Jim, Isn't their some reference in Marx or from some of the Marxist-Feminist writers that domestic workers (housewives) contribute (indirectly?) to surplus-value by lowering the necessary social labour of their husbands, fathers, sons, etc (i.e. lowering the fixed and variable cost of production and reproduction of labour and, therefore, the minimum wage required by labour).
And Yoshie, there still are a lot of 'housewives' not in the labour market, at least while there are dependent children (or parents) at home, or in it only part-time work (i.e. voluntary underemployment') to accommodate 'family responsibilities'. They do, as mentioned above, also contribute to lowering the cost of production and reproduction of labour and, therefore, to surplus value. Paul P
Jim Devine Wrote: As a pro-feminist, I object to the idea that housewives (and househusbands) don't contribute to production. That's only contributing to capitalist, market-oriented, production. Housespouses contribute a lot of use-value, even if they don't produce exchange-value or surplus-value. -- Jim Devine / "The truth is more important than the facts." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
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