Same old same old (Was DeLeuze, etc.)

[Steven McGraw]

At 07:22 PM 1/28/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>
>
>On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Steven McGraw wrote:
>
>>
>> That your household chores and family duties have little to do with BJCs or
>> the economy.  Though there are significant points of intersections, they
>> are mostly distinct spheres for the purposes of parecon as i understand.
>
>I've railed against this arbitrary distinction before.  I'll do it
>once more.  The economy, as social scientists typically define it, is
>the ensemble of goods and services produced, distributed, and consumed
>in a society.  According to this textbook definition, making cars in a
>factory, generating legal briefs, childcare, and fixing meals for
>a family are all essential components of the economy.  To make an
>artificial distinction about social labor based on whether the
>work is traditionally wage labor/professional labor or family
>responsibilities is to accept
>existing capitalist notions of work.  Taking care of a child is
>an activity that is part of the economy of our society.  What
>fascinates me is how many people (even Marxists!) think it's not
>really "economic activity".
>
>In fact, the survival of our "free-market economy" is contingent on
>the unpaid, necessary labor of virtually everyone in our
>society.
>
>
>Miles
>

This is abolutely a fair criticism of the terms I've been using.  I don't
mean to imply that zero production happens outside the paid-labor economy,
or that the two spheres we're discussing don't depend on one another and
intersect in deeply significant, even vital ways.

How about this:  Instead of referring to the paid-labor economy as "the
economy," we can call it the "external economy," if you like, and the other
sphere the "domestic economy."  Together they make up a "total economy."
Doesn't change what I'm describing, we've just decided to use new words.
Now, assuming domestic equality, ie the husband isn't beating and
exploiting his wife, the rewards of the work you do within your own
household accrue directly to you and your loved ones in a more or less fair
and equal way, and vice versa.  This labor doesn't feed directly into the
external economy, and hence does not deserve remuneration from said
external economy. 

Imagine a household where all the occupants did, without working in the
external economy, was fix up the house, do landscaping, go shopping,
rearrange the furniture, wash the dishes etc 30 or 40 hours a day.  Should
this family be paid for all this cleaning and yardwork?  I would argue no,
since they are "paying" themselves already.

Naturally, we could make laws providing for certain kinds of need that
relate to the domestic sphere.  For instance, we might provide extra
income, child care or a reduced work week for single mothers and fathers,
parents with children who have special needs, that sort of thing.  No
conflict with parecon that I can see. 

Now, as Pareconists often point out, Parecon is primarily, in fact almost
exclusively an economic vision, or, to use terms you would probably find
more appropriate, a vision for the external economy.  It's not a total
vision for every aspect of the society, and so, as I understand it, has
little to say about domestic life, but focuses instead on what we might
call the non-domestic economy, the external economy, whatever you like.

And that, I believe, is my limit for the day : )