feminist: drawing on a lineage of theories from Charles Fourier, Alexandra Kollontai, and Wages for Housework movement leaders.
Marxist: expanding on Marx & Engel's critique of the bourgeois family form
left communist / ultra leftist: theorists tend to this tendency and see stateless communism as the clear path forward
communization: as developed by theorists from the Endnotes journal.
anarchist: abolishing the family flattens social relations and autonomy in every individual is maximized
queer: theorists themselves gender- and sexually divergent, with queer and trans liberation informing their work
social reproduction: draws heavily on the 70s-era critiques which sought to reveal and account for womens' unwaged work
anti-work: from the standpoint of universal provision -- the direct meeting of everyone's needs without wages/money
revolutionary: the breaking/remaking of social relations can only be done concurrent with seizure of the means of survival
fascism: the poison call to traditional family roles, white supremacism, chauvinism, and authoritarianism.
imperialism: the imposition of capitalism and the family regime is the project of western imperialism
capitalism and class relations: the family is the social and economic unit which is co-constitutive with capitalism
the state: racial capitalism depends upon the state as enforcers, but even an ideal socialist state could not accomplish family abolition without a great deal of ongoing natal alienation and unacceptable risk of abuse
oppositional sexism and gender regimes: the oppression and coercion of trans and queer children by unaccepting parents, the imposition of a white bourgeois family ideal, and disciplining to narrow expressions of sexuality and gender of all
traditional sexism and unpaid domestic labor: feminized labor, patriarchal dominance by fathers and husbands
the suffering and continued abuse of: children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and intimate partners
reformism; liberalism: only wholesale upending of capitalist social relations and the state will abolish the family
revolutionary anti-capitalist, anti-imperial action
insurgent social reproduction, "protest kitchens," mutual aid
abolishing private property and dismantling capitalist social relations
universal minimum provision; the means of survival provided for all
queer and gender deviant liberation; sexual freedom
liberation for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color
breaking open the privacy of the family that enables abuse and domination
the proliferation of relationships of care (elder care, mothering, affection, solidarity) outside the family
Kinda! I mean, you're here, aren't you? Many family abolition authors think that one of their responsibilities is maintaining, updating, and developing ideas for later revolutionary moments which can seize upon them.
Sophie Lewis remarks: "We have to find out one another's real names and struggle together against the system that makes arbitrary data on birth certificates shape people's fates. It should be elementary socialism, not some fringe eccentricity of queer ultra-leftists, to be striving towards a regime of cohabitation, collective eating, leisure, eldercare, and childrearing..."
Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation, page 18
Some family abolition ideas have been in circulation since Ancient Greece, through the Paris Commune and industrial worker revolts, through the birth of the Soviet Union, and the Wages for Housework campaign of the '70s (See ➡️ History of family abolition).
More recently, K.D. Griffiths and J.J. Gleeson attracted new interest in family abolition with their essay "Kinderkommunismus: A Feminist Analysis of the 21st Century Family and a Communist Proposal for its Abolition." This, and many works that follow (See ➡️ What to read) have begun to popularize these ideas and sites of struggle.
Now, with overlapping crises of capitalism making survival harder for everyone, ideas of mutual responsibility, universalized care, and communization are more salient and energizing than ever.