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Economic reproduction and the new normal
Aug. 20th, 2020 06:48 pmWith the caveat that it has been a very long time since I read Das Kapital, I'd like to ramble on a bit about economic reproduction and reproductive labour. Marx's theories of labour and exploitation boil down quite simply: The work of the baker to produce bread all day pays him enough money to buy a loaf of bread; the value of the remainder goes to his boss as profit. But there are hidden costs; someone must launder the baker's apron to allow him to keep baking bread, and those costs are generally not borne by the boss. Marx talked about the physical maintenance of the worker's body and family, as well as the social reproduction of the workforce. Essentially you can't work someone 24 hours a day, or they die, and they don't have time to reproduce the next generation of workers.
Marxist feminists take it a step further to talk about reproductive labour—the domestic work of maintaining the workforce that is not factored into economic analysis because it's unpaid and gendered. It includes cooking, cleaning, childrearing, washing, and so on—activities that are necessary for the worker to produce profit for capitalists. Without this work, the baker can't go to work and bake every day, and his boss eventually won't be able to find new bakers to replace him. The capitalist ideal, for people who like capitalism, is based around the idea that one worker in the family unit receives a family wage, subsidizing the reproductive labour of a partner. This is an aberration, as few jobs supply a family wage and generally speaking, reproductive labour is performed around paid labour, during the (presumed female) worker's "free" time.
(Teaching in a public system is also an interesting case; as a public service, it generates no profit, but it's paid work and necessary for economic reproduction. The labour theory of value does not apply in the same way; economic reproduction and reproductive labour does.)
Regardless, reproduction is a cost that is largely subsidized by a worker. My employer gets 8-10 hours a day of labour from me. I receive a fraction of those profits as a wage, and the rest go to the employer. But there are a number of activities that need to be done in order to make those hours happen. If I commute an hour to get to my workplace, that commuting time is not paid. If I have to wear professional clothing to do my job, the cost of that clothing and its repair or replacement as it wears out, is not borne by my employer, even though I can't go to work in torn jeans and a dirty hoodie and it's therefore a requirement of completing the job. My employer probably doesn't pay for childcare or meals. All of those costs—financial and time wise—are required for making my 8-10 hours of labour happen, but however they may vary, this is an expense that affects me, not my boss's profits.
Enter the New Normal, as they call it. When COVID started, some of us fantasized about 4-hour days, working from home, flexibility with childcare, a universal basic income, even a narrowing of wealth inequality and a flowering of empathy brought about by our shared suffering.
Well, that didn't happen.
What's happened instead is that these externalities have increased in time and cost. If I want to buy groceries, I can't just easily pop to the store; I need to wait in line for an hour and pay more for what I buy. I have to do more laundry to avoid infection, and my clothing will wear out faster and need to be replaced sooner. I have to clean more to avoid surface contamination. All of this is necessary for the employer to profit, but I don't get an hour off to buy groceries, or to do a deep clean.
In my case, the employer has decided to use this opportunity to lengthen my work day and workload by 33%. I'm guessing this isn't uncommon. There's a renewed worry that workers might be taking advantage of the pandemic, that a child or pet is distracting them from staring at a computer screen, that CERB is preventing them from pounding pavement to get a job that doesn't actually exist, that grocery store workers getting danger pay are somehow getting soft. Even though everything is harder, more expensive, and takes longer, we're still being stretched thinner, every last drop of moisture in our bodies sucked dry. At a time when we should have expected compassion, the few individuals who've done quite well in this situation and are well-insulated from exposure themselves have taken the opportunity that our exhaustion and trauma has revealed to ensure that we don't relax, even for a second. Because we'll be in debt forever, don't you know? Prepare for pain, and more pain.
In this respect, the new normal looks exactly like the old normal. Except that the flip side of economic reproduction—rest and leisure, love, sex, friendship, community—is forbidden. You will work as hard, harder, harder than that, and you will risk your life, and at the end of the day you don't get a hug. You don't get to go to the pub or get a haircut. You don't get dancing or music. Just sickness, disability, premature death. And be grateful you have a job at all.
