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[firecat]

via keryx

"The Politics of Consumption: an Interview with Juliet Schor" in Aurora Online Magazine

http://aurora.icaap.org/2004Interviews/JulietSchor.html

Excerpt:

Basically, the market sector has been cannibalizing the domestic sphere, sucking huge flows of labour out of the unpaid sector - labour that is absolutely essential to the preservation and reproduction of the social fabric.

I was thinking about this while I was visiting the OH's aunt at the hospital yesterday. There weren't enough staff there to give patients attention they could use. At the same time, there are lots of people out of work and people working in dead-end, minimum-wage-or-less jobs and kinda pointless jobs. (Technical editing, which is what I usually do for money, seems kinda pointless to me when I'm visiting a patient in a hospital.)

I know it's not a matter of snapping your fingers and reassigning people where they can be more useful, but I kind of wish it were. Or something.

Comments

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

many problems... you probably don't know but this is where I work www.nysna.org. We had the same experience with my father's hospitalization, and I shudder to think about people that don't have family to help out. I'd say more but the issues are very complicated, and it's difficult to do a short post.

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

I worked for many years with Center for Popular Economics (http://www.populareconomics.org/), where Julie Schor was an early active member. Another longtime member, the great feminist economist Nancy Folbre, wrote a book,The Invisible Heart (http://www.fguide.org/heart.htm), which also takes a serious look at these issues. You might like it.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

Thank you; I will.

[firecat]

Thanks. It's on my book list.

[firecat]

I'd like to hear your thoughts about it sometime.