The Other Side of the Paycheck: Monopoly Capital and the Structure of Consumption

1976 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Batya Weinbaum ◽  
Amy Bridges

The housewife is central to understanding women's position in capitalist societies. Marxists expected that the expropriation of production from the household would radically diminish its social importance. In the face of the household's continuing importance, Marxists have tried to understand it by applying concepts developed in the study of production." Yet obviously, the household is not like a factory, nor are housewives organized in the same way as wage laborers. As Eli Zaretsky has written, the housewife and the proletarian are the characteristic adults of advanced capitalist societies." Moreover, households and corporations are its characteristic economic organizations. Just as the socialization of production has not abolished the housewife, so accumulation has not abolished the economic functions of the household. Harry Braverman has demonstrated how the accumulation process creates new occupational structures, and he has documented the expansion of capital's activity to new sectors. We will argue that these developments also change the social relations of consumption, an economic function which continues to be structured through the household and performed by women as housewives.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-28-number-3" title="Vol. 28, No. 3: July-August 1976" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>

1976 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gelvin Stevenson

The human services require an explicit theoretical analysis of the social relations of consumption in addition to the social relations of production. The purpose of this paper is to begin such an analysis.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-28-number-3" title="Vol. 28, No. 3: July-August 1976" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (87) ◽  
pp. 589-609
Author(s):  
Ana Flávia Rezende ◽  
Flávia Luciana Naves Mafra ◽  
Jussara Jéssica Pereira

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the case of five lack entrepreneurs who own businesses a public that for years has denied a esthetic and phenotypic traits. These spaces, branded as ‘ethnic salons’, aim to take care of the curly and / or Afrohair of Black men and women.In the face of this context, we ask: how canBlack entrepreneurs and enterprisesconfront colonialmentality in social relations, by creating businesses aimed at giving value to, and appreciatingthe identity of Black men and women? The field research was conducted via observations and interviews,collecting narratives from both. The narratives went through a process of synthesis and analysisprocesses that allowed us to flag the motivesbehind these enterprises, as well as the racial/ethnic acceptance present in these spaces. Thus, the main contribution of this paper is to discuss ‘hairtype’ as a constitutive element of Black racial identity, and the opportunity for more autonomywhen entering the labor market.


2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-164
Author(s):  
Tess Moeke-Maxwell

In the bicultural context of Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori (people of the land) and Tauiwi (the other tribe, i.e. Pākehā and other non-indigenous New Zealanders), continue to be represented in binary opposition to each other. This has real consequences for the way in which health practitioners think about and respond to Māori. Reflecting on ideas explored in my PhD thesis, I suggest that Māori identity is much more complex than popular representations of Māori subjectivity allow. In this article I offer an alternative narrative on the social construction of Māori identity by contesting the idea of a singular, quintessential subjectivity by uncovering the other face/s subjugated beneath biculturalism’s preferred subjects. Waitara Mai i te horopaki iwirua o Aotearoa, arā te Māori (tangata whenua) me Tauiwi (iwi kē, arā Pākehā me ētahi atu iwi ehara nō Niu Tīreni), e mau tonu ana te here mauwehe rāua ki a rāua anō. Ko te mutunga mai o tēnei ko te momo whakaarohanga, momo titiro hoki a ngā kaimahi hauora ki te Māori. Kia hoki ake ki ngā ariā i whakaarahia ake i roto i taku tuhinga kairangi. E whakapae ana au he uaua ake te tuakiri Māori ki ngā horopaki tauirahia mai ai e te marautanga Māori. I konei ka whakatauhia he kōrero kē whakapā atu ki te waihangatanga o te tuakiri Māori, tuatahi; ko te whakahē i te ariā takitahi, marautanga pūmau mā te hurahanga ake i tērā āhua e pēhia nei ki raro iho i te whainga marau iwiruatanga. Tuarua, mai i tēnei o taku tuhinga rangahau e titiro nei ki ngā wawata ahurei a te Māori noho nei i raro i te māuiuitanga whakapoto koiora, ka tohu au ki te rerekētanga i waenga, i roto hoki o ngā Māori homai kōrero, ā, ka whakahāngaia te titiro ki te momo whakatau āwhina a te hauora ā-motu i te hunga whai oranga.


1976 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Rosenberg

This paper will attempt to demonstrate that a major reason for the fruitfulness of Marx's framework for the analysis of social change was that Marx was, himself, a careful student of technology. By this I mean not only that he was fully aware of, and insisted upon, the historical importance and the social consequences of technology. That much is obvious. Marx additionally devoted much time and effort to explicating the distinctive characteristics of technologies, and to attempting to unravel and examine the inner logic of individual technologies. He insisted that technologies constitute an interesting subject, not only to technologists, but to students of society and social pathology as well, and he was very explicit in the introduction of technological variables into his arguments.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-28-number-3" title="Vol. 28, No. 3: July-August 1976" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>


1991 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. Elliott

In Luke-Acts the social codes and concepts associated with food and meals replicate and support the contrasting social codes, interests, and ideologies associated with the Jerusalem Temple, on the one hand, and the Christian household, on the other. In this study the thesis is advanced that in contrast to the Temple and the exclusivist purity and legal system it represents, Luke has used occasions of domestic dining and hospitality to depict an inclusive form of social relations which transcends previous Jewish purity regulations and which gives concrete social expression to the inclusive character of the gospel, the kingdom of God, and the Christian community.


