts, with their focus on midwives and women knowledgeable about contraception and abortion, were part of a broader campaign to strip women of control over their own reproductive lives. The state and the church began to aggressively promote pro-natalist policies, criminalizing abortion and contraception, and valorizing motherhood above all else. Women's wombs became public territory, their primary social function reduced to producing future laborers.
The Devaluation of Unpaid Reproductive Labor: Capitalism required the separation of production (for the market, seen as "value-creating") from reproduction (of life, increasingly unpaid and devalued). Women's work in birthing, raising, and caring for workers – the essential labor of social reproduction – was rendered invisible, naturalized as a "female calling" rather than recognized as work. This unpaid labor became a massive subsidy to capital accumulation.
The Creation of the Housewife: The disciplined male worker of the factory needed a disciplined female counterpart in the home. Federici traces how the figure of the full-time housewife, economically dependent on her husband and dedicated to domestic chores and child-rearing, was a specific creation of this period. This new gendered division of labor served to control women, cheapen their labor power when they did enter the wage workforce, and ensure the steady supply of new workers.

This "accumulation of the female body" was achieved through intense violence, both physical and ideological. The witch hunts were the most extreme manifestation of this terror, but it was also embedded in new laws, religious doctrines, and cultural norms. Federici forces us to see that the foundations of capitalism are soaked not only in the blood of dispossessed peasants and colonized peoples but also in the blood of the "witches" who dared to resist this new world order being built on their subjugated bodies.

Caliban and the Witch: Resisting Enclosure, Then and Now

The title of Federici's book, Caliban and the Witch, evokes Shakespeare's The Tempest. Caliban, the indigenous inhabitant of the island, dispossessed and enslaved by the colonizer Prospero, represents the colonized and exploited body, particularly in the context of early capitalist expansion and the plantation system. The Witch, often a figure of female rebellion and resistance to patriarchal and capitalist domination, stands alongside him. For Federici, these figures symbolize the twin targets of primitive accumulation: the bodies of colonized peoples and the bodies of women.

The "enclosures" that Federici describes were not just physical (of land) but also social and bodily. They enclosed women within the domestic sphere, enclosed their knowledge within patriarchal structures, and enclosed their reproductive capacities for the needs of capital. But just as historical enclosures were met with resistance – peasant revolts, women's heresies, slave rebellions – so too are contemporary enclosures.

Federici's analysis provides a powerful historical lens through which to understand present-day struggles:

Indigenous land rights movements fighting against corporate land grabs and resource extraction are modern-day Calibans resisting new forms of enclosure.
Feminist movements fighting for reproductive justice, against gender-based violence, and for the recognition of care work are challenging the ongoing enclosure of women's bodies and labor.
Eco-feminist critiques that highlight the connection between the domination of nature and the domination of women echo the historical link between the witch hunts and the rise of a mechanistic worldview that sees both nature and bodies as resources to be exploited.
Movements for global commons and against the privatization of knowledge and resources continue the struggle against the logic of accumulation that Federici dissects.

Caliban and the Witch is not just a history book; it's a call to recognize the long lineage of resistance to capitalist domination. It reminds us that the struggles against patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism are deeply intertwined and that the spirit of the "witch" – the rebellious, autonomous woman who refuses to be subjugated – and "Caliban" – the exploited who fights for liberation – endures in countless movements around the world today.

Conclusion: Reclaiming History, Forging Futures

Silvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch is a monumental work that fundamentally reshapes our understanding of the origins of capitalism. By meticulously excavating the history of the witch hunts and linking them to the enclosure of commons, the subjugation of women, and the colonization of the Americas, Federici reveals the brutal, gendered violence that was not incidental but integral to the birth of the modern world order.

Her analysis forces us to look beyond the sanitized narratives of economic progress and confront the "hidden abodes" of exploitation – not just in the factory, but in the home, in the community, and in the control of women's bodies and reproductive capacities. It shows how the devaluation of women and their labor was a cornerstone of capital accumulation, a legacy that continues to shape gender relations and economic inequalities today.

Understanding this history is not merely an academic exercise. It is a vital tool for contemporary feminist and anti-capitalist struggles. Caliban and the Witch empowers us by uncovering a hidden history of resistance and by clarifying the deep connections between the oppression of women and the logic of capitalist exploitation. It reminds us that the fight for liberation must confront both the visible and invisible chains that bind us, and that the spirit of the witch, defiant and life-affirming, is needed now more than ever.