at Thu, 19 May 2005 00:40:30 GMT in <raneemdonot-834A5E.17403018052005
@news.harbornet.com>, (Ranee Mueller) wrote :

>In article >,
(Alex Rast) wrote:
>
>> This is a symptom of a basic social problem: most companies don't pay
>> a living wage. Few households can get by on a single income and thus
>> there's nobody who can dedicate themselves to the domestic chores.
>
> I don't buy this at all. There are few people willing to sacrifice
>the big house, the nice car, the vacations, the fancy
>clothes/makeup/shoes, the dinners out, the movies, the cable, the neat
>gadgets, the latest software, the newest trinkets, the _STUFF_ so that
>one person can stay home.

This is another aspect of the problem but I believe it is probably the
smaller part of the issue and is only what springs to mind for most people
because the media spin that has been put on the problem has chosen to focus
on that group. Yes, there *are* conspicuous consumers but I think the
majority of dual-income households do so more out of necessity than upward
mobility.

The conspicuous consumers receive most of the media attention simply
because it's more visibly obvious what's going on in that situation and
thus easier for the normal person to believe in from a common-sense POV. A
couple struggling but managing to make ends meet on long work hours isn't
spectacularly self-evident and doesn't present a clear picture of social
ill. It doesn't look like anything is going wrong there until you look long
and hard. That's not something you can condense even into a medium-length
story in the local paper.

There's also probably a buried aspect of our society not wanting to
discourage what is seen as virtuous industry. For a couple to work hard in
order to make an honest living is seen as morally upright rather than as
evidence of a problem. Furthermore, if a society allows that same living to
be made with less work it is seen to be decadent. Meanwhile, conspicuous
consumption can always be seen to be decadent no matter what the work level
necessary to achieve it. So one can always vilify the upwardly mobile. But
criticising the social value of hard work will be seen as supplying a ready
excuse for slacking. Nobody wants to draw a line between hard work and
overwork.

Even in the USA, the people who can actually afford any one of the big
house, the nice car, the vacations, etc... are decidedly in the minority.
Most people have to get by with a much more modest living which, if by
third world standards is the lap of luxury, still corresponds to a
reasonable rather than an excessive lifestyle. The difficulty we face today
is that this reasonable lifestyle is obtained quite frequently only at the
expense of unreasonable work hours.

It certainly shouldn't be mandatory or expected that one family member stay
at home. That would represent more or less a reversion to the male-
dominated societies of the past (because, inevitably it would be a greater
proportion of the women who would end up being the stay-at-homes). Rather,
it should be possible to support a family on combined hours of work that
provide realistic time for family members to attend to domestic chores
*and* pursue non-work interests without time pressures.

--
Alex Rast

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