It enrages me that we as workers have taken this so placidly, docile cows awaiting the knife, but what can I say, I'm exhausted and traumatized too, and I'm not fighting nearly as hard as I should be either. Welcome to the new normal, which is the same as the old normal except you don't get to grab a beer with your friends after you're done being exploited for the day.
Marxist feminists take it a step further to talk about reproductive labour—the domestic work of maintaining the workforce that is not factored into economic analysis because it's unpaid and gendered. It includes cooking, cleaning, childrearing, washing, and so on—activities that are necessary for the worker to produce profit for capitalists. Without this work, the baker can't go to work and bake every day, and his boss eventually won't be able to find new bakers to replace him. The capitalist ideal, for people who like capitalism, is based around the idea that one worker in the family unit receives a family wage, subsidizing the reproductive labour of a partner. This is an aberration, as few jobs supply a family wage and generally speaking, reproductive labour is performed around paid labour, during the (presumed female) worker's "free" time.(Teaching in a public system is also an interesting case; as a public service, it generates no profit, but it's paid work and necessary for economic reproduction. The labour theory of value does not apply in the same way; economic reproduction and reproductive labour does.)
Regardless, reproduction is a cost that is largely subsidized by a worker. My employer gets 8-10 hours a day of labour from me. I receive a fraction of those profits as a wage, and the rest go to the employer. But there are a number of activities that need to be done in order to make those hours happen. If I commute an hour to get to my workplace, that commuting time is not paid. If I have to wear professional clothing to do my job, the cost of that clothing and its repair or replacement as it wears out, is not borne by my employer, even though I can't go to work in torn jeans and a dirty hoodie and it's therefore a requirement of completing the job. My employer probably doesn't pay for childcare or meals. All of those costs—financial and time wise—are required for making my 8-10 hours of labour happen, but however they may vary, this is an expense that affects me, not my boss's profits.
Enter the New Normal, as they call it. When COVID started, some of us fantasized about 4-hour days, working from home, flexibility with childcare, a universal basic income, even a narrowing of wealth inequality and a flowering of empathy brought about by our shared suffering.
Well, that didn't happen.
What's happened instead is that these externalities have increased in time and cost. If I want to buy groceries, I can't just easily pop to the store; I need to wait in line for an hour and pay more for what I buy. I have to do more laundry to avoid infection, and my clothing will wear out faster and need to be replaced sooner. I have to clean more to avoid surface contamination. All of this is necessary for the employer to profit, but I don't get an hour off to buy groceries, or to do a deep clean.
In my case, the employer has decided to use this opportunity to lengthen my work day and workload by 33%. I'm guessing this isn't uncommon. There's a renewed worry that workers might be taking advantage of the pandemic, that a child or pet is distracting them from staring at a computer screen, that CERB is preventing them from pounding pavement to get a job that doesn't actually exist, that grocery store workers getting danger pay are somehow getting soft. Even though everything is harder, more expensive, and takes longer, we're still being stretched thinner, every last drop of moisture in our bodies sucked dry. At a time when we should have expected compassion, the few individuals who've done quite well in this situation and are well-insulated from exposure themselves have taken the opportunity that our exhaustion and trauma has revealed to ensure that we don't relax, even for a second. Because we'll be in debt forever, don't you know? Prepare for pain, and more pain.
In this respect, the new normal looks exactly like the old normal. Except that the flip side of economic reproduction—rest and leisure, love, sex, friendship, community—is forbidden. You will work as hard, harder, harder than that, and you will risk your life, and at the end of the day you don't get a hug. You don't get to go to the pub or get a haircut. You don't get dancing or music. Just sickness, disability, premature death. And be grateful you have a job at all.
It enrages me that we as workers have taken this so placidly, docile cows awaiting the knife, but what can I say, I'm exhausted and traumatized too, and I'm not fighting nearly as hard as I should be either. Welcome to the new normal, which is the same as the old normal except you don't get to grab a beer with your friends after you're done being exploited for the day.
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