The Political Economy of Love: Attention, Affection, & What Capitalism Can't Buy
Rev Left Radio
Breht O'Shea
4.8 • 3.6K Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2026
⏱️ 87 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Breht is joined by Kristen R. Ghodsee to dig into her provocative essay on the political economy of love under capitalism. Using Marx's distinction between use value and exchange value, Ghodsee argues that love is not just a private feeling but a material necessity for human flourishing -- and that our economic system systematically depletes the time, energy, and security required to sustain it. Together, they explore how capitalism commodifies two core components of love, attention and affection, turning them into scarce resources bought and sold in everything from therapy and childcare to the attention economy and the market for professionalized intimacy.
But the heart of the conversation is the one thing capitalism can't truly monetize: reciprocal flow -- the non-transactional rhythm of giving and receiving that emerges in long relationships, cooperative play, music, community, and solidarity itself. Breht and Ghodsee discuss how inequality and insecurity train people into transactionalism, why loneliness is not an individual failure but a structural outcome, and what a genuine politics of love might look like beyond mere self-help or lifestyle fixes.
Learn more about Dr. Ghodsee and her work HERE
Check out AK-47, Kristen's podcast dedicated to Alexandra Kollontai here: https://kristenghodsee.com/podcast
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev Left Radio. |
| 0:08.9 | All right, on today's episode, we have back on the show one of our all-time favorite guests. |
| 0:13.8 | This is her eighth appearance, I believe, if I counted correctly, on the show. |
| 0:18.1 | Dr. Kristen Gottzi to talk about her newest article that was put out in Jacobin, |
| 0:23.1 | the political economy of love in capitalism. |
| 0:26.7 | We talk about basically a materialist analysis of love and how it functions in society |
| 0:32.5 | and how it is impacted by the political economy of late stage capitalism. |
| 0:37.5 | We touch on interpersonal relationships. |
| 0:39.7 | We touch on the attention economy. |
| 0:41.6 | We touch on spiritual notions of love, on maturing beyond narcissism. |
| 0:46.4 | And we, at the end, articulate a positive socialist vision of a future civilization that is premised and organized around widespread human flourishing |
| 0:58.3 | as opposed to the fundamentally rigged game of competing to hoard ever and ever more artificially |
| 1:05.6 | scarce resources. So this really runs the gamut from the personal to the political and everything |
| 1:10.5 | in between. And it's the, you know, another episode with the one and only Kristen Gottzi, which I know |
| 1:16.9 | is a fan favorite. And, you know, over the years has become a personal, I would like to think |
| 1:22.0 | friend of mine, even though we've never met in real life. She's just awesome. And every time we |
| 1:26.6 | get on together, we talk for about 20, 30 |
| 1:29.4 | minutes before we hit record. And today was no different. But yeah, strap in. And here's a |
| 1:34.4 | wonderful episode with Dr. Kristen Gottzi on the political economy of love in capitalism. |
| 1:40.0 | And as always, if you like what we do here at Rev Left Radio, feel free to join and support the show at patreon.com forward slash Rev Left Radio. |
| 1:47.6 | In exchange, you get monthly meditation groups. |
| 1:51.4 | We go live on Zoom when big situations happen. |
... |
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