Miles said:
Nothing Hegelian about it: every day in every society around the world,
> people do work outside the wage system (e.g., household labor). I see no
> reason for us to accept the capitalist assumption that "real work" = "wage
> labor". As Carrol has pointed out, the historical aberration is people
> getting paid wages for their work in a capitalist society!
Are we all missing the point here? It doesn't matter if you "accept" capitalism's assumption of "real work = wage-labour" or not; capitalism still dictates that one must labour productively (for capital) in order to secure wages, or use-values, in society. There are some scattered quasi-public forms of value left in this world that have not been entirely co-opted for the logic of capital, but those are under constant attack. It is then, logically--that is, if you truly wish to fight for a conception of "real work" outside of of the constraints of capital--the duty of all revolutionary practice to fight for these withering public forms of value; above and beyond defensive action, we must fight to EXPAND these forms of value that lie outside the logic of wage-labour. So there's your "choice"... or you can be fatalistically attached to our "descent into barbarism" if that better suits the needs of your sexy, doomsday predictions.
Or, are we all just here to give capitalism "a good scolding"?
-Adam