5 ms·

Great article. I’ve always been fascinated by the question “where does the value of things really come from?” And this article touches on that. Everything ultim

by zakary 5y ago

Great article. I’ve always been fascinated by the question “where does the value of things really come from?” And this article touches on that. Everything ultimately goes back to the fundamental ways we create wealth, and how much time and energy we expend doing it. The article mentions No.3 as containing most services which involve transforming goods. I wonder where do personal services like massage, and prostitution come into that? Or what about friendship or a romantic partner? A husband or wife cannot be converted into money but I’d say having one is to most people a definite kind of wealth. You might call these ‘emotional services’, and group them in with art and entertainment in general. I would say this is at least different enough from manufacturing to warrant their own category. Edit: rewording

mbg721 5y ago
While economics might have some insight into how people value things, humans don't really treat everything as a transaction. The story that comes up from time to time is a day-care that charged fees to parents who arrived late, and that caused more tardiness, because now the parents didn't feel guilty; now they were buying something.
- zakary 5y ago
  I hadn’t heard of the day care example before . That’s really interesting.
pjc50 5y ago
One of the core strands of postwar feminism has been examining how much uncompensated domestic labour women are expected to perform, not just for their partner and their children but also for other family members. Especially in the context of care for the old or sick. The term "emotional labour" is the more common used one for what you've described as "emotional services".
- zakary 5y ago
  Emotional Labour is definitely the better term for it. Thank you for giving me the right term to google. I wonder how much of the ‘economy’ (in terms of work done and the dollar figures we put on that) is actually a part of this undocumented category. The GDP-PPP of countries doesn’t take this sort of thing into account as far as I’m aware, but I’d like to know what would happen to those numbers if everyone simply stopped doing unpaid emotional labour. You could get a sense pretty quickly of how much society is undervaluing it.
  - jkhdigital 5y ago
    The reason that the economy is defined in terms of transactions that involve an exchange of money is that such transactions can be quantified objectively. If no money is exchanged, then assigning a valuation to an activity is pure speculation. Of course, this doesn't stop bureaucratic number-crunchers from attempting to do so anyway (e.g. the inclusion of "owner-occupied implied rent" in CPI calculations) but it's not hard to see the slippery slope it creates. Assigning a name to something ("emotional labour") doesn't mean that it somehow becomes quantifiable in any tractable or objective manner.
    - zakary 5y ago
      Absolutely agree. Still, it would be cool to see real data about this stuff if it could be objectively collected
    - geogra4 5y ago
      Interestingly enough I believe this is partially why there was a "wages for housework" movement[0] 0:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wages_for_housework https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wages_for_housework
      - bojangleslover 5y ago
        What about the fact that she owns half of all marital assets as they accrue?
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  While this is how the term is misused in some segments of pop feminism, it actually refers to the (usually uncompensated) emotional labor expected of employees in service industries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_labor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_labor It doesn't really make sense in this context unless you only think of the emotional management homemakers do as labor and not all the other stuff they do. You already provided a perfectly suitable phrase in your post: "uncompensated domestic labour"
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
    Eh, I've mostly heard it used correctly in feminist articles. E.g. "The rise of the gig economy is forcing a lot of men to perform emotional labor for the first time." The most interesting part of emotional labor to me is its connection to tipping culture in America. It's the reason why you usually tip a waiter but not a bus boy, and why you tip the room service person but not the delivery guy. The rule of thumb is: if someone's doing a job where they're expected to put on a smile even if their dog died that morning, they're eligible to get compensated via tips for that additional emotional labor.
- simonh 5y ago
  I think domestic work does fit into the framework of the article as "Transforming Things". Turning dirty clothes, carpets, dishes, etc into clean things that can be used again; transforming raw ingredients into nice food; shopping is moving things. These are productive activities that increase wealth.
mellavora 5y ago
There is a telling insight from David Graeber, I think it is in his great book Debt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years He starts with the reasonable postulates that economic value is a function of desirability and uniqueness. and then observes that the things which make us the most human are by definition shared among all humans, ... thus essentially of zero economic value. Of course, he is also arguing against traditional definitions of economic value by showing how ridiculous they are, much as you point out.
- HPsquared 5y ago
  I'm a fan of the Austrian school's idea that value is subjective and situational. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value
- cowbellemoo 5y ago
  I'm a fan of Marx's idea that value is created by labor and the free gifts of nature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value
  - imtringued 5y ago
    People definitively value their own work, others may not.
pharke 5y ago
I think #7 should be modified to "reduce suffering" after which it will accommodate not just healthcare but any pursuit that addresses a person's mind or body. That would include your examples of massage and prostitution as well as others like therapy. Friendship and romance would fall under #9 as an industry since the goal is to match people with potential friends and partners. I'm not sure the 'emotional services' that you receive from friends, family, and romantic partners should be evaluated as a commodity. To make that clearer, if I manufacture something for a loved one or purchase it while I'm travelling and then transport it back to them I don't measure the value of that action in terms of money and I'd sincerely hope they wouldn't either.
- geogra4 5y ago
  As someone who's partner is a therapist I strongly agree. It's a very valuable service for those who need it.
jcun4128 5y ago
I remember asking in school if you charge more for what something was originally worth, how do you not end up with debt as a net outcome (bucket of money analogy).

