With the decline of feudalism, however, a new organization of productive relations based on wage labor became predominant. In this system, what we see emerge is a clear-cut hierarchy between home and workplace. As wages became necessary for survival, only time spent in the workplace appeared to be valuable. The labor required to ensure the worker was ready to come back each day for more gradually slipped into the shadows of the domestic sphere. At the same time, the costs for the reproduction of labor power were of course not reimbursed by the capitalists dependent on it. [...]
But Valentine’s Day was only the vanguard. As Schmidt notes, it paved the way for the mass-marketization of numerous other holidays including Christmas, Easter, and Mother’s Day. Their new purpose under capitalism was to satisfy a desire for festivity, while at the same time domesticating it. With the consumer revolution of these holidays, rituals were refashioned from local, community fêtes to national family and friend-centered holidays. Valentine’s Day epitomized this shift when it transformed from a communal festival of pairing games, fortune-telling, and drinking in streets or churchyards to the private exchanges of standardized greetings. [...]
In the short term, this could take the form of welfare and more generous social provisioning that acknowledges the central role care work plays in the social reproduction of our society. A strong social support system will enable everyone to participate in political life and in the shaping of society. But it will also level the playing field for those most vulnerable to market pressures, for those who have to rely on low-wage jobs while raising and caring for their families.
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