2002 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grahame Hayes

Black Hamlet (1937; reprinted 1996) tells the story of Sachs's association with John Chavafambira, a Manyika nganga (traditional healer and diviner), who had come to Johannesburg from his home in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Sachs's fascination with Chavafambira was initially as a “research subject” of a psychoanalytic investigation into the mind of a sane “native”. Over a period of years Sachs became inextricably drawn into the suffering and de-humanization experienced by Chavafambira as a poor, black man in the urban ghettoes that were the South Africa of the 1930s and 1940s. It is easy these days to want to dismiss Sachs's “project” as the prurient gaze of a white, liberal psychiatrist. This would not only be an ahistorical reading of Black Hamlet, but it would also diminish the possibilities offered by what Said (1994) calls, a contrapuntal reading. I shall present a reading of Black Hamlet, focusing on the three main characters - Sachs, Chavafambira, and Maggie (Chavafambira's wife) - as emblematic of the social relations of the other, racial(ised) bodies, and gender.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW LANG

AbstractIn this article, I suggest that one of the central characteristics of New Legal Realism is the productive tension between empiricist and pragmatist theories of knowledge which lies at its core. On one side, new realist work in its empiricist posture seeks to use empirical knowledge of the world as the basis on which to design, interpret, apply, and criticize the law. On the other, in its pragmatist moments, it explicitly draws attention to the social and political contingency of any claims to empirical knowledge of the world, including its own. As a consequence, it is distinctive of much scholarship in the New Legal Realist vein that it continually enacts creative syntheses of different philosophies of truth in an attempt to be, in Shaffer's words, ‘positivist . . . interpretivist, and legal realist all at once’. The first part of this article draws on existing historical accounts of legal realism briefly to trace the problematic and ambiguous place of scientism in the legal realist tradition. Then, in the second and more important part of the article, I argue that the ambivalence of the legal realists’ vision has left us, in certain contexts, with a complicated form of mixed legal-scientific governance which has proved remarkably and surprisingly resilient in the face of late twentieth century critiques of scientific objectivity. This may be one of the most enduring legacies of the ‘old’ legal realists for those today who work in the New Legal Realist vein.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-83
Author(s):  
Beata Mańkowska

The purpose of the article is to draw attention to the challenges and threats faced by social assistance institutions in the face of the second month of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland, with particular emphasis on disturbing phenomena and behaviours involving employees of these institutions. The text, on the one hand, supported by examples derived from personal experiences and reports of the social workers themselves, on the other, by the author's observations and reflections, can serve as a warning against hasty, chaotic actions undermining the morale and reputation of the social assistance system. In the current particularly difficult time for all, it should pass the test in responsible management, coherent cooperation, developing effective solutions and missionary character – serving the ones in need.


2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (10) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Peter Dickens

As astronauts penetrate ever further into the cosmos, how are their bodies and subjectivities being transformed? While space travel remains governed by mechanisms of power and domination that tend to treat astronauts as tools, the practice of "space medicine" is now beginning to interact with astronauts' bodies in a more multidirectional, dialectical fashion.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e6936 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thaís Stor ◽  
Ginger A. Rebstock ◽  
Pablo García Borboroglu ◽  
P. Dee Boersma

Lateralization, or asymmetry in form and/or function, is found in many animal species. Brain lateralization is considered adaptive for an individual, and often results in “handedness,” “footedness,” or a side preference, manifest in behavior and morphology. We tested for lateralization in several behaviors in a wild population of Magellanic penguins Spheniscus magellanicus breeding at Punta Tombo, Argentina. We found no preferred foot in the population (each penguin observed once) in stepping up onto an obstacle: 53% stepped up with the right foot, 47% with the left foot (n = 300, binomial test p = 0.27). We found mixed evidence for a dominant foot when a penguin extended a foot for thermoregulation, possibly depending on the ambient temperature (each penguin observed once). Penguins extended the right foot twice as often as the left foot (n = 121, p < 0.0005) in 2 years when we concentrated our effort during the heat of the day. In a third year when we observed penguins early and late in the day, there was no preference (n = 232, p = 0.59). Penguins use their flippers for swimming, including searching for and chasing prey. We found morphological evidence of a dominant flipper in individual adults: 60.5% of sternum keels curved one direction or the other (n = 76 sterna from carcasses), and 11% of penguins had more feather wear on one flipper than the other (n = 1217). Right-flippered and left-flippered penguins were equally likely in both samples (keels: p = 0.88, feather wear: p = 0.26), indicating individual but not population lateralization. In fights, aggressive penguins used their left eyes preferentially, consistent with the right side of the brain controlling aggression. Penguins that recently fought (each penguin observed once) were twice as likely to have blood only on the right side of the face (69%) as only on the left side (31%, n = 175, p < 0.001). The proportion of penguins with blood only on the right side increased with the amount of blood. In most fights, the more aggressive penguin used its left eye and attacked the other penguin’s right side. Lateralization depended on the behavior tested and, in thermoregulation, likely on the temperature. We found no lateralization or mixed results in the population of Magellanic penguins in three individual behaviors, stepping up, swimming, and thermoregulation. We found lateralization in the population in the social behavior fighting.


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