by zakary 5y ago

mbg721 5y ago

While economics might have some insight into how people value things, humans don't really treat everything as a transaction. The story that comes up from time to time is a day-care that charged fees to parents who arrived late, and that caused more tardiness, because now the parents didn't feel guilty; now they were buying something.

zakary 5y ago
I hadn’t heard of the day care example before . That’s really interesting.

pjc50 5y ago

One of the core strands of postwar feminism has been examining how much uncompensated domestic labour women are expected to perform, not just for their partner and their children but also for other family members. Especially in the context of care for the old or sick. The term "emotional labour" is the more common used one for what you've described as "emotional services".

zakary 5y ago
Emotional Labour is definitely the better term for it. Thank you for giving me the right term to google. I wonder how much of the ‘economy’ (in terms of work done and the dollar figures we put on that) is actually a part of this undocumented category. The GDP-PPP of countries doesn’t take this sort of thing into account as far as I’m aware, but I’d like to know what would happen to those numbers if everyone simply stopped doing unpaid emotional labour. You could get a sense pretty quickly of how much society is undervaluing it.
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  The reason that the economy is defined in terms of transactions that involve an exchange of money is that such transactions can be quantified objectively. If no money is exchanged, then assigning a valuation to an activity is pure speculation. Of course, this doesn't stop bureaucratic number-crunchers from attempting to do so anyway (e.g. the inclusion of "owner-occupied implied rent" in CPI calculations) but it's not hard to see the slippery slope it creates. Assigning a name to something ("emotional labour") doesn't mean that it somehow becomes quantifiable in any tractable or objective manner.
  - zakary 5y ago
    Absolutely agree. Still, it would be cool to see real data about this stuff if it could be objectively collected
  - geogra4 5y ago
    Interestingly enough I believe this is partially why there was a "wages for housework" movement[0] 0:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wages_for_housework https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wages_for_housework
    - bojangleslover 5y ago
      What about the fact that she owns half of all marital assets as they accrue?
mkr-hn 5y ago
While this is how the term is misused in some segments of pop feminism, it actually refers to the (usually uncompensated) emotional labor expected of employees in service industries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_labor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_labor It doesn't really make sense in this context unless you only think of the emotional management homemakers do as labor and not all the other stuff they do. You already provided a perfectly suitable phrase in your post: "uncompensated domestic labour"
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
  Eh, I've mostly heard it used correctly in feminist articles. E.g. "The rise of the gig economy is forcing a lot of men to perform emotional labor for the first time." The most interesting part of emotional labor to me is its connection to tipping culture in America. It's the reason why you usually tip a waiter but not a bus boy, and why you tip the room service person but not the delivery guy. The rule of thumb is: if someone's doing a job where they're expected to put on a smile even if their dog died that morning, they're eligible to get compensated via tips for that additional emotional labor.
simonh 5y ago
I think domestic work does fit into the framework of the article as "Transforming Things". Turning dirty clothes, carpets, dishes, etc into clean things that can be used again; transforming raw ingredients into nice food; shopping is moving things. These are productive activities that increase wealth.

mellavora 5y ago

There is a telling insight from David Graeber, I think it is in his great book Debt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years He starts with the reasonable postulates that economic value is a function of desirability and uniqueness. and then observes that the things which make us the most human are by definition shared among all humans, ... thus essentially of zero economic value. Of course, he is also arguing against traditional definitions of economic value by showing how ridiculous they are, much as you point out.

HPsquared 5y ago
I'm a fan of the Austrian school's idea that value is subjective and situational. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value
cowbellemoo 5y ago
I'm a fan of Marx's idea that value is created by labor and the free gifts of nature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value
- imtringued 5y ago
  People definitively value their own work, others may not.

pharke 5y ago

I think #7 should be modified to "reduce suffering" after which it will accommodate not just healthcare but any pursuit that addresses a person's mind or body. That would include your examples of massage and prostitution as well as others like therapy. Friendship and romance would fall under #9 as an industry since the goal is to match people with potential friends and partners. I'm not sure the 'emotional services' that you receive from friends, family, and romantic partners should be evaluated as a commodity. To make that clearer, if I manufacture something for a loved one or purchase it while I'm travelling and then transport it back to them I don't measure the value of that action in terms of money and I'd sincerely hope they wouldn't either.

geogra4 5y ago
As someone who's partner is a therapist I strongly agree. It's a very valuable service for those who need it.

jcun4128 5y ago

I remember asking in school if you charge more for what something was originally worth, how do you not end up with debt as a net outcome (bucket of money analogy).