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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>John Thornton:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>"<FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>This doesn't
tell me why you think washing clothes at some sort of public institution is
preferable to washing my clothes at home. Nor does it address the question of
cooking meals at home.</FONT>"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I'm with Carrol on this, if I understand him
right.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The private sphere, home and hearth, is a
relatively recent invention, in human historical terms, insofar as the greater
part of productive life was socialised in the industrial age, leaving just those
tasks of reproduction of labour power isolated.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>If one were to redesign life from scratch, it is
not obvious why each family unit (increasingly in London, with the growth of
single living, each person) running their own electric motor to turn their
clothes over in soapy water. After all, relatively few of us bake our own bread.
</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>In Britain government authorities only closed
state-owned laundries in the 1960s - my one-time teacher, Ian Birchall protested
throwing dirty laundry at the town councillors.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>There is of course a proper resistance to
incursions into the private realm by government authorities. We tend to
jealously defend our private realm because it is the condition of personal
autonomy. Any wholesale socialisation of the domestic sphere under capitalism
would most likely be repressive, like the dormitories that South African
labourers were forced to live in, away from their families, to work in areas
covered by pass laws; or the organisation of leisure time by the
Nazis.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>On the other hand, private capital does
increasingly socialise more and more of the domestic realm. Many more people eat
out, or buy ready-cooked meals, or hire domestic cleaning services, or indeed,
pay for laundry services.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>