Abstract
The paper analyzes the limits of any privatized family form of organizing life - not just those formed by heterosexual couples with children - for democracy. Based on this analysis, it discusses the reconfiguration of authority structures as necessary to re-create collective forms of accountability in everyday life. In contemporary societies (the text is focused on the US), precarization of support to care for children and the elderly, but also mutual care among adults, have led to conservative policies exalting the family. This corresponds, however, to an overload of functions where women and workers are especially under pressure to take occupations that would allow providing for their families and, although little time is left for that, to provide for all the work and support needed for care and everyday reproduction of life in the strict family private domain. At the same time, Welfare State policies meant undemocratic forms of control, especially on women who did not meet conventional standards, such as single mothers. Democratic collective forms of care sharing, encouraged by public policies and resources, would enable more support to individuals, more solidary forms of coexistence and more egalitarian relations.
Keywords:
care; family; democracy; labor; collective responsibility