6 ms·

In the old days, long before I was born, about 50% of the population was conscripted as "free" labor; staying home, cooking, cleaning, etc. That didn't take up

In the old days, long before I was born, about 50% of the population was conscripted as "free" labor; staying home, cooking, cleaning, etc. That didn't take up all of the time, but that allocation of resources did leave a lot of time for doing things within a household. Since that time nearly everyone works, and we have a literal war for attention (ads). At least in the school district where I had my education we also lacked any class about how to cook properly. If as a society we want to make that choice I believe the logical conclusion is to have more community kitchens where workers (and automation where possible) make healthy, and also tasty (maybe not healthy) options for people to eat. We've outsourced that to fast food, generally, since that's also cheep "food". However the healthy, diversity, and quality are often lacking. I live in the suburbs and I have to really, really, think. If I want something that isn't deep fried, isn't a burger, or a salad with 'BS' leafs (but is actually a salad with strong content and non-filler material): I struggle to think of even one place, let alone a selection that I could drive to within the local zone. Let alone anything I could hope to walk to in a reasonable duration of time. Maybe if the automation revolution allows the average worker to have a 2-4 hour a day job (mostly supervising the automation and the paperwork) we can have an alternate future with time for rotating dinner parties and actual uses of the food.

whenchamenia 7y ago
Plenty of nicer resturants have fast lunch menus. The problem is that people take the growing, nutrition and preperation of food for granted.
phjesusthatguy3 7y ago
>In the old days, long before I was born, about 50% of the population was conscripted as "free" labor That could be anywhere up until 2019 or later.
curuinor 7y ago
The problem is density. The hawker stalls in Singapore are exactly this (pojangmachas and cafeteria dealios in Seoul, hawkers in Hong Kong), but they get to have it and your suburb doesn't because they have enough soulless 50 story apartments. Ask for a 50 story soulless concrete apartment in your neighborhood today!
- jacquesm 7y ago
  It's a very logical connection: low density housing leads to low density commerce and transportation problems. See also: strip malls.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  There’s nothing soulless about high density, it’s efficient, environmentally friendly and to your point allows and supports diversity in recreation and dining. It’s the inescapable future of human civilization, in a good way. Would you describe living in New York as soulless? It’s time to get over the dog/white picket fence/2.5 kids delusion.
  - southerntofu 7y ago
    In my experience all big cities i've been through are soulless, and so are the humans living there. When i say soulless, i mean people living there have: no sense of purpose, no community, no solidarity. Everyone has sold their soul to capitalist oppression and is just silently suffering their way to success or suicide. Big cities require incredible quantities of concrete, and can't feed themselves. They are therefore NOT environmentally friendly at all (it's hard to think of something less eco-friendly). They appear to be on some stats because all the other ways of life (and local production everywhere) have been systematically attacked and almost destroyed by the "green revolution" and neoliberal policies. If you want a city that's ecofriendly, it needs to produce most of its food locally (like Cuba) and use local materials for construction (clay-based earth is really good). That, and it should designed for pedestrians/bikes not cars. That's an eco-friendly city, but it wouldn't be high-density. Although, i agree with you the suburban/countryside family delusion is no dream of mine ;)
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  Soulless 50 story apartments are better than soulless cookie cutter detached homes, because at least with the former it‘s easier to escape total isolation. And of course it is better for the environment.
  - 7y ago
cwyers 7y ago
> I live in the suburbs and I have to really, really, think. If I want something that isn't deep fried, isn't a burger, or a salad with 'BS' leafs (but is actually a salad with strong content and non-filler material): I struggle to think of even one place, let alone a selection that I could drive to within the local zone. Let alone anything I could hope to walk to in a reasonable duration of time. Start checking out your local grocery stores. In addition to selling, well, groceries, most of them will have a deli section and a salad bar. Salad bars in grocery stores typically get charged by the pound, so you can pick and choose exactly what you're getting. Most grocery stores in the US will also have already-cooked rotisserie chickens, sides available by weight, and other precooked options. Most large grocery stores in the US basically have a fully stocked cafeteria in them.
- mjevans 7y ago
  I have checked the stores I already shop at, none has a salad bar. Are you sure that's not an in the (dense) city thing?
  - likpok 7y ago
    It is a big supermarket thing moreso than a city thing. It’s a big part of the Whole Foods strategy, and an increasing part of Safeway/Ralph’s/etc. They have an increasing amount of hot food that you can take away. Walmart in the “country” didn’t, I don’t know if that’s a Walmart thing or a country thing (they did have a subway in-store).
    - cwyers 7y ago
      Yeah, large supermarkets tend to have salad bars, suburban or urban. Wal-Mart has grocery items, but you're not going to find a salad bar at one. Same goes for Target. You're also not going to find a salad bar at a Trader Joe's or an Aldi's. But your typical large-format grocery store will have one. It's hard to talk chains and be comprehensive because American supermarket chains are not national. But whatever your market's equivalent of Wegmans/Publix/Kroger/HEB/Meijer/Albertsons/Hy-Vee should have one.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
stretchwithme 7y ago
As long as you consider surviving and having your children supported financially to be worthless, yes, the labor was free.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  "free" in this case meaning uncompensated, not worthless.
  - stretchwithme 7y ago
    I didn't say their labor was worthless. But free definitely implies they did in exchange for nothing, which is false.
    - mjevans 7y ago
      That's why there were the airquotes. Not-paid, and not priced in to the actual compensation of others directly. It was simply assumed that this was the way things were. (IIRC the legal terms also made the union a single person in a lot of respects.)
      - stretchwithme 7y ago
        And if I say men died for their families in war or in the struggle to make a living and did it for "free", that also would be a vast oversimplification and a distortion of the situation.
        kevingadd 7y ago
        Enlisted military men (and women) get paid, at least in the US.
        stretchwithme 7y ago
        Yeah, I think if you are forced to do something and not paid a mutually agreed upon wage, and then you die, you are not getting monetary compensation for that sacrifice. But you may gladly go along with all of it, even the risk of death, because of what you care about. Your family, your town, your country. Which is why claiming the work of either men or women is done for free is silly. There are so many other values in life.
erichocean 7y ago
I prefer to look at it like this: in the West, we used to have an effective cradle-to-grave UBI for females. In fact, caring for women and children in our culture was so important that we dedicated an adult male to basically every woman in the country, and her offspring. Super important. All of society was organized around this, and it's one of the greatest achievements of modern civilization. Now we make women work for money, but the total amount paid across all workers is roughly the same. (Wages have been flat for 40 years, mostly because we have twice the "paid" workers—men AND women—but consumption is basically flat.) It's regressive. Women have ALWAYS "worked" [0], but prior to the financialization of Western culture, that "work" was—as you pointed out—on activities that we can't put a price on, things like: * building happy homes and families * proper nutrition, which is extremely time consuming even today * birthing and raising children (women had universal "time off" to have kids until we put those same women to work making widgets) * helping out other families in the local community * building and maintaining community institutions, schools, churches, etc. * helping others in humane, non-financial ways where there isn't any money to be made We've given up a lot of these things just to keep wages down for the Capitalists. At least the rising inequality over the last 40 years shows someone benefited. Just not us, or our children, or our communities. Decline is a choice. [0] I hate that our culture only values things that can be expressed in terms of money. Calling what women do "work" (or as the OP calls it, uncompensated "labor") is demeaning to women. What women do day-to-day is vastly more important than whatever bullshit men have to (gladly) do to build and maintain civilization for their families.
- ses1984 7y ago
  Can't say I agree completely, actually I'm pretty insulted. People pursue careers for reasons other than pure greed. My sister is a doctor and a professor and has contributed far more to society than I have as man or a father. I do agree that we don't need two people per household doing bullshit jobs like selling advertising. But civilization is perfectly capable of decline and disaster even if we were still organized around single income households. So what if out our children have good nutrition, if we are faced with total environmental collapse or nuclear war?
- pnutjam 7y ago

