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It seems a stretch to blame feminism when economics has thinned most workers wages to the point that multi income households are a requirement to eke out a life
by dv_dt 7y ago
It seems a stretch to blame feminism when economics has thinned most workers wages to the point that multi income households are a requirement to eke out a life.
- tropo 7y agoFeminism can't avoid taking some of the blame for the economics. If some households are multi-income, then they can pay more for housing. This bids up the cost of housing. More households decide to become multi-income in order to pay for housing. This of course makes the housing price go up even more. It's an arms race.
- I_Semmelweiss 7y agoSo why has the cost of televisions gone down, with more households being able to afford one ? Surely Samsung can gouge those foolish couples that have dollars oozing out of their pockets! Hint - look at the austin real estate market.
- malvosenior 7y agoDoubling the workforce would surely put downward pressure on wages due to supply and demand.
- dv_dt 7y agoWhile there was feminism involved there, I think one should question how independent the political movement was from economic pulls at the same time. You can't for example, take large amounts of single women into factories as workers in the industrial age, without some form of practical feminist changes in how women were treated. You see similar modern pulls today in nations like China and India. It's really difficult to separate which came first - the economic pull or feminism. I lean to the economics of factory owners wanting low cost labor being a leading phenomenon of the cycle, and that induces the question of the rights of women who now have income, and practical freedoms going to work and working, and that independence inducing a desire for wider rights. Once industry gets access to that labor though, they'll pay the minimum amount possible, and that practical acceptable minimum lowers if there are multiple people in the household making income.
- malvosenior 7y agoI agree, economics, politics and philosophy are all intertwined. I think now that we have a surplus of labor, automation and globalization that we’re due for another shift in all of the above. The loneliness discussed in the OP seems like a symptom of larger societal and technological change.
- dv_dt 7y agoMy theory is that we have a labor surplus because the rules of capitalism were formed when we had a shortage of capital, now that we have basically enough capital, we’re still constraint managing capital, causing underuse of human labor.