Until about 12,000 BP work/labor did not exist: what we call "work" was indistinguishable from other activities that made up the day. The concept of "work" simply would not have made sense during the preceding 100 to 200 thousand years human existence. If humanity is going to survive obviously that stte has to be reachieved, because all other relations we know of threaten the return of capitalism, which is incompatible with human existence. (I learned a lot reading Weber about a decade ago, but I have never been able to take very seriously nonsense about the "Protestant Ethic." I don't believe it ever existed or exists now.
But the crimp in income ( and the fear of worse) from unemployment for many can be utterly destructive of their lives, to the point of suicide. Eric's social wage is obvious and quibbles with it are deliberate stupidity. He's not proposing detailed legislation but gesturing towards an obvious precondition for a decent life.
If anyone wants to envisage socialism, try this. The "factory day" would be a five or six hour meting (something like the current General Assembly, with breaks to do some of what we call "productive labor." I don't particularly want to try to envisage socialism so I'm not going to bother to 'defend' this suggestion.
Carrol
P.S. A recent shag post on what she and I and others have been doing for these past decades: We kept the red flag flying hfere.
On10/25/2011 4:47 PM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
> I think you're right. At least when I think about how happy I was not
> working when I had an income and a social role considering meaningful
> - plus plenty of work to be done. You could study whether women and
> men in Sweden who take child care leave for a year or two are unhappy
> because they are unable to work all day long *and* go home and cook,
> clean, do laundry.
>
> In other words, when the role they take on is considered an acceptable
> social alternative and their income doesn't decline and their power in
> a relationship doesn't suffer, I'm guessing health effects are the
> same, maybe better? At the very least I imagine people's health
> doesn't suffer that much in Sweden when they take off a year or two to
> raise children.
>
>
>
>> I said I hoped that somebody would tell me something I didn't know.
>> You guys
>> aren't.
>>
>> It makes perfect sense that unemployment would have these effects in a
>> North
>> American or European society infested with a bourgie morality of labor
>> (a
>> "Protestant ethic," Weber said, although I have my doubts about that).
>> Indeed, it could hardly be otherwise. Such false consciousness is
>> obviously
>> part of both our specific equations here and the problems we're
>> discussing
>> more broadly. I'm inclined to think there's no way out except through
>> it,
>> but won't argue the point now.
>>
>> Find those same effects in a society without that particular bourgie
>> morality and I'll be more impressed. It isn't as if such societies are
>> difficult to locate (*cough* office hours in Arab countries *cough*).
>> You
>> may very well be able to; I'm not arguing for a thesis here, but
>> rather
>> pointing out that your thesis is far from established.
>>
>> I wouldn't lean too heavily on my own experience - anecdotal
>> impressions are
>> generally crap - but I'm currently living in a territory with a 45.2%
>> unemployment rate, and I simply don't see your claims at work here.
>> But
>> prove that the effects of unemployment you describe are inherent to
>> the
>> situation itself, rather than its cultural context, and I'll admit you
>> were
>> right.
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 2:52 PM, SA<s11131978 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 10/25/2011 8:38 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>>
>>> NEW MEASURES OF THE COSTS OF UNEMPLOYMENT: EVIDENCE FROM THE
>>> SUBJECTIVE
>>>> WELL-BEING OF 2.3 MILLION AMERICANS John F. Helliwell Haifang Huang
>>>> Working
>>>> Paper 16829
>>>> http://www.nber.org/papers/**w16829<http://www.nber.org/papers/w16829>,,,
>>>>
>>>
>>> Or, if you just want a factoid:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/econ/Durlauf/networkweb1/London/frustratedachievers.pdf
>>>
>>
>> --
>> "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure
>> mægen
>> lytlað."
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
>
>