Diane Monaco (?) writes:
"I agree with Jenny that this is a strict and narrow definition of economic dependence. I mean, why focus on “paid market production” only? Why exclude the value of all the “unpaid production” and “social reproduction” that is an overwhelming part of our overall economic activity? Is it because women do most of it?
Before the depression there was no real accounting of the value of "production," but then some time in the 1940s a national income accounting system (GNP, GDP, NI, ) was setup (by male economists of course) and many decisions were made to exclude this and that. The most devastating was the exclusion of that we now call social reproduction and unpaid labor production. Social reproduction involves economically productive activities (the care of both dependent and independent members of the community) that are absolutely essential to production; a good portion of production will just not happen without them."
I think that at some level you have to decide what activities are economic production and what are not. I think it would be unreasonable under all circumstances to count, for example, the time it takes for a worker to brush his teeth as work. Instead, we call this consumption of toothpaste and toothbrushes because the "work" expended in brushing teeth only creates value for the person who immediately benefits from it. It is not an exchange as such. I think you then extend that logic to, say, changing diapers. Obviously it takes work, but the main benefit of that work terminates immediately within the consuming household. I think that when we are talking about production, we are talking about the flow of use values among *economic* actors - those who then produce use value in return. It is not a simple distinction to make by any means - care of older children, for example, is a business - but I think it is a necessary one.
Diane Monaco (?) continues
"Furthermore, the United Nations has estimated the value of all unpaid labor production to be around 35 percent. Unpaid and informal sector economic activities remain fundamentally uncounted for in our labor force estimates and national income accounts, but have been estimated in some developed countries to range from 15 percent of GDP in Japan to 54 percent in Australia (now there’s a possible clue to understanding the smaller male-female wage gap in Australia as Jenny discusses). Are we being slightly patriarchal and sexist like the economists who set up our formal accounts -- to exclude the value of unpaid labor and social reproduction from our own account of the situation?
Women produce most of our global output. Women provide almost all unpaid production; almost all social reproduction; and a good portion of all paid production. Suppose we attempted a little experiment and sent all the men on earth for year long vacation (all expenses paid and no work to do) to planet x3pz in 2004. Then we did the same for all the women on earth in 2005 (sent them to planet x3pz that is). My question is what would the planet EARTH be like in 2004 and 2005. How would the economic dependency conditions differ from those in 2003 and how would they differ from each other?"
Okay, it's not a well structured thought experiment but I'll have a go in a moment- using cliché, traditional roles, of course - but I take issue with the word "output". We don't know if social reproduction is "output" yet, since we are examining that very question.
I would make the case that most if not all social reproduction should be categorized as consumption and not output. One way to look at it is that at any given time there is a great variation in the effectiveness with which social reproduction is performed across households and this tells us something. In production, the no-arbitrage or Law of One Price principle should obtain. If truck driving, for example, fell too heavily on Californians, transportation prices would tend to rise and opportunities for arbitrage would open immediately. However, in consumption "no-arbitrage" need not obtain. One is happy pay five dollars for a Budweiser at a ball game he could get across the street for one dollar. Similarly, a person is free to Martha Stewart her house to the tune of fifty hours a week while her neighbor lives like a college student. In neither case of consumption is there any economic displacement or arbitrage opportunity because they are, primarily, choices about consumption. If Californians take more or less care of their children than people in the rest of the country it creates no arbitrage opportunity for people in Arkansas. Moreover, the fact that social reproduction falls overwhelmingly on mothers and not fathers provides no great opportunity for arbitrage between the sexes since the minimum hours necessary don't change and what opportunity for arbitrage there is exists outside the home. In short, the economy is relatively insensitive to the total amount of social reproduction performed and by whom because it is overwhelmingly a private activity of consumption. Yes, child care and housework are also businesses and a caregiver may choose to arbitrage between labor in the workplace and the home, but with such a generalized activity, secondary and informal markets are inevitable.
To leave markets aside, I would suggest that just because something is labor, does not mean it has true, economic value. Still, even if we accept all the logical inconsistencies of the LTV, we observe that most of the work of social reproduction that remains once we net out what is certainly consumption (that "work" now done by appliances and other domestic conveniences) is not subject to improved efficiency by technology (there is no assembly line for bedtime stories and baby's bath). Therefore little or no surplus value can be produced by it compared with industrial labor. It is reproduction and not production.
peace,
boddi
p.s. -
So the women take off in their space ship. The very first morning water consumption is down as dishes and laundry remain undone. Lines at fast food restaurants start to get longer. By day five "road rage' has been replaced with "play date rage" in the (half-)popular (half-)culture, although road rage has, if anything increased. Fast food restaurants cannibalize retail space everywhere. By day seventeen, the garbage dumps are brimming with fast food packages from restaurants that have tripled output, not to mention rugs and furniture removed by health departments now augmented by the National Guard. At the end of a month, Mexican assembly lines hum 24 hours a day producing hose-able, plastic furniture, wall and floor coverings, children's' action videos and Happy Meals for the American market. The fast food and video game industries easily soak up the workers fired from producing any and all products associated with social niceties. Families begin to move into communal Quonset huts and the world quickly takes on the look of a modern army base.
After the men leave, different industries collapse but the world changes much less in general appearance. Obviously crime drops quickly although it makes a small, surprise comeback as decent women and their families are set upon by legions of unemployed prostitutes, strippers and Hooters waitresses. The automotive industry quickly grinds to a halt as all difficult-to-maintain automobiles are abandoned systematically. The transportation system is suddenly crippled in a spontaneous breakdown of national ride-sharing systems during a flu outbreak. Unemployment rises in the face of increased national efficiency and civil wars loom until countries begin to trade babysitting and play date time in their options and futures markets.