David,
Let's think about the women you pity -- the Ladies who Lunch. How do
they get the income to live at the gym and the mall with no need to work at all?
Seems like a dream, yet you seem to have observed them in the flesh. How do
they consume with no job?
Spectacular divorce settlements occasionally reported in the news media
suggest that they do have a job: Looking good in expensive clothes,
entertaining for business associates of their husband, etc. Is that wages for
housework? (Read Selma James and the campaign for wages for housework).
Of course the Ladies for Lunch employ people to do the actual housework
-- cleaning, cooking, child-minding and so on. So THEY are getting wages for
housework. Not much, but perhaps on the books. Why don't these same people
get paid for housework at their own houses? Odd, isn't it, under capitalism.
You posit people who have no need to work and yet get an income. Why
doesn't everyone enjoy this disconnect? What is the point of the connection in
the first place?
Gene
On Oct 28, 2013, at 7:10 PM, David Shemano wrote:
> I have asked this question before on this list (with not much success), but
> when we think of freedom in marxist terms, is the life of the wealthy under
> capitalism a guide to what life will be like for all under communism? In
> other words, is the problem with the life of the wealthy under capitalism
> that such a life is not a good life for the wealthy individual, or that it is
> a good life but limited to the few and that is unjust? The quote below from
> Mills indicates that he would tend to agree that the life of the wealthy is a
> good life. Related to this question is the question of what will happen
> when working hours are significantly reduced. If we look, for example, at
> the lives of women married to wealthy men, reduced hours (in fact, the
> absolute lack of need to work at all) means more time at the country club,
> gym and mall. Is that a life of freedom in marxist terms?
>
> David Shemano
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
> Sent: Monday, October 28, 2013 7:01 AM
> To: Progressive Economics
> Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Malcolm Gladwell's New Book Asks Us To Pity the Rich
>
> "The idea that the millionaire finds nothing but a sad, empty place at the
> top of this society; the idea that the rich do not know what to do with their
> money; the idea that the successful become filled up with futility, and that
> those born successful are poor and little as well as rich - the idea, in
> short, of the disconsolateness of the rich - is, in the main, merely a way by
> which those who are not rich reconcile themselves to the fact. Wealth in
> America is directly gratifying and directly leads to many further
> gratifications. To be truly rich is to possess the means of realizing in big
> ways one's little whims and fantasies and sicknesses...."
>
> - C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
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