whenchamenia 7y ago

Plenty of nicer resturants have fast lunch menus. The problem is that people take the growing, nutrition and preperation of food for granted.

phjesusthatguy3 7y ago

>In the old days, long before I was born, about 50% of the population was conscripted as "free" labor That could be anywhere up until 2019 or later.

curuinor 7y ago

The problem is density. The hawker stalls in Singapore are exactly this (pojangmachas and cafeteria dealios in Seoul, hawkers in Hong Kong), but they get to have it and your suburb doesn't because they have enough soulless 50 story apartments. Ask for a 50 story soulless concrete apartment in your neighborhood today!

jacquesm 7y ago
It's a very logical connection: low density housing leads to low density commerce and transportation problems. See also: strip malls.
arcticbull 7y ago
There’s nothing soulless about high density, it’s efficient, environmentally friendly and to your point allows and supports diversity in recreation and dining. It’s the inescapable future of human civilization, in a good way. Would you describe living in New York as soulless? It’s time to get over the dog/white picket fence/2.5 kids delusion.
- southerntofu 7y ago
  In my experience all big cities i've been through are soulless, and so are the humans living there. When i say soulless, i mean people living there have: no sense of purpose, no community, no solidarity. Everyone has sold their soul to capitalist oppression and is just silently suffering their way to success or suicide. Big cities require incredible quantities of concrete, and can't feed themselves. They are therefore NOT environmentally friendly at all (it's hard to think of something less eco-friendly). They appear to be on some stats because all the other ways of life (and local production everywhere) have been systematically attacked and almost destroyed by the "green revolution" and neoliberal policies. If you want a city that's ecofriendly, it needs to produce most of its food locally (like Cuba) and use local materials for construction (clay-based earth is really good). That, and it should designed for pedestrians/bikes not cars. That's an eco-friendly city, but it wouldn't be high-density. Although, i agree with you the suburban/countryside family delusion is no dream of mine ;)
bobthepanda 7y ago
Soulless 50 story apartments are better than soulless cookie cutter detached homes, because at least with the former it‘s easier to escape total isolation. And of course it is better for the environment.
- 7y ago

