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Economist Michael Mandel claims unpaid household shopping hours are being replaced with paid work at Amazon, Walmart, etc. Of course the author is wrong about these being good jobs; as with education, healthcare, etc., jobs taken out of the unpaid social reproduction sphere are mostly poorly paid, have harsher working conditions, no benefits, etc. But as with those other jobs, the shift represents a potential both for organizing and for economic restructuring after expropriation. Mandel's note: http://www.progressivepolicy.org/blog/amazon-whole-foods- simple-arithmetic-household-time/ From the Times article where I found the link: "To Mr. Mandel, it’s not that e-commerce jobs are directly replacing traditional retail jobs. Rather, <http://www.progressivepolicy.org/blog/amazon-whole-foods-simple-arithmetic-household-time/>he describes a world <http://www.progressivepolicy.org/blog/amazon-whole-foods-simple-arithmetic-household-time/>in which some of what he calls 'unpaid household labor' that we all do when we drive to the mall, park, shop and bring the goods home has been transferred into the labor market. "Nationally, since 2007, 'the decline in shopping hours is 64 million hours a week,' Mr. Mandel said. 'That’s the equivalent of about 1.5 million jobs,” some of which are now being created to staff the new fulfillment centers." Mandel adds: "'I’m basically an optimistic person... I’ve spent a long time looking at what happened in the first part of the 20th century — how we got the combination of jobs gains and higher wages — and I think we’re on the same path.'” That "how," of course, includes above all labor uprisings, which he ignores. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/business/dealbook/e- commerce-jobs-retailing.html?ref=todayspaper _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