cwyers 7y ago

> I live in the suburbs and I have to really, really, think. If I want something that isn't deep fried, isn't a burger, or a salad with 'BS' leafs (but is actually a salad with strong content and non-filler material): I struggle to think of even one place, let alone a selection that I could drive to within the local zone. Let alone anything I could hope to walk to in a reasonable duration of time. Start checking out your local grocery stores. In addition to selling, well, groceries, most of them will have a deli section and a salad bar. Salad bars in grocery stores typically get charged by the pound, so you can pick and choose exactly what you're getting. Most grocery stores in the US will also have already-cooked rotisserie chickens, sides available by weight, and other precooked options. Most large grocery stores in the US basically have a fully stocked cafeteria in them.

mjevans 7y ago
I have checked the stores I already shop at, none has a salad bar. Are you sure that's not an in the (dense) city thing?
- likpok 7y ago
  It is a big supermarket thing moreso than a city thing. It’s a big part of the Whole Foods strategy, and an increasing part of Safeway/Ralph’s/etc. They have an increasing amount of hot food that you can take away. Walmart in the “country” didn’t, I don’t know if that’s a Walmart thing or a country thing (they did have a subway in-store).
  - cwyers 7y ago
    Yeah, large supermarkets tend to have salad bars, suburban or urban. Wal-Mart has grocery items, but you're not going to find a salad bar at one. Same goes for Target. You're also not going to find a salad bar at a Trader Joe's or an Aldi's. But your typical large-format grocery store will have one. It's hard to talk chains and be comprehensive because American supermarket chains are not national. But whatever your market's equivalent of Wegmans/Publix/Kroger/HEB/Meijer/Albertsons/Hy-Vee should have one.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

stretchwithme 7y ago

As long as you consider surviving and having your children supported financially to be worthless, yes, the labor was free.

kevingadd 7y ago
"free" in this case meaning uncompensated, not worthless.
- stretchwithme 7y ago
  I didn't say their labor was worthless. But free definitely implies they did in exchange for nothing, which is false.
  - mjevans 7y ago
    That's why there were the airquotes. Not-paid, and not priced in to the actual compensation of others directly. It was simply assumed that this was the way things were. (IIRC the legal terms also made the union a single person in a lot of respects.)
    - stretchwithme 7y ago
      And if I say men died for their families in war or in the struggle to make a living and did it for "free", that also would be a vast oversimplification and a distortion of the situation.
      - kevingadd 7y ago
        Enlisted military men (and women) get paid, at least in the US.
        stretchwithme 7y ago
        Yeah, I think if you are forced to do something and not paid a mutually agreed upon wage, and then you die, you are not getting monetary compensation for that sacrifice. But you may gladly go along with all of it, even the risk of death, because of what you care about. Your family, your town, your country. Which is why claiming the work of either men or women is done for free is silly. There are so many other values in life.

erichocean 7y ago

I prefer to look at it like this: in the West, we used to have an effective cradle-to-grave UBI for females. In fact, caring for women and children in our culture was so important that we dedicated an adult male to basically every woman in the country, and her offspring. Super important. All of society was organized around this, and it's one of the greatest achievements of modern civilization. Now we make women work for money, but the total amount paid across all workers is roughly the same. (Wages have been flat for 40 years, mostly because we have twice the "paid" workers—men AND women—but consumption is basically flat.) It's regressive. Women have ALWAYS "worked" [0], but prior to the financialization of Western culture, that "work" was—as you pointed out—on activities that we can't put a price on, things like: * building happy homes and families * proper nutrition, which is extremely time consuming even today * birthing and raising children (women had universal "time off" to have kids until we put those same women to work making widgets) * helping out other families in the local community * building and maintaining community institutions, schools, churches, etc. * helping others in humane, non-financial ways where there isn't any money to be made We've given up a lot of these things just to keep wages down for the Capitalists. At least the rising inequality over the last 40 years shows someone benefited. Just not us, or our children, or our communities. Decline is a choice. [0] I hate that our culture only values things that can be expressed in terms of money. Calling what women do "work" (or as the OP calls it, uncompensated "labor") is demeaning to women. What women do day-to-day is vastly more important than whatever bullshit men have to (gladly) do to build and maintain civilization for their families.

ses1984 7y ago
Can't say I agree completely, actually I'm pretty insulted. People pursue careers for reasons other than pure greed. My sister is a doctor and a professor and has contributed far more to society than I have as man or a father. I do agree that we don't need two people per household doing bullshit jobs like selling advertising. But civilization is perfectly capable of decline and disaster even if we were still organized around single income households. So what if out our children have good nutrition, if we are faced with total environmental collapse or nuclear war?
pnutjam 